Free Battle Earth IX by Nick S. Thomas Page A

among them. Their advance against the walls of Baltimore appeared archaic in tactics, and yet there they were, still moving forward.
    "Fire at will!" he shouted.
    He knew they would anyway. Not one of them could stand and do nothing as the weight of a Mech army bore down on them. He took aim at the nearest creature. It bore a large shield like he had seen on the Mechs aboard the Earth Defence Grid. He squeezed the trigger and watched as his shot ricocheted off the corner of the door-sized shield. He shook his head and fired off two more shots, but both seemed to have little effect.
    "That's gonna be a problem."
    An automatic grenade launcher spun into action on a tower to his left flank. Explosions began rippling through the advancing enemy, tossing Mechs into the air and ripping through the rear armour of many of the shield bearers. A fixed gun on the wall to his right, which was a large Reitech fixed emplacement gun, joined the fight. Its rate of fire was as slow as a steady heartbeat, but each shot tore apart the shields it struck and punched holes in the vehicles they were sheltering beside.
    "More like it."
    He caught sight of a few Mechs without shields and quickly opened fire, cutting down one with a burst from his rifle. The weight of gunfire hammered the enemy like a torrential downpour. Their lines were being thinned, but they kept coming.
    "We need to upgun!"
    "No shit," replied Jones sarcastically.
    They kept up the fire as the enemy closed half a kilometre on them. There seemed no way of stopping them besides the physical barricade itself.
    "What are they thinking?"
    "They must have some way in," Jones answered.
    Pulses soared over their heads, and some pounded into the walls close to them, but had little effect against the hard cover they were protected by. The Mechs were just two hundred metres away now, and the hovering vehicles among them began to speed up and make a break towards the wall.
    "What the hell?" Taylor asked.
    Gun turrets atop each of the vehicles continued to fire at the battlements with little effect other than keeping heads down.
    "Where are they going?"
    "They aren't coming over the wall. They're going through it!" Jones shouted, "Take them out!"
    Scores of troops opened fire on the vehicles. As one of the towers opened up, it tore one apart, and it ignited into a raging fire, but it was too late for the rest. Taylor watched in horror as three-metre wide corkscrew-like drills deployed at the front of the vehicles, ready for impact.
    "Oh, shit!"
    It was too late. They felt the impact as one of the skimmers smashed into the wall at the very base below them. Taylor and several others lost their footing and crashed against the barricade. As Taylor regained his faculties, he could make out the ear splitting sound of drilling beneath them for twenty seconds, and then it stopped. He looked to Jones who stared at him, waiting with suspicion.
    The two of them looked over the edge in towards the city, confused. It had gone quiet along the walls. A soldier nearby began to laugh. "They can't get through!" He jumped up onto the top of the rampart and screamed, "Fuck you, you failed!" Jones shook his head.
    "This was no accident...they're..."
    He was cut off by a massive explosion further down the line, which shook the foundations of the wall and sent huge chunks of concrete hurtling into the air.
    "It's gonna blow!" Jones shouted.
    He grabbed Taylor, and they rushed to the edge of the rampart, jumping as the explosion erupted in the wall below them. The blast launched them twenty metres through the air. As they hit the ground, Taylor rolled over and saw a five-metre chunk of concrete fly past his head, missing him by only half a metre. He was stunned by the impact, but his suit had at least slowed his descent and broken his fall. He was sitting on the ground before two layers of the fortress that was Baltimore. His shield and rifle were gone, and he looked out to where the wall had been. The area was