Off World- Ragnarok

by J. F. Holmes

  “STOP! FIRING LINE! CLAYMORES!” yelled Johnson, and he wheeled around at the first corpse, setting his M-14 on the body, ignoring the smell of blood and guts, to line up a shot. The Gvit were close, less than three hundred meters, and he aimed for the throat of the nearest, firing as soon as he had a steady sight picture. No effect, and he fired again, the alien tumbling onto the pavement. Beside him, the rest of the scouts opened up with their weapons, firing low with their M-4s, aiming for legs and joints, Alvarez hosing them down with the 240 as he caught up with them, emptying his two-hundred-round box, and probably burning out the barrel.

  Crane hastily dumped out a claymore, opened the legs, and set FRONT TOWARD ENEMY, muttering “No shit” to himself, then ran the cord back behind another body fifty meters away. “SET!” he yelled, and the team peeled off, running past him.

  Baird stopped to help him, but Alvarez, who’d dropped the smoking 240, grabbed him by the collar, hauled him up on his feet, and shoved him into a run. Their fusillade had halted the charge momentarily, and Crane waited patiently until they were less than fifty meters in front of him, spears flying past him as he peered over the legs of dead Gvit. Then he hit the detonator, yelling, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

  The claymore went off with a deafening CRACK! that made the specialist’s ears ring. Without looking at the result, he grabbed his rifle and ran as fast as he ever had in his life.

  *****

  At Rorke’s Drift, Captain Papadatos paused in his preparations, hearing the gun fire first, then the explosion. He looked up to where a single sentry stood on the parapet. The main Gvit column had just passed, and he was readying his men for a sally to reach the explosives and blow them. The gap in their column had been an unlooked-for opportunity, but he should’ve known it would happen; it was the nature of armies on the march. The first divisions had moved off the road, staying out of easy rifle range of the small outpost, and the captain had ordered his men to save their ammo. Instead, they watched and listened as the artillery rolled back and the Gvit passed, banners flying and war horns blowing. He’d been tempted to take a shot at the three Chinese soldiers who’d ripped past on motor bikes, but they were on the other side of the columns.

  “What have you got?” he yelled up at the sentry.

  “Scouts are coming across, hauling ass!” the woman yelled back down at him. She was leaning on a makeshift crutch, leg bloody.

  Papadatos looked at his troops, the dozen soldiers who could actually make it to their feet after fighting off the Gvit raid. They looked back at him, death on their faces, and he nodded. No time for heroic speeches.

  “We give the scouts time to get to us, and then we hold, do you hear me? We hold, and we demo the bridge, and we stop that fucking bunch of barbarians in their tracks, do you hear me? WE KEEP UP THE GODDAMNED FIRE!”

  “MANCHU!” they shouted back, the battle cry of the 9th Regiment, first heard outside the walls of Beijing generations ago. All bullshit, and they knew it in their hearts, but it still lit a flame in them. The gate opened, and they jogged out in the slow trot of heavily-burdened infantrymen that was as old as time.

  They piled across the road and into sandbagged bunkers that had been constructed only a few months ago. Hurriedly they set up the heavy crew-served weapons, three .50 caliber M-2s and a Mark-19 40mm automatic grenade launcher. When Papadatos saw they were ready, he yelled, “COVERING FIRE!” and the automatic weapons opened up, sweeping the bridge just behind the rapidly approaching scouts.

  The soldier who commanded the defense felt his ancient Spartan heritage rising up in him, and he grinned a fierce grin as the dead started to pile up. From the main body of the Gvit army, now starting out on the bridge, a roar erupted that carried across the water, and the nobles started moving to the front, shoving their vassals aside. Papadatos’ face lit up with a smile from hell, and he laughed out loud. This was what he lived for.

  Chapter 25

  Firebase Glory

  The guns thundered and cracked, barrels growing hotter. The Gvit were close enough now for the howitzers to fire over open sights, the thirty-three pounds of high explosive and steel leaping outward at shorter and shorter distances. They detonated in midair, cutting down dozens of the armor-plated creatures, but hundreds more smashed their bodies down into the bloody mud.

  Tracers reached out into the charging horde, the fifty calibers knocking them down, some to rise again, the smaller 5.56 rounds glancing off their hides, occasionally taking out a knee or killing with a shot through the eye, pure luck. A 7.62, if aimed low, could take out a leg.

  “They ain’t stopping!” yelled one of the infantrymen manning the wall, a second before she was skewered by through the face by a six-foot-long arrow. She screamed and fell into the gun pit, spasmed briefly, then lay still. The gunners ignored her, humping rounds as fast as they could.

  “Where the fuck is our air support?” said Shin as he screwed on another fuse, setting the time to two seconds. “Oh, yeah, it got blown the fuck up. We…are…so…screwed!” he finished, hauling the round up and passing it to the number two man. His arms felt like lead, and his hands were red and raw. Sweat ran down his face and burned his eyes, and the handcuffs were chaffing his wrists.

  “Hey, Sarge, we’re running low on rounds!” yelled the ammo team chief. “Three HE left!”

  “CHECK FIRE!!!!! CHECK FIRE!!!!” screamed out from the base speakers. With a last CRACK and a jump to the rear, Gun Number Three thumped backward. The breech opened, spitting the brass canister onto the ground, falling into the dozens that were already there. The gun team ran up with another ready round, but held it instead of loading the gun. Grey propellent smoke drifted lazily out of the tube, and sweat ran down the backs of the shirtless gunners.

  “What the hell’s going on?” asked Shin, running to the front of the dirt berm. The two machine gun crews in their revetments had also fallen silent at the order. He stared in wonder at the sight before him, shoving Sergeant Tomaso out of the way.

  “Holy shit, are they serious?” he said to his fellow gunner.

  Tomaso shook his head. “I dunno, bro, but no shit, look at them. All lined up and shit.”

  In front of the fire base, just over three hundred meters away, the Gvit stood in ranks, heedless of the carnage around them. Thousands of their comrades lay dead, but there were thousands more. Even as they watched, Chak slaves walked among the wounded, who offered their throats to the ceremonial knife. At the fore of their ranks, in front of their bullet-ripped banners, a white flag flew, and one Gvit warrior strode forth. He was a giant among the aliens, standing well over ten feet tall, and clad in golden armor.

  Shin grabbed the binoculars from Tomaso and focused on the Gvit. Then he looked to one side and cursed loudly. “There’re fucking humans with them!”

  “Gimme that!” said Tomaso, taking the binos back. “Holy shit, those are PLA uniforms!”

  Shin ran back and grabbed an M-14 where it sat on a rack by the gun trail. He put the scope to his eye and saw that there were indeed three Chinese soldiers, two sitting on dirt bikes, and a third seemed to be arguing with the giant Gvit commander. Even as he watched, the alien turned and smashed the human into the dirt with a giant maul. The other two were hacked to pieces before they could react.

  “Well, I guess they ain’t friends anymore,” said Sergeant Tomaso.

  The Gvit pounded on his chest and waved his banner carrier forward. The slave Chak carrying it took up a position just to the rear of the commander, who started a measured pace toward the firebase. When they reached a hundred yards out, directly in front of their howitzer, the Gvit drew a two-meter-long sword and held it up to his face. What followed was a long roar of challenge that echoed across the intervening space.

  “So that’s what they want, is it?” said a voice behind them. Shin turned to see Lieutenant Colonel McClellan, the firebase commander. Behind him stood the two MPs Shin had run from.

  “Uh, Sir, I had NOTHING to do with whatever those
Chinese bastards out there were doing.”

  McClellan glanced at the handcuffs still stuck on Shin’s wrist and listened to the sounds of fire carrying over from the city. “Don’t worry about it, son. Give me that weapon.”

  Shin handed the M-14 to him and watched as the officer put the scope to his eye. “Aye, that’s a tough bastard,” the colonel said, handing the rifle back to Shin. He keyed his radio and barked, “GET THAT AMMO MOVING, NOW!” then cursed as a burst of static responded.

  Outside the berm, the Gvit commander walked back and forth, daring the humans to come out to him. Shin raised his rifle to shoot, but the colonel pushed it back down. “Do that, and all the wee bastards will charge us again. We need time, son. The ammo section’s bringing you more rounds.”

  Shin could see that was true; clerks and cooks were humping boxes of ammo and MK-19 rounds up to the berm. A glance back showed the very same truck he’d just arrived in backing up to the gun pit.

  “Ah, dammit all to hell.” Lt. Colonel McClellan glanced around and saw the equipment rack lashed to the side of a Humvee. He strode over, dropped his body armor, and pulled out an axe. No one said anything as he strode forward and mounted the parapet. He held the axe up in the air and shouted, “SMAOINICH AIR!”, his ancient clan battle cry. The Gvit responded with a bellow, and McClellan climbed slowly down the berm.

  When he reached Shin and the rest of Gun Three’s crew standing around the breech of the weapon, he said to Shin, “Cover me with that rifle, son. If it looks like I’m going to lose, shoot either that son of a bitch or me, whichever’s easier.”

  “But…that’s not really honorable, Colonel!”

  “Honor my ass, I’m doing this to buy more time to get more ammo up to your guns and the infantry up there, and for ACECOM to organize our relief. Every second counts. Now do as I said.”

  Shin looked at his gun chief, who nodded. McClellan turned and walked up to the sandbags that lined the edge of the firing port. He stopped and grabbed a five-foot-long red and white painted aiming stake that was lying on the ground. Then he climbed over the lip and made his way up to the razor wire that lined the edge of the trench. Threading his way carefully though a small gap that had been made in the razor wire, he went down into the trench and climbed up the other side.

  “That dude is crazy,” said Sergeant Tomaso.

  Shin shook his head. “No, like he said, he’s buying us time. Get ready to drop the plank if he has to get back in a hurry,” he continued, looking at the Gvit through the scope. At around seventy-five meters, he could see every joint in the thing’s armor and hide; it looked enormous as it rested its hands on the hilt of the six-foot-long sword.

  Tomaso growled, “Who’s the fucking sergeant here, PFC?” but he moved off to grab the twenty-foot-long plank that would, when run out, cross the trench. Then, like every other human on the base who had a view, he stopped to watch what would happen next. The main Gvit line was about three hundred meters away, and McClellan started running forward when he was less than twenty meters from his challenger. Running at full clip, he threw the aiming stake like a spear, and it skipped off the shoulder of the huge creature. Shin heard what almost sounded like a huge, booming laugh, and he saw the Gvit’s mouth open in the approximation of a grin underneath the half-face armored helmet.

  What followed was too hard to see through the scope, so Shin put it down and just watched. Despite its size, the alien was fast, and very light on its feet. McClellan didn’t stand a chance. The very first sword stroke knocked the axe from his hands, and he barely managed to roll out of the way of the next one, the backswing opening up a cut on his leg, tearing his uniform. The cheering that had started on the berm died off as the Gvit chased the human back and forth, playing at killing him with jabs of the blade. Shin felt his heart sink and put the scope back up to his eye.

  Even as he did, he dropped it back down, because the colonel moved far faster than he had before, diving under the Gvit warrior’s legs and snatching up the aiming stake. Before the alien could turn, he jumped on the thing’s back, swung the pole around, and started choking it. To everyone’s stunned amazement, both human and Gvit alike, the armored giant sank to his knees, clawing at his back, unable to dislodge the human. A cheer rose from the firebase, and a roar from the Gvit lines. McClellan slid down, picked up the axe, and as the Gvit struggled to get back to its feet, brought the heavy steel blade down on the helmet, again and again. The alien collapsed and lay there, twitching.

  McClellan leaned on the axe handle, exhausted and bleeding heavily, then fell to his knees. There was a stunned silence from both lines, as if no one believed what had just happened. Shin dropped the rifle and leapt over the firing port, down into the trench, and up the other side, running as fast as he could.

  He made it to his commander just as the Gvit lines started banging their swords on their shields, and arrows raced out toward them, thudding into the ground. McClellan had collapsed on the trampled grass, his bad leg folding under him, and Shin grabbed his arm, rolled, and stood with the colonel over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Then he ran like he’d never run before.

  The ground was shaking with the vibration of the charging Gvit, and Shin fell just as he reached the trench, an arrow hammering into his body armor, throwing him forward. The ceramic plate shattered, and he felt the breath driven out of him as he spilled the colonel onto the ground.

  “DUMBASS!” shouted Sergeant Tomaso in his ear as rough hands grabbed him by the deadman’s strap and dragged him across the wooden plank. He was thrown over the firing port and rolled down onto the ground just as the howitzer fired with an ear-splitting CRACK!

  The painful concussion didn’t stop Shin from sitting up and watching as another round was loaded into the gun, and he managed to cover his ears as it fired again. He got up, one massive bruise, and ran to the ammo ready rack, opening up a case of fuses. The artilleryman worked furiously to affix them onto the rounds, and only stopped when a hand grabbed at his leg. He turned to see Lieutenant Colonel McClellan being carried on a stretcher. The man had grabbed at Shin as they passed him by, and he said “THANKS!” though Shin couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears. The firebase commander smiled and sank back down, while the furious firing of the guns continued long into the afternoon.

  Chapter 26

  The thing about armor was that, like a horse-borne knight of old, they could rule the battlefield. An M1a4 tank would roll over and crush any Gvit that tried to stop them. Only one had been lost during the previous battle, when a track had broken and the tank commander ordered his crew out to fix it. A surprise charge had left the four men a red smear in the mud, pounded down by a wounded, maddened Gvit. The tank itself had been recovered, and now sat placidly in the growing light.

  The men and women of Delta Troop, First of the Sixty Ninth Armor, had a long, storied history as an armor unit, starting with the vicious hedgerow fighting in Normandy, dueling with German Panzer units. They were proud, as any cavalryman should be, and desperately wanted to get into action again. It was what they lived for. Hell, it was what all soldiers lived for, in reality. Especially those who hadn’t seen the elephant yet.

  When the siren sounded, they ran. Scrambling out of barracks, rushing to pull on coveralls and zip up boots, grabbing their field gear on the run. The first to teach their tanks was Third Platoon, which had been on fifteen-minute alert, ready to roll out. Keys were produced, hatches unlocked, compartments checked for hoppers, and drivers slid into their seats.

  The turbines whirled as they pressed the starter buttons, but no roar of shaking power crept up through the seats. Almost with one collective curse, each driver tried again, and again. The exchanges between them and their track commanders were furious, and if a battle could have been won by curses, it would have been over already.

  The tank, like the knight, was the most expensive and complex unit on the modern battlefield. Like the knight, however, it could be brought down, in effect, by a two penc
e arrow from a longbow. The complex machinery meant to run the turbine engine had weak spots that a smart enemy could attack, with weapons that sought ways around the strongest armor.

  By the time the mechanics identified the problem that had turned the entire company into so many stationary lumps of metal, the decisive battle was long over. Not that they had the parts on hand to fix them anyway.

  ****

  They were angry and scared. Master Sergeant (Retired) John Demos could see it in their eyes. That’s good, thought the former Green Beret. Angry is good. Almost five hundred militia divided up into three companies. Almost everyone they could find with military experience drafted in, and quite a few civilian volunteers. ACECOM had planned for their training and use, but today had caught everyone by surprise. He thought about how he was going to approach this.

  “OK, listen up! The shit’s hit the fan, and we’re going to have to fight our asses off to protect our families and the colony! I don’t want to hear jack shit about rights or being civilians, you’re mobilized and subject to UCMJ, which is up to and including death by firing squad if you run!” Better to get in their faces, he knew. Keep ’em angry instead of questioning.

  Of course there was one now, a woman raising her hand. He pointed at her, and she said, “I thought we were going to be doing support stuff, you know, like food and stuff like that.”

  He paused before he answered, then gave it to them flat. “This battle today is going to be over before you have a chance to eat your next meal. So you’re either going to have the best tasting meal ever tonight, or you’re going to be dead. It’s your choice. Listen to your cadre for the next ten minutes, and you MIGHT survive. No more questions!”