Vaughn Heppner - Invasion - China

“Nuclear warhead going off,” Paul radioed. “Put on your blinders.”

He lay down on the grass, pushing his faceplate against the soil. He heard the explosion, felt the blast and knew a small mushroom cloud billowed where the trucks had barreled for him.

Ten seconds passed, and Paul got up, standing. None of the trucks remained upright. As if the fist of God had swatted them, the big black trunks lay on their sides, many of them burning. Like littered trash, broken and dead Chinese soldiers lay everywhere.

That was too bad for them .

“Anyone hear me?” Paul radioed.

“Roger,” Romo said. “I’m five hundred yards to your left.”

Paul turned, looked and saw Romo raise an arm.

“Hitting the ground in eight seconds,” Dan French said. “Nice fireworks by the way.”

Others radioed in, except for two members of their squad—they were down to nine Marines. With three platoons dedicated against the Taiyuan PBW Station, they were supposed to have around one hundred and forty-five effectives. How many Marines had made it down?

We can do this , Paul thought. Once he collected his squad, they would take thirty-foot bounds for five miles, and they would reach the PBW site. Can we smash it?

Well, it was going to depend on what the Chinese used to defend the thing. So the sooner the actual attack began the less emergency reinforcements they’d have to face.

Shun Li pushed back her chair so it scraped against the floor, arose and moved toward the wall image. This was… interesting .

The American space soldiers resembled Japanese anime fighters. They bounded like giant grasshoppers, robotic things with massive weaponry. One soldier had a grenade launcher on his shoulder, with a belt coming out of the pack. The launcher swiveled, no doubt propelling grenades through magnetic propulsion. Two soldiers carried stubby tubes—the nuclear-lobbing devices. Others hefted machine guns, what would have been heavy machine guns for regular troops. That indicated great weight and augmented strength for the space soldiers.

“Do we know the approximate number of enemies at each station?” Shun Li asked.

“Between one hundred fifty and two hundred,” a technician said.

“These aren’t impossible numbers,” Shun Li told Hong.

“Seeing them, I am more confident,” Hong said. “Exotic, to be sure, but there are not enough of them.”

“The armor—” Shun Li said.

“Good armor, no doubt,” Hong said. “But there are weaknesses to them. I would think—” He turned to a military aide. “Order the troops to aim for the visors. That should be the weakest point. Oh, and shoot out their knees. Cripple one of them, and he will no longer leap like a bug.”

Shun Li nodded. That was sound reasoning.

“We destroyed an entire Orion ship,” Hong said. “At one stroke, we took out one third of their number. Now our troops shall handle these exotics. Hmmm. The space soldiers near the Taiyuan Station, who do we have attacking the Americans?”

A tech looked up. “Leader, a flight of Eagle-teams is on the way.”

“How many are going in?” asked Hong.

“Four hundred jetpack flyers, Leader,” the tech said.

Hong grinned at Shun Li. “Exotic against exotic,” he said. “They have newer weapons, we have numbers and experience. I have full confidence the Eagle-teams will kill half these space soldiers and slow them down enough so the tanks can maneuver into position.”

“Let it be so,” Shun Li said. She didn’t feel the same confidence, but wished she did.

Once, China had boasted the most futuristic troopers with their jetpack Eagle-team flyers. The war in American had decimated the elite soldiers. They rebuilt at home. Now a small battalion of them converged on the space soldiers nearing the Taiyuan Station.

“America has gone to great lengths to give our Eagle flyers some target practice,” Hong said.

Let’s hope you’re right, Shun Li thought.

Paul Kavanagh finally brought up a terrain map in the right corner of his HUD. It showed the three Marine platoons as blue dots and the PBW site as a big red X. It was like playing a strategic video game, watching the blue dots slowly advance toward the target.

Dead Chinese soldiers littered Paul’s route. A clothing store with three smoking IFVs in its parking lot showed where Paul and his squad had ambushed the vehicles.

Paul leaped over railroad tracks, heading up the road. A hill to his right showed a processing plant. Maybe the workers shredded dog meat in there. He’d heard the Chinese ate their pets.

“Sergeant Kavanagh,” Dan said.

First checking his HUD, Paul said, “I’m at your four o’clock.”

“I see you, Sarge. The lieutenant spotted some Eagle-teams headed for us. They’re coming in low.”

“Roger,” Paul said. He studied the terrain map. “Let’s jump fast to those homes on the right hill, grid 8-E-2. It should give us a good vantage point.”

Romo, Dan and the others ran in bounding leaps as if they were astronauts on the Moon.

“Take a look, Kavanagh,” the lieutenant said.

As he jumped, Paul’s system received the lieutenant’s camera data. It showed three dozen jetpack flyers skimming the ground. They kicked up dust. There might be more flyers behind them. Yeah, it was smart going low like that—not safe, but smart.

“Listen, you grunts,” Paul said. “Romo and I are going to play sniper. I want the rest of you to time your grenades for long lobs. We may not have to hit them with the grenades, just make sure their ride is bumpy enough.”

“What will that do?” Dan French asked.

“Right,” Romo said over the radio. “You used to be a SEAL. Paul and I did jetpack fighting. Flying low is rough, and I don’t think the Chinese have our gyro systems. Staying aloft among exploding grenades—some of them might lose their concentration.”

“So what?” Dan said.

“You watch, amigo,” Romo said. “You’re about to learn something.”

Paul accelerated, reaching a two-story Chinese home. It had red brick walls and a pagoda-style roof. From his vantage behind a white picket fence, he spied an open valley. Several miles to the west stood a freeway entering Taiyuan. He saw cars and trucks speeding along, but so far no more military vehicles. They had to cross the valley and get to the other side of the next ridge. A hill over there had the PBW Station.

Dust billowed as the jetpack flyers zoomed for them. The lieutenant had gone to ground. Most of the platoon was still coming. If those Chinese flyers could set up here, they might have some weaponry to give the rest of the platoon trouble.

“Ready and willing,” Dan French radioed.

“Start left,” Paul told Romo. “I’ll begin on the right.”

He raised his right arm, the one with the embedded fifty-caliber cannon. He chose the single-shot firing sequence. There was no sense wasting ammo. He only had so much, and that would be it. He would rely on his amazing targeting computers instead of volume of shots.

“Go,” whispered Romo.

“Full targeting HUD,” Paul subvocalized. Everything disappeared from the visor display. “Times ten magnification,” Paul told his targeting computer.

The jetpack flyers grew to ten times their former size. He could see an Eagle member grit his teeth and the man’s control hand twitch as he minutely shifted the throttle.

On his HUD, a red dot centered on the flyer’s armored chest.

“Fire at the best target acquisition,” Paul said. The ultra-targeting computer judged wind resistance, bullet drop, target’s flight speed and other data. Paul’s cannon used a laser to gather much of the information.