by Jake Bible
“I have to go,” Parveet said and stood up.
“Well?”
Parveet paused then nodded. “Tell those ships to truck ass this way. They prove themselves and don’t show any signs of turning on the Jethro, and I’ll go along with this insanity. Provided everything is above board. No hidden agendas. I smell a rat and my MEU becomes this new faction’s worst nightmare. You can tell them that.”
“I think they already know,” Torn said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be worth what you are.”
Parveet nodded again and left.
3.
The energy fence lit up the area like a strobe light as xeno after xeno launched themselves in a suicidal kamikaze attack to find a weakness in the defenses.
“It’ll hold,” McDorn said, looking like he was one breath away from falling over. “We’ve got every generator running at full and enough energy supply to keep the fences strong for a week.”
“With this kind of attack?” Morisaki asked. “They are relentless.”
“I’ve adjusted for that,” McDorn said. “I’m actually using their kinetic energy against them. It’s like a feedback loop. They attack and what’s repelling them more than the fence is their own force.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that,” Morisaki said. He clapped McDorn on the shoulder. “Get some sleep, Chief. We can’t afford for you to die of exhaustion.”
“Not sure if I can sleep,” McDorn replied.
“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Morisaki said. “That was an order. Get. Some. Sleep.”
“Yeah, okay,” McDorn said.
“Oh, and Chief? If you see Hawker, tell her to do the same,” Morisaki said. “I know that woman is hiding from me so she can keep working.”
“Gonna take care of myself first,” McDorn said and waved the captain off.
Morisaki rolled his eyes and returned to watching the xenos kill themselves against the fence.
“Captain,” Gore said as he walked out of the shadows, two steaming mugs in his hand. “Take one. Tastes horrible, but it’ll keep you awake.”
“Thanks,” Morisaki said and took one of the mugs. “Who’s still in mech?”
“Wall and Giga,” Gore said. “Roar is grabbing some shut eye and will relieve Wall in thirty. I’m gonna order Giga to get some sleep about the same time.”
“How about you?” Morisaki asked, sipping from the mug, grimacing at the taste, then sipping some more. “You need sleep too.”
“I overheard you telling McDorn to go crash,” Gore said and chuckled. “Regular mother hen, aren’t you?”
“I can’t keep my LZ safe if half the personnel are passing out on me,” Morisaki said.
“It’s always about the LZ with you, ain’t it?” Gore replied. “Not judging, just that you are one single-minded SOB.”
“Son of a butch?” Morisaki said, smiling.
“Not you too,” Gore said. “Does everyone know about that?”
“Pretty much, yes,” Morisaki said. “It’s made the rounds.”
“Great,” Gore said and downed half his mug. He nodded at the light show at the fence. “Kind of pretty.”
“You’re a messed-up man, Gore,” Morisaki said, “if you think that’s pretty.”
“Take my pleasures where I can,” Gore said.
They stood in silence for a minute then Morisaki cleared his throat.
“She’ll make it back,” he said.
“I know she will,” Gore replied. “If anyone can, it’s Chomps. She’s not the one I’m worried about.”
“Shock?”
“Yeah,” Gore said. “They left him down there. With all of those xenos. I know he’s a wily SOB–”
“Son of a butch.”
“Ha ha. I know he’s wily, but we’ve all seen the numbers,” Gore continued. “If there are this many up here, who knows how many are below.”
Morisaki couldn’t help himself and looked down at the ground.
“You don’t think?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Gore said. “None of us do. There could be bedrock a dozen meters below or a tunnel large enough for half a million of the bastards, all waiting to come bursting up topside to rip us apart.”
“Helpful,” Morisaki said. “Like I don’t have enough crap to worry about.”
“You asked,” Gore said and downed the rest of his drink. He held out his hand. “I’m going for another. You want one more?”
“No, I’m going to take my own advice and sleep for an hour, if I can,” Morisaki said. “This crap will keep me awake.”
“Which is why I’m drinking it,” Gore said.
“Then you sleep,” Morisaki said. “Shorten the watches if you have to. The xenos act diurnal, so I have a feeling dawn is going to get interesting.”
“By interesting, you mean brutal,” Gore said.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Morisaki said.
“We’ll be ready,” Gore said and walked off into the darkness that was constantly broken by the kamikaze xenos.
***
Shock rested a palm against a tree as his legs threatened to give out on him. Not a new feeling; in fact, he was getting quite used to it, but no matter how much he tried to use willpower over his body, it just wasn’t working. He was about ten steps from total collapse.
At least until he felt the ground shake under him.
“Shit,” he muttered and searched the dark forest for someplace to hide.
There was nowhere to go.
He’d stumbled into a clearing and there were at least four meters between trees. They were huge trees and he could probably hide behind a trunk, but that was hardly a way to hide. And he had no idea where the threat was coming from.
He took several deep breaths, felt like crying at the prospect of what he was about to do, then took off running. He made it ten meters before he skidded to a halt and stopped directly in front of the source of the shaking ground.
“Chomps?” he whispered, looking up at the mangled mech.
“Shock?” Chomps whispered back. “I saw a life sign reading and headed towards it. Man, I am so glad you’re alive.”
“I’m so glad you’re here in a mech,” Shock exclaimed. “You have no idea. I was about to cry run my way through this forest to get away from you. Or whatever I thought you might be.”
“Cry run?” Chomps laughed. “That’s a new one. Come on. Get up here.”
She lowered a hand and Shock basically fell into the open palm. Chomps brought him up to the cockpit and shifted the cradle to the side. Technically, there wasn’t room for two in a mech cockpit, but pilots had learned to make do over the years. Wasn’t the first time a pilot had to be rescued after their mech went down.
Shock wedged himself between the wall of the cockpit and the cradle and sighed with immense relief.
“I wouldn’t be happier if this was a down mattress,” Shock said. “Well, yeah, I’d be happier, but not by much.”
He popped open his faceplate, breathed deeply, and was close to drifting off.
“Shock, hold on,” Chomps said. “Don’t leave me yet. I need to know if I’m going in the right direction.”
“I don’t know,” Shock said.
“You don’t know? How can you not know? Which way were you coming from when you got into this forest?”
“I was coming from below,” Shock replied. That made him wake up. A lot. “Shit. Chomps. There’s a city of xenos down there!”
“A city of xenos?” Chomps replied. “What does that mean?”
“I mean a city,” Shock said. “Buildings, well sort of, and structures and city stuff. And the escape pod.”
“The escaped pod? Shit.”
“Yeah. But the scary part is the numbers. We’re talking thousands and thousands of xenos living underground.”
“That would make sense,” Chomps said.
“How so?”
“We were at the third drop zone when the ground opened up,” Chomps said. “Wave after wave of xenos c
ame at us. We barely got out of there. Or at least I hope Norris and the drop ship got out of there. You can see I didn’t quite make it.”
“Thousands and thousands? They came up out of the ground?” Shock asked, his voice low and wary.
“Yeah. That matches what you said,” Chomps replied.
“No, it doesn’t,” Shock said. “When I mean a city of thousands of xenos, I mean a city. Not an army. The xenos I saw weren’t leaving. I hid from a ton that were leaving, but not the numbers you say came at you.”
“I don’t get it,” Chomps said.
“There’s more than one city,” Shock said. “Just like Earth. I mean, of course there are. Why wouldn’t there be? I was an idiot to think I saw the only goddamn xeno city on the planet. Or under the planet. Whatever.”
“Shit,” Chomps said. “We can’t hold Hrouska. Not against that.”
“Hold it?” Shock said. “Chomps, there is a civilization here. It may be something we don’t understand, but it is a full-on civilization. We were never going to hold this planet.”
“We were sure as hell going to try,” Chomps said.
“No, I mean, and listen, I had a lot of time to think about this down there,” Shock continued. “Way more time than I’d like. We aren’t here to hold a planet. We’re here to take it. From its rightful owners.”
“Shock, that’s always been our mission,” Chomps said. “It sucks for the xenos, but what did you think humanity was doing out in the galaxy? Looking for a planet with a vacancy sign hanging from its moon?”
“Uh…I guess I never thought about it before,” Shock said.
“Welcome to the conquering mentality,” Chomps said. “You’re late to the party, but you made it eventually.”
“And you’re good with this?” Shock asked.
“Good with it? Not really,” Chomps said. “But we don’t have a choice. Earth is a rotating cesspool and humanity can’t live on it much longer. If we want to survive as a species, then we have to make hard choices, do hard jobs, and take what we can or we go extinct.”
“Hard choices like wiping out an entire civilization,” Shock said and sighed.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Chomps said. “From what you are saying, we might be the ones wiped out if we don’t make it back to the LZ to warn everyone and retreat to the Jethro.”
“Then what?” Shock said. “Nuke the planet?”
“No. That’d waste a good planet,” Chomps said. “We report to SBE, they report to the UEC, and we let the politicians decide how to handle it.”
“If we’re talking numbers like I think we are, then it doesn’t matter, Chomps,” Shock said. “We don’t have the troops needed to take this planet without ripping it apart. Then it’s no better than Earth.”
“That’s not our call, Shock,” Chomps said.
“Fine. Whatever,” Shock said. “I’m getting some sleep. Wake me when you need me to take over. I can work your mech as well as I can work mine.”
“Sounds good,” Chomps said. “Rest. We’ll figure out a plan in the morning.”
“A plan other than keep walking and walking and walking until we run into a horde of xenos or the LZ?” Shock asked and yawned. “Can’t wait to see what we come up with.”
***
“So, we have finally figured out what that blip was and what those anomalous readings were when we reached Hrouska,” Lucky said.
“Lucky, I’m exhausted, so tell me straight,” Parveet said.
“Okay. They’re centers of activity,” Lucky said. “Possibly cities.”
“Possibly cities?” Parveet asked. ‘What does that mean? How are they possibly cities? Either they are or they aren’t.”
“They’re underground, Boss,” Wan said. “It’s why we couldn’t get consistent readings. There’s a density of life every couple hundred kilometers.”
“Every couple hundred kilometers? You mean across the planet?” Parveet asked, her exhaustion ebbing at the revelation. “What kind of density of life? Can you give me numbers?”
“Not conclusive numbers, no,” Lucky said. “But, based on scan readings of the xenos on the surface compared to the density we’re reading in the centers of activity…”
“Estimated total of thirty to forty million,” Stegson said. “You guys gotta learn to spit it out.”
“That sounds right,” Wan said.
“Not exactly numbers we want to hear,” Lucky said.
“Thirty to forty million,” Parveet mused. “And we have how many soldiers down there?”
“Currently we have close to two hundred, Boss,” Lucky said. “And six mechs.”
“Six mechs,” Parveet echoed and laughed.
“They’re good mechs,” Lucky said.
The bridge went quiet then everyone burst out laughing. It was that raucous, punch drunk laughter that only the truly fatigued can manage.
“Okay, okay, shut the hell up,” Parveet said, wiping at her eyes. “This is not even close to funny.”
She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair as the bridge crew got themselves under control.
“Ambassador Torn?” Parveet called. She waited then called again. “Ambassador Torn!”
“Huh? Wha?” Torn’s sleepy voice replied over the comms. “Jay? What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“Calm down, Ambassador,” Parveet said. “I haven’t informed my bridge crew yet that we have reinforcements on the way. I wanted to think the situation through first. But, circumstances have pressed my hand here. How many soldiers are onboard each warship?”
“How many soldiers?”
“That was the question,” Parveet said. “How many can we expect to join us here at good ol’ Hrouska?”
“I, uh, let me think,” Torn said.
“No time to think,” Parveet said. “Give me a number now.”
“I believe, if what I’ve been told is true, that each warship carries thirty thousand soldiers,” Torn said.
That made Parveet sit up straight. The conversation was only privy to her, but the bridge crew heard her side and saw her reaction.
“Boss?” Lucky asked. Parveet held up a hand. “Right.”
“Thirty thousand soldiers per warship? And we have four warships coming?” Parveet asked, locking eyes with Lucky. “Heavy armor? Artillery?”
“I’ll have to consult my files,” Torn said.
“Do that,” Parveet snapped.
“Hey,” Torn replied. “I’m just waking up. Give me a minute… Yes. Thirty thousand soldiers. Ten thousand with heavy armor. A single artillery battalion per warship.”
“I do not want to know how the hell the families managed to work all that, but I’m glad they did,” Parveet said. “Can you get them a message?”
“I’m due to report in the morning,” Torn said.
“Bee, you aren’t going back to sleep,” Parveet said. “We have close to thirty to forty million xenos down there on Hrouska. I think you will want to report now so that message reaches them by the morning.”
“How many?” Torn asked, her voice small.
“You heard me,” Parveet said. “The numbers being sent our way aren’t enough to handle the numbers down on Hrouska. But they sure as shit are pretty goddam impressive. I’m going to figure out what we can do with one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers plus four artillery battalions. I can work with that.”
“Jay, once they arrive, you won’t be in charge,” Torn said. “I assumed you knew that.”
“Yeah. We’ll see,” Parveet said and killed the comms. She met the gaze of every single person that was busy staring at her, and they were all staring at her. “Alright. Here’s what’s happening and how it affects me and mine.”
4.
“We have it figured out, Boss,” Lucky said.
Parveet jolted awake and stared at the plans that were up on the view shield display.
“Talk to me,” she said, instantly alert.
“We can get a single probe to the LZ with
out hurting anyone or the tech,” Lucky said. “Stony says he has some weird new tech that one of the rookie mechanics made that can act as landing gear and also fire thrusters to minimize impact.”
“We’re trusting a rookie mechanic?” Parveet asked.
“Not sure what choice we have, Boss,” Lucky said.
“Okay. We drop a probe. Then what?” Parveet asked.
“Then we tell the LZ personnel to hunker down and put their heads between their legs,” Axson said.
“Not helpful,” Lucky said and sighed. “It’s going to be close, but we can use the Dorso like we want and cut that army into a tenth of what it is.”
“That’s still a lot of xenos,” Parveet said.
“Boss, we’re looking at hundreds of thousands right now,” Wan said. “We can get that number down to tens instead.”
“Which buys the LZ some time to get the hell out of there,” Lucky said. “And that’s what we want at this point.”
“Hrouska’s lost, Boss,” Stegson said. “There isn’t a scenario where we come out on top.”
“Until the warships get here,” Parveet said.
“Not factoring that in at the moment, Boss,” Stegson said. “You can guess why.”
“Because it ain’t real until it’s real,” Parveet replied and nodded. “And the other probes?”
“Other probes, Boss?” Lucky asked.
“We only need the one,” Wan said. “No real point in covering the planet if we’re bugging out.”
“But we’ll need the comms up and running planet-wide if our reinforcements get here,” Parveet said. She leaned forward and pursed her lips. “I don’t like this much, either, but we have to show what we’re worth to these people. If all they are doing is coming here to clean up our mess and wipe our butts, then we are useless to them. It sucks, huge hairy gonads sucks, but it is what it is.”
“What about the rest of the crew, Boss?” Lucky asked. “We have to tell them. We have to tell everyone on the LZ.”
“Don’t worry, Lucky,” Parveet said. “I understand what we have to do and who we have to tell. This isn’t something I can order me and mine to blindly follow. But we’ll get to that when it is time to get to that. Tell Stony I want relay probes dropped as well so we can communicate across Hrouska. Other than that, I trust all of you to orchestrate this plan to the best of your abilities. Hooyah.”
