Harvest Moon

“Everyone on your feet!” Kray shouted and the squad, burdened by their fighting gear, slowly complied, forming a stick. Elroy was the first one in line. Kray quickly but efficiently went checked over the young man and his equipment, making sure his weapon was unloaded and his water bladder was full. Done with his brief inspection, Kray jerked a thumb at the skimmer and Elroy hustled away, Harley was the next man in line and was cleared more quickly. Doc was the last man in the stick. Kray knew him to be the most professional member of the group and waved him past, falling into step at the rear.

“Remember... once we hit the ground, we spread out in standard two-by-two!" Kray said into the boom mike jutting from his helmet. "It’s going to be getting dark when we get there so use your visors on the starlight setting! Weapons on safe until we touch down.”

Kray made sure his fire selector switch was on “safe” before hitting the button to chamber the first from a magazine of 200 rounds. Cradling the M-32, he found a seat in the opposite door, next to the crew chief and the rotary cannon defending that side of the ship. As soon as he was aboard, the pilot increased power to the ducted-fans and the skimmer lifted off, trailing the others that carried the battalion. Their anti-collision lights went out in sequence as they rose, like a swarm of angry dragonflies, from under the rising faces of the twin moons… Artemix and Mithrix… each glowing and red with the change of seasons, planet Avalon embraced the end of reason. The flight into danger took less than 20 minutes.

“Charlie two bravo, this is Bulldog. We're on the ground,” Captain Brandywine’s voice crackled through Kray’s helmet speaker. “What is your ETA?”

From the door of the skimmer, data-visor running on low-light settings, Kray looked out ahead. LZ Pebble was there, with the Da Valley spreading out behind it, and marking the site was easy. All he had to do was follow the blast craters from the orbital strike, or the dark smoke billowing into the sky and dimming the glow of the twin moons, or watch where bright fingers of thrust lowered falling drop-ships to ground. There was not much cover to be found, just isolated Finback shrubs and sparse patches of wire-grass, Kray tapped the pilot on the shoulder.

“What’s our ETA, sir?” Kray said. The pilot held up three fingers. “Bulldog, this is two bravo… ETA three minutes, over.”

He leaned out of the door and watched the moon-shadow of the skimmer blurring over the ground. The bottleneck in the hills where the valley plain ends was drawing close. His stomach jumped into his chest as the skimmer suddenly dropped, imparting momentary weightlessness, startling him. He could see the flames leaping from the wreckage of what looked like a large dropship type craft in the distance… large shards of silver debris.

“Bulldog, this is two bravo. We’re on terminal approach. Out.” Kray called in as he tightened his grip on his rifle and watched the ground come rushing up at him.

“Let’s go! Everyone out! Go... go... go!” He hollered when he felt the familiar shock of the skimmer touching down. Kray threw himself out followed closely by the rest of the squad. Skimmers were the most vulnerable when loading and unloading, a fat target for any Euro with a missile or crew-served weapon, at least if it took a hit they wouldn’t be in it.

"Fek it, fek it, fek it." Harley cursed and jumped out behind him, falling into a prone position, training his weapon toward unfriendly territory. Behind him, the skimmer increases power and lifted off, deafening them with the screech of its engines and showering them with debris blown around by vectored thrust.

“Bulldog, this is Charlie Two One... we are on the ground with objective in sight... tree-zero-zero meters behind our positions,” Kray calls as his men set up a parameter. The reply from the company commander is fragmented, filled with static; almost indecipherable. “I think our tactical channels are being jammed.”

“Charlie two... this is Bu… og. Be advised these aren’t... we don’t… who the... are but they aren’t... ns. There’s too… Ge... out... wh...”

"Bulldog, say again," Kray said into his boom-mike. "Your transmission is one-by-one." Static hissed from the open channel. “What the hell is going on here?”

"A big charlie-foxtrot." Harley said as he opened a collapsible bipod and fixed it to the muzzle of Rosie’s HISS gun. Rosie was digging a fighting hole, angled to provide a clear field of fire over the LZ, the ground was hard and the going slow.

"Alright! Get set up for anti-armor," Kray said and found a sheltered spot to consider his position. "Everyone else in two man teams, one on watch while the other one digs, get moving!" He fumbled to pull his optics from the protective case they were stored in, then grabbed Elroy by the arm as he passed. "Where do you think you're going?"

Elroy spluttered a response as Kray pushed the optics into his hands and shoved him toward the inclined slope. "I want you up on the hilltop,” Kray said. “You see anything, you call it in." Elroy nodded and ran for the top.

Kray found a site with a good view of the valley in front of him and slammed the blade of his digging tool down into the soil. Sparks flew as the carbon-steel blade rebounded off of the rocks hidden beneath the thin layer of earth. Flashes appeared on the horizon, artillery impacting another landing zone, LZ Malibu, hidden by the curvature of the planet. Movement to his left drew his attention. He dropped his hand-spade and lowered his data-visor.

Through thermal-optics, he watched five people making for the bridge. He recognized the bulky kits that all five carried as explosive charges. The engineers were set to wire the bridge for demolition.

"Sergeant Kray!" The sound of a scared Elroy came out of his helmet speaker.

"What is it, Elroy?" Kray said. “And use proper radio protocol, dammit! Over.”

"I can see 'em, Sergeant." Elroy called back. "There's hundreds of them, like nothin' I ever seen before… over."

"Take it easy, Elroy." Kray said and tried to calm the young soldier. "Just tell me what they’re doing, over."

"Nothing, Sergeant. They’re just kinda all clustered together, like they're waiting for something, over."

"Where are they, over." Kray said, scanning the terrain before him, trying to see through Elroy's eyes.

"Eight-hunnert meters,” Elroy said. “Just around where the valley doglegs t' the south… over."

"Can you see any unit markings?" Kray said, forgetting his own demand from proper protocol. The last report he had heard before transferring out of the Iron Fist was that the EuroCons maintained nine orbital assault units but only two, the 533 and 534 Marine Infanterie, were at combat-ready status. If they were serious about grounding an invasion force, both units would be used. If Elroy was right, they’d already landed at least a battalion.

"Negative, Sergeant. I only can pick 'em up on infra-red."

"Then keep your eyes open," Kray said as he wiped his face on his sleeve and locked the blade of his digging tool. "They even breathe like they're moving in this direction, you let me know… out."

Drenched in sweat, Kray had a shallow fighting hole chipped into the hard earth when he heard a strange whistling noise that grew louder as the minutes passed, then something fell into view.

“Sarge… are you seeing this?” A scared voice went over the squad-commo channel. Sergeant Alvin Kray knew the voice when he heard it… Rosie, calling in from her fighting position on the downslope of the hill in front of him.

“Kray, check out two-three-zero,” Lt. Swift was the next to call in. “What the hell is that, some kind of air-cushion vehicle?”

“Hold on, L.T.,” Kray said and looked out to see three massive vehicles settling into the wide valley in front of them. They had dropped from the sky and braked to a hover… eight feet off the ground by his reckoning. “Zero ID. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Hey, L.T., check ‘em out on infrared,” Harley said and pointed out something he’d spotted trailing the vehicle. Kray activated his IR sight and was surprised to see that the invisible force supporting each vehicle was white hot. “I don’t think that’s one of ours, whatever it is.”

Kray turned as he heard someone coming up behind him… Lt. Swift. A battalion level message came down through squad intra-net. Colonel Xavier… in command of the Regiment, by God… was demanding a realtime video feed.

“Where are the skirts? Please tell me that’s an air-cushion vehicle you know of.” Swift lifted an arm to flip the data-monocle down from his helmet, navigating the point-glanced to a virtual comm display on which the colonel’s round face appeared.

“Let me get a look at it, Lieutenant,” The Colonel said. Swift took off his helmet and aimed the integral camera built into it at the silver half-eggs hovering two kilometers away. “I’ve seen enough. Put your helmet back on, son, and keep it there.”

“Yes, sir,” Swift said and returned it to proper place. “If you don’t mind me asking, what should we do about it?”

“Hmm… let’s see, you stay put and watch the thing while I call headquarters. If it’s heading for you, get out of it’s way. Take a defensive posture.”

Swift deactivated his helmet mike. “Command doesn’t think they’re ours… definitely not ours.”

“Brilliant, sir,” Kray said and added a derisive snort. “Do we have any projects with anti-gravity I should know about, because from my end, there’s nothing else I can think that could be keeping those things up.”

The lead vehicle lowered itself to rest on the ground. Kray signaled headquarters. After a moment, Colonel Xavier’s face appeared in his data-monocle.

“Yes, what is it?” Xavier demanded.

“One of them just landed, sir,” Kray said. “There’s been no activity yet. What should we do?”

“Don’t panic,” Xavier said. “Just sit tight and do like a told you. Report in if you feel the need to, but keep in mind that wheels are already in motion, we won’t forget where you are, don’t worry. Set up a continuous feed. I want to see what they’re doing at every moment.”

“We’ll make it happen, sir.” Swift said and waved Harley forward to set up a small video camera. For the first time Kray noticed that Harley’s knees were shaking. Both men recoiled as a nightmarish form with joints at the wrong angles rose up out of the darkness. Kray stumbled and fell backward, triggering his weapon, feeling his stomach lurch sickeningly as a scream pierced the night… something inhuman.

***