Steel Walls and Dirt Drops (10 page)

Misha expected to be swamped with signals, but only a handful of lights blinked on her HUD. She overlaid the signals on a battlefield map. There was a cluster of three lights from N'Guakkano
’s rear guard. One light was from Kosimov's squad on the other flank. Nothing was showing on any of the other squads.

She tagged the tactical map with
Jackson's last known position. It was in the center of the original line of combat. "Okay people. Check your tactical displays. Keep your face shields in place and keep your skid plates grounded. Bounce to the position I’ve marked on your TACs. Be ready and loaded for bear. Weapons hot!" Misha shouted as she used the suit's muscles to cover the distance in a ground-eating run.

"What the hell is that?" a voice shouted in Misha's ear.

She checked her command displays to find out who spoke. It was Ng from Kosimov's squad, the first APE to reach the front line.

"Hold on, Ng. We're almost there
," Misha responded.

She skidded to a stop a few hundred yards down the line from where Ng
stood. Checking her HUD, she could see a trace of red arching over the Binder's front line as the enemy rolled forward. There were indications of additional pods launching harmlessly against the armored APES. Flashes of red were washing over Ng as the Binder energy weapons targeted him, apparently without effect. No other APE was moving. None of the APE skid plates originally tasked to hover over the Binders was visible.

"Hit your magnification, Deuce
," said Ng. "Check out their front line."

Misha cursed herself under her breath. She should have thought of that. She spun the magnification up and caught her breath.
"What the hell is that?" Misha unconsciously echoed Ng's earlier comment. "Never mind, don't answer."

The three APES from N'Guakkano's squad hit the line, bunching up next to Misha.

"Spread out. On the bounce. We don't have much time to get our act together," Misha said. She silently cursed herself for having called them to bunch up in the first place.

"Are we bugging out, Deuce?" Ng
asked.

"No, dammit! We don't leave APES behind
," Misha spat. She wanted to add dead or alive, but she kept that to herself. Besides, she was pissed and wanted to kill something.

"But, Deuce
," Ng complained, "You saw what is coming, and they're coming fast. Are we supposed to fire into that?"

"Shut up, Ng and stay off comms
unless you got something important to say. You'll fire when and where you are told to," Misha ordered. She checked her HUD noting the names of the new arrivals. She didn't have much to work with, but each of the three new arrivals from the rear guard was a long-time veteran she knew from exercises and multi-squad assaults. Only Ng was a rookie.

"Okay, Rodriguez and…damn, both
Rodriguez, I need prisoners. I want that and that and that." She tagged specific individual targets on the TAC map from the enemy front line. "And if you can, get that big red son-of-a-bitch just back of their front lines. Preferably alive, but anyway you have to. Stash them in the first APE mobility box you can get to. Mark the bunker as used so we know where we shoved them. On the bounce, Rodriguez, both of you."

"Roger that, Deuce
," both voices answered; one male and one female. Two combat suits bounced forward toward the front lines in giant leaps.

"Weapons hot, Troopers.
Take it down if it isn't one of the four tagged on the TAC, leave only a small slick spot for their mamas to mourn over," Misha shouted. "Ng and Papadoropoulis, cover fire for the Rodriguez duo. Lob explosives to the rear of the enemy’s front. Pour your mass drivers into their flanks. Ng fire into the left flank and Papa fire into the right flank."

"Papa here, Deuce. Suggestion?" His voice punctuated by small clicks as he open
ed fire with his suit's weapons.

"Go, Papa. Let's not stand on ceremony." Misha began dropping
high-explosive rounds from the ammo racks built into the back of the suit into the Binder ranks. She vaulted straight upward about sixty feet using the muscles of the combat suit. She arched rounds into the Binders on the way up and the way down. She could feel the slight recoil as each round left the tube located over her shoulders. She swung each arm in front of her and triggered the mass drivers. She was firing hundred round bursts of inert material. It was shot at speeds that cut through a dozen Binders before striking their hard body mass and ripping huge holes in said bodies. Any other hit on a Binder might rip off a dozen arms or legs, but that would not be enough of a loss to slow down their forward movement.

Papadoropoulis said, "Deuce, we can use the squad bays as bunkers and mobile tanks. There are too damn many of these for just the five of us."

"But, there are not enough of us to effectively man the mobility pallets and still remain mobile. We need to be free to fire and pull back. We need to keep from being surrounded."

"Right, but
our mobility boxes are weaponized and we can put them on automatic. Hell, Deuce. Give me two minutes and I can drop them all in the middle of that mess out there and set them on random rapid fire."

"Automatic? How do you do that?" Misha asked. "Never mind, you can show me later, when we get out of this. Do it, Papa."

"Roger that," he said.

"
Juanita Rodriguez here," a female voice said. "We got your prisoners. Two each. We are heading back toward the central drop point."

"Papa," Misha said, "Tag
a bunker to stash the prisoners."

"
Juanito Rodriguez here," a male voice said. "Are you sure you want them alive? It wouldn't be much of a problem to make them otherwise."

"No,
let’s keep them alive if you can. I think we are going to have plenty of dead ones to look at. And tie them up, sedate them, stuff them in a locker or wrap them in duct tape if you have to. Get back up front fast."

All the while she
spoke, Misha fired into the oncoming ranks of enemy combatants. Finally, the soft chunk and recoil of the high-explosive tubes quit. The suit's HUD showed ammo chambers were empty.

Ng shouted, "I'm out of ammo.
Gods help me, I'm out of ammo."

"
It’s okay, Ng," Misha said calmly. "They can't hurt you if you stay sealed in your suit." She silently hoped it was true. Who knew what other unknown weapons were in their hands if the Binders were using bio and chem warfare for the first time? Plus, there was the uncertainty that came with the new prisoners; what the hell was the deal with them?

Misha called to Ng, "Okay. Ground yourself." Misha's mass driver's quit firing with the sickening
klunk of an empty weapon's chamber. She was talking to Ng, but it was as much to herself as for the rookie. "Get your feet down, dammit! Think calmly. Remember the mass drivers fire junk mass. The suit can collect it for you and convert as you fire. Remember it can use dirt and rocks, but you've got to get your feet down and stand still for it to work. Do it." Upon contact with the ground, she felt the suit vibrate and begin to sink down as the ground gave way to the suit's conversion process.

"But they
are almost on us. We'll get overrun. I can't see. Where did all this fog come from?" There was an edge of panic in the rookie’s voice.

"Stand where you are, Ng or I will hunt you down myself. It's not fog; it's just dust from the suit as it
chews up dirt and rocks to reload your ammo. Open fire. Use your HUD’s infrared to see. Papa, how is it coming?"

"
I am setting the first few to auto now. Give me a minute," Papadoropoulis said.

"Roger that. No rush. Ng and I can handle this. Right Ng?" There was no answer, but Misha's TAC display showed his mass driver shooting streams of green from his position. The front
line of the enemy had collapsed and the main body, a united mass of Binders, was pouring over the dead bodies of their own front line as if the piled remains were no more of an impediment than a small mound of sand.

"Damn
," Juanita Rodriguez said.

"Speak up, Rodriguez
," Misha said.

"
It is nothing serious. One got away while I was stuffing the other in a locker. Juanito got him and put him away. But, I think we broke that one."

"I don't care right now.
Get back up here if they are secure," Misha commanded.

Juanito Rodriguez spoke. "Hey, Deuce. If you need ammo, we can get it from our guy's suits. Your suit can do the over ride command and pop them open."

"Thanks for the suggestion, but I am about to start tearing them apart with my bare hands. They are getting a tad bit too close. Get up here as soon as you can. Papa?" Misha involuntarily ducked as a Binder threw something at her. She jumped out of the hole her suit had dug and bounced high.

"Ng. Get moving. Bounce around. Don't let them swarm over you and hold you down
," Misha said in mid-air. She could see her suit react to energy beams and her HUD showed groups of pods bouncing off her armor. But, it was doing little or no damage.

She came down in a small cluster of Binders. She lashed out with both hands, slicing through arms and legs to slam into the
central body mass. She whirled on her left foot and sent her heel crashing into a knot of the Binders swarming at her.

A second leap took her off the ground and over the Binders. Even in the brief time her foot had been in contact with the ground the suit had converted enough mass for a short burst. She sprayed the ground under her feet.

She landed with a slight jolt taking the impact on her knees. Flexing, she jumped again, not upward but in a shallow arc, aiming toward a group of Binders. Instead of landing on her feet she curled into a hard ball and crashed into the group, rolling and smashing dozens of the enemy into tiny blobs of goo. She somersaulted into a crouch and shot forward again crashing into more Binders. But, the enemy was relentless and completely disregarded any damage to its own soldiers. They continued to chase after her like a pack of puppies after a bouncing ball.

"Papa?"
she shouted. "It's time to do your magic."

Papadoropoulis said, "Ten
seconds to impact. We have mobility pallets airborne now. Get to clear ground. All ammo to auto-expend at grounding. We will have horizontal fire in three seconds."

Misha caught sight of a
falling squad bay that had just become an automated killing machine. She shot from under a pile of Binders and jumped upward toward the falling machine. Twisting, she curled into a hunched knot of metal and collided with the squad bay in mid-air. On contact, she uncoiled and used the bulk of the machine and her suit's muscles to leap hundreds of meters to a clear zone behind a small hill on the right flank.

She could feel the vibrations
through the ground as the mobile bunkers became automated weapons and fired with buzz saw ripples. She flipped to her feet and set the suit to loading mass driver ammo as she tried to check the ridge of the hill for enemy troops, check her HUD and check her TAC display all at the same time. Ng's telltale glowed yellow. He didn't clear the killing zone.

"Ng
," Misha said in a calm voice although she wanted to shout. "Set your suit to static. Go dormant. Set your meds on high. Hang on. We will get to you."

There was no response from Ng. The three other
APES' telltales glowed green.

Misha called out over the comms, "Can anyone get to Ng?"

"Negative." "No." "Sorry, Deuce."

"Okay, Ng. You hold on,
buddy. We'll get there soonest."

Ng's telltale stayed yellow and didn't dip any farther toward red.

Misha thought, "Maybe the suit kicked in enough meds and he is out of it."

The ground continued to rumble and shake as the automated systems blasted away at the
Binder troop mass. The squad bays held a limited amount of ammo and would soon be little more than dead boxes scattered about the battle field, but the weapons bay and storage lockers held an incredible amount of high-explosive rounds.

Suddenly, the
TAC map beeped. Masses of enemy troops were working their way through other passes and rapidly closing to firing range. The TAC map showed them as clusters of glowing red symbols flowing forward like a flood after a dam break.

"Okay,
troopers, it looks like we have more company coming. Check your TAC maps. Papa, how much longer will this barrage keep up?"

"It will be a while yet
, Deuce. I dropped a couple of ammo storage bunkers in there that can blow out for another five or six minutes."

"Okay. Keep them at the main force.
Move them back to the original drop point if any of them run dry. That way, the Binders won't have anything to hide behind out there. Can you drop a couple of empty boxes next to Ng? I don't see that the Binders have anything that can get to us if we are sealed up, so maybe he got hit by friendly fire. A couple of boxes would give him some protection from the other guns."

"Roger that, Deuce. Good idea, I should have thought of that
," Papadoropoulis said.