Operation Deathfall
++ This is a first draft for a book in the Inkfort Press Writing Derby 2024. There will be regular updates and edits, so please feel free to leave any comments when you read!++
“All right you miserable babies, time to buckle up, get down there and stomp some alien butt!” the voice of Sarge crackled on the central monitor of the cockpit, his transmission being beamed across from the main fleet to their little landing craft as they hurtled towards the little purple rock of a planet.
“Tell me, soldier. What is your designation?”
“Alpha Team leader, Marcus, Sir!”
The image of the older man stood there emotionless for a moment as the response was transmitted across space. Not that Marcus had ever seen his commanding officer respond to anything. He liked to imagine that even when Sarge had lost his eye in battle he had gone about his business as though nothing had happened.
“And why do you fight?”
“For the glory and safety of Humanity, sir!” Marcus yelled back, even though he knew the speakers on Sarge’s ship would balance his voice before transmitting.
“Damn straight you do, soldier! Your A.I. has been programmed with your mission parameters. Now get in there and get the job done.”
Marcus barely finished calling back “Sir, yes, sir!” when the screen cut out, leaving a small green orb slowly pulsing and rotating as it bounced around the screen.
“Greetings, pilot. I am A.I.M, your Artificial Intelligence Machine...”
“Yes, I know! I’m not some damn rookie out for their first run,” Marcus cut off the A.I. before it could finish the full five-minute introduction speech.
“Useless thing...” he muttered under his breath after.
“Scanning pilot identity... Identity confirmed. Welcome back Alpha leader. My apologies for the earlier mistake, my systems were being updated.”
“What is our status?” Marcus asked, brushing over the ‘apology’ the machine always replied with whenever it made a mistake.
“We are six point two minutes out from breaking orbit over X4297. Alpha Team is to be deployed here, along with Delta and Echo.” The screen changed from the orb to an aerial map of what looked like a pile of rocks with paths running between them.
X4296 had been littered with similar ‘cities’ belonging to a vicious mantis-like alien that was almost as tall as the Juggernaut class mech Marcus and his team each piloted. Their claws were lined with some sort of metal that was sharp enough to cleave through the Depleted Uranium armour of the mech, and Marcus had had one too many close encounters with the things to know just how dangerous they were, even if they did look frail from a distance.
“Are we the first down?”
“Negative. Hostiles have already been engaged. You are to recapture this point at your drop site, then converge on secondary and tertiary points to surround and eliminate the core of their forces.”
Marcus studied the map, letting go of one of the control joysticks so he could tap and swipe on the screen with one hand to look around the nearby terrain. It was almost all identical, a hive built from mud and rock and home to thousands of lethal aliens. And they were going to be dropped right into the middle of it all.
With the flick of a switch on a side panel, Marcus opened up team comms. “Team, sound off.”
“Brutus, status green.”
“Lucius, status green.”
“Galabrio, having some targeting errors on the chain laser, but everything else is green, boss.”
“Macer, all green here.”
Marcus checked the countdown that had appeared at the top left corner of his display. There wasn’t enough time to reboot Alpha 3, and the nearest engineer was a thousand miles away or more.
“Alpha 3, you gonna be able to shoot straight with that?”
“A.I.M is shunting it over to manual, I’ll be golden by the time we land,” Galabrio replied.
To be fair, the MX7000 heavy chain laser only needed to be roughly pointed in the right direction to turn your target into a molten pile of slag, firing three hundred short burst beams of superheated light with every squeeze of the trigger. And that was just the tip of the iceberg for the Juggernaut class. Alpha team were the best of the best, and that came with the perks of being pilots of the greatest war machines Humanity had to offer.
A pair of alert lights mounted in the roof of the cockpit began to flash yellow, signalling that the carrier was about to break through the atmosphere. Everything started to shake as they hit the invisible barrier of barely breathable gases that surrounded the hellish world. The oxygen levels were almost fatal, but just low enough that weapons fire wasn’t enough to ignite the damn place.
The mineral and metal content of X4297 was the only reason ground forces were being deployed and the planet hadn’t already been reduced to so much space dust like X4187. Marcus had enjoyed watching that from the spartan space on the battlecruiser Dameos that acted as Alpha Teams base of operations.
The lights changed to red, and after ten flashes Marcus felt the sudden pull of gravity as the hatch on the carrier opened and unleashed Alpha Team.
All the blood rushed to his head as he plummeted in freefall for a few seconds, before the landing stabilisers which had been attached to the back of the mech fired up and reduced his velocity from lethal to merely bone jarring. Only the suspension harness that held Marcus in place in the cockpit stopped him from actually breaking any bones as the war machine slammed into the hard rock of the world, leaving a significant impact crater and blowing shards of rock all around him.
Now on the ground, his central display filled with real-time data and camera feeds, while side displays and the various alert lights and instruments dotted around the inside of the cockpit activated and began inloading data. Although all he could actually see on the live feed was dust, green outlines of his team were superimposed over it, their beacons allowing A.I.M to keep track of their locations and help avoid friendly fire.
“Systems functioning at 100% across the board,” A.I.M announced, as a small version of Marcus’ Juggernaut popped up on a side display, also in green to show functionality.
As the rest of the team reported in with similar status’, Marcus pushed forwards on the twin joysticks, causing all one hundred and fifty tons of murder machine to stand at its full height before running forwards.
The rest of the team fell into position behind him, and they advanced down the sorry excuse of a road no further than fifty paces before warnings of engagement with the enemy flashed across every warning light and display on the mech.
“I got ya,” Lucius’ voice came over the comms seconds before Marcus saw Alpha 3 power up the shoulder mounted twin rail launcher.
A dozen of the aliens were running straight towards them at an alarming speed down the road, though this number was rapidly reduced when a flash of blue light from the muzzle of Lucius’ weapon signalled that the launcher had been fired.
The lead mantis exploded into a cloud of blue mist, the two to its left following suit as the other members of Alpha Team opened fire.. When the aliens’ charge faltered and they began to split off, forming smaller strike groups of twos and threes, Marcus ordered the team to do the same.
Each mech rapidly launched into a perfectly timed attack pattern, moving in sync with the targets Marcus assigned them via A.I.M.
Macer in Alpha 5 was the first to get sights on his target, and the laser cannon on the underside of the mech’s right arm powered up before blasting through rock and alien in a solid beam of deadly light.
“Kills confirmed. That’s three to me,” Macer announced.
This was soon followed by Galabrio swearing as he raked the chain laser across the path of his target. “Shitting hell, those things can move! Only one confirmed. Closing in on the other now, boss.”
Kill confirmations soon came in from the others, leaving Marcus embarrassed as the only one not to have even made contact. The three he had been chasing had gone to ground, taking cover behind a thick chunk of rock even the laser cannon would struggle to get through.
“We can play it like that if you want,” he said to himself, and flicked the toggle on the top of the joysticks with his thumbs.
Electricity arced over the hands of Alpha one as Marcus ran, then jumped over the outcrop in a single bound, taking the first of the aliens completely by surprise. The thing shuddered as he grabbed it by the face, a few hundred thousand volts coursing through its flesh while he crushed its skull before tossing the body aside.
A red light flashed behind him on the right, and Marcus rolled the mech to the left in time to see a silver claw swipe through the air where the body of Alpha 1 had been just a second ago.
At this distance he didn’t need to wait for A.I.M to lock onto the target, and simply pulled the trigger on his chain laser. The energy bolts tore the thing to pieces, leaving a pile of smoking flesh.
“Where are you, you bastard…” Marcus whispered as he turned on the spot. Another flash of red came from behind him, but he was too late this time and felt the impact of something heavy colliding with the mech, sending him tumbling to the ground.
The wail of warnings and flashing orange and red lights filled his world, making it almost impossible to think. Luckily he was a veteran of a hundred battles, and it would take more than a bit of noise to distract him from the fight. Another impact came in faster than he could move, and he could feel from the weight of the controls he’d lost an arm before A.I.M ever flashed the warning up on the side display.
“Alpha Team, I need assistance. Got a sticky one on me,” Marcus called out.
Everything started to feel heavy as the third impact landed, and Marcus’ vision started to swim for a moment. He had the feeling of falling, hurtling through space and suddenly weightless before everything suddenly came sharply back into focus.
A beam of blue light came dangerously close to the mech, before Lucius called out, “got him off your back, boss. You’re lucky I’m this damn good!”
Marcus got Alpha 1 back into its feet and started to scan over the damage report. To his surprise A.I.M was being more efficient than usual, and was already running through the repair procedures. System lights slowly flickered from red back to pale green. Even the damaged arm was brought back online.
“Good work A.I.M,” Marcus said.
He never heard if the A.I. responded, as an explosion loud enough to be felt and heard from within the cockpit ripped through him. Was that artillery? The mantis had never shown signs of that level of tech before. Surely his own side weren’t firing on their position?
Another explosion hid Alpha 3 from view, and for just a moment Marcus could have sworn he saw bits of the mech get thrown from the blast sight before his monitor flickered and adjusted for the sudden change in light.
“Lucius, report. Are you still with us buddy?”
It was a few painfully long seconds before Alpha 3 strode through the dust cloud, with barely a scratch on it.
“Takes more than whatever these bugs are throwing at us to take me down, boss!” came Lucius’ cocky reply.
“Boss, I don’t think those are coming from above,” Brutus announced, a hint of panic in his voice.
Marcus glanced over at the various instruments in the cockpit, looking for any change in external pressure or seismic activity. Despite the Juggernaut being thrown about just moments ago, to his surprise the readouts were holding absolutely steady.
“A.I.M., are these accurate?”
“Scanning…Scan Complete,” A.I.M announced as though nothing was wrong, yet as soon as it finished speaking all of the alarms went off and too many red dots to count started flashing on the main display all around them.
“What the hell is going on out there?” Galabrio asked what they were all thinking.
“This might be the end of the shitting line, boys,” Lucius called out before punctuating it with a burst of manic laughter.
“We’re not done yet, get to higher ground and circle up and set everything to overcharged, no point in being precious about power now. Soon as you see a target, make it ash,” Marcus ordered, breaking into a loping run alongside Lucius to form up with the others.
After clambering up one of the rock domes that Marcus mentally labelled as a building, they found some flat ground with enough lines of fire that they would have a chance to get off a few good shots before whatever was coming got to them. These bugs would pay dearly in flesh and blood.
The central display was just a sea of red dots now, only the superimposed outlines of the mechs told Marcus the team was even still there besides him. Switching to the live feed he looked around and saw the devastation of war all around him. Bits of mech and bugs from previous engagements littered the streets. There were even a few human remains from where brave soldiers must have disembarked their crippled mechs and taken to the fight with assault rifles on foot.
“I’m detecting a large number of targets approaching your location,” A.I.M unhelpfully said.
“No kidding…” Marcus muttered, swinging Alpha 1 around to get a better view of his targeted arc.
Nothing on the display could have successfully prepared him for the sheer volume of bodies that came bursting out of the ground. Worse, they didn’t swarm and climb up the rocks as Marcus had expected.
Hundreds of the things cracked open the upper part of their chitin coated backs and revealed a set of shiny wings, taking to the sky as soon as they were free of the holes they had burrowed out of.
“Fire at will! If it moves, end it!” Marcus yelled over the comms, pressing down hard on the triggers and paying no regard to the steadily rising bars of the heat sinks on the side display as they struggled to cope with the excessive rate of fire.
“A.I.M., lock on and fire all secondary munitions.”
The blasted A.I. was silent for a moment, then replied, “Alpha 1 is running dangerously close to its power limits already, adding to that load may result in…”
“Just bloody well do it!”
“As you wish. Weapons locked. Firing.”
Marcus’ vision on the display was temporarily blinded as a rainbow of colours overloaded the live feed’s capacity to process what was going on, as anti-vehicle rockets were launched from embedded compartments within the chest of the mech, rail cannons unloaded round after round of solid core death while lasers and hot plasma from the remaining weapons fired as quickly as the failing power cells would allow.
His world was filled with shouting, explosions and the inhuman screeches of the aliens as they threw themselves with abandon into the killing zone, relying on the weight of numbers and brute power to carry them through the fight.
With nowhere else to go, Marcus prayed to whatever deity had watched over them this far, and kept on firing.
