Invasion: New York

Earth.

“Do you hear that?” Charlie asked ten minutes later.

“All I hear is pounding in my ears,” Jake said.

“Listen,” Charlie said.

“Get down,” Lee hissed. The corporal lowered himself into the yellow water until only his head remained above it. The RPG lay higher up beside the shell-hole lip. Lee must have figured he could pick it up later.

Jake still couldn’t hear a thing except for the artillery, but he followed Lee’s example. Charlie did likewise.

Soon enough, Jake heard the squealing, clanking noise of Sigrid drones. His stomach tightened and fear began to claw for his attention.

This is wrong. This is murder putting us out here. I should be safe in the trench. Why does it make any difference if we fire these from the front or the back of the machine?

“Sometimes,” Jake said. Then his mouth dried up. The words wouldn’t come now. He wanted to close his eyes and just slip his head underwater.

An AI Kaiser HK appeared in his limited gaze. The thing was monstrous, and it had a squat, ugly cannon. The 175mm gun was like a short stogie clenched between the teeth of a psychopath. The Kaiser had a host of antennae sprouting from its top. Jake had never been this close to one before. The monster had poking autocannons everywhere and heavy machine guns, and beehive flechette launchers up the ying-yang. The HK could murder them all, no sweat. The good guys didn’t have any heavy stuff, not out here in no-man’s land to take out Kaisers.

Behind the Kaiser appeared another, and then a third and a fourth.

Now we know where they enemy is making his main assault.

“What do we do?” Charlie whispered.

Jake stared at his friend from Idaho. The look said one thing: keep your yap sewed shut, thank you oh-so much.

The three penal militiamen waited in their watery slop-hole. Three puny RPGs waited below the lip like metal sandbags.

Trying not to look directly at the things, Jake counted seven Kaisers. There were probably more. He could only see so much ducked down in his hole. It was like being mice as a herd of elephants walked by, or being antelope as a hungry pride of lions trotted past.

Treads clanked. Gun turrets rotated and barrels elevated. The ground shook and trembled as the big tanks passed. Bits of dirt from the edge of the shell hole plopped into the yellow water. It was like doom coming, and Jake feared the three of them would be buried alive as a Kaiser squashed them as he might squash a beetle with his heel.

In the distance, artillery boomed.

Is that theirs or ours?

The artillery ended up being American, and it was aimed at the Kaisers, meaning the shells screamed down onto no-man’s land.

We’re dead, Jake thought. It looks like our side is going to kill us after all.

As the HKs rumbled past their shell hole—big, looming machines casting them in death-shadows—their flechettes hissed and machine guns chattered relentlessly. The autocannons chugged, spewing shells skyward. Jake saw a sight of a lifetime. The metal monsters knocked out the incoming artillery tank-killers. Black ink seemed to explode in the sky, violent art like an anti-Fourth of July. It was crazy-sick and it likely saved his life by keeping the Kaisers busy, even as shrapnel plunked and rained like hail into the soggy ground of no-man’s land.

What am I supposed to think about this?

Jake might have heard a man wail in agony. Had a piece of shrapnel killed the sucker? He had no way of finding out. His nostrils were just above the water so he could breathe.

Then a Kaiser clanked its way directly over their hole. The two sets of treads passed on either side of them. They saw up into the oily underbelly. Maybe they could have fired a rocket and done some damage. Each of them just stared upward in shock and disbelief.

The machine passed, and they breathed normally again. Shortly thereafter, the American artillery stopped firing. The Kaisers obliged and likewise quit shooting. Soon, the last Kaiser clanked out of no-man’s land and reached the first American trench.

A few of the newbies must have had no idea of the AI tanks’ deadliness. Jake couldn’t believe it. As the last Kaisers clanked away, several unthinking newbies put their RPGs on their shoulders, aimed and fired at the enemy backsides.

One Kaiser paused. Autocannons knocked down the shaped-charge grenades flying at it. It was like swatting fleas. Machine guns chattered for less than ten seconds. Every militiaman who’d fired a rocket died in no-man’s land.

Jake, Charlie and Lee continued to wait. They eased up from time to time and watched the Kaisers take out the few MDGs who remained at their posts in the forward trench.

Charlie looked at Jake as if he wanted to comment. Jake already knew what the potato-grower was going to say. “Where did all the MDG sergeants go?” Too few of them had remained at their posts.

Jake could have told him where the others had gone, and no, it hadn’t been their own artillery killing them. Most of the MDGs took off before the Kaisers reached the trench system. It was suicide to fight the un-killable, and the detention guards certainly weren’t suicidal.

After the Kaisers trundled out of sight, heading deeper into the American defensive system, Charlie finally spoke:

“Now what do we do?”

Jake was ready to tell him.

“Wait,” Lee said. “I hear more coming.”

Charlie turned pale. “Come on. That isn’t fair. Do you guys think that’s fair?”

“These sound smaller,” Jake said, who had his head cocked.

“Yes,” Lee agreed. “These are the Sigrids.”

“Wonderful,” Jake said.

“What are we going to do?” Charlie asked.

“For one thing,” Jake said. “We’re going to wait right here. The Kaisers left us alone. I doubt the Sigrids will look for us either.”

But Jake was wrong: not dead wrong, just wrong.

Five Sigrids squealed and clanked into view. Each of the smaller vehicles had its special tri-barrel, and they hosed bullets into the first penal militiaman, slamming an older man with white in his hair and blowing his head clean off.

“They know we’re here!” Jake shouted. “Fire! Fire at them!”

He didn’t know if anyone other than Charlie and Lee heard him. Maybe waiting out in no-man’s land had changed some of the newbies. Maybe watching Kaisers roll past had changed them.

Five Sigrids faced a host of RPG-armed Americans in shell holes.

“One, two, three, four, five!” Jake shouted.

“I’ll take one!” Charlie shouted.

“Two,” Lee said.

“Yeah, I’ll take out number five,” Jake said. “It’s the farthest away.” He didn’t want them to all shoot at the same machine.

Jake took a deep breath. “Ready?”

His two best friends nodded.

“Go,” Jake said.

Each militiaman slipped up and took his RPG. The five Sigrids hosed death at everything. Their tiny turrets swiveled and the tri-barrels rotated as they spit flames and lead. Despite their smaller size, the things were living mayhem.

With practiced skill, Jake readied his RPG, aimed it at the number five Sigrid and pulled the trigger. The