by Jay Allan
He felt a rush of excitement as his two crews came running toward him. Another of the enemy’s superweapons gone, good cause for celebration. But his elation didn’t last long. His gaze moved to his left, and he climbed out of the shell hole, jogging toward Emory. He knew the hothead private was dead, but he needed to check, to be sure.
He walked over and felt a coldness in his stomach. Emory was indeed dead, almost cut in half by the tank’s heavy autocannons. And two of his other men were there too, lying in the same ditch. One was in even worse shape than Emory, his body literally torn to pieces by the fire. The other was still alive, though grievously wounded.
He jumped into the ditch and ran to the wounded man. “Higgins,” he said, his voice as soothing as he could make it.”
The soldier lay almost still, looking up at the sky. Finn could see his head begin to move, slowly, painfully toward him. “Sarge…” The voice was soft, weak. Finn knew it was Higgins’ last bit of strength.
“Just stay still, Higgins…we’ll get you to the aid station,” he lied.
“No, Sarge…” The soldier coughed, gasped for breath. “…I’m done, Sarge.” Another pause. “We get it?”
“Yeah, Higgins,” Finn said, forcing back the emotion. “We got it.”
Higgins’ head bobbed slightly, his best attempt at a nod. Then he said, “Good.” And instant later he took a deep, rasping breath. Then he fell silent.
Finn looked up, struggling to stay focused, to push away the sadness. He turned, and he saw the two fire teams standing on the edge of the ditch, looking silently at their slain comrades.
“Three good men,” Finn said as he rose to his feet. “For one of these monsters.” He frowned, and deep down he knew it wasn’t a good trade, not the kind of exchange he wanted to make. But he also knew there would be more of them if the AOL was to win this fight.
“Let’s go, boys. There’ll be time to mourn later. Right now, we’ve got a battle to win. And it’s up to us whether these men died in vain, for nothing…or if they gave their lives to free mankind.”
* * *
“We’ve got the tanks stopped, Jake. It cost, but the boys figured out how to take the things out. Only a third of them are still active, and they’ve all halted or started to pull back.” Bear’s voice was a mix of his usual southern drawl, and the tense edginess it took on in battle. “It cost though,” he repeated, his words more subdued as he did.
“How bad?” Taylor was looking at the display, but after a few seconds of silence he turned toward his friend. “C’mon, Bear…how bad? You think I’m not going to find out?”
“Looks like close to two thousand, Jake. Maybe a hundred wounded, but the rest are KIAs. Those things are packed with heavy autocannons.” He paused. “At least five hundred of those are Erastus boys.”
Taylor took a deep breath and sighed. Another five hundred of his oldest veterans…gone. “There were ten thousand of us once, Bear. You remember that?” Taylor shook his head. “What are we now? Down below three thousand?”
Bear knew his friend didn’t really want an answer, but he gave him one anyway. “About twenty-nine fifty still in the field, another two hundred in the field hospitals…but that’s just a guess.” It was far more than a guess. The enhanced warriors had transponders implanted in their bodies, tiny devices that sent out an encrypted signal…at least until the host was dead. It was possible there were a few troopers out there with damaged transmitters, but Bear knew they’d be lucky if that was four or five. The rest of the men whose signals had vanished were dead.
“We’ve got to push through in the center, Bear…where the tanks hit us. They’re probably weakest there, hoping their secret weapon would get the job done.” He paused looking over to the far wall. “Karl, I want you to get up there. Take General Ralfieri and his people with you.”
“Yes, Jake. I’m on it.”
“Push hard, Karl…we need to break through. Finish off whatever tanks they have left and then rip through whatever they’ve got behind that. They wanted to split our force in half…so let’s return the compliment.”
“We’ll see it done, Jake.” Young snapped off a salute to his old friend and commander. Then he turned and hurried out of the headquarters.
Taylor sighed softly. Hank Daniels was already out on the left flank, trying to get around the city of Kazan and into the enemy’s rear areas. And now Karl Young was heading into the hottest part of the battlefield. Taylor hated ordering his friends into battle. It had been different when they shared the dangers together…but now it was by his order they marched off, possibly for the last time.
Of all the pressures of command, it was the one that most affected him…and he had to constantly fight the hesitation, usually accompanied by visions of Tony Black going on the mission that ultimately killed him. The mission Jake Taylor had sent him on.
He wondered how he would deal with more loss…for war was still war, and he knew more good men would die before it was over.
* * *
“Alright, I want everybody focused one hundred percent. Our guys on the ground are getting slaughtered. The enemy is feeding in reserve units as quickly as we break their frontline forces. We’ve got to take out some of these troop trains and get them a break.” Colonel MacArthur’s eyes were fixed on the display, watching the input from over a hundred drones. The reconnaissance devices were about a hundred klicks ahead of his birds, racing down the rail lines leading to Moscow. His squadrons were taking a huge risk moving this far behind enemy lines. The UNGov air wings had been hit hard in the battle at the Portal, but they still had gunships left…and forces that were inadequate to launch another major offensive were far more dangerous on the defensive, operating from their own bases against enemy squadrons far from their own support. Combined with the UNGov ground defenses, he’d known his people would take losses—and they had, significant losses—but he’d still argued with Taylor, urging the general to approve his plan. UNGov just had too much ability to pour forces into the raging battle, and MacArthur knew victory might depend on interdicting the enemy’s convoys of supplies and fresh troops.
After he’d gotten Taylor to approve the strike, he’d had another go around with his commander. He wanted to lead the strike himself. Taylor had started shaking his head even before MacArthur had finished speaking, but in the end the AOL’s top general had given in. Jake Taylor understood why MacArthur felt he had to be with his air crews, and in the end, he’d hadn’t had it in him to force the colonel to stay behind.
The thirty airships that had taken off on the raid were down to twenty-six, and another ten had peeled off from the formation to engage the UNGov flyers and hold them back. That left sixteen as hunters, each of them following a cloud of drones, looking for troop trains and convoys of transports en route to the front lines.
“All squadrons,” MacArthur said into his comlink, “break off. Pursue targets at will. And keep an eye out for AA.” He turned toward his pilot. “We’ve got a contact roughly thirty klicks south, southwest of here. Looks like a troop train. A big one. Let’s take it the hell out.”
“I’ve got it on my display, sir.” The pilot’s voice was tight, tense. “On the way.”
MacArthur felt the force as the airship banked hard, heading directly for the designated coordinates. The ship pitched hard to the side—evasive maneuvers against SAMS, he knew—and then the pilot hit the thruster hard.
“We’ll be in range in fifty seconds, sir.”
MacArthur turned toward the lead gunner. “Prepare ground attack missiles, Lieutenant. Lock on to target.”
A few seconds later: “Missiles armed and locked, sir. Ready to fire on your command.”
MacArthur took a deep breath. He stared at the updated scans of the train. It was a kilometer long, at least, and he figured it was carrying three or four thousand troops.
Three or four thousand who aren’t going to make it up there to attack our people…
His eyes glanced down to the range o
n his display. “Ten seconds, Sergeant,” he said calmly.
He watched the chronometer click down. Eight…seven…six…
A loud tone screeched from the ship’s alarm. MacArthur knew what it meant. All his people did.
“Ground batteries, sir. Dead ahead.”
“Stay on target,” he snapped.
Just a few more seconds…
He could feel the tension in the ship…he knew he was playing with fire. The ground batteries had been hidden, his scanners hadn’t picked them up until they were close.
Close.
“They’re firing, sir…”
“Stay on target…”
Three…two…one…
“Launch missiles!” he snapped. An instant later, “Evasive maneuvers!”
He felt the small bumps as the two weapons released from the airship’s hardpoints and blasted toward their target. Perhaps a second later he felt the gee forces as the pilot put the ship into a sharp dive, then swung first to the port and then sharply to the starboard, desperately trying to escape from the four missiles chasing the airship.
MacArthur stared down at his screen, his eyes moving back and forth between the tracking plot of his own missiles and the position of the enemy’s pursuing the airship. An instant later, his missiles vanished from the plot, first one, and then the other. He read the data coming in, and the video feed from one of the drones that caught the entire thing.
The first missile hit the train in the middle, severing it in half, sending the rear cars off the track, rolling down a steep hillside, trailing a massive fireball. The forward section barreled ahead for another second, and then the second missile slammed directly into the locomotive, blowing it and the first three cars to bits, and sending the rest of the train down the hill, cars careening wildly.
He felt a rush, a wave of satisfaction.
There’s a few thousand troops who won’t be shooting at our men. Now all we have to do it get out of…
He heard the change in the tone first, the screech deepening in pitch, becoming louder. Then a second later the airship shook hard. A shower of sparks flew across the cockpit from one of the workstations, and he got a sickening feeling in his stomach as the ship began to fall.
“One of the missiles clipped us, Colonel,” the pilot snapped. “Bad spot…knocked out the engines…I’m trying to restart now…” The barely disguised panic in the officer’s voice didn’t suggest he had much hope that would work. A few seconds later: “Nothing, sir. We’re going down…”
MacArthur watched the pilot struggling at his controls, trying to direct the ship the best he could, to bring it down for as gentle a crash landing as possible. He could feel the rapid deceleration, and he didn’t have to check the display to know they were about to hit ground. He gripped the armrests of his chair tightly and braced for impact.
* * *
Klein peered out from behind the tree. He could see the army’s makeshift headquarters just down the hillside. It was sparse, perhaps two dozen small shelter units, with a field hospital right next to it. He’d checked out a dozen spots before he’d selected this one. It offered the best vantage point.
Taylor had gone back out to the front a few hours before, but Klein knew he’d be back soon. As much as the general would prefer to stay with his troops in the line, he had a three hundred kilometer front to worry about…and HQ was the only place he could do that effectively.
And when he comes back, I will finish this. I will strike the blow that ends the war.
He reached down and picked up the long rifle he’d lain against the tree. It hadn’t been easy to find, indeed he hadn’t set out to find it. But when he’d stumbled on the dead sniper in the hills, an idea began to form. All his thoughts had been of killing Taylor at close range, where he would have at best a second or two before the enhanced warrior reacted…and almost certainly killed him. No, that had been foolish. This was sniper’s work. And Mitchell Klein was marksman rated.
The rifle was solid, longer and heavier than a normal assault rifle. It was an AI-assisted model. Klein would do the aiming, but the gun itself would adjust for wind and range. If he managed to get the target in the sights, the rifle would hit. And the heavy, exploding rounds were designed to deliver kill shots.
He reached down and grabbed the small bag of cartridges. Each one held ten shots, but Klein knew he only needed one. He had to make one count. The second Taylor went down—or even when a shot missed him—the soldiers all around him would go crazy. They would panic, rush to their stricken commander’s side. And when they saw he was dead they would lose their minds. They would fan out, death in their minds and hearts. They would tear apart every shelter, explore every centimeter within range of the headquarters. And if they caught him, if they realized he had killed Taylor, or even attempted to kill him, they would literally tear him into bloody chunks.
No, he couldn’t be caught on the hill or with the rifle. He had to be gone the instant the shot was fired. He had to loop around the woods, come back from a different direction and mix in among the others, feign his own rage and pain. And then, while the soldiers of headquarters were seeking Taylor’s killer, Klein would slip away. He would head south, away from the battle. He would steal civilian clothes, blend in, make his way to Geneva. And he would collect his due, the reward for the man who killed Jake Taylor. Who ended the war with one terrible shot.
* * *
“It’s a victory, Jake…a clear victory.” Bear Samuels’ voice betrayed his exhaustion, his usually cheerful tone a dull rasp. But there was excitement there too. The battle had raged for a week, but the AOL had broken through in two places. The enemy commander had done everything possible, shifted his forces, plugged every gap, exhorted his rookie soldiers to stand in the line when they looked about to run. Taylor didn’t know who was in command of the UNGov army, but he hadn’t expected to encounter such a skilled officer.
The transport was almost back to HQ, and it bounced around on the pitted temporary roads Taylor’s soldiers had carved out of the semi-wilderness. Taylor leaned back against the inner wall on one side, facing his friend whose long legs took up most of the space between them.
“A costly victory, Bear. Worse than I’d even imagined.” That wasn’t entirely true. Taylor had let himself envision some truly ghastly losses…though he’d hoped his people might escape the worst. Now he knew they hadn’t. “Twenty-three thousand, Bear. A third of the army. Almost half those engaged in the battle. Ten thousand of them dead.”
And more would die, he knew. The field hospitals were overflowing with wounded. The Supersoldiers’ nanos could buy them time if they were badly wounded, but the regular troops would die in droves, lying on the ground outside the overwhelmed aid stations. The AOL didn’t have a large support staff, and certainly not enough surgeons to handle a battle like the one the army had just fought. Taylor was planning to run to the main HQ building for a quick update…then, if everything was under control, he intended to visit the hospitals. He shuddered to think of what he would see, of the horrors that awaited him there. But his soldiers deserved to see him there, and that was the last word.
“Their army is crushed, Jake. At least a hundred thousand dead and wounded. And another hundred thousand prisoners. The rest are in total rout. I doubt their commander could put twenty thousand in the field in any order. The road into Europe is open.” Taylor knew Bear was trying to cheer him up…and he knew the big man hurt just as much for the losses the army had suffered.
“We will see, Bear. They can replace troops, we can’t.” Taylor leaned over and hit the button, opening the hatch of the transport. “We owe a debt of gratitude to MacArthur and his airship crews…” Taylor’s voice trailed off, and he paused for a few seconds. MacArthur was still missing. His bird had crashed two days before, and he hadn’t managed to contact HQ since then. That didn’t mean he was definitely dead, but it wasn’t a good sign…
“You’re right, Jake. Best guess, he kept thirty thousand res
erves from reaching the field…and a shitload of supplies.” Bear spoke softly as he followed Taylor out of the transport, a touch of sadness slipping through despite his obvious efforts. “But he and his crew could have survived. The Dragonfires are durable ships…a crash doesn’t mean he’s dead.”
Taylor just nodded. He didn’t know if Bear believed that at all, but his friend had done a decent job of sounding at least a little hopeful.
“I hope so, Bear…I hope so.”
* * *
Klein had watched the column of vehicles moved into the camp. His eyes locked on the armored transport he knew carried the army’s commander-in-chief. His stomach was knotted, and he struggled to breathe normally, fighting the hyperventilation that threatened to overtake him. He was scared, scared shitless. But he knew this was his chance. Perhaps the only one he would get.
He watched as a man climbed out of the command transport, followed a few seconds later by a virtual giant. Klein had been pretty sure the first had been Taylor, but when he saw Bear Samuels, he was certain.
He held the rifle tightly in his hands, staring out at the two men standing in the open as the vehicles moved away. There were at least a dozen other officers and soldiers milling around, moving to Taylor and speaking with the general for a few seconds before continuing on their way. They blocked Klein’s line of sight for a few seconds. Then they moved along, giving him an unobstructed view of Taylor.
Now, he thought. Get a grip…focus.
He took a deep breath, completely filling his lungs. He held it for a few seconds and exhaled. Then he did it again.
His hands moved along the rifle, pulling back the small lever to chamber the first round. He punched the tiny red button next to the trigger. The weapon’s AI was now on. Klein knew the tiny computer would activate the row of sensors attached to the gun’s barrel, reading the wind gusts, humidity…anything that could affect the shot.
