Chapter Twenty One
Still crouched beneath the cellar staircase and not moving a muscle, Lieutenant Colonel Gaz Membrane listened to the commotion going on upstairs:
"Where is she?"
"Who?" Asked the father.
"The human pilot!"
"I don't know!"
The questioning Irken roared in annoyance, and the distinct metallic discharge of a PRV-225 boomed, causing the mother to cry out, and Gaz thought,
This is it. Game over.
They had killed the husband. They would come down and finish the job. Suddenly, the mother bolted from her hiding place in the back and charged toward the stairs, where one of the Elites was just coming down.
"Don't shoot!"
He did.
Put a bolt in her chest.
But half a second after he fired, so did Gaz, carefully aiming between the slots of the wooden stairs, her round coming up between his legs and into his torso.
He tumbled forward, his rifle tumbling down the stairs and dropping to the concrete floor. Before Gaz could come out and grab it, the boy was there, snatching the rifle. He panted as he looked at his mother slumped across the floor-
Then a creak from the stairs seized his attention. He cut loose a dozen energized bolts.
Yet another Elite slumped and tumbled halfway down the stairs.
Gaz darted across the room, got up on a chair, broke out the window with the butt of her weapon, then hoisted herself up and squeezed through the hole.
"Come on!" She cried, reaching out for Joey.
He raced over and took her hand, just as a metallic thump sounded, followed by a loud hissing: gas.
They'd killed two. Had the father shot one? Maybe.
There'd only be three left, then, she thought.
Out in the snow, she and the boy ran straight for the barn, about a hundred yards away.
PRV-225 fire boomed behind them.
She hazarded to look back. One Elite, who had come out the back door, had just spotted them.
"Run!" She screamed.
Sergeant Ray Harper wasn't shaking in fear but in frustration. His men had the fuel truck pulled up beside the UH-1Y, the hose attached to the bird. However, filling the tanks took time. Too much damned time.
Come on, come on!
The Irken Voot's were twenty meters above the tarmac, then, five...
He tightened up against the wall, his helmet and combat systems fully activated, his Heckler & Koch XM10 assault rifle, one of few prototypes on the field, at the ready.
Marines nowadays sometimes handpicked his own weapons, even buying a few fancy toys themselves, and Harper had recently been experimenting with the XM10, a weapon whose earlier version, the XM9, had been abandoned by the Military.
Like the XM9 and the M8A2, the 10 was a modular weapon with four variants: a baseline carbine, a compact carbine, a sharpshooter, and a heavy barreled automatic rifle. Harper carried the baseline variant with attached XM322 grenade launcher.
Harper glanced off to his left, where Tristan lay prone beneath a tree, eye pressed to the scope of his M82A1 sniper rifle with its bipod dug deep in the snow. He'd taken the big girl along for the ride, and her .50 caliber rounds would easily penetrate the fuselages of those Voot's, the booming alone was enough to strike fear into the hearts of any enemy.
Gis had positioned himself a couple meters farther south, near another tree, his SAW balanced on its bipod. Radio Operator Fritz and Assistant Team Leader Scott were closer to the chopper, each armed with an MR-C (Modular Rifle, Caseless) which fired 6.8mm Caseless SABOT ammo at a rate of nine hundred rounds per minute. Both weapons were also equipped with rail mounted 40mm grenade launchers.
All of which was to say the boys from the Force Recon were good to go and waiting for show time.
But the order to fire would never come, Harper realized. The Irkens were jamming all communications. He would let the other Marines take the first shots, as they had indicated. His years of experience would tell him when to engage his men.
The first two Voot's touched down, the third and fourth only seconds behind.
From somewhere on the other side of the terminal came a boom and hiss, followed by a white streak that spanned the tarmac in the blink of an eye, reached the lead Voot-
And detonated directly over the canopy.
After the initial explosion, two more quickly followed, knocking the Voot on its side, one engine kicking up ice and asphalt, while the other burst and sent flames shooting from the cockpit, shattering the main viewing window. Those other guys must've brought an AT-4 from their cache back home.
Jagged pieces of fuselage and engine components from the first Voot flew into the second, striking its front window, going through it like a hot knife through butter, striking and kill both the pilot and co-pilot, just as the rear ramp dropped down and the first troopers tried to get out. Meanwhile, the third and fourth Voot's began to lift off.
Harper craned his head toward the forest. "Outlaw Team, fire!" Even as he issued the order, he burst from his position and launched a grenade at the large window of the second Voot.
The first few troopers to disembark were cut down by Gis's machine gun- and as they slumped, Harper's grenade smashed through the window and flew into the Voot's crew compartment as the troopers scrambled.
What a shot!
With a slightly dampened boom, the grenade exploded, shredding the Irkens inside and blanketing the chopper in thick, gray smoke.
The roaring of more engines from behind sent Harper's gaze skyward. For a moment, his heart sank as he assumed more enemy troops were inbound. But no. He had to blink and shake his head to be sure he was seeing them: a pair of older MH-53 Pave Low's with Canadian Airmen manning the 7.62mm M134 guns out the side doors, already opening fire on the two Irken Voots below.
Harper had to hand it to the other Marine group, who'd managed to recruit those pilots and convinced those Airmen to board the choppers. Sure, it wasn't much air support, but he'd take it.
Tristan let his first round fly, the rifle emitting a crack of thunder that rattled the buildings. He was targeting the crew members of the third Voot. His round punched a gaping hole in the canopy and blew the pilot to pieces, the co-pilot unstrapping his belt and vacating his chair as quick as he could.
The bird wasn't going anywhere now. It dropped back toward the tarmac, hit hard, then began to bank erratically over the grass, as Gis raked it with more fire.
The access side door popped open, and a few Imperial Troopers leapt out, hit the ground, and came up firing-
But they were quickly cut down by the soldiers in the air, helos sweeping over them, rounds sparking as they ricocheted off the street.
Harper was ready to call it a day. Dez was giving him the high sign: the tank's full, let's boogie.
"All right, Out Law Team," Harper began.
The sudden hissing and sparking of new fire on the wall behind him, on the ground, the snow, and over his head sent him diving into his gut. And just beyond the chopper, in the forest, came at least a dozen Imperial Troopers, probably two full squads, with one of the Irkens dropping to one knee, balancing a large tube like weapon in his shoulder.
Harper's mouth fell open. He recognized an RPO-A126, or "Bumblebee," when he saw one. This weapon fired an energized, thermobaric projectile utilizing advanced fuel air explosive techniques. Some described the weapon as a flamethrower, but it was more like a fiery plasma bolt with a flamethrowers aftereffects, burning for a very long time.
The trooper aimed it at the fully fueled UH-1Y.
"Get out of there!" Harper cried to Dez, Scott, and Fritz. "Get out!" At the same time, he cut loose with his XM10, directing all of his fire on the trooper with the Bumblebee. Squinting against the smoke from his barrel wafting into his eyes, Harper watched the trooper fall forward and drop the weapon, just as Dez, Scott, and Fritz came running toward them, plasma bolts raking their paths.
Gis swung his weapon around and began to suppress the oncoming troopers, but Harper already saw they couldn't hold them back for long. And yet another trooper picked up the Bumblebee and was leveling it on his shoulder.
Harper fired at that trooper, dropped him, then another salvo sent him rolling to the left, out of the bead. He felt a dull pressure on his shoulders as a few bolts struck his Crye integrated body armor, but he was okay.
"God damn, Jonesy, you would've loved this," He grunted, wishing his old assistant were here in the fray.
Then he cried, "Outlaws, fall back to the front of the terminal. NOW!"
As his men continued, still returning fire, Harper got to his feet and did likewise. He chanced a look back, saw yet another Irken shouldering the Bumblebee, shifting behind a tree, into complete cover.
There was no stopping that concentrated bolt from being launched now.
Harper sprinted forward, reached the corner, and ducked around to his left, just as a massive explosion struck like lightning from a thousand storm clouds. A gasp later, the concussion wave struck, lifting him a meter into the air, then knocking him onto his belly.
With the whoosh and roar of the flames still resounding, accomplished by an unbearable gasoline stench that seemed to clog the hot air, Harper felt a hand latch onto his wrist and pull him to his feet.
"They blew up my goddamned chopper!" Shouted Dez, releasing him. "They blew it up!"
Just then, the two choppers swooped down, the Canadian soldiers ready to strafe the oncoming infantry behind them.
"Forget the bird. I'll buy you another one!" Cried Harper. "Let's get some cover!"
Ahead lay a garage, home of the airport's fire crew. They swept along the main terminal, headed for that-
One of the terminal doors opened, and Black Bear appeared. "Marines, get in here now!"
"Do what he says," Hollered Harper.
They filed into the terminal, stealing a moment to catch their breathes.
Black Bear smiled, removed the cigar. "Guess you boys will be staying a while."
(End chapter)