From an observation craft far overhead, one of our commanders signaled us to break into a picket line by illuminating a formation symbol in our visors. We rushed to comply. Forming diagonal lines with our fire teams, we stretched the width of the valley.
“There cannot possibly be any living people on this planet,” I said to Shannon over the interLink.
“Shut up, Harris,” Shannon said. “Keep the Link open.” Shannon’s words sounded harsh, but a certain lilt in his voice suggested agreement.
The ground started to vibrate under my feet. I looked back in time to see rows of tanks reaching the bottom of the valley wall. “Skiing” with our jetpacks, we had easily outpaced the heavy LGs down the slope; but now they were catching up to us quickly. Seeing their approach, I radioed my team to pick up speed.
I wiped the glass with the side of my forefinger, scraping the dust and grease as best I could; but the stiff plates that formed my gloves just would not absorb the oil from my visor. The landscape around me remained out of focus.
“Platoon leaders, report,” Captain McKay ordered. He took their reports over the open link so that everyone in our platoon could hear them.
Tim Grayson, the sergeant over the Thirteenth Platoon, responded. Sergeant Shannon said nothing. McKay waited for his report then called, “Sergeant Shannon, report.”
“Have you run a sonic sweep?” Shannon asked.
“Affirmative,” McKay said, in a voice that was both authoritative and efficient. “We are aware of the tunnels. We have scanned the tunnels for enemy personnel and equipment as well.” He sounded impatient. The ships orbiting Hubble had much more sophisticated equipment than the scaled-down sonic locators in our helmets.
I looked back and saw Shannon kneel with one knee in the ash soil. “All clear in this sector, sir,” Shannon said. I could tell he felt frustrated by McKay’s cool response, but his voice hid it well.
The odd atmosphere continued to distort sounds. In an oxygen atmosphere, the rumble of the LG tanks would have rattled my armor. During field exercises on Earth, I could hear gunships from hundreds of yards and could tell which direction the sound came from. On Hubble, I did not hear the gunships until after they had flown past me, and the growl of the tanks seemed to come from all directions.
“Watch yourselves,” McKay shouted over the interLink.
The tanks caught up to us. A less rigid formation flashed in my visor, and my team fell back, keeping pace with the tanks. We moved at a fast jog, maybe six miles per hour. You had to watch your step in the low gravity. We had weights in our boots; but it was easy to stumble. If you fell in front of a tank…
An LG rumbled past me. The tops of its spools were just about even with my head. The dust it kicked up stuck to my visor, and I was temporarily blinded. I did not dare stop with tanks rolling past, so I stumbled forward as I scraped at the dust with the side of my finger. When I removed my hand, I saw something on the tank that left me numb. The words “PFC Harold Goldberg” appeared over a muddy spot in the tread. The tank must have run over Goldberg, crushing his helmet into fragments, some of which were trapped in the tread.
Ahead, at the end of the valley, I caught a clear view of Harriers circling in the air, dropping bombs and firing missiles. Three gunships flew low overhead, skittering into the distance and joining that battle. Suddenly the night sky boiled as dozens of fighters burst through the combustible outer atmosphere.
“They’re launching ships!” McKay yelled over the inter-Link. “They’re trying to escape.”
Reality had finally caught up to the Morgan Atkins colony of Ezer Kri. They had caught a platoon unaware in Hero’s Fall, then outsmarted a frigate, but now the U.A. Navy had them trapped. They would pay for their aggression.
“You’re not going to get away this time,” I whispered to myself.
Another minute passed, and I caught a quick glimpse of the battle ahead. A spark of light lit a distant ridge for a moment. The flash was so fast that I almost missed it. Slowing to a trot, I switched my visor to telescopic lenses. My dirty visor obscured my view, and Hubble’s dark atmosphere made a clear sighting almost impossible, but I caught a glimpse of Harriers swarming the air above a lofty fire.
“Lee, have you seen what’s going on up there?”
“I just saw a specking LG run over one of Grayson’s men,” Lee panted over our team frequency. “Stay alert.”
I do not know if I sensed a shift in the ground or simply sensed the danger. For some reason I stopped and turned to watch the LG that had pushed up ahead of me. The ground in front of the tank rumbled and several columns of ash spun into the air. Those twenty-foot twisters were the only warning. As they dissolved, the ground in front of the LG crumbled, leaving a deep trench in its place.
Riding so near to the ground, the low-gravity tank was an easy target. It teetered on the edge of the trench for a moment, but its momentum and weight sent it forward, and it tumbled nose first into the hole. The ground shook, and a flash of flame shot into view.
“Holy shit!” Lee shouted into the interLink.
Until I saw the tank topple into that shaft, I had not felt the hormone rush that I had experienced during the battle on Gobi. Suddenly I felt the warmth running through my blood. The feeling was soothing. It was more than soothing. It felt good. “The bastards rigged their friggin’ snake shafts to cave in,” I shouted.
I heard Sergeant Shannon. “Command! Command! Stop all movements! Stop all movements!” But Shannon’s warning came too late.
Looking around the valley, I saw the ground crumbling in all directions as dozens of trenches appeared. To my left, an LG tank struggled to reverse itself before it rolled into one trench, then backed into another. The men piloting the tanks did not wear breathing equipment. If they evacuated, they would be strangled by Hubble’s toxic air.
“Stop all movements! Repeat, stop all movements!” Shannon continued.
Another tank to my left tried to pivot around a trench, but the powdery soil beneath it caved in. A group of men walking beside it fell in as well. Several more vehicles had fallen farther back; I could see their useless hulls leaning out of the trenches. Flames burst through their armor.
“Repeat, halt all movements!” Shannon bellowed then fell silent. By this time endorphins and adrenaline coursed through my veins.
The officers commanding the invasion would have known about the snake shafts. At least those who were alive would know. Some field officers were stationed aboard a mobile command center that more likely than not was now lying ass up in a ditch.
The invasion force ground to a stop, giving me a moment to survey the damage. I counted sixty-three destroyed tanks, but I might have missed some in the dust and smoke. There was no way of estimating how many men had fallen when the shafts caved in beneath them.
Across the scarred field, the tanks that had not fallen into trenches remained perfectly still. The men within them were trapped. Any movement might send them over a ledge.
“Gather your men,” Shannon ordered his fire team leaders over the interLink.
“Fall in,” I called to my men. Only one man answered.
“Amblin? Schultz? Respond,” I called out. When they did not reply, I hailed them twice more.
“Sergeant,” I said, hailing Shannon.
“What?”
“I’m missing two men,” I said. “Amblin and Schultz. Requesting permission to look for them.”
“You can look; but, Harris, do not drop in the snake shafts,” Shannon barked back. “Even if you find one of your men in a shaft, do not go in after him.”
“Understood,” I said, though I did not understand.
“You have ten minutes to look,” Shannon said. “Find them or not, in ten minutes get back to the platoon.”
I called to my remaining team member. “You heard him. We have fifteen minutes to locate Amblin and Schultz.”