Steven Kent - The Clone Alliance

The cheer started spontaneously. Marines stood up from behind cover, waved their rifles in the air, and shouted at the tops of their lungs. You had to have your ear to the interLink to hear them, of course, but I imagined the noise ringing through the air. In that moment, I imagined us as the Israelites watching David slay Goliath. I imagined us as the Union soldiers on Cemetery Ridge after Hays’s men stopped Pickett’s Charge. Our armor and interLink technology did not fit into my image of this battle.

“Nice shooting, Philips,” I said as I slapped him on the back.

For the first time, maybe in his whole entire life, Philips had nothing to say. He stood staring at the carcass of the train absolutely silent. Perhaps he was in awe of what he had accomplished.

Our revelry ended quickly when we heard men firing rockets a few tracks away. One of the Marines from the other platoon fired his rocket too early. It struck the track more than a hundred feet ahead of the oncoming train. The train continued to barrel toward us. Mines blew up beneath it, creating small geysers of flames that flashed and disappeared.

Rushing because he knew his life depended on it, the Marine slipped open the back of his launcher and reloaded it. He brought the tube up and rested it on his shoulder. By this time the train was only a quarter of a mile away. I could read the numbers printed along its cab.

The Marine fired his second rocket. It struck the engine head-on but too high. The train buckled and continued on. Then a Marine two tracks down fired a rocket that slammed into the side of the train, just behind the “gills”—the flexible corridor between the engine and the first car. The front of the train leaned over precariously. It would have righted itself, but another Marine fired a second rocket into the side of the engine, tipping the heavy car over.

The train had come close enough to the station that it had already begun to slow for its stop. With so little momentum, many of the rear cars did not follow the engine off the track but sat upright just behind the cars that had tipped over.

Trains started coming down other tracks, but I no longer had time to watch. A Mogat soldier climbed from the wreckage of the train that Philips derailed. The train had come to a stop less than a hundred yards from us, so I could see blood smeared on the man’s face and tunic. The train was lying on its side, and he popped out of a door, headfirst, like a prairie dog popping out of its hole.

He had a gun in his right hand. He laid the gun on the side of the train, then used both hands to push himself up. Once he was out of the door, he picked up the gun and stood on the side of the train, a shaky, dizzy survivor. I shot him in the head, and he fell behind the train.

“Shit, here it comes,” said Philips.

One of the cargo doors opened on the train that other Marines had knocked over. There was a moment of silent mystery, then three Targ Tanks rumbled out of that compartment.

Targs were an old model, antipersonnel tanks. They had smaller cannons and carried light armor, but they could scoot at speeds of up to 170 miles per hour. They were only five feet high. When they got going, their low-slung profile reminded me of spiders. These particular tanks would not need heavy armor, not with those Mogat shields.

In our rush to nail that first train, Philips and I had separated ourselves from the platoon. It didn’t seem important at the time; but seeing those Targs rush toward the station, I knew we were cut off.

“Philips, give me the launcher,” I said.

He handed me the rocket launcher, then took up his M27. “Master Sarge, I don’t like the look of those tanks.”

I fired a quick shot at one of the tanks. It was a perfect shot. The arc of the contrail ended right at the middle of the turret on the tank. There was a massive explosion. Flames and smoke filled the air, and the tank rolled through them untouched. The turret turned in our direction as the tank driver looked to return fire. Philips and I lay flat on the ground, hiding behind a waist-high wall.

“Should we hold the station?” Evans called in.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Philips said.

Marines fired a hailstorm of rockets and bullets at the three tanks, but the situation was getting worse. Another cargo car opened, and three more tanks spilled out. Down the alley I could see more tanks off-loading.

“We can’t stop the tanks!” Thomer yelled into the interLink. “The other platoon is clearing out.”

“Go with them,” I said. “You got that?” I added for Evans and Greer. I sent the communication over the platoon-wide frequency. “Fall back. Get back to the apartment building.”

“Got it,” Evans said.

“Yes, Sergeant,” said Greer.

“What about you?” Thomer asked.

“Fall back. You read me, Thomer? Fall back.”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Safest place for us is in that train,” Philips said, pointing to the wreck he had made.

I knew he was right. “Stay down,” I said, as I pulled a smoke grenade from my armor and tossed it into the open area between us and the train. We would need to wait another twenty seconds for the smoke to spread. More survivors climbed out of the wreck. Someone back in the station shot a man as he rose out of a doorway. They shot another as he popped out of a window and started to aim his gun. Then a tank fired a round at the station. I could not tell if the shell hit anyone, but no one fired back. By this time the smoke from the grenade had formed a fairly thick cloud.

“Let’s go!” I yelled as I leaped from behind the wall and dashed into the cover of the smoke. “You there, Philips?” I asked.

“Right behind you,” he said.

“Run for the train,” I said. Once you start talking in battle, it’s all too easy to repeat the obvious.

“And here I was thinking I should run for the Mogat tanks,” Philips said.

A Targ fired into the smoke. It was a blind shot that missed us completely, but the force of the shell’s explosion sent me skidding just as I reached the train. I flew forward five feet and spun to the ground. The upended engine lay on its side, its roof facing in my direction just a few feet ahead. I lunged forward and hid behind its mass.

“That was close.” Philips said.

“It’s going to get a lot more exciting around here,” I said. I found a handhold and scaled the roof of the engine. We needed to find a way inside.

One of the tanks spotted me and fired a shell that struck the base of the train. The whole thing slid. I dropped flat against the engine and held on. Philips, who was trying to climb up behind me, fell off.

“Philips, you all right?”

“Yeah, just dandy,” he said.

I had climbed to the top of the train. Several cars ahead of us, a Mogat popped out of a doorway. His head, chest, and rifle stuck out of the train. He spotted me and started to bring his gun to bear, and I shot him. Another followed him. Philips nailed that one before I could get off another shot.

I found an open doorway just behind the gills of the train and jumped in. What a mess we’d created. With the train on its side, rows of seats hung horizontally in the air like padded shelves. Some bodies lay slumped in the seats. Others were thrown across the car. The ceiling of the train car was to my left. All the light fixtures along the ceiling had shattered.

Scores of men lay bleeding along the side of the car. Some were dead and lay as still as sardines in a can. Others squirmed. If they squirmed enough, I shot them. If they lay still with their hands on their weapons, I shot them—the logic of the battlefield: Only when an enemy truly looked dead did you spare him.

In some spots the bodies were stacked two and three men deep. I suppose I could have pushed them out of my way. Instead, I had to stretch my legs and step over them. An inch-deep stream of blood ran along the side of the car.