Майк Резник - SNAFU - Future Warfare

“SNAFU – Every one of them delivers the goods.”

“... a great taste of what military horror can achieve.”

“... every single story holds its own and it’s damn difficult to pick a standout as they all leave a mark.”

“... Geoff Brown and Amanda J. Spedding deserve immense credit for both the consistent quality and extraordinary variety...”

“... these are books to watch out for, to purchase, and to enjoy thoroughly.”

“... an entertaining collection of stories... SNAFU-An Anthology of Military Horror is one of the best picks available.”

It was dark, about midnight, when something woke Henry Graves. He sat upright in his bed and looked around, hearing nothing but the gentle breathing of his wife, Beth. He contemplated getting out of bed to check the security grid in the next room… A few seconds later he had no choice; an alarm screeched out and woke everything within a mile.

He was out of bed and into the farmstead’s security room in a heartbeat, the monitors flicking to life in response to whatever threats the remote ground and satellite sensors had picked up. He was hoping it was just cattle from his neighbour’s property – Jenkins was renowned for being cheap with his fencing – but by the slowing spreading blooms of light on the screens it was clear this was something much worse.

“Hank, what is it?” Beth asked as she entered the room. “Jenkin’s cows again?”

“Afraid not, honey,” Graves replied. “Looks we have deebees coming in.”

“Crap.”

“Crap indeed, honey, crap indeed.”

Tau Ceti IV had taken decades to colonise, and it was a few years after the planet had been successfully terraformed that the aliens had shown up. Coming through dimensional gateways on and just above the planet’s surface, the ‘Dimensionial Beings’ – or deebees for short – had initially wreaked havoc amongst the unsuspecting colonists. If it wasn’t for an armed cruiser passing through for R&R, with heavy screens, armoured hull and batteries of hot lasers, the planet would have been overrun.

The invasion was finally broken, the gateways closing quickly and the deebees slaughtered with no line of retreat… now it was only a raid every few years, more a nuisance than anything else.

“Looks like a wide pattern,” Beth said, looking over Graves’ shoulder at the various screens. “Gates opening up all along the ridge and across most of the farmsteads.”

Graves nodded. “They should be easy to mop up, scattered out like that,” he said. “I’ll go suit up, you get on the horn to Jenkins and the others, make sure they’re up and armoured before the gates open completely.”

He stood and kissed his wife on the forehead as she slid into the seat.

“Looks like we have about 30 minutes before they open enough to let them through, everyone should be ready and mobile by then,” he said.

“Get suited while I make some calls,” Beth replied. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Graves’s suit was built around the chassis of an old, four-armed agricultural exoskeleton. With an upgraded power plant, some welded armour and batteries of weapons added each year, Brutiful was a family heirloom passed down over the generations. Every farmstead had to have one, and the Graves’ family took much pride in the effort they’d taken to maintain their deadly, hulking suit.

As Brutiful powered up, Graves got into his combat suit – a second-hand, naval-grade skin-suit, it provided a degree of life support, body armour and communications gear that made piloting the heavy exomech far less uncomfortable than it might otherwise have been. Plugged in and zipped up, he checked the ammunition drums and ran last minute diagnostics tests before strapping himself into the suit’s cockpit.

“Beth, I’m in,” he said as the heavy armoured glass canopy closed around him. “Systems green across the board, heading out now.”

“You’re showing green across the board here too, honey,” Beth replied, coming through clearly over the suit radio. “Jenkins and the others are all suiting up, should be out before the gates open.”

“Roger that,” Graves said. “Anyone coordinating this?”

“Afraid not. All of them are interested in defending their own property first, and we’ll coordinate a clean-up once the gates close and we can see what’s left.”

“Fair enough… shouldn’t take us long, the gates being spread out like they are.”

“And we don’t want Jenkins trampling down our fences like he did last time he came over to help.” They both laughed, though they hadn’t been laughing at the weeks they’d had to spend repairing the downed fence-line and retrieve their roaming livestock.

“Where do you want me, honey?’ Graves asked as Brutiful got underway and stomped out of the barn and into the night.

“It looks like a cluster of gates will open in the eastern quarter first, counting seven gates. After that, the next opening cluster is another five in the south.”

“Eastern quarter it is, on my way.”

Graves made good time, the heavy exomech eating up the miles at a rapid pace. With no threat, he set the autopilot and then cycled through his weapon and targeting systems to make sure everything was running smoothly – the diagnostics had indicated everything was green, but he’d long learned the value in checking everything twice, just in case.

By the time he got to the farmstead’s eastern fields, some 15 miles away, the gates were beginning to sparkle, the bright inner light of an alien dimension shining through. It was a rare sight, but not one that Graves was overly interested in admiring. Like a lot of things in nature, beautiful also meant dangerous.

He halted his exomech where he could see all seven of the gates – they were closely bunched – and swung the heavy chainguns on his right shoulder down, ready for action. The 15mm multi-barrelled autocannons weren’t his heaviest weapons, but they were dependable, hard hitting, and could deal with most deebees.

Besides, 15mm ammunition was cheap, and anything he fired came out of the farmstead’s operating budget.

“Hank, honey,” Beth said,” I make the gates opening in three… two… one… now!”

On her mark, a swarm of deebees poured out of each gate, scattering around as they cleared the gate for the aliens following behind, and searching for a target. Brutiful’s infra-red scanners picked them out in the darkness and automatically counted them. It had reached 80 by the time the gates’ sparkle began to fade, and Graves decided he should open fire before they dispersed too much.

With a whir, the autocannon barrels began to spin, and as they reached their maximum rotation, he fired. Over 600 rounds per minute poured out of the 5-barrelled weapon, cutting into the creatures around the nearest gate.

The 15mm rounds were mostly copper-tipped hollow points, with every 5th round a steel-tipped armour-penetrating round, and every 20th round a tracer round that marked its flight in a glowing red arc – at 1,500 metres per second, they streaked across the landscape, lighting the night sky and easily punching through alien hide, flesh and bone.

His first burst cut down the group around the first gate, then he switched to the second. The deebees had reacted now and were spreading out as they charged towards him. He fired the autocannon in short bursts of 25-30 rounds, taking down the leading aliens as they closed, confident he could whittle them down enough before they got to him.