Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, Target East, Earth
Private Justin Mallory of the NAU's 19th Ranger Battalion was awe-struck that he was still counted amongst the living defenders of Los Angeles. Had anyone asked him, he would have said that he wasn't sure if he wasn't already dead and in hell. The young ranger lay flat on his stomach in the rubble of the Paramount Pictures Studio's archway entrance, carefully watching for any movement in his assigned field of fire.
Mallory was wondering how many miles he had already retreated since the aliens landed yesterday evening. At least he thought it was yesterday. Whenever he thought back to their first attack it seemed like it had happened years ago, not hours. Now with the sun beating down on him he reached into his multicam BDUs and adjusted his FFW-CS, the micro-climate cooling system circulated chilled water through a special vest he wore under his shirt. The effect was immediate; the sweat beading up on his skin started to dissipate.
In the ruins of the movie studio hundreds of soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division dug in, awaiting the attack that would surely pour out of Beverly Hills to the west in the next hour or so. The enemy had pressed them hard since sunrise, steadily pushing the defenders backwards. Several dozen of their monstrous, four-legged war machines could be seen forming up about a few miles west down the large avenue.
The studios themselves were for the most part ablaze but no one was fighting the fires since most of Los Angeles was one large conflagration. Several times this morning Mallory had defended buildings that were nothing more than smoking piles of ash. The small burns on his hands and arms proved just how hot that fighting had been.
Back in what passed for the rear, about twenty yards away, his fire-team leader Sergeant Cortez argued with an officer. Both of the men, like the hundreds digging in around him, were covered in white ash and pulverized concrete dust, giving them the appearance of ghosts. The effect was startling whenever the two sides came into close combat. The white dust made it hard to tell who was who whenever Mallory had to fight on top, inside, or underneath a collapsed building.
He tried listening to the argument just as alien artillery impacts started to pick up to the south. The aliens had cut off the 40th Infantry Division as well as the 10th Mountain Division, and were currently reducing both units along the 110 Interstate. While doing so they had given a slight respite of a couple of hours to the American soldiers defending the northern portion of LA. How long that respite would last was anyone's guess. Cortez and the unknown officer were arguing just that.
"Sergeant, we need more reinforcements if we're going to push the aliens back into the Pacific!" The officer warned with a tone that suggested he was right just because he was an officer and Cortez was an NCO.
"Colonel, excuse me but that's gawdamn retarded. We've lost thousands of men, and God knows how many civilians, just falling back. Every single unit we've got as reinforcement has had to go through that inhuman blast zone they have ringing the city. They're losing like 75 percent of their strength..." Cortez snapped.
"Fifty percent at most, Sergeant. It's not as bad as you make it fucking sound. And don't let the men hear you say that."
"Whatever, they're losing a lot of good men and then being thrown into the real meat grinder. I'm down to one goddamn member of my original squad besides myself and we've only been in fucking contact with these ETs assholes for less than half a day."
"What would you have us do different, Cortez? Believe me, I'm open to ideas. I want to kill these bastards just as bad as you do. My parents were in Seattle yesterday. Today there is no more Seattle."
Cortez's anger simmered a little, but only a little, "Sir, they've got to stop pushing soldiers into Los Angeles. They've got to keep them outside and start digging defensive entrenchments. LA is theirs," he pointed down the street at the gathering alien machines, "Our job should be making sure they don't break out and wreck the whole damn country."
The officer looked as if he was giving Cortez's words considerable thought. "What of the troops already in LA, Sergeant? What should we do?"
Cortez's voice got really low, and Mallory could barely make out his words. "Sir, we're already damned. We need to buy time for the others to get set up. We need to buy time with our lives, if need be." The officer nodded. He dismissed Cortez and crawled over to where his field telephone operator was dug into a foxhole. The unknown Colonel started barking orders to troops across the battlefield.
Cortez crawled over to Mallory, pulled out his entrenching tool and started helping the private improve their firing position. "You gotten anything to eat? Been drinking enough water?"
"Yes, Sarge." Mallory answered.
Both of them were stripped down versions of the soldiers they had been yesterday. Long gone were the extra pounds of equipment they had hauled across Los Angeles from the landing zone in Long Beach. The mines had been placed somewhere in Santa Monica, the same place where he had left his sleeping gear and a hell of a lot of spent ammo, grenades and rounds for their SMAW.
The heavy batteries for his Land Warrior III had been tossed along with his headgear subsystem. The sensors and communication gear had given him a graphic vision of his teammate SPC Washington getting crushed to death under one of the alien walking machine's massive feet.
During the night he had thrown away his WPSM. The Warfighter Physiological Status Monitor had let the medics in the rear know that his friend PFC Horton was wounded, but not a damn one of the bastards had come to rescue the injured Ranger as he had bled out in some hole in Beverly Hills screaming for his mother. Only when the sun had come up had Mallory realized his friend had died in the ruins of the world-famous Playboy Mansion. Somehow that hadn't made him feel better about it.
He had accidentally lost his TDI Vector submachine gun when he had been traversing a sewer underneath Santa Monica Boulevard and one of the enemy war machines had collapsed the tunnel from above. He and Cortez had scrambled for their lives through the waste around them, leaving at least twenty other soldiers crushed behind them in the darkness.
Defense had turned to retreat, which had quickly turned to rout as soldiers, sailors, and marines had poured east away from the attackers along the beachfronts of LA. Every block became a battlefield and every house became a stronghold. The aliens seemed to have no trouble smashing one right after another.
Along the broad streets of Los Angeles, Leopard III and Abrams tanks had tried to engage the 'camel-looking' walkers as well as the floating tanks the aliens pushed forward ahead of their infantry soldiers. The armor the aliens had on their vehicles seemed to be impenetrable as SMAWs, artillery, mortars, and tank rounds seemed to harmlessly bounce off their hulls. Their 'heads' swung from side to side as their chin cannons roared. Laser bolts sliced through the defending tanks as if they were sticks of butter. The enemy fire was so hot it ignited the tank's ammo and fuel, causing horrifying, shrapnel-filled explosions that took the lives of many of the soldiers protecting the armored vehicles.
Soon unit cohesion slipped away from the armor units as they turned and charged back into the city, crushing cars and soldiers too slow to get out of their way, in their mad dash for the perceived safety of the rear. The camel-walkers had charged ahead and their cannons had destroyed several armor columns in short order. Mallory had witnessed a line of almost a hundred burned-out hulls along Rodeo Drive, with million amero stores burning around them.
The walkers weren't his biggest concern. Sure, they scared the crap out of him, but he was pretty sure if he didn't bother them then they wouldn't bother him. He was much more likely to die at the hands of one of their armored infantrymen instead.
Their smaller 'phaser' had no problems with shooting straight through whatever shelter he had hunkered down behind. They had effectively flanked out, surrounded, and dug out every American position they had come across. They moved like veteran professional troopers, exposing themselves as little as possible as they advanced. It had only been a matter of luck that Mallory and Sergeant Cortez had lived as long as they had. They had both escaped from dozens of collapsing, burning edifices throughout the night and morning.
The alien's bodyarmor or whatever they wore was tough to crack with anything less than a howitzer. Mallory had turned his M6A3-SRT rifle on several who were crossing a street when he had been retreating from the I405 line. Several of the aliens had spun around as bullets hit them, knocking them down like bowling pins. Mallory had seen several sparks light off their armor as his flachette rounds impacted. The struck aliens had hit the ground and, without missing a beat, had returned suppression fire on his position. Only by quickly fleeing and rolling down a small hill had he missed being sliced up by the enemy laser fire.
He had seen hundreds of examples that his own body armor was a poor defense against the laser or 'phaser' bullets the enemy aliens threw around. The ferrofluid-filled vest and leg pads were designed to harden in micro-seconds when impacted by anything that caused a current. But the aliens' phasers shot out lasers at light speed, so that just as your vest was hardening your organs were being fried out your back. Not to mention the alien's weapons were hot enough to burn through the Kevlar padding he had on his knees, boots, helmet, elbows, hands, and legs. He would have thrown the thirty pound vest away long ago if it hadn't already saved his life several times over from flying shrapnel and falling construction material.
He turned his gaze skyward as he dug. Several formations of the alien mysterious 'H' fighters circled lazily above the Upper Californian metropolis. He had learned from experience yesterday that the squatter appearing 'H' fighters usually massed over the front-lines whenever the aliens were about to start another attack. Several times the defenders on the ground would fire shoulder-mounted sidewinder missiles towards the fighters above. The result was usually the same. The 'H' fighters would bug out for higher altitude or orbit, just to return when the projectile was empty of fuel or one of their wingmen lased it from the sky. He'd yet to see one of the blue fighters shot down.
His ears hardly picked up the dull, thumping sound of his own side's artillery anymore. Rumors were the aliens had hunted down most of the American howitzers and self-propelled guns with highly effective counter-battery fire. Other soldiers told stories of high-command ordering all artillery pieces back out of the city. Either way, Mallory knew the soldiers around him only had their smaller mortars to rely on for indirect fire support. A scary thought, considering how much the NAU had truly been humbled by these invaders from the stars. "Where the hell is the Air Force, Sarge?"
"Bunch of chicken-shits is what they are. They ran like cowards as soon as the aliens arrived," Justin wasn't sure if that was true or not. He remembered witnessing the huge air battle off the coast yesterday, when it had seemed like the sky was raining shot-down North American fighters. "If only our fucking commo worked I'd know more. I heard a rumor they're trying to regroup somewhere out in the desert but I've heard a lot of things that weren't true in the past day." Mallory just shrugged his shoulders and took whatever the veteran sergeant said as gospel truth.
The Ranger noticed the high-pitched whine of dozens of the alien aircraft starting to form over northern Los Angeles County. He raised his binoculars and spotted several formations of the squatter fatter 'H' fighters amongst them. He moved his sights to the enemy walkers and noticed many of them were getting underway again as well. A mile down Melrose he identified a formation of the invader's floating tanks and two-legged shorter mech-walkers leading the advance.
His eyes squinted when he sighted figures moving through the ruins around the alien walkers. The infantry soldiers in their white, gray, and black camouflaged armor moved with professional precision in support of the advance. They appeared like white and gray beetles skittering through the rubble. Already sounds of the defenders closer to the alien lines reached his ears. With each passing moment those sounds got louder as the battle approached.
A sudden bark from his right and Mallory turned to a nearby sniper position. The two man team was manning a deadly Barrett M500 rifle that still scanned for targets down range, ready to deal out more death with its EXACTO .50 cal rounds. Mallory whipped his head back towards the enemy advance half a mile away and was rewarded with the sight of two ET soldiers dragging another extraterrestrial back behind some cover. The wounded alien seemed to be missing most of its left leg below the knee. Hopefully the alien would bleed out before the ET medics could go to work on him.
"Take that, Shithead!" Mallory turned in his foxhole to give the sniper team a thumbs up in praise of their well placed shot. His heart jumped as return sniper fire from the ET lines caught the Spotter in the face, burning an instantly cauterized hole through his head. The sniper tried to scramble away from their position but it was too late. Red laser fire caught the sharpshooter in the ribs as he moved. The sniper's body hit the ground without a word as the intensive heat burned through the air in his lungs and roasted his heart. The big sniper rifle clattered across the rubble.
An instant later several 'H' fighter-bombers swept over the front line. Glowing blue-hued orbs dropped from their bomb bays to explode squarely on the infantry positions around Mallory. A bomb hit the far side of a Stryker IV infantry vehicle nearby, its shredded hull absorbing the blast and saving his life. Blood dripped from his nose and ears from the concussive force of the blast. He wondered if anyone would ever find the remains of the vehicle's crew. Sergeant Cortez smacked him on the top of his helmet and asked if he was OK. Cortez's voice sounded as if it was a thousand miles away. Mallory just held up the middle finger of his right hand, which made the NCO laugh then shout. "Alright, get tactical Mal, the fuckers are going to hit us any minute."
Mallory pressed himself down into his hole as flat as he could get. A pair of medics carrying a burned soldier jumped over the two Rangers on their way to the rear. Mallory thought they were incredibly brave or stupid to be running out in the open right now. No sooner had the thought entered his mind than the camel-walkers opened up with their guns from a klick away.
Just as he felt his hearing returning several American positions unleashed SMAW, TOWs, MILAN IIIs, Javelins, and Hellfire missiles at the advancing walkers to no other effect than letting the attackers know where they were. The chin-cannon phasers of the beasts tore huge holes in the American lines. Mallory noticed several of the defending soldiers getting up and running to the rear. For the most part the line was holding but the alien infantry was still creeping forward. Mallory peeked over his shoulder and picked out his best line of retreat to the next defensive line two blocks further east.
Eventually the shaking of the ground wasn't just from the impacting rounds of the enemy anymore. Mallory could feel the pounding in the earth of each step the closest war machine took grew nearer and nearer. He felt the vibrations in his teeth and bones as the massive vehicle closed within a few blocks of his position.
Smoke from the burning city obscured it from his view for just a moment. Then suddenly two flashes of red lights plunged into his position from out of the smoky fog. The bolts slammed into the defensive berm to the right of him, picking him up and hurling him over the wreckage of the destroyed Stryker. Mallory bounced hard off of the concrete, tasting salty blood in his mouth.
The next thing he knew Cortez was grabbing him by his armor and pulling him upright. The NCO pushed Mallory's dropped rifle back into his hands, and dragged Mallory behind him. "Move! We've got to fall back!"
"What's happened, Sarge?" Mallory shouted above the din of the battle.
"They've flanked us two or three blocks to the north. We've got to fucking move or get fucking cut off!" Cortez pointed across the ruins. Mallory was awe-struck to see those floating tanks already across the trenches to his north. Small figures dressed in white armor were dropping into the American trenches and foxholes and pouring fire into the soldiers fleeing in front of them. The private grew angry when a pair of the two-legged walkers raced ahead of the enemy lines and into the retreating American troops there. Their chin guns firing into the backs of the retreating defenders.
A nearby M939 heavy truck slowed to make a turn east. Cortez pushed Mallory towards it, and they both clung to its side as it raced to the next set of lines. The new trenches were already being chewed up by alien artillery when they arrived.
Cortez and Mallory jumped off the side of the moving truck and flung themselves into a deep crater for protection. Inside the crater were three two-man hunter-killer teams still armed with two SMAWs and a MILAN III. Mallory quickly saw that Cortez was the highest ranking enlisted man in the hole. They had about five minutes before the enemy launched an attack on their new position. Already snipers and mortar teams were engaging the approaching aliens and the young Ranger prayed they were having some effect.
"You boys catching anything today?" Cortez asked as if he was fishing from a local dock. The soldiers in the pit smiled.
"Not really, Sarge. Been kinda hoping to sneak up on one of those two-legged bastards." One of the soldiers answered, a specialist by his rank badge.
"Well you're not going to have any luck down here. You want to come with us over to that collapsed apartment building? We might have a better shot from higher up." Cortez pointed at a nearby building that had its entire front smashed in, but still had a few floors standing in the open air. The soldiers nodded and followed Cortez over the lip of the crater. Mallory pulled rear security as the group made its way hunched over through a slit trench to the new position.
Over his shoulder he could see the aliens were already approaching the defensive line. By the time they reached the apartment every American soldier was opening up with everything they had on the advancing aliens as the invaders returned devastating laser fire into the American entrenchments. Mallory spotted several of the bi-pedal mech-walkers moving ahead of the advance as the alien infantry dug out survivors on the flanks of their attack.
They moved quickly up a ruined staircase to the second floor. Once there they were surprised to be greeted by the sight of several civilians. The civies had the appearance of an Hispanic street gang, all of them wearing blue and heavily armed. The gang members saw the soldiers and nodded. Mallory could see they all had good positions to cover the street below. Cortez said something in Spanish to the man who appeared to be the gang leader then turned to Mallory.
"Mal, stay on this floor and provide security. I'm going to set the anti-tank weapons up on the third floor. Hector here," he pointed at the gang leader, "Is going to help. This is their neighborhood. Whatever you do, don't let anybody up those stairs."
"Yes, Sergeant."
Mallory stayed along with two more soldiers. They all took up positions to cover the street outside. When Mallory was situated he looked out there. Already soldiers were starting to fall back towards the next line of defense as huge holes were blasted in their positions by the advancing alien horde. A floating tank roared across the crater he had been in a few minutes ago and poured heavy fire on a mortar position in the parking garage across the street from him.
Three more enemy tanks floated past his position. The gang members held their fire. Suddenly the enemy infantry was following in their armor's wake. Without being told, the civilians opened up with their guns and home-made molotov cocktails. The enemy reacted quickly, going to ground and returning fire on the second story. Mallory lined up a target at a little over a hundred yards and squeezed the trigger, He watched as sparks ignited off the alien's powerful armor. The alien turned his own gun in his direction and shot off a few laser bolts, impacting and killing a gang member lying next to Mallory.
The enemy infantry brought up a heavy-crew-served machine gun that they used to rake the entire second floor. The larger laser bolts ripped into the American defenders, tearing chunks from them and setting several ablaze. Mallory screamed for God and then his mother as the shattered floor was ripped apart around him. A half minute later they ceased their murderous fire, packed up their weapon and moved on after the rest of the advancing infantry.
Mallory laid quietly in the smoke filled rubble. A deathly quiet permeated the second floor. He moved his head back and forth and saw that every gang member and soldier defending the position had been gunned down and killed. Mallory couldn't believe he was the only survivor.
Suddenly there was another noise. Mallory laid flat on his back and perked up his ears to listen more closely. Someone was moving downstairs. As he struggled to listen over the sounds of the battle raging outside he heard the unmistakable sound of a footstep on the cracked wooden boards of the steps. One footfall after another someone slowly made their way up the shattered staircase. Mallory's hand tightened automatically around his rifle's trigger as he steadied his breathing.
He watched the stairwell out of the corner of his eye, careful not to make any movement that would draw the attention of whoever was down there. A white and black helmet emerged from the steps, followed by an alien in the full-bodied armor system he had seen countless others wearing as they had murdered his countrymen. This one appeared to be alone, crouched down, with his gun held out at the ready in front of it.
The enemy soldier bent down over the nearest dead gang member closest to the stairs and began rifling through his pockets. Mallory watched as it stooped down and pulled a gold chain from the dead man's neck before stuffing it into a pouch on its belt. Mallory gripped his rifle tighter as the alien moved to the next body and began to search it as well. The young Ranger felt every muscle start to tense up as the alien got closer and closer.
Outside the steady thrum of an alien machine stopped right alongside of the apartment building. The alien momentarily turned to look at the huge two-legged walker out of a hole in a collapsed wall. Mallory used the distraction to his advantage and sprung to his feet while he whipped his rifle around at the enemy. The trigger only clicked as his rifle failed to fire. His heart stopped. He had forgotten to reload another clip in the stress of the battle.
The alien soldier turned back towards him and, recognizing the threat Mallory presented, started to raise its own gun. Mallory acted on instinct, striking out with his leg and knocking the weapon from the soldier's hand. He hit the alien mid-section and tackled him to the ground. He punched the alien's chest plate and the intense pain that shot through his fist allowed the alien enough time to react and toss Mallory off of it.
Mallory was still on his knees when he withdrew his bayonet from its sheath on his waist and attacked again. The alien removed a knife of its own and charged back at him. Both combatants were still on their knees as they grappled, each with his free hand gripping the knife hand of the other. Mallory felt the inhumanly strong grip of the alien and swallowed a scream as a popping noise and searing pain came from his wrist.
Unexpectedly, the remains of the room around them exploded as three rockets slammed into the knee joint of the bipedal walker outside. Cortez and his team were still alive upstairs and had waited for the perfect moment to spring their ambush. The alien walker's leg was snapped at the knee and it quickly crashed to the ground outside.
Mallory lay in the smoke and dust cloud that obscured the room. Both he and the alien had been flung several feet by the blast. The alien seemed not to notice him in the peripheral sights of its helmet. Mallory lunged at the alien's fallen blade. The weapon vibrated strangely in his hand. The alien growled as it spun towards him and Mallory stabbed out, hitting the enemy in the black suit it wore under its armor. The blade pierced the ET's armpit, plunging deep into its chest cavity, its spurting crimson blood soaking his arm. The alien gave a shudder and collapsed dead onto the floor.
Mallory was breathing heavy from the exertion of the fight. The alien's helmet had been knocked off when it hit the floor and Mallory could only stare in surprise at what lay before him. It was, as far as he could tell, a human.
"Mal!" Cortez yelled from the stairwell. "Mal, you alive?"
"Yeah, yes Sarge!" Mallory stammered. "Down here!"
"Move your ass, Ranger! We gotta move. Whole hell of a lot of ET assholes moving up this way." Mallory's ears picked up the sound of several people moving around downstairs this time. The noises sounded menacing and they certainly appeared to be getting closer. He didn't want to be sitting next to a dead alien when the rest of the Martians came up here.
He quickly looked around and found his rifle next to the alien's gun. He picked up both, snapping the smaller alien one into his old TDI Vector's holster on his leg. He didn't realize it, but in his haste he slid the alien's knife into his bayonet's sheath instead of his own blade. He moved up the stairwell, slapping a new clip into his rifle seconds before more aliens came up the stairs from the ground level.
Cortez was at a far window lowering the last member of the hunter-killer teams downwards out of the back of the building towards a crushed dumpster at street level. Once the soldiers hit the ground they started working their way eastward. Mallory and his sergeant made it down and out of the apartment building and quickly followed the others back to their own lines.
Later, when they had reached their new positions and had a moment to rest before the next inevitable retreat, Mallory showed Cortez the alien rifle. Cortez smiled and mockingly pointed the exotic weapon at the approaching enemy lines a few blocks away. "Happiness is a warm gun."
"I have a feeling it might be LA's only piece of happiness for a while, Sarge." The NCO nodded in agreement.