As he led the race for the only defensive ground for miles, General Brewer experienced a feeling of deja vu. More specifically, the situation felt eerily similar to the Battle of Five Armies.
Four years ago, the small band of human survivors-a fledgling army-hurried to occupy the better fighting ground. Back then, the ground had been a series of mountains outside of town. This time an island of rock. In both cases, the enemy was the same.
Nicknamed the “Vikings,” no one knew their real name because none survived the battle four years ago, but Jon remembered their cunning, their bravery, and their tools of war.
As had been the case in the mountains, the Vikings’ ponchos changed color to blend with their surroundings, in this case pure white. Those ponchos covered the entire bipedal, humanoid beings from head to toe with the exception of thick goggles providing eye protection. This time the ponchos appeared more substantial, perhaps a hardier fabric or deeper layers to keep the cold at bay.
Despite having lost four men in two separate surface collapses during the journey, Jon’s force appeared to outnumber the Vikings by a dozen or so. Those collapses into air pockets and ice caves not only cost four soldiers, but also valuable time: nearly two whole days had elapsed since their arrival in Greenland. The race did not go well.
For the moment, he concerned himself with more immediate worries; the contest to capture that fortress of rock. While the armies managed long-range pot-shots at one another, both coveted that island for defensive purposes.
Jon’s snow mobile troops arrived first. The General and Captain Fink led two dozen men onto the ‘island’ from the southern end. They wove through the rock maze heading north, hoping to deny the enemy a foothold.
To Jon’s dismay, the aliens arrived in greater number. Armed with a type of magnetic rail gun, the Vikings cut down two of Jon’s men. Captain Casey Fink responded with a fragmentation grenade that shredded three bad guys and their white ponchos with a blast of shrapnel.
Unfortunately, the aliens brought more manpower to bear. They swarmed down from the north side over sharp stone outcroppings and between mounds of snow and dirt.
Brewer’s advance team grudgingly gave ground, retreating to the very tip of the ‘island’s‘ southern end. There they made a stand, but the Vikings kept coming with no regard for the losses they suffered. Certainly the alien general knew the value of that rock and accepted the price to be paid. With the island in alien hands, they could decimate the human army from the only cover around.
General Brewer resigned himself to retreat but before he issued the order, a voice from behind changed the equation.
“Let the battle cry be heard in the land, a shout of great destruction!” Reverend Johnny proclaimed as he led the main body of human soldiers onto the rocks and personally dispatched four enemies with his favorite weapon, an M240-B heavy machine gun.
The surgeon-turned-holy-man’s strike grew into a counter attack. This time the Vikings gave ground until their main force arrived. At that point, the battle stabilized with each side hiding behind walls of rock separated by a flat, open stretch at the center of the battlefield.
“Okay, okay,” Brewer sat behind a boulder and contemplated the situation as shots from both sides flew back and forth.
“Squads one, two, and three on this line,” Brewer referred to the natural divider separating his army from the no-man’s land between the belligerents.
“Remember, General,” Reverend Johnny advised. “These fiends have proven themselves to be the cleverest of our adversaries. They seem to share our own species’ devilish love for the combat arts.”
Jon nodded and barked new orders, “Fink, get me a squad on each flank and keep the rest in reserve.”
Captain Fink radioed orders as he moved to personally oversee the deployments.
“Reverend, get the mortar teams organized. I want no more than three shots in a row from the same position. These son-of-a-bitches know all about counter-battery fire.”
“Let us pray,” the Reverend told Jon, “that they did not see fit to bring their own batteries with them to this snowy Hell.”
“Amen, brother.”
While Johnny saw to his orders, Jon Brewer hunted down three of his best snipers. As he led them to the front lines, two of those snipers went down with enemy fire in their foreheads. Apparently the Vikings trained sharpshooters, too.
He observed that the aliens did not sit and wait. They unloaded the cargo belts carried by their big furry lizards and removed gear from storage compartments on those giant, motorized tricycles. Just as the humans planned a strategy of attack, so did the aliens.
In fact, both species concentrated on preparing defenses and plotting assaults to the extent that neither saw the cloud on the western horizon; a low hanging twirling mass like a dust storm or a tornado, gray and white and slowly spinning its way toward them.
Brewer summoned his command staff.
“Reverend, what type of ordnance did we bring along for the mortars?”
“Standard high explosive and some white phosphorous. Would you prefer to blow them up or burn them?”
“I want to lay down some Willy Pete in front of their lines. That should give us a good smoke screen.”
Fink, rubbing his gloves together for warmth, said, “And heat things up, so there’s another plus.”
“Dear heavens,” the Reverend ignored Fink. “I do not think our foes will be fooled. A smoke screen means attack.”
“I reckon they won’t be,” Brewer said in his best Jerry Shepherd imitation. “But I don’t plan to go head on at them. You will.”
Reverend Johnny gulped.
“Relax, Rev,” Brewer smiled. “I want you to take one squad and make a hell of a lot of noise. Let them think we’re coming at them through the smoke. I’ll take a force around the eastern flank and try to get at their rear area.”
“Mr. Brewer, I believe your plan runs a very high risk not only to my own precious life, but in its success. They are well entrenched on their side of this redoubt.”
Almost in answer to Johnny’s observation, the first of the Vikings’ terrible artillery shells fell. A blast of concussion hit a few feet from two men pulling supplies off a dog sled. It seemed more an explosion of silence, a sort of anti-noise, followed by an unimpressive weak shockwave causing the men and dogs to topple over; but no shrapnel.
A half-second later, a glowing red singularity in the center of the blast radius sucked everything in like a vacuum swallowing air. The men, the dogs, and several heavy crates flew into that red center where every molecule of matter-flesh and equipment-disintegrated.
Fortunately, the big boulders and stone ridges filling the rocky ‘island’ mitigated the kill zone of the alien artillery, yet it was still a frightful sight.
Jon spoke with a renewed sense of urgency, “We can’t sit here and slug it out! We’ll just keep taking casualties and lose time!”
A gentle thwump-thwump-thwump signaled human mortars responding. Satisfying sounds of explosions and alien screams came from the Vikings’ half of the rocky plateau.
Brewer winked at Johnny and said, “I think you’re the best guy for this because you sure can make a lot of noise.”
“Like thunder, Mr. Brewer! Like thunder!”
Jon patted his friend on the shoulder and reminded, “Have your teams switch over to WP and lay down that smoke screen.”
General Brewer then summoned a force of thirty men and a half-dozen Siberian Huskies. They gathered at the eastern edge of the rocks.
At the center of the island, mortar rounds fell on the rough plain in front of the Viking lines. The white phosphorous shells exploded like brilliant white fireworks and simmered on the ground. A blast of heat swept over the battlefield; ice around the impact zone melted to water. As the shells burned, they released clouds of smoke,
