Eve Berg

Location: North American Eastern Seaboard, Bethesda Naval Hospital, United Commonwealth of Colonies

“We’ve got another man down,” came over the net.

Eve cursed as she surveyed the scene in front of her.

Her MOUNT stood as a metal sentry in front of the main entrance to the hospital. She kept her eyes peeled for the enemy’s return, even though hours had passed since she killed several BAMFs in the last skirmish. Since then, there hadn’t been a peep from the enemy. Not that something wasn’t happening.

Her AI had alerted her to the rising air temperature, and it quickly became apparent the enemy had changed tactics. The shield surrounding the hospital grounds now made since. Since the ETs couldn’t come in and dig them out, they’d burn them out instead.

“Get him inside,” the battalion commander coughed from the HQ.

Almost nothing was left of the hospital’s defenses. The soldiers were holding their positions for as long as possible, but they were dropping like flies. As the temperature climbed, the first thing the officer did was order the squad-level shields to go air-tight. This kept the heat out, but it also kept out all the other air. The troops could run on internal air supplies, but the average grunts didn’t have a large supply. They weren’t issued anything extra because they were fighting on a planet, not out in the void. No one thought of this scenario.

The battalion had been good for a while, but now those air supplies were running out, and people were starting to collapse. Medics rushed past her with bulky suits jerry-rigged from materials inside the hospital. Even then, Eve saw their steps falter as they rushed toward the downed soldier’s position.

{One hundred degrees Celsius, Warrant Officer Berg,} her AI chimed in.

They were now at the temperature that water boiled. She looked out at a fountain in the middle of the formerly-manicured lawn. The water inside it was bubbling as it boiled. She was suddenly grateful that she couldn’t smell the area around her. If the fountain water was boiling, the blood and flesh of the rotting dead wasn’t far behind.

The pair of medics returned with a man lying unmoving on a litter between them. His arm flopped over the side as they hurried past, his rifle laying diagonally across his chest. Eve shook her head as the doors squeezed closed behind her. That soldier wasn’t going to be the last.

“We need a plan,” the LCDR seemed to be thinking the same thing. Her battalion had lost nearly thirty percent of its people in the fighting, but that still left seven hundred men and women to command.

The hospital complex was huge, more than capable of housing the soldiers, but housing wasn’t the issue. Keeping them cool was. The building wasn’t designed to be air-tight. Certain sections were contained, but you couldn’t fit what remained of the battalion there. The environmental systems were already working overdrive to keep it bearable, and sooner or later, they’d burn out or short-circuit. When that happened, it was only a matter of time.

{One hundred and one degrees Celsius, Warrant Officer Berg,} her AI informed.

“I’ll scout the perimeter of the shield, find its source and destroy it. Even a little reprieve before they can reestablish it will disperse this heat,” Eve stated.

“We’ll need to do better than that. We’ll need to break out of here. Once that shield goes down, radio in, and I’ll get us moving. I’ve got my S2 crunching the numbers and if we head northwest, away from the metropolis, its less likely we’ll run into more ETs,” the LCDR responded.

“Sounds like a plan, ma’am,” Eve nodded her head inside her environmentally controlled womb. She could be on a lava planet and not know the difference. It wasn’t her ass on the line here, it was the frontline battalion’s.

“Do you want some of our HI assets?” the LCDR asked.

“No,” Eve shot down the idea. “You’ll need them on the breakout if you run into any hostiles.”

In the battalion’s limited experience, it took two, sometimes three, HI to take down a BAMF, which was about all the battalion had left at the moment. If Eve couldn’t handle whatever was powering and protecting this bubble shield, she doubted a couple HI could change that equation.

“Roger that, Valkyrie. Drop routers along your axis of advance and keep in touch. Happy hunting,” the LCDR cut their connection, and Eve took a few massive steps away from the door.

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Her foot made a squishing sound as she stepped on a few of the bodies in the courtyard as she took a least-time approach to the shield’s edge. She’d find it, and then circle the perimeter until she found the source.

She walked for nearly a kilometer until her sensors indicated the energy shimmer of the shield. A quick check of the readings showed it was a strong, maybe even stronger, than anything a PDC could put out. Since there wasn’t massive infrastructure and power sources buried in the ground supporting this ad-hoc shield, it was another example of how the enemy was better equipped than humanity.

She turned north and started to walk the perimeter. Unsure of what she’d find, but sure of what she’d need to do to get those seven hundred troops to freedom.

***

Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: North American Eastern Seaboard, Earth, United Commonwealth of Colonies

Coop grumbled as he continued to trek north.

The grunts riding on him like remoras on a shark had been a pain in the ass; sitting on his sensors, making it difficult to get his weapons on target, and everything else that came with attacking or defending against the enemy. Now, they were dead, cut down by those big, ugly motherfuckers, and he was all alone. He found himself missing them every time he tried to check his three o’clock. He was used to getting nothing but ass, and each clear reading was a reminder of his failure.

His trek north had been anything but uneventful. He’d come across two more detachments of enemy troops, neither larger than two dozen. He was starting to think the enemy didn’t move in large contingents like the Commonwealth did, which led to embarrassment that so few of the ETs were able to take down so many humans. He’d come across plenty of humans. Too bad none of them had been alive. In fact, some had been nearly melted.

He’d seen it in all the small towns between the metropolises. His sensors indicated the air temperature was above normal here, which helped him develop his theory. This wasn’t an invasion; it was an extermination. With the orbitals under their control, and air domination as far as he could tell, on top of complete disruption of human communications, the aliens were systematically wiping town after town off the map. They’d air assault in with a small force to protect their big shield generators, set up the shields, BBQ the humans in their homes, and then move on to the next town.

Coop hoped he was only coming up against the mop-up crews, which meant the main effort had long passed them. He wasn’t sure he could take more than a few of the big guys. The little ones were easy enough. Still, when one of them bit it, the big ones went ape shit. That was how he’d nearly been skewered like a shish kabob in his womb.

It was better to avoid them all together if possible. He consulted his MOUNT’s built-in maps and was pretty sure he was getting close to Bethesda.

Not much of the original Washington D.C. remained from the Last Terran War. What did was classified as a historic site, and the rest became a national park. That meant there was a large chunk of open land right next to one of the largest metropolises on the eastern seaboard. That was exactly where Coop didn’t want to be. If anywhere was a landing zone for the enemy, it was that. He circumvented it to the west, keeping as low a profile as possible, to come at the hospital from the northwest. It was the farthest point from the possible LZ and most likely the safest.

He stopped behind some buildings for cover to survey the scene. Sure as shit stank, there was one of the ET’s shield generators. This time they’d been smarter than the last time he’d seen it. This time the generator was ensconced in a building. It must have been a government building at some point because it looked well reinforced. The ETs had just dropped the shield generator right down through the roof, so it was vulnerable from above, but he counted two of the big bastards walking patrol up there.

judging by his distance from the hospital, this generator and its brothers were definitely bringing the area to a boil.

A blip on his radar caught his attention, and he went prone on the pavement, his graviton cannon pointed down the road. He waited patiently for the sensor ghosts he’d registered to appear again. Sure enough, a big fucker inched its way around a building on the other side of the shield. Only different was, this one was made of metal.

He saw the other MOUNT level its cannon at him when it registered his presence, so he sent a friendly ping on the tight-beam and putting his hands up in a non-threatening manner.

“Co . . .” the connection was bad with the shield’s interference between them. “. . . ‘s that . . . ‘u?”

A friendly ping came back with data on it. It was easier to get text through than audio. {Coop, is that you? You beautiful big cocked bastard.} He could practically read the relief and excitement across his vision.

{The one and only,} he sent back.

{My big strong man to the rescue. Your timing is perfect.}

Coop hadn’t been one hundred percent sure who the other MOUNT was. Even though they’d mentioned his dick, that only narrowed it down to two people. One played with it frequently, while the other referenced it nearly as frequently in an insulting manner. Now, he was sure it was Eve instead of Camilla. That revelation was bittersweet. He was happy Eve was still alive and kicking. Life would suck without her, but he still had no idea what had happened to his plucky squadron buddy.

{You seen what’s making this shield?} she asked, her recon being affected by the shield between her and the generator.

{It’s about eight hundred meters from us, dropped in the center of some government building with a few thick walls between us and it. I also counted at least two big ones patrolling the roof. If we stay low, the buildings should hide us.}

{BAMFs,} Eve informed. {That’s what the battalion I was rolling with was calling them. Big Ass Motherfuckers.}

Coop couldn’t help but laugh. That was spot on. {You recon from your side, I’ll recon from mine. We’ll meet back here in thirty, and devise a plan to shut these assholes down,} Coop suggested.

{Sounds good. I’ve got seven hundred troops that need to exfil before they turn into human soup.} Eve started to move away in the direction of the generator.

One MOUNT might not be enough to get into the hardened target with multiple BAMFs on guard, but two sure as shit would.