MissionSRX: Ephemeral Solace

by Matthew D. White

  “Right here.” The other man slammed the round home in the barrel and locked it in place. The scope changed messages into an alien language that Scott was far from understanding, but he went by feel and tried to think through the logical steps that would be needed.

  A few hundred meters away, the remaining shuttle banked and pointed toward the fire team. Scott got to the same screen as he had accessed before, lined up, and fired the last round he had scavenged. It roared straight at the ship like the last, then diverted straight to the left, and soared out harmlessly over the ocean. It arced up and back around, slamming down into the middle of the bridge. The blast shook the entire platform, snapping cables and sending concrete flying.

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Scott remarked, then dropped the empty weapon and ran alongside his spotter for the protection of the building behind them. A steady stream of profanities laced the air as rounds pounded the ground to all sides, all the way from the road to the door. They dove through, only to have more shots explode right above their heads.

  Rolling to the side, Scott’s breathing was heavy. His heart pounded, and he barely heard the soldier’s frantic screaming from the next derrick over. Lying in the fetal position with more shots exploding overhead, the voice cleared up. “You have to get out of there NOW! There’s more coming in behind you!”

  “What are you talking about?” Scott shouted back over the sound of the ringing in his ears.

  ***

  Grant cursed again from his platform on the central rig. “There are more aliens under the bridge! They’re coming for you!” The line filled with static from the shots pounding the other building.

  Switching channels, he hit the Flagstaff one more time. “Fox, you still there?”

  “All day. What the hell is going on down there? I’ve got a different cluster of an explanation from every man down there!”

  “They’re using a shuttle as a gaddamn gunship to cut us apart on the bridge. Please tell me you can pull something out to hit it.”

  “We’ve got a two hundred klick line-of-sight vector to your position in atmosphere. I can barely see the rig much less hit a shuttle.”

  “That’s not acceptable! Shoot something! Anything! Light that thing up! We’re about to have aliens crawling out all over and we need to move!” Grant shouted back while he watched smoke explode from the building on the south side.

  “Can you lase it? All the ZiG rifles have a standard designator built in. I can launch shots on inertial-only and have you guide them in.”

  “Do it. Tell me how long I have,” Grant replied, and searched around the unfamiliar rifle, finally spying a small switch beside the scope. He slid it up and the indicator illuminated the reticle.

  “You’ve got ten seconds.”

  “Squads! Hold on!” Grant screamed on the open channel, and hit the still-firing dropship. Something onboard sensed the beam, and it swung about to engage him while he lay at the corner of the building. Every instinct in the soldier told him to drop the weapon and dive for the edge before he got lit up.

  Holding fast paid off as the missile streaked down from the sky with a Doppler-modulated shriek and blew right through the ship, detonating on a direct hit. The shockwave rolled out in all directions, pushing the bridge twenty meters to the side and with enough force for Grant to feel the impact in his chest.

  The soldier took a deep breath and got his communications running again. “Alpha, Delta: Get off the platform! We need you up here now!” He shook his head as he heard the echoes of small-arms fire from the opposing position.

  ***

  Scott no sooner heard the heavy rounds stop than he heard more shots erupt to the south of the structure. Looking up, he saw multiple soldiers and security guards firing from their windows, screaming about an ambush. Fear finally gripped him, and he slid back closer to the wall that had protected him before. It didn’t end. The aliens wouldn’t stop until they were all dead. Despair crept around the corners of his mind before he heard Allen’s voice.

  “Alpha squad! Break off engagement! Get across the bridge now! Delta is holding the line for us. Charlie will provide cover for the crossing!”

  The engineer didn’t need to be told twice. He picked up his weapon and uneasily got to his feet. The rest of Alpha squad had already pulled away from their positions and had made a break for the road. One of the soldiers from the second story went to jump down through a now blown-out hole, only to take a sniper’s bullet to the head as he fell.

  He collapsed, dead before he hit the ground, shattering Scott’s psyche one more time. He couldn’t concentrate on it; he could only run. Scott exploded away, feeling a swirl of pain, confusion, and exhaustion as he tried to do as he was told. He stumbled, felt a hand beside catch him, and kept moving.

  34

  Another alien poked its head up above the edge of the helipad, and O’Hare took it off with a twenty millimeter round from his crouched position behind a doorway. One of his opponents tried to match the shot, but he ducked back as the bullet grazed and splintered the wooden frame. Things had gone downhill fast.

  They had pulled back to keep out of sight of the gunship and try to develop a response, but the civilians beat them to it. It didn’t look great from that angle; Mason would never let him live it down. During the exchange, dozens of aliens poured out of the access passages to the south of the helipads and established positions behind concrete barriers, construction materials, and vehicles. Delta squad was taking fire before Othello even finished his warning.

  Now they were spread between the three admin buildings, trying desperately to hold the line against their relentless attackers. O’Hare found he was only able to issue the most basic of commands under fire and just hoped he could get some assistance before too long. It was a minute before the soldier’s radio lit up with only an acknowledgment from Sergeant Mason.

  “Delta squad! Alpha is halfway across the bridge. Get ready to move. O’Hare, you with me?”

  “Hooah! Tell them to hurry up! We need to get out of here!”

  “We’re getting them over here as fast as we can. Standby to standby.” Mason had moved out a line of concrete barriers to the edge of the bridge and now knelt behind them, watching the civilians make their way back. They cleared the smoldering, cratered remains of the second gunship and kept their pace up.

  The miner had gotten it bad but insisted he wasn’t bleeding out; he’d wait for the next squad. Two of the runners hoisted him up by his arms as he limped out to meet them, and the men helped him stumble over to their position.

  Another cable snapped under the changing stress and went flying into the air. The sharp crack echoed off the building beside Charlie squad, and Mason watched the right side dip a meter to the right. The remains rippled and swayed in protest.

  “You need to hurry up and get over here. If it takes anymore damage, we could lose the bridge.”

  ***

  The words hit O’Hare hard. “No! You need to keep it up until we get over!”

  “It’s not my call. Alright, get moving. Alpha’s close enough, and we can do what we can to cover you.”

  “Copy that!” O’Hare replied to his commanding NCO. “Left and right flanks, fall back to the bridge. Center, retreat to the rear of the building!”

  In perfect formation, half the soldiers turned and made their way back to their new positions. Once there, they returned fire and covered the retrograde of their squadmates.

  ***

  Grant watched as another cable on the bridge snapped, then two more. “Get moving before that thing gives out!” he called again, but it was too late. In rapid succession, multiple cables gave way and the road itself under the burning shuttle ripped itself in two. With stresses too much to bear, it collapsed from one end to the other, dropping tons of stone and iron into the water hundreds of meters below. Pipes blistered, burst, and collapsed through the falling debris but lost no oil due to self-sealing valves installed every few meters along the station
.

  More shouts exploded from the men on the other side who were standing right beside the now nonexistent escape route. Mason attempted to rally them but quickly switched channels to Grant.

  “I don’t suppose you have any ideas on this one.”

  “Afraid not.” Grant scanned the hanging cables. “I don’t see another way. We might have to assume them M.I.A.”

  “No gaddamn way!” Mason instantly shouted back. “We’ve already lost a dozen soldiers out here. I’m not about to lose forty more! If we lose Delta, we might as well call the mission. There’s no way we would keep the lid on this thing.”

  Grant sighed and acquiesced. “You’re right, but how do we get them over here now?”

  “That’s what I just asked you,” Mason shot back, “but maybe that’s not the question. Could they get to the southwest station?”

  “Maybe, but it’d be dangerous as hell, and what’s to say the aliens won’t do the same trick again?”

  “They’ve got smoke and could cover their escape. That shouldn’t be a huge problem.”

  “If they get over, I could have Fox drop another cruise missile on the deck. It’d take down the bridge and strand them on Southwest while the aliens would be stuck on South.”

  “That’s deranged enough to work. Tell Fox to get a shot ready.” Mason lit up now that there was a possibility to save his people. “O’Hare, you still with me?”

  “Yeah, we’ve pulled back to the perimeter street but they’re still closing in on us. We’re not going to last much longer.”

  “Stow it. Change of plans. Drop smoke and evade to the southwest rig. Once you’re there, Grant will blow the bridge.”

  Apparently the day would be all about trading bad for worse, but the staff sergeant wasn’t in the position to negotiate. He gave the orders; in response they dropped a dozen smoke rounds and ran for the remaining escape route.

  “Commander Fox, did you get all that?” Grant relayed to the Flagstaff. He had already shifted his rifle to the bridge far to the southwest. Like the bridge they had already crossed, this one obviously had a platform below the road obscured by a large, twisting network of pipes.

  “Copy that,” Fox returned. “We’ve got a round in the tube. Just tell us when to fire.”

  “They need at least another minute, but the timing will need to be perfect. Too soon, and we’ll hit them. Too late, and they’ll already be overrun.”

  “Standard parameters for you, yes?”

  Grant grimly smiled. “You’re catching on,” he switched channels. “O’Hare, how many do you have with you? I’m watching you cross.”

  The exhausted voice came through clear but labored. “Thirty eight are left.”

  “Good. When I see number thirty eight cross the center, Flagstaff is taking the shot. It’ll take two minutes to get here, and then that bridge is going to disappear.”

  “We’ll be clear, sir.”

  ***

  Sergeant O’Hare tried to believe his own words as he led the charge across the causeway. He was in the front and already well past the center support that Grant was most likely judging from. Pausing momentarily, he looked back to check his soldiers following in his footsteps.

  A wall of smoke canisters obscured the entire south station and destroyed their enemy’s effectiveness. Random shots seared out, hitting the ground or flying off harmlessly above the water.

  The first of the aliens began to charge through the fog and O’Hare dove to the ground to engage. “Keep going! Keep going!” he yelled to his squadmates as they passed by and fired off bursts in rapid succession. The soldier dropped two of their opponents before he heard Grant’s voice again.

  “I’m calling half time. Missile’s already in the air. You’ve got ninety seconds to clear out.”

  “Shit,” O’Hare muttered, putting a line of four rounds into the third alien that came into sight, and clambering to his feet. He saw the edge of the southwest platform waiting for them, but as he broke into a run, it felt so far away. The suspension supports, the collection of buildings, and the industrial installations towered above the insignificant group of soldiers, beckoning them onward.

  “Forty five seconds. Move it.”

  ***

  From the corner of his scope, Grant could see the soldiers scurrying like ants away from the designated site. More of the black-suited aliens breached the smoke and ran onto the bridge, firing randomly at Delta squad. He pushed the sight left, to the center of their conglomeration.

  The cruise missile struck in an instant, taking three-quarters of the bridge with it in a massive explosion. Its concussive wave propagated outward, sending the soldiers flying. Seconds later, the shock washed over the central rig as well, shaking the foundation of Grant’s building a half meter to the back.

  “That did it!” Mason exclaimed. “Delta, you still with us? . . . Delta? Delta?! O’Hare, you there?”

  O’Hare coughed hard, to the point of bleeding, into the gravel spread over the construction site across the street from the bridge. The blast had sent him soaring, and he felt as if he blacked out from the impact. How close had he been to the blast?

  “I’m here,” he strained, and counted out bodies of collapsed soldiers around him. “All alive and accounted for.” The soldier exhaled in relief, feeling physically spent and hearing a muffled chorus of cheers through the speaker. “What’s next? Hate to say it, but we might need a minute.”

  ***

  “That’s fine,” Mason replied, “glad to hear you made it. We’ll need to keep going over here, but we’ll probably need some support from you before it’s over. It’ll be up to you to find some way back up here.”

  O’Hare lay on his back a moment longer, watching the frayed suspension cables dance in the breeze. Smoke and dust from the blast rose high into the air above. “I think we can handle that.”

  ***

  “Mr. Grant, what’s the word?” Mason switched gears back to the mission at hand.

  “Keep pushing north.” The soldier gave an unapologetic response. “I think they’ve moved out of the central rig. I’d say we clear the middle tower to make sure and then get whatever they have waiting for us on the north side. They’re probably barricaded around a thousand civilians.”

  Grant stood up from his hiding spot on the building’s open floor and hooked his heavy weapons back up to his vest. With a step, he jumped the last story to the ground, landing with a hard crunch on the concrete before rejoining the rest of the team circled up in the corner of the street.

  Their medic had patched up the miner pretty well. Despite a few solid hits, he was back to walking. Had it not of been for the prosthetics and associated drugs, he’d probably still be on the ground–and possibly missing said limbs.

  “Alpha Squad, you’re with me again. Bravo, take up overwatch in the northwest building. Charlie, follow us inside. Secure the first three levels while we head to the top.” Grant gave his series of orders and the teams began to shuffle back together and form up.

  “Roger. Are you expecting to find something?” Mason asked.

  Grant shook his head. “Not really, but better to be prepared. We need to keep an eye on the north side and see if they break out anything else,” He pointed to the soldier nearest to him, armor adorned with triple chevrons and the name Allen etched into the center plate. “Sergeant Allen, you took the lead down south, correct?”

  Allen nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Good job out there. That could have gone very, very badly.”

  “Thank you. We lost a few, but it’s good to have you back.”

  “As I said, it could have been much worse had you not been there to step up. Keep at it and we’ll send these things straight back to hell,” Grant added as he unhooked the two heavy rifles from his armor and handed them over to Mason. “Can you hold onto these? They won’t be any use inside.”

  “Sure thing.” Mason accepted the weapons and passed them off to two soldiers beside him.

&nbs
p; “Alright,” Grant started, pointing to the closest gathering of his soldiers, “The six of us will breach the front door.” He turned to Mason, “Sergeant, kick the door.”

  “Copy. Go left and I’ll take the right,” the veteran infantry leader added. Grant nodded and gathered the fire teams at the doors.

  Double-wide and glass, the soldiers paused as they synced up. “Shoot it out on my signal,” Grant ordered, then sharply nodded. The pair took simultaneous shots at their panes, instantly shattering them floor to ceiling in an explosion of crystalized slivers.

  The cracks were still spreading out when Grant charged through and hooked hard to the left, covering them to the outer wall. He saw no movement and heard no additional gunfire.

  Mason saw all the same on the right side. They were in a tall and wide atrium that looked more suited to an exclusive resort than an oil derrick. Multiple levels of balconies traced the floors above, and the team traced its weapons along each one, looking for snipers. The shadows were long from the sinking sun shining through the western windows, but they saw no movement.

  “Clear!” Mason announced when his check was complete, “Grant, get to the top. I’ll get teams on the balconies and the north side.”

  “Copy. Moving,” Grant confirmed. “Got a stairwell twenty meters out to the north,” he added, and led his team to the next set of doors. Heavy and steel, he slowly dropped the latch and slid it open.

  The service stairwell was empty and Spartan in appearance, far different from the lobby. Emergency lights on the walls and a column of windows illuminated the winding circular stairwell all the way to the top. “We’re clear. Keep going,” Grant ordered the team behind him and started up the wide metal staircase.

  He kept his steps even and smooth while training his rifle on the path ahead. Similarly, the soldiers behind him covered the floors across and above. His legs started to ache but they quickly covered the distance and found themselves at the last set of doors, clearly marked “Roof Access.”