Desperate Measures Chapter 17

Chapter Fifteen

“Initiating swarm,” Emma reported.

Erik’s heart rate kicked up from a rush of excitement, not fear. He would never deny enjoying taking it to the enemy. He’d respected a lot of the rebels he’d fought in his time in the Army, but he had nothing but contempt for the conspiracy.

This wasn’t war, this was trash cleanup.

The circle of drones shrank in one fluid movement like a noose tightening around the neck of a condemned man. Erik reminded himself they were there for a rescue, not an execution, but he wouldn’t mind flinging some pain along the way. A team of twelve exos with extra ammo was a solid unit, but it wasn’t a massive army. Depending on the enemy defenses, there might only be so much they could do.

Erik appreciated that everyone was a volunteer, but he wasn’t going to get anyone killed. If things got too hot, the ID informant would be the loss, not the soldiers with him, let alone Jia. The DD hadn’t been the ones to let the man get captured.

The drones broke into erratic flight patterns as they passed over the target area, and some disappeared from the display. It was too late to abort.

“The enemy has initiated antiaircraft fire,” Emma announced. “Extensive and powerful local jamming has been initiated. I’m glad I kept back an outer ring of drones to keep the rest under observation, but don’t worry. They’re successfully executing their autonomous disruption program. That might complicate comm on the ground.”

“Everyone knows what they need to do,” Erik replied. “Get ready to drop, people!” he shouted as the bay door opened. “We’re leaving this bucket in sixty seconds. Keep to your squads and execute the plan. Remember your Patton.”

Erik piloted his exo toward the door, its metal feet clanging on the floor of the cargo bay. Sometimes being a leader was more literal than others.

It wasn’t bad. Jumping out of a flitter was nothing like dropping onto a planet. He could now see what Jia had been talking about on their way to the rendezvous point. There was something almost sacrilegious about having to battle on a beautiful place on Earth. Unfortunately, the enemy had chosen the battleground by placing their facility there.

Explosions sounded in the distance, but Erik couldn’t see anything, given the angle of the flitter. He wasn’t paying much attention to the pulsating and swirling patterns of the distraction drones. If there was a significant problem, Emma would inform him.

“Movement in the forest near the drop zone,” Emma reported. “I’m seeing it with long-range cameras from drones outside the engagement zone. They’re blending in well with the forest using some sort of camouflage, though not active optical. They’re running unusually hot on thermal and seem to not be directly appearing from the mansion. Four-legged.”

“Dogs?” one of the soldiers suggested, sounding surprised. “They’ve got dogs in the woods?”

“If only it were so easy,” Jia muttered. “It’d be easy to scare off dogs with a couple of good warning shots.”

The conspiracy made it easy. They never let him feel any qualms about who or what they were facing.

That made sense. They couldn’t rely on good people to execute their plans. Even the average greedy bastard would balk at the carnage many of the conspiracy’s plans involved.

“She’s right,” Erik agreed. “Those aren’t dogs or wolves. We’re most likely about to engage heavily modified

yaoguai

intended for combat. The enemy has shown off a lot of different types in the past, some more alien than any space raptor. Don’t play around. Take them down, and watch your asses.” He took a step down the cargo ramp. “Jumping in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Go, go, go! It’s time to kill some

yaoguai

!”

He leapt out of the back of the flitter with a spin. Jump thrusters weren’t enough to make an exo fly, but they were enough to keep him in the target zone. The loud booms and rhythmic crack of the enemy’s air defenses continued unabated, but they stayed close to the mansion.

The enemy might not have been able to do much to the cargo flitter given its low altitude, or they might have been confident their ground defenses would be sufficient to stop anything that came out.

He couldn’t decide who was more arrogant, the man who came at a secret conspiracy base with a modest squad, or the people who thought they could win against highly trained Special Forces with jumped-up genetically-engineered toys.

Victory would prove one side right.

Emma’s drones resembled a dense flock in the distance, the swarm’s constant formation changes eerily beautiful in their own way. Bright explosions and clouds of dark smoke filled the sky. Sunlight reflected off the thick chaff. Flares become temporary suns.

It all looked impressive, but it wasn’t accomplishing much but wasting enemy ammo. The exos needed to hit the ground and make their move.

The denizens of the nearby forest understood something dangerous was happening. Birds fluttered desperately away from the battle. Deer charged through the trees. They knew they didn’t want to get caught up in it.

Jia and the other soldiers jumped from the flitter in a loose formation. Everyone extended their shields and angled their weapons down. They all knew something was down there waiting for them.

Erik swept back and forth, though Emma’s info made it clear they wouldn’t land in the middle of the

yaoguai

. The monsters were moving fast, but there was enough distance to give the squad time to prepare.

The exos cleared the canopy, everyone firing thrusters to continue to slow their descent and avoid branches. Despite the earlier warning, thus far, the only things with four legs they’d seen were the deer, the threat closing in but not yet there.

Yaoguai

were the perfect guards for a remote mansion that functioned as a hidden base. It was likely no one other than conspiracy members had visited since the place was built.

Had some poor bastards helped supervise the construction, only to be fed to some monster later? Erik wouldn’t put it past the kind of people who were in charge.

The twelve exos successfully landed with loud thumps in a staggered group. Without orders, they broke into three squads of four, forming an inverted wedge. Erik’s and Jia’s squad formed the tip of the spear.

“Everyone stay sharp,” he yelled because of the comm interference. He didn’t want to rely on laser comms. It’d be too easy to lose line of sight. “Our welcoming party will be here soon enough, and we don’t wish to be rude and not show them we care.”

He shifted to his thermal overlay. The explosions in the distance were clearly visible through the trees, as was the rapidly approaching temperature mass marking the

yaoguai

.

So much for a complete surprise. They should have loaded Emma’s drone swarm with explosives like the men who had tried to assassinate the NSCPD chief and smashed them into everything but the mansion. That would have been a spectacular distraction.

“We need to clear the distance and fast,” Erik ordered. “Kill anything that looks like it came out of a lab. Ready your frags. We don’t need to burn down half of France. I don’t want you using any plasmas until ordered to. All heavy ordnance exos, hold off. We might need those rockets for something far scarier than overgrown test-tube pets.”

He downplayed the

yaoguai

threat but wondered how bad it would be. Not every soldier had experience dealing with genetically engineered monsters. Exotic and twisted creations threatened a soldier’s mind and slowed his reflexes.

Four legs didn’t sound so bad. At least it wasn’t a tentacled horror that looked like a reject from alien porn.

A flick of a finger set his autoloader for fragmentation grenades in his launcher.

Three exos in each four-member squad were equipped with high-powered rifles and grenade launchers, including both fragmentation and plasma ammo. The fourth member carried a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, but Erik worried about running into other exos, full-conversion Tin Men, or armored vehicles.

The

yaoguai

might be nothing more than an appetizer.

Overlapping deep, low howls came from ahead as the enemy approached, accompanied by the rustle and crack of branches.

Howls he could deal with. He didn’t care how they dressed up a dog or a wolf with their mad science. They could paint it with polka dots and give it a venom-filled mouth for all he cared. In the end, it would just be a predator who had forgotten man had developed nicer tools than spears and stone axes.

“Hold position!” Erik shouted, aiming his grenade launcher. “Use your thermals. It doesn’t matter how hard they are to see on regular optics then. Wait for my order to fire. Remember,

yaoguai

aren’t normal animals. We’re not going to be able to scare them off with a couple of kills. Don’t just shoot to kill. Shoot to obliterate.”

Erik glanced at a side window showing his non-thermal feed. The undergrowth rippled in front of him. Branches and shrubs pushed themselves to the side. Other plants and branches looked like they were moving forward, except for one thing—the bright yellow eyes.

It took more steps for Erik to realize the approaching enemies weren’t using some sort of adaptive camouflage that matched them to their surroundings with each step. The patterns and coloration of the pelts of the

yaoguai

were static but perfect for the forest. It was obvious they’d been created to guard this exact location.

Camouflaged wolves. That’s what they were, huge dire wolves twice the size of anything natural.

They bounded through the forest without further howls, only the sound of cracking branches and the thuds of their footfalls signaling their approach. It was time for their attack.

A genetically-engineered monster could possess all sorts of advantages over their natural kin and humans, but it took a human brain to understand military strategy. The dire wolves continued rushing forward, oblivious to the pain readied for them. The

yaoguai

might have their fear stripped from them through conditioning and genetic engineering, but the soldiers had the bravery of those fighting for a cause they believed in.

Erik waited, taking slow, measured breaths. There were too many trees and shrubs around. If they fired early, the effects of the barrage would be blunted. He wanted to maximize the destruction and ensure none of the first wave survived.

Awaiting his orders, none of the soldiers fired. Discipline was what turned a man into a soldier, and Erik had complete confidence in theirs. Colonel Adeyemi wouldn’t have sent a bunch of hotheads with him.

It was Erik’s job to be the hothead.

The dire wolves were close enough now that their outlines were distinguishable from the underlying terrain under normal optics. At this distance, their size was a design flaw when facing trained soldiers. Smaller monsters could have continued to blend with the forest.

“

Fire!

” Erik bellowed.

The twelve exoskeletons launched their grenades before he finished the word. Their all-but-simultaneous explosions ripped through the

yaoguai

line, sending a storm of flame and shrapnel slicing through their bodies. The loud noise swallowed most of their death yelps as the dire wolves tumbled forward in bloodied, burned masses.

For all their size, speed, and camouflage, the dire wolves couldn’t stand up to the cruel ingenuity of human explosives.

Erik’s gaze darted to a data window showing the forest far to his left and a growing heat signature. He checked to his far right. Another heat mass grew in front of him as well. He’d been worried about that.

The monsters might not understand military strategy, but they retained animal cunning. He would remind them again why humans ruled the Earth and had spread out to the stars. As long as the exos had ammo, these monsters couldn’t win.

“Diamond,” Erik ordered.

The squads rotated and spread out to produce the new formation within seconds. Erik was glad he’d practiced this sort of thing with Jia in their training sessions. Now, the exos’ rifles and launchers pointed in every direction.

“It looks like the bastards are trying to flank us. I’m sure those monsters have big enough claws to tear through our weak points, so let’s not give them the opportunity. Maintain your fields of fire. Don’t use more than a third of your grenades for this engagement. I have a feeling this is just the start.” Erik flexed his fingers. “Anything useful on your end, Emma?”

“I’m not seeing additional enemies, gun goblins, or marauding monsters emerging from the main building,” Emma reported. “Admittedly, doing this with long-range cameras in this environment is less than ideal, but it’s as if the

yaoguai

are emerging from the forest near the mansion rather than the building. I should note that not all of the

yaoguai

were initially deployed near your position, but they are all converging on it now.”

“It was a general alarm response,” Jia suggested. “They released them everywhere to look for us, maybe from underground passages. They wait until they see something and start howling, then the rest of them show up.”

“I don’t care all that much about where they’re coming from,” Erik replied. “I mostly care if Emma’s seeing them ready cannons or surface-to-surface arty. I’d rather not get surrounded by these dire wolves and stalled out so they can start blowing the shit out of us with plasma artillery.”

“I have yet to see anything like that,” Emma offered. “Incidentally, my drone squadron is down to seventy-five percent strength. I’m rather unimpressed by their antiaircraft response. It’s far less accurate than I would have believed.”

“They might be panicking.” Erik aimed his grenade launcher. “But if they haven’t finished you off yet, all we need to do is survive.”

Howls sounded from all around, louder and more insistent than before. There were more of them, too. The exo squad had taken out the scouts, and now the main force had arrived.

It was time to see which products of humanity’s scientific hubris would triumph.

“Wait until they’re twenty meters out and then send them back to Hell.”