The FEC 4th Army took the brunt of the first day’s attack. It was composed of the broken 9th, the newly arrived 10th and the yet intact 12th, 20th and 22nd FEC Divisions. The remnants of two other divisions, shattered beyond repair, had been taken to the docks and reformed into a garrison brigade. The 23rd and 204thJump-Jet Battalions provided mobile elites to plug any gaps. Lastly, prowling the back lines, shooting stragglers, regrouping others, in effect stiffening the FEC volunteers by their presence, was the Highborn 91st Drop Assault Battalion. The giants in their heavy combat armor were the terror of both sides. The better-off FEC 7th Army held the city to the south, while the 5th Panzer Corps was to the 4th Army’s north. An offshore battery of artillery-bearing submarines provided the armies with gun tubes, while an orbital laser station was dedicated for Highborn Tokyo use.
Roughly, one hundred thousand FEC soldiers with a smattering of Highborn waged street war against three hundred thousand Japanese. A few of the Japanese formations were the dreaded Samurai Divisions, well-trained soldiers that man for man were more than a match versus the best-trained FEC formations. However, the bulk of the three hundred thousand Japanese were hastily trained civilians, stiffened by police units. They’d had even less training-time than the FEC volunteers. Nor had they the benefit of Highborn instructors. To make matters worse, they were more poorly armed and armored than their FEC counterparts.
The Japanese frontal attack lacked grace. Field Marshal Kitamura knew his soldiers: they were brave but barely trained. Boldly led in attacks their morale might last a week, maybe a few days beyond that. Then newer levies still training in the depths could be brought up and thrown into the cauldron. Of course, complex tactics were beyond them. So he hurled them straight at the enemy, or as he told his commanders, “We’ll shove a spear into their guts.” To add to the spear’s effectiveness, he tied on a bomb as it were onto the tip, in this instance, the Kamikaze squads.
To Marten and his men, the sequence seldom varied.
First enemy artillery pounded their positions. Following almost on its heels screamed the demonic suicide squads. They crawled, ran, limped, dropped down with jetpacks, popped out of sewers, anyway they could they tried to close and detonate. Then waves of hypnotically bolstered soldiers or stim-induced berserks rushed in. They were armed with carbines, sometimes with heavier weapons, always hurling grenades and fighting hand-to-hand with vibroknives and swords if they could. A few times the Samurai Divisions clanked forward in their dreaded bio-tanks.
Almost as bad as the constant attacking, Highborn Intelligence learned that an entirely new batch of recruits, another two hundred thousand, trained deep in the city for the next wave. From intercepted communications, it was clear that Tokyo was to remain a sea of bloodshed, that the city would be held at any cost. Intercepted holo-news reports showed that Social Unity lied to the people of Tokyo trapped below. The holo-shows told of incredible victories, that soon the Supremacists would be hurled back into space.
Above ground, the realities of the situation dictated the strategy for each side and that governed tactics. The underwater nuclear attacks had badly hurt the Highborn ability to re-supply the city. Ninety percent of whatever got through to Japan went north and south. Seldom did anything trickle into Tokyo.
A week after the initial attack, Marten lay hidden behind the twisted heap of a battle tank. The metallic corpse had the dimensions of a dinosaur. He rested his new sniper laser on the twisted tank body, tracking through his scope for signs of enemy. Beside him, Stick gasped, having just run from Company HQ with orders from Captain Sigmir. It was near noon, but that was difficult to tell under these conditions. Like ominous thunderclouds, a vast sea of smoke blotted out the sunlight. From various parts of the city flames and more funneling smoke rose. Here and there behind both lines, artillery tubes spat fire. Marten ignored it all as he tracked across a field of rubble and boulder-strewn chunks of plasteel and concrete. Beyond the rubble stood ruined buildings, their walls immodestly torn away to reveal the various floors.
“Do you believe them?” Stick whispered.
Marten pressed the firing stud. A flash of laser-light stabbed a man crawling toward them—he was forty meters away. The bomb strapped to his chest exploded. Stones flew up and rattled against the dead tank. Marten rolled and slithered through the dust and dirt to a broken sign for Tempko Sake. Stick tagged along. Two Japanese on the third floor of the nearest building stepped forward. Each aimed his electromag grenade launcher at the useless bio-tank—where Marten had just been. Marten lasered them. Then he moved again.
“Well?” asked Stick a little later.
“Well what?” whispered Marten from a foxhole he’d dug earlier. He tracked across the rubble, watching carefully.
“Do you believe the reports?”
“Which ones?”
“That High Command is finally hunting down the last of the nuke-launching subs?”
“Sure, I believe that.”
“Do you think they know that?”
“Who?”
“The enemy generals!” said Stick.
Marten’s eyes widened as the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He jumped out of the foxhole, pulling Stick with him. Hunched over, they sprinted to a trench where several men of their platoon manned a tripod flamer. “Down,” hissed Marten.
Everyone flattened himself against the bottom of the trench.
Shells screamed out of the dark sky, hammering against the old tank, the sign and on top of the foxhole. More rubble, stones, dust and miscellaneous items including flesh was flung into the acrid air. The barrage lasted seconds, and then silence ruled again. Marten rose, peering over the lip of the trench as he listened carefully. He heard the crunch of boots before he saw the gray movement.
“Up,” he whispered.
Around him soldiers rose, and now each of them could see the wide-eyed Kamikazes, their lips pulled back in a death grimace as they crawled or bounded from spot to spot toward them. Lasers fired—red lines of agony. Kamikazes curled around them, dying, sobbing and sometimes detonating their grisly packages. From south of their trench came wild shouts of rage. A wave of enemy soldiers high on stims raced at them in a desperate bent-over rush. Carbines barked from enemy hips, bullets whined around Marten and his men. One bullet staggered Marten, striking his heavy chest armor and ricocheting away with an evil spang. The flamer crew, veterans now, swiveled their weapon and sighted. A strange belching sound issued from their cannon and an orange glob of plasma burned the enemy squad in a fierce sizzle. Beside Marten, one of his men gurgled with a ripped out throat.
There was no time for niceties. They had to spoil the next probing attempt. Marten pointed to three other men: snipers like him. He led them to the dead tank. In this type of battle sniper work was never done.
“If it’s true,” Stick whispered in his ear, “the enemy generals must know that.”
“What are you talking about?” Marten whispered. He was unaware until then that Stick had followed him out of the trench.
“That the enemy soon won’t own any more nuke-firing subs.”
“So?”
“So, they’ve got only so long here then until we’re reinforced.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“So how long until they make a final push with everything they got?”