Chapter 9: Hold the Line

They followed the colonel outside, squads of Marines and auxiliaries lining up beneath him as he climbed up onto an IFV to address them. He clasped his hands neatly behind his back, raising his voice above the sound of the engines, even though his earpiece was transmitting to every helmet. It was about presence as much as communication. There must have been a couple of hundred people present, not including the personnel that were still inside their vehicles. The artillery hadn’t let up, the roar of their guns sounding every couple of minutes.

“The last of the civilians have been safely evacuated,” he announced, his words met with a rumble of approval from the troops. Xipa couldn’t help but smile behind her visor as she watched a few of the Earth’nay bump elbows in celebration, flushes of relieved green and triumphant red spreading through the Valbara’nay ranks. “That was probably the most important thing that you will ever do, and you should be commended for reacting so quickly,” Marek added. The crowd went quiet again, sensing that there was more coming. “We’re down to the wire now, and the Bug army that we’ve been holding off is about to reach the port,” he continued with a gesture towards the nearby wall. “The Navy is going to do everything they can – pull every resource – to support you, but with so many ships participating in the assault on the Ant Hill, there’s nobody who can establish a new orbit to reach us in time. We’re getting some air support from the Wizna, but that’s it. You fight for yourselves now – for each other. You will be evacuated in two waves to ensure that there are enough personnel on the ground to hold the line and prevent the LZ from being overrun. The new orders will be sent momentarily. Every second counts, so let’s keep up the pace and make sure you’re all alive to receive those commendations you’ve earned.”

He dismissed his men with a wave of his hand, and they sprang into action. Squads jogged to and fro, heading to defensive positions, passing weapons and spare magazines between them. It was a kind of organized chaos. Two tall figures waded through the crowd, heading towards them, Ruza and Gustave easy to pick out among the smaller creatures. A flock of Valbara’nay scattered before the giant reptile as he plodded over to give the team a rumble of greeting.

“You shouldn’t still be here,” Fletcher complained, but he was obviously glad to see him. Xipa caught glimpses of white adhesive patches beneath the tears in Gustave’s bloodstained poncho, which was probably the only thing still holding him together. The Krell’nay merely rested his massive Bug rifle over his broad shoulder, giving Fletcher an amused huff.

“It is good to be back together again,” Ruza added with a rare smile. “Our chances of survival seem to be highest when we work as a pack.”

“I think having you back has probably tripled them,” Bluejay added.

“Looks like we’re gonna be dusting off in wave two,” Fletcher mused, examining the readout on his forearm. “Marek probably knew that we’d all complain if we got to ride first-class.”

“You do have an uncanny ability to coerce your superiors into giving you what you want by being unreasonable,” Xipa chuckled.

“What can I say?” he replied with a shrug. “You can afford to be a pain in the arse when you’re the best.”

“Come on, you prima donna,” Bluejay said as he gave Fletcher a nudge. “We have work to do.”

“Okay, I refuse to believe you know what that means,” the Earth’nay grumbled as he followed him towards the looming wall. “You fucking aliens are gaslighting me with this mimicry shit.”

It was reassuring to have the team back together again, to hear them arguing and bickering as though there was nothing unusual about their present situation. In spite of the impending violence, Xipa felt a flush of warmth that she hadn’t felt in a long time – not since the days before her original flock had been lost. The civilians were all safe, and with that load off her shoulders, she felt like she could face anything. She still had her own future to fight for, but theirs were secure, and there would be no torn flocks or orphaned children this day.

She heard the cry of a bird, glancing up to see a flock of the native animals drifting high above the port, their peace disturbed by the constant barrage of artillery. The ancient Valbara’nay had been animists, and they had believed that the spirits of the dead took new forms to watch over the living. Xipa didn’t share that belief, but the thought that her old flockmates might somehow have witnessed this second, successful evacuation was a comforting impossibility to entertain.

“That’s a lot of green for someone who’s about to go into battle,” Miqi mused, walking along beside her with her flock of four in tow.

“I’ve found my peace,” she replied. “Whatever happens now, we’ve already won.”

“I’d still like to survive this,” Miqi chuckled.

“Of course,” Xipa added, hopping over some stray rubble as they made their way through one of the breaches and out onto the grass. “I’m looking forward to helping you rebuild when this is all over. I just don’t want to jinx it, as the Earth’nay say. They have a superstition where they believe that premature celebration invites some terrible fate to snatch victory from their grasp.”

“Well, I suppose we can’t be too careful,” Miqi said as they came to a stop beside an IFV.

The vehicles had formed a tight cordon outside the wall, their deployable cover extended to create an almost unbroken barrier, squads of Marines taking position behind them. The tanks aimed their cannons over their heads, the battalion pointing their innumerable guns into the trees beyond. It seemed like an impenetrable defense, but Xipa knew better. She had seen the Bugs flood over far more entrenched fortifications than this. She glanced at the rooftops that rose above the autumn canopy in the distance, clouds of smoke still looming over them, like the plumes from volcanic eruptions. The two bombers were still loitering, occasionally swooping down to fire on targets of opportunity, already alarmingly close.

“If this was a flat field, they’d be fucked,” Fletcher muttered as he looked out at the hilly terrain. “We’re not even going to be able to fire on them directly until they’re within a few hundred meters of us.”

“All we have to do is hold out,” Bluejay added, checking the display on his wrist. “The first wave of dropships is already on their way back, ETA – ten minutes. Then it’s fifteen up, fifteen back down.”

“This is gonna be the longest hour of my life,” Fletcher grumbled.

Xipa turned to her own display, watching the live feed from the spotter drones. At least they would have very good visibility with the UAVs tagging the Bugs and displaying them on the shared network. This was how the Coalition was supposed to function when all of its elements were in play, and it was no small comfort. Right now, a flood of red blips were streaming into the patches of forest from the streets, spreading out from the bottlenecks of the roads like a liquid spilling from a flute. There were so many – more than she could estimate at a glance. Probably thousands.

The crack of an aircraft breaking the sound barrier distracted her, and she turned to glance at the sky above the port, seeing a formation of three small, burning trails streak through the sky. They weren’t dropships, they were Beewolfs, the fighters circling overhead to shed some of their velocity. More followed, five craft punching through the atmosphere like meteors. Her HUD tagged them as Penguins as they came into range of the network – ground attack craft deployed from the carrier.

“That’s gonna improve our odds,” Fletcher said, following her gaze. “I hope your friends don’t mind if we do a little landscaping.”

“It shouldn’t be any threat to the water treatment plant,” she replied, watching the vessels cut through the sky above their heads. “As long as the carrier itself doesn’t fire. I don’t think the city could withstand that.”

“Yeah, orbital railguns don’t make for precise work,” he chuckled.

The two black arrowheads that were the Valbara’nay bombers veered off to clear the airspace, no doubt coordinating with the UNN vessels, the formation of three Beewolfs lining up for a run. Xipa checked her display again, seeing that the nearest Bug signatures were only half a kilometer away now.

“Brace for danger close,” Fletcher warned, putting his shoulder to the armored hull of the nearest IFV.

The three planes swooped in, their angular wings painting contrails behind them as they dropped low, so close that Xipa could see their bomb racks swing out from recesses in their bellies. Half a dozen tapering canisters were released, what looked like tiny rockets, long stabilizing fins extending into position once they were clear of the aircraft. The sensor packages and lenses mounted on their noses glinted in the sunlight as they honed in on their targets, guided by the constant stream of data from the spotter drones. While they looked small from a distance, each of those bombs was probably three meters long.

They impacted somewhere in the distance, plunging into the trees, a brief moment of silence preceding the rumble of explosions. The shockwaves rocked the canopy, hitting Xipa like a hammer as torrents of dust and debris were tossed high into the air, the subsequent clouds lingering there as they slowly drifted on the breeze. The fighters had dropped their bombs in a line that cut right across the advancing Bugs, Xipa watching the aliens scatter for cover on her feed. The craft lifted their noses, soaring into the sky, banking as they prepared a follow-up attack.

It wouldn’t deter the Bugs – it could only slow them down. These were textbook Betelgeusian tactics, using superior numbers and a complete disregard for self-preservation to overwhelm the enemy, drowning them in bodies.

The formation of Penguins came next, lagging behind their far more agile counterparts, hovering only a few hundred meters above the treetops as they began to fire their nose cannons. They slid along on their thrusters like they were gliding on invisible ice as they spread out, their round camera modules scanning the ground, picking out new targets. The missile racks on their backs opened up, spewing more projectiles down into the forests and hills, blanketing the area in flame.

Even with so much unchallenged airpower, Xipa doubted whether it would be enough.

“I want those Kodiaks loading canister shells,” Fletcher barked, waving to a commander who was sitting halfway out of the hatch of his vehicle. “Saturate the area with mortar fire, and coordinate with the MGLs. Don’t spare the ammunition. We’re probably gonna be leaving half of this equipment here anyway – might as well put it to good use.”

Xipa watched curiously as he began to direct some of the nearby Marines, separating those who had grenade launchers on their rifles into groups. She had almost forgotten that as a lieutenant commander, Fletcher outranked most of these men.

“You can really do this,” Miqi mused, watching a pack of towering Borealan Shock Troopers jog past her on their way to the line. “You’re going to take back Kerguela, aren’t you?”

“That’s why I came back,” Xipa replied with a flash of red. “Come, position your flock by the Commandos towards the left of that IFV – the vehicle with the shields. We’re going to need every gun that we can get.”

Miqi gave her an affirmative feather flutter, then led her people over to join their distant cousins, the Commandos welcoming them as they made room. Xipa joined Fletcher and the rest of their team beside one of the Pumas, taking refuge behind the rightmost barrier, watching the aircraft harass the Bugs from above the treetops. The artillery guns were firing closer now, hitting something that was just out of view beyond the hills, so close that she could feel the impacts shake the ground. Xipa resisted the urge to check her display again, knowing that those red blips would be appearing on her HUD before long. At least the Bugs couldn’t sneak up on them this time.

She noticed a group of three Krell’nay moving up to plug a hole on the far right of the perimeter, their long tails dragging in the grass behind them as they lumbered along. The ponchos that they wore were similar to Gustave’s, albeit not quite as up-armored, lacking the shoulder pads and the raised collar. They planted massive riot shields in the dirt that looked as thick as the IFV’s deployable walls, tall and wide enough to completely cover the eight-foot reptiles, forming a phalanx together. In their other hands, they held XMRs configured as light machineguns, the weapons equipped with quick-swap barrels and weighty gun shields that provided the wielder with even more protection.

It hadn’t occurred to Xipa just how much larger and older Gustave was when compared to his kin until she saw them side by side. He was two or three feet longer than they were, a clear foot taller, and he must weigh considerably more than they did. His scales were far darker, too, bordering on onyx when compared to their green.

“Five minutes until that first wave of dropships makes landfall,” Bluejay announced.

“We’re gonna have to cover the first group while they move into the port,” Fletcher added, resting the plastic housing of his laser rifle on the lip of the armored wall. “We hold the line, no matter what.”

“Then it’s another thirty minutes minimum until we can pull out,” Bluejay added, a tinge of apprehension creeping into his voice.

“We can do it,” Fletcher insisted. “The vehicle crews will be moving last. We’ll still have most of our firepower after the first group evacuates.”

“More for me,” Gustave rumbled, briefly removing the magazine from his giant rifle to check the ammo count before slotting it back in with a loud thud.

“We should pull one of the IFVs aside and prepare it to carry the injured into the port,” Ruza suggested, glancing down the battle line. “There will be casualties, and any time we can spare transporting them will be invaluable.”

“Good idea,” Fletcher replied with a nod. “We don’t want to be carrying stretchers on our way back. I’ll see that it gets done.”

“Here they come!” Xipa announced, watching the signals start to appear on her visor. In moments, there was a field of red outlines heading through the trees towards them, uncounted squads of insects moving between cover in close coordination. The aircraft and artillery couldn’t fire on them – not when they were so close to the line. All they could do was try to stop more Bugs from reaching the defenders.

Xipa watched the Drones fan out, moving more intelligently than their pheromone-crazed counterparts, separating into small units of six as they made their approach. When they crested the nearest hill, the Coalition forces opened up, Xipa’s helmet practically deafening her in a bid to protect her hearing as the battle began in earnest.

Some two hundred Marines and Commandos opened up with their XMRs, the glowing trails left by the partially molten projectiles lancing out into the forest, the first few Drones that had revealed themselves disintegrating along with the tree trunks that surrounded them. Borealan auxiliaries fired their long rifles over the heads of their smaller comrades, setting up behind them like some archaic battle formation, the magnetic coils that lined their long barrels glinting in the sunlight. The Krell’nay had more in common with the vehicles than they did their fellow soldiers, firing around their heavy shields, holding weapons that a smaller creature would have needed a bipod to control single-handed.

A nearby tank rocked back on its treads as its main gun accelerated a shell downrange, the projectile splitting open, what must be some kind of proximity fuse transforming it into a cloud of shrapnel that tore through an advancing squad of Bugs. It lifted them off their feet, tiny pellets shattering carapace and spraying viscera, pocking the hill behind them with craters. Most of the tanks had gun pods and rocket launchers mounted on the cheeks of their turrets, the weapons joining the chorus, mortars and missiles lighting up the forest with bright flashes. The IFV to Xipa’s left opened up with its blister, a thirty-millimeter railgun strafing the landscape.

In moments, hundreds of Bug signatures had vanished from the feed. The brief lull in gunfire allowed Xipa to pick up the sound of cracking wood as several trees began to fall to the ground, their trunks shredded by the hypervelocity projectiles, their branches shaking as they crashed to the forest floor. There were dead Drones – and pieces of them – scattered through the undergrowth, large craters created by the explosives exposing dark soil, small fires taking root in patches of dry leaves.

The respite was brief, the attacking Drones quickly adapting to the situation, the next wave pouring suppressive fire into the line from the hilltop. They dropped to prone positions to make themselves harder to hit, hiding behind the crest of the hill, using the trees for cover. Xipa lurched back reflexively as a bolt of glowing plasma hammered the other side of the deployable wall, its heat washing over her, the gas splashing like a liquid.

Whatever cover the aliens could find was tenuous at best, and she watched as a round from one of the tanks excavated a three-meter hole in the hill that she could see straight through, like someone had taken a bite out of it. Trees shattered under railgun fire, mortar shells tossing up clods of dirt as they exploded out of view, grenades exploding in fiery trails between the trunks. The Drones were probing their defenses, trying to sneak squads closer under covering fire, but the shared information network meant that it was almost impossible for them to go unseen.

“I’m not seeing any tanks or Warriors!” Fletcher said, ducking behind the barrier to let his laser rifle cool. “Unless they can get something heavy past our Penguins, I don’t see how they’re gonna make a dent in our defenses.”

“Every time we fight them, they seem to pull something new out of their ass,” Bluejay warned as his XMR rocked into his shoulder. He brought up a second hand to the dual foregrips beneath his barrel, fighting against the recoil. “Don’t underestimate them.”

“Incoming!” one of the Marines warned, Xipa snapping her head up to see a cloud of objects approaching them. The Kestrels in the port to their rear opened up, sending bright streams of tracer fire streaking through the swarm, but there were too many to intercept. They were revealed to be gas canisters as they neared, the shells bouncing off the nearby vehicles as they rained down on the line, embedding themselves in the dirt. They cracked open, disgorging their toxic payload, clouds of yellow smoke clogging the air. Gustave pulled his hood over his head, then continued firing his massive rifle, each shot making the fat on his thighs and tail shake.

“Miqi!” Xipa said, tuning into her radio channel. There was a momentary delay before she replied, probably fishing the little portable device from one of her pouches. “You need to pull back to the port if your masks aren’t airtight!”

“We’re fine,” she replied, the sound of gunfire making her open mic crackle and pop. “We’ve dealt with gas attacks before.”

Another signal interrupted her, coming through on the priority channel, the colonel’s gravelly voice filling her helmet.

“Group A, pull back to the port. Evac is on approach. Group B, hold that line.”

Xipa turned to see a cluster of ships burning through the atmosphere above the port, maybe twenty assorted landers and dropships. The blocky landers headed straight for the ground, the heat tiles that lined their bellies growing red-hot, while the dropships began to glide on their stubby wings to lose some of the velocity they had built up during reentry. A handful of Valbara’nay ships followed them in formation, their Navy camouflage and color panels contrasting with the spartan grey of the Earth’nay craft. Some of the Bug fire was redirected to the sky, perhaps in a half-hearted attempt to deter them from landing, streams of glowing projectiles sailing over the heads of the defenders. The plasma bolts didn’t have the range to reach them, fizzling out long before they got anywhere near the ships.

What looked like more than half of the Marines and Commandos began to retreat, abandoning their places in the line, the remaining defenders covering them as they rushed back towards the looming spaceport wall. Xipa had to remind herself that there were still the vehicle crews to consider, and that they hadn’t lost as much manpower as it might seem. A couple of injured Marines who had caught stray plasma bolts were loaded into an IFV by their comrades, more of the troops advancing alongside the vehicle for cover as it drove back through one of the jagged breaches, some of them pausing to take potshots at the forest beyond as they went.

“Bug mortars are targeting the runways!” she heard Marek warn over the radio. “I need all aircraft hitting those launch sites!”

“They aren’t stupid,” Bluejay said, ducking down to reload his rifle. “They know exactly what we’re trying to do.”

“Watch the left side!” Fletcher yelled, swinging the barrel of his laser rifle in that direction. “A Warrior made it through!”

The hulking biosuit came lumbering out of the trees, its clawed feet digging into the soil as it began to run down the near side of the hill, covering ground remarkably quickly for something of its size. A squad of Drones struggled to keep pace with it, running behind it for cover. Xipa could see pieces of its shell being stripped away by gunfire as it went, XMR slugs tearing holes in its thick plating, but they couldn’t penetrate deep enough to stop it. One of the Kodiaks swiveled its turret to face the thing, but too slow, the living vehicle slamming into the prow of the tank. The impact was enough to shake the vehicle, the Warrior beginning to tear at the hull, using its heavy claws to pry at the ceramic plating. It got a grip on one of the tracks, ripping it loose, sending broken treads flying through the air.

The Drones behind it tried to leap up onto the hull, clambering onto the turret, one of them firing down at the commander’s cupola with a plasma rifle as though it expected to be able to melt its way inside. They were quickly cut down by the nearby Marines, railgun slugs sparking off the vehicle’s thick armor, their listless bodies toppling to the forest floor.

With the Warrior now below the firing arc of the cannon, the driver made a quick decision, the roar of an engine rising above the gunfire. The seventy-ton vehicle lurched forward, more of the links in its broken track coming loose, dragging the Warrior beneath its bulk. Xipa could hear the sickening sound of its carapace cracking under the tank’s weight, accompanied by the wet squish of displaced flesh and organs, the tank rolling over the struggling insect. It stranded itself, the Warrior’s bulk lifting its tracks off the grass, but it was already too damaged to make it back to the port. It continued to fire from that position, turning its turret back on the forest.

They cut down another wave of Drones, Xipa dropping an empty mag to join the growing pile at the foot of the wall. As she reloaded, she turned to see that some of the dropships were starting to dust off, rising into the air under a hail of ineffective plasma fire from rifles and pistols.

The battle was becoming a blur now, Xipa losing her perception of time. Her shoulder was growing sore from her XMR’s recoil, the coils that lined its barrel glowing so hot that she had to pace herself to avoid slagging them. The Drones were relentless in their attempts to breach the perimeter, throwing themselves against the defenses, their eerily advanced tactics contrasting with their complete disregard for their own safety. They continued to hammer the port with gas shells and mortars, the occasional aircraft swooping low over the forest to disgorge a payload of bombs, the armored bellies of the Penguin gunships now pocked and scored by plasma fire.

“Those gunships are going to run out of ammo at this rate,” Fletcher warned, glancing up at one of the craft as it drifted above them on its flickering thrusters. It let loose with its nose cannon, the weapon rotating on a gimbal as its camera tracked a target beneath the canopy, spewing a bright stream of shells. “They won’t have time to return to the carrier and resupply before we leave. When they’re dry, they’re dry. If those fuckers are smart enough to hold any heavy units in reserve...”

“You need to get on the horn to the battalion commander,” Bluejay warned, raising his voice over the report of his rifle as he sprayed another salvo into the trees. “I don’t think we have enough people left to hold a perimeter this large – we have to pull the vehicles back into a tighter formation closer to the wall.”

“He’s right,” Xipa added, watching the air above her gun barrel shimmer like a mirage. “We have to force them into a smaller bottleneck, or they’ll overwhelm us.”

She hit the magazine release, then reached for a fresh one, fumbling with her chest rig for a moment before realizing that she was completely dry. Ruza noticed her dilemma, handing her one of his own magazines. It had twice the capacity of her preferred variety, jutting from the magazine well, but it wasn’t like she was going to be firing prone in this situation. She gave the Borealan a grateful nod, then slammed it in, setting her sights on another Drone that was racing its way down the hill. Their bodies were piled up at the foot of the incline just like the empty magazines now, an open burial pit that their comrades simply leapt over like they were jumping a creek. The forest was becoming unrecognizable, the red grass almost completely replaced with dark soil from the innumerable craters that the Coalition’s weapons had excavated, every tree in sight completely or partially felled.

Fletcher put through the call, and the vehicles slowly began to roll backwards, creeping along the grass so that the troops using them as cover could keep pace. The sound of gunfire was so constant and uninterrupted that Xipa had grown accustomed to it now, like the hum of a generator or the dull drone of an engine, her mind tuning it out.

They drew within fifty meters of the wall, closing ranks, the semi-circle of armored vehicles packed more closely together. It was claustrophobic, but it allowed the defenders to maximize their firepower, the Coalition troops taking up position behind the deployable cover of the IFVs again.

The Bugs seemed reinvigorated by the move, perhaps interpreting it as a sign of weakness, mounting another mad charge out of the ruined forest. A wave of red and orange carapace washed over the landscape and down the hill, but they were even more exposed on the open ground between the port and the trees, their numbers counting for nothing when faced with such massed firepower. That advantage would only last as long as their ammunition did, however.

One of the Penguins suddenly veered away, starting to climb towards the sky, the main engines situated beneath its tail burning brightly.

“We are bingo on ammo,” she heard the pilot announce over the radio, his voice paradoxically calm when contrasted with the chaos on the ground. “That’s all the support we can give you right now.”

A couple of minutes later, the two remaining Penguins followed suit, rising away from the treetops on plumes of blue flame. The Beewolfs and the bombers were out of ordinance, but they were still swooping down on the Bugs to cut swathes through the forest with their nose guns. Their reserves wouldn’t last for much longer either.

“Fifteen more minutes!” Bluejay announced, ducking under a hail of plasma fire from the top of the hill. “We’re halfway there! The dropships should be unloading their passengers now!”

“I’m outta ammo, Lieutenant!” a nearby Marine yelled as he took cover behind the hull of the nearest IFV.

“Last one I got!” Fletcher replied, tossing him a magazine. “Make it count!”

Off to the right, Xipa saw a squad of Bugs make it across the open ground, emerging from a cloud of noxious chemicals that they had used to help cover their advance. They made for the three Krell’nay, perhaps assuming that they presented a weak point in the defenses, hammering their riot shields with plasma fire. The Krell’nay stood firm, putting their scaly shoulders to their shields, the kinetic energy imparted by the bolts shaking them. The Drones followed up with a salvo of grenades, tossing half a dozen of them in coordination. The nearby Marines were forced to duck behind the deployable cover of their IFV, the explosives erupting in blinding, green flashes of light. When the dust cleared, the Krell’nay were still standing, but the distraction gave the Bugs enough time to close the rest of the distance.

One of them went for the low wall, leaping directly into the group of Marines who were taking cover there, a pair of chitin blades drawn. It landed on top of one of the men, driving him to the ground, sinking one of the sharp implements into one of the gaps that gave the plates on his lower torso their range of motion. Crimson blood welled, the man’s yell of pain inaudible inside his helmet, his distress conveyed by his thrashing limbs.