Chapter XI: Hammer and Anvil
6 Oct 0916 KST
Gangdong District, Seoul, South Korea
Hui dozed off in the passenger seat of the lead truck as they entered into Gangdong district. His squad had located a functional pickup truck and a motorcycle along their way and added them to their column. He had been slipping in and out of consciousness the whole ride over. The motorcycle scouted ahead at the edge of their sight while the pickup was spaced in between them. In the bed of the pickup were two soldiers, one with the sniper rifle and the other with a standard K2 rifle. Positioned at the ready in the rear of the last truck was a soldier with the grenade launcher supported by others with standard equipment. This time they were prepared for an ambush. However this time there was no sign of enemy activity in Songpa district when they went through. Still they cautiously went through the main streets of Gangdong district towards the hospital expecting danger at every intersection. The large number of broken down and wrecked vehicles here made it difficult to travel at a decent speed and forced them to take a less than direct route to their destination. The sniper in the pickup truck spotted an alien sentry on the roof of a building. They had seen the robots briefly during the last ambush but this is the first clear look any of them had of the alien creatures themselves. They were crusty reptilian-like creatures with a body plan similar to that of a praying mantis, only with total 8 limbs instead of 6 and less pronounced claws. Also instead of a single claw they had either three or four claw like fingers. Surprisingly the creature did not appear to be armed. Funny that an invading force wouldn't equip the vanguard of their troops, wondered the sniper. They alien wore metallic body armor over its vertical chest section, so that put shooting for center mass out of the question for an instant kill. The sniper decided instead to line up for a head shot when they got closer. "You see it? I'm going to take it out." the sniper whispered to the soldier next to him. The soldier nodded silently in concurrence. The column drew nearer and the sniper could tell the alien had now noticed them. He was still uncertain he could make the shot but it was now or never. He lined up, squeezed the trigger and fired. The shot impacted the upper left side of the creatures head knocking its head down and away. The sniper could see it left a significant mark but the creature was not down. It raised its head back and turned away. The sniper loaded the next round in the chamber, this time targeting the base of the back of the creature's skull. He fired, making a direct hit. This time instead of chipped away some of the exoskeleton and leaving a bruise there was a burst of blood that sprang out of the entry wound. Within the minute the alien appeared to fall face forward and out of sight of the sniper. It was dead he assumed. Hopefully it hadn't had a chance to warn others of the convoy's approach. The convoy went under an overpass and into a cluttered thoroughfare between many shops and restaurants forcing them to slow down. At the lead of the column the motorcyclist heard the thundering of mechanized footfalls and stopped at the corner of the next intersection. The motorcyclist raised his right hand at a 90 degree angle to his elbow with an open palm signaling the vehicles behind him to stop. He dismounted and walked his bike to the sidewalk and then on foot he crept to the corner and peeked around a brick walled meat market. He counted ten mechs marching down the next street to the west, advancing in rows of five. The motorcyclist waved back to the other vehicles and rapidly pointed to the buildings next to them, as a sign for them to take refuge. The driver of the first truck, Hui's second in command, shook Lt. Hui and woke him up. "Shh... Get out and take cover in one of these buildings." the driver told Hui before he had a chance to make any noise upon coming to his senses. The driver then got out and went to the rear of the truck and told the soldiers inside the same thing. At the same time he signaled back to the driver of the rear truck to follow suit. Ahead of the trucks the soldiers in the pickup parked, turned off the engine and went into a two story dance hall. The soldiers in the trucks went into a seafood restaurant on one side and a comic book/video store on the other side. Hui and his second in command joined the pickup crew in the dance hall. The lead scout went into the bakery and hid behind the counter as a great multitude of skitters followed the mechs down the adjacent street. Soon enough the enemy brigade wasn't simply confined to that one street. Swarms of skitters hopped between the rooftops, including those of the buildings the soldiers were in. Hundreds more filled the street and passed between the convoy's vehicles, appearing now as if they were just a few of many derelict cars on a crowded street. Streets to the east of the soldiers too began to fill up with ranks upon ranks of skitters, armored yet strangely unarmed. Now would have been the perfect time for an ambush if only Hui's unit had more men. None of them however were so mad that they would hope to face over a thousand skitters with 31 men. Instead the soldiers waited, hiding out of view and trying not to make a sound. Everyone feared the cliché sneeze or cough but the soldiers were all disciplined enough to not be the one that gave their position away. There was fear that the heat radiating off their vehicles from being recently driven would clue the aliens in but the skitters did not seem to care. They clearly had bigger things on their agenda, and to the soldiers those bigger things had to have been the fortification at Seongnam. As the final ranks of the enemy formation passed a pair of mechs formed the rearguard. Moments later the roar of beamers overhead could be heard. When the brigade had passed the soldiers all waited for orders to leave the safety of their hiding places. Hui, now coming around to his full faculties was in agreement with his second in command to wait several minutes longer before venturing outside again. Eventually they worked up the courage to sneak outside. Hui, his first sergeant and the soldiers inside the dance hall carefully checked the area around them and the adjacent streets before signaling the others to join them. They then boarded their vehicles again and resumed what would likely be their final rescue mission in this area.
6 Oct 0942 KST
The sound of gunfire in the distance outside roused Min-jung from her sleep. Only minutes ago it seemed she had been awake with Do-yeon in her arms. She must have passed out for a moment, she thought. She awoke to find the closet door open and Do-yeon playing in the hotel room behind the bed. "Do-yeon get in here!" she whispered angrily. Do-yeon did as he was told and went back into the closet and sat down. "You stay right here." Min-jung told him. Min-jung then went and opened the bathroom door to wake up Fontaine. Hyuna had been awake for quite some time already but felt content to sit there and daydream for hours while Fontaine slumbered behind her. It was kind of like a warm, snoring blanket or chair. "Wake him up." Min-jung whispered to Hyuna as she kicked the bottom of his boots. All Hyuna had to do was try to stand up and that immediately brought Fontaine to a state of alertness. "Are we ok?" he asked. "I heard some gunfire outside. Sounded like it was coming from the northwest." Min-jung told him. "I'll go check it out." Fontaine said. He and Hyuna carefully got up and Fontaine went into the room with his rifle. He then retrieved the pair of binoculars and went up to the roof. He hid behind a defunct transformer and looked off in the direction where Min-jung had claimed to have heard the gunfire. There was a small pillar of smoke rising from an area of the city but it was too far away and obstructed by buildings so he couldn't see what had happened. Likely there was a small clash between a group of people and the aliens or two groups of people. It didn't look like anything serious, in fact what he saw looked more promising than portentous for ill. All the alien ship activity was now far off to the west and south. The skies over Gangdong district appeared clear for the first time since this all began. The sun was even peeking through where the clouds of smoke from the first bombardment had begun to dissipate. He wanted to stay outside and soak up this beautiful day but he had a duty to those under his care. Fontaine went back into the room to find Min-jung asleep on the floor beside the bed facing away from the window. "See anything?" asked Hyuna after letting him in. "Looks clear. Seems there was a little scuffle a couple kilometers away but it's over and done with now." Fontaine told her. He looked over at Min-jung fast asleep on the floor. "She went back to sleep already?" he asked. "Yeah, seems she didn't sleep at all last night." Hyuna answered. "Well let's at least make her comfortable." Fontaine said. Fontaine took a pillow out of the bed and slid it under Min-jung's head. "So how's the leg?" he asked. "Better. I can walk on it without much pain. Still a little stiff but I'm not a cripple anymore at least." Hyuna replied. "That's good. We still shouldn't rush out of here unless we have to. Wouldn't want to hurt it again." Fontaine said. "Alright." Hyuna said as she sat down on the bed. She had no problem with staying put, they were well stocked to get through a couple days. Fontaine now was also content with staying. The alien forces were on the move, surely whatever the military had cobbled back together was operating to counter them at every turn. Attempting to regroup with his unit didn't seem to make much sense with so many moving pieces in play right now. He had left his message and would commit to making his rounds to the battle site as he had stated but otherwise he planned on staying here and doing what he could to get through this alive. Now that he thought of it, Fontaine realized it was getting close to one of his promised rendezvous times. "I've got to check in real quick to see if my unit got our message." Fontaine told Hyuna and started back towards the door almost as quickly as he had come in. "Where are you going?" Do-yeon asked and came running out of the closet. "I've got to go check if the army is waiting on us. Might find your dad." he told him. "Can I go with you?" Do-yeon asked. Fontaine looked over to Hyuna but got only a blank face which was so help then looked back at Do-yeon. "ummm, I guess, ok?" Fontaine said without an ounce of certainty. He reached into one of the desk drawers and took out a pistol. "First we've got to teach you how to shoot so you can take care of yourself if we run into any spidermen." Fontaine said. "Really?! Cool!" Do-yeon exclaimed. "Easy now kid. A gun's not a toy." Fontaine reminded him. "You call them spidermen?" asked Hyuna. "Yeah, that's what they look like, spider-men." Fontaine answered her. "They do not! Spiderman is cute." Hyuna gleefully retorted. "Not that Spiderman." Fontaine replied. The two of them smiled and looked away from each other, then back at each other and waved goodbye as Fontaine took Do-yeon downstairs. A few minutes later a gunshot once again brought Min-jung out of her slumber. "Where's Do-yeon!" she shouted in a panic when she got up. She couldn't have lost him again, she thought. "He's ok. Jake took him downstairs, he wanted to go see if his daddy came to rescue us." Hyuna explained. Min-jung sighed a sigh of disgust. "That boy is in so much trouble!" she grumbled and stormed out the door. Hyuna didn't understand, but then again she wasn't a parent so she couldn't really put herself in Min-jung's position. Min-jung stormed downstairs to find Fontaine helping Do-yeon with his stance. Ahead of them on a barstool was an empty soft drink can and on the floor were two other cans with bullet holes through them. The wall ahead of them also had some marks where bullets had impacted it as well. "Do-yeon what do you think you are doing!" Min-jung shouted. "I hit one mom! He say's I'm a natural at this." Do-yeon said before turning around to notice his mother's displeasure. Min-jung yanked the pistol out of Do-yeon's hands with one hand and with the other one she grabbed his wrist. "Don't take it out on him. It's my fault, I told him he could come in case his father showed up. He needed to know how to safely handle a firearm first. I wanted him to know how to defend himself." Fontaine pleaded with Min-jung on her son's behalf. Min-jung got into Fontaine's face and glared ferociously at him. She wanted to slap him but didn't, instead she pulled Do-yeon's arm and led him back upstairs into the room without saying a single word to Fontaine. He would have some explaining to do when he got back he thought. Hopefully she would have cooled off by the time he returned from checking the battle site.
6 Oct 1039 KST
Amanda Kyung walked the hospital grounds checking on the patients and other survivors that had taken refuge there as she had done many times before. The doctors and nurses continued treating the injured and sick. They had started catching up with their workload now, although regrettably they had lost many patients that were far too gone when they arrived. While alien activity had intensified in Gangdong District and the surrounding area considerably in the past 24 hours the immediate environs of the hospital had been left alone. That brief period of peace wouldn't last however, as now sweeping out of the sky one of the jumbo sized transport beamers slowed down and hovered a few feet over the hospital rooftop. A hatch opened and several skitters started leaping out of the craft. The alien ship started moving slowly, continuing to drop off skitters along the way. After it passed the rooftop it swept down towards the crowds of people gathered on the lawn and parking lot surrounding the hospital. From the sides of the craft bursts of rapid fire energy bolts scattered the people on the ground while more skitters jumped out and tackled people to the ground. The police and security personnel on hand at the hospital began to open fire on the skitters and the alien ship. The rounds had no effect on the ship and few found their mark against the fast moving skitters. Amanda sprinted past a police officer moments before energy bolts tore him apart. A pair of gunshots rang out from the emergency room entrance as a lone security guard tried to keep the aliens out. Moments later a pair of skitters closed in and tore the guard limb from limb, leaving his broken body behind as they entered the hospital. As soon as they entered, the two skitters exited the hospital, each carrying a person, kicking and screaming to get away. At first many of the nurses and volunteers tried to help the infirm escape the hospital grounds but soon after many of them were seized by the skitters most of the others broke into a full panic. The able bodied abandoned the infirm and immobile to their fate and desperately tried to escape in the confusion. The ship made one final pass over the hospital lawn, dropping a few more skitters into the center of the terrified mob before ascending high into the clouds and vanishing from sight. Moon Ki-ha held tightly onto his daughter as they huddled together, standing firm in the center of the chaos. He waited, looking for an opening so they both could run for it. A man clumsily knocked over a near comatose man laid out on a stretcher several meters behind them. The man fell forward over the stretcher and onto the ground. As he attempted to stand up a skitter scurried up to him and seized him by the throat then quickly carried him away. A shotgun blast from a police officer sheared off a leg of one of the skitters. The wounded skitter limped towards him as he backed away and chambered another round. Before he could fire again a skitter came up behind him and gripped his face with its large clawed digits and tore it off from the left side to the right. Screaming briefing in terrible agony the police officer clutched his broken face and fell to his knees where he would perish. The last police officer outside the hospital fired several shots at the wounded skitter, hitting the side of it's armor once and twice connecting a round to the side of the head. One of the headshots dazed the creature, the second, entering beneath the area that would be the ear on a human made complete penetration and killed the alien within seconds. The officer was soon after overcome as three skitters abandoned the chase of frightened patients and charged at him. The officer's right arm severed at the shoulder joint landed near Amanda. The officer's severed arm was still clutching his pistol. Amanda knelt down and pried the gun from his grip and stood back up, checking to see if any aliens were coming for her. The people on the lawn and in the parking lot were helpless, there were maybe eight more armed persons in the area and all of them were now inside the hospital. Occasionally barrages of gunfire could be heard from within the hospital when groups of skitters entered in pursuit of their quarry. The people who had fled to the north and the west were met by more skitters crawling in from the city streets. One of the large cigar shaped transport ships lumbered in from the northeast cast a long shadow over the field's and trees east of the hospital. What looked like several armored teardrops hanging by an ever extending bio-metallic tethers dropped out of the underside of the transport. The teardrop shaped pods touched down on the grassy field near a gathering of skitters and opened up, releasing more skitters onto the hospital grounds. The pods promptly filled back up with skitters carrying men, women and children are were taken back up to the ship. The new skitters raced towards the hospital and stormed inside in multiple groups. Some went straight through the emergency room entrance, others went around to the front entrance. Still other skitters that had been lingering on the roof climbed down the wall and entered in through opened or broken windows on the upper floors. The hospital security was completely overwhelmed and the skitters seized doctors, nurses and patients, starting with the most healthy. All the while the pods kept ascending and descending from the transport ship in a never ending cycle, devouring the people that the skitters delivered to it. As many of the skitters were now busy dragging their victims to their ship Moon Ki-ha saw and opening and ran for it, clutching Soo-young's hand firmly as she trailed behind him in a sprint. Before he had a chance to even think that they might make it, a skitter stopped right in front of him and stared him down. The skitter's attention however quickly turned to something else. From a small road to the south Lt. Hui's convoy had arrived. From the bed of the pickup truck, the platoon's sniper fired off two rounds as they drove into the area. The first round dropped a skitter outright, hitting it in the back of the head. The second shot tore away the arm of another skitter that was reaching for a teenage boy fleeing the hospital grounds. The pickup circled around the side of the hospital, allowing the sniper to take pot shots at the skitters while the two trucks parked on the south side of the hospital grounds. Quickly the platoon exited the trucks and opened fire on the skitters. Several skitters were taken out by the initial barrage, sadly a 14 year old girl was also slain by friendly fire. The skitters moved quickly and were hard to hit so the girl would not be the first civilian in the confused melee to be struck by a stray bullet. Lt. Hui and his first sergeant exited the truck and joined in on the attack. "Aim for the throat and the back of the head!" the first sergeant ordered loudly, having taken note of the weak points in the skitter's exoskeleton. "The leg joints are vulnerable too!" a soldier added after blasting away a couple limbs from a skitter by shooting at what would be considered the knees. About a dozen or more skitters abandoned their task of rounding up civilians and fanned out towards the soldiers. "Here they come!" the first sergeant shouted, emptying the rest of his magazine at two skitters coming his way, then running behind the truck to reload while other soldiers covered him. A skitter reached the soldiers and snatched one of the soldiers up and held him high above it's head. As other soldiers turned their fire on this skitter, the skitter pulled down on the upper torso and legs of the soldier, snapping his back and threw the dying corpse of the soldier towards his platoon mates. The skitter soon thereafter succumbed to it's wounds and slumped over dead. The soldiers started to spread out and take cover, several of them running out of ammo and having to reload. This gave the skitters ample time to close in on them. One of the soldiers near the rear truck was seized by the throat and sliced open with the claw of one skitter. Another was knocked down and dragged away by the legs by another skitter. The soldier being dragged however managed to reload his rifle and shoot the skitter carrying him. This however did not save him, another skitter pounced on top of him and swatted his gun away, then proceeded to carry him off towards the pods. The soldiers were outnumbered and taking considerable casualties at this point. Lt. Hui's platoon's attack did manage to pull enough of the skitters attention towards them to allow several of the people fleeing the hospital to escape. A doctor, two women and a young boy made it out through the streets to the west as the platoon's pickup truck drew away seven skitters after them. The truck eventually was overrun when a skitter jumped onto the hood from the side of the hospital when it got too close. The gang of skitters behind the truck then proceeded to make short work of the sniper, the second soldier in the bed and the driver. Amanda ran towards the army trucks where Lt. Hui shot a skitter pursuing close behind her. "Run! Get out of here!" Hui shouted to her, as if she needed instruction. Ki-ha and Soo-young were next to reach the opening between the two trucks. A skitter seized Soo-young as the soldiers were hammered by a new wave of skitters that killed or captured several of them. "Soo-young!" Ki-ha screamed. He started to run after her but Hui's first sergeant reached out and grabbed him by the wrist. "Let me go!" Ki-ha shouted back at him, not realizing he had just been saved from a trio of skitters that quickly formed behind the one carrying off Soo-young. "I'm sorry. There's nothing you can do for her, if you go after her you're going to get yourself killed." the first sergeant explained. His words meant nothing and Ki-ha wrested himself free and sprinted after Soo-young. As expected he was tackled down by a skitter come at him from the side and carried away. One of the three rearguard skitters to the one carrying Soo-young was shot multiple times and killed by a lone soldier at the rear of the first truck. The first sergeant joined Hui at the front of the truck and fired a burst of rounds at a skitter coming at them. His shots blew open the skitter's throat and lower jaw, causing the skitter to fall forward off the truck into a lifeless, twitching pile of scaly appendages. "I'm out!" the first sergeant reported. Hui looked around to see his forces disintegrating around him. There were maybe five soldiers he could spot left under his command. Hui and the first sergeant crouched down beside the passenger side door of the truck behind the slain skitter. The soldier at the rear of the truck was now down to his last 3 or 4 rounds. He hid behind the rear tires and waited. On the hospital grounds two soldiers pushed forward as a pair, aiding the flight of several people leaving the hospital. With intermittent gunfire bursts they killed and wounded a number of skitters until one of the soldiers was knocked down by a skitter and carried away. The second soldier fled back towards the trucks. "Sir, we have to get you out of here. We've done all we can here." the first sergeant told him. Hui was frustrated, failure was weighing hard on him. He knew total defeat was imminent, but there was that part of him that wanted to keep on fighting. "Sir!" The first sergeant shouted again, snapping Hui back into focus. "Everyone fall back!" commanded Hui. The soldier at the rear and the fleeing soldier quickly rallied to him and began to back away cautiously. "You heard the man! Fall back! We're pulling out!" the first sergeant shouted. Two more soldiers that had already been presumed lost appeared from amidst the thinning crowd of people and made their way back to where Hui and the others were withdrawing. The first sergeant took the rifle of one of the two soldiers as he passed. "Go! I'll keep them off you til you're clear." he told them. Several skitters had leapt up on top of both the trucks, it did not appear they would have the chance to use the vehicles to get away this time. The first sergeant tried to get the skitters off the truck but there were too many of them. The two soldiers that still had ammunition in their weapons tried to assist them but they could not stem the tide of the alien attackers. Hui and the rest of the soldiers broke away from the trucks and ran off down the small street through the sparse trees and in between a few buildings where the road curved. The first sergeant brought down a skitter that attempted to pursue, then blasted off the arm, then a leg of a second skitter before he himself made a run for it. A swarm of skitters soon followed over, crawling over the trucks like ants over a fallen twig. Ahead of the soldiers Amanda had been chased back towards the hospital by a skitter that had come in from the street. With the last seven rounds in his magazine unloaded into the face of the skitter pursuing her Hui rescued Amanda from the immediate threat. She stood there stunned as bullets had just whizzed close by her until the soldiers reached her. "Don't just stand there, let's go!" Hui shouted at her. She joined him and the other soldiers they had almost made it to the main road when from behind them the first sergeant's screams cried out as he was split open by the vanguard of the skitter horde. Hui didn't even have time to let his first sergeant's death register before a skitter came down from the roof and pounced onto two of his soldiers standing behind him. One soldier the skitter crushed upon landing, the second was swatted away like a fly, slamming into the brick of the building across the narrow street. The soldier's helmet was dislodged by the impact and a bright red trail was left on the brick wall as the soldier slid down it and crumpled into a lifeless slumped form on the sidewalk. The skitter swung around and knocked Hui to the ground. Dazed, but barely conscious Hui could see Amanda being captured by another skitter as he himself was being lifted up and carried away.
6 Oct 1052 KST
Songpa District, Seoul, South Korea
In the south of Songpa District to the north of the edge of the Seongnam safe zone a lookout on top of a small high-rise sighted the advancing mech and skitter brigade through his binoculars. The lookout took out a lighter from his pocket then fished out a gasoline soaked tennis ball inside a sock from a bucket and lit the ball. He then took the ball and tossed it into a pile of volatile garbage doused in lighter fluid surrounded by a few tires on top of the roof. As the trash pile ignited the lookout ran downstairs to a motorcycle hidden behind a dumpster, started the bike and took off towards Seongnam. Watching from other buildings in Songpa District and the north of Seongnam outside of the safe zone other lookouts lit up piles of tires, trash and gasoline sending columns of smoke rising into the sky. Back at the Seongnam safe zone the signal fires were seen by several guards along the northern perimeter. "We have enemy incoming from the north!" shouted the guards to other soldiers on post. Another guard went and cranked the handle for the air raid sirens that had been rigged up throughout Seongnam. One siren triggered another and pretty soon the entire safe zone was in alarm. The first major battle the combined armies of the Republic of Korea would have against the alien invaders was about to begin.
