Fire In the Hole!
“Sniper!” Eagle shouted.
The jackal sniper barely tucked away into the cliff before Kai’s body dropped to the ground. Only then did the team notice the army arrayed in front of them.
“Shit.” Eagle cursed. “It’s one of those days again!
“Aura, set up the defenses!” He yelled. “Crackshot, take out immediate targets! Bertha, find the captain! We’re being invaded!”
Eagle and Crackshot exchanged shots with the long-ranged foes, downing a dozen jackals before mortar bombardment forced them to duck and weave. Ghosts began to fill the gap, illuminating the field with searing lines of plasma, while foot infantry and wraiths slowly marched forward, the latter burping out superheated mortars as they neared.
Aura ran back to the garage, and punched a red button. From the makeshift structure popped up a pair of 50-caliber mini guns. A torrential rain of bullets sliced through the infantry, downing the unshielded grunts, knocking back careless jackals, and flaring the shields of brutes, before they too succumbed to the sheer volume of ammunition. Aura then returned to the fray, adding her own plasma rifle fire to supplement. One unfortunate brute was slightly singed by her attack, failing his shields; he roared and was about to retaliate, before the defense guns mowed him down.
Despite the efforts of the three soldiers, the army slowly closed in on them. Fire and brimstone scorched the field, pockmarking the green with streaks of gray, brown and black. Eagle, frustrated with his quickly depleting supply of sniper ammunition, muttered a silent expletive before backpedaling, firing from the hip his backup pistol. He made it to behind a sturdy rock and loaded a new magazine into his rifle.
Just as he heard the satisfying clack of a new round in the chamber, a plasma mortar struck the rock, completely disintegrating it, and sending Eagle tumbling away, shields depleted. Crackshot noticed the explosion, and hurried to provide suppression fire with her two needle rifles as she ran to his position. Several grunts were struck dead with headshots, while a brute violently exploded in a pink puff of blood and guts as the needles supercombined.
“Damn it,” Crackshot spat. “Get up! We don’t have time for a break!”
She scrambled to pick up Eagle from the ground, who slowly shook off the disorientation. Aura appeared, providing extra firepower as the invading alien army concentrated their fire on the three. She threw down a drop shield to stymie the oncoming plasma.
“We need to find some cover!” She cried.
Eagle jumped to his feet. They all scrambled further into the training grounds, while the bulky wraiths continued to smash the terrain in front of them; one scored a direct hit on the drop shield, which buckled under the strain.
“Shit!” Eagle shouted. “Where’s the captain?!”
He emptied his sniper rifle into a group of shield-bearing jackals, the high-velocity projectiles obliterating them, despite only striking their vulnerable hands. Aura overloaded a plasma pistol to disable a nearby ghost, while Crackshot nimbly killed its driver. Fire continued to splash upon the trio of combatants, draining their shields until the incessant alarms indicative hummed in their helmets.
Three wraiths, hovering awkwardly over the uneven terrain, fired at the mini guns; they fried and slagged and sparked as their circuits overloaded. They then turned their attention to the three struggling soldiers. They couldn’t escape; the walls of the grounds hemmed them in, the terrain providing little cover, so they braced for the inevitable searing.
Then, just as the wraiths belched another salvo of mortars, Viper and Bertha jumped right in front of them. Bertha expertly fired a pair of rockets into the mortars’ midst, dispersing the energy into a heated haze. The captain long-armed a plasma grenade; it stuck to a wraith’s firing mechanism, and the ensuing explosion mangled the gun. As the driver furiously jammed the firing button, sparks trailed the length of the vehicle, before the whole thing went up in a pink-purple puff of smoke and toxic fumes.
Bertha dropped her rocket launcher and unslung a fuel rod gun, and emptied that onto the other two wraiths; they met a similar fate as a cascade of explosions rocked the machines.
Viper turned to Eagle. “What the hell is going on!?” He yelled.
“I don’t know, sir!” Eagle replied frantically. “We were practicing our shooting, when these guys ambushed us! They took out the admiral!” Crackshot kicked aside a wandering jackal that attempted to jump the sniper.
“How can a battalion ambush us!?” The captain chided. He ducked, anticipating a melee attack from a brute from behind, before pivoting and firing his shotgun, point blank. A spray of electricity, metal and blood gushed from the wound as the creature fell.
“How sh–” Eagle paused. He looked back at the field. “Shit! We forgot the admiral!”
“What!?” Viper shouted. “Get back in there and drag him out! No man left behind!” He fired several more rounds at a group of aggressive grunts. They scattered for cover, until Crackshot felled them one by one.
“But sir–” Eagle started
“That’s an order, soldier!” Viper commanded gruffly. “We don’t have time for this bickering!”
“Yes sir!” Eagle shouted autonomously. “I need a hand, Bertha!” Eagle fired into a phalanx of jackals where he had last seen Kai. They dispersed; Bertha had reloaded her fuel rod gun, and fired to deter any brutes in the vicinity. Eagle sprinted, stumbling into a half-crawl as the ground became littered with alien bodies. He made it to where Kai had fallen.
But the admiral was not there.
“Wha–“
A bloodcurdling roar echoed from behind him, as a brute chieftain in orange armor issued a challenge to the sniper, raising his gravity hammer. The brute lowered it, and dashed straight for Eagle.
“Damn, today’s not my day!” Eagle muttered as he furiously backpedaled, firing recklessly at the bull charging before him. His shots were wide; one nicked the chieftain, downing his shield, but not slowing his momentum.
“Crap, this is going to hurt!”
The sniper braced with his rifle, just as the brute closed the distance. Whipping around the hammer once, he swung violently toward Eagle.
A ground-shaking thump reverberated throughout the grounds.