by J. F. Holmes
As each vehicle passed by him, soldiers and armed civilians leaned out the windows and doors, giving the old ‘V’ for victory sign, like their great-grandfathers in World War Two. Some of the younger troops yelled, an Army “Hoo-ah” or a Confederate rebel yell, but most were silent, the realization that they were going into battle heavily outnumbered against a vicious enemy, and some wouldn’t be coming back. Maybe all of them.
****
Normally, getting an M-119 howitzer ready for travel is a complicated dance. Unstrap the baseplate, jack up one side, take off a wheel, mount the baseplate between the trails, swing the barrel around, secure the wheel, drop the jack, and strain to lift the hitch to the back of the Humvee. A well-trained crew can do it in under a minute. A tired, exhausted one, maybe two, but your motions become automatic, more memory than thought. In this case, the gun tubes weren’t going to be rotated, just travel extended outward, pointing to the rear, so that saved time.
When you’ve been running on adrenaline and caffeine for hours, though, mistakes would happen. Dennis Shin was that tired, exhausted beyond measure, when the command to move out came over the phones. Still, moving in a type of fog, he joined in the dance. He stopped only when the man who usually stood across from him to lift the trail onto the hitch wasn’t there. Sergeant Tomaso’s body still lay under a poncho, and the realization hit him only then. With tears staining his face, rage built in Shin, and he grunted with effort, another person taking his friend’s place, and heaving it up and on.
“Tears of rage, brother, tears of rage,” said the ghost of Tomaso, grinning at him.
“Shit, you asshole, why didn’t you duck?” answered Shin, wiping at his face.
The grin started to fade, along with the apparition, if it was even there at all. “Shit happens, bro. Don’t let me see you soon, OK? Go kick some ass for me!” and then he was gone.
“HEY! SHIN! Get in the truck!” shouted the team chief, and the PFC shook his head. Tomaso’s body was still there under the poncho. Feeling like he was moving underwater, the artilleryman climbed up into the back of the truck, clambered over the ready rack, squirmed around over another stack of 105mm rounds, and sat on the bench seat. A half dozen infantrymen climbed in along with the crew, and they were soon asses to elbows. Despite the overloaded truck bouncing all over the place as it drove across the firebase and out the western entrance, despite the noise and the cursing of the infantry and the close quarters, Shin fell fast asleep sitting upright. He had no idea where they were going, nor did he care.
****
Captain Janet ‘Bitchy’ Ramirez looked back at the three massive, squat figures standing at the rear of the aircraft. Between them and the cockpit were hundreds of 105mm artillery rounds in cardboard tubes, and a squad of engineers.
“Joey, have those weirdos move a few feet closer to the center or we’re going to drag our tail!” she called over the intercom. Her crew chief left his place at the rear of the machine, gave her a thumbs up, and started herding the armored giants further into the CH-47.
Ramirez returned to her checklist, running her finger down the glossy clipboard strapped to her leg. Either her copilot or the crew chief answered each call out with “Check!” after verifying the accompanying action was done. Bitchy had flown with the same crew for more than a year on Alpha, but they cut no corners, especially with an engine that had been slapped onto a damaged airframe. Her copilot, CW3 Anthony ‘Capo’ Pavoni, trusted her with his life, and she likewise.
With a cough and whine, the first, undamaged, turbine started whirring to life, a deafening howl to anyone not wearing ear muffs or plugs. The second coughed over, hesitant at first. It was a replacement for the one smashed by the mortar attack, and duct tape covered many of the holes in the fuselage caused by shrapnel. The engine mount was welded in a dozen places, the fuel and hydraulic lines spliced in by a frantic ground crew as artillery rumbled in the distance.
Then these three nutjobs showed up, running clanking up to the ramp in some kind of power armor, ordering her to take them. Pulling goddamned rank to get aboard her bird. She’d never heard of Major Walters, but the mechanical voice issuing from the suit had sounded like he knew what the hell he was talking about, even if their plan was insane. Find a clear spot near the middle of the Gvit army, hover at a hundred feet, and let them jump out, then continue on their merry way to the bridge. Fuck it, she didn’t have time to argue, just asked their weight and waved them onboard. She had a bird to fly.
“START, YOU GODDAMNSONOFAWHORE!” shouted the pilot, slapping the dashboard with her fist, and the engine sprang to life with a bang and a whine.
She keyed the radio and called the tower, one eye on the gauges. “Hunter, this is Thunderclam Five Niner on an insertion mission, three crew and six pax, over.”
“Roger, Thunderclam Five Niner, cleared, and the OPS commander has denied your call sign, over.”
“Tell that fat bastard to come fly it himself then; Bitchy out.” She shut down the radio before any avians started to cluster around the shrieking helo.
Her copilot looked over at her and grinned. “You know, Janet, you might lose rank again for that one.”
“Gotta live up to my call sign, Capo.” She engaged the transmission, and the rotors started to rotate overhead, faster and faster until they disappeared in a blur. Ramirez smiled a deadly smile that wouldn’t have been out of place on her Caribbean pirate ancestors as she changed the pitch of the blades and lifted the school bus–sized craft into the air.
ACECOM airwing was down, but not out.
Chapter 33
There comes a time in your life when you just accept that someday, maybe sooner, maybe later, you’re going to die. Any illusions of immortality disappear as those around you fall, either to quiet old age or violent combat. A sort of peaceful calm settled on Greg Papadatos, knowing he probably wasn’t going to live through the next fifteen minutes.
“How’s it going?” he yelled down to Sergeant Johnson, barely able to be heard above the noise of outgoing fire. The scout ignored him, inching perilously along a slight ledge that ran along the outside of the bridge. He was tracing the wires the engineers had run to the explosives, trying to find the break. The ledge itself was only a few inches wide, and he’d clipped his load bearing vest to a safety rope that ran the length of the bridge. Still, the turbulent waters of the North River ran only a dozen feet below him, and arrows skipped by overhead.
The Gvit had taken shelter behind a mound of their dead, and were raining the six-foot-long bolts down on them in a high arc. To those in the bunkers, it didn’t matter, but those without overhead cover were taking a pounding, and there were only two bunkers. Of the dozen troops he’d started with, plus the five scouts, four were already down, skewered to the ground by the never-ending volleys. When they arched overhead, the arrows seemed slow, almost beautiful, like birds in flight, but when they tipped back over and fell back to earth, they had the velocity and impact of a freight train. A modern Kevlar helmet would stop one, but at the cost of a broken neck.
Trying to concentrate, Johnson shook his head, politely telling the captain to leave him alone. Papadatos understood and raised his rifle to fire, taking aim at a Gvit who’d just charged over the stack of bodies. This one was smaller, perhaps younger and with something to prove, and the 7.62 round actually penetrated his breast plate and chest carapace, bringing the thing to its knees. His second shot caught it through the face. The round might not have exited the thick skull, but it did the job anyway.
The tough point would be in a few minutes, when the automatic weapons ran out of ammo. The road behind them was still clear, no Gvit party coming back with wounded discovering them blocking the bridge and hitting them from the rear. If he remembered correctly, they preferred to die on their own sword or have their throats cut. What strange, honorable creatures, he thought to himself, firing again from behind cover.
When the ammo did run dry, he’d order the rest of his men back to the COP,
though he doubted that would save them this time. He turned to Corporal Running Lance, the only surviving NCO, and told him his plan. The Cherokee thought for a moment, waiting for the next fight of arrows, and said, “No, sir, we’ll stay, if it’s OK with you.”
He didn’t say anything, just popped his head above the wall and fired again, needing four shots to kill another Gvit. They were getting closer, less than two hundred meters now, and the Mark-19 was out of grenades. Then he heard his last .50 caliber quit, though at this point all it had been doing was chopping dead meat.
A deathly silence fell over the battlefield. For a moment, all that could be heard was one of his men, screaming in pain at the arrow that had pinned his hip to the ground. Then from the other side of the pile of Gvit bodies rang out enormous, brassy war horns, accompanied by the thunderous booming of a giant war drum.
“RALLY ON ME!” shouted Papadatos, and he ran over to one side if the bridge, where they’d stacked some of the fifteen-foot-long wooden and steel spears meant expressly for fighting the giant creatures. Five men and two women, including four of the scouts, ran to meet him. Private Orson, the young woman from the scout team, turned to shout at the three men who were running in the opposite direction, “COWARDS! YOU GUTLESS PIECES OF SHIT!” she yelled in her loud West Virginia accent. Two of them stopped, and came running back, but the last man kept going.
As Running Lance handed each a spear, their commander said, “Wait for the charge, plant this sucker in the ground, let them run up on it, yank it out, fall back a few feet, and wait for it again. We have to give Sergeant Johnson time to detonate the explosives.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Private Baird?”
The kid looked at him, the realization dawning that today he was going to die, eighteen years old and four and half light years away from his home. “Where’s the respawn point?” he asked and cracked a crazy grin. It brought a laugh from all of them, even as they felt the ground shake beneath their feet.
The Gvit were coming.
****
Joe Johnson could feel it. The entire bridge was shaking, making his hold slippery. The green moss that grew on the concrete made the going even slicker, and the sweat that ran down his face stung his eyes. Blood was starting to drip steadily from the roadbed and into the river, like some kind of grotesque rain.
The cut in the wire was about ten feet from him, but it felt like a mile. He could see it, and the detonator was slung over his shoulder. He just had to slot the two wires in the terminals and hit the clacker, but they’d probably been cut, and would need to be stripped of insulation, too. He cursed and slowly worked his way out further, listening to the screams of the wounded, almost louder than the gunfire, if that was possible. His scouts, HIS men, were being killed, and his blood boiled with rage.
In front of him was a broken section of the ledge, maybe three feet across. He stretched out his combat boot, and his toe just reached. “Fuck it!” he swore and leapt, keeping one hand on the safety rope to keep from falling. The bridge was seriously vibrating and shaking now as the Gvit passed him by in their headlong charge at the human positions. He could hear the yells and screams of combat, the ring of steel punctuated by gunshots, the bull-like roar of the Gvit warriors. Time, there was no time…
…there, he’d reached the break. The wires hung down in front of them where the PLA soldiers had clipped them. He was only about thirty feet from the shore, but they were strung underneath the bridge.
“Next frigging time, use a goddamned radio as a backup, birds be damned!” He grunted, unfolding his multitool and starting to strip the wires. He pinched himself, and the tool slipped out of his hand to splash in the river below. Growling in frustration, he put the wires in his teeth and bit down. The insulation was tough, and he had to gnaw at it to get down to the wire, but he dared not stop, even when it cut his gums and he started spitting blood.
The Gvit were passing above him, only feet away. If one looked over the edge, he was done, and there was no way he could get to the rifle slung across his back. Not that it mattered, since one spear thrust or sword swing, even if it didn’t kill him, would knock him into the water below. He managed to place one wire into the terminal and screw it down, but the second was slick with blood. He bit off more insulation, but then a shadow blocked out the alphalight, which was high overhead. Looking up, he tried to keep the wire in one hand while grabbing his rifle. The head of a Gvit warrior looked down at him, and what he knew was the equivalent of a shit-eating grin appeared on its face as it swung a spear upward for a throw. Johnson struggled desperately to bring the rifle to bear; at this range, the smaller 5.56 rounds would punch through any armor, but it was no use. Letting go of the rifle, he gave the grinning alien the finger and said, “Fuck you!”
To his surprise, instead of a spear lancing down through him, a huge shape barreled past. He flinched aside as the Gvit dove headfirst into the river to disappear with a tremendous splash. Startled, he looked up to see a Chak nonchalantly looking like he was just taking a break. The slave creature glanced down and hooted. Johnson saluted him, and the Chak disappeared. “I’m going to buy you a hell of a beer someday, buddy!” said Johnson, and got back to wiring the second line. He slid the bare copper into the slot, screwed down the link, and squeezed the detonator.
Nothing. He squeezed again, so hard he thought it would break, and his knuckles showed white. Nothing. Joe Johnson hung from the safety rope, disbelief on his face. “YOU’VE GOTTA BE SHITTING ME!”
****
They were down to five, now. The captain, Corporal Running Lance, Specialist Crane, Private Baird, and Private Orson. PFC Alvarez had caught a stunning blow to the head from a maul, and lay senseless off to one side. The rest of the defenders were down, hacked to death with sword strokes and axe blows. The ground was slick with both human and Gvit blood, dead bodies and entrails littering the roadbed. Seven of the giant warriors lay dead, spears sticking through them, or killed by close range gunshots. Two of the humans still had rifles, Baird and Running Lance, but the others were only armed with long spears, either their own or Gvit lances.
The action had paused; after their first rush, the death of their leading warriors had made them stop. The main body was still half a kilometer away, but they faced maybe thirty Gvit now. Greg Papadatos looked at the rest of his men, their faces dirty, bloody, and exhausted. This was it, pretty much. He could see five of the Gvit, only fifty meters away, staring at them. They had learned to fear the guns and spears, and the soldier thought he could see some respect in their eyes. One of them, a massive brute, lifted his six-foot-long sword and held it up in front of his face. Papadatos did the same with his spear and yelled at the top of his lungs, an incoherent howl of rage. The Gvit ran at him, raising the sword high in an effort to smash the human down. He ducked, slid, and stabbed upward as the sword whistled down into the concrete. The ceramic and steel alloy slid into the thing’s belly, eliciting a bellow of rage and pain. The other Gvit thundered past, oblivious to the single combat.
Baird fired, emptying his magazine, rounds from the M-14 punching through armor, but the warrior wasn’t stopping. A huge axe swung, and the private felt it crash into the rifle and his hand, severing the fingers and cutting the stock in half. He screamed, the blood pouring from his hand, as the Gvit crashed into him and they fell to the road bed. Baird wrapped his arms around the Gvit’s waist and heaved, straining every muscle, and rolled them both over. As the creature tried to slash at him with its horns, the human drew his bayonet and plunged it over and over into its neck before it rolled back over him.
With a yell, Orson buried her spear in the face of the Gvit charging her. It shook its head, roaring in pain, and swung its sword, cutting her in half. The blonde collapsed to the ground, blood spewing out of her mouth as she fell lifeless onto the pavement. Running Lance fired into the back of the creature’s head, then turned and killed another as his weapon ran dry. He threw it down and picked up a lance, running forward
and stabbing downward into the Gvit on top of Baird, through its lower back. He spun away again, dragging the lance out and stabbing another in the side, but it snapped, leaving the head deep in the flesh.
Beside him, Crane lifted a captured sword, small for a Gvit, but huge in his hands. With a yell of rage, he swung as hard as he could at the last one in the charge and started trading sword strokes. His weightlifting stood him in good stead, but each ringing clash made his arms numb. Only his greater agility kept him from being instantly killed. Luck ran out, though, when the point of his opponent’s sword got through his guard and dug a deep groove through his side. The specialist had no armor like the Gvit, and the scouts never wore the Kevlar and ceramic vests. Wordlessly grunting in pain, he used the opening to stab the Gvit in the neck. The sword was ripped from his hands and he fell to the road, clutching his side.
Running Lance pulled out his long combat knife and stabbed at the one he’d lanced in the side as it rolled and tried to get to its feet, horribly wounded. He ran the blade into its eye just as the sharp horn swung and hit him in the stomach. They fell together, the tough Cherokee rolling off the horn and lying there, looking at the sky, as the life ran out of him.
****
He was so damned close. The explosives, emplaced to destroy a section of bridge buttress, were maybe fifty meters from him. Johnson had no idea how powerful they were, though it did look like a shitload of them. The support was thick and made with reinforced concrete, and he could barely see the edge of one of the packages.
“You know,” he said out loud to no one in particular, “I really shouldn’t have stood Gina up. A good date would’ve been fun.” As he raised the rifle carefully to his face, leaning back in the harness and bracing his feet on the wall, he thought of her smile. It was always the best part of her, though he also liked her wicked sharp sense of humor. As he squeezed the trigger, Sergeant Joseph Johnson took himself away to a different place, a grassy meadow high up on the Appalachian trail, and imagined the two of them sitting, watching the sunset. Nothing sexual, just holding hands. His first shot was off, and the veteran infantryman shifted his aim slightly higher. The next was on the level, but only drew a puff of concrete dust, the unstable firing position he was in betraying him. To feel the warmth of her hand in his, and the cool mountain air of a late summer’s breeze.
