Retreat, Hell - Episode 2 (Patreon)

“Where in the five hells did you come  from?!” Rinn had been corralled into following Bradford and her fire  team as they advanced behind a Humvee with a collection of other  Marines. Along the way, he had found some weird stick thing with arcane  inlays and a couple crystals on a fallen keshmin, and seemed much more  secure carrying it. “And what are you?!”

“We’re aliens,  brah!” one of the Marines said. Rinn looked at him like he wasn’t sure  if he was merely putting on the effect of an idiot, or actually one.

“We’re humans,” Bradford replied, ignoring Stephens. She knew he was an idiot. “We came through the portal.”

“Portal?!  What-” He was interrupted by the thumping boom of the nearby Abram’s  main gun. The 120mm cannon was deafening, and the keshmin winced in  pain, his mobile, tufted ears flicking erratically. One of the other  marines took pity on him, and plopped a set of Mickey Mouse earmuffs on  his head. They were not designed for his head shape at all, and combined  with his startled twitch and head tilt at their sudden appearance,  Bradford had to struggle to not laugh at him.

“Don’t  ask us,” she continued as he adjusted the earmuffs and sighed in relief  when the Humvee’s mah deuce fired a long burst. “It just popped up  three days ago. We have no idea where it came from.”

Further  conversation was halted by a massive spellburst that struck the front  of the Abrams to their right and exploded. The low concussive thump  shook the earth and nearly threw Rinn and the Marines to the ground as  it heaved the front of the tank up, sending dirt and rocks flying into  the air.

“What  the fuck was that?!?!” Sergeant Gutierrez said, struggling to stand up  as several more concussive thumps tore into the ground ahead of them.

“That  was a channeled shardblast,” Rinn replied, as dirt and debris rained  down around them. “I’ve seen those wipe out whole pike formations, even  with artificer support.” He readjusted his mickey mouses as he stood up,  and was almost startled off his feet again when the Abram’s main gun  fired. “It’s not dead?!?”

“Those  things can take a punch,” Miller said. As the tank jerked forward,  shuddering at first. It slowly powered into and out of the crater formed  by the shardburst, then quickly returned to its previous speed. Bits of  metal and armor and other debris were left on the ground, but it  remained functional.

The  Humvees were not so well-armored, however. Another salvo rippled across  the field, mostly hitting dirt, but not all. A Humvee opposite the  Abrams took a direct hit, immediately crumpling the front in before the  vehicle exploded in a ball of fire and shrapnel.

“Jesus fucking shitballs!” Kawalski shouted. “Where the fuck are those coming from?!”

“The  archmages, at the center of their formations,” Rinn replied, pointing  at spindly towers of gold and crystal scattered through the  consolidating Elven forces. Even as he spoke, pulses of light flickered  across the towers.

“INCOMING!” someone shouted, and Bradford’s world heaved.

The  blast struck the ground just underneath the Humvee they were following.  The explosion heaved the Humvee up, flipping it onto its side, while  shards of energy ripped through the undercarriage. A marine in front of  her had his leg ripped off at the knee by a low-angled shard.

Dirt  rained around Bradford as she stared at the sky, struggling to regain  her breath. She had a brief flash back to boot camp, lying in the  sandpit at the bottom of a rope climb, a DI screaming at her. Do  you think this is time for a nap, Marine?! Did you think this was a  fucking day spa? Are you just going to lie there and let your unit down,  Marine, or are you going to get the fuck up!”

Bradford  heaved herself over as clods of dirt bounced off her helmet. Coughing,  she shoved the world down and stumbled back to her feet. The Humvee was  on its side, prevented from rolling onto its roof only by the armored  turret enclosure. The left front wheel and suspension were nothing more  than a mangled twist of wreckage. Somebody was screaming.

She stumbled towards the sound, past other Marines. Most were moving. Some weren’t.

Moving  on instinct and rote training, Bradford dropped to her knees in front  of the screaming Marine. Gutierrez, her squad sergeant. His left leg  from just above the knee down was gone. She was pretty sure she could  see it lying just out of reach in her peripheral vision, but she refused  to let herself look at it.

“Corpsman!”  she shouted, ripping off her gloves. “Stay with me, Sergeant,” she  said, ripping his first aid kit out of its pouch on his armor. Fumbling  the kit open, she snatched the tourniquet out.

“How bad is it, Jabs?” Gutierrez asked through gritted teeth.

“I’m  afraid you’re not going to be winning any dance contests, Sergeant,”  Bradford said as she wrapped the tourniquet around his thigh and began  tightening it. “Because you’re a terrible dancer.”

“Hahahaagh…”  Gutierrez grit his teeth and beat the ground as Bradford finished  torqueing the tourniquet. Securing it, she was just starting to pull out  the QuickClot gauze when HM2 Olanrewaju clapped her on the shoulder.

“I’ll take it from here, Jabs,” he said. She stepped aside and let the big Nigerian do his job.

“At  least buy me dinner first, Doc,” she heard Gutierrez say as Olanrewaju  started putting on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. He was pale and  sweating, and his breathing was erratic.

Trusting the FMF Corpsman to do what he could for Gutierrez, Bradford turned to assess the situation.

The  Humvee had shielded most of the Marines from the blast, but not all of  them. Three others were down. Carlson was definitely dead, shrapnel to  the face tended to do that to a person, but Kimber and Elder were still  alive and receiving first aid. That  leaves me with ten Marines combat-ready, eight from my squad plus two  pick-up PFCs, HQ Company fobbits by the look of them, and one alien  fox-cat. She paused, remembering that she was next in line after Gutierrez. And I’m in charge. Fuck.

She turned to the Humvee. It was nearly on its roof, and definitely out of commission. But maybe survivors, and definitely ammo.  “Stephens, Gomez, Dubois! Get that Humvee open, and haul out any  survivors and ammo you find. Sampson, get on the horn and let whoever’s  set up at field command know that we need a medivac.” She turned to the  fobbits, reading their nametapes. “Clemson, Aldridge, help Doc with the  wounded.”

She paused. Think. Think. What else do we need to do? Get back in the fight. What about the artillery? “Ahyat, what’s the range on those things? And how often can they fire?”

The  keshmin looked at her, still a little shell-shocked, but quickly shook  his head clear, nearly dislodging his earmuffs in the process. “About  five hundred tails, with reasonable accuracy,” he said, readjusting his  earmuffs. “We haven’t seen them shoot much past seven hundred tails.”

Bradford blinked at the unexpected unit of measure. I suppose I can’t complain too much, as well as whatever translating magic has been translating everything else. “How long is a tail?”

Rinn  cocked his head at her, his earmuffs wiggling as his ears moved inside  of them. He gestured at his own tail, which he flicked in her direction.  “About that long.”

After  briefly considering subjecting him to the indignity of taking a  measuring stick to his tail, she decided to eyeball it. “So, about a  meter?” She glanced at Kawalski and Edison. “Ish?”

“Ish,” They agreed.

“Corporal, Medivac’s inbound,” Sampson reported.

“Copy,”  she replied as she stepped over to the corner of the up-turned Humvee  and looked at the battlefield beyond. The rest of the Marines had  continued on to a low rise in the plain, and held there. It wasn’t much  of one, but it was the high ground. Four Abrams, four LAV-25s, and  twelve surviving Humvees were pouring fire into the elves, along with  most of a battalion of Marines.

From  what she could see between dips in the rise, the elves were still  falling back, consolidating their formations around the story-and-a-half  tall, spindly towers that had fired their heavy artillery. The Vipers  were still circling overhead, harassing the elves’ flanks, but they were  producing some kind of heavy shield over those towers that seemed to be  holding against their fire.

As she surveyed the situation, she saw a formation of wizard-types holding a rearguard with a storm of lighter spells. Small-arms spellfire?  She thought. They were putting up a tremendous fight, keeping an entire  flank of the human line suppressed with their barrage of fire.

Until  they disappeared in a hailstorm of light, smoke and dust. The irregular  staccato of explosions reached her a fraction of a second later,  followed by A-10’s distinctive battlecry.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTT

She  looked up to see the two Air Force A-10s banking away from their gun  run. When she looked back to the clearing smoke and dust, the formation  of wizards was gone. She grinned.

Bradford  ducked back behind the Humvee just in time to meet the Stephens and  Gomez helping another Marine she didn’t recognize out. Dubois crawled  out after him, looking pale. “It’s a mess in there, Jabs. Whatever that  was punched through the belly armor and tore everyone up.” He nodded at  the dazed Marine. “Franco here only survived because he was in the  turret, but he banged his head pretty good in the roll.”

“I’m alright,” Franco insisted, looking a little dazed. “Takes more’n that to get through my thick head.”

Bradford  narrowed her eyes in skepticism. “If he can walk a straight line for  ten paces and back, find him a weapon and ammo, otherwise he stays with  Doc and the other wounded.”

“Aye, Corporal,” Dubois said, and led Franco away.

“Ahyat,” she said, waving him over. “About how many tails away are those tower things, the archmages you said?”

The  keshmin stepped over, nodding. “The archmages, in their mana towers.  They have other mages and mana crystals channeling energy through the  towers for them to use, to generate shields and their heavy artillery,  along with other spells.” He swallowed. “They also use prisoners as  living mana crystals. They don’t have to be mages or artificers. They  just suck the life force right out of a person, leave them as withered  husks.”

“Don’t  get captured, copy that,” she grimaced. Seeing the hollow look in his  eyes, she gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “About how far away are  the towers?”

Rinn  shook himself, and had to re-adjust his earmuffs again. “Right.” He  leaned around the corner of the Humvee. “About six hundred tails… More  like six hundred twenty.” He ducked back behind the Humvee and waggled  his wizard stick at her. “Artificers have to be good at estimating  ranges, both for our own spells, and to help guide artillery.”

“Yeah,  that’s about the distance I figured, between six and seven hundred  meters,” Bradford nodded. “How often can they fire? They haven’t hit us  with anything after those first three salvos.”

“I  don’t know for sure. We haven’t had many victories, and the few we have  had, they destroyed their towers before we could capture them, if they  didn’t retreat with them.” He considered a moment. “We do know they can  only store so much mana at a time, and it takes time to replenish them.  They should have fired again by now, though. It doesn’t take them that  long to recharge, not with a full army like this, and the only times  I’ve seen them not fire their heavy artillery when in range is when… Tahsh,” He snarled. Whatever that epitaph was, it didn’t translate.

He  jumped out from behind the Humvee, pointing his wizard stick in the  direction of the humans battle line. His eyes glowed silver along with  the arcane patterns on his staff as he muttered a few words under his  breath. With a sharp tilt of the staff, a wave of energy pulsed out from  the end in a cone. Several formations of elves suddenly shimmered into  existence between the wrecked Humvee and the rest of the battalion.

“AMBUSH!”  Bradford shouted. Little more than a hundred yards separated them from  the rest of the advance force sent to bolster the Ganlin army. The elves  were smack in the middle. A lot of elves. With a lot of glowing blades.

Rifle shots cracked out around her. “Die, motherfuckers!” Kawalski shouted as he opened up with his SAW.

Bradford ejected the HEDP round chambered in her M203. They’re looking and shooting the wrong way. They won’t hear or see them until it’s too late.  “Sampson!” She stowed the round in her dump bag, and pulled out a smoke  round. “Priority fire mission! Hostiles in ambush position! On...” She  glanced at the color of the round before shoving it into the tube. “RED  smoke! Danger Close!”

A flick of the sights to adjust the range. Thwuump.  She watched the round arc through the air as she reloaded on reflex. It  fell right into the middle of the elves, bouncing off the helmet of one  of them, before bursting into a deep red column of smoke. Ha, take that you fucker.

She  knelt down and started putting her own rounds down range, careful to  keep her aim low enough to not hit the rest of her unit on the other  side. She saw a dull flash from Ahyat as Kawalski and the other two SAW  gunners in their squad laid down a continuous stream of fire with  talking guns.

Whatever  hesitation at being caught before they could trigger their ambush the  elves had wore off. She heard distant orders being barked, and several  formations of elves started moving in their direction, while others  headed for the rest of the battalion, and hail of spellfire was hurled  their way.

It  never reached them. The pulses, like white tracers, raced towards them  only to deflect up several yards ahead of them. The angle was shallow,  but noticeable, and most importantly, it was enough to deflect all of  the shots from the elves a few feat above their heads.

Bradford  glanced at Ahyat. He was holding his wizard stick out before him,  pointing towards the elves. He had a look of intense concentration on  his face, and his eyes and the staff were glowing silver. With a shrug,  she made a note to thank him later, and sent an HEDP round down range. Thwuump.

“Corporal! Fire mission confirmed! Danger Close! ETA TWENTY SECONDS!”

“Fire  mission, Danger Close! Danger Close! Take Cover!” Bradford shouted,  before grabbing Ahyat and pulling him down behind the Humvee with her.

She  hit the deck and Ahyat landed on top of her with a yipped, “Oof.”  Bradford rolled on top of him. She had body armor with wrap-around  Kevlar inserts and ballistic SAPI plates. His armor was made of linen.

The Keshmin artificer had enough time to yup a protest. Then the world exploded.

There  were no distinct crackles, pops, or bangs, just a continuous roar. It  lasted a bare handful of seconds, but seemed to go on forever.

The roar of destruction paused for a heartbeat, then resumed for another multi-second eternity.

The noise ended just in time for Bradford to hear the blessed sound of angels trumpeting from the sky.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTT.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTT.

“Eat some freedom, motherfuckers! OORAH!”

“Kawalski, you fucking motard! I love you!”

“Ha! Jabs, we can’t see each other anymore! Edison and I are getting married!”

“Kawalski, go fuck yourself.”

“Every day!”

Bradford  couldn’t help but laugh as she rolled off of Ahyat, who had renewed his  protests at being squished under more than two hundred pounds of marine  and kit. “Check to see if there’s any still alive before they walk over  and turn us into shish kabob, you fucking dumbass.”

“Nah, they’re all dead, I stayed out and watched.”

“…. Kawalski, you are fucking insane.”

“Hey,  at least I’m fucking somebody,” he said as he sauntered over, SAW  casually propped over his shoulder. “Speaking of which, Shields, that  was an awesome trick with the whole magic missile deflection thing, but  dude, you really need to get her to buy you dinner first.”

“What is it with you people and buying dinner?!?”