Alien Enigma (23 page)

The heavy .50 caliber hollow point slug hit precisely where she aimed. Debris exploded out from the robot. It staggered, turned in a half circle then wobbled off in that direction. She didn't see where it went-she was already drawing a bead on the next one. And the next, firing in metronomic precision.

As if her first shot was a signal, Worms began boiling out of adjacent buildings. They appeared disorganized but the general movement was toward the encroaching marines. The weapons squad entered the battle next, using their heavy machine guns to cut swaths of gory death into the front ranks of the Worms. The MGs allowed one of the point marines to reach safety. The other took a bolt of plasma in the back and fell in a flaming heap.

***

"Now, June! E-7 only. One shot!" Cindy ordered.

All Mundahan had to do was lift the cover and punch the red tab on her console. The plasma cannon computer had been running a constant update on the original parameters given it.

The single pulse was barely noticeable in the ship, but below in the city it was different. The ball of plasma hit precisely in the center of the Worm formation. It spread a fiery orange-white ball of destruction over the worms, vaporizing most of them instantly. The ones not killed outright scurried in all directions, bodies smoking, skin peeling loose. A few on the periphery of the blast escaped and came on. They were quickly dispatched by marine rifles.

"First platoon right, second platoon left. Move it, and careful of hot stuff," Lieutenant Bruno Horst, CO of A Company, ordered. He worked the marine platoons around the center of destruction and further into the city, moving cautiously. If that many Worms had erupted from one small area, God only knew how many more they'd run into. And to free any captives they'd probably have to engage the Worms and robots in the tunnels beneath the city. He hated to think of the casualties that might cause.

***

Zembra finally had to climb down from her perch. The fighting had moved farther into the city, beyond her viewpoint. She and PFC Zambi, the other sniper, hurried to catch up and join the heavy weapons platoon, their alternate assignment. No sooner had she joined them than she was put to work as the assistant on one of the heavy MGs. She replaced a marine that had just lost a leg to an energy bolt. For the next two hours she hauled and crawled, and fed belts of ammo to the gunner, stopping only to use her heavy rifle occasionally. The marines advanced slowly toward the center of the city.

***

"The Worms are concentrating for another charge, June. We need a pulse at ...G5.5 in forty five seconds. Mark."

"Got it. Damn, that's going to bring us in close. Captain Keane?"

"Do it," he responded without hesitation.

June gave the order to the plasma cannon. At this point the ship's movements were controlled by her through orders to the gun, while several ratings and petty officers watched the dials and gauges in the cannon housing farther toward the bow. The ship moved closer to the city. The angle from its target dropped to near fifty-five degrees. She waited, practically holding her breath until she felt the slight shudder as the shot went home. A sharp vibration shook the ship as the city's gun fired almost simultaneously. Also near simultaneously, the ship fired back.
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plowed through a boil of energy with its shield intact but it had taken a good hit.

"Status?" Keane asked, averting his eyes from the screens. They were a white blur from the surrounding energy.

"We got their gun but I'm damn glad we worked out those auto respond algorithms in advance. I wouldn't want us to take many hits like that in succession."

"Well done," he said as the screens came back up. "Com, ask Rambling to have the marines take a look if they can and find out if that was their only gun."

"Aye, aye, sir," Bogarty responded promptly.

***

Rambling was thankful for the air cover. Used judiciously, it cleared a path for his troops and kept casualties to a minimum. The only drawback was that the ship had to shoot from an angle and from a higher orbit than needed for really accurate fire support, but he knew it was the only way to keep the ship safe. Already the air and space defenses had been located near the center of the city, right at the "northern" edge of the central crop growing area. It had happened when the
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got a little too close trying to help them out, and whatever was in control of the city's pulsing laser cannon tried a shot. He thought it had damaged the ship until Bogarty got through the static to him.

"Captain Keane wants the area he just hit checked when you get a chance, sir."

"Tell him I will but it'll be a bit. We've still got troubles."

***

Bullet had begun to think the hard fighting was about over. There had been a couple of close calls but nothing like the previous campaign, when he'd taken that bolt of energy to his side. The platoon had just cleared out the area assigned to them, leaving dead Worms and mangled robots strewn in the streets. During the process, a number of ragged captives had emerged from the entrances to buildings as they passed. One pair of them, a woman and unshaven man who looked to be in his middle forties, came running out after Bullet had shot what was apparently the last defending Worm. He almost pulled the trigger on them but held back at the last instant. The couple was clad in ill-fitting remnants of Wannstead corporate blue, and both were dazed and overpoweringly happy to see the marines.

"Hey, hey, take it easy!" He laughed as they wrapped their arms around him in a hug that would have done justice to a boa constrictor. "Hey, I'm happy to see you too, but we still got a fight going on." He gently pried them loose and passed them to the medics. Not long afterward the whole platoon got an order to hold up.

Bullet went down on one knee to rest while waiting to see what was going on. The news came very shortly over the platoon com.

"Listen up! We got masses of Worms forming up for a charge on the other side of the ruins of the strike by
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. Form defensive positions immediately. Heavy weapons platoon bear left. Second platoon will hit them from the other side and try driving them into us. Estimated contact with the first body of Worms is less than ten minutes but we're calling in air strikes first. Dig in quick. The old man is sending in the coordinates now."

***

"Fire as required, Major," said Keane, hoping prisoners were not included near the Worms, or beneath the area where they were firing. He could wish they were farther away from where the city's air defense had been. It was going to take another beating, and there probably wouldn't be much left of it but rubble after both the plasma cannon and rail guns scoured the area.

Cindy received the codes and loosed the plasma pulses. As soon as the smoke and flames partially cleared she received new coordinates for the rail guns. The ship shook and shuttered as they cut loose in turn.

***

"Look at these stupid fucks, they call this a war? It's a goddamn massacre." Bullet kicked the head of a steaming Worm, about all that was left of it. They were moving through the smoking ruins, mopping up. There was little resistance.

Sal Salvino pulled a cigar out of his front shirt pocket. He had two large flame thrower tanks strapped to his back and had been using the flames to destroy pockets of resistance. He delicately used the torch's pilot light to fire up his cigar. "It's more like a Jersey Shore barbeque," he said, taking a long drag of the American grown Cohiba.

Bullet looked at the tape across the middle of Sal's face. "What, you got tired of wrestling 'em with your nose? So you decided to cook 'em instead?"

"Funny, Bullet. You try hog-tying one of these fucking critters and see if you can keep your ugly face pretty."

"Hell with that, I got hit with one of their slug shots and it almost busted my insides out on that last planet. Shooting the bastards suits me fine." Bullet held his marine issue X600 tight. It was locked and loaded, and set for max rounds per sec. The marines called it
meat grinder
mode.

"Wonder why so many decided to fight here?" asked Sal exhaling a plume of bluish smoke.

Platoon Sergeant Martinez overhead the conversation. "Didn't you guys listen to your com? Second platoon was attacking them from behind. The Major called for the rail gun after thinning them out with plasma bursts and we were the blocking force." He looked disgustedly at Bullet for not remembering. "You can rest easy, though. We did have orders to go down and explore the tunnels under this area, but they just got cancelled."

Bullet could see why. There wasn't much left of it but a big smoking hole in the ground. He was just as glad. Company B was underground now, so he'd heard from scuttlebutt. They were looking for any other humans. He doubted they'd find any if it was comparable to the section of city that A Company had been through. All the captives had been living above ground and had been simply left in place when their Worm and robot masters left to fight. It had been no problem at all to rescue them. Usually it was just a matter of fending off their embraces and funneling them on back to the medics.

Bullet gazed around one more time at the desolation. "Are we heading back to the shuttles?"

"Don't get excited just yet. They want us to capture a few Worms to take back for more questioning."

Sal shook his head, not wanting to wrestle another alien. His nose still hurt from similar work. He cursed under his breath.

Bullet scanned the surrounding area. All around him were nothing but dead Worms. "I think we killed all of them, Sergeant. I didn't hear we had to take any alive. Shit, I know Sal would've loved to wrestle another, but what we got here is a fucking morgue."

Sal raised his eyebrows at Bullet and wanted to say something but instead took another drag off his cigar.

Sergeant Martinez started to walk up the thoroughfare they were on. "We'll find some. Follow me; I have the rest of our platoon a couple of streets over waiting for orders. We can get a few more men and go into the tunnels we passed. Maybe that flame thrower can convince a few to come outside."

"Tunnels where we passed?"

"I swear, I'm going to turn your com on as high as the volume will go then paste it to your ear. That bit of intelligence came in a good hour ago. This city is honeycombed with tunnels beneath it, not just in this area." The sergeant stared at the synthetic material at his feet for a moment as if he were looking through it and to the hidden part of the city beneath.

Sal followed Sergeant Martinez and Bullet, wishing he didn't stand out so much. Sal had won the heavyweight state wrestling championships a few years back in New Jersey before joining the Space Marines. He almost didn't make it because of his weight, two hundred and sixty five pounds of mostly muscle. Being six four and solid like a rock, people would assume that no-one would fuck with you. Especially a marine. But as Sal knew, there was always some idiot trying to prove how tough he was to his friends-and Sal did have a few bar fights, and even a few close ones, but he usually knocked the shit out anyone in less than thirty seconds. But the Worms not only outweighed him by a hundred pounds, they were strong enough to make wrestling with one feel like bulldogging a mean-natured ox.

Chapter Sixteen: Robots Fight!

I wish a
robot
would get elected president. That way, when he came to town, we could all take a shot at him and not feel too bad.

Jack Handy quote- Saturday Night Live

"Captain Keane, I have Major Rambling on the sec-com, he wants to talk to you," Cindy said. She was still manning the marine air cover from the
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. The trouble on planet
Beta
seemed to be calming down, and without any real attack on the
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, it had been a slaughter down below. The strategy by Rambling was brilliant. He easily wiped out half the Worms with his squeeze maneuver during the last big battle. The
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plasma blasts and accurate rail gun fire did the rest. What concerned Rambling and Cindy was how quickly the Worms reacted defensively. Apparently half of them quickly went underground then came up somewhere else. There was nothing on the
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weapons arsenal suitable for deep bunker blasting. If the Worms used the same tactics at Xanadu, the marines would have to go into the tunnels after them.

"I don't like it sir," Rambling said, speaking from a tent on the outskirts of the city. "The Worms reacted much quicker than last time. The ones we fought in small teams were twice as clever as the last ones we fought and they seemed more organized. If they hadn't massed together, and the ship's fire support hadn't been so effective, we'd have had one hell of a fight on our hands. Having Cindy up there saved our asses from a lot more casualties."

"It was your plan Steel, and I think it was smart. Great job."

"I appreciate the compliment sir, but I'd rather celebrate later. The bastards that slipped though the choke point fought twice as hard as last ones we tangled with. We have some dead marines and had to use flamethrowers to burn them out of some ambush sites."

Keane thought about it for a moment. "Why do you think they fought better?"

"Not really sure, sir. Possibly a stealthed courier ship left the other occupied planet and ferried news of how we or maybe the Chinese fight. And they seemed to have some kind of battle communication going on and we couldn't jam it. Also, there were more of the smaller robots and they appeared to be organizing both the larger robots and the Worms. That's just an impression, mind you, but that's what it looked like. I've also got some good news and some bad news."

"Give me the bad news first and let's get it out of the way."

"A couple of the captives we rescued are saying the real control point for the city both here and in Xanadu sits directly beneath the air/space defenses, way down deep in just the place you wanted us to examine. It's supposedly a big computer of some sort. Even if it's not already destroyed it would take us weeks to dig down to it. They also said they thought some of their fellow captives were taken down there and never came back. That's not confirmed, though. It's more like hearsay evidence since the only one who knew about it was killed in the fighting."