“We’re between the hangars on the other side of the VTOL pad. One of those shits jumped us as soon as we got off the boat. We dropped him, but we already have a KIA. Suggest we hunker down for a minute and wait for the Eurocorps grunts to get here. If we attempt to link up in this shit, we’ll get stomped.”
“I have no issue with that assessment,” the captain says. According to TacLink, he’s south of the control center by the ammo bunkers. “We’re just a hundred meters from the control center, so I’ll take First Squad over there and secure the perimeter. You sit tight and link up with Second and Third Squads once the Euros get here.”
“Copy that,” I reply. Then I switch over to the squad channel.
“We’re waiting for the Euros,” I tell the squad. “Our guys are in the shelter. No point rushing to get killed.”
The platoon sergeant makes a sound that has distinctly dissatisfied undertones.
I check the TacLink screen and decrease the scale to check on the incoming drop-ship flight from the east. They are thirty kilometers out and descending toward the airfield in combat formation, five minutes out at their current speed. From the west, the direction of the North American coastline, there are now half a dozen different formations of drop ships and attack birds inbound, but as far away as they still are, they might as well be on the moon right now.
“Uh-oh,” the platoon sergeant says. Under our feet, the ground is trembling again in familiar pulse-like low-frequency tremors. The sounds are coming from the eastern end of the concrete canyon between the hangars where we’re sheltering.
“Contact east,” I send to the squad. “Get the silver bullet up, and stay away from the front of the hangars.”
“It’s like they knew to go for it in the storm,” one of the platoon’s squad leaders says. “Like they knew we weren’t going to have air support.”
“So maybe they did. They have spaceships and terraformers. Just ’cause we can’t talk to them doesn’t mean they’re dumb animals,” the platoon sergeant replies.
“They build cities,” I contribute. “They’re not just dumb animals.”
“Ants build cities. Doesn’t mean they can plan assaults.”
The computer does its best to estimate the location of the unseen Lanky stomping across the drop-ship landing pad on the other side of the hangar. The map updates with a lozenge-shaped area of contact—enough for us to know roughly where the bastard is, but not accurate enough to call down air support. One of the squads has formed a firing line across the alley between the hangars, weapons at the ready, but the Lanky doesn’t do us the favor of trying to squeeze into the tight space and make itself an easy target for our platoon’s concentrated firepower. Instead, the tremors grow more faint as it moves off into the storm.
I run up to the firing line formed by First Squad.
“Friendly passing through,” I announce. “Check those muzzles.”
“Watch yourself, sir,” the squad leader warns. “Those things can move fast.”
“Don’t I know it.”
I dash to the corner of the hangar, carbine at the ready. Behind me, there’s a whole platoon with weapons trained in my direction, and if the Lanky shows up unexpectedly at the mouth of our little alley, things will get sporty in a hurry.
Just as I reach the corner of the building, the wind slacks off noticeably. For a few moments, the snow squall in front of me lifts just enough for visibility to increase past the few dozen meters it has been since we got off the drop ship. Ahead and to my right, I can just barely see a huge silhouette in the snowstorm, its back turned to me, walking toward the main control building with long and unhurried steps.
“Burlington Actual, one’s coming your way!” I shout into the command circuit. “He’s approaching the north side of the building. One-Five, do you see him on TacLink?”
“I got him,” the pilot sends, satisfaction in his voice. “Guns hot.”
Above us, the drop ship’s cannons thunder. A bright streak of tracers slices through the swirling white mess and races out toward the Lanky. I make a right turn and run toward the Lanky on the drop-ship pad, to make sure I keep him in sight and feed the drop ship overhead visual targeting data. I have to dodge and weave through chunks of debris lying on the concrete, and when I glance to my right, I see that the heavy laminate-steel doors of the hangar are torn to shreds. The aircraft inside, half a dozen ground-attack birds and Hornet drop ships, are twisted and mangled wrecks, smashed into scrap and scattered all over the hangar floor.
The burst of fire from the drop ship slams into the back of the Lanky and sends it tumbling forward. It crashes into the snow-covered concrete with a loud wail, limbs flailing.
“On target!” I shout to the pilot. “Keep it up.”
Our drop-ship pilot does just that. Another burst hammers into the Lanky just as it tries to get back on its feet. When it crashes to the ground again, it stops moving. Our pilot rakes the Lanky with a third burst just to be on the safe side.
“Another one down,” I send on the company channel.
“The Euros are coming in from vector one-one-zero,” the captain announces. “Twenty klicks. You want to sit tight until they have boots on the ground, your call.”
I gauge the situation and think for a few seconds.
“Sarge, move the squads around the corner and into the hangar for cover,” I send to the platoon sergeant. “Stick to the back wall.”
The platoon sergeant sends back a wordless acknowledgment. On the TacLink map on my helmet display, the icons representing my platoon’s troopers start moving and re-forming as the squads follow my order and redeploy into the hangar behind me. The hardened shelter is a big dome of reinforced concrete, apparently too tough even for the Lankies to demolish, and any threats coming at the platoon will have to come through the front doors, a predictable vector.
The storm slacks off a little more. The drop-ship landing pad is a large square of a hundred by a hundred meters, and I can see the hangars on the far side through the diminishing squall. The doors of the shelters on the other side look like they received the same treatment as the one on the hangar where my platoon is now sheltering, but there is no Lanky in evidence. I can’t even feel one walking around nearby, sense no familiar ground tremors that mean one of the twenty-meter behemoths is on the move within a quarter kilometer. I conclude they’ve either left this part of the base, or they’ve learned to walk around on tiptoes. A few years ago, I would have laughed off the second possibility, but the spindly bastards have shown an unsettling ability to adapt to our tactics and environments.
“One-Niner, this is Actual,” the company commander sends. “We are on the sublevel by the shelter. Got fire teams on the building corners, so mind your backstop if you have to open up.”
“Copy, Actual. Drop-ship pad is clear. No hostiles evident on the pad or in the hangars. If there are any left, they’ve moved off,” I respond.
“One-Five, what’s the view like from above?” the captain asks our drop ship’s pilot.
“Actual, I see precisely zip. No activity. Gonna check out the northern end of the runway and the radar facility.”