Descent from the Black: An Odyssey One Novella Read online

  Lang looked at Clark, who just shrugged. “That was pretty fucking dumb.” Lang did not disagree, so they replicated their second-floor assault on the third, only to find that it was empty. They split up and quickly checked rooms and closets before calling the all clear. Needing to get back to the larger mission, Lang and Clark double-timed it down the stairs and exited the building.

  Much to Lang’s surprise, they were greeted by a few officers applauding them as the others started routing civilian traffic back down the street. “Anybody we need to take into custody?” a police sergeant asked.

  “Negative,” Lang responded as he shook his head.

  The sergeant understood his meaning and said, “We’ll come back for them if there’s time.”

  “Just keep getting the civvies out of here,” Lang said. The statement was probably unnecessary, but he felt the need to say something as he transitioned his focus to the tactical display for the area. Lieutenant Weiss had moved the leading elements forward another two blocks. Lang almost questioned the move, fearing stumbling across the Drasin sooner rather than later; it was only a matter of time before they did, after all. However, he noticed that the evacuations were moving more quickly than he’d expected, so Weiss had simply compensated for the forward movement of the entire company. “Any problems?” Lang asked his XO directly as he reloaded his rifle.

  “Negative; all clear so far,” Weiss responded.

  “Roger that,” Lang said as he and Clark headed back to resume their placement relative to the main elements of the scouting force. Finally, approaching yet another dark street corner, Lang settled into the shadows and sighed. Going from an adrenaline rush to another waiting game was emotionally challenging, especially combined with the lack of sleep. He forced the weariness aside and returned his focus to the tactical display on his HUD. Apparently, since this evacuation was going so well, other battalions on the line, farther to the north and northwest, had sent out similar missions.

  Over the next hour or so, Lang and Clark slowly advanced block by block, trailing the rest of his Marines. It was almost midnight when the first red icons displayed on the map. “Enemy contact,” one of his advance units reported, flagging the coordinates on the map.

  “Have you been spotted?” Lang asked immediately.

  “Don’t believe so, sir, but it’s headed this way.”

  “More contacts,” Weiss said over the company’s command channel, forcing Lang’s attention back to his HUD. There were now dozens of Drasin on the move in his area of responsibility alone. He quickly glanced back at the streets full of civilians, knowing that the original plan was to break contact and exfil without being discovered, if possible. But the sheer number of civilians on the street made that plan almost murderous.

  Lang keyed his mic on the area’s command channel, but Major Hall responded before he could speak. “Yeah, we see ‘em, son. Get the police to move the civilians to the sidewalk; the cavalry is on its way to rescue you again.”

  Lang couldn’t help but hear the grin in the major’s voice, but he’d take all the trash talking left in the world if it meant he had two companies of mobile armor at his back. “Copy that, sir; it’s good to hear.” He then re-tuned his mic to his company’s command channel. “Weiss, have the police get the civvies on the sidewalk, but they need to double-time it.”

  “Roger, wilco,” Weiss replied.

  “Platoon COs, I need a defensive line one block behind your forward-most scouts, and I need it yesterday.” Without needing to speak, Lang and Clark were on the move at once, quickly closing on the main element. On a private channel to the first sergeant, Lang asked, “Am I allowed to shoot this time too, Sergeant?”

  “Sir, I don’t think you’re gonna have much of a choice.”

  Lang double-checked his HUD, which now showed scores of Drasin on the move. “Lieutenant Carter,” Lang began on the company’s command channel, “I need that weapons platoon of yours to be on the money.” They would desperately need the fire support from the SCCMs, mortars, and drones.

  “Charlie Platoon is triple-sevens, Cap,” the young lieutenant replied.

  “Good hunting, Bravo Company,” Lang said on the same channel as he and Clark approached the center of the lines, falling in behind Lieutenant Johnson and Echo Platoon. Golf Platoon was manning the line to the west, while Lima Platoon was positioned farther to the east.

  Johnson saluted as Lang approached and returned the salute. “Not here to look over your shoulder, Lieutenant, but I figured you could use a couple of extra rifles.”

  “You’re more than welcome, Captain. The Drasin do seem to love hitting the center of our lines,” Johnson replied.

  “Yes, they most definitely do,” Lang said while he looked up at the office buildings nearby. “I’m going to go get a better vantage point,” he informed her as he headed toward the building on the corner. Seeing Lang’s intentions, Clark headed toward the building on the opposite corner.

  Lang approached the modern office building and was happy to see that it had been evacuated and left unlocked. He found the nearest stairwell, double-timed it to the roof, and stayed crouched as he approached the half wall around the edge. He peeked over the top, and from his sixth-floor vantage point, he could see the Drasin crawling about seven blocks away. Though they were technically in range of the Marines’ weapons, they were moving more slowly than usual, almost appearing to be without purpose, so Lang decided to give the civilians more time by holding their fire. “Wait for my order,” he informed the company. By the time the Drasin were four blocks away, the police had cleared almost as much territory behind him.

  It was time.

  Lang keyed in a twenty-second countdown and sent it to the entire company, which effectively served as his firing order. Since he had a better vantage point, Lang switched his rifle to single-shot and aimed at one of the Drasin that was farther back. He did his best to slow his breathing, firing in between heartbeats at the end of the preset countdown. The scramjet smart-round left his rifle, deployed its guidance fins, and struck the Drasin center-mass, destroying it. Lang was already identifying his next target as the entire defensive line opened fire.

  Tri-barrel cannons whined, lasers clacked, smart mortars screamed, and SCCMs shook buildings as they broke the sound barrier. The fusillade was an extremely impressive display of firepower, especially from where Lang sat, and it caught the Drasin completely by surprise. But what the Drasin lacked in tactical prowess was more than compensated for by their ability to breed. After all, quantity has a quality all its own. It wasn’t long before particle beam fire was heading in the Marines’ direction, which was when some very adept person at Command scheduled them some close air support.

  The missiles led the jets by only a few seconds, which shrieked by the rooftops as they made their strafing runs. As before, the helicopters followed; but this time, they loitered and stayed in the fight. Charlie Platoon could keep firing the smart mortars without fear of hitting them, though, as the rounds were tied into the combat network, functioning as the air traffic controller of a millisecond-timed ballet of destruction. In fact, there was so much going on that Lang had to take his eye off his rifle in order to keep tabs on the rapidly changing situation.

  So far, the line was holding, but the attack jets were gone and the helicopters had to be at almost bingo ammo, given the rate at which they were firing. Yet there was no shortage of threatening red icons on his HUD. He checked the status of each of his platoons and saw that nobody was requesting ammunition or significant medical assistance, so he went back to do what he could at thinning the number of incoming Drasin. This time, he selected one of the enemy drones that was closest to his lines and opened fire. The shot rang true, so he moved onto the next one, and the next one. Before he knew it, he was replacing his magazine. Reloading only took a few seconds, but during that timeframe he had the mental bandwidth to realize that the Drasin were making some serious progress; the closest ones were only two blocks away.


  “Captain,” Weiss said over the network.

  “Yeah, I see it,” Lang said.

  “Sir, we need to begin the retreat now,” Weiss stressed, and Lang could see why; there appeared to be a constant stream of them flowing outward from the city. His stomach soured as he saw that the civilians were only six blocks away. The refugees were running now, but he could only imagine what chaos that would bring. And for anyone in front of their lines … there was nothing that Lang could do for them now.

  “Fall back, by the numbers,” Lang ordered. Very shortly afterward, he could see elements falling back one at a time, covering others as they retreated. Lang knew that he had to get off this rooftop, and fast, so he ran to the side of the building facing away from the Drasin and used the extra strength provided by his powered armor to scale the building. By the time he reached the pavement, the retreat had almost passed him, so he fell in with the nearest fire team. When they paused to provide covering fire, Lang added three-round bursts from his own rifle, aimed as well as they could be in the heat of the moment. Though his suit’s computer was keeping a record of his performance, he couldn’t keep track of how many he’d killed, wounded, or flat-out missed. Trying to perform his maneuvers while keeping tabs on the entire company was an exhausting effort, especially without the benefit of the NICS interface. One thing was blatantly apparent to him: They were being forced to retreat faster than the civilians could egress.

  Lang burst from cover and fell back with his Marines to the next intersection, but this was where the buck stopped. The closest civilians were only half a block away and there would be no more air support for several minutes. He sighed in frustration, but gave the order: “Bravo Company, we make our stand here.”

  With that said, the teams stopped falling back and the rate of fire picked up as the Marines figuratively dug into their position. Being back in stable positions, the SCCM fire picked up again, as did the indirect fire from both smart mortars and the Army’s artillery. Lang took a look at his own position and saw that the corporal in charge had found a corner building with good visibility. The Marines were already breaking the windows and hopping inside to use it as cover, so Lang dove in with them.

  “Glad to have you, sir,” the corporal said.

  “Wait thirty minutes and tell me that again,” Lang quipped.

  “Think we’ll survive that long?” the corporal responded, chuckling almost fatalistically.

  Lang shrugged. “They sure as hell won’t,” he said as he pointed in the direction of the Drasin.

  “Ooh-fucking-rah,” the corporal responded. It wasn’t long before the first Drasin came into view and they opened fire.

  Lang was crouched, aiming out the corner of a window facing the intersection. He was worried that he’d have trouble getting an angle on targets, but there were so many that there was bound to be at least one in his line of sight at any time. Eventually, he started to worry about running out of ammunition, even with the god-awful amount they had been carrying on this patrol.

  As he reloaded next, he could see the street filled with dead—and parts of—Drasin. But the rest just kept coming, scampering over their fallen, as if it affected them naught, and returning fire. The Marines in cover were doing relatively well until the beams started bringing the buildings down on top of them. It was the collapse of cover that was causing his platoon serious casualties for the first time in this fight. “Sir, we have to move!” Lieutenant Johnson yelled over the network.

  Lang quickly checked on the civilians’ progress and said, “Move to whatever cover you need, but we hold this line. The civvies are only two blocks behind us!” He knew that nobody would be happy with that order, but they had all sworn an oath to protect and defend the people of this great confederacy. These thoughts were mildly comforting, but that didn’t change the fact that within ninety seconds he was firing on full-auto because there were just so many of the Drasin to hit. While reloading again, he said to those next to him, “Marines, it’s been an absolute pleasure.”

  “Ooh-rah!”

  Lang stood to empty another clip into the intersection, but was almost blown backward by the force of the fin-stabilized, discarding-sabot rounds screaming down the street. Not long afterward, a main battle tank came down the street at highway speeds with its machine guns firing nonstop. The tank crew had time to fire one more round from the main gun before they plowed into several aliens at over one hundred kilometers per hour. The Drasin were tough; they could survive in space, shrug off regular grenade blasts, and survive direct hits from powerful lasers. But the kinetic energy of being rammed by over sixty tons of armor moving at full throttle was enough to physically tear them apart. Cheers went up from the Marines as, once again, Major Hall and his cavalry came to the rescue, as promised.

  They didn’t have time to celebrate for long, unfortunately, as the sheer number of Drasin slowed the progress of the lead tank and the others following it. Similar situations were occurring up and down the line of battle that had originally been established by the Marines, and it was clear to Lang that they were in a street fight now. “Protect the tanks!” Lang yelled over the comms as he burst from cover, since the battle had been pushed up the street about forty meters or so.

  Firing as he ran, he fell in behind one of the tanks and used it as moving cover. The tank was still moving fast enough that it was awkward for him to try and keep pace, lean around the side, aim, and shoot all at the same time. But there were so many Drasin that some would make it close enough to the tanks for the geometry to work in his favor. As the aliens ran wide of the approaching tanks, Lang would gain line-of-sight, fire a three-round burst, and wait for his next target. One of his Marines was behind the left side of the tank doing the same thing, per the plan that they’d originally discussed for the eventual assault on downtown. For better or worse, it seemed like they would not get to choose the timing of that battle. Fortunately, his HUD informed him that his company was on the ball and advancing with the tanks, further evidenced by an EXO-12 that leaped past him with its tri-barrel firing.

  In fact, they were making much better progress than Lang had expected, especially considering that he thought they’d be retreating by now. He swapped the local tactical map for the larger, strategic picture and saw why: The NAC military was throwing everything it had at the aliens. Navy ships struck targets from miles away in the ocean. Bombers, fighters, helicopters, and drones from all branches filled the sky, while howitzers, mortars, and SCCMs added their wails to the rising fever-pitch noise of a full, combined-arms assault. Even the Coast Guard had cutters firing into the city. Much to Lang’s pleasure, each time they progressed through another block, civilians would exit their shelter and flee toward the safety behind the lines. Even if this whole advance went to shit, at least they’d saved a lot of lives.

  Lang was so in the groove that he failed to realize that he was out of ammunition until he ejected his current mag and reached for another one, which didn’t exist. He quickly broke formation and sought shelter in a small alleyway, noticing that most of his company was either out of ammunition or about to be. Without wasting a second, he made an urgent request for supplies.

  “Negative, Captain,” came the response.

  “Are you kidding me?” Lang asked, exasperated. “What am I supposed to throw at them, insults?”

  “Again, negative, Captain. This is General Griswald; Bravo Company is to stand down and return to the rear. Good job today, son.”

  A glance at his HUD showed that the Drasin appeared to be getting pushed back to downtown at a surprisingly quick pace. Lang didn’t know when or how, but he found himself sitting on the ground and leaning against a building, almost in shock. But as the realization of the general’s orders sank in, he started to both laugh and cry.

  Chapter 11

  Bravo Company was asleep, except for Lang and Clark, who sat on crates in the supply depot eating while reading reports. “I can’t believe they stalled our advance downtown,” Lang
said to nobody in particular.

  “We’ll get ‘em,” Clark said. “Only a matter of time, now.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Still, it seemed too easy.”

  “Easy? This wasn’t like the little assaults the other day.”

  Lang had been looking through a casualty list with growing despair. No, it had not been easy. “From everything we’ve heard … everything we’ve seen; I guess I just didn’t think we could win, not really.”

  “Not my fault you were born dumb,” Clark opined, but in good humor. Seemingly in response, Lang threw the tablet with the casualty list on the ground, but not hard enough to break it. “I was just kidding, sir,” Clark said, now sitting a little straighter.

  Lang sighed. “No, not that, Gunny; I mean, First Sergeant. Thirty-six percent. Thirty-fucking-six percent.”

  “I know,” Clark acknowledged softly.

  “That’s over a third of my company, Bryan.”

  “Well, maybe that’s what it takes to save the world, or this part of it, at least,” Clark said.

  “I fucked up,” Lang said, feeling sick.

  “Yeah, you fucked up,” Clark admitted. “But just once, and you pulled it back together real quick.” Lang visibly searched for the right words, but couldn’t find any, so the sergeant continued, “These bastards are ridiculously hard to kill; even grenades don’t do shit. It was only a matter of time before we started dying.” After a pause, Clark continued, “Look, tryin’ to be perfect is just going to drive you crazy, kid.”