Lions in Blue and Silver

The story of a last stand against darkness, and a light at the end of the tunnel.

Ahern stared out the cockpit window, watching the rain fall in torrential sheets of water, flash-lit by the occasional lightning bolt. Heavy, bulbous clouds occluded the sky – thick, black, and churning – and to the east, the sunlight failed before a wall of more angry black clouds. Lightning erupted constantly from the roiling mass of darkness, and the wind itself howled and rocked the shuttle as it tore past them.

He'd faced dangerous situations before, of course. Pinned down by rebels in Old Spain. Trapped on a transport holed by micro-mines, fighting pirates hand-to-hand with a goddamned knife. But the blackness in the east was simply death, given tangible form. The oncoming armada storm towered into the heavens, a wall of endings, of the ultimate impotency of humanity to deal with the results of their own mad wars.

He glanced to his left, where Pel continued to pilot the shuttle, dark face set in an expression of concentration, then back at the GPS unit in his hand. "If this piece of shit is right, we should be coming up on the shuttles very soon. If it's wrong, who knows where in the fuck we are."

The black Lieutenant grunted. "Shuttle's not gonna last much longer. I'm getting red lights on every damned indicator. So if that GPS is wrong, we won't be able to correct." He grimaced as the shuttle gave a sickening lurch, struggling with the control stick before leveling out. "Then again, we can tell we are headed south, so maybe it don't matter."

Ahern exhaled. "How much further can you nurse it?"

Pel's voice was both wry and bleak. "Shit, Cap'n, probably another fifteen, maybe twenty kilometers. But this ain't no M44, once the engines go out on this bitch she flies about as good as a brick. And with the ADS all wonky, I can't promise shit. When it goes, we go down fast."

Ahern nodded, then turned as Chu called his name. "Keep us on this course. We'll see what happens."

Pel nodded, bringing the shuttle's nose up over the shattered bole of a massive oak. Below, the ground was littered with rotted trees, the swampy water tainted red here and there where wildlife was torn apart by piranha infesting the shallow muck.

Ahern shuffled back into the main shuttle compartment, which was crowded to capacity. Chu was standing by the door with Kai Leng, the other Asian holding up the scout binocs once possessed by a slain Marine team.

Chu's own expression was tense. "Incoming EAGL, headed this way."

Ahern squared his shoulders, glancing around the cabin briefly. Kahlee's eyes were empty, her hands busy polishing a pair of throwing knives. Anderson leaned limply against his seat, leg and arm showing bloodied bandages. Florez was asleep on Saracino's shoulder, who was calmly readjusting his scope. Kyle was rigging up part of one of the safety harnesses to try and carry the GE minigun, while Richards was leaned back, heavily bandaged himself.

"How many, Yonis?"

Kai Leng answered, his already whispery rasp made colder by a trace of fear. "Multiple groups. Too many. Main body is about an hour, maybe hour and a half out – I count at least eight, perhaps ten, ABC war robots, well over fifty EAGL – and those are the ones visible." He glanced to the shattered terrain beneath them, and the blackened impact craters of several clearly destroyed shuttles. "Two smaller groups are flanking it – maybe twenty or so fighters in each one. They are headed the same way we are – to the gathering of Marines."

He gestured to the horizon ahead, where thin lines of smoke rose into the sky. "You do not need a tracker to follow that smoke to its source." His voice sounded almost tired. "Unless we can dig in, or the Alliance sends help, this will be a very short fight.

Ahern nodded, ducking back into the shuttle's cockpit and tapping at the comm controls. "Command, this is Captain Tradius Ahern, 5th Solguard. We are coming up on the GPS fix for the Marine group you described, but we have incoming EAGL forces in overwhelming amounts. Please advise, how copy?"

He waited for any voice to answer out of the howling static for almost twenty seconds before he realized he wasn't going to get a response. He gently set the mic down on the cradle, and glanced at Pel, who gave him an almost sad smile.

"So much for Command helping out, then, I guess. Almost there."

Arcing over the tree line, the shuttle came into a vast, swampy clearing bracketed by some of the tallest, most twisted and gnarled black oaks Ahern had ever seen. Five shuttles were scattered across the ground – two crumpled and smoking wrecks, two more intact if damaged, and one landed and seemingly in perfect condition.

A group of Marines were grouped up near the shuttles, weapons drawn, and an argument seemed to be going down. Ahern cursed. "Land us to one side; let's see what in fuck is going on now."

The battered shuttle came down swiftly enough, even if the landing was a touch rough. Ahern set his face and tapped Michael Shepard and Anderson on the shoulders as he came out of the cockpit. "Let's form up and see what the fuck is going on out there."

He exited the shuttle first, rifle in hand, and glanced across the mucky grounds of the clearing to the Marines, which were divided into groups. The larger group numbered almost forty Marines at a guess, and in front was a fierce looking Marine captain with a long, leonine mane of hair and hard, gimlet eyes to match his narrow, sallow features. These Marines looked battered, many were injured, and all of them had ugly expressions on their faces.

The other group of Marines was much smaller, led by a fierce looking woman with, oddly enough, the silvers of a medical officer rather than the blacks of a combat trooper. Behind her was a figure even larger than Richards, a heavyset Hispanic male over two meters tall and who was wielding a recoilless rifle like it weighed nothing. Most of these Marines were uninjured, and several more wore medical uniforms.

Both groups turned to face Ahern, Anderson, and Shepard, the hard-looking fellow from the bigger group speaking up first. "What command?" His voice was harsh and rough, but had a clear ring of command to it.

Ahern raised his voice. "Captain Ahern, 5th Solguard. With me are Lieutenants Anderson and Shepard. What's going on here, Captain…?"

The man glared hard at the woman, then straightened. "I see. I am being Captain Ivan Dragunov, 1st Solguard Command. We have elements of… more than a few squads, most of them sadly incomplete."

His voice was rough, filled with strange accents – English probably wasn't his first language. The fact that he was a fairly high-ranking Lord's son probably meant he didn't give a shit how people took his accent.

He made a disgusted gesture to his right. "This is Lieutenant Commander Vandefar. Medical. We are having a disagreement of resource allocation."

The woman was beautiful in a cold fashion, like hardened steel. Her high cheekbones framed a face of seeming wisdom, which twisted into a sardonic grin. Her voice was as hard as her features, with a trace of English accents and the crisp pronunciation of an educated person.

"Yes. As to what is going on, Captain, we have a very ugly situation. My team's shuttle, as you can see, is in perfect condition. I suggested we load it up with the most severely wounded or radiated and evacuate them. The good Captain here says those people are a waste and we should evacuate the healthy who are likely to survive to protect the Alliance."

Ahern blinked at that. "Great. Here's two problems with your ideas. One, we have multiple groups of EAGL incoming fast. They saw your shuttle wreckage… and probably the smoke. Two, we have an armada storm coming down on us in twenty hours. There's nowhere to fucking evacuate to."

Dragunov frowned as frightened whispers broke out before his handed descended in a chopping motion. "Silence!" He glanced back up, lips thinned. "We have been unable to contact Command – or rather, we are being able to send, but we have had no word. What is being done?"

Ahern managed not to wince. "The bulk of the Marine force landed inside the goddamned Exclusion Zone for Jacksonville – they're sending armored columns and any spare shuttles to evacuate as many of them as they can before the storm hits. They don't have much time, so we basically got told they'd get to us if they could." He paused. "When I tried to contact them again, I got silence."

More murmurings broke out, and Vandefar's frosty expression hardened further. "All the more reason to use the good shuttle to evacuate the wounded."

Dragunov sneered. "As the Captain is pointing out, to where? Some of these men will not survive the night, sad but hard truth." His eyes narrowed. "And I am expecting they would need doctor to keep them in health once they go?"

She lifted her chin. "No. I would be staying behind to aid in the defense… and hopefully keep some Marines alive." She glanced at Ahern. "Your shuttle is functional…"

He shook his head. "It's about dead just getting here. Alright, listen up." He raised his voice. "We have a fuckton of bad guys coming this way, and an armada storm. I've looked at the fucking maps, there's no cover we can get to on foot in time. Even if we could, EAGL would catch up to us and kill us off bit by bit."

The Marines quieted, for the most part, even as his own team filed out of the shuttle. "In fact, the only thing we have to shelter in is the damned shuttles. They probably aren't rated to take sierra rads for long, but they should be able to protect against kappa for at least a short amount of time."

Dragunov gave him an incredulous look. "Shuttles will be flung about like snow in first blizzard against armada storm."

Yonis Chu walked up next to Ahern and smiled. "Not if we can keep the mass cores going and lock ourselves down with gravitic fields. It should be possible – if we can keep them intact."

Vandefar frowned. "VIs are down on two of them, but we could conceivably reload from our own…" She tapped her helmet thoughtfully. "Though if we have that many incoming enemies… keeping them intact will be difficult."

A Marine lieutenant folded his arms, his dark features visible through his faceplate set into tense lines. "How the fuck do we hold off a ton of war robots?"

Ahern glanced around the clearing, at the Marines gathered, then raised his voice. "We fucking fight. Put the most seriously wounded in the shuttles. Use ours and the good shuttle and push them in a circle, use the wrecked ones as our cover." He looked up. "Snipers in the trees, heavy weapons behind the shuttles and flanking, and foxholes for the rest. CQB types off to one side, ready for a rush."

The Lieutenant's voice held a trace of fear. "And what if—"

Michael Shepard snarled, the sheer hate in his voice lancing through the damp air. "Fuck what-if! Those fucking animals massacred God only knows how many of us. They're coming right for us, and I for one ain't going out like a bitch, crying on my fucking knees. If they want me, they'll have to come and kill me, and I won't go alone."

Dragunov nodded. "Yes. It is clear this exercise has failed. All that now remains is vengeance. I would still prefer to evacuate with one shuttle… but we would not have enough to shelter everyone if we do that." His eyes flicked back and forth over the Marines. "We fight."

The Lieutenant shook his head. "That's bullshit. If you wanna stay and die that's fine, but we have a working fucking shuttle. I ain't going to just die so you all can—"

His words were cut off as Lt. Commander Vandefar drew her pistol and shot the man directly in the back of the head. Bright blood splashed out in an arc as he crumpled to the ground, and weapons came up all over the clearing.

The woman shook her head and spoke, her voice just as hard as Dragunov's. "I'm ashamed that someone could be that weak, but to take even a single shuttle means you are condemning others to death. We have no choice but to fight at our best."

A heavily built female sergeant, holding a shotgun, glared hard. "You killed him."

Dragunov snorted. "This is not game show, Sergeant Dah. Not being trite, but we fight or we die. Enough talk. We must prepare for incoming."

Ahern bit back a sarcastic rejoinder. "What have you been doing all this time?"

Dragunov sighed. "Force-march and nursing shuttles to get here. No mattering now. We must work."

It took thirty minutes to fortify the clearing. Two huge trees were brought down by heavy weapons fire, crashing to the earth and shielding the bulk of the shuttles. Chu and a dozen other engineers were involved in tinkering with the VIs and shuttle mass effect cores, while Marines dug fire pits, hastily cut down branches for barricades, and snipers climbed to likely vantage points.

The single undamaged shuttle was slowly used to push the other shuttles into a semicircle, then the VI was linked with heavy coaxial cabling between them. Ahern directed Marines to build two lines of skirmishers trenches in the sloppy earth, lining them with broken branches and topping them with very hastily rough-cut tree trunks.

Further back, Richards and several other heavy weapons types were making primitive gun-pits using driftwood and branches. Proper foxholes or even abatis were impossible given the soft earth, but something was better than nothing.

Snipers on the edge of the clearing called out nearly forty minutes after work started. "Incoming! Three zero hostiles, seven ABC units. Bearing zero two two, ETA six minutes. Flankers present."

Dragunov's team, all heavy infantry, were dug in against the huge trunk of one of the black oaks. He glanced at Ahern, and then nodded. "Officers, we will split command sections. Captain Ahern, the left, if you would. Captain Okuda, the right. Lt. Commander Vandefar, the rear and oversee your medics, evacuate wounded to the shuttles. I will hold the center. Lieutenants, brace your teams and do not waver."

Ahern's voice was firm as he spoke. "These inbred hick fucks have killed our brother and sister Marines. They've spat on the name of Victor Manswell and they detonated a goddamned nuke when the fucking planet is dying already. The only thing they deserve is a slow, painful death, but we're in a hurry, so let's just kill the stupid fucks before the storm breaks."

Marines crouched, holding rifles and sighting in, even as the snipers in the trees began to fire. At first it was sporadic, then regular, and then the snipers were firing as fast as they could. Screams and the metallic impacts of damage to ABC robots could be heard, and counterfire.

A rocket of some kind detonated in the top of one tree, and two Marine snipers were hurled from their perch. One was dead already, coming apart in burning chunks of armor and flesh, the other screamed as he fell almost fifteen meters to land in a bloody, muck-laden splat on the swamp's unsteady ground, the audible snap of multiple bones breaking cut his cry off suddenly.

Snipers began falling back, shimmying down trees or leaping to new ones. The howl of flechette miniguns rose into the air, and Dragunov's voice rang out above it. "They come. They will find us ready! I am Solguard. I will neither break nor bend. I am the hammer, the wrath of humanity! I am the point of the spear of the Lord! I am the gauntlet protecting the innocent, the flame that burns away the criminal, the light that illuminates the darkness. I am death, I am the end!"

The Marines joined in the 'Litany of Hate' as the first EAGL soldiers erupted through the tree line, and opened fire as one. Five of the EAGL soldiers went down in an instant as more began pouring through, firing as they came, some throwing grenades.

Ahern fired at one charging EAGL soldier wearing a thick woolen poncho crisscrossed with belts of old-fashioned gunpowder ammo, putting a red-trimmed hole in his chest and sending him to the ground. Two more rushed past their dying comrade to spray automatic fire from light machine guns into the firing lines of Marines.

Kyle was firing the huge minigun, along with the other heavy weapons types, sweeping the tree line that now was spewing forth EAGL and ABC war robots both. One of the robots went down to a recoilless rifle hit, falling with a mechanical cry, but five others lifted their arms and fired in long streams, sweeping across the front ranks of the Marines.

A female Marine was hit and flung back from the shallow firing pit she'd dug, a fifth of her body mass simply eroded off in shredded flesh from the hit. The Marines beside her sighted in on the EAGL flanking the war robot, taking them both down, even as minigun fire slammed into the machine, destroying it.

Dozens of streams of fire lashed back and forth between the two sides. Marine and EAGL alike went down in shrieks of pain or sighs of defeat. Blood trickled into the muddy terrain, splashed across makeshift cover. Splinters of wood, blasted from the trees due to near misses showered down, and the sound of the EAGL's battle cries clashed with the snarled and spat lines of the Litany of Hate.

The screams of wounded EAGL and Marines rose in sickening, eerie counterpoint to the howl of weapons, the breathy whispering sound of flames from ABC flamethrowers, and the constant hammering bangs of the sniper rifles. Another rush of EAGL soldiers ran screaming forward, hurling grenades to foul the defenses that had been hastily thrown together.

All eight of the EAGL soldiers died, but so did four Marines, and two more crawled away wounded. Vandefar had her medic grab them and haul them away, then unshipped her rifle and slammed into cover next to Dragunov, eyes narrowed as she fired for effect.

A sniper's bullet smashed into one of the ABC war robot's sensors, an older A-model. The machine went crazy, firing in all directions with both minigun and flamer, cutting down its own forces. Two ABCs turned to open fire on the havocked machine, taking it down, but exposing their less armored backsides to the Marine firing line.

Ahern smiled as several Marines focused fire on the leftmost ABC, driving shots through the weakened and rusted back armor to wreck the machine. The other turned ponderously, but jerked and staggered as it was transfixed by two different miniguns, then went down with a splash.

Sections of the tree trunks being used for cover were smoldering now, as EAGL troops ducked behind dropped war robots for meager cover, screaming and firing wildly.

"LIBERTY OR DEATH, FASCIST PIGS!" One screamed, firing an older but serviceable Spearman rifle, dropping one of Vandefar's medics carrying a wounded Marine away.

Saracino's eyes narrowed as he fired, killing that man, then his sniper rifle swept right, barking every second as his hands moved. Five EAGL went down with perfect headshots, one them wearing light armor and some kind of rank striping. ABC war robots opened up on his position, but he was already moving, cursing as flechettes tore through the canopy.

Ahern grimaced as Saracino was hit, losing his footing and hold on his rifle and falling. A second later Michael Shepard was there, grabbing him in midair and landing in a rolling tackle that took most of the impact. He rolled clear, hastily checking Saracino's wound, before a pair of EAGL soldiers rushed the pair.

Shepard's shotgun came up and barked twice, one shot obliterating the soldier's head, the other catching a gutshot, which sent him to the ground screaming in agony. Shepard dragged Saracino out of the line of fire as other snipers opened up.

The sound of a shuttle was heard behind them, and Ahern glanced back. A shuttle was coming in from the east of all places, the doors open, and a large Marine opened fire from the hatch with a minigun, catching dozens of EAGL soldiers in the back and by surprise.

By now almost all of the ABCs had been neutralized, and the EAGL lines wavered. Dragunov's voice lanced out. "Charge! CQB flank!"

A dozen close-range Marines erupted out of the carefully concealed pit they'd dug, hitting the EAGL in the flank. Kai Leng was in the lead, limping but flashing through the enemy ranks like a buzzsaw, his blade carving through one's face to bury itself into the back of another EAGL. Kahlee Sanders flung knives with dainty little motions that left them buried hilt-deep in a trio of throats, ducking under a wild swing from another EAGL to blithely latch her knife into the man's eye socket and tear it free.

More CQB lashed out with blades, even as the main Marine body topped their own defenses and charged the wavering EAGL forces. Several Marines were shot and two killed as they closed in firing, but many more EAGL were going down. The last of the ABC war robots shot two more Marines to death before it was blown to shrapnel by combined heavy weapons fire, the ruined bulk collapsing backwards to crush yet another EAGL soldier under its bulk.

Florez gave a howl of exultation as she flung herself into a roll to avoid a burst of fire, then came up firing herself, dropping two soldiers with a single burst. Chu and Pel were behind her, firing short bursts, as Ahern shoulder checked an EAGL goon with a shotgun and blew his head off.

The fire from the shuttle flying overhead erupted again into a long stream of tracer rounds, tearing through the EAGL ranks even as they began to fall back. Ahern sighted in and killed another terrorist, hitting his knee first to immobilize him then shooting him in the chest. As he did so, five more Marines opened up and a burst of fire rang out through the clearing.

Six more EAGL went down and the rest broke, stumbling back and firing wildly to cover their retreat. The snipers harried them with well-placed shots while Marines jeered and laughed, a few focusing instead on hauling away their wounded back to the semicircle of shuttles.

Ahern came carefully out of cover, his rifle still raised, and then glanced across the smoking, bloodied field at Dragunov. The slightly older man was, in turn, staring at the shuttle landing near the rest of them.

The shuttle was a heavier model than any used in the exercise, and the Marines who stepped out of it were wearing heavier armor with specialty anti-rad facemasks. The lead figure was dressed in the gray armor of the AIS. "I'm looking for Captain Ahern."

Ahern stepped forward, even as the last fire died off in the distance behind him. "Here."

The man nodded, turning to his own people. "Hopkins, break out the beacon repeater. Vicks, get on the comms and tell them we found the Marine group south." He turned back to Ahern. "Major Vaskins is my name, AIS military adjunct. We're here to get you people out. We received your message, but were already on the way – we cannot be absolutely sure there are no more traitors in the comms system, so we did not respond."

Ahern felt relief flood his body, but frowned. "I thought Command was going after the boys in the Exclusion Zone first."

The man's face twisted. "The storm surged faster than we expected. We got about sixty of the most heavily wounded out via shuttle… then the wailing wind picked up and started hurling theta rads at us. The ground transport's still on the way in, but… we don't think we can get everyone clear. In any event it's too risky for shuttles, so we're doing our best to pick up the remaining teams with those."

Ahern nodded, then looked at Dragunov and Vandefar as they walked up. The woman was limping, a wound in her thigh tied off with a simple rag bandage, and she spoke. "Will we need to triage, Major? We have some here with exposure as high as Red-2 and nearly everyone is wounded, but some are going to die in the next few hours without treatment."

The Major shook his head, as one of his people set up a slender antenna with a boxy looking module attached by thick cables. "No. We have sixteen shuttles, that should be enough to get everyone loaded. ETA is fifteen minutes. Form your people up by squads and let's get you the hell out of here."

Ahern turned at the sound of something in the brush, and his eyes widened as a single EAGL soldier, dressed in all black clothing, tore out of the tree line, weapon leveled at Kahlee Sanders. He fired just as Michael Shepard tackled the girl out of the way.

Nine Marines opened fire, blowing the EAGL's arm, leg, and most of his head off. Kai Leng and Anderson both hustled over to Kahlee, who was slammed to the ground and covered in muck, but otherwise unhurt.

Michael Shepard rolled on the ground, grimacing in pain as blood poured out of his side. He'd taken the shot meant for her, the heavy round driving into his hip. Kahlee wriggled up and snatched up her medical kit, tearing open the last bandage pack she had. "Shit, shit, shit! You didn't have to fucking do that!"

Shepard merely gritted his teeth while trying to smile. "…Yeah well. Couldn't let you just die…"

Anderson knelt down beside the man, "…How bad is it, Kae?"

She shook her head as one of Vandefar's medics came up. "Bad. We need to get him to a hospital, I can't stop this bleeding." She glanced up. "We need to move him into one of the shuttles and get the armor off."

The medic, along with Anderson and Kai Leng, got Shepard moving toward the shuttle. Ahern watched it with narrowed eyes as Florez came up. She watched the little scene then gave a huffy snort. "Heroic little bastard, ain't he? Mike would have been dead if he didn't pull that tackle catch, probably."

Ahern nodded. "Yeah. How's he doing?"

The woman shrugged. "Dunno. We'll see what the docs say when we get the fuck out of here." She glanced around the clearing, at the twisted oaks, the towering stack of dark storm clouds in the east, the feeble trails of smoke and splashes of blood all around. "Hundreds of Marines are dead over this bullshit, Tradius. Why?"

Ahern's jaw tightened as he found he had no clear answer.