“Keith, I have an update from the Graves’,” she said. “Things are going pear-shaped on the ridgeline, they need you to get down there right now.”
“Tell them I’m busy, got problems of my own,” he replied, firing another burst. He fist-pumped as he saw at least one of the heavy tungsten rounds strike one of the aliens, splashing it across the soil.
“I think they’re serious, Keith,” Jessie said. “Most of the others have acknowledged and are already on their way.”
“They’ve dealt with all their clusters already?”
“Nope, leaving them as they are,” Jessie replied. “That’s what makes me think this is serious.”
“Any word from Crazy Bill?”
“Oh, plenty of words from him…mostly to tell you what he’s going to do to you if you don’t get your arse into gear and join up with the others. Assuming you survive of course.”
Jenkins sighed. Crazy Bill was just that. Crazy. And he hated to have to listen to him. Everything ‘back then’ was bigger, tougher and harder than it was now, and he traded on his age to influence the others. Since when was being old a substitute for being right?
“Tell them I’m engaged right now, will head over as soon as possible,” he said. “I’ve got some suit trouble, don’t think I can disengage safely, so I’ll have to fight my way clear.”
“You have suit trouble? I’m not seeing anything on Shepherd’s feed.”
“No, the suits fine… though they don’t need to know that.”
He fired another burst, missing completely.
“Keith,” Jessie said with a sigh, “this looks serious. You might want to consider doing the right thing, just this once.”
“You’re right,” he replied. “I’ll consider it.”
Carl Peters hardly knew what hit him. He’d had three clusters of gates on his property, and had cleared them out with minimal bother. His exomech, Hamfisted, was a dependable suit with solid armour and reliable weapons, and the deebees hadn’t posed much of a threat. The smallest of the farmsteads, squeezed between the southern ridgeline and the Toolong River, his clusters were relatively close, so it didn’t take him much time to find and destroy the deebees coming out of his gates.
One minute the screens were clear, then suddenly there was a wall of deebees headed his way. Hamfisted’s sensors counted what they saw, and Peters stood in shock for valuable seconds as the numbers registered, but it was too late for him to have done anything with those seconds.
He brought Hamfisted’s chainguns down, firing bursts on his maximum rate of fire, carving swaths through the creatures as they closed. High-speed tungsten carved through alien bodies, but still they came.
So swift was the deebee assault that he didn’t have time to get a shot off from any of his other weapons… the wall crashed over him, knocking Hamfisted to the ground, stunning him for a moment. Something in the swarm was strong enough to drive an armour-piercing claw all the way through his armoured glass canopy and into his chest, and he died without even a scream.
Or a chance to say goodbye to his wife, who watched the whole thing through Hamfisted’s video feed.
‘Angry’ Andy Donaldson was the second to die. His exomech, Mariner, was an old combat droid his grandfather had bought and refitted fifty years ago, heavily built with military-grade weapons, it was the family pride and joy.
It was also expensive, and building it and keeping it running had almost bankrupted the family. The other farmsteaders had long forgotten where he’d picked up his nickname, but they all assumed he was still angry at his grandfather for lumbering him with a white elephant of exomechs.
The Donaldson farmstead was also south, much bigger than the adjacent Peters’ property, and he’d had two clusters to deal with. His primary weapon was a ridiculously expensive battle laser, firing 3” diameter beams that vaporised almost anything they struck. Designed to fight other heavily armoured units, it was a massive overkill against anything unarmoured, and Donaldson hated it.
The wave of deebees that swept over Peters now came for him, and he knew he’d never make it to anywhere safe. He planted himself on top of a low ridge, giving himself a good field of fire, readied his weapons and began firing.
His laser took time to recharge, and spat a beam of death every four seconds, with enough energy to punch right through the first deebee it struck and go on to the next. From his elevated position, a good shot could kill three or four of them before it dug into the ground. It was effective, but not against a swarm that size.
He wasn’t going to make it, and he knew it… time to call his wife.
“Sarah, you there?”
“Yes, Andy, I’m here,” Sarah replied.
“I need you to grab your things and get over the Graves’ place, get yourself into their bunker.”
“Okay,” she said, “swing by and pick me up.”
“Not this time, Sarah, not this time.”
He knew she could see his video feed, could see the wide wall of aliens bearing down on him rapidly, and knew that she knew how this was going to end.
“Andy?”
“Just go!”
“I can’t just leave you…”
“Yes you can! Don’t make me do this for nothing.” He lowered his secondary weapons now, a 4” cannon firing high-explosive rounds, and began targeting tight clumps of aliens with it. He could hardly miss.
Sarah was crying openly now.
“Sarah… say goodbye now, while we still can, then get out.”
“Andy… I love you.”
“And I love you too.” He had the luxury of the battle to keep his emotions in check, but it was all he could do to keep from crying himself.
“Goodbye, Sarah.”
He cut the video feed, knowing that she’d stay there as long as she could while he was alive. He knew he was going to die, but wanted her to have as much time as possible to get to the Graves’ bunker.
Both weapons were firing now, as fast as they could, and he cut the safety overrides on both to keep their rate up. He knew he was burning out his laser and would soon warp the cannon barrel, but didn’t expect it to be a problem for much longer.
At 100 meters, the laser stopped firing, overheated.
At 50 meters, the warped cannon barrel caused a misfeed and jammed.
At 20 meters, he managed to get his close range weapons into action, a pair of 10mm machine guns and a small flamethrower. The machine guns cut a handful down as they closed, but without the instant-kill of the bigger weapons, the ones he hit just provided mobile armour for the ones behind for a few seconds, which was all it took.
Something from his left struck Mariner and knocked him down, and then a swarm of deebees was over him, gouging his armour and looking to get at the human inside. His armour was solid, very solid in fact, but he knew it was a matter of time before something gave.
He had the machine guns on automatic now, but they weren’t protected by armour and lasted a few seconds before a deebee claw cut through the metal and put them out of action.
The flamethrower lasted longer, burning anything on his right side to a cinder. It was well protected, housed within Mariner’s left arm, but a deebee must have sliced deep enough to cut the fuel intake… the flame sputtered and then went out as flamer fuel gushed all around him.
Weaponless now, he could do nothing but thrash around with his armoured fists and feet. They took a toll as well, crushing alien bodies with each solid blow, but the press of creatures above him made it harder and harder to get a decent strike in.