“This is General James P. Glade. Men, we need to hold this position at all costs. I have tanks and helicopter gunboats on the way.” His voice had a forced calm about it. There was none of his customary throat clearing, none of the wildness or swagger. He took the tone of a father explaining life to his young son.
“I ask you men to give everything now …everything. If you die here, you die a savior. If mankind survives this war, it will survive because of the sacrifices you make on this street on this day.
“I am sending in every Marine under my command, officers and enlisted men alike. Help is on its way, but you must hold this position until it arrives. Fight to the last man. Fight to your dying breath. Do you understand me, Marines? The future of everything you have ever known or cared about depends on you holding this street.”
The aliens were still too far away for us to hit them when the first squadron of gunboats floated overhead. There were ten of them, and each got off a couple of rockets, then the Avatari fired back, aiming those big rifles in the air. I watched three bolts cut through one of the gunboats like an ice pick stabbing through a balloon. Trails of smoke rose from the fuselage of the gunboat as it began a slow rotation along the wing, and the chopper dropped out of the sky. Less than a minute after they appeared in the skyline, all ten gunboats went down.
Most of my men had general-issue particle-beam pistols with an effective range of approximately fifty feet. Soldiers with M27s opened fire while the Avatari were still hundreds of yards away. As the Avatari closed to within a hundred yards, our grenadiers began firing at them. Boll and Skittles moved to the front of the platoon and piped handheld rockets into the advancing Avatari. Boll, the more experienced Marine, punched holes in the Avatari line.
The Avatari blended into the charred landscape. They were dark, the color of mud made from volcanic soil. So much smoke rose around them that they sometimes disappeared from view, but they never wavered. They never hesitated. They moved ahead, a juggernaut. I thought to myself,
The Avatari came closer and began returning fire. We were no match for them. Their bolts drilled us no matter where we hid. Cars, buildings, trees, nothing offered enough protection. Up the block from me, an Army sniper hid behind the ruins of a Targ, an antipersonnel tank. He would stand, aim quickly over the front end of the tank, fire an explosive round, then duck back behind the protection of the tank. He was a good sniper; I saw him hit and break three Avatari with three shots before the Avatari retaliated with a barrage of their own. Dozens of bolts bored through the tank, turning its armor into a sieve. Three or four of the bolts hit the sniper, tearing holes through his body. The wounds were seared dry; no blood leaked from the wounds as the man slumped to the ground with his rifle across his lap.
Seeing the sniper die even as he hid behind a tank, I realized we would never hold this street. The Avatari fired a fusillade of bolts in my direction, ripping into my men and ravaging our cover. The aliens continued to come toward us in their disorganized march. They stepped into range of our particle-beam weapons, and we returned their fire.
So many particle-beam weapons fired at once that it looked like the facade of reality had cracked, releasing a sparkling green river of light. Rays from the particle-beam pistols hit walls, windows, the remnants of jeeps abandoned along the street and the advancing Avatari. Everything the beams hit exploded, and still the Avatari drove us back. They had no fear. They felt no pain. They lost nothing when they were shot. Death, to them, was little more than an inconvenience.
I heard the pop of M27 fire and saw soldiers firing from the second-story windows of the building behind a rocket launcher. These were technicians; I could tell by the insignia on their fatigues. Once they realized the Avatari were coming, they must have quit working on the launchers and barricaded themselves. Four techs climbed out of a window and leaped onto the top of the rocket launcher. As three fiddled with cables, the fourth aimed a single tube by hand, flipped a switch, and fired a lone rocket.
Across the street, the Avatari continued pushing their way forward. The rocket shot out of the tube, leaving a slanted string of smoke so narrow it might have been drawn with a pen. It struck the ground, throwing dozens of Avatari into the air and shattering a twenty-foot swath of street.
The Avatari seemed not to notice. The brown-black giants continued flowing toward us, firing their deadly light bolts. Men dropped on either side of me. Frustrated by the short range of his particle-beam pistol, one Marine tossed it aside and pulled out his M27. A light bolt struck him square in the visor, searing through his head and helmet. Though he had to have died instantly, the Marine continued standing on the spot for two or three seconds before he fell.
We had no choice but to yield. The Avatari would take the street and capture the rocket launchers no matter what we did. I could see this clearly; my combat reflex was in full swing. I felt calm. I was a man at peace in a chaotic battle.
“Harris, close in around the launchers,” Moffat yelled. “We need to hold the launchers.”
He was wrong. The batteries were lost, and I saw no point in losing my company along with them. The last thing we should do was cluster together. That would enable the Avatari to kill several men with each shot. Up and down the street, Marines were already dropping a few at a time.
We still had a huge numerical advantage, but that advantage was fading. We needed to attack. I stepped onto the street. The men from my company instinctively followed me. One of my men stepped in front of me, and a bolt slashed him across the throat, vaporizing the bottom of his helmet and taking his chin with it. He fell face-first to the sidewalk.
His virtual dog tag still showed—Corporal Ted Robinson. He had been alive just a moment earlier and ready to follow me even before I’d issued an order. If I had told him to stay back, he would still be alive, but I had no time for regret.
I contacted Burton, the battalion commander, on a direct frequency, bypassing Moffat. “Major, we need to launch a counterattack.”
“How many do you need?” Burton asked.
“All three companies,” I said. “And we need to act fast.”
Burton did not waste a moment considering my recommendation before issuing the order, telling the men to rally together at a virtual beacon he placed precisely where I stood. Our grenadiers held back, concentrating their fire, blasting a hole in the Avatari line.
What was left of our battalion formed behind me. Grenadiers firing over us, soldiers with M27s behind us, we rushed the enemy firing our pistols as we ran across the street and into their line.
I leaped a tangled barrier and flew over the curb onto the other side of the street. I could hear men coming up behind me but kept my eyes straight ahead. Bolts struck into the crowd around me, but almost all of the Avatari fire flew over our heads. A rocket struck in the direction I was headed, sending up a geyser of dirt, concrete, and flames. I could see dark shapes in the haze, towering figures that moved slowly. I fired. The moment I saw any movement in the haze, I fired, all the while hoping that the men behind me would not shoot me in the back.
Remembering how my armor shorted out when that spider-thing attacked me, I shouted, “Don’t let them touch you!” over an open frequency. We were in close now; my warning may have come too late for some. Running forward in a crouch as fast as I could, I almost fell on my face when I stepped onto the layer of loose slag that had once been the bunkers.
An alien stepped in my way and stopped. It did not seem to notice me. I shot it in the leg. As it collapsed, I prepared to shoot it again, then saw that there was no need. A cloud of powder whooshed out around the body as it hit the ground. The thing was severely chipped and dented, probably scars first received as the Avatari massacred our old soldiers out in the forest. My shot to the leg was just the finishing offense.
Crouching beside the broken alien, I moved my pistol from one target to the next. Before I could get back to my feet, another wave of Avatari came. I fired three shots, and more Avatari fell. The battle seemed to swell around me. By charging in, our battalion had broken the Avatari line in this one spot, forcing it to collapse in on itself. Listening to the chatter on the interLink, I could tell that this place was one of the few spots that we had managed to hold. Along Vista Street, the Marines who had tried to hold their positions were now in full retreat. Batteries of rocket launchers had fallen into Avatari hands.
Through the smoke, haze, and dust, I saw green beams and silver-white bolts. Then I saw something new.
