“Yes, sergeant.” Farnum looked up at the cliff. The scout armor had some functionality for traversing rugged terrain, but this was really a job for specialized climbing gear…which they didn’t have.
Farnum stared up the cliff as she began slowly climbing. This is something I might have done for fun, she thought…under much different circumstances. Farnum was a climber, at least when she was able to wrangle a leave long enough to indulge her hobby. But scaling a cliff in battle armor was a different matter, one with advantages and disadvantages. She was certainly stronger in her fighting suit, but she was heavier as well. And she didn’t have the touch and the dexterity that was so essential to climbing.
The scout armor had some useful tools, even if it lacked a full suite of specialized gear, and she found it wasn’t as difficult to reach the top as she thought it would be. She climbed up over the lip and reported back to Daniels. “Sergeant, I’m…ah…we’re up top.” She saw Varick pull himself up onto to the rocky ledge just as she started to speak. “Scouting the other side now.”
“Excellent, corporal.” Daniel’s was looking up, but she lost sight of them as soon as they stepped away from the ledge. “Report anything…even if it’s just a feelin…”
“Sergeant!” It was Farnum, and the veteran Marine sounded almost panicked. “There are enemy bots on the other side of this spur. Hundreds of them…thousands. About 7-8 klicks to the west.”
Daniels could feel the breath sucked from her body. She couldn’t understand why the enemy was massing so much strength on the other side of a huge wall of rock, but she knew it couldn’t be good. She knew she had to report this immediately. “1 st Division HQ, this is Sergeant Daniels, 3 rd Scouting Section.” She paused, almost amused at the audacity of what she was about to say. “I need to speak directly with General Jax immediately.”
The battle was raging again. Cain had launched a series of sledgehammer blows, first with the PRC flank attack, then the air strike, and finally with the advance of the entire line. For the first time in the war, an enemy force retreated, leaving the field to the Marines.
But the respite didn’t last, and neither did the morale boost. The enemy set up a defensive perimeter, one Cain’s troops dared not attack, and they started landing reinforcements. The ships came in for days, bringing thousands of battle robots to the surface. The scouts had reported entire units of the feared Reapers, as well as several other types of larger bots.
Cain’s fleeting victory had clearly triggered some type of tactical re-evaluation by whomever – or whatever - was commanding this force. The enemy responded to the elevated threat level by landing an army far more powerful than the original invasion force. Cain sat and grimly read reports detailing larger and larger enemy forces massing against his lines. He knew it was over…and so did his troops. Unexpectedly, as the prospects of survival vanished, the Marines’ faltering morale stiffened again, morphing into an odd acceptance and a grim determination to sell their lives dearly. The pride of the Corps surged through the psyche of the battered and exhausted men and women in the trenches. One by one and in groups they swore silently…they would not give in to the fear…they would face these things and show them what Marines were made of.
It began with a report from Hector. “General Cain, I am receiving reports from the front line scouts.” The AI’s voice was calm and even. “The enemy is advancing.”
So it begins, Cain thought. He knew the enemy wouldn’t stop once the assault had commenced. The robots didn’t get tired, they didn’t feel the pain of wounds…they would just keep coming until all of Cain’s people were dead.
That had been two days before. Now they’d been fighting nonstop for 48 hours. The Marines held grimly, but human endurance has its limits, and exhaustion was taking its toll. Cain knew it wouldn’t be long now…when the enemy broke through somewhere, things would collapse quickly.
He was just about to move forward and get a closer look at the front when Jax broke in on his com.
“Erik, we’ve got trouble.”
Cain sighed. There was always trouble. But Jax sounded shaken up, and that made Cain’s stomach clench.
Daniels scrambled up the rocky terrain, trying to work her way around the massive wall of stone. Generals Cain and Jax had sent her 3 more sections of scouts, along with orders to inspect every centimeter of the mountain range. The enemy was massing on the other side, and they wanted to know why. If there was a tunnel or pass through the mountains they’d missed, they had to find it.
She was over ten klicks from where she’d left Farnum and Varick, but she hadn’t seen a thing. Not a crack in the massive rock wall nor a serviceable path leading up and over. She couldn’t imagine how the enemy forces massing on the other side expected to pass through. But they weren’t there for nothing, and it was her job to find out how they planned to attack.
She extended an arm, steadying herself as she climbed up and over a large, jagged rock. She turned to look back and see how the rest of the squad was managing when a blinding light flashed across the sky. An instant later the ground shook violently and a shock wave took her and slammed her into the face of the mountain.
She wasn’t badly hurt, but she was dazed and had trouble trying to get up. Her visor had gone dark, minimizing the damage to her eyes, but she still couldn’t see anything but spots. Her suit was damaged but still functional. She could feel the med system giving her multiple injections. One, at least, must have been for the radiation…her detector was showing a nearly lethal exposure to gamma rays.
She pulled herself up enough to sit against the rock wall. To the south the sky was obscured by a massive cloud of dust and debris. “Scout sections, report.” There was a long silence, at least half a minute, but then she started to get a few responses. They all reported the same thing, a massive detonation of some sort. Some of them were wounded and all were dazed. But most of her units failed to report. “Corporal Farnum? Report.” Nothing. “First Section? Corporal Farnum? Private Varrick. Report immediately.” But there was nothing on the com…just silence.
“What the hell was that?” Cain snapped at Hector as he pulled himself back to his feet. He’d hit the ground when he heard the blast, but the area around HQ was only showered with dirt and small rocks.
“Based on observable data, I would hypothesize that a matter-antimatter annihilation event occurred.” The AI paused for an instant as it collected additional data. “Preliminary radiation readings support this conclusion.”
“Location of ground zero?” Cain was panning his head around, confirming there was no significant damage around the headquarters area. “Display on my visor.”
Hector activated Cain’s visor projection system, displaying a tactical map of the surrounding area. A flashing red dot marked the best estimate of the blast location. “This is a projection only, general. More data will be required for a precise determination.”
Cain stared at the map and froze. The flashing dot was in the center of the Iron Hills…the mountains he’d called impassable. “Hector, get me General Ja…” He didn’t get any further before he was interrupted by Jax’s incoming communication.
“Erik, we’ve got a big problem.” Jax sounded shaken up. “I’ve got Sergeant Daniels on the line. Sergeant, I need you to tell General Cain what you just reported to me”
“Yes sir.” Cain didn’t know Daniels personally. She was one of the scouts, a good one by all accounts, but he’d never spoken with her before. “General Cain, sir…it looks like the enemy mined the rockwall with some kind of extremely powerful explosive.” Daniels’ voice was hoarse, and she was breathing heavily as she spoke. She sounded like she was in pain. “Sir, the entire formation is gone, and there’s a 300 meter gap through. There are enemy troops marching toward the opening.”