The driver was all who remained in the vehicle. Her helmet was off and blood poured from a head wound, she looked back for just a moment to see the soldiers clamber aboard.
Jones gave her the thumbs up and a nod, not just to confirm they were ready to move, but in appreciation and respect. The vehicle lurched forward with a creek. Pushing the vehicle to the limit of what it could still manage it would survive no more than a kilometre or two. Jones looked around at his comrades who had the grimmest of expressions about their faces.
The friends that they had lost were a tragic and earth shattering strike to the morale of the troops. But more so than that, they were coming to the realisation that they stood almost no chance of leaving Brest alive. The only relief was that they were giving hundreds of thousands of civilians the opportunity to escape.
Jones looked down at his hands. The gloves he wore were cut and blood seeped through from where debris had struck him. His armour was covered in a thick layer of dust from the destruction of the buildings all around him. His mouth was dry from the lack of water and smoke filled air.
As the vehicle stormed up the ruined street, Charlie looked back at the site they had left. He could see the bodies of two soldiers they had been forced to leave behind. The scene was peaceful again, the same horrible quiet that follows every bloody battle. Smoke still bellowed from the tank they’d lost. Turning a bend in the road he lost sight of the weapons depot and the carnage surrounding it.
Wanting nothing more than to forget everything he’d just seen, Charlie already knew that he never would, not for however many hours or days he had left to live. They had done everything that was asked of them, but it was at such a fearful cost.
It was not long before they reached friendly lines. The buildings around the perimeter were lined with troops from the French Armoured Corps. They watched, horrified at the sight of the smashed vehicle that they rode atop. Dozens of British troops were intermingled with the French soldiers, the few who from Jones’ division which had managed to reach the city. They had fled there for safety.
The smoking wreck of the tank came to a halt in the crossroads where Girard and his command centre were setup. The APCs were already being raided for everything they had. The British troops leapt off the vehicle as Girard and Chandra closed in. Jones climbed to the front of the vehicle and knelt down beside the wrecked driver’s hatch. The woman at the controls looked up at him with a haunted expression on her blood-strewn face.
“Captain Jones. Thanks for saving our arses, Sergeant.”
He offered his hand to the injured driver. She first looked stunned, but then grasped his bloodied hand. Jones hauled her out of her seat quicker than expected. She was far lighter than he thought, shorter than any among them and close to half his weight.
“Captain! Good to see you made it back!” Chandra shouted.
“Major, we’re a tank down, we lost plenty of soldiers out there, and whatever hit us will be coming down that road shortly!”
He helped the driver down from the vehicle, jumping down beside her. Girard noticed at the stricken driver with horror. He couldn’t find any words to say to her. Chandra looked down at her body armour, just able to make out her name under the dirt and blood.
“Sergeant Dubois, get yourself to the aid station.”
The bedraggled tank driver nodded. She could not bring herself to speak or to salute her superiors. She staggered off as commanded, still badly shaken over the loss of her crew. Jones turned back to his Major. He could feel that she was rapidly heading into same disillusioned state as the driver. Chandra was lost for words as she looked over his bloody and filthy armour.
“Captain, well done! You’ve kept us in to the fight. I must get these supplies moving, they are desperately needed!”
Jones nodded to the French Colonel as he rushed off to organise the distribution of the ammunition they’d brought back at such a high cost.
“Jones, you are to get back on the southern perimeter. We need every soldier in the fight,” Chandra ordered quietly.
Charlie wondered if this new hell would ever be over. He supposed that death would be the only end in sight. He nodded before turning to his men and barking his orders. They glared at him in despair, not half recovered from the beating they’d just received.
* * *
Commander Kelly sat in what had become their operational headquarters. Computers had been hurriedly set up in a haphazard fashion with as much equipment as they could scavenge as time went by. Lewis sat at his makeshift comms desk. He barely knew what to do, having so little of the equipment and resources he’d been trained for and become so accustomed.
“Have you patched into the library feed yet?”
“Yes, Sir, we can now send messages directly from my station. It’s a hardwired connection though, meaning this is the only terminal which can be used,” replied Lewis.
“Understood, good work.”
Kelly turned to look at the people at his command. Many of his surviving NCOs and officers lay about the room. Few conversations took place. The excitement of receiving help from Earth had already died down. Back was the grim realisation of the harrowing lives they now lived.
“Listen up! Everyone!” he shouted.
They all turned to him, wanting nothing more than to be told that everything was going to be okay. They hung onto the Commander’s every word, praying he would bring them to victory or safety.
“The time for skulking around and scavenging what we can is going to stop. We can no longer scurry around, avoiding the trouble above our heads. We were sent new weapons for two reasons. One, to give us a fighting chance, and two, as front line testing for the U.S. military! We have an important task on our hands. We serve not just to fight for our own lives, but to help those who have done so for us!”
Kelly knew that many of his people still loathed the Earth based forces for leaving them in their time of need. Slowly they were beginning to understand that there had been no other option, but many still needed convincing.
“We have been given a second chance, and I fully intend to take it! It’s time to take the fight to the enemy! I want twenty volunteers. I am leading the first party out to hunt those bastards down and see what these new babies can do!”
He held up one of automatic grenade launchers that Major Taylor had so recently tested back on Earth.
There was no instant cheer or hive of excitement. But people began to stand as the information was digested. The very idea of seeking out the fearsome enemy was still a horror to them all, but they were keen to get some payback.
“I’ll go!” shouted Martinez.
Kelly didn’t want to put both himself and his second in command in harm’s way, but it was vital to lift the morale of his people. Within seconds others around the room began to stand and volunteer. They could all feel the fear of the enemy seep away as the excitement exploded among the soldiers. They began to cheer Kelly’s name. He lifted his hand signalling them to pipe down.
“Martinez! Select a team and get them armed, I want a fifty-fifty split between rifles and these launchers! The rest of you, get the rations and ammunition distributed, you know what to do!”
Kelly slipped the sling of the launcher he was carrying over his shoulder and packed ammunition into the pouches in his armour. He only took the armoured suit off to sleep now. The burden of its extra weight was never welcome for prolonged periods, but it had become an essential part of his life.
The room burst into activity as everyone went about their tasks. The Commander had already carefully outlined plans for distribution and rationing, it was vital to both their survival and defence. Lewis looked up at him from his desk. He was the only person in the room with nothing to do.
“What do you want me to do, Commander?”
“Sit right here. We can still reach you through the hard lines, right?”
“Yes, Sir, but there are very few of them about anymore. I have people installing more throughout our underground facilities, but above ground, you’ll barely find more than one or two per square kilometre.”
“Okay, good work. I’ll need you here for an immediate report to General White on our return.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The comms officer looked concerned. He was uneasy about two of the command staff heading off for combat.
“Lewis, you’re in charge till we get back, stay sharp!”
“Sir!”
Kelly now had twenty grenades stuffed into his body armour. He pulled his weapon around his body and looked at it intently, making sense of it all. Within a second he’d found the chamber release switch. The front half of the weapon levered forward, allowing access to the revolving magazine. He loaded in a full eight shells from the box on the desk before slamming the weapon shut.
Turning back to Martinez, he could see that the team had already been selected and were busy loading up for the mission. The group was a mix of MDF and UEN soldiers. Previously they had treated each other with animosity and dissent. The MDF hated the UEN for being deployed on their colony and their eternal arrogance. The United Earth Nations troops had disdain for the MDF as being only a militia force. These feelings had melted away as they had quickly accepted each other as brothers in this new war.
“Let’s not forget that we still face an enemy that we do not fully understand. We have likely not seen everything they have at their disposal yet, nor have we tried these new weapons. I want an even spread of rifles and launchers at all times. The launchers are all loaded with armour piercing rounds.”
“Sir? Aren’t we going to breach the compound with hardware like this?” asked Doyle.
“It’s a concern, yes. However, at this point we have no choice but to upgun to whatever level we have to. Earth forces will also be using a high explosive shell, but for obvious reasons have not supplied those to us.”
The soldiers pawed over the new launchers, not having handled such powerful personal weapons before.
“We honestly don’t know how these will do against the Mechs. Choose your targets carefully and use your ammunition wisely. Everyone happy?”
The troops nodded. They were excited and scared in equal measure.
“Make sure you all have your air tanks and masks, a breach isn’t ideal but we have to be prepared for it. We are heading half a kilometre north where we will enter the colony below the Metro gym.”
Kelly watched as they loaded the last of their kit. It felt more like they were preparing for a hunt than a battle. Perhaps that notion was what kept their morale up, it was not something Kelly wished to compromise.
“Let’s move!”
He led the way down a broad tunnel. They weaved in and out of countless people who were going about their business. The previous day had seen their new underground homes as a miserable place where the survivors of the colony lay about with little to do but grieve. Now every one had a job to do and it was forcing them to move on.
Kelly knew that the food supplies delivered to them would only last a week for the masses of survivors living underground, but it was a vital first step.
“Why the gym?” asked Martinez.
“We need to keep varying our entry points onto the surface to not present a pattern to the enemy. I picked it randomly as we have not previously used the access point there. The truth is that all we need to do is find some of those bastards and that won’t be hard once we reach the surface.”
Martinez knew all too well how widespread the enemy Mechs were. Fifteen minutes later they reached the two ladders that led up to the surface building. Climbing in full gear was no fun for any of them, not least for Kelly. He wished he’d kept in better shape, but it was to late to worry about that now.
They lifted the hatches above which opened up into a dark storage basement for the highly successful and up market gym. Kelly panted as he hauled himself into the room and rested on one knee for a moment, trying to hide his fatigue. After a few seconds he lifted the Mappad hung around his neck. Nothing showed on his scanner. He turned and looked to see the last of the troops climbing in.
He moved forward to the head of the column. Their military training had taught them to work in smaller teams and with greater spacing, but this new enemy had changed their strategy massively. When meeting them they needed maximum firepower at all times. The group of twenty-one kept close and alert as he led them up to the atrium of the fitness centre.
Just after arriving at the ground floor of the building Kelly got a reading on the Mappad device. He lifted his arm and signalled that a target was showing at ten o’clock. They all tensed and lifted their weapons ready. The huge glass walls dividing the gym to the walkway had been blown out in a previous fight.