The Autumn War Vol. 02: Remnants

"It's not an ocean, it's a lake," Simmons explained. "Freshwater."

"What the fuck is that?" Collins asked, pointing to the edge of the forest. Evan followed his gaze to see what looked like a golf cart racing its way towards them. It was a small, squat vehicle with four wheels, its frame covered over with light armor plating that was painted in autumn camouflage. The thing couldn't have been more than about three or four meters long, and its roof was about the same height as Evan. It had an angular windshield, along with a couple of oddly placed headlights that seemed too close together, situated behind a bullbar. There was a blister on the roof that sported a mounted railgun small enough that a human could probably have carried it without much difficulty. It bounced on its springy suspension, its honeycomb tires kicking up sand as it made a beeline for the company command vehicle.

When it skidded to a halt, four sets of panels swung upwards like the doors of a high-end sports car. There were two for the driver and passenger, and two larger panels for the four seats in the rear. Six Valbarans piled out of it, clad in tight-fitting pressure suits that were camouflaged with the same colors as their vehicle. They walked over to talk to one of the tank commanders with an odd, bobbing gait that reminded Evan of a chicken.

"Pretty sure I've seen ridin' mowers bigger than that fuckin' thing," Hernandez chuckled, apparently amused by the tiny vehicle. He was exaggerating, but the buggy was still extremely compact. Perhaps the Valbaran dropships were more limited in terms of their carrying capacity than the UNN equivalents.

It only took another fifteen minutes for the rest of Delta company to make landfall, and by then, the Valbarans were apparently done talking to the company commander. They hopped back into their little buggy, powering up the beach and back into the forest, weaving between the spiky trunks of the trees with surprising agility.

Simmons put a finger to the side of his helmet, receiving new orders, which he soon relayed to the squad.

"Saddle up!" he said, waving them forward as the IFV's troop ramp began to open. "The Valbarans are preparing to move on the depot, and they need heavy support from our Kodiaks. We're going to push through the outer perimeter, then make our way inside the compound. We'll be clearing the complex room by room, or whatever the fuck the Bugs use as rooms."

They loaded into the vehicle, strapping into their seats, the three Jarilans gripping handholds on the ceiling as they stood in the aisle. Evan connected his helmet to the external camera feeds, watching as the procession of vehicles rolled out. They began to crash their way through the tropical forest, the trees here spaced wide enough that they didn't pose much of an obstacle for the tanks.

As they proceeded deeper, Evan began to spot signs of a recent battle. The IFV drove around a smoldering wreck of a Bug anti-air tank, its eight legs lifted into the air like a dead spider lying on its back, its fuel and fluids staining the nearby ferns in mucous-green. There was a squad of Drones, too, their colorful ichor splattering the trees nearby. They had been torn apart by what looked like a high-caliber railgun, their bodies dismembered, wet pieces of them scattered around the forest.

"That explains why they didn't try to shoot us down at the beach," Garcia muttered. "Looks like the Valbarans cleared the LZ for us."

There was more carnage the further they went, a few Valbaran vehicles joining the piles of dead Bugs. Evan spotted a Warrior slumped limply over one of the little buggies, crushing the frame beneath its weight. There was a tracked vehicle of unknown configuration, too, little more than a charred husk now. Whatever Valbaran casualties there were must have already been evacced.

Through the palm trees in the distance, Evan spotted a row of vehicles. They were hull-down, dug in behind the gentle slopes of a dry riverbed. They seemed to be hiding from whatever was on the far side, only their turrets peeking out. There were maybe a dozen of them, and there were just as many of the small buggies that they had seen earlier parked behind them. The crews of these buggies had dismounted and were taking cover between the tanks, lying prone as they aimed their XMRs over the lip of the natural trench.

As they neared, Evan got a better look at the alien vehicles. They were absolutely tiny compared to the monstrous Kodiaks, maybe four meters long and no more than two wide. They couldn't have weighed more than four or five tons. Like the buggies, they were covered in sloping, angular armor plating that had been painted with autumn camouflage. Many of them were covered in cargo netting and bustle racks that were strapped to their hulls, filled with equipment and supplies, presumably because there was no space to fit them inside the things.

There were two varieties of turret that he could see. One of them was a thirty-millimeter railgun of the kind usually mounted as a coaxial weapon on many UNN vehicles - a high-caliber, automatic weapon used for anti-materiel purposes. The second was a twin-barreled missile system of some kind with blocky launch tubes and what looked like a radar system mounted between them.

The company pulled up behind the little tankettes, the twelve Kodiaks and eight IFVs rolling to a stop.

"Alright, everybody out," Simmons barked. "The Valbarans are running the show on this one, so remember - they work in flocks. That means there is no one commander, and five or six of 'em all share the same rank and responsibility."

They filed back out of the IFV, milling around beside it. Evan noted that each of the other IFVs in the company had been assigned their own team of three Jarilans. They must have been reinforced at the same time that his team had.

Behind one of the tankettes, a little hatch swung open, a group of four Valbarans piling out. Hernandez gave him a nudge, prompting him to switch to a private channel.

"Fuckin' clown car," he said, chuckling inside his helmet.

The four little aliens bobbed over to them like a flock of pigeons, more squads crowding around, moving over from their own vehicles to attend what looked like it was going to be a briefing. They popped open their helmets, the visors opening like jaws to expose their scaly snouts. They looked like little velociraptors to Evan, their bright feathers currently concealed in something resembling rubber hoses that hung from the backs of their heads. Delta's company commander had left his Kodiak and was making his way over to speak to them. Unlike the Marines, the vehicle crews wore only a flak jacket over their pressure suits.

There was another group of Marines that drew Evan's eye, dismounting from a modified, six-wheeled IFV that looked distinctly out of place in the company. Unlike the reds and oranges of the vehicles that surrounded it, its hull was painted jet-black, and there was a full-blown turret on its roof instead of a blister. It wasn't anywhere near as large as the ones on the Kodiaks, but it let the vehicle mount a far larger gun, probably an autocannon. It was bristling with tech and weapons. Evan could see a radar antenna, a blister mounted on top of the turret that had its own coaxial gun, and a guided missile launcher. There were smoke launchers and active armor systems all over the thing, along with slat armor that formed a kind of cage around it. It was expensive - that much was obvious at a glance.

As the men approached, he realized that they weren't Marines. Their equipment was just as unorthodox as their vehicle, their mismatched armor and pressure suits colored in the usual UNN black. Some had heavily customized XMRs, while others were wielding older, caseless weapons that were not standard-issue. No two were exactly alike, but what they all shared in common was a full set of prosthetic limbs. They came in varying styles - some little more than skeletal, functional frames, while others were more elaborate to make them less jarring. There wasn't a man among them who had lost one, two, or even three limbs. These guys were SWAR - a Navy special forces team.

"Listen up!" one of the Valbarans began, the strange flanging in her voice making her sound like a songbird imitating human speech. "Beyond this riverbed is a Bug defensive line. They're dug in deep, with fortified earthworks and plasma nests protecting the perimeter of the chemical plant. We cleared the beach, but we don't have the firepower to push through."

"That's where you come in," another added, the two switching roles as though this had been rehearsed. "We need your Kodiaks to destroy those nests and punch a hole through the defensive line so that our Cozat'li tankettes can push through."

"The Gue'tra armored vehicles will need protection as they move into the compound," another added, presumably referencing the buggies. "Once we make it inside the perimeter, we'll need to send troops inside the structure to clear it out and safely disable their systems. An uncontrolled explosion here would be devastating - it would spill millions of liters of contaminants into the surrounding lake. We know that they've been manufacturing fuel here, but they could also be making chemical weapons, so watch your fire."

"Tune down your voltages for low-pen once you get inside," the company commander added. "I want the Kodiaks loading hard-target munitions. Focus on the nests and try to minimize the return fire. The IFVs will move up behind the tanks. I want Marines and auxiliaries prepping for clearing operations. If the Bugs are as dug-in as we think, that means you might have to clear some tunnels and bunkers."

"Trogs for a day," Hernandez grumbled.

"We already lost two Cozat'lis trying to break through," one of the Valbarans added. "They're using plasma emplacements with a high rate of fire, and they likely still have some Scuttlers held in reserve. Those things can punch through even a Kodiak's armor, so don't get complacent."

"Do we have CAS?" one of the Marines asked.

"Not so close to the facility," the company commander replied. "One bomb or orbital strike goes astray, and the whole place will go up like the fourth of fucking July."

"That's everything we know right now," another of the Valbarans chirped. "We can't hole up here forever - so get ready to roll out."

"Fleetcom thinks that Big Blue might be operating in this area," one of the SWAR operatives added, his face hidden behind a visor that was patterned with a stylized decal of a cockroach. His helmet was covered in supplemental optical equipment, as well as a conspicuous comms package that jutted out above it. Curiously, his IFF tag didn't list a name or a rank, just Roach. The rest of his team were the same. It looked like they were using callsigns. "Expect strong resistance, and call out any sightings of unusual Warriors or especially large Bugs. That could be our target."

That meant that one of the Kings might be responsible for defending this facility, then. Evan flashed back to the ambush on the convoy, remembering the tall creature that had stepped out of its Warrior suit, how it had lifted that dead Marine to inspect him as though he weighed no more than a doll. If one of those things was on this island, then the Bugs would be more coordinated than those that they had faced in their previous engagements.

They dispersed, everyone returning to their respective vehicles, Evan joining the rest of his squad as they piled into their IFV again. Once he was secured inside, he could see through the external cameras that the Valbarans were mounting up, climbing into their tankettes and buggies. Their vehicles might be small, but so were the little reptiles.

The Kodiaks began to drive up the riverbank in a loose line formation, their weight collapsing parts of it, their treads churning up the soil. The IFVs followed behind them, then the Valbaran vehicles brought up the rear.

After only a few minutes, the ruined hull of one of the tankettes came into view, its armor slagged by what looked like concentrated plasma fire. The trees and foliage all around it were scorched, blackened by fires that had subsequently petered out in the humid environment. Almost as soon as the Kodiaks passed it, bright green streams of enemy fire began to pour out of the forest ahead. The glowing bolts splashed against the tree trunks, igniting the fronds of the ferns, impacting the front armor of the tanks. They weathered it, their turrets swiveling into position, recoil making them rock on their tracks as they returned fire. Evan couldn't even see what they were shooting at from his vantage point, but he saw the torrents of earth that they kicked up in the distance, billows of flame rising above the treetops.

They kept up the forward momentum, the plasma fire posing little danger to the MBTs. Finally, a structure came into view. Nestled in a cluster of palm trees was a large mound of earth, covered over with a carpet of plant life. It would have been unremarkable was it not for the torrent of energy bolts that were spewing from a narrow slot on the near side. It was a concealed pillbox. One of the Kodiaks swiveled its turret to aim at it, sending a shell whistling straight through the opening. The gunfire ceased immediately, then an explosion followed a split-second later, lifting the structure into the air like the cap of a volcano blowing open.

As they passed the first line of smoldering bunkers, a sudden explosion tore through the forest, lifting the prow of the lead vehicle clear off the ground. A cloud of debris was thrown high into the air, shrapnel tearing chunks out of the nearby trees and shaking the canopy above, the tank dropping back down with a tremendous crash. Some of its ceramic tiles had been shaken loose by the impact, and both of its tracks had been thrown, but it still seemed to be operational. Whether the crew were even alive after that, Evan had no idea.

"Mines!" Simmons warned. "Full stop!"

Their IFV jolted to a halt, the rest of the vehicles in the formation doing the same. The rear hatch of the nearest tank popped open, a solitary crewmember leaping out. He ran around the side of his vehicle, moving to the prow, where he unfastened a length of cable that was attached via a thick spool. Holding the hook in one hand, he sprinted out into the open, ducking as another barrage of fire came in his direction. His tank fired on the target, the projectile zipping only a couple of meters above his helmet, creating another bright explosion in the distance. He slid to a stop behind the disabled Kodiak, clipping the cable to a bar just beneath the hatch to the crew compartment, then gave it an experimental tug. After a quick thumbs-up, he rushed back over to his own vehicle, which was already starting to reverse. He hopped up to ride on the hull as its treads dug into the soil, the cable pulled taut, the damaged MBT starting to move.

More of the tanks drove up to cover it, laying down suppressive fire with their secondary weapons, mortars and railgun fire sending shattered palm trees crashing to the forest floor. Once the damaged tank had been dragged clear of the minefield, an IFV pulled up beside it, a squad of Marines leaping out to rescue the crew.

The Kodiaks near the front of the formation employed their mine-clearing attachments, firing rockets from tubular launchers attached to the mounting points on their turrets, the projectiles spinning through the air on plumes of smoke. They draped spirals of explosive cable over the forest ahead, four of them exploding one after another, followed by secondary blasts from activated mines. Evan could hear airborne soil and fragments of rock raining on the roof of the IFV as the debris fell back down, the explosives scouring the path ahead.

As the tanks started to advance into the blasted wasteland that they had created, the other vehicles fell into close formation behind them, practically driving in their tracks to avoid triggering any more concealed traps. There were more pillboxes dotted throughout the forest, but they were of little concern, the Kodiaks rolling through them.

"I don't like bein' in such close formation," Hernandez muttered, gripping the handhold above his seat as the IFV bounced through the uneven terrain. "Remember how they hit us on the road? They tried to disable the lead vehicles to trap the rest of the convoy behind them."

"We've got no other choice if we want to navigate this minefield," Evan replied.

"Yeah, and maybe that's the way they want it..."

They stopped again as the lead Kodiaks fired off more line charges, another series of explosions rocking the IFV.

"Can't they pick up the pace?" McKay complained. "We're sitting ducks out here."

From somewhere to their right, a bright bolt of plasma crackled through the trees, striking one of the lead vehicles in its side armor. The tank rocked under the impact, its heat-resistant paneling glowing white-hot as it dissipated the energy over a larger area. Before it could even turn its turret to face its attacker, a follow-up shot hit it, overwhelming its defenses. The superheated gas punched through, leaving a slagged hole in its wake, liquid metal pooling on the ground like lava. Its ammunition ignited, the blowout panels on the rack behind the turret erupting into a jet of bright flame as it cooked off. It wasn't enough to save the vehicle, however, black smoke starting to pour from the molten hole in its side.

"Here they come!" Simmons shouted, turning in his seat to look through the external cameras. "Scuttlers on our three o'clock!"

Through the palm trees, Evan could see a trio of the crab-like vehicles marching towards the formation on their eight, segmented legs. They were the tank variants, equipped with massive plasma turrets and side-mounted rocket pods. One of them opened its beak-like prow as it advanced, extending its sensory apparatus on its long, flexible neck like a snail peeking out of its shell. Its off-blue flesh glistened in the light, slick with some kind of fluid. Another of them fired, this one aiming towards the rear of the convoy, trying to box them in. A stream of missiles impacted the light Valbaran vehicles that were trailing behind, overturning those that they didn't immediately destroy. The things were far more resilient than Evan would have expected, their light armor warding off shrapnel and debris. Still, several succumbed, turned to burning wrecks by direct impacts.

The nearby IFVs and tankettes began to retreat to cover them, forming a protective cordon. As a second wave of rockets sailed towards them, the active protection systems on the UNN vehicles shot them out of the air, explosive panels on their hulls sending out sprays of shrapnel to intercept them. Some of the Valbaran tanks popped smoke, creating an obscuring, white haze that quickly enveloped the rear of the convoy.

The UNN tanks were responding now, pouring fire into the trees. Armor-piercing shells tore through the layered carapaces of the Scuttlers, blowing out chunks of wet flesh, splattering the nearby foliage with their bodily fluids. Gun pods chewed holes in them, cutting out their legs from under them, a guided rocket hitting one of them dead-center. The blast ignited its ammunition and fuel, making it explode in a brilliant flare of emerald and ruby, chunks of wobbling meat raining to the forest floor like whale blubber.

More of the alien constructs were closing in, a salvo of plasma fire striking the convoy from the left. It was another pincer movement, just like when the company had been ambushed on the road. They were ready for them this time, however. As an IFV took several shots from the Bug plasma turrets, the concentrated fire melting through its hull like wax, the nearby vehicles began to fire back. The thirty-millimeter railguns mounted on the roofs of the Pumas spewed molten tungsten, mortars and rockets joining them. They bathed the forest in fire, joined by the Kodiaks, their main guns tearing through the enemy armor.