“Colonel,” Shane said over the link to the 82nd Brigade commander. “I very much need someone to get some ammo up to my platoon, sir.”
“Already on it, Major.”
Suddenly the gun stopped spitting little plastic death and Jones pulled the trigger in shock. His extensive experience told him there should be more rounds in the massive box he was carrying.
He quickly looked right and realized that Letorres had replaced Nelms. On the other side of Letorres a trooper he didn’t recognize was holding one of the big ammo boxes and preparing to replace the one on Mahoney’s back. A quick check back and he realized that another troop, from the 82nd by his shoulder patch, and Private Gibson were both working to replace his. The 82nd trooper grinned at him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“You’re up,” the trooper said, standing up.
Jones jerked his head around in time to keep the splash of superheated fluids out of his face, but he heard the thump and felt something warm and very wet land on his legs as part of the trooper’s helmet, and some skull, landed next to him.
The scream he let out segued nicely into opening fire.
“Damn,” Shane muttered.
The probes attacking the laser site seemed to realize they were losing. Or, at least, were very close to stalemated. So they’d changed tactics. He’d always suspected that at the top of the slope they would sacrifice the lead ranks to cover for the followers. As he watched, they started doing just that, but created two cover groups, one against the fire at the top of the hill and one against the lasers. About fifty meters downslope, the probes began rotating their bodies so that their upper portion was pointed towards the fire. They also began to slow, perhaps as a function of air resistance but more likely as deliberation. The combination of the laser and the troopers on the ridgeline hammered this wall of metal, but the upper portion, at least, of the probes was armored. And in this more deliberate formation they were no longer slamming into each other catastrophically. Probes were dying, but not faster than the overall group was making it up the mountain.
“Major,” one of the intelligence NCO’s said over the link. “You might want to know that we now have four groups spotted that have stopped assimilation of Huntsville and appear to be reconfiguring.”
And they had plenty of probes to throw away.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUUUUCK!” Jones shouted as the wall of flipped up probes rode over his position. At that point they were taking the direct fire of the laser, which had been narrowed down to only fire on the vector the probes were attacking from.
The laser was destroying rank after rank of the probes, but the result was air full of melted metal showering down on the few survivors of the platoon.
The sound was indescribable, a screaming maelstrom of shrieking metal unlike anything Jones had ever heard. He was being continuously pounded with chunks of metal falling on his arms, his head, his legs. He tucked into a ball, trying to take as much of the impacts on his armor and helmet as possible, his hands tucked into his stomach and legs drawn up under him. But some of the “chunks” were spitting enough electricity to supply a large home and much of it was arching into the bodies of the survivors. He was continuously jolted with lighting bolts. If he survived this he swore he would never come near anything electrical again. Other chunks were nearly full sized probes and when one of those slammed into him he felt at least one bone in his arm crack, which elicited another scream.
Life had become trying to survive the clash of two behemoths of destruction. There was nothing to do but try to live through it.
Corporal Zirnheld can kiss my ass. I just want a nice quiet house someplace with a garden and pool…
The scenario on Monte Sano Mountain was being repeated. But this time his troops were caught in the maelstrom and Shane could see them being covered in chunks of metal. They hadn’t had time to get their masks on so even if they survived, they were liable to die from the gaseous metal they were breathing.
The worst part was, the probes were now over the rim and they were starting to flip upwards. Most of them were being killed but he watched as one group finally managed to flip so that those cannon-like projectors faced the bunker.
And then the screen went blank.
With a final series of rending crashes, all the sound stopped.
Jones just lay still for a moment wishing that whoever was screaming in pain right by his ear would just stop for the love of God. Then he realized that it was him. The sound was being reflected back by the piles of melted bots covering him.
The air tasted and smelled foul with metal so he reached for his gas mask and let out another, quieter, scream when he realized that his left arm was the one that was broken. He reached across his body and got the bag open, then pulled the mask out and fitted it. He had to take off his helmet. This required moving a few bits of probe wreckage.
He finally managed to get the mask fitted and sealed one-handed, then pushed up with his right hand, shoving upwards and shedding off the cloaking layer of metal.
The first thing he noticed was metal. Lots of it. Scattered. Metal. Lots. Ouch. Some of it was still sputtering with electricity.
Looking around he realized why the bots had left. The bunker had been chewed. Either they were using some sort of explosive round or a gee-whiz science-fiction ray that they hadn’t shown off before. It was definitely something explosive; the chunks taken out of it weren’t uniform like they’d been cut out by the probe recycler beam or whatever. They were big, nasty explosive holes.
The line of bodies at the base of the bunker he almost didn’t notice. Apparently the 82nd guys had taken shelter by the bunker. Fat lot of good it did them; it looked like the bunker buster beams or whatever had hit some of them. And the rest had probably been killed by spalling.
“Top?” he croaked, “ ’Torres?” then was shaken by a round of hacking coughing. He managed to get his mask off and spit out the nasty metallic-tasting phlegm, sealed the mask, got a breath of air, unsealed, got a drink, sealed and got another breath. Then another set of coughing, repeat.
“Top? ’Torres? Mahoney?”
“Fug ib,” he heard from under the rubble and then Mahoney slowly pushed his way to the surface. He had a mask on as well. “Fug ibs!”
“Yeah,” Jones replied, looking at where Letorres and Top had been. He wasn’t sure about anyone else. There was a big pile where Top had been and one of the bots…
“Oh… fuck,” he muttered, stumbling towards the spot.
“General, Laser One is down,” the J-3 said. “Forty percent of the defense points on the mountain are out of communication. Penetrations on tunnels four and nine. Penetration halted, temporarily. Forty percent penetration across Phase Line Ugly. And there’s a new wave of bots headed for the mountain. Some of them are configured for antilaser attack and they appear to be vectoring for the discovered tunnels.”
“Play the music,” the general said, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. Like a gambler who has turned his last card, tossed his last chip and thrown his wallet on the pile, all he could do now was see what Lady Luck would turn up in the other player’s hand. He’d keep his poker face on to the end.