Harry took a moment to admire their ride. They had constructed a similar truck as

  their earlier one with a tractor to pull them forward, and a flat trailer to carry the crew

  in the back. Someone had taken a lesson from the first one and added a turret to the

  top of the truck with other forward facing weapons built in the front.

  The trailer stood high enough so they could shoot over the walls on the sides that

  would protect them. Someone had mounted various styles of weapons that would

  shoot themselves when they started to be swarmed by the xenos.

  And the crew would have to do their part so they wouldn’t be dragged over the side.

  It wasn’t a Junior, or Betty Lou, but it was going to carry them to their destination.

  The main problem was the force walls were only so high. The xenos could still get

  in the corridor and chase them. And they were only going to be able to go as fast as

  Howitz’s armor.

  Was that survivable in this kind of war of attrition?

  “Who’s driving?,” asked Harry. He checked his personal equipment. He was ready.

  “I am,” said Har. “I have to be watching the force wall adaptions while we go. And

  I need to be able to shut off the front if Howitz goes down.”

  “Mark spot for Bolo for squad,” Harry told his helmet. A carat appeared on his own

  visor. “This is just going to be a leisurely drive down to the corner store. No fuss, no

  muss.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Detrac. He made sure his chest sun gun was tightened in

  place as he walked to the back of the trailer. “Let’s get this over with so I can spruce

  up my fur.”

  “All right,” said Harry. He took a moment to gesture for his bees to come in for a

  huddle. He wondered where they were coming from before he remembered that he

  had thrown down six hives and they were making six bees almost every minute. And

  they had been active for days. “We need to concentrate fire, guys. Don’t let anything

  get to the walls, don’t chase anything. Just take up a station and fire at the same target

  as we go. As soon as that target is done, switch to the next one. We want to let the

  automated weapons expand on the outside so everything is linked between here and

  where we plant the new Bolo. Let’s put on our game faces.”

  The bees swarmed in readiness. They started orbiting the truck. Robotic birds joined

  them. Harry nodded. They had a flying contingent that could take a lot of the smaller

  xenos in a fight.

  Harry climbed up into the trailer last. He made sure that he had a version of the

  Ripper ready so he could spray anything trying to climb the walls to get at him. He

  doubted anything would get that close with the set up of automated weapons at the

  edges of the trailer, but he had been wrong before.

  And being wrong here was a messy death for him, and anybody dragged along with

  him.

  Howitz and Milla went up front. They were leading off. He had no doubt the mech

  would carve some of the monsters up. He just didn’t know if it could stand the

  pressure that was about to be put on it.

  He wished them the best of luck at the point of the spear.

  “Target the bigger ones, Detrac,” said Harry. “The more you can set on fire, the easier

  our job will be.”

  “Don’t worry, Harry,” said the wolverine. “We probably won’t have to personally fire

  a shot with all this.”

  “I’m always worried,” said Harry. “Yema?”

  “I’m covering the left, Detrac has the right,” said the cyborg. He hefted his cannon.

  “I doubt we will have to fight with everything else that will be shooting.”

  “Never think that,” said Harry. “Xin, if you can keep throwing hives over the wall,

  that will help your birds to expand and mix in with the bees. That will help you build

  points. Hei, you said you had a machine gun design. You can throw fabricators over

  the walls and they will march with us when they are built.”

  “We are ready, Beekeeper,” said Xin. “We have never had to fight an allout war on

  Earth, but here I can see where restraint is not an option.”

  “Just don’t do anything that will get you reviewed,” said Harry. “You don’t want to

  be drummed out with nothing.”

  “Yema showed us the options that will cause that,” said Xin.

  “All right,” said Harry. “It looks like we’re ready. Howitz, lead us out. Junior, you

  ready to cover us?”

  “I am ready,” said Junior.

  “Arming up, heading to the wall,” said Howitz.

  “Getting ready to open the wall,” said Har. “Now we will see if this scheme will

  work.”

  Harry took a spot where he could shoot to the left with the Ripper. Detrac’s sun gun

  could cut a line, but it was single fire and needed to recharge. He could drop five

  thousand round boxes from his Ripper in that amount of time.

  He felt Yema take up a spot at his back. If the big cyborg went down, they might have

  a small problem since none of them were physically strong enough to move him.

  Xin and Hei had opted for rifles with box magazines like his Ripper. They were

  covering both sides like he and Yema. Three on one side, two on the other. Harry and

  Xin would have to pick targets to cover for Detrac between firings of his sun gun.

  Harry used short bursts on the closest targets as the truck moved forward. He nodded

  as his beetle guns, wheelsons, and missile launchers rolled to fill in slots as the

  vehicle advanced. Their combined firepower was making mincemeat on his side of

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  the line. All he had to do was shoot something they missed before the bees passed by

  and finished the job.

  Detrac’s chest cannon went for the bigger monsters trying to charge the truck. He left

  gouges in the ground, small fires, and ash in the air. He had to rely on his rifle

  between the massive gouges he cut through the enemy forces.

  Xin only fired one bullet at a time. He had thrown some fabricators over the fence and

  mechanical birds were slowly adding their own lightning to what was being thrown

  out by the other machines pacing the truck.

  “Contractors,” said John over their collective radios. “You might have a big problem

  out at the two fifty mark. It’s one big mana trace that appears to be closing on your

  truck.”

  “How big?,” asked Yema.

  “It looks like the same size as a star whale,” said John.

  “All of the smaller pings around it are disappearing,” said Garry. “We don’t know

  why.”

  “I have an idea why,” said Harry. “Everybody take aim at the mark and hold fire. Har,

  keep us going, but we might need to seal the wall and hold in place. Howitz, we’re

  going to need you to come around and guard for us depending on how big the thing

  is.”

  “A titan?,” asked Har.

  “It has to be,” said Harry. “And it’s building its body out of the smaller xenos

  around.”

  “That is a lot of xenos,” said Hei. “Maybe we should have gone home.”

  “Junior?,” asked Harry. “Can you fire on that thing?”

  “It has skirted my range,” said Junior. “I don’t think I can hit it unless it gets bigger.”

  “I’ll try to hold it here until it gives you a clear shot,” said Harry.

  “That will be very dangerous, Papa,” said Junior.

  “I’ll handle it,” said Harry. “I’m going to get off and hold that thing off. The rest of

  you head for the marked spot and hold. I’ll hook up with you when I finish killing

  that thing.”

  “I don’t think you can,” said Yema. “We should advance together, and buy time for

  more of your bots to come online and get ready to defend us.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be able to stop it for long by yourself,” said Detrac. “We should

  keep moving.”

  “They are right, Beekeeper,” said Xin. He took the time to shoot two xenos that had

  drifted too close to the wall that the automated weapons hadn’t shot at yet. “You can’t

  stop that by yourself.”

  The titan appeared. It was taller than four stories, had wings, and sucked in any lesser

  xeno that flew too close. It glared at the moving truck and its shielding mech as it

  stomped closer.

  “Go for the legs,” said Detrac. “We don’t need to fight it if we can keep it from

  closing on us.”

  All the contractors and their war machines opened fire on the legs of the giant. Their

  volley struck and did nothing as it kept advancing. It barely seemed to have noticed

  the hammer blows to its shins.

  “It’s impervious to small arms,” said Harry. “We need to throw something bigger at

  it.”

  Milla called something out of the air with both hands raised. She brought her arms

  down. A blade of white light sliced at the titan, trying to take its legs out from under

  it. It stumbled in a spray of blood, but righted itself to chase the crew of contractors.

  “Can you do that again, Milla?,” asked Harry.

  “Not yet,” said the smaller alien. “It takes a lot of points to summon. This is the first

  time I saw one of those things shrug it off in the field.”

  One of the Jordan’s corvettes arrived at the head of five other aircraft. They fired into

  the kaiju but nothing seemed to rock it from its course. One of the aircraft seeded the

  ground with fabricators. Stems broke up from the fabricators. Leaves peeled back

  from the center of the flower. The newly active sun guns began to burn through

  anything close to them.

  The flight annoyed the giant xeno until it just broke out and swung a giant fist at the

  closet of the attackers. One of the bombers hit the ground after the impact on its nose.

  “How many more of those fighters are on the way?,” said Harry. “We’re going to

  need them.”

  “It’ll be a few minutes, Harry,” said John. “Build a gate and get out of there.”

  “Got a better idea,” said Harry. He activated his menu as he emptied out the Ripper.

  He just made sure that he didn’t hit anything on his side. There were so many

  enemies that he couldn’t miss. “I’m throwing down the fabricators here, Junior.”

  “Understood,” said Junior. “Trying to apply more pressure over you.”

  Harry nodded at the streaks of energy cooking the air above him. He pulled the

  fabricators back, waving for Milla to fall back. He dropped the machinery on the

  ground. They hummed as they went to work building an engine of death out of

  sunlight and particles in the air.

  “Hello, Da,” said the machine as it grew up. “This is a gnarly scene. Needs some kill

  it with fire.”

  “I don’t think it should be talking like that,” said Nick.

  “Hey, Brophy,” said Harry. “What you got?”

  “I got a fist of iron, and another of steel,” said Brophy. “If the right one don’t get you,

  the left one will.”

  Brophy’s small cannons started filling the air, knocking the smaller xenos down with

  a rain of tracers and slugs. Then the bigger cannons and missile launchers started

  whirring up and acquiring targets. Then the mountain of metal rocked as he cut loose

  with the main cannons one after the other.

  Harry reloaded his Ripper as he looked out over the battlefield. Brophy turned his

  upper half to bring cannon after cannon to point at the xeno kaiju. White beams of

  light cored the giant one shot after another as the machine turned to acquire the target.

  It tried to rebuild itself out of small xenos still trying to reach the truck.

  “Kill as many as you can,” said Harry. “Detrac, we need a cover. Watch your backs,

  let the bees and birds do what they can.”

  Harry winced as Milla’s weapon fired again, cutting through the masses on the

  ground. He got in front of her and let rip with the Ripper. The slugs flew like water

  from a hose, but the enemy kept coming.

  “We have a bunker, Harry,” said Yema over the radio. “Fall back and take cover.”

  “Go,” said Harry. He waved for the others to fall back before him. He retreated

  slowly, throwing flash bangs to blind his enemies long enough to get behind the wall

  forming a barrier around a gazebo.

  “The mechanical army is still expanding,” said Har. “They are helping cover us.”

  “What do you think, Brophy?,” said Harry.

  “You knoooow what I like,” said the Bolo. He kept firing into the kaiju, slicing it

  into ribbons. His assault slowed its charge down so it was weakly walking toward

  the gazebo.

  If it fell, it would crush them if they remained in place. Should they use a gate to

  get back to the Jordan? Should they drive back to Junior and use that gate?

  “This Bolo is stranger than the others,” said Xin.

  “He has personality,” said Harry. He scanned the battlefield. “Do we leave him out

  here on his own?”

  “Your bees and shooters are circling,” said Har. “They are protecting their bigger

  cousin.”

  “What do you think, Brophy?,” asked Harry. “Do you need us to stay out here and

  help you kill monsters?”

  “Can you run?,” the giant killing machine asked.

  “Yeah, we can,” said Harry. “Should we?”

  “I am going to wrap these hands of mine around a gun,” said Brophy. “Chase the

  taste of bondage from my tongue.”

  “All right, Brophy,” said Harry. “Link to Junior and Betty Lou and the Jordan. They

  will give you a bigger view of the fight.”

  “Abandonitis is not appendicitis,” said Brophy. “You can’t operate on your own fate.

  You can’t cut it away.”

  “We’ll see about that, young machine,” said Harry.

  “They are trying to get inside the perimeter,” said Hei. “My rolling cannons are

  mixing in better than I thought they would.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Xin. “We have done what we can. It’s time to step back

  and start thinking about a longer term strategy.”

  The kaiju fell over, breaking down as they watched. Smaller components tried to pull

  themselves free. Bees and birds shot them while they were helpless.

  “What happened there?,” asked Detrac.

  “I am still the demon of death, and killer of kaijus,” said Harry. “It looks like Nick is

  getting that agent of the year trophy.”

  “I think we need to leave before another one shows up,” said Har.

  “I have a thing to do first,” said Harry. “Let’s get you guys back on the Jordan. I’ll be

  up there when I get done.”