Alien Mine Ch. 19

Rhys could see when Yaneta's Delta squad fought their way through and flanked the Om. "Delta, shift right to the adjacent tunnel, advance thirty meters, pivot left and hold. Destroy the tunnel walls, and do not let the Trangrods get around you," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," Yaneta replied before relaying the orders to Corporal Tanner, who would know how to deploy the men better than she would. Yaneta had no experience in combat tactics, her instinct, driven by the symbiont, was to stalk and kill her prey individually. The need to give in to the surging blood lust was strong. Yaneta was barely holding herself in check by force of will, knowing Rhys would not be pleased.

"Stay with the squad, provide fire cover, and relay orders," came a sharp command from Rhys. He could probably sense her desire to attack, to rend. It was primal in her, and she almost sobbed as her symbiote forced her to obey, but she was also grateful for the command; it removed any ambiguity. She had to follow commands.

Rhys fired his massive weapon at a roach his drones had flushed out, blowing a large hole in the thorax of the body. Then, he shifted to his next target, leaving the damaged Trangrod to the drones. Several Om machines were still fighting but unable to communicate with each other. Now it was just a matter of herding them into the crossfire between Delta, Echo, and the Binary. "Jack, cut through the wall to your left and bring your command squad up to Echo's left flank. Take position and hold; use the drones to flush out any remaining Trangrods."

Jack gave the order, but Amanda's drones had already ripped through the tunnel walls and into another adjacent tunnel to the left. She could see from the three-dimensional display in front of her eyes where Rhys was maneuvering them. The Om nest was like a maze of crisscrossing tunnels, all seemed to be interconnecting, not randomly, but according to some pattern she couldn't understand. All the tunnels sloped downward, taking them deeper into the Om nest. Tac-grid showed her other Om creatures, moving toward them; centipedes, Sandy had told them. Amanda shivered at the thought of engaging the monsters in the confinement of these tunnels. The centipedes were giant and somewhat resembled the name given to the newest Om monstrosity. They were heavily armored, too heavy for the rifles they carried to penetrate, and the alien machines were quick. Despite their size, they moved faster than a man or a woman, and worse, they were armed with a heavy cannon or that energy weapon the Om used.

Amanda brought her attention back to the fight, her rifle hammering against her shoulder as a Trangrod stumbled into her fire lane. It had been damaged, and Amanda took satisfaction seeing it come apart under her fire. She was still terrified of them, but it was under control. Controlling her fear had never been a problem for Amanda until now, but then she had never faced something like this. Her fear lessened knowing Rhys was there; he had that effect on her, calming her emotions. Relaxed enough to let the Command Squad do its job, she concentrated again on the drones, using them to engage any remaining Trangrods.

Concentrating on her display, she watched video from several feeds, rapidly switching back and forth as her tiger drones executed a search pattern. There! Two Trangrods were waiting in ambush. They saw the drones at the same time, and they began firing at each other. The tiger drones immediately shifted into a wildly random movement while spewing automatic fire and grenades, forcing the Trangrods into their own evasive pattern. Then someone from Delta took them under fire, and one of the Trangrods turned to meet the attack. Amanda had been waiting, and the two drones leaped forward while firing and converged on it. One Drone went for its head while the other attacked the legs. The Drans metal jaws and blade-like teeth ripped at the Trangrod just like a tiger eating its prey. The Trangrod had no choice but to fight the drones, giving the soldier a clean line of fire, and the Trangrod came apart.

The remaining Trangrod killed one of her drones before it could disengage, but gunfire and explosions immediately ripped through it. Amanda cursed at the loss of the drone. They were running low, and there was the approaching wave of the heavy bio-machines. She wasn't sure if these drones would even be effective against them. The ones specifically designed for the threat were still with them, held in reserve until now. Still, the sheer numbers advancing toward them concerned her.

"Major, we don't have the resources to fight those incoming numbers," she said.

"I know, Jack replied, but they are in for a surprise. Sandy will use the shuttle to blast her way in; we need to get them to concentrate on us. Rhys is coordinating, and we will continue as planned."              

Mei/Bao ran rapidly down the tunnels, Thea following a short distance behind, accompanied by twenty tiger drones and at least a hundred birds. The birds would not be very effective against the threat they were racing to face but were dangerous enough that the Trangrods would have to defend against them. The Binary mind had several advantages over everyone else, except perhaps for Leslie/Amancia. Still, even they were not as fast, their brains were not wholly integrated. The Mia/Bao binary mind functioned as one, and the speed of the interlaced brain increased exponentially, cubed, to be exact. In combat, that translated into being able to anticipate their opponents' next move before they made it.

As Rhys and the others had discovered in training, the binary was the most dangerous opponent ever faced. It would come at you from two locations, their movements faster than the other enhanced humans, leopard-like, deadly. They anticipated and moved so quickly that the drone automated targeting systems were useless; speed was its single greatest advantage. Combined with a mind that controlled two beautiful but very deadly bodies as one, it was the ultimate close-combat weapon. Unfortunately, those abilities were about to be tested by an Om bio-machine that could strike from a distance and inflict far more significant damage than even they were capable of. Although the machine's abilities were less effective in the confined spaces of the Om nest, they were still deadly. The drones and Kiania's two squads would force the centipedes into a fight and delay them long enough for Rhys to bring the rest of the forces into the battle. Then Sandy would finish them off; at least, that was the plan.              

Thea ran behind them, actually struggling to keep up. "They were so quick now," she thought, watching them bounce off walls and leap over any obstacles. Thea felt an almost motherly pride in the Binary. She had spent the most time with them. Initially, her ability to directly connect to their minds gave her greater access to their emotions, not just the thoughts they chose to share. Thea couldn't read their minds, but when connected, she could tell what they felt, giving the data exchange a richer emotional context. More recently, Thea had been experimenting with the control Rhys had given her, and she found that she could not only read the Binary's emotions but also actively influence it. Through the connection with her hair, Thea had monitored the Binaries' emotional state and kept it stable through the first week after the initial melding of the two into one; after that, it only required a tweak now and then unless Thea felt horny. Then, all she had to do was let that feeling flow through to the Binary, and two naked bodies would quickly engulf her. It was hard to imagine that these two agonizingly nerdy scientists were now the most deadly combat team in existence. Rhys needed to be less protective of them or create some more Binaries.

They were approaching the area Rhys had directed them to defend, and with a quick exchange of thoughts, Thea deployed the drones while the Binary took up positions where they would be most effective. The centipedes had heavy weapons, but so did these drones; she just hoped it was enough.

Kiania watched the binary, Thea, and the Drones move to intercept the new threat on her tac-grid. Her squads had been bloodied and taken casualties but were mostly intact. They had all responded surprisingly well, given the type of combat they had been thrown into for the first time. Of course, being combat veterans helped, but facing alien monsters out of a nightmare took a different kind of courage. They had thought this would be a small nest that could be easily overwhelmed with firepower, but that had proven wrong. Instead, within seconds they had all been fighting for their lives, but the training had been effective, and the combat teams were still intact.

They moved forward at a steady pace, Bravo and Charlie squads in one tunnel heading for a junction; they would become the main blocking force. Alpha Squad with Kiania was moving down another adjacent tunnel; they would provide one flaking movement. Major Jack and his men would provide the other. This was also her first action commanding a force this large. Previously it had just been Rhys and the others, small-scale battles compared to this, but she had reacted well. Also, one of the purposes of this attack had been to gain command experience fighting the Om. It was small unit tactics, but Kiania doubted those in the future would be larger than a few thousand unless it came to war with China.

"Bravo and Charlie halt at the junction, burn the walls," she ordered.

"Bravo copies. Charlie copies."

Rhys and Amancia/Leslie had interrupted the Om ambush, and the Major's counter-attack was driving them back. They were moving into position; Kiania hoped the binary's ability to interrupt the Om communications would be equally effective against the centipedes moving their way.

Mei/Bao sent her bodies in different directions; Bao was in a tunnel to the right and above Mei, while Thea covered the intersection of the two with a reserve of drones. It was a complex tactical problem, the tunnels, some connecting, some not, but others running parallel seemingly in random fashion. Those could be accessed by cutting through the walls of the tunnels, something the Trangrods had effectively utilized to inflict casualties on the squads. Ground combat was not usually a three-dimensional problem. Even though they trained for it, the extent of the nest was unexpected, as was the ability of the Trangrods to move through the tunnel walls from all directions. The binary thought the casualties were light considering the surprise, but now they knew where the Om were, and it was time to strike back.

Thea had positioned the drones around them, a mixture of tiger drones and shielded ones that could return laser fire. Others were equipped with missiles, but she wasn't sure how well the missiles would work inside tunnels. They had burned the walls as they went, but some patches had survived. Thea took a moment to examine the unburned patches. They were made from honeycomb-like material, soft but stretchy and resistant to tearing, efficiently supporting their weight. It could be cut through, and as they had found out, the projectile rounds the Trangrods used also penetrated with little or no effort.

Still, it was eerie, she thought, the walls seemed like it was part of a living organism, and the sections that had not been burned seemed to pulsate softly, not much, just a tiny fraction. Still, if one looked close enough, it was there. So Thea made a recording for later examination and decided to take back a sample. Still, the feeling of being inside something so alien wouldn't go away, so taking out her hand flamer, she burned everything bit of it she could see, but it didn't make her feel any better.

Mei/Bao was ready, but the lead Trangrods slowed their pace, the others quickly catching up and spreading into adjacent tunnels. "They are moving to surround you," Kiania warned, wishing the men could move faster. She would have already been there, and she hated the slow pace they had to move. She watched as the centipedes quickly swarmed into formation, moving seamlessly between tunnels as they approached Thea's position. "Fall back to this position," Kiania told them, but the Binary was already moving. Instead of falling back, it shifted right, falling on a centipede that was too far ahead of the others. The two bodies fired, then changed position before they could be targeted. Their rifles did some damage, but not enough, as the centipede returned fire with what sounded like the equivalent of a chain gun, followed by an energy beam. The binary had a predatory smile on both faces as their drones replied with laser fire and missiles. The laser did not get through, but two missiles did, wrecking the left side of the Trangrod. Mei followed up with two grenades while the other half used her heavy rifle damaging the eyes and forward sensors. The centipede struggled to return fire, but then two more missiles hit it.

"One down, but they are tough to kill. Without the missiles, we would be unable to kill it in time; they are too close, and the laser isn't strong enough," the binary said while quickly maneuvering away from the other centipedes that turned to attack.

"Ok, missiles it is," Kiania replied, sounding distracted.

Rhys acknowledged as he killed the last Trangrod near him while thinking through the implications. "We will have to sacrifice the drones; set up our forces like this," he instructed, laying out a mental map on tac-grid.             

"Yes, sir. We will shift to a delaying action until Sandy can get through the defenses," Kiania replied.

"Working on it," Sandy said in a tense voice. Being directly connected to the ship through her hair was the only thing that saved her life when the missiles erupted from the Om nest. She flung counter missiles and fired point defense lasers and dissipators at the incoming, even as she sought cover behind buildings in the downtown business district. She had killed the first salvo, but now the second was searching for her. Two missiles never saw the shuttle and continued into the atmosphere, but four more locked on her. At this close range, there was less than a second to react, so Sandy took the shuttle lower into the business district, hovering a mere 30 meters off the ground rather than seeking altitude. She fired her weapons back into the Om nest, hoping to destroy or distract the incoming fire.

Om weapons designed for space warfare did not fare well against the barrage of jamming and ground obstructions. Still, Sandy swore as two missiles refused to die or be distracted and tried to come through the large bank building she was hiding behind. One blew out the center of the building, and the second exploded fifty meters from the shuttle, throwing it sideways into another building and partially collapsing it. Sandy's beast snarled in defiance, and she took the shuttle in to attack almost at ground level, passing over the Om nest at mach twenty. In the brief time, she was exposed to incoming fire, Sandy poured all her weapons into the nest, raking any exposed features and suspected weapon emplacements with lasers. At the same time, the dissipators carved long trenches into the surface. The flash of light would be seen all over the city, but there was no help for it now. She activated the code they had placed on Russia's nuclear weapons, locking them down just in case. They really needed to solve the leadership problems, Sandy thought to herself as the shuttle went straight up, gaining altitude and maneuvering room away from the city. There! Three missiles streaked upward, far fewer than before, and the shuttle's beams struck deep this time, boring down into the Om facility. Large explosions blossomed over Moscow as her point defense took out the missiles. Sandy noted Russian fighter jets becoming active across the country, but there was nothing they could do about it now. Nelya knew what was happening but was in no position to do anything yet. She and Rhys would need to fix that sooner than later when this was over.

We need fire support, Kiania said, the concern noticeable in her voice. Thea and the binary are trapped, and I don't think we can get there in time. "

"On my way," Sandy said, bringing the shuttle back in close, all weapons firing. She would have to chance the Om weapons if there were any left. Now it was time to make those fuckers pay, she thought to herself as the shuttle unleashed all its immense capacity for destruction.

Delta and Echo squads struggled to keep up with Rhys and Amancia/Leslie. Even in armor, they couldn't keep up as the three raced to engage the Trangrods that had Thea and Mei/Bao backed into a corner. Their tactics had proved effective against one or even two of the monsters, but the Drones shields had quickly broken down under the onslaught of four centipedes and been destroyed. As a result, Thea and the binary had been forced to retreat and were being herded into a corner where their options were limited. Without the drone's shields, they were vulnerable, and when there was no more room to maneuver, they would be quickly overwhelmed.

The Major got his men into position; they were supposed to be the left flank of the attack, now they would be content to hold until Rhys, and the others returned if they returned. "We are in position," he told Kiania, knowing she could see it all on her tac-grid. It irritated him that his own computer could not reproduce what she could see, but what he did have was still a giant technological leap. It was too bad they didn't have this in Afghanistan or Iraq.

"Hold there. These are your lines of retreat if we have to pull back," Kiania said. "The drone shields are not as effective as we estimated against these larger Trangrods; use your missiles first and then fall back; we need to draw them away from Rhys and the others." At this moment, Kiania hated being in command. She wanted to drop everything and fight beside Rhys. If it hadn't been for his direct order, she would have abandoned everything and rushed to his side. Now it was her job to provide the remaining Trangrods a target, offer them combat and keep them occupied, all the while fighting a delaying action. That also went against her instincts; she would have thrown the men into a direct attack regardless of the casualties if it would save the others. Nevertheless, she had to obey, and her squads took up their positions. "Hurry, Sandy! We will not be able to hold long."

Thea dodged into another tunnel, and her remaining drones spread around her. She was down to one Drone with a shield against the energy weapon and two with missiles. Unfortunately, the shields had not been very effective; the second hit had overloaded them. Even worse, the damn centipedes were learning and now just took out the drones with the cannon some of them carried. These wormlike bugs also seemed more intelligent, their attacks cleverly coordinated to take advantage of their firepower. The binary had destroyed two centipedes before they changed tactics, suddenly swarming her shielded drones and quickly killing them. It had just been their bad luck that the attack took place where it did, effectively cutting off their retreat toward the rest of their forces. Now the centipedes were stalking them, herding them further down into the nest. Thea had her remaining bird drones deployed, watching for an expected attack from the rear, but they were clear for now.

Still, they could not keep running; soon, they would have to stop and fight. Unfortunately, the Trangrods were being careful not to expose themselves. They would even briefly retreat in response to the counter-attacks they tried. In the previous encounters, the Trangrods typically attacked mindlessly, uncaring about casualties. Attacks by the Binary that would have drawn an immediate response were now met with caution, and their ambushes only slowed the advance. It was unfortunate that the Trangrods were becoming more effective at combat.