Inherited War 3: Retaliation (26 page)

Thalo watched as huge holes were blown in the attackers lines. He watched as Roche units surged forward at the sight of the shield falling. He saw them cut to shreds by the mines and traps between them. The devastation was immense and immediate. Tens of thousands Roche died for every inch of ground they tried to take. It only got worse as the Nixa soldiers shifted their fire from the destroyed heavy weapons to the charging hordes to their front.

To the north, the entire area between the city and the attackers suddenly dropped away. It swallowed hundreds of thousands of Roche as they fell into the now open chasm; it ate them whole and had room for more.

The Nixa poured fire onto the killing fields to their front and actually stalled the advance as commanders tried to rally and organize their troopers. They fell back to the north and east out of small arms range. The west pressed on and Thalo was forced to send reinforcements to General Torrent’s position. Indirect fire was shifted to the west and Roche were held in check, for the moment.

“Sir,” a soldier said to Thalo, “reports coming in from all over.” He brought them up on the screens. Thalo skimmed through it quickly and formulated his orders. He commanded the north and east, Torrent had the south and west. Torrent was holding both and had also managed to push the enemy back.

“When was the last time a battle like this was fought, Sir?” his aide asked.

”Like this? I can almost guarantee that there were no guns involved in the last siege battle fought in the galaxy. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve read the histories, sir. The great space battles, and armies grinding it out on the battle field. Never one about hunkering down behind a wall while the enemy kills himself trying to get you in the open.”

“Yeah, it’s new for all of us. Here they come again.” Their conversation was over as the Roche rushed forward again. Most of them had picked up scrap pieces of destroyed equipment and were holding it in front of them as they ran for all they were worth at the city. Thirty minutes, that’s all the time that had passed since the shield came down. Thirty minutes to kill a few hundred thousand Roche.

The Roche ran into a wall of fire. It pounded their makeshift shields and turned unprotected flesh to ash. The temperature to Thalo’s front was warming by degrees as hot plasma rained down on the enemies below. Thalo heard the frantic call over the landline.

“Tell Thalo it’s ready. The shield is ready to redeploy!’ The voice shouted. Thalo grabbed his weapon and moved to the window.

“We hold them out as long as possible, grab your weapons.” Thalo smashed out the window and added his fire to those around him. Automatic rifles fired a continuous stream at their enemies while rifles took targets one at a time. The snipers on the roofs aimed for officers and Esii. Thalo fired blindly into the mass. It didn’t matter who he killed, only that he killed.

They held the Roche outside of the city for nearly two hours before the lead elements finally made it to the bottom of the first buildings. They were held there by barricades and couldn’t move around the buildings right away.

“Sound the retreat.” Thalo shouted at his com operator. The order went out and the buildings were being abandoned in an orderly fashion. The wounded were taken down into the underground bunkers to be treated. The healthy fell back while the reserves watched to the front to ensure no Roche got through while their comrades retreated. Thalo stayed in his command post until he received word that the last Nixa had made it safely to the new perimeter. He hit a button on his desk and a countdown began. He ran down the stairs and out onto the street, underneath the overhead cover installed there to protect the defenders as they moved across the open area.

A Nixa soldier stood on the other side of the street holding a door open and frantically waiving Thalo forward. Thalo ran as fast as he could and passed through the threshold of the building seconds before the shield sprang back to life. He was panting heavily as he stumbled to a halt in the entry hall of the grand building. He looked around and saw weary Nixa fallen where they had stopped running. They were tired and sickened at what they had been forced to do. That wasn’t battle. That was a slaughter. Killing that much of anything, even a hated enemy threatening your home, was almost too much to take. Thalo walked over to the nearest unoccupied chair and collapsed into it. Wearily he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to claim him. Thalo had only guessed at how this was going to play out, numbers were numbers, but the real thing had been horrible. He had planned for this though. There was a Nixa officer upstairs who was commanding now. Thalo would rest and be ready for the next shield to fall and he would resume command after the next retreat. He passed into blissful oblivion and even the ground shaking tremor that announced the destruction of the outer buildings failed to wake him up.

Snow was furious as she stomped down the stairs. How dare Thalo yell at her like that, not to mention manhandling her like a silly girl. Granted, he made a good point, but couldn’t he see that she wanted some revenge of her own? She wanted to make the invaders pay for putting Jeth through the ringer. She continued down to the bottom floor, fuming the whole time. She had to exit this building and walk over two more to get to a building with access to the underground. She balled her hands into tight fists and smacked her thigh.

“Hey,” she heard a shout. “Come here. Yeah, I’m talking to you.” She turned and looked around the street to find the speaker. A Nixa was in the doorway of a building just passed the one she was headed to. She pointed at her own chest.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you, come here.” She’d had her helmet up this whole time knowing if anyone recognized her, they would send her back underground, not that it had helped in that regard much. She trotted over to the yelling Nixa.

“You look lost. Are you the replacement they were supposed to send hours ago?” the Nixa asked. Snow only hesitated a moment.

“Depends, did you need a front liner or reserve?’ she asked.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. I need a loader for a gun. I don’t need useless button pushers.” He began to turn away.

“That’s me,” Snow nearly shouted at his back. “I’m the one they sent over for your gun team.” What the hell was she saying? She shouldn’t be doing this and she knew it. The Nixa looked her over for a second.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, follow me. Turn on your identifier, I can’t see your tag.” He was talking about the signal their suits could put out that showed up as a name above your head in a friendly HUD. She wasn’t about to turn that on, but she turned on the rest. Her locater, vital signs, and dashes where her name should be.

“Sorry my suits buggy, it won’t broadcast my name for some reason. Names Blackout.” She was safe using that name. She had used it on her journey to locate her sister years before so she knew she would answer to it without too much difficulty.

“Heh, must be an interesting story behind that one. I’m Crane, Master Gunner Crane to be exact,” her new friend said.

“Yeah, I was named for something that happened the day I was conceived, not born,” Snow retorted.

“Oooh, that’s a rough story to have to tell.”

“I got over it real fast,” she said and followed him all the way up to the top floor. They entered a room that faced out onto the open plain. There was only one window but it went from wall to wall and offered a panoramic view of the now occupied plain. The lower half of the window had been reinforced with ballistic and heat absorbing portable shielding. Set up in the middle of the room was a massive weapon. It looked like it belonged on a starship not on the ground. It had a flat wide barrel that extended from a receiver that had a large square box attached to its side. There was a small screen on its rear and a joystick underneath. The whole thing was mounted on a swivel stand that allowed for maximum coverage in front of their position.

There was one other Nixa in the room and he was pressed up against the window looking out onto the plain in front of them.  He heard them enter.

“Look at them all. Must be millions out there, Crane.” He didn’t turn around. “Did we get a replacement?”

“Yeah, Gunners Mate Green meet Blackout.” Green extended his hand and shook Snow’s.

“Nice to meet you. Hell of a time to be called up, isn’t it?” Green said.

“Better than being shut in downstairs,” Snow responded. “What’s my job?”

“You don’t know?” The surprise was evident in his voice.

“No,” Crane interrupted. “She isn’t a gun operator but she was all I could find. Jobs not too hard; she can learn it in a few minutes.”

“Yeah, your right at that. Come over here.” He led Snow to the gun and stopped near the big box that was attached to the receiver. He patted it with his hand. “This is your job. This is the magazine for the gun. Holds about two thousand rounds if the hopper is working right.” He pointed to the hopper, a large machine that reminded Snow of a food dispenser. He then pointed to a series of markings on the gun itself. “That’s the gun’s uplink number. Enter it into your com system.” He waited for Snow to report a successful connection.

“Ok, you can minimize everything except the percentage at the bottom. It should be reading 100% right now.” Snow said that it was.

“That’s the weight monitor on the magazine. When that hits zero you detach the empty mag and load in a fresh one.” He showed her how it was done, and let her do it a few times to get some practice. “Like I said, this holds two thousand rounds if the hopper packs them right, but that doesn’t matter since the gun goes by weight and not rounds. Once you have an empty, you take it back to the hopper and reload.” He showed her how to refill the empty. “That’s it, that’s your job. Crane fires the big bastard, and I keep it firing. These magrifles can put out a thousand rounds a minute on full auto. It fires a super dense pellet at near the speed of light. Magnets accelerate the round down the barrel, and the round is held in a magnetic field so it never actually touches the barrel so there is no friction heat but after a few thousand rounds it will start to hiccup and that’s where I come in. I make sure it doesn’t stop for long and I also break it down when it’s time to move.” Green finished his instructions.

“What is our mission?” Snow asked her crew.

“We are waiting for our target to be designated. We should get a few of their heavy pieces to shred then we can go open targets. Take out what we can until we run out of rounds, then break down and retreat to our next position and reestablish an over watch until new targets come in. Easy peasy,” Crane told her. “That’s why I can grab a random soldier, not much to this job.” They were interrupted by pings sounding in their coms.

“That’s it. We have our targets.” Crane hunkered down behind his gun and rotated the magrifle around until he settled in on a target that was marked on his screen. There were five other targets near the first that were also marked.

“Those six are ours. After we take them out, we are clear for independent fire, unless we get orders otherwise.” They spent the next few hours watching the horde of Roche out on the plain fire round after round into the shield. The shield rippled and waved as the different rounds impacted it. It was almost hypnotic and Snow found herself drifting off to sleep when three sharp alarm calls echoed out across the empty city.

“That’s it then,” Green said quietly.

“What? What is it?” Snow asked nervously.

“The shield’s fallen below twenty-five percent strength. It’s almost down.” Snow looked to the shield and saw something new. Electricity was arching off it and the waves made by the impacting rounds were bigger and spreading out further on the surface of the shield.  She held her breath as the shield flickered and disappeared. The big gun spoke, along with thousands of others. It was eerily quiet, this gun that was raining death down upon the enemy. No boom of chemical fired rounds, no snap hiss of plasma, just the quiet hum of electricity as the rounds accelerated down and out of the barrel. The window was blown out immediately and glass flew out onto the plain. Then their gun truly spoke when the supersonic blasts finally hit. Snow was nearly floored as the rounds broke the sound barrier, a thousand a minute. Her suit automatically dialed the noise filters up but she could feel the splash in the air as each round exited the gun. Green was hooting and pumping his fist up and down as he watched his pride and joy smash death into the hapless Roche tank. A tank that had, moments before, been reigning fire onto their shield.

“Damn it, get going,” the voice yelled in her helmet. It was Crane and he was out of ammunition. He was yelling at Snow. She shook herself out of her daze, tore the empty box off the gun, and slammed a new one in place. Seconds later, the gun was pouring fire onto the field. Snow stumbled back and crashed into the hopper. She fumbled for a moment with the mechanism before getting it seated right. She started to fill the empty and saw the gun was low again. She abandoned the hopper and returned to reload just as the gun ran out. This time she needed no prodding to do her job. Within seconds, she had the empty off and a new one on. The next twenty or so minutes were a blur in Snow’s mind. She found herself either changing magazines or filling empties. Green had been helping her since the gun was working flawlessly and didn’t need his touch.