by Jake Bible
“Okay, now that feeling in my gut is getting worse,” Norris said. “Yours?”
“Like first-day cramps,” Chomps said.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Norris replied and laughed. The laugh died away as another rumble rolled their way. “Uh…did you feel that?”
“Chomps…me…can you…xenos…”
“What was that?” Chomps replied to the garbled comms message. “Giga? Come in. I didn’t catch that.”
“Problem with the comms,” Norris said, tapping the side of his helmet. “I can’t reach anyone. Not the LZ, not the Jethro.”
“Gut feeling is now third-day cramps after eating triangle nachos for a week,” Chomps said. “Call your people back, Norris. We need to get out of here.”
“Retreat? Not sure that’s warranted yet,” Norris said. One more rumble and the ground visibly shook. “I take that back. All squads on me! We are bugging out before shit hits fan!”
The drop ship had never powered down and the engines began to glow hot as the pilot prepped for liftoff. Chomps hurried over to the ship and climbed up on top, turning in a tight circle to cover the entire area. She stopped when she was facing the northeast, an area that had the widest expanse of grass with barely any clusters of trees.
“Norris. Move faster,” Chomps said as she kicked her mech’s feet into recessed holds on the drop ship. “We have incoming.”
“Talk to me, Chomps,” Norris said, moving around the drop ship so he could get a better view.
“I don’t think I need to,” Chomps said as the grasslands ahead of them began to churn and roll like waves made of earth. “You ever see anything like that before?”
“Only in my nightmares,” Norris replied. “We are lifting off in ten seconds, people!”
Various replies came over the comms, the local connection working just fine. Until it wasn’t. A high-pitched whine sent everyone scrambling to shut off their comms before going deaf.
Norris climbed up next to Chomps and opened his helmet.
“You hear me?” he shouted.
“I hear you,” Chomps replied over her loudspeaker. “They are jamming us. That message we couldn’t hear from Giga was a warning. I have a feeling that all the drop zones are under attack right now.”
“We are good to go!” a soldier shouted from the rear of the drop ship. “Sarge!”
“You staying up here?” Norris asked Chomps.
“Yeah,” Chomps said. “My feet are locked in. Tell the pilot that not even barrel rolls will shake me off, so don’t hesitate to get weird once we’re in the air.”
“You’ll do shit for the aerodynamics,” Norris said as he scrambled back down off the drop ship and ran to the rear ramp.
“True,” Chomps said as she crouched as low as she could while also keeping her feet clamped in the holds.
The drop ship lifted off and the ground around it exploded into a geyser of dirt and grass. Chomps leaned over the side of the ship and opened fire on the hundreds of xenos that came pouring up out of the earth.
They fired back.
“Shit!” Chomps cried. “Drop ordinance! Drop whatever we have! The sons of bitches are firing carbines at us!”
No one responded. The comms were dead. Chomps swore and swore as she continued to fire.
The drop ship shuddered under the impacts of the hundreds of explosive rounds that peppered its belly. Chomps took out three, four, a dozen xenos, but that was only a drop in the alien bucket. There were too many for her to do much good.
She flattened herself out on top of the drop ship and smacked the hull three times. The pilot got the message and accelerated, sending the ship roaring up into the air and out across the grasslands, leaving the waves of xenos far behind.
Until they hit the next wave that was coming at them on the horizon.
The sky was filled with not only explosive rounds, but streams of plasma fire.
“Are you kidding me?” Chomps gasped. “They adapted the carbines and activated the plasma charges? How the hell can they do that?”
The air around the drop ship was nothing but a thousand explosions and streams of plasma energy. The ship shook and shuddered under the onslaught, but it was designed to take a hell of a beating and refused to fall.
Chomps unloaded everything she had, sending laser blasts down at the waves of xenos that rolled and slithered and rushed about a couple hundred meters below. Her KYAG powered down about the same time as a loud crunch then clanging noise came from the drop ship’s engines.
“Dammit,” Chomps said as she undid her feet clamps, held tight with one fist on a handhold, and turned her mech slowly around so she could crawl to the rear of the ship and see what had happened.
She wasn’t even to the edge when three xenos crawled up over the rear of the ship and came at her.
The first one caught a mech fist straight down its throat, and Chomps did not hesitate to mangle the xeno’s insides, turning it to a flopping shell of gunk in half a second. She shoved the deflated xeno at the others, but they dodged it and came on strong.
The second xeno managed to wrap its tentacles around her cockpit, but that was a mistake. Chomps grabbed two handholds and scrunched her legs under her then pushed up, flipping her head over heels and onto her back. The xeno was crushed and pulp spewed everywhere.
The third xeno wasn’t so easy. It held a carbine, which looked like a tiny toy clutched in its huge tentacle, and jammed the weapon against Chomp’s cockpit. It opened fire, cracking the hatch in several places as the explosive rounds detonated at close range.
Chomps roared as she watched the cockpit hatch turn into a mangled mess of shattered plastiglass and warped metal.
“That’s how it’s gonna be?” Chomps yelled as she let go of the handholds and wrapped her arms around the xeno. “How’s this for ya, asshole?”
She squeezed and squeezed, tightening her arms, driving all of her mech’s power into the servos and couplings that controlled the joints. With each squeeze, she locked down the arms’ positions, ratcheting them into place so they couldn’t be undone.
The xeno exploded everywhere, including inside the cockpit. Chomps watched the gunk coat the cradle and sneered.
“Screw you, bitch,” she snarled.
Then the drop ship took a few more hits, and she suddenly found herself tumbling off the top and falling to an area where the grasslands ended and a thick forest began. It was a long fall, but it was over fast. The mech landed cockpit side down and everything went dark.
***
“Boss?” Stegson said. “We’ve got activity on the surface like nothing I’ve seen before.”
“None of us have seen this shit, Stegson,” Parveet replied.
“Multiple locations are showing hundreds of xenos coming up from out of the ground,” Stegson said.
“She’s right,” Wan said. “Not just the drop zones, but everywhere across the planet. They were waiting, Boss.”
“I’m guessing that,” Parveet said. “What are the reports?”
No one replied.
“Wan? What are you hearing from SpecCom? You can’t tell me Schroeder doesn’t have a very vocal and profane opinion on this,” Parveet said.
“I can’t reach Sergeant Schroeder, Boss,” Wan said. “I can’t reach any of them.”
“The mechs? Chomps should have called in,” Parveet said.
“The comms are down,” Wan said. “They appear to be jammed, Boss.”
“Jammed? The xenos have tech that can jam us?”
“Apparently so,” Wan said. “I’m trying to reroute the channels and cut through the signal, but it’s a wide spectrum assault. Either the xenos’ tech is so basic that it can only jam everything, or they know our system and have targeted our comms specifically.”
“The latter,” Parveet said.
“Boss?”
“The damned things found the escape pod,” Parveet said. “They ate the engineers. They know how to jam our comms.”
She
stood up and rubbed her hands together.
“Okay, folks, we have finally met a sentient race that is going to give us a run for our money,” she announced. “I want any and all solutions to this problem.” She held up a finger before Stegson could respond. “That doesn’t include nuking the planet. Hrouska is too valuable. We nuke it and it’s off the board of habitable possibilities. I need solutions where we take this rock the old-fashioned way, by kicking ass one meter at a time.”
“That’s a lot of meters, Boss,” Stegson said.
“We kick a lot of ass,” Parveet said. “Time for Jethro to get to work. Real work.”
Part Three
Mech Corps
1.
“We do not give ground!” Morisaki screamed as he emptied a rifle into an attacking xeno, obliterating it before tossing the rifle aside and picking up a fresh one. “This is our LZ!”
Row upon row of soldiers stood, took knees, lay on the ground, all encircling the LZ, keeping the oncoming xenos at bay. Or as close to at bay as any massive throng of attackers the size and scope of the xenos could be held to.
Support crew ran in all directions, dropping ammo crates, setting up power cables, keeping generators from overheating and shutting down which would kill power to the energy fences that were the main reason the LZ hadn’t been completely overrun.
“Watch our eight! Stubbins! Clear the four! THE FOUR! Halbert! Push forward and close that gap! You got this! We will not yield our LZ! This is the Jethro’s LZ!”
A cry came up as a section of the energy fence began to spark and flicker. Xenos moved through, albeit not without serious injury to themselves.
“They are going to overload that fence!” Morisaki shouted. “I need a tech on that!”
“I…uh…I got it, sir,” Rots yelled as she whistled to a couple of crawlers and ran towards the sparking section of energy fence.
Soldiers were dropping xenos fast, but the area would be overrun in less than a minute if the fence didn’t go back up.
“I got ya,” Gore said as he picked Rots up off the ground, leapt over three squads of soldiers, and landed directly in the path of the oncoming xenos.
He set Rots down next to the fence pole that was causing all the trouble then sent fists flying into the xenos, pulverizing half a dozen before Rots even had a single tool off her belt. A xeno leapt at the mechanic, but Gore plucked the alien right out of the air and smashed it into the dirt. Black gunk sprayed everywhere, and Rots had to wipe it from her eyes with the back of her hand in order to get to work.
“How much time do you need?” Gore asked without slowing his attack. He punched, he kicked, he stomped, sending xeno after xeno after xeno to their deaths. “I mean, I can do this all day, but there’re other parts of the LZ that need my help.”
“Give me two minutes,” Rots shouted. “That’s all I need.”
“Two minutes it is,” Gore replied.
Four xenos sprang up at his cockpit. If they’d been the really big ones they would have taken the mech down, but they were small enough that Gore was able to pluck two off, slam them together into xeno paste then grab a third and throw it at least a kilometer up and over the jungle. The fourth hung on with all its strength.
“That how it’s gonna be?” Gore said and punched himself, crushing the xeno against the cockpit.
He shook his mech, sending even more gunk to splatter the area then brought up his fists as a dozen more xenos began to charge the breach in the energy fence.
They were fried on contact as the fence came back to life in that section, their alien bodies turning to charcoal and ash to be blown away on the wind.
Wind caused by an incoming drop ship.
“We are twelve kinds of screwed, Gore!” Giga yelled as she fell from the sky, landing next to him as the drop ship landed by the others and soldiers began to pour from the hold to join in the fight. “I just circled the area and this LZ is surrounded in a sea of xenos, man!”
“Are they touching?” Rots asked.
The two mechs tilted and looked down at the little mechanic.
“I’m sorry, what?” Giga asked.
“This is Rots,” Gore said. “She made those.”
He pointed at the crawlers that were scurrying around, offering the mechanic tools she did not need at that moment.
“I know who she is,” Giga said. “She fixed my mech out there before we got back here. What did you mean by touching, Rots?”
“Hold on,” Rots said, “I have an idea.”
“Does this idea kill lots of goddamn xenos?” Giga asked. She flipped off the aliens with her mech’s middle fingers as about eight sprang at the energy fence and were turned to briquettes. “Because right now, unless the next words out of your mouth contribute to killing lots of xenos, I don’t want to hear it.”
Screams came from the opposite end of the LZ.
“Another breach!” Morisaki roared. “Mechanic!”
“Idea later,” Gore said and picked Rots back up. “Fix fence first.”
Another set of screams from a different area went up and several lines of soldiers were thrown into the air like bowling pins.
“I have that side,” Giga said. “Magazines?”
“There,” Rots said and pointed to a row of crates.
Giga yanked her KYAG from her back. “Thanks.”
Gore took off running towards the other breach while Giga grabbed one of the crates and dragged it towards the fallen, and still falling, lines of soldiers.
She took up a position behind them and opened fire, laying down laser blast after laser blast into the oncoming hordes of xenos. The aliens were shredded, torn into a hundred pieces by the deadly light beams, but they kept on coming.
“Gore!” Giga yelled. “Talk to me!”
“The rookie is fixing the fence here, but she better hurry!” Gore replied. “How are you?”
“We won’t be able to keep them out for long!” Giga shouted.
“Glad to know the comms aren’t jammed at the LZ!” a voice shouted.
Giga didn’t need to glance up to know that Roar had arrived.
“Tell me you have Wall with you!” Giga said.
“Here,” Wall replied. “Hawker too.”
“I cannot believe you have a rookie fixing the fence!” Hawker barked. “What the bloody hell was Morisaki thinking?”
The drop ship circled and landed with the others. Halva’s team exited and immediately ran to the fence to back up the other soldiers while the two mechs disengaged from on top and ran towards Giga.
“Go help Gore, Wall,” Giga said. “Roar can help me.”
“Copy that,” Wall said and pulled his KYAG from his back. He was firing before he took more than a couple of steps.
“How’s this part look?” Hawker asked as she sprinted over to Giga and Roar and the lines of soldiers desperately keeping the xenos from taking the LZ. “Dammit. It’s weak as shit. Cover me.”
“Cover you?” Roar said.
“I got it,” Giga said and picked up Hawker with one hand while still firing her KYAG with the other.
She walked the mechanic over to the fence, set her down, and strafed the area with enough laser blasts to set the sun on fire.
“Stupid set up,” Hawker said and began to tinker with one of the poles. “Directional couplers aren’t lined up at all. Gonna have to have some words with McDorn about who he assigned to power this damn fence.”
“I assigned them,” Morisaki said over the comms. “Welcome back, Hawker.”
“Assign better,” Hawker said as she stood up and kicked the pole.
It lit up and the energy fence doubled in strength immediately. The xenos in the process of trying to make it collapse became nothing but crispy critters. Waves of xenos pressed in to take their place and were doomed to the same fate. Hawker stood with her hands on her hips, only a meter inside the fence, and didn’t flinch as the xenos kept coming until there was a pile of ash and charcoal that stood two meters high ring
ing the entire LZ.
Then the xenos began to back off. The ones with carbines kept firing, but the fence took the force of the explosive rounds without issue.
“Alright, where’s Rots?” Hawker asked and walked away from the fence.
“She makes it look so easy,” Roar said. “Any word on Chomps?”
“No,” Giga said. “We thought maybe we got through to her at one point, but then the comms went out.”
“How did you get the local ones to work?” Roar asked. “We were completely jammed out there.”
“No clue,” Giga said. “I think it was the rookie.”
“Busy rookie,” Roar said.
“No shit,” Giga replied then glanced towards the top of the tree line. “Incoming!”
She brought up her KYAG and so did Roar, but they lowered them both fast as the last drop ship came in wobbling and barely landed without taking out a couple of the others. The rear ramp fell to the ground with a thud and Norris came dragging out with his team.
“Chomps?” Giga asked, clomping over to the sergeant.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She was holding on for a while then fell off as we flew over a forest.”
He looked up at Giga then glanced at Roar.
“Where’s Morisaki?”
“By the command module, I think,” Giga said. “We just got the LZ locked down.”
“Good,” Norris said. “We’re going to need every hand on deck to make sure it stays locked down. You have no idea what’s coming this way.”
He walked off, leaving Giga and Roar to stand there and watch the rest of his team stagger their way to the medical tents and supply huts.
“Jesus,” Roar said. “If it’s worse than this, I’m not sure I want to know.”
***
Shock felt like vomiting. Not a good idea when one’s helmet was sealed, but the feeling refused to go away as he ran through what seemed like an endless network of tunnels.
He’d taken branch after branch, hoping the compass in his display was correct and not being effected by something within the ground. If it was correct, then he should have been heading towards the LZ. If it wasn’t correct, then he could have been running for nothing which only made him want to vomit more.
