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Here is the exciting chapter 22 for your reading pleasure.
Chapter
22
Reece
was certain he’d be going deaf. The roar of the M2 Browning Machine guns
mounted to the side of the steamboat left his ears ringing. They had little in
the way of ear protection out there. It mattered little because he thought
they all might die today.
Spent
casings pinged against the wooden deck of the steamboat. The shooter tried to
fire one round at a time, or in short-controlled bursts, given how precious
ammo was. Regardless, the powerful .50 caliber rounds ripped through multiple
bugs, splattering giant arachnid gore and appendages all over the forest and
shoreline.
They
came out of the trees. The enormous spiders, the creatures with the spikes for
arms, the dog-like ones with the bone plates and spikes on their heads. They
just charged the river with no sense of self-preservation and seemingly endless
numbers to throw at the steamboat and the wharf.
There
were so many of them. Had Riverside been overrun? The town was quite a few
miles upriver. Reece hoped Riverside hadn’t been hit yet. All he could do was
hope. It wasn’t like they could afford to sail out that way and contact them.
Men on the deck fired smooth-bore muskets, cap and ball revolvers,
and small cannons firing grapeshot. It wasn’t enough. The rate of fire was too
slow, even with the fifty-caliber machine guns mounted to the steamboat. The
enormous arachnids scurried out into the river, forming a bridge with their
bodies, and reached for the other side and the wharf.
People
across the river were firing at them, while others were falling back. The wharf
was probably lost, the first in a long line of positions to fall to the
onslaught of the bugs. But Reece and his men were going to take as many of them
with them as they could.
Reece
loaded a fresh bolt into his crossbow, lit the fuse on the bolt, and fired. He
had aimed for the bridge of bodies; the bolt hitting one of the spike-armed
critters in the eye. It detonated a few seconds later. The thunderous roar of
the explosion was as deafening as the machine guns. Its blast tossed water and
bug parts into the air and destroyed their bridge before they reached the steamboat.
It
didn’t matter. They tried again. The buzz of a thousand bees emanated out of
the forest. Then flying insectoid creatures swooped down, grabbing men on the steamboat,
and flying off with them before dropping them in the water. They screamed and
fruitlessly fought before they plunged into the river. Some drowned while
others swam ashore as quickly as possible.
“Dock
with the wharf!” Reece shouted. “Fall back to the walls!” He fired another
explosive bolt, this time targeting the bugs coming out of the forest. The
blast not only eviscerated the enemy but toppled trees, sending them crashing into
swarms of bugs and into the water.
The men manning the machine guns couldn’t resist the temptation.
The overwhelming swarms motivated them to lose control, spraying rounds as fast
as the guns would let them shoot. It barely held the bugs at bay, but it bought
them enough time to get to the wharf.
The
cargo from Riverside, a recent trade, had to be left behind. If they survived
this, maybe it wouldn’t all be for nothing. Reece turned and fired his crossbow
again, the blast destroying yet another attempt at a bridge of bodies. Other
men with crossbows fired them, the blasts destroying large chunks of the creatures.
The Machine guns ran dry by the time that they docked. One of them
jammed, and the shooter didn’t have time to clear it. They sprinted off the steamboat,
down the docks, and onto the shoreline, then made a beeline straight for the
walls of Tree Home. Some stopped, dropped to one knee, and fired their muskets,
revolvers, or crossbows.
It was
a vain attempt to cover their retreat. It didn’t buy them much time. The bugs
had made it all the way across the river with their bridge of bodies. Thousands
or hundreds of thousands scurried across it. Reece ran as fast as his feet
would carry him.
Like
a ton of bricks, he was blasted with the sudden rush of air. The scream and
whoosh of engines followed, as an aircraft hovered above them. Weapons mounted
to its wings whined as they fired, bolts of energy and particle beams blasting
through hordes of bugs in hot pursuit. One of the great flying machines of
Haven had arrived to cover their retreat. At least, Reece thought it was from
Haven. Who else was willing to come to their rescue and had machines like that?
Even
with the air support, he ran. Reece ran harder than he’d ever run in his entire
life. And he’d been born on Harbinger, where monsters hungry for your flesh
were commonplace.
***
They
didn’t rush to join those fighting at the wharf. That was the smart play, as
bugs soon began pouring out of the forest. Wesson flipped the AR-49 Marauder
C’s selector switch to burst, picked his targets, and gunned the bugs down one
by one.
The
minute the bugs were within range, they were hit with a volley of cannon fire.
Huge bolts from ballista's skewered them where they stood, and boom plant bombs
lobbed by trebuchets on platforms smashed them and detonated shortly thereafter
in thunderous explosions.
Well
before they came close to the walls, Jeremiah dropped a lit torch into the fire
moat. Flames raced over the dark fluids inside, crackling, popping, and roaring
as they created a wall of fire. Thick plumes of smoke began towering into the
sky, hindering the visibility of the defenders, though the wall of fire kept
the monstrosities at bay. The flames turned the heavily reinforced main gates
into a choke point and blocked the creatures from reaching the palisade walls.
A Red
Hawk cargo hauler carrying Emily’s Mech appeared over the treetops. It flew
over Tree Home’s walls, lowered to the landing zone they’d made for Haven, and
dropped the captured UE Mech before ascending and flying off. The Mech’s giant
metal feet slammed into the ground with a heavy crash, like some enormous monster
stomping.
“Thought
I’d join the party!” Emily’s voice boomed over the Mech’s outer comms. It
wasn’t long before she activated the Mech’s jump jets, launching the war
machine into the air and right over Tree Home’s palisade walls. She landed
ahead of the fire moat, right into the swarm of bugs, smashing them as she hit
the ground.
Then
she sprayed jets of flame into the insectoid hordes. The fires consumed the
bugs, racing up their bodies, causing them to screech in pain. It drove large
chunks of the creatures back, although more of them kept pouring out of the
forest.
Emily
launched missiles, which shot out into the air, and slammed into groups of the
bugs. The explosions blew them apart, hurling gore and dirt into the air, and
punching holes into their swarms. The fiery blasts rocked the battlefield.
Those holes were quickly filled, but it didn’t stop Emily from rampaging
through them. She smashed, blasted, and burned her way through, and they
couldn’t touch her.
The
armor and shielding of the Mech was impervious to their attacks. Defenders on
the wall kept the pressure up. They lobbed bombs and fired huge bolts or chunks
of rebar with their trebuchets and ballista’s. Others fired their rifles, a mix
of smooth-bore muskets, trapdoor rifles, AR-49 Marauders, M-43 Wolverine
Machine guns, and lever guns.
The
fighters from Haven and the defenders of Tree Home fought side by side. Emily’s
Mech got lost in the swarm. She was still alive, and Wesson was getting readouts of
her vitals on his TCD-1. There was no way they were destroying that Mech. But
there were so many of them they blotted it out from view. She still rampaged
among them, missiles occasionally arcing up from the hordes attacking and
slamming down into them, their explosions rocking the walls.
After
shoving a fresh magazine into his AR-49, Wesson let his rifle hang from its
two-point sling. He brought up his TCD-1 and contacted Connor. The former cop
was leading the efforts to rescue Joseph Knight. Those efforts were critical to
this battle. Getting Alan off their back meant bringing in tanks, possibly with
flame throwers equipped. Add Sergeant Pittman in a spider tank, Red Hawk
gunship support, and Ensign Rourke in the Wasp starfighter, and they might’ve been
able to turn the tide.
Rourke
was already here. But Wesson had told him to relieve the wharf, or at least
cover the retreat of people fleeing it. That was to their rear. The bugs were
hitting them from two directions. Red Hawk drop-ships came in over the
treetops, descending to the zone one by one. They were dropping fighters, and ammo,
and taking loads of noncombatants.
Griggs
had told Wesson there were people at Tree Home who couldn’t fight. Mostly
children too young to lift a rifle, pregnant women, and their elderly. They
were evacuated on the drop-ships, then taken to Haven where they’d be safe
inside the mountain. He wasn’t sure if growing old and having children on
Harbinger was a sign of hope or hopelessness.
Seven gargantuan driller forms, as Alice’s data packet had called
them, emerged from the forest. Looking like a giant bacteriophage with a drill
attached, they towered over the swarms. They were only slightly larger than
Emily’s Mech, but from the ground, it was like facing off with giants. Their
loud cries competed with the roar of gunfire and explosions as they advanced
toward Tree Home’s walls, the ground shaking with every step.
Missiles
arced up from somewhere inside the swarm and slammed into the driller closest
to the walls. It blew apart and toppled down onto the hordes below, smashing
them. Bombs from trebuchets crashed into a second, bringing it down with a
blast that rocked the forest and the walls. Two of them then got into position
near the walls, and they began drilling into the ground.
Thousands
of bugs formed a protective barrier around them, trying desperately to shield
them from Tree Home’s defenders. It only stopped small arms fire. Under
Wesson’s direction, the drillers became high-priority targets, and so Tree Home
concentrated its trebuchet and ballista fire on them. It brought another one
down, sending it crashing into the swarm.
The Wasp
Star fighter swooped down at that moment, firing two plasma torpedoes. The
deafening explosions hurled mounds of gore and dirt into the air and killed
hundreds of the bugs. It flipped around high above them, then strafed the
monsters with pulse cannon fire and machine guns firing tungsten rounds.
Another
driller form crashed into the ground, killed in the Wasp star fighter’s
strafing run. Bugs were smashed underneath its massive corpse. Seven more driller
forms came out of the forest They had their work cut out for them.
