Steven Kent - The Clone Elite

The Mudders’ absolute disregard for our firepower made holding our position nearly impossible. They just did not care if we hit them. I’d seen Marines spend more time bracing themselves to step into a cold shower than these aliens spent before preparing to walk into our fusillade. Our gunfire chipped away their bodies, slowly splintering their broad chests and heads.

Looking across our line, I saw Philips out in the open, firing three-shot bursts from his M27. White bolts struck the tree behind him and sailed through the air around him.

As a survivor of the previous skirmish, Philips knew what would happen if he got hit. But there he was, not even trying to take cover.

I set up an interLink connection between me and Philips and heard nothing but his breathing. He wasn’t even talking to himself. Normally he was the noisiest Marine I had ever known, maintaining nonstop commentary with himself when he could not find another audience.

“Philips, fall back,” I ordered. He did not respond.

Thomer, always the guardian angel, climbed out from good cover so he could pull Philips to safety. “Leave him,” I yelled.

“He’ll get hit,” yelled Thomer.

But Philips had angels looking out for him. An alien light bolt drilled through the tree directly behind Philips’s head. The trunk caught on fire. Philips seemed not to notice any of this. More bolts speared the ground near his feet and the bushes around him, but nothing hit him.

“Harris, take your platoon and fall in around my beacon,” Moffat ordered. Had I been a general-issue clone, I would have called up a platoon and started toward the beacon before sizing up the situation. Automatic order response was programmed into their DNA. As I followed the beacon signal, I saw that it led to an indefensible knoll with no trees or rocks for cover and no strategic value.

“We can’t hold that area. It’s in their path, sir,” I yelled.

“I gave you an order, Harris.”

Following that beacon would expose our flank to the aliens. Moffat had a point, though. If we could hold that area, we might turn the tide of the battle. I wanted to get to that knoll but following a different path.

I switched to a private frequency so I could speak with Thomer. “You got Moffat’s beacon?” I asked.

“Yeah. Is that for us?” Thomer asked.

“No,” I lied. If I had told him the truth, his reaction would have been to follow orders. “Take the platoon in from behind the hill, and don’t take any chances. Those bastards can shoot through rock.”

I watched Philips, expecting him to ignore the order, but his programming won out. He stayed with Thomer and the rest of the platoon as they fell back, then moved up to take point as they circled the hill.

“I told you to secure that hill,” Moffat called to me. He was screaming like a lunatic now. I imagined more than a little spit flying inside his helmet.

“We’re on our way, sir,” I said.

A Jackal skidded to a stop to the left of the beacon. The Marine in the turret sprayed heavy-caliber shells into the growing bank of Mudders as they came swarming out of the woods. The three-inch shells tore through trees and Mudders alike. One alien tried to charge the Jackal, wading into the heavy fire. The bullets slowly ground the crazy bastard into mulch, shredding it even as it continued its charge. The Mudder managed to get about twenty feet in that barrage before falling in a heap of pieces.

A line of five Jackals sped in from another direction, firing into the enemy line while weaving through the trees. Moments later they emerged for another pass, their tires kicking up mud and twigs as they skidded past.

The Mudders fired back. When three bolts struck the first of the Jackals, the driver lost control, and the vehicle flipped. More bolts hit the chassis as it burst into flames. The Jackal spun through the air and settled roof down.

The Mudders opened fire on the other Jackals. Two made it to safety; two more crashed.

“Heads up!” Thomer yelled, as hundreds of Mudders crested a distant ridge and opened fire.

Grenadiers standing near the top of the hill fired rockets into the Mudders’ ranks, then dropped back. The ground around the aliens seemed to boil as the rockets kicked up a veil of steam, mud, and leaves.

We could not let the Mudders drive us back, but a single platoon could not hold this hill. At least a hundred Mudders had gathered on a nearby ridge. Hiding proved useless when the aliens returned our fire; the bolts from their weapons cut through the ground like needles through a sheet. I saw a bolt pass through a boulder and hit one of my men in the face. The bolt continued on through the back of his helmet as the Marine fell to the ground, his dead body still trembling as the muscles in his arms and legs exerted their last impulses of life.

Thomer sent three grenadiers to scatter the Mudders, but the grenadiers attracted too much attention. When they appeared at the top of the knoll, the Mudders fired at them and continued firing at them even after they dropped back behind cover.

Another squadron of Jackals skidded into range, fired a hailstorm into the Mudder line, then vanished. Under the cover of the chaos created by the Jackals, platoons crowded in beside us. Another force attacked the Mudders from the right, and it looked, for a moment, like we would hold. The enemy line seemed to crumble in disarray, but then a small herd of Mudders charged into our fire. The platoons on either side of us gave way, and my platoon suddenly became the point of the spearhead.

“We need to hold this area!” the regimental colonel yelled over an open frequency, and a virtual beacon appeared around us.

Now the battle hinged on our little hill as the entire specking regiment followed the colonel’s beacon. Ten thousand Marines headed in our direction as hundreds of Mudders, looking like three-dimensional shadows, aimed their guns in our direction. Jackals streaked by and fired into them, but the crazy bastards did not fall back.

I would have given a year’s pay for air support, but that was not going to happen in this battle. The Mudders had destroyed two-thirds of our gunships during the last battle, and whatever gunships were left would be ineffective in this heavily forested terrain.

ATVs poured in from every direction, firing rockets into the enemy line, then charging through it, weaving in and out around the trees as if they were running a slalom course. One leaped over a ridge, firing two rockets in midair. The rockets pummeled the enemy line, leaving a gap in it, but when the driver tried to thread that gap, a Mudder stepped in the way. That alien must have weighted one thousand five hundred pounds, maybe even a full ton. When the light-armor ATV struck it, the Mudder only spun and fell backward as if it tripped.

And still the Mudders did not drop behind cover or halt their disorganized march in our direction. Thousands of bolts of light rained down on the ATVs. But the ATVs were fast and low to the ground, difficult targets to hit.

The rest of the regiment arrived en masse. Grenadiers launched rockets over the ATVs, and automatic riflemen fired an endless hail of M27 fire into the enemy line. The Mudders continued to fire at the ATVs—a wasted effort. They hit a few of the fast vehicles but left themselves open to our grenadiers and fire teams. A gap had formed in the enemy line, and in came the Jackals.

I could feel it. I could taste it. The battle had swung in our direction, and in another moment the Unified Authority Marines would begin another charge. Tension built as I waited for the order. When the regimental colonel finally gave the order to advance, it came as a relief. I allowed the momentum of the regiment to draw me forward. This was not a wild charge. It began slowly and methodically, but it was also unrelenting. There were men in front of me and behind me. We pushed over a rise, beyond a line of trees.