Off World- Ragnarok

by J. F. Holmes

  “First Platoon, all present.”

  “Second Platoon, two men out of ranks.”

  “Third Platoon, one man out of ranks.”

  First Sergeant Camacho took the rollcall, turned, and saluted Santos. “Sir, Bravo Company assembled, six out of ranks.”

  Santos returned the salute, then dropped it. “Who’s missing and why?”

  “Everyone’s on the way, except Sergeant First Class Zhou. No answer at his quarters. I’ve got Staff Sergeant Collins covering Third.”

  “Good enough. Put the men at rest and come walk with me for a minute.”

  Camacho turned, called out, “Rest!” then turned back and followed Santos to a corner in the darkness. He lit a cigarette and drew in a deep drag, then dropped it on the ground and stomped it out. “OK, so what stupid shit has battalion come up with?” He glanced over to the entrance to the motor pool, where an MP Humvee sat, engine idling.

  “How many Asian soldiers do we have?” said the captain.

  His senior NCO thought for a moment, running names through his head. “Seven, including two of our best snipers. And Zhou, of course, if he comes back.”

  “I’ve got a decision to make, Top. The colonel said he trusts my judgement, but…” The pause hung there in the still dawn air.

  “It’s the attack on the airport, isn’t it? They want to round up all the ethnic Chinese, right?”

  Santos nodded. “That’s a lot of combat power in a fight against the Gvit. Plus our clerk, Hashimoto. We’re screwed without him.”

  “He’s Japanese, not Chinese.”

  “Like the mob will care when they need someone to burn,” said the younger man. “The word is internment camps.”

  “Hell, no! Don’t we ever freaking learn?” said Camacho, disgust in his voice. “Listen, if they were going to jump, they’d have jumped by now. I’m betting Zhou’s one, and we’ll tell Intel, but the rest, they’re standing there, right there, in formation.” He emphasized it by pointing back to the soldiers in the growing alphalight.

  “You’re right. I’ll deal with them. Have the guys do layout, and we’re first up for civil disturbance training. Oh, and get with the XO and make sure we have some CS gas, and new filters for the masks. Tell the platoon leaders I want to meet with them in five at the orderly room.”

  “Got it, sir.”

  Santos walked over to the waiting MPs and leaned on the driver’s side mirror. The driver looked straight ahead, a PFC who wanted none of this business. His boss, a lieutenant, climbed out of the passenger side. The MP brassard was visible on his sleeve, not a patch, but the full on black and white cover.

  “Before you say anything to me, Lieutenant, I just want you to think about something. You’re going to walk into the middle of a company of infantrymen who’ve been dragged back from a four-day pass to do bullshit training.” He paused to let that sink in, then continued, “So instead of killing Gvit, they get to watch their buddies get hauled off by a bunch of pogue REMFs. Guys they live with, and in many cases fought next to, at the Battle of the Bridge.”

  The young man looked at him, then looked away, past the fence to where the men in question were laying out gear. “OK, sir, your call. Just sign this saying you understand the risk you’re undertaking, and that you’re responsible for their behavior.”

  “I’m not signing shit. Of course I’m responsible for them. It goes with the job of being their commander. You’ll understand someday, the first time you come under fire.”

  He watched as they drove away, then heard, in the far, far distance, a sound like a string of fire crackers, some deeper, but very faint, only carried by the wind. He turned to the southeast, and was just in time to see flares touch the horizon and then glimmer out. “Shit!” he said to no one in particular, and then started to run.

  Santos climbed up on the hood of a Humvee and yelled, “AT EASE!” at the top of his lungs. There was dead silence as the entire company stopped what they were doing. He paused to catch his breath and listen. Yes, he heard it now. The big guns made a muted thunder, but it was definitely there, and he could hear the even sharper but more distant explosions as the rounds detonated. He turned back to the troops, some of whom had also heard the artillery, faint as it was. They looked at him in growing understanding just as the first of the twin suns peeked above the horizon.

  “Listen to me,” he started to say, then continued in a stronger voice, “listen up! That’s Firebase Glory hammering away full volleys from both batteries, not just a platoon trying to disrupt some Gvit warband trying to sneak across the bridge. Platoon leaders, meet me at the battalion commander’s office, I expect we’re going to have movement orders ricky-tick. Lt. Worthy, get the trucks ready to go now, then join me. First Sergeant, I want double loads of ammo, three pikes to every man, spare barrels for the heavy weapons, every mine we’ve got, and picks and shovels. I don’t care if you have to beg, borrow, steal, or sell your sister.”

  Captain Christopher Santos looked at the men and women of Bravo Company, First Battalion, Ninth Infantry Regiment, and they looked back at him. Many, he knew, including himself, might be dead tomorrow. That was tomorrow, though. Now was now. “The Gvit are coming,” he said, “I can feel it, and this one’ll be a fight to the death. Let’s get ready to roll, Manchus.”

  It was if a grenade had gone off in their midst. What looked like confusion was actually a well-rehearsed drill of sergeants shouting orders, soldiers packing equipment, and leaders planning. There was a pause as an observation balloon rose into the sky, tethered at the end of a thousand-foot cable, and everyone watched it climb to altitude. It would get knocked down by the bigger NT avian life soon enough, but intel was intel.

  As a siren started to wail, Santos headed to the battalion briefing room, almost crashing into the new Alpha Company commander as they both tried to rush the door together. The man looked stressed as hell, and Santos felt sorry for him, letting the young LT pass in front of him. He exchanged looks with the Charlie Company commander, another combat veteran, and shrugged. Sucks to be on the spot like that, but suck is the Army way.

  Captain Marcum, the acting S-3, or Operations Officer, stepped into the room and called for everyone to take a seat, ignoring those who were still coming in the door. Instead of speaking, he brought up the live feed of the bridge area in thermal black and white.

  What it showed was horrendous. Thousands of black figures marched in columns across the Great Bridge, spilling out onto the plains to the west. The combat outpost at Rorke’s Drift still flashed a darker black, as did the artillery fire, but nothing seemed to be stopping the invasion. The camera operator panned out, and they could see a long, black line of thermal signatures stretching back up and over the pass. Tens of thousands more Gvit warriors, accompanied by what could only be siege engines.

  “We are so fucked,” said the Alpha CO.

  Chapter 23

  Firebase Glory, Alpharise, Day One

  The LMTV rolled into Firebase Glory just as the first rays of the sun crested the mountains to the west, touching the top of the hundred-foot-tall sighting tower. SPC Shin drove the five-ton truck along a familiar route to the center of the star-shaped fortress. As a 13B, cannon crewmember, she was often drafted to do supply runs back to the city. In the back of the truck were three hundred artillery rounds, a mix of high-explosive, dual purpose improved munitions, and cannister rounds. Firebase Glory itself sat at the crossroads—or more precisely, a hundred meters off the crossroads—where the road north to Seaside crossed the Great Road. It was laid out in a classic star pattern, with a battery of six 105mm guns at each point of the star. A ten-foot ditch was dug around the entire structure, with a berm in front of it covered in razor wire and mines.

  The fortification had been implemented by General Halstead when he took over command of the Regiment, in range to cover both the city and the bridge, and most of the settlements in the valley. Shin didn’t give a shit why the base was where it was; he was pissed off he’d be
en rousted out of bed at 03:00 to make the run to the city. His companion, Sergeant Brown, wasn’t in a much better mood, and merely grunted as they shut the truck down and a work detail started to unload the heavy wooden crates.

  “Hey, Sarge, I’m going to get some breakfast; let me know if you hear anything about what was happening down by the airfield,” said Shin, and took the return grunt as an affirmative. Off in the distance he heard the faint rattle of small arms fire, followed by the thumping of a bigger gun, probably a Ma Deuce. Shin stopped and turned back to his NCO. “Is that anything we need to worry about?” he asked.

  “Nah, that just Captain Fuckadopalous beating his chest at stand to, trying to get noticed again and get off his boss’s shit list. Bring me back a plate; we’re going to be here a while unloading this shit.”

  “OK,” he answered, but his chief had already gone back to sleep. He started to walk down the path to the mess hall tent, and was stopped by two MPs in full battle rattle.

  “Are you Specialist Kevin Shin?” asked the female staff sergeant, and Shin looked from one to the other in confusion. The other, a big PFC, had his taser pointed at the ground, finger alongside the trigger, and a look of intense concentration on his face.

  “Uh, yeah, Sergeant, what’s the problem?” Then an ‘oh shit’ expression went across his face. He and his roommate had set up an illegal still in an unused conex container, and they’d been busted. “Wait, I can explain…” he started to say, raising his hands in a pacifying gesture, but the MP hit him in the crotch with the taser, and the NCO drew pepper spray, liberally dousing his face.

  Shin hit the ground in a rictus of agony, eyes burning and electricity shooting through his body. He tried to grunt out a scream, but the charge made his teeth grind together. Mercifully it cut off, but his face and eyes burned. Trying to speak, he was rewarded by a boot to his neck and handcuffs being slapped on his wrists, locking his hands behind his back.

  He couldn’t see it, but he heard the signal rockets leap out of their firing position in the center of the base. The MPs started to pick him up, but Shin yelled, “THAT’S AN ATTACK SIGNAL, I GOTTA GET TO MY GUN!”

  “You ain’t going nowhere, you commie shit,” said the male voice, but the sergeant cut him short.

  “Just take him back to the truck; I’ll see what’s going on.”

  “THE GVIT ARE COMING, LET ME GET TO MY GUN!” Shin’s pleas were answered by a rising wail, the base general alarm cutting through the dawn.

  With a hissing roar, the first volley of rockets leapt out of their tubes on the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system. There were two of the trucks mounting four rockets each. They were meant to hit any raids that might make it past the defenses at the keep at Rorke’s Drift, and fired on pre-sighted positions.

  They were quickly followed by the ready platoon, two howitzers also firing on pre-registered targets. The bomblets released by the rockets and the shells burst over the column of Gvit warriors. Dozens went down, the shrapnel scything through them, and the ones following stampeded over their bodies, moving out into a fan-shaped formation that split into multiple columns.

  Up on top of the observation tower, the ladder shook, jiggling the binoculars held in First Lieutenant Thrace’s hands. The person climbing up through the hole in the deck grabbed the binos out of her hands, pressed them to his face, ignoring the fact that they were strapped around her neck.

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” swore the man. The Regimental Fire Support officer grabbed the landline, dropping the binoculars. “Get me the ACECOM TOC, NOW!” he shouted into the phone.

  Beside him, Lt. Thrace started calling in corrections to the guns below. Reloaded, the HIMARS fired again, then repeated the cycle. The guns stopped firing in volleys and started a symphony of cannon fire, each platoon given different targets.

  “Yes, General, this is Captain O’Shea at Fire Base Glory. Sir, we’re got a full-on invasion, and the bridge isn’t blown. We’ve got maybe a brigade of—” and he stopped as Thrace held up two fingers, then three, “three brigades of Gvit across now, and they ain’t stopping.”

  He paused, listened, then said, “Yes Sir, the Drift is still in action, I can see it firing from here. It looks like they’re bypassing it. No Sir, I don’t know why the bridge isn’t blown. Maybe we can get an airstrike…no, I see, yes Sir. We should be able to hold, but,” and then he cursed.

  “Fucking line went dead. Do you still have comms with the battery?”

  “Yessir,” she interrupted another call for fire, looking annoyed, then went back to the landline.

  “It’s going to be a long day, Lara. I’ll send up a full FIST team to spell you.” She was still calling corrections as he slipped down the ladder.

  ****

  Specialist Shin sat in the back of the MPs’ Humvee, listening to the outgoing artillery. He’d expected it to stop after they’d hammered the crap out of whoever had made it across before they blew the bridge. They’d splashed water across his face before shoving him in, re-cuffing his hands in front of him.

  “Hey, man, you gotta let me get to my gun!” he said for the fiftieth time.

  “Kiss my ass, you commie,” answered the PFC. His sergeant hadn’t come back yet, and the guy sat in the seat directly in front of him.

  “You’re an asshole. My family’s lived in California for two hundred years! I’m more American than you, you goddamned greaser wetback! I bet you snuck across the river sucking on your mother’s tit!”

  “Why, you little son of a bitch!” The PFC opened the door, got out, and pulled open Shin’s door. Soldiers were running in all directions, and no one noticed what was going on. When his door opened, the man grabbed at Shin’s shoulder to pull him out, his other hand cocked back in a fist. Shin hit him full in the face with the fire extinguisher.

  The MP went down like he’d been poleaxed, and Shin took off running, hands still cuffed. He turned a corner and charged straight down the avenue toward Gun Number Three, charging past the ready ammo stacked to one side. He tripped over still smoking canisters littering the ground and rolled.

  “SHIN!” yelled the staff sergeant commanding the gun, who’d been checking the lay of the howitzer before the next round. “What the hell?” he exclaimed, seeing the cuffs.

  “Long story, Chief, can you cut these off?” The gunner, Shin’s roommate Sergeant Tomaso, grabbed a pair of bolt cutters and made quick work of the chain as the speaker set on the gun trail angrily demanded to know why there was a delay in firing. Cuffs still hanging from his wrists, he ran to his position and started setting fuses in the upright 105 rounds.

  Chapter 24

  1-9 Scouts, Team 2, the Great Bridge

  He could actually feel the bridge vibrating under him, the ancient structure pounding under hundreds of Gvit feet. Sergeant Joe Johnson would have cursed, but he didn’t have the breath. His side was killing him, his lungs heaved, and his legs felt like lead weights. Sweat poured off the soldier, the salt stinging the small cuts and scrapes he’d gotten running through the brush.

  Behind them, the Gvit trampled over the body of Specialist Cobb. She’d tripped and been skewered by a ten-foot-long spear through her back. Johnson had turned and fired in a rage, knocking one of the aliens down, but then dropped his rifle in its sling and ran, tears starting down his face. It was the first time he’d lost one of his men.

  Crossing the bridge had been a gamble. The first divisions had passed by, after what seemed like hours. Coming down out of the pass were tens of thousands more, being held back by giant siege machines. After a quick conference between Johnson and Running Lance, they’d made the decision. Around them lay the bones of thousands of dead Gvit casualties, reminders of the battle the year before.

  “Why haven’t they blown the bridge?” asked Alvarez. “Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?”

  “Somebody screwed the pooch is what happened,” answered Running Lance.

  There was a silence broken only by the far-off rumble of art
illery, more felt than heard. “Someone’s catching it,” muttered Specialist Crane.

  “If we stay here, we’re screwed. There’s no other way across the river,” said Johnson.

  Running Lance grunted. “Told them they should’ve left a boat concealed on this bank.” It had been a tough decision, one the scouts had asked for, but someone up at ACECOM had done a risk assessment, of course, and it was judged to be “too dangerous due to currents and aggressive wildlife”.

  “Doesn’t matter. Do we go for it or not?”

  “I vote yes,” said the corporal, “but it’s your decision, and you’ve got to make it quick.”

  Johnson cursed and said, “OK, let’s go. Drop everything except weapons and ammo. Rally point is at the COP. MOVE!”

  They shouldered their packs and started sprinting, scrambling up onto the raised roadbed and running flat out. The ancient flagstones were smooth and level, but here and there, plants had grown up in the year after the battle. Archeologists had estimated it be more than five centuries old, not built by the Gvit. It was rock solid after all these years, and tough enough to drive an Abrams tank over it.

  None of that mattered to Jones. He saw smoke rising three kilometers ahead at the end of the bridge, and knew that thousands of Gvit might be waiting for them on the other side. What was behind them was even worse, probably two hundred thousand.

  They’d been spotted right away, only a kilometer separating the lead elements of the Gvit column and the eastern approached to the bridge. Everyone knew they would be, and that they were in for the race of their lives. That was why Staff Sergeant Giamatti was so hard on them about running; hiding’s great, but running saves your ass.

  Now Cobb was down, gone, trampled into a red paste, and they were only two thirds of the way across. The team had spread out, Alverez falling further and further behind, the 240 slowing him down. Ahead the road was choked with dead bodies from the artillery, which had stopped falling a while ago. The tail end of the first Gvit column had just left the bridge, ignoring the COP.