MissionSRX: Ephemeral Solace

by Matthew D. White

  “Switch profile to Close Air Support,” he ordered. “Target incoming transports and ground forces.” The mission would be easier said than done. No sooner did Grant look toward the base than his screen filled with targets swarming the base from all directions.

  ***

  The nearest armored truck was still three meters away when Othello saw the first alien round the corner to attack. It didn’t have time to react and Othello barely got his weapon past his waist before he put three slugs into the raging creature, blowing it in multiple directions. He slid to his knee against the corner and checked the field to the north.

  It was his luck that the whole place would still be a blowing, dusty nightmare. Three more aliens bounded into view, and Harris dropped his trigger, putting thirty rounds into the nearest one along with the other soldiers beside and above him. A few grenades exploded at random farther away without effect, evidently thrown to cover another advance. Othello filtered out the clamor in his radio and kept his rifle level waiting for the next assault.

  ***

  At the entrance to the landing bay, Mason passed through the airlock and pushed aside the inner door with the rest of his fire team behind him. The scene inside was far from an improvement upon the platform outside. About twenty meters from the airlock to the base was constructed a makeshift wall of crates, debris, and a smoking truck. The last vehicle was about five meters off the wall to his right, creating a barrier for casualties at a collection point.

  “Major!” Mason shouted, and ran to the officer standing on the line. He greeted the man with a salute as he approached. “We made it!”

  Kael returned the gesture but stayed in position. “Perfect timing! I never had a doubt!” he congratulated, and looked back out over the sea of bloody alien remains on the other side of the wall. “It’s been pretty shitty here since you left! Help the medics stabilize our wounded and start loading them up!”

  The other soldiers ran to assist while their sergeant held back. “We’ve got teams on every angle outside. Has it been like this since we left?”

  “Yeah, they pushed us out of the concourse early on, and now every few minutes they send another wave in to test us. They refuse to destroy the station, so we’re at a standstill until someone gives up.”

  Mason looked around and noticed stacks of ammunition crates cracked open, revealing stacks of fresh ZiG magazines beside every fighting position. Dozens more empty crates were strewn haphazardly around the ground on both sides of the wall. “At least we packed enough,” he remarked.

  “Yeah, but we should’ve brought heavier stuff. Riflemen can only do so much in here. Check on the others and help move the wounded.”

  43

  “Look sharp! Contact front!” Allen shouted to the rest of his team on the south truck.

  Scott knelt low on the corner of the front bumper, using the pitch of the windshield as a weapon rest. While off the ground, he had better visibility, but it wasn’t quite the picture the sergeant had from the roof. He scanned his wide sector, all the way to the next APC, but didn’t see movement until a flicker of black materialized through the rusty storm.

  He heard the snap of a bullet bouncing off the vehicle’s skin. The engineer ducked for an instant but didn’t waiver and returned fire. Stray shots bit into the dirt around the advancing creature’s feet. It stumbled as one round hit home and brought it to its knees. Scott followed up before it could react and dropped it with another burst of shots to center mass.

  One more charged in right behind, and Scott opened up on it as well before hearing the other soldier call, ‘All clear.’ He ducked back to keep focus but caught the flicker of red farther out in front of them. The engineer consulted the scanner on his arm and called back to the Flagstaff, “Commander, do we have a ship down south of the base?”

  The communications officer came back first. “That’s correct. It was one of the ground teams we deployed but was taken out last night. The ship is dead to our scanner, and we’re assuming all passengers are K.I.A.”

  “I can shine a warning light on its wingtip. How’d you confirm no survivors?”

  “All onboard systems are dead, and we can’t take the risk to send anyone to investigate.”

  Scott checked the scope again. “There’s a total system failure, but the hull is still intact. They might have been able to survive the crash.”

  Commander Fox’s voice broke in, “That crash is seventy meters out! I’m not sending anyone near it when we need every soldier on the line to support the evacuation.”

  Scott felt a pang of defeat hearing the words straight from the captain of their ship. It seemed so simple: they were going through this to save a few wounded soldiers inside. How different was this? The thought pulled on him incessantly, blinded him to the extreme danger of rushing into no-man’s-land in the middle of a battle. The light flickered again and the engineer’s desire took over.

  “Screw it, I’m going for them!” Scott yelled, and jumped from the side of the truck. Angry shouts filled his radio, but he ignored them all. He stepped cautiously into the open and spotted a fallen human soldier only a meter ahead, the man’s hands still clutching a long-barreled machinegun. He picked the weapon up, cycled the action, and saw it was nearly full. “Just keep them clear for a few seconds!” he added, got his bearing, and dashed straight through the blowing dust at the lonely blinking light.

  ***

  Fox’s voice cut through Grant’s radio, “You need to explain the concept of ‘orders’ to your militia. That stupid engineer of yours is making a run for the downed ship to the south!”

  The report floated above the rest of the action while the commander prime tried to keep the rest of the destroyers at bay. “You sure?” was all he could manage.

  “He’s already in the open! I’m not going to risk sending anyone else to drag his ass back!”

  There was indeed more to the slight man than had been initially evident.

  “Mr. Ryan, it’s Grant.” He switched channels and radioed down, “I’ll cover you, but you need to be quick! Get moving!” Grant added, and addressed the rest of the squadron. “I’m adjusting for CAS run. Danger close!” He dropped from his track and screamed in low over the base.

  ***

  What was he thinking? The words rained down with the swirling dust as Scott sprinted as hard as he could through the storm. Sounds of gunfire and engines roared above as he ran and fired blindly into nothing, occasionally striking an incoming attacker. While perfectly suited for the dull confines of the outpost’s corridors, the black armor showed up more prominently in the storm than he had expected.

  With a deafening shriek, the commander’s fighter sliced through the air above, accompanied by the hammering of three leading miniguns. The run sent untold hundreds of explosive rounds into the ground beside the sprinting technician, carving a wide path of destruction to hold the enemy at bay. Scott ducked his head lower and dove at the relative cover of the tiny, overturned transport.

  He tore the service panel from the upper fuselage and confirmed his suspicion: a general system malfunction in response to the massive damage had shut down every system on board. The last service bulletin Scott had seen about the issue was posted months back, but he did what he could to feel his way along. “Come on, come on!” he grumbled to himself as he moved the controls about.

  Only with a quick sideways glance did he see a lone alien creeping close from his right. He turned to swing the rifle up, but his attacker was faster. It lunged and struck the heavy gun aside and slammed Scott into the ground, struggling to break his neck.

  With the larger creature astride him, the engineer couldn’t see and couldn’t move. He flailed for anything that could help until his hand fell upon his sidearm. Scott drew the weapon and fired into the alien’s abdomen.

  The first shot caused it to relent, and he was able to raise the weapon higher and place another shot across the side of its head. The second bullet severed an air line and sent a bluish gas s
teaming out. Scott coughed as the blast stole the creature’s attention, and he emptied the rest of the magazine into its body as it tried to seal the breach with its hand.

  His mission still on his mind, Scott crawled on his knees back to the panel on the side of the ship. His mind still floated from the lack of oxygen, but he completed the operation and heard a clear ‘click’ as the system cycled the hatch lock. Rapping his fist against the door, he broke the emergency release and pulled the cover aside.

  Looking in, he could see eight armored soldiers crouching behind jumbles of equipment and ship parts. With their weapons intently trained on him, Scott could only raise his hands and shout, “Human!”

  The men relaxed their positions and got to their feet. “Shuttles are at the base, seventy meters north!” Another roar filled the air as Grant rolled through on another run. “We can make it if you hurry!”

  The soldiers looked to the squad leader at the center. “You heard him, get moving!” he ordered, and they climbed the steep incline that was previously the roof of the cabin. “Pilots are gone—it’s just us left. Keep us covered.”

  Scott dropped back from the hatch and retrieved the machinegun from the ground and climbed up the edge of the ship to get a better view. Before he got his footing, he watched as at least a dozen more of the black-suited aliens swarm down upon the ship. Without thinking, he brought the rifle up and raked a line of bullets across the field, slicing through multiple targets on each pass.

  Random shots snapped by in the thin atmosphere, but Scott kept his ground. “They’re all over out here!” he screamed as a stray bullet knocked him from his feet. Fighting through the pain, the lone man kept fighting.

  “Last man!” the squad leader shouted as he pulled himself through the hatch. “Get down here and we’ll get you back!”

  Scott felt a distant bit of relief wash over him until he saw a small red ‘missile lock’ indicator appear on his display. Looking up, a small flicker streaked through the dark sky above and his heart skipped another beat.

  “Incoming! Run!” he screamed, and leapt from the top of the transport only to face plant into the ground a few meters back. The squad leader grabbed his shoulder and yanked him to his feet on a run, trying to outpace the inevitable.

  The blast from the impacting rocket vaporized half the ship and sent the survivors flying in the pressure wave. Once more, Scott felt the wind knocked out of his lungs and found himself face to face with the Martian ground. Now more disoriented, he looked around and saw the other soldiers struggling to their feet as well. “Come on! We’re almost there!” he encouraged, forcing his feet to push him forward.

  The engineer could see the truck materialize under searchlights from the base and could make out three soldiers on the roof firing over his head. He made it barely another step before two more shots bit into his back and sent him down again onto his knees.

  Shouts from the defenders, from the soldiers around him, and from above swirled through his head. Scott felt his body giving up. He just wanted it all to stop. He crawled along, unable to stand as more shots chewed into the ground and his armor. His weapon was gone. Defense was a distant memory.

  He never felt so alone until the blood-red SR-X screeched overhead one more time, laying down three more lines of hate and sending his alien pursuers to their heathen deity. The roar carried through his chest, and Scott forced his body up and stumbled the last fifteen meters to the safety of the armored vehicle. He only made it to the edge before dropping on top of his rifle where he had left it. Whatever shouts the eight soldiers waiting for him exchanged, he didn’t hear.

  44

  “Door’s cycling!” Major Kael exclaimed, and looked down the iron sights of his rifle from the top of his barricade. A few feet away, Mason dove for cover behind another crate and waited for the assault. The medics had the wounded stabilized, and he was needed more on the line.

  The airlock slid aside and a cluster of smoke grenades came flying into the bay. Shots rang out, but Mason couldn’t see a thing. As the gray particulate matter spread, he spied a wall of crates being pushed through the doorway. “Well that’s effing brilliant,” he mumbled.

  “I wonder what took them so long to try that one,” Kael remarked as he pitched a pair of grenades behind the advancing wall. Aliens dove without thinking from the blast radius only to land in the open just as the major expected. He quickly returned fire. “Once these are done for, we need to get those crates out of the way or they’ll keep using them!” he added over the echoing explosions in the closed space.

  ***

  Commander Fox continued sweating bullets as he watched the hundreds of colored dots move about on the bridge display. “How far along are they?”

  “Half the wounded are loaded. It shouldn’t be much longer,” Captain Clark reported.

  The entire battle was confounding to the commanding officer. The enemy forces had excessive firepower at their disposal, but they weren’t willing to risk existential damage to the facility. Although it worked to their advantage, it certainly drew out the inevitable. Kael and his men were going to lose the station, the Flagstaff would be driven from Mars, and Earth would be no closer to peace.

  “Is there no way to push the destroyers back?”

  “No, sir, not if what they’ve already been doing hasn’t worked,” the XO replied.

  The junior officer was correct as far as Fox could tell. At full shields they could repel an attack from any fighter—or even his battleship, for that matter. It’d take a coordinated effort to take out one of the alien destroyers, and that wasn’t about to happen. Even though they were content to keep dropping small teams of infantry, they’d eventually overwhelm the ground teams and have their victory. “Do we have a vector to pick up the shuttles once they’re airborne?”

  “Not yet. At best we’ll take fire from all three angles every step of the way.”

  Fox cursed his luck again but kept his cool. There was nothing worse than having his team lose its confidence in him. Bombardment was out. Nukes were out unless he wanted the chance of one going rogue and pointing back at him, “Well, then, what’s the last rule of desperation?”

  “Violence of Action,” the communications officer said, leaning out from her station.

  “Thank you! Even if we don’t stand a chance, we’re not going to let them know!” Fox exploded. “Guns up. Shields up. Set to engage everything that comes in range. If we can get on a collision course, even better. I want them to know we’re getting our people out, and there’s not a gaddamn one of them that’s going to stop us!” the commander added with flair, slamming his fist on the panel before him. Timidity had no place on his ship.

  ***

  Sergeant O’Hare kept firing to the west even as he heard a snap and saw the soldier beside him drop to the ground. He found the offender, exchanged another dozen shells, and put the alien out of its misery. He quickly knelt to check on the injured man beside him. He was hit inside of the torso, which didn’t look life threatening but was more than the armor could take. The inner layer healed itself with a mix of blood and sealant, and O’Hare checked his face for shock.

  The man still looked pissed at the world—a good sign—so the sergeant pulled him back behind the wheel. “The second you can get up, break for the shuttle!” he commanded. “You’ve done all you can.”

  The wounded soldier let out a stream of curses and hacked a spray of bloody foam onto the inside of his visor. “That’s an order!” O’Hare shouted, grasping the man’s good arm and pulling him to his feet. He didn’t resist further but limped back toward the ramp of the shuttle behind the line. The sergeant let him be and resumed the scanning of his sector. They wouldn’t last much longer. He hoped the guys inside would hurry up and get them on their way.

  ***

  The ground was still swarming with alien signatures, and the commander prime was nearly out of ammunition for his three miniguns. With the last expedition back behind cover, he switched tactics and inst
ead tried to focus on taking out the incoming transports before they could land and scatter their passengers. It was easier said than done. The ships were fast, small, and impossible to pick out visually.

  It also didn’t help that every time he got remotely close to the destroyers, they started taking shots as well. After the first few close calls, Grant made the call to stay close to the colony, as the attackers seemed hesitant to risk hitting it in their crossfire. If he kept it quick, he could jet out fast enough to tag a transport and be back before the larger ships could react.

  “We’re on the last load of casualties,” Kael’s voice crackled through the radio. “Prepare to pull back all forces in thirty seconds! All shuttles, launch in sixty seconds!”

  “Commander, you ready?” Grant relayed to Fox.

  “Ready as ever. We’ve only got a few seconds, but I think we can get everyone on board! Starting approach in thirty. Now lining up for run.”

  ***

  Outside, Othello stayed at his post until the orders began to pour in. “Fall back to the shuttle! Keep the perimeter covered,” he commanded his team, and walked back from the armored vehicle as a mortar round exploded just around the corner. The blast knocked him to a knee as a lone alien scaled the truck’s hull, jumped from the top, and slammed its weapon toward his head.

  The creature missed, and instead the weapon bounced harmlessly off Othello’s thick and plated shoulder. “You little bitch,” he growled, and grabbed the alien by the throat. Although it struggled, it had significantly less mass than the heavyset miner and could not wrench itself free.

  Othello lifted it off its feet and slammed it as hard as he could into the vehicle’s side with a reverberating thud. The creature still struggled, so Othello recoiled and hit it again as it went limp. “It’s not going to be that easy, not after all this,” he added, and dragged the creature back to the shuttle as a shield.