Fight for Humanity: Resistance: Chapter 8

""Regrets are for the air force, ma'am, I am a ranger."

- A United States Ranger.

The making of the bullets wasn't as hard as Joe Billman would have thought. It was a simple matter of dipping a standard bullet into the hot, alien liquid metal, and letting it dry. They It took each bullet about ten minutes for the metal to dry on, leaving a coat of black over the bullet.

Getting the metal was the hard part. Although the metal melted well in extreme temperatures, such as the furnace they were using to burn down the metal, you still could not touch the metal in its solid form. Luckily for them, after being melted down and recooled, this ability seemed to wear off. After three days of intense labor, they'd coated three quarters of the bullets in the base with Zemka metal.

Joe was just finishing up a group of .50 caliber bullets when the instillation shook around him. Reflexively, he pulled his Beretta M9 out of its holster and took cover under the table, when he suddenly realized that debris was falling from the ceiling.

"Status report, now!" he yelled, getting out from under the table as the shacking eased up.

"Collins is dead, sir." said George Finik, shaking his head. "Nothin' I could have done or him. And we've still got squad two coming in from the other side of town."

"Okay. Eevryone, on me, up stairs to the roof.  Double time, soldiers!" They all made their way into the back of the barracks and up the stairs, which was, for the most part, still intact, and up to the roof of the building. Considering this fort was made during the Zemka civil war, it was relatively small, and relatively new, but already warn by laser fire from the Civil War. Across from the main complex was a fortified wall that surrounded the complex. Now, however, it seemed like a Zemka fighter carpet bombed the complex, leaving gaps in the wall.

In the distance was a large ground force of Zemka, making there way through the ruins of Williamsport. At least three hundred armored aliens, some incredibly small, others giant. What scared him most was the giant dinosaur looking monsters that lead the way, sniffing at the ground with their giant honred heads. It seemed the monsters had armored shells, a deep brwn color that went with their light brown skin.

"Sonuva bitch..." said Twitch, mouth gaping at the force in front of him.

"Are we gonna retreat, sir?" asked Tim Kelth, a horrified look upon his face.

"Too what end? There'll just be more if we run away, not to mention we'd have to cross the river too find any relative safety.  Our best bet is to hold out here until Tom and squad B makes it from Scranton.  Now, Kelth, I want C4 and landmines set up across the border of this instillation, double time!  Make sure to keep some, just in case we have to retreat."

"Yessir!" he said, and ran back into the instillation.

"Stallion, I want heavy Machine guns brought up here ASAP. Deploy them along the roof and across the sandbags.  Move it."

"Yes sir." said Ken, and trailed Kelth down into the instillation.

"Twitch, I want sniper positions, sandbags, cover, whatever we need to take 'em out from a distance deployed along this rood. Move it, SWAT boy!"

"You got it, sir!"

Suddenly, Joe remembered the metal plating that was covering the foxholes and small trench line about twenty feet out from the entrance to the base. "George, get wire and deploy it along the outside of the base, where the wielded metal plating is. We're gonna blow those old Fox holes up and get 'em up and working.  We only got maybe twenty minutes, so lets move."

Joe had blown the trench line into the sky five minutes into the preparations, while a line of sandbags and wire fencing protected inner instillation. Heavy Machine guns, all of which being either M2 Brownings or M249 light machine guns, with the exception of a M240 machine gun on the roof, were deployed across the instillation, though only two were manned: One on a peice of blown up wall on the main ground, manned by Stallion, the M240 machine gun on the roof, manned by George.

Down in the trenches were Joe and Tim, with all sorts of close range and long range weapons set up along the line. The Trench went down about five and a half feet, meaning that small Tim needed to stand on a box to shoot out. Joe, being the tall ass man he is, easily fit into the trench scenario. Twitch was up on the roof, between two sandbags reinforced with wire, holding his ever loving United States Marine Corps Designated Marksman Rifle, a rifle that Joe got him stuck on. He could see that Joe was holding a standard M16 rifle, but he was sure they had all sorts of stuff strung across that trench. Tim, however, had opted for an M4 carbine, set to fully automatic.

Twitch checked his watch; they'd had everything set by eighteen minutes, but now they'd been sitting four twenty five. The Zemka should have been coming down those ruined streets by now, but they weren't. Why?

The thing that worried the five man squad most was the monstrous giants that they had seen before. There had been three of them in all, at least forty, fifty feet tall, hunchbacked, sniffing the ground and the air like hell hounds. They'd come up with a solution to one Zemka Problem, only to find another.

Suddenly, a large explosion ripped through the rubble in the former part of Market street, and thirty Zemka crossed the narrow threshold. Twitch heard the faint calls from Joe, yelling for them to fire. Twitch sighted his DMR onto the head of a largely crested head, with three horns coming out it. A rip of fire came from beside him. George was giving all he had to taking out the first wave of Zemka; the only problem being, the bullets he was using, they weren't Zemka bullets. Still, the shear force of the fire was holding them back, allowing Twitch to put a round through whatever that particular alien called a head.

Small, tall, short, fat, two legs, eight legs, all went down with these new found bullets. It had a certain euphoria to it, the ability to take out an enemy usually untouchable.

It was right about then when the euphoria went away. The giant alien monster slammed through the ruins of the old City Council building. George started pounding him with the M240, as did the light machine guns on the ground. The Monster lowered his plated head so that the bullets penetrated, but only a little into the bone plating. Not even the Zemka bullets would penetrate this sonuva bitch.

And somewhere out there, there were two more.

Joe inched his way through the trench, trying to get to his kit.

He knew as soon as he saw those hell hounds that they'd need heavy ordnance just to not be overrun when they came into the battlefield. So, he stashed a FGM-172 SRAW, a short range missile launcher, with his kit and weapons. Now he just needed to get to it. Tim had his back, and was firing continuously over the trench wall at the incoming Zemka. No point in firing at that thing, thats juts a waist of ammo with a rifle.

Finally, he picked up the SRAW, and got off his stomach, only to find that the hell hound was right over them. Tim put a three round burst into the soft spot on his stomach, but it just roared and passed up the trench, and went straight through the gates, tearing through their carefully placed wire. Joe loaded the missile into the SRAW, and fired at his back.

The Monster went down like a sake of bricks, on the threshold of the walls of the base.

"Hell yeah, now thats how its done!" yelled Tim, standing up in the trench. Suddenly, a volley of laser fire sounded from behind, and Tim's eyes went wide.

It happened within a matter of five seconds, the comment, the laser fire, but it seemed like a life time, realizing that his teammate, the hardened Marine, the explosives expert, his friend, his brother in arms, was dead.

He caught the body as it fell, and those unfocused eyes seemed to stare up at him like a glare, telling him it was his fault, he got his man killed. Slowly, he closed his friends eyes.

And suddenly he realized he was in a dirty trench in the middle of a battlefield. He picked up his M16, and peaked out of the trench, gently setting Tim on the ground. The Zemka were crossing the line of defense as he peaked over, and it was time for their last chance: Tim's final battlefield tactic, to take place.

"This is joe. Heavy Machine gunner, all fire on my back, I'm bringing in a body.  Abandon the wall ASAP."

He picked up Tim's body, slung him delicately over his shoulder, and pulled his M9 out of its holster. he fell back to the gates, to the dead Hell Hound, firing bullets at the sixty to seventy Zemka entering their territory. Stallion came by him and in front of him, firing his M249 in both hands like one would in a mafia movie. Finally, they got around the giant hell hound, and ran into the base. Joe put Tim gently on the ground, and reached into hi pocket, pulling out the detonation device. He activated it, and a loud series of explosions took place out side.

Joe picked up his M16 and carefully moved outside. One or two injured Zemka were moving about, a spider with one leg left, and half a visor, one of the ugliest looking things he ever saw, was screaming in an alien dialect. a slug like creature was struggling out of a molten rock formation that looked like bodies. A Squid like alien had all his armor gone, blown off or melted onto him, and both his arms and part of his head were gone. The giant hell Hounds body had been blown all over the now barren clearing.

Aiming down his scope, Joe could see a group of maybe thirty running away. They'd one, but at a terrible price. The loss of Tim was an unacceptable one, even if they had just withstood a force fifty times their size.

But it wasn't over. They'd be back, Joe knew.

But for the time being, he had a body to bury.