The Viceroy rose overhead. Dan had finally found a soldier with space affinity while awakening the rest of his forces. They’d dropped the woman off in Brazil with Abe while shuttling their forces back and forth, and she’d ranked up once. It didn’t give her an insane amount of mana, but it was enough that she could teleport the ship a short distance. Once.
They’d tested her abilities, of course. Rebecca could only warp the ship about a mile, but given the realities of combat, that would be more than enough. A mile would break any sort of lock on the Viceroy’s Pride and give it more than enough time to fly away if something was coming for it.
As the ship soared over the skyscrapers that made up the city’s downtown, Abe jumped up onto the rope ladder hanging down the side of his mech. Scrambling up to the top, he stared down at Dan.
After receiving a thumbs up, a grin split Abe’s face. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted at the nearby soldiers. “Everyone!”
Dan frowned slightly as Abe’s voice projected across the clearing. He really didn’t know why he was yelling rather than using his radio.
“Check your ammunition, food, and water. The Viceroy is taking point to soften up the enemy, then it’s our turn. We have approximately five minutes until go time. Raiders!”
Abe’s voice somehow grew even louder.
“Prepare to roll out!” he shouted, raising his hand triumphantly atop the mech.
Dan groaned. That was why he wanted to shout. A goddamn movie reference.
Around him, most of the soldiers just shook their heads and returned to checking their kits before battle. The vehicles turned on their engines, the thrum of diesel filling the clearing. Those with powered armor slid off the back clamshells and climbed in. The rest of the infantry nervously checked their bracers.
Although spellshields would still be useful against the Orakh, that use would be much more limited. Their primary utilization against humans was to absorb a rifle round or three and give the soldier time to get back under cover. With the Orakh, if they closed to melee range of an unarmored soldier, the battle was likely over, regardless. Forcing a warrior to swing his axe twice wouldn’t change a whole lot.
The Viceroy floated above the skyline, and the dreary, overcast sky lit up as a lance of light and fire spat forth from the ship’s bow, striking something out of sight. A few of the soldiers paying attention cheered as they finalized their preparations.
Then the sky lit up again. This time, the spear of light struck the side of the Viceroy’s Pride. Spellshields sparkled for a second, holding the cataclysmic energies at bay. Then they failed. A deep black scar cut itself into the side of the void ship before the energy lance winked out.
For a second, silence filled their staging location. Then, the Viceroy disappeared.
Dan exhaled a breath. They wouldn’t have the ship’s air support for the battle, a serious problem. Still, apparently the Viceroy’s Pride was still in good enough shape to teleport. Hopefully, it’d still be able to deploy its reapers, but at a very minimum, Dan’s spaceship still worked.
Around him, the soldiers whispered, exchanging looks before glancing up at the empty sky. Maybe they’d gotten used to having overwhelming air support. Dan certainly knew that he would prefer it to the alternative. Unfortunately, New York was all but overrun, and attempts by the locals to use artillery and air support had revealed unnervingly effective anti-aircraft capabilities.
Seeing no reaction from those around him, Dan pulled out his radio and clicked the button.
“That’s our cue, boys and girls!” He did his best to sound authoritative as he spoke into the microphone. Usually, commanding the troops was Abe or Will’s job, but at the moment, no one was making sense of the situation. “It looks like the Viceroy is out of the fight for the time being. That means no air support, but it also means there’s no reason to delay further. Let’s get in there and kick the Orakh back into space.”
A weak cheer rose from the soldiers as they began moving. Dan applauded their effort, but internally, he couldn’t really blame them. Watching the Viceroy tap out of combat so early in the fight had been a bit of a morale blow for him as well.
Really, they should have expected it before now. The Viceroy’s Pride wasn’t terribly maneuverable without a proper space mage. Usually, void ships relied upon a handful of space mages to keep them teleporting semi-randomly about space as they fired their spell cannons at each other. If a ship was moving under its own power, it was usually seconds from being targeted and destroyed by every enemy ship within range.
Up until this point, they’d mostly gotten lucky. Air forces were hard to maintain, and even the tech lords only had a handful of planes and pilots each. It might be hard for missiles to lock onto the Viceroy, but a helicopter gunship or an A-10’s auto cannon would be more than enough to tear the slow-moving ship apart, spellshields or not.
Dan came back to the present as he watched his troops stream into New York. Maybe one third of them had powered armor, and the rest of the infantry were supported by heavily armored tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Unfortunately, an urban environment where the Orakh could be hiding around any corner was pretty close to the worst environment to fight their melee-focused foes in.
That was where the mechs came in. Dan smiled as the big machines rumbled to life. Even if the Orakh successfully swarmed them, a combination of flechette rounds from the shoulder cannons and the knee-mounted anti-personnel weapons would take a toll. Plus, only the strongest of the Orakh would even be able to damage the hardened steel of the mech’s armor.
The big machines fanned out, crossing the George Washington Bridge one at a time. Technically, each mech wasn’t that close to the bridge’s rated weight limit, but given the way it creaked and swayed under the quadraped’s steps, Dan was glad that they hadn’t decided to try two or more of the giant vehicles at once.
Elsewhere, armored infantry was beginning to march through the tunnels. Will didn’t want to risk getting a tank or armored vehicle stuck down there, and Dan had to agree. At the same time, every route in and out of Manhattan needed to be blocked.
The soldiers assigned to the tunnels knew that they wouldn’t have to push too hard once they reached the island, but by the same token, they’d need to hold firm with minimal reinforcements. The rest of the army would be occupied with the main push into the Orakh forces. If they got into trouble, they’d be on their own.
Dan crossed the George Washington Bridge slightly behind Abe’s mech. He didn’t want to get close enough to risk getting crushed underfoot. As amusingly ironic as that would be for an end, playing it safe seemed like a better approach.
By the latest reports, the NYPD and the National Guard were barely holding on around Yonkers,New Rochelle, and Queens. Brooklyn and the Bronx were gone. Maybe, in a couple of years, historians would know how many people managed to get out before the Orakh overwhelmed the human lines, but that wasn’t a problem for today.
Within five minutes of stepping foot in Manhattan, the Orakh were swarming over them. The four mechs that had made it across the bridge fired their main cannon into nearby buildings, trying to create mounds of rubble and more efficient firing lanes. Meanwhile, their shoulder and knee guns fired anti-personnel rounds into the charging horde, trying to thin its numbers enough to let the soldiers on the ground do their job.
Next to Dan, a team of about twenty suited infantry fired steadily. Each crack of their fifty-caliber repeaters jerked back an Orakh’s chest or head, either killing or seriously wounding them. He threw Fireballs into their ranks whenever they closed enough distance to get within spell range, but mostly, Dan waited for the melee. It wasn’t enough.
Even as a fifth mech tromped across the bridge, and another squad of twenty suited infantry filed in behind them, the Orakh began to reach their lines. Dan drew his sword and sprang into motion, doing his best to kill any of the giant amphibian warriors that approached within thirty feet of his troops.
Still, Orakh slipped by him. They were met with a volley from the armors’ flamethrowers, killing or wounding many of the charging monsters. Despite their losses, even more Orakh swarmed over the still-smoldering corpses of their kin.
Then, the power-suited soldiers were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, beating back the Orakh with their mechanically enhanced metal fists before spraying the charging Orakh with another wall of fire. Dan had lost people in that engagement. He wasn’t sure who or how many, but the Orakh had already used their massive numbers to inflict their first casualties of the day.
The pressure let up. A sixth mech made it across the bridge and arranged itself on a nearby road where it could fire into the side of the charging Orakh. More infantry came up to support them, plugging in the gaps where their brethren had fallen in the first attack.
Slowly, the attacking Orakh began to peter off as Dan’s soldiers began to establish a literal bridgehead. He sighed slightly, keeping his sword in hand. Even though things were moving in the right direction, the situation was far too tentative to actually relax.
Finally, the Orakh stopped attacking entirely. Their spotters could still see their hulking shapes in the shadows of nearby buildings, but they began to actively avoid engagement.
That worried Dan. Usually, the Orakh attacked mindlessly and without regard for their own lives. This sort of restraint could mean only one thing: a more intelligent and higher-ranking Orakh was nearby.
Once the entire force was across the bridge, they began to move forward cautiously, the Mechs barely able to squeeze through the multilane streets and tunnels of I-95.
Then, the foot on Abe’s mech went straight through the pavement. Dan’s head whipped around as his radio chirped.
“Thrush.” Abe’s voice was a combination of worried, frustrated, and amused. “I appear to have stepped through the sidewalk and into the subway. Give me a moment, and I’ll extricate myself,”
From somewhere nearby, a horn sounded. A low note that increased in pitch and volume. Around them, Orakh began to appear in fifth and sixth story windows. A couple even peeked over the edge of the highrise roofs themselves.
A brick sailed down and crashed against the pavement next to Dan. One of the Orakh lept from a fourth story window and landed on top of the mech following Abe’s.
“Shit,” Dan muttered to himself, pulling out his radio. “Abe, I don’t think I have a moment to give you; we’re under attack.”
