The huge marine was of Scandinavian decent, and his strong build and blond hair did little to hide it. Taylor thought to ask him what was smiling about, but he already knew. The thought of personally hauling a nuke into the heart of an enemy base appealed to him on so many levels. Taylor suspected he would have just carried the same without the exoskeleton. The bomb was a metre long and fixed onto his back on a metal frame.
“You know you can’t keep it?” asked Taylor.
Sugar’s smile widened.
“I don’t intend to.”
The group were startled by the sound of explosions in the sky and peered up to identify the source, but it was far off in the distance. They knew it was yet another aerial attack to try and strike the base they were at. Taylor wondered whether it was a diversion to further keep them safe, or if more pilots were simply being sent to the slaughter.
The two marines in the tunnel finally appeared at the opening. Taylor was expecting them to say they had finished, but he looked at his watch and realised that couldn’t be true. He looked down to see that it was time for the crews to switch. It was boring work keeping an eye on the tunnelling device, so they kept cycling the job to stay alert.
Phillips’ experts had estimated that it would be a two-hour job to tunnel the distance they needed, but it was still only an educated guess. Taylor felt that an entire day had passed when that time came. The thought that they were merely counting down the time to their execution made it last forever. Eventually, Sergeant Silva appeared at the entrance and tapped the Major on the leg.
“We’re there.”
Taylor looked down in relief.
“What’s the ground like?”
“We’ve come up between the foundations. There are a few inches of floor to get through, but that’s no problem.”
Taylor clambered to his feet and gestured for the troops to pile into the tunnel. The device had cut a perfectly round corridor underground, but it was shorter than any of the marines. They hunched as they entered in single file. The mining device had liquidised some of the tunnelled mud and compressed the rest into the loser surface soil, leaving little sign of its work.
Their boots squelched as they stepped further into the passage. They reached the end where the mining device had buried itself into the sidewall and out of the way. Taylor stopped and looked up to see the steeply angled path that had been cut up to meet the foundations. Simple steps had been carved into the climb.
“That’s a pretty damn fine job,” whispered Taylor.
He stepped back and allowed Evans to pass. The Corporal had the cutting device clamped ready onto the forearm of his exoskeleton suit. He climbed up the ten metre section of muddy stairs and placed one hand on the centre of the floor section. He couldn’t feel the texture through his gloves, but it looked similar in construction to concrete. Evans lifted the cutting tool and pushed it into the material.
The glowing hot cutting blade drove through with little resistance. He looked down with a smile. None of them were sure if they’d ever make it inside. He pulled the device around in an arc until the plate broke free. His armed wavered slightly as it took the weight. The Corporal was fully aware that the suit he wore was the only thing keeping him from being crushed. Evans pushed up gently and slid the cleanly cut oval shape of flooring aside.
“We’re in.”
Chapter 11
“Sir! What the fuck do we do now?” shouted Doyle.
Commander Kelly lay back against a stack of crates that made up the ruins of their defensive line. Light pulses flashed overhead, and the improvised wall rocked as it was continually struck by enemy fire.
“Sir! We’re getting killed out here!”
Kelly stared into the man’s eyes and then turned to see the lines of bodies. There were as many lying dead as were still in the fight. He looked back to Private Doyle and began to come to his senses.
“We can’t win, we can’t fight this. We have to fallback, we must…”
“Are those your orders, Sir?”
Kelly nodded. The Private turned and bellowed the commands across the lines. The Commander could see one of the men quickly relaying them down the wired line they had brought up with them. Kelly clambered to his feet and looked up and over the defences. Mech bodies lined the broad corridor and lobby, but a seemingly endless number followed in their footsteps. He turned back to the nearest soldiers.
“Fall back! Now!”
They didn’t wait another second, and he watched as what was left of the two companies fled for their lives. Their fight back had turned into a meat grinder with no advantage gained. Kelly prayed it had made enough of an impact to keep the enemy at bay for a few more weeks, but he knew their end was still coming.
Kelly ran past lines of dead soldiers until he reached the hidden blast doors that took them back down to the bunker. He was the last man through the door and quickly punched the lock. He turned to stare through the one way windows at the bodies they’d left behind.
“There’s no hope for us now.”
Martinez moved up to him. His face was bloody and partially burnt.
“There is always hope, but only if you stay strong for all of us,” he whispered.
Kelly turned, looking into the Captain’s eyes. He knew he spoke with sincerity and was right. Kelly straightened his back and righted his shoulders. They were not dead yet.
The last of the marines climbed up into the foundation of the vast enemy dome. Taylor looked around to see they had come up into a storage area. Huge barrels were stacked from floor to ceiling along the sidewall. The ceiling was three metres high, and the entire structure appeared to be metallic. It had a cold feeling to it. Light blue ambient lighting emitted from the edge of the ceiling.
Nobody said a word or moved. All thirty men stood silently as they listened to everything around them. They could hear the sounds of construction, grinding and other power tools. Taylor nodded in satisfaction, thinking they must be a long way off completion. They all looked to the Major.
Their orders were simple. They all knew their target was at the very centre of the dome, and the only thing that mattered was delivering the bomb safely to it. Taylor looked around at the exits to the room which were at opposite ends of the large floor space. He pointed towards one, gesturing for the others to follow. He didn’t know where he was going, but none of them did.
Taylor reached an exit and peered cautiously around into the corridor beyond. Despite the sound of movement in the distance, there was no sign of any hostiles. He continued on, confident that his marines were close behind. For ten minutes they walked carefully through empty corridors. The GPS devices on their suits constantly logged their route so that they could retrace their steps to the tunnel, but few were confident they’d ever make it out.
As they took another turn, Taylor stopped abruptly at the sight of one of the creatures. He quickly held up his hand to halt the troops at his back. He peered around the corner to see that it was a single target. The creature sat with its back up against one of the large barrel containers they had seen previously. It was enthusiastically digging into some kind of food container.
The creature was wearing no armour, just a skin tight bodysuit with various electronic devices built in, and there were no weapons in sight. He appeared to be only a construction worker. Taylor looked back, relaying the information through hand signals. He gestured for them to stay put. They couldn’t continue without neutralising the beast, but neither did he want to risk alerting their presence.
He stepped out from the corner with light and careful footing as to not draw any attention. The creature was looking away from his position, allowing him to slowly close the distance. As he got within a few metres, he noticed a huge hammer placed against a wall. The shaft was a metre and a half long, and the head was as large as a human skull and of solid alloy. It was a simple building tool that was heavily worn from use.
