I felt something odd a moment later. It was a shifting sensation, under my boots. It was slight, but it was undeniable. I put together two things at once in my head. The sunken tank, and the wobbling under my feet.
“They are digging under us!” I roared. “Kwon, get everyone braced for a fall!”
“A fall, sir?” he asked, confused.
That was all the time they gave us. Fortunately, our bunker didn’t just sink into a vast hole and vanish. Instead, the northern corner sagged into the dust by itself. It groaned and creaked, but the steel welds and rods held. I knew this bunker wasn’t reaclass="underline" it was a house of steel planks, like glued-together playing cards. There was no concrete, rebar or solid construction of any kind to keep it together. We’d thrown the shelter together in about an hour, and it showed. Still, it had held together so far.
“They are going to suck us underground,” Kwon said, suddenly figuring it out. “Just like the tank. What are your orders, Colonel?”
I chewed my lip for about a second. The right call in these tactical situations made all the difference. I ran through the possibilities. My marines had kept the enemy at bay so far, despite their overwhelming numbers, by maintaining a field of ranged fire. They didn’t have enough cover to outgun us, and their blade-armed troops hadn’t been able to get in close enough to be effective without being shot down. I could see the Macro strategy clearly now: they’d elected to bring us down to their level. If they couldn’t get past our guns, they’d sink the entire bunker into the ground, then cut their way inside and gut us one by one. I’d been in a number of tunnel-fights over the years, and I didn’t want to let them force us into that situation again.
“Marines, listen up,” I said over the general channel. “We’re going to have to abandon this bunker for now. They want us to sit here until they sink us, but we’re not going to do what they want. We’re going to take the fight to them.”
“Very good, sir,” Kwon said. “What’s our target?”
“The tank, for now. We’ll try to pick up Marvin and Sloan.”
“What about Carlson? He’s too wounded to walk.”
“You’ve got two arms. Carry him.”
We all gathered on top of the bunker. It was shivering now, as the Macro workers dug feverishly to undermine the structure. “On my mark, we all fly over the wall and rush for the tank. Spread out, fire as you go. Keep advancing. Go! Go! Go!”
We all launched over the side and rushed, half-flying, half-running. Everyone was firing their weapons. I think the Macros were shocked, if they were capable of such a reaction. For a few seconds, the incoming fire stopped. We blazed out at them without a moment’s hesitation, however. Flanked by our changing position, a number of the machines were knocked out of the fight. Most of these were Macros that had taken up sniping positions on the big factory.
To my left side, a hulking shadow approached, then passed me. I glanced over and saw it was Kwon. This didn’t surprise me. It also didn’t surprise me that he was outrunning me. What did make my eyebrows raise high was the flopping form on his back. He was sprinting along on those thick legs of his, with Carlson’s limp form draped over his generator pack. This burden didn’t prevent him from laying down a continuous pattern of fire with his free hand, either. I took a fraction of a second to look down, and saw his feet were sinking several inches into the soft earth with every pumping stride.
That was all the time I had to eyeball Kwon. We reached the tank-or at least the spot where it had fallen into a giant sinkhole. Our suit lights washed into the dusty, gaping wound in the dirt. I saw metallic gleaming reflections here and there. How far down was the charred tank? Almost twenty feet, it looked like. There were shapes down there, moving to and fro.
“Stay in the tank, Sloan!” I shouted. “Commence firing men!”
That was all the go-ahead my troops needed. We poured fire down into the Macro machines. It was a slaughter. They melted to slag under our circle of blazing guns. A few tried to hop and scrabble out to get to us. Their foreclaws grabbed a boot here and there, a few slashing pinchers gouged armor. But no one was injured. We shot them until they stopped coming.
“Ceasefire!” I shouted, and hopped into the hole.
Kwon dropped Carlson and jumped after me.
I turned to him. “Kwon, help me get this hatch open. It’s stuck.”
“Are Marvin and Sloan alive, sir?”
“I don’t know,” I shouted. “No response from them yet. I’ll go back up and arrange our men around the crater.”
I flew back up to the top of the hole and sent three marines into the hole to watch Kwon’s back. The rest of them I set up in a perimeter around the edge of the crater the Macros had created when they undermined the tank. They’d unintentionally provided us with some good cover. It wasn’t anything like the bunker, but it worked.
The enemy had reorganized their assault to focus on our new position by this time. The air over the crater sizzled with laser bolts. Within a single minute, two of my marines had been hit and taken out of the fight. One of them slid flopping and spinning down into the dark hole behind us. He crashed down on the piles of loose dirt, stones and dead Macros. He screamed as one of the upright Macro pincher blades punched through his leg at the hip. I looked down and winced. Kwon’s men struggled to free him, but he was impaled.
“Get our corpsman down there,” I said, gesturing with my rifle toward the impaled Marine.
“Carlson was our corpsman, sir,” someone answered.
“That’s great,” I said, then snaked out an arm and grabbed hold of the nearest rifleman. “You, grab Carlson’s kit and use it. It’s mostly extra nanite injections anyway.”
Star Force Marines included our own medical personnel, unlike some other national forces. We called our medics Corpsmen, and they had basic medical training and a specialized kit for emergencies. But even these men were trained, armed, combat troops. Since we generally didn’t fight other humans, this didn’t represent a conflict for a man who was dedicated to saving lives. They destroyed machines by day, patched up fellow marines by night, and slept like babies whenever we gave them the chance.
“Any luck with that hatch, Kwon?”
“I almost have it, sir,” Kwon grunted.
He was so big, the other marines standing around couldn’t really get in underneath him and help. He simply strained and heaved solo. I watched his shoulders shift, the wheel must be turning.
“There we go,” he said, and pried it open a fraction.
To everyone’s surprise, it was yanked shut again.
“Dammit,” I said, pointing at the others. “Quit fooling around. Get a pry bar into that opening next time.”
Kwon stooped again. He heaved and roared. A few seconds later, another Marine pushed the broken length of a Macro’s leg into the breach and forced it upward.
A flash of light illuminated the dusty scene. The marine with the Macro leg in his hand cried out, clutching his arm and staggering back.
“Sloan, dammit sir,” Kwon said. “It’s us.”
The hatch was ripped all the way open. I looked down into the dim lit interior. There were Marvin and Sloan. They’d been hanging onto the hatch from the inside, trying to keep Kwon and the others out. All of Marvin’s thin, black nanite arms were entangled in the wheel of the hatch. I was surprised Kwon had been able to open it at all, even with the added power of his battle suit.
“Sorry sir,” Sloan said. “I-we thought-our radio is dead, Colonel.”
“All right, honest mistake,” I said in irritation. “We shouldn’t have shoved a Macro leg in there to pry it open. But I’ve got one less man on the line now. Get up here and take his place.”
Captain Sloan glided up to me on his repellers, but he kept his head low. “What’s our tactical situation, Colonel?”