by David Peters
“Yes sir?”
“Keep an eye out for anything unusual tomorrow.”
“Unusual? Unusual like what sir?”
He thought to himself briefly, “Unusual, like something we didn’t think we would see.”
“Do my best sir.”
“You always do Jimmy.”
He walked back down the ramp and pulled a cigar out of his pocket. A shop owner that was fleeing some unnamed town behind them told him to take what he wanted and not feel bad about it. He still had two unopened wooden boxes of the finest he could find but he couldn’t find the relaxing smoke he used to be able to. He took a long pull of the dark cigar and watched the crews work down the line. Most were wrapping up the jobs in anticipation of an order to move out at midnight. They would find out soon enough about the change in plans.
The captain walked around the side of the Bradley and walked slowly to the front of the line of vehicles. He could see the pickets already had their night vision goggles on as they scanned the horizon for any movement. He thought about the war from the Corrupted side. They didn’t fear loss and had the numbers to support their tactics. Even in wars past when cultures fought cultures it was still people against people. They may have had different ideas about life but fundamentally they were still people.
Cap-Cap walked to the front of the armored column and looked out to the east. Dusk was just setting in and the first stars were beginning to come out. He used to look at the infinite number of stars in the sky and wonder when mankind would eventually make the journey out to them. Now he found himself wondering how much longer mankind would be around to look up and see them at all.
--1--
Cap-Cap stood high out of the hatch in the turret of his Bradley. The sun was just rising off to his left and was lighting up what remained of the city of Santa Fe. As far as the eye could see the city was completely covered in the materiel the Corrupted fabricated to build their hives. The dusky light brown material looked like chewed up cardboard to the captain as he scanned the city with his binoculars. Far off to his left he could see the rising cloud of dust from Iron Three as they approached from the West. Iron One was still obscured by hills and what remained of a burned out forest but the battalion radio network informed him they were in the correct position and that the battle was now about to commence.
The crew intercom burped static for a second before Jimmy’s voice was heard, “Go time captain. We should see the arti light up any second.”
The horizon behind him flashed repeatedly as the long range artillery began to fire. It had been decided that this was not a mercy mission to save anyone still surviving in the city. This was a mission to destroy anything that moved and wasn’t in the military. Even over the whine of the engine and the metallic squeal of the tracks Cap-Cap could hear the sound of ripping linen as the shells arced far above their heads and made their final dive into the city. The rolling ‘whumps’ of the impacts could be felt as much as heard to their fronts as explosions began to dot the alien landscape. It was mesmerizing to watch the shells rip from one end of the city to another. Some shells would detonate above the Corrupted landscape and shower the area with deadly shrapnel. Others would explode the instant they hit resistance. Still others were fused to explode several seconds after plunging through the hard outer layer of the hive and detonate deep inside, their massive shock waves ripping the hive structures to shreds and sending plumes of smoke and debris into the sky.
Cap-Cap switched to the platoon network on the radio, “Iron Two, fan out. Shoot it if it moves. Going higher.” He switched the channel on the radio and moved up to the battalion command network, “Iron Two moving into range, out.”
General Kane’s vehicle was a short distance to the left of the column and not far in front of Cap-Cap’s APC. He could see the man standing high in the Marine amphibious armored personnel carrier watching ahead with his binoculars as they rolled along the uneven ground. He would occasionally scan to his left and right to monitor the vehicles in Iron Two as they fanned out, but like the rest of the battalion his eyes were focused on the massive fireworks show to their distant front.
The armored vehicles moved into a staggered line facing the city as they continued on at nearly twenty miles an hour. The landscape leading up to what was once Santa Fe was a wasteland. The fires had ravaged the area unabated for more than two weeks when the Corrupted first made an appearance. They couldn’t even tell what a building once was as they passed them; most were burned to the foundation. The plan was for the artillery to dump every remaining round into the city. The heavy armor would roll in afterward and mop up any resistance. Then the APCs would follow in behind and the troops would plant the small back-pack sized nukes in key points around the city. Once placed all of the forces would clear out and move away a safe distance and repeat the show they put on in Boulder.
As they passed the five thousand meter mark the APCs slowed to a crawl and the heavy battle tanks raced forward towards the hive. Once they closed to within twenty five hundred meters of the city center they began firing their main guns into anything that looked like it could hide Corrupted. The APCs all stopped and held off at about twelve hundred meters.
Cap-Cap could hear the high pitched ‘crack’ sounds of the tank main guns going off. Looking through his binoculars he could make out quick glimpses of movement at the edges of the buildings but nothing for certain. Building walls collapsed under the continuing bombardment. Huge pieces of the hives high towers came crashing down as the artillery barrage wound down. But still there were no hordes of Corrupted streaming out. No detonations from the waves of Sappers. They were only able to catch the occasional glimpse of something moving quickly by a window or in the shadows of a distant alleyway.
“Jimmy, this doesn’t feel right. This doesn’t feel right at all. By now in Boulder the hordes were coming out to fight us by the thousands.” One thing fighting the Corrupted had taught him was that if it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t.
Jimmy answered back on the intercom, “I don’t see what the tankers are shooting at. I mean I don’t see a single Corrupted anywhere. Something is really really wrong. Why can’t we see anything?” Jimmy was looking through the gun sight for the twenty-five millimeter auto cannon on the turret. The turret slowly scanned left to right as Jimmy looked for targets but found nothing but empty windows and streets.
Cap-Cap switched over to the Battalion network, “Iron One this is Iron Two, over.”
“This is Iron One, over.”
“We have no movement over here, not a single ‘Rupt. Something isn’t right, over.”
“Same situation here Iron Two. Keep your eyes open.”
The tanks had closed to five hundred meters of the hive edge and were slowing down in order to form into a column. One by one the heavily armored war machines began entering the narrow downtown streets. The artillery had torn huge gaping holes in the top of the hive but most of the city was still enveloped in the tan cover. The tankers battened down the hatches and continued their search for targets as they headed for their designated drop point. The plan was to have the heavy armor clear a path into the three central bomb locations then create a safe lane of travel for the troop carriers to penetrate the city. They had a total of six of the backpack nukes that would be planted in the center and detonated when they were clear. Each battle group carried two of the small weapons with the plan of at least one of the vehicles making it to the drop point.
Cap-Cap watched as the last of the tank columns entered the Corrupted hive and disappeared into the shadows. When the last tank passed from his view the Corrupted finally attacked. Sappers began pouring out of the windows and down onto the tanks below. Cap-Cap couldn’t see most of the fight but he could hear it on the radio and see the flames lighting up the alleys and the few streets he was able to see down. Fighting grew fast and furious as gunners would use the turret mounted light machine guns to blow the Corrupted off of the other tanks around them. The Corrupted were specifi
cally targeting the tanks in the rear. This left the undamaged tanks nowhere to go but further into the maze. The tankers found their maps to be completely useless; some streets were filled with nothing but rubble while some buildings had burned to the ground and left passages where there should have been none. One of the most feared weapons to a tanker historically had always been fire. Thick armor stops bullets but fire turns the inside of a tank into an oven. The only exit the still fighting tanks knew of was the inferno of heat and exploding tanks behind them. They pushed forward; there was nothing else for them to do.
The turret below him would twitch from fleeting target to fleeting target but without the order to fire it stayed silent. Cap-Cap couldn’t take the risk of having his own men shot up in the crossfire. They had expected the sappers attacking from height; they had seen it several times in the past. The sheer numbers were not expected however. They were piling out of windows so fast the captain had a hard time believing the buildings could hold so many. Some streets burned from one building to another as the Sapper fueled fires spread. The APC’s main twenty-five millimeter cannon was of no worry to the more modern tanks in their group, but it would shred some of the decade’s old hardware they were being forced to use now and kill anyone inside of them. Cap-Cap looked at the General through his binoculars. The old man was staring at the slaughter in total slack jawed silence. He could see one of his subordinates leaning out of the side hatch screaming at the general but it was not having any noticeable effect. It looked to Cap-Cap like General Kane had all but shut down.
Above the sound of heavy weapons fire he could hear a long lone Hunter cry. Cap-Cap paused for a second as he tried to figure out what was wrong. The cry came from behind him. He swiveled in the turret to look towards their rear. A loan hunter stood hip deep in a hole about a hundred yards behind them and not ten feet off to the side of their own tracks in the torn up soil. As it cried out one more time he saw the ground around the thing begin to tremble. Hunters and Sappers dug the last few feet out of their holes and poured out into the middle of the APCs. Waves of them flowed out and scrambled over each other in an effort to be the first to detonate on the attacking humans.
“Button up! The fight is around us!” Cap-Cap screamed into the team radio as he dropped down into the vehicle. He slammed the hatch shut and dropped down to the floor. The squad in the belly of the APC was already firing their rifles out the gun ports. As the captain looked out his viewport he saw the Bradley to their right drift by completely engulfed in flames. It rolled on a few more feet then stopped dead as the tracks rolled off the burning road wheels. The temperatures inside would make it impossible for anyone to survive. As if to provide truth to his thoughts he could hear the ammunition inside the vehicle begin to detonate from the heat. Finally the missile storage detonated and blew the turret skyward and sent the rear ramp flying thirty meters away.
He moved up to the Battalion network and found it a cacophony of screaming voices and useless commands. His wasn’t the only group under surprise attack. From the sounds of the radio all three teams had been hit hard. Order had been lost and the surprise defense by the Corrupted was completely successful. There was nothing but mayhem as commanders screamed for backup that wasn’t there. Individual tank commanders flooded the network with orders often counter to each other. Some would order a general retreat, others were screaming to continue the attack. Command lines were torn asunder too quickly; no one knew who was in charge. Some crews opened up on anything that moved even if it meant hitting the APC next to them instead of dying in a curtain of fire.
Cap-Cap broke with training and hit the talk button on his radio, “Tom, this is Chris, come back, over!”
“I got ya Chris, this is Tom. Shit is bad here man!” Several large explosions came over the radio then a few seconds of static before Tom came back on, “They were right underneath us. The second they came out we punched it to get into the city. I wanted the team on top of asphalt.”
“Where are you now Tom?”
“We just entered the city behind what is left of the armor. I think we can outrun most of the bastards and get at least one of the packages to the target.” Several more explosions could be heard over the radio before Tom closed his mic.
Caperson popped his head out of the hatch to get a quick three hundred and sixty degree idea of what was going on around him. It was dangerous but he needed to see to command. Several of the APC commanders began to fire with their heavy auto cannons in to the masses of Corrupted. As Cap-Cap watched a long line of the twenty-five millimeter tracers lanced in front of his Bradley. The rounds stitched a line in the sod leading directly to the Generals track. Sparks jumped where the heavy bullets impacted the side and penetrated into his Marine Amphibious Vehicle. Five rounds hit and it slowly stopped rolling backwards. For several seconds nothing happened then a thunderous explosion blew the hatches off. One hatch flipped open towards the back of the track but no one climbed out. Dylan looked away as the first Sapper climbed onto the back of the vehicle and exploded in a rain of fire.
“Schmitty! Get us the hell out of here now!” Cap-Cap yelled at the driver over the vehicle intercom. “Take us out the way we came in and try to keep us on tracks where someone else already drove. We need to separate and coordinate!” He closed the hatch over the top of his head and switched the radio to the platoon. “Calvary! Use your speed and watch your targets! Get clear before you engage with a heavy!” He was desperate to get distance between the Corrupted and themselves so they could use their heavier weapons effectively and not kill each other in the process. The twenty-five millimeter automatic cannon on the Bradley would wreak havoc on the Corrupted but it would also easily tear through friendly APCs without a thought.
Schmitty gassed the Bradley tearing up the sod in a rooster tail of mud and grass as they turned a hard one hundred and eighty degrees. Cap-Cap held on desperately as the light tank rocked and rolled across the uneven terrain.
His headset crackled before he heard Schmitty’s calm voice, “Gonna get hot for a second Captain.”
Cap-Cap looked out his view port just in time to see the long line of fire and debris ahead of them. Schmitty was aiming for a gap between two Vietnam era troop carriers that were burning from track to top hatch.
Once again the drivers calm voice came over the intercom on his headset, “Brace for impact soldiers.” Cap-Cap braced as well as he could but twenty-seven tons of steel glancing off twelve tons of steel was a lot of energy moving around. The Bradley slammed into the corner of the small APC and pushed it out of the way with the wrenching sound of twisting steel. Cap-Cap was thrown into the turret controls and smashed down heavy on the floor. His helmet caught the corner of one of the steel chairs and he briefly saw stars. He sat up on his knees as Schmitty continued to accelerate from the fight. Taking a deep breath he climbed back up into his command chair and looked out his view ports.
“No ‘Rupts ahead of us sir.” Schmitty crackled over the intercom.
“Affirmative on Schmitty’s report, got multiples running behind but they are a ways back there. Still need permission to fire sir.”
“Negative on firing Jimmy, I don’t want to hit any friendlies that may fight their way out. Any injuries in the track? Report.” Cap-Cap waited as one by one the members of his crew answered back. Several of the infantry assigned to their track had not belted in and were nursing some serious bruises but there was no blood on the deck. That was always a good sign.
As they cleared the fire and smoke they could see two more Bradley’s about fifty yards in front of them. One of them had about a third of the hull scorched black with several of the carry-all racks completely melted and flowing down the sides of the turret. The track was still trailing smoke but there was no visible fire. The three vehicles accelerated and Cap-Cap stood up in the commander’s hatch to get a clear view of what was going on behind them. There was a ragged line of smoke and fire that signified where the platoon had been stopped. The only vehicles he
could see not burning were the three Bradley’s that made it out. As he watched, one of the older APCs limped out of the wall of flame with at least a dozen Sappers in pursuit. In the drivers frantic attempt to evade them he drove into one of their attack tunnels. The front of the vehicle nosed into the hole and was stuck, the tracks spinning and tearing up the sod but not able to get enough of a bite to move the stranded tank. As the first few Sappers reached the stricken vehicle and detonated, Cap-Cap saw the drivers hatch flip open. The driver made it half way out before another Sapper jumped over the rear of the vehicle and exploded, engulfing the driver in its self-made flames.
Cap-Cap lowered his head in grief. As his driver continued to put distance between the ambush sights he could clearly see the battleground behind them. There was a long wall of fire where the infantry had halted with several burning armored personnel carriers clearly visible. He could see the thick oily smoke rising from the destroyed vehicles in the city to their front. There was also matching columns to the East and West of the city. Occasional explosions would come from behind them as heavier weapons finally detonated, taking the tanks with them. The surprise had been complete.
