Annihilation: A Rose Grows In Weeds (17 page)

The SR drop troops watched as the green tide of Plant Soldiers rushed toward them at 40 miles an hour. The land was barren from the harvesting and they could be seen coming across the flat plain more than five miles away. Their weapon platforms were at the front of the charge but it was clear they would be quickly overtaken by the swarming mass running behind them. General Wiseman watched his display as the Plant troops began firing their blasters and projectile rifles and ordered, “Hornets are released, open fire at two miles.”

More than 80,000 hornets lifted off the back packs of the troops dug in and headed down range toward the Plants. Each of them picked out a weapons platform or floater and flew in on it faster than the speed of sound. The sonic booms from the hornets sounded like a thunderous artillery barrage and had a devastating effect on the Plants equipment. Ninety percent of the Algean mobile hardware was blown out of existence with the first barrage. These hornets had a powerful sting. Not only did they destroy the platform but killed everything within forty yards of the blast and thousands of the rushing Plants died. A second volley of 80,000 more hornets lifted and targeted the remaining platforms. When all of them were designated by a hornet’s sensor, the remainder changed direction and headed straight at the front of the on rushing horde. The massive explosions along the front lines of the oncoming Plants should have stopped them but as the front rows died the rows behind them jumped over and continued coming.

General Dorg looked at the oncoming sea of green and now knew what the Humans must have felt at Rossville. There was no way to stop them but he would not run. He could see from his general display that his line was getting many more than the other three lines. Another 80,000 hornets launched and walked the front line of the incoming Plants blowing thousands apart. Then they were two miles away and he ordered, “Weapons free, fire at will.”

As planned, all of the Cainth units opened fire and once more the toll was incredible on the on rushing Plants; so many were being killed that the back ranks had to jump over the mounds of dead. The tide continued to surge toward the Cainth’s units and started rushing toward the breaks in their front lines. Colonel Crandon watched and said over his unit frequency, “Hold your fire until they are a mile out. Steady, Lads, get ready……fire all weapons.”

The Plants were more than surprised when a murderous fire came from the breaks in the line in front of them. The incoming fire was more than double what they were receiving from the others. The blaster fire extended more than 500 yards further than the fire from the ranked invaders and that fire was hitting the entire plant front. The first mile of Plants rushing toward the SR lines was burned out of existence. The ones rushing up could not see over the mounds of dead Plants to see the devastating effect of the fire. The Humans had wisely left the mounds to slow the advance of the following ranks. Colonel Crandon said, “Hold your fire. Cainth units continue to fire. I don’t think this lot actually saw what happened. Let’s see if we can do it again.”

The Cainth Drop Troops were amazed at the power of the Humans armor. Most had thought that they were done once the horde had gotten to within a half mile of their front, but now they took heart and began the process again.

Things were not going so well with the two Vgrig divisions. They had stopped the Plants temporarily and at that point some of their warriors ran out of ranks to fight individually with the Plant soldiers for personal honor. The Plants grabbed them and ripped them out of their armor and ate them. The brief respite allowed the Plants to surge forward and the Vgrig were fighting them 10 yards in front of their line. Some Plants were making it into their ranks and killing Vgrig warriors; the entire line was close to collapse. “Colonel Watson it’s time, jump your troops to the Vgrig now.” Jer looked at his display and saw that the center of the Vgrig line is where the bulk of the plants were breaking thru. Hundreds of the Vgrig were being torn apart by the Plants. “Remember your alignment, thirty meters apart. Jump in under full camo and blast the ground you’re landing on; then your lasers 360 degrees around you and then a hornet every two seconds. Lock on my signal and prepare to jump, Execute jump.”

Jer’s one thousand Naval Marines hit their jump jets and jumped from the fort to exactly ten yards in front of the Vgrig’s front line. They were in full invisibility mode and even the Vgrig didn’t see them coming. The first indication that something was going on was when one thousand ten foot circles were burned into the Plants frontal forces. Then the Marines turned on their suit lasers and turned a circle cutting thru every plant with in fifty yards of their position. The Marines landed 30 yards apart and their kill zones over lapped killing everything along a two mile front in the center of the Vgrig line. They then turned off their Camo so the Vgrig could see them and started moving forward using their suit blasters to burn everything in their path. The Vgrig swarmed the Plants in their formation and managed to kill them all.

The Marine Battalion moved forward. Every two seconds an anti-personnel hornet left their back packs and flew forward and exploded sending small Coronado charges into the front ranks which then released their energy and burned whatever it penetrated to ash. Each hornet spewed more than three thousand of the small charges and the Plants directly in front of the Vgrig line were decimated and blown back to half a mile. The front line recovered and the Vgrig regained control of their front.

“Colonel Watson, the southwest corner where the Cainth and Glod come together is about to be over run; jump immediately.”

Jer’s battalion heard the order and jumped toward the coordinates without having a plan. Jer told his marines in the air on the way over the installation to jump higher by squads and that first squad would land first, then second two seconds behind and move right, third squad would land third and move left. They would continue this until all units were on the ground in action. The first squad landed right at the juncture of the two divisions and saw thousands of Plants right up against their lines killing both Glod and Cainth warriors. The two divisions were struggling to send help to prevent the Plant break thru but were also barely hanging on themselves. The first squad fired two hornets each into the ranks of the plants and then they then burned the plants right up against the line as they landed. They then hit their lasers and cut down every plant around them even firing their lasers among themselves. The first squad took four steps forward and the second squad landed behind them and moved to the right killing Plants as it moved, two seconds later third squad arrived and the process continued and the Plants were again being driven back. The Glod and Cainth Warriors watched the Humans walk into the Horde of rushing Plants fearlessly firing their blasters and bringing death to everything in their path. They saw the Plants overwhelm some of the Humans but they closed ranks and continued fighting their way forward. The reputation of the Humans was already of supernatural proportions and once the stories of what happened today began circulating, it would almost be mythic. The Cainth, Vgrig, and Glod all thought of themselves as the fiercest warriors but now they saw warriors that demonstrated how important it was to depend on each other in battle. They were amazed at the Human’s fearlessness in protecting them.

The Human division along with their Cainth brothers had totally massacred the Plants attacking their lines and Colonel Crandon contacted General Dorg and asked if he would go out and burn any plant that could possibly regenerate. He was taking his division and sending half of it down the east side and the other half down the west. He had just had his troops change to the anti-personnel hornet back packs and had recharged their blasters. General Dorg said that he would make sure there were none to regenerate.

The Two Human regiments turned and began moving down the two sides of the square formed during the SR drop. They spaced each marine 30 yards apart and the regiment with its 10,000 troops moved along a sixty mile front into the Plants flanks. As they rolled down the sides the troops in the lines moved out and killed anything that was on the plain that could regenerate. Finally the two regiments met at the southern line and turned and encircled the remaining plant warriors. The Plants seeing that they were encircled milled around in the Middle. The Vgrig Warleader called upon the Plants to surrender and avoid any unnecessary killing. He felt certain that the Plants didn’t understand him but they should understand the message because the SR troops had stopped firing.

The Ground Leader of the Plants was in the Middle of the mass and saw that they had no chance. He used his wrist frequency generator and reported to the leaders on the home world that his tools had been totally destroyed and that he was surrounded and that the strangers were calling for him to surrender. The Elder Leaders said, “Then finish your job. We don’t communicate with any creature but the common.”

With that the Ground Leader ordered the remaining Plants to attack and they were all blown away before they could reach their enemy. The war on the ground was over except for mop up operations that would continue for the foreseeable future.

K
osiev and Admiral Dorg were on board the Moscow watching the feeds from the Fleet and land battle. The victory left them both exhausted; especially the land battle. “Those forts are incredible,” Dorg said. “That Algean fleet had no chance once it came as close as it did. Maybe they’ll think twice before attacking again.”

Kosiev shook his head and said, “What would you do if you had just lost half a million ships to our forts. Would you go away and forget about it?”

Dorg said, “Of course not and you’re right, neither will they.”

“They will do exactly what we would do in their place. They’ll go back to the scientific drawing board and develop something to offset our advantages,” Kosiev mused. “Their screens and ant-matter weapons concern me. If they develop screens that can last longer after a hit, then fleet actions can become really dangerous.”

Dorg thought a moment and said, “We also don’t know the scope of this enemy or where their central planets are located. I think we need to do some scouting around ourselves to get an idea.”

Kosiev thought about what Dorg was saying and then had an idea. We know the direction they came from. Just line up the Dremels planet with the Pydres and follow it in toward the center of the galaxy.”

Dorg nodded and took another bite of popcorn. “There’s something else that has me concerned.”

“What’s that?”

“We need to rethink the command structure of our ground forces.” Kosiev looked at him quizzically and Dorg continued, “I’ve been talking with my brother about what he has seen during the battle and he readily admits that the Humans are twice as good as his best warriors.”

Kosiev said, “He’s exaggerating.”

“Let me explain why he feels that way. My warriors, the Glod, and the Vgrig have had a long history of traditions revolving around single combat. We nearly lost the land battle when the Vgrig left their line for single combat glory. The Glod also looked to fight single opponents during the break in their lines. The Plants didn’t care; they just swarmed anything they could eat. We are not well equipped or have the temperament to fight well as a group. Even our Navies look for single combat unless ordered to attack together and even then it’s not well coordinated. I’m sure you saw this in our earlier conflicts.” Kosiev shrugged and then nodded. “We need to sit down with the leaders of our warrior members and discuss what we learned here.”

Kosiev looked down at his bag of popcorn and then put it aside. “My friend, will you set it up and I will try to get the Royal Couple to attend. I also need to speak to McAllister and see if he can beef up the screens of the forts.”

Dorg tilted his head to the right and shrugged both sets of arms, “Why, I thought they performed well?”

The Algean fleet did not launch a massive missile attack but take a look at this.” Kosiev then showed where an anti-matter missile struck the screen and the entire screen went red briefly.

“I haven’t seen that.”

“What do you think would happen if they managed to crash a ship loaded with anti-matter into our screen?”

Dorg just looked off and said, “Show this to McAllister. We need to work on this immediately.” Dorg looked out the viewport at the millions of stars and said, “What do you think the Plants will do next?”

“If I had to guess, they’ll design some new ships to fight us. I don’t think they are mindless; their technology belies that, so I don’t think they will throw more ships away. We need to relook at our own ships and think about where our next development will be. The Megaships will continue to roll off the assembly line but we need to get our scientists and engineers to see if we are maxed out right now on our capabilities. I may be wrong, but would you continue attacking an enemy that you can’t run from and every weapon you have is too slow to hit them?”

“Put like that, no I wouldn’t. So you think we will have a period of no attacks.”

“I think that if they were going to continue with their offence, then the fleet would already be here. I almost wish they would; I’m worried about what might show up next time.”

Dorg only nodded.

Danielle was on the air again addressing all the citizens of the Stars Realm. Most every planet had heard about the battle at the Pydres Planet and there was huge interest in what she was going to say. It was also the second time that everyone was going to see her new child which was reason enough for a massive viewing audience even if the battle had not taken place. Then there she was on everyone’s display.