Steven Kent - The Clone Alliance

“They know we’re in the train, and they’re coming after us,” I said. “They’re probably going to shell the train to shake us loose, right?” I patted the second grenade to make sure it was snug. Those canisters were designed to not explode until fired from a shooter, but I had the feeling that a grenade might do the trick.

Looking around the car, I did not find what I wanted. I rushed to the next car and found it—a small airtight case for carrying canisters. As I pulled it off a shelf, a Mogat moaned and stirred on the floor. I shot him, then went back and fitted eight canisters of noxium gas and four canisters of distilled shit gas into the case.

Satisfied that I had the right load, I headed for a doorway through which I could leave the train. I had the canister shooter strapped over my shoulder. I carried my M27 in my right hand and the case of gas canisters in my left. I also had two canisters of noxium gas tucked into my armor. If anything broke those canisters…

“Where are you going?” Philips asked.

“That way,” I said, pointing to my left. The Mogats were coming from the right. Using the telescopic lens in my visor, I could see two waves of tanks on the way. The rear guard were Rumsfelds, slow, vicious machines. The first wave were Targ Tanks. They were still five miles back, but they would close that gap quickly. There were hundreds of them this time. These guys could tell what I had done to the first wave. They would skirt around the gas.

“I’m headed that way and going as fast as I can.” I swung my legs over the edge of the train and hopped off.

“Why left?” Philips asked.

“Do you want to head right?” I asked.

“Guess not,” Philips said. The ground was still covered with distilled shit gas in that direction. If he used his telescopic lens, he would have seen the next column of tanks coming from behind us. He slid down the roof of the train and landed next to me.

“Those tanks back there are going to start shelling this train in another minute,” I said. “That will set off my grenade, gas will leak…”

“That gas is going to leak out of every orifice,” Philips said. I was going to say doorway, but I preferred his description.

“Harris, you better beat it out of there,” Evans called over the interLink. “The whole frigging Mogat Army is headed in your direction.”

“Where are you?” I asked. “Give me a beacon on your building,”

“Just up the street. I can see you from the window.” The virtual beacon turned the building blue in my visor.

“Are the streets clear?” I asked.

“Not entirely. I sent my snipers up to the roof to clear a way for you.”

I heard sporadic gunfire. The crack of rifles echoed through the streets.

“Call your boys in,” I said. “We’ll catch up with you, but for now, I want everyone tucked in safe.”

“Harris, those tanks are getting closer.”

“I got it,” I said. “Just bring your squad in.”

“Philips, let’s move out,” I said. Feeling a little awkward with a gun on my back and both hands full, I hunched over and sprinted as best I could up the street. We ran one block, then another before the shelling started. When I looked back, I saw searchlights from the tanks. Then, hearing another shell fired, I ducked against a storefront. It was a three-story Laundromat, of all things, with an all-glass fascia, but it was the only choice we had. At least I knew it was empty.

“Philips, in here!” I yelled. I pushed the door open and ran for the stairs. Philips and I climbed to the top floor and hid behind a row of washers.

“Oh, shit,” Evans said. “Look at all those specking Mogats.”

At that very moment, the tanks fired a barrage of shells. The Targs fired at the train. They pounded it.

I could see the whole thing from the third floor of the Laundromat. Shells and rockets slammed into that train, sending it sliding, jostling the cars back and forth. It reminded me of shooting at an empty can to see how long you could keep it in the air. Eventually, several cars rolled upside down.

The gases did not mix. Brown and gray gases began oozing from the windows and doors of the train. The brown gas crept along the streets like a tide, swelling nearly two feet in the air. Targs might have been fast, but they were not built for sharp turns at top speeds. The first row of tanks on the scene cut sharp and managed to avoid the gas. The tanks that followed did not. Line after line of Targs stampeded into the deadly fog and stalled.

From my third-floor vantage point, I saw dozens of tanks stall in the distilled shit gas mist. I could also see hundreds beyond them that the gas would never reach.

Around the train station, I saw the carcasses of the tanks that I’d gassed. They sat totally immobile, looking like stones. No, not stones. With their curved backs and squat, low-slung profiles, and their green camouflage, they looked like gargantuan frogs. At least the Targs looked like frogs. There were twenty Rumsfelds in the mix. From up here, they looked more like armadillos.

The distilled shit gas I’d fired at the Rumsfelds would have dissolved the wiring in the tanks as well as the drivers. I shot the Targs with noxium gas. They would still work, so long as you didn’t mind sitting in the puddle of what once was an enemy soldier.

A half mile away from the train station, the nearest traffic ramp spewed out a river of green personnel carriers. Our men had put up a fight there. Beside the ramp, a couple of trucks lay on their sides; but the men we sent to hold that ramp were dead or in retreat, and now tens of thousands of Mogats poured out.

From here, I could also see the nearest elevator station. When the reinforcements came, they would funnel through buildings like that one. I imagined ten thousand soldiers storming through each station, M27s raised, grenades in their hands. Sooner or later they would need to destroy the elevator stations so that they could lower their tanks and gunships.

Lord, it would be a beautiful sight to behold, I thought. I had begun to doubt whether any of us would live to see it.

“Talk to me, Evans,” I called on the frequency for squad leaders.

“They stopped shooting,” Evans said.

“Can you see the street around your building?” I asked.

“I can’t see the street from here,” said Evans.

“No windows?” I asked.

“I’ve got a window,” Evans said. “I just can’t see the street. There are too many specking Mogats on it. Those speckers are everywhere.”

“How long can you hold out? I’m going to try to make it over to your building,” I said. Not much had changed since I left Little Man; I was still committing passive suicide.

“We barricaded the entrance,” Evans said. “They might be able to bash through with their tanks, but I’d hate to be the first man to come through that door. We may go down, but we are not going down easy.”

“Is Philips with you?” Thomer broke in.

“He’s here,” I said.

“And he’s okay?”

“Not a scratch on him,” I said.

Thomer did not answer. I figured that he probably switched bands and called Philips directly.

“Master Sergeant, there’s no point in coming here,” Evans said. “We’re cooked.”

I laughed. “Evans, we’re all cooked. I don’t know about Philips, but I’d rather go down with my platoon.

I’d lost a platoon a few years ago. I still remembered every man in that platoon by name. Sometimes I heard them in my sleep. “We’ll find a way to reach you, Evans. Just hold on.”

“What about your friend, the giant with the rifle?” Evans asked.

“His name is Freeman. He came here hunting Crowley.” I said this more to myself than to Evans.