Grimoires and Gunsmoke

After Corporal Santiago’s little outburst, no one in his platoon could even formulate anything resembling a reasonable answer. They all had the very same question as they sat there staring at their machines of war: rows of M2A4 Bradley Infantry vehicles locked and loaded ready for a combat drop.

“I mean, let’s face it. It’s aliens,” the Corporal and driver of one of the vehicles continued, turning his head to his Sergeant First Class (SFC). “We’re definitely being invaded by aliens.”

Santiago’s SFC vehicle commander, Erik Hofmann, let out a deep breath as his pale face reddened in irritation. Even though his Corporal made some good points, not even their commanding officers truly knew what the hell was happening. The only thing anyone knew what was happening was that there were attacks on the mainland and they all needed to dog pile into C17 Globe Masters with enough ammunition to level an entire city. “Shut the fuck up Santiago,” Hofmann retorted, leaning back against the wall of the cargo plane.

“C’mon LT, get my back here,” Santiago replied, unphased, as he looked to his platoon leader this time and gestured to the 3 Bradley IFVs. “No one can just pop out of nowhere other than Aliens!” He yelled down the line at the Lieutenant, who seemed more exasperated than anything else.

The Lieutenant was bumping his head against the wall in an effort to suppress his agitation with Santiago's ridiculous harping over aliens. The man finally straightened up, his dark skin contrasting with the dim, metallic surroundings of the plane, and looked towards his Corporal. The deafening clangs of chains rang out as their aircraft hit a spot of turbulence, and everyone waited a beat until they could hear again.

“We don’t know that, Santiago…” Lieutenant Jayden DuPont replied in a monotone voice when it was once more down to merely a deafening roar. “Now do what Hofmann told you to do and shut the fuck up.”

“I’m just sayin’, sir," Santiago shrugged, leaning back in his own seat. “They just popped out in the middle of nowhere and started blasting, you know?” The corporal’s voice trailed off as he raised his hands like his favorite History Channel ‘expert’. ”Those little green pendejos? Or maybe the tall gray-”

“Santiago, if you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m gonna throw you out of the back of the goddamn plane.” Sergeant Daniel Kim, the Bradley’s Korean-American gunner, growled in anger. “Do yourself a favor and stop while you’re ahead.”

The Corporal put his hands up in surrender after receiving Kim’s glare. "Alright, alright, I get it," Santiago said as he reclined in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. There was muffled laughter from a handful of the 40 men on board, but it was cut short by a harsh look from Kim.

The cargo bay of the aircraft soon fell into silence, filled only by the droning hum of the turbofan engines and the occasional creaking of the 3 nearly 30 ton war machines crammed inside. Santiago looked up at Bradley as his face turned serious for a moment. The man’s gaze drifted all across the features of the vehicle and noted that there were two live missiles stowed away and ready to be fired from the pylon on the side of the turret. He couldn’t help but wonder what exactly they were heading into. They were an armored unit, not an airborne one, so a combat drop wasn't exactly standard procedure, at least not one that they were trained to do. But despite that, here they were.

“He has a point though… What if it's actually -” Private First class Lukas Kowalski suddenly broke the silence, but was immediately cut off.

Lieutenant DuPont didn’t even bother looking at the man when he barked out, “Shut up, Private,” eliciting laughter throughout the cabins once again.

Kowalski sank further into his seat, deciding that it was better to keep his thoughts to himself for now. "Roger that, sir," Kowalski responded, adjusting the rifle slung across his chest. His fingers grazed the cold metal of the firearm, tracing the edges as a strange comfort against the uncertainty that hung in the air.

Hofmann ignored the tense, but still somewhat jovial atmosphere. The sergeant turned his gaze down the line and looked at the rest of the platoon. As the gears in his head turned, Santiago’s words seemed to stick with him. As far as he was concerned there wasn’t a single country on the planet that had the technology to materialize an invasion force in the middle of a landlocked country.

Were they moving to put down an uprising?

That wasn’t right… it would have been lit up all over social media or even the news long before things went hot. Plus this would be firmly in the national guards camp, not a heavily armored unit flying out of Texas…

Seeing that they were the latest iteration of the heavily armored “Penetration” division concept that the brass had slapped together, Hofmann surmised that this was probably a test of some sort. The 1st Cavalry Division had been redesigned to be the Army's spearhead in any major conflict. Composed of advanced and heavily armored vehicles, along with specialized infantry units, Hofmann’s division was created with the explicit goal of not only breaching enemy lines, but to keep going.

The Platoon Sergeant gently slammed his head against the plane's hull and closed his eyes to take a little catnap. There was no reason to mull over whatever the hell was going on, they were going to find out whether the Chinese had figured out to materialize out of thin air or if Santiago was right, and it was aliens after all. However, Hofmann was soon interrupted by the sharp crackle of the plane's intercom.

"Brace for approach, we're going into a tactical landing pattern, we’re coming in hot." The pilot's voice echoed through the cargo hold and the unexpected announcement sent an electric shock through the cabin.

Tactical landing.

They were going into a hot zone, and they were going in as fast as possible.

DuPont's gaze never wavered from Hofmann, even as the initial surprise began to settle into a grim understanding as they all snapped into work mode. "You heard the man!" Dupont shouted aggressively and called out to the rest of his soldiers, his voice carrying a calm, steady assurance that anchored the growing tension.

"Secure your shit, strap in tight! This is going to be a rough descent," he ordered, moving to tighten his own harness. "We're going in hot, so be ready to move and get the vehicles decoupled as soon as we touch down!"

"Takashi, Cooper, Diego, Thornfield!" DuPont continued, his piercing gaze sweeping each NCO in turn. His voice cut through the noise of the humming engines, a steel blade of authority in the chaos. "Help Hofmann with decoupling his Bradley, we need him out of the way as soon as the bird touches down! Understood?" DuPont said while grabbing his rifle and racking the slide to and chambering a round.

The soldiers snapped to attention, their bodies tense with the adrenaline of the impending drop. "Roger that, sir!" came the unanimous response, each man springing into action to follow their lieutenant's command.

Staff Sergeant Takashi, a quiet Japanese-American man, pointed to a few of his men and started issuing orders to prepare their own Bradley’s for decoupling when they landed. Diego, Thornfield, and Cooper followed suit, each issuing orders and deciding which squad was going into whose Bradley.

The roar of the engines and the whistling of the wind outside made it difficult for the soldiers to hear each other as the aircraft descended rapidly. It felt as if their stomachs had been left hanging thousands of feet above them, a sensation only worsened by the anticipation of the unknown.

“The fuck is going on sir…?” Santiago asked again, this time his voice barely audible over the noise. His knuckles were white from gripping the straps of his harness, his eyes wide as he looked to his lieutenant for answers. But DuPont, strapped into his own seat, gave nothing away. His gaze was fixed on the slowly approaching ground below them, a hardened expression set on his stoic face. He'd been in this kind of situation before, and he knew better than to make promises or assumptions.

"I don't know, Santiago," DuPont admitted, turning his gaze to the worried man. "But I’m certain we’re soon gonna find out. Now get your fuckin’ helmet on."

The rapid descent continued, the lights of the land below growing closer and more defined. No one said another word as they all recognized they weren’t landing on an actual airstrip, but a small strip of grass used as a makeshift runway.

The usually talkative Santiago swallowed hard and simply nodded, his fingers fumbling to strap his helmet onto his head. The normally lighthearted atmosphere of their unit had been replaced by somber tension, the men lost in their thoughts as they watched the landscape below approach with alarming speed.

As the soldiers held their collective breaths, the aircraft shuddered and jolted while the craft's undercarriage screamed in protest as it made contact with the uneven ground. However, the pilot still skillfully decelerated while the transport bounced and shook as it barreled down the grassy field. Once the plane had ground to a halt, officers barked orders while the soldiers unbuckled themselves and went to work. They had half of the bindings chaining their vehicles off before the cargo bay doors touched the ground. The doors banged open, revealing a starlit night punctuated with intense gunfire and explosions echoing in the distance.

The sudden sounds of conflict outside caught everyone off guard, momentarily freezing them in their tracks. The soldiers’ heartbeats echoed in their ears, drowning out the distant sound of gunfire. The booming echo of an explosion somewhere off in the distance jolted them back into motion.

"Move! Move! Move!" Lieutenant DuPont yelled, trying to reignite the sense of urgency among his men. “Get this shit off the plane! Section two still has to land!”

Remembering that the rest of their company was still in the air, the soldiers swiftly went back to work. The rumble of heavy diesel engines roared as the first large metal beasts roared to life as a new wave of soldiers started to flood in and assist in decoupling their vehicles. With the first Bradley free of its chains, the massive vehicle roared down the ramp, churning up dust and grass in its wake.

The second Bradley roared past while Lieutenant DuPont walked down the ramp and shook hands with one of the men directing the vehicles down. “1st Lieutenant DuPont.” He introduced himself, looking his contemporary up and down. He took in the CCT patch on the other officer’s chest, indicating he was an Airman belonging to the Air Force’s famed and fabled Combat Controllers.

"Technical Sergeant Anthony Pena," the airman introduced himself, returning DuPont's firm handshake. “I’m sure you want to know what the fuck is going on, but to be honest you’re better off seeing it for yourself.” The CCT started walking, motioning for the Lieutenant to walk with him, before pointing south. The Lieutenant turned his head, following the gesture, his eyes narrowing at the mention of fighting. DuPont's mind whirled with questions, but he managed to keep his composure, focusing on what the CCT was saying. “We got everything from Special Forces and Rangers, to the National Guard out there fighting along the 77 on both sides of the road trying to get to Cambridge.“

“Wait, wait, wait. What?” DuPont pressed his fingers against his eyebrows before glancing back at the cargo plane taxiing to take off. “The 77? As in interstate 77? Sergeant Pena, what the fuck is happening?”

"I’d like an answer to that too, Lieutenant," Pena replied, his voice grim. "Something… is attacking us." The CCT shook his head in disbelief. "We've got these... things. Creatures. They're not from around here, that's for sure. They hit us hard and fast, taking the town, killing civilians. The Rangers were the first to respond and now we're all here, trying to hold them back." Dupont noticed Pena's voice had an edge to it, a certain tension that went beyond the normal stresses of combat. His eyes were steely, his jaw set. "And before you ask, no one has the faintest clue. One minute, everything's normal. The next... well, you’ll see." Pena turned around towards the cargo plane as it was starting to take off. “If it doesn’t look like it belongs on this planet, shoot it. If it doesn’t look right, shoot it. If it doesn’t have an IR strobe, shoot it.” The CCT trailed off, his attention switching to the next cargo plane lining up to land on the temporary airstrip. He raised his hand to his radio to communicate with the next landing cargo plane, tacitly dismissing the Lieutenant.

DuPont stood there for a moment in complete and utter shock as he let the information sink in. “Jesus… Santiago was right…” He turned around and jogged to the lead Bradley, his mind racing with thoughts of preparation and action.

"Fuck, Santiago was right!" DuPont shouted, as he climbed up the IFV’s ramp and joined the rest of his troop.

Sergeant First Class Hofmann, perched in the vehicle's command seat, snapped his head around to face DuPont, his eyes wide and shocked. “What??” Hofmann's face contorted in disbelief. “Santiago was what!?”

A series of frustrated grunts resounded from DuPont as he struggled to fit himself into the only available seat. "The god damn corporal was right, we’re being fucking attacked by aliens!" He replied hurriedly, shoving a soldier’s M240 machine gun out of his way to make room for himself. "We've got unidentified hostile… somethings out there!”

The Bradley’s ramps finally started to lift, sealing the occupants inside the dimly lit interior of the IFV. The vehicle filled with the dull resonant roar of its engine in operation, filling the oppressive silence left behind by DuPont's revelation. The normal banter, the jokes, the sounds of soldiers preparing for a mission - it all felt muted. The gravity of the situation hit like a mortar, leaving the men dazed.

Did humanity even stand a chance against a space-faring enemy attack? Everyone in the unit had grown up playing video games or watching media about alien invasions, and their imaginations ran wild with what-if scenarios. The very idea that an extraterrestrial race had the capability to travel across the vast cosmos, reach Earth, and launch an assault was terrifying. Their technology, strategies, and physiology could be beyond comprehension.

Santiago's voice broke through the oppressive silence. "I always imagined it'd be like Mass Effect, you know? Cool weapons, shiny ships, maybe even a few good guy aliens on our side or something." He tried to laugh, but the sound died quickly and silence took hold of the Bradley once again as it rolled towards the road, grinding the grass beneath it to mud as it churned ahead.

DuPont completely ignored the comment; he was busy accessing his End-User Device, a phone mounted to his chest. The man was doing his best trying to access the tactical map and other intel available via the digital interface. The device provided him with real-time updates from the higher command and fellow units, but all the responses he received right now were disorganized. DuPont came to the conclusion that everything was a cluster fuck.

"God damnit…” The Lieutenant muttered under his breath as they finally met the road. The officer was trying to figure out who to actually talk to amidst the random bursts of chatter that filled his ears. Everything was an absolute mess as distressed voices cried for help, harsh barks of commands or desperate attempts to rally scattered troops. The cacophony made it nearly impossible to discern if there was any kind of cohesive command and made it seem like they had just been dropped into a free-for-all.

Hofmann opened his mouth, getting ready to chime in on Santiago’s joke, but just as the words were about to leave his mouth, something surreal passed in front of his commander's screen. Just 200 meters away, several soldiers with Infrared strobes on their heads sprinted out of the treeline in a mad dash to the other side. He initially thought they were just breaking contact or trying to get past the other side, but he soon realized they were running away from something.

“GUNNER!!” Hofmann yelled desperately as an enormous armored beast, rivaling the Bradley in size, burst through the forest edge and onto the asphalt.

The damned thing had an eerie resemblance to a wingless bipedal dragon, and its massive claws scraped and sparked against the road’s surface. It skidded out on the asphalt like a dog hitting a polished wooden floor at a dead run. It was a ridiculous, awesome vision right out of a fantasy story. Its muscular body was covered in dark scales that seemed to both reflect and absorb the ambient light, casting eerie shadows around it. Powerful, clawed limbs dug into the road as it righted itself, revealing rows of sharp, gleaming teeth in a maw that seemed to stretch endlessly. The beast's eyes, a fiery orange, scanned the area hungrily.

With a predatory speed that defied its size, it immediately surged forward again, giving chase to the fleeing soldiers. The raw power of the creature was terrifying; each bound it took covered an alarming distance.

“TRACKING!!” The gunner, Sergeant Kim, screamed in response, quickly getting a bead on the creature.

POMPF POMPF POMPF POMPF POMPF POMPF POMPF

The Bradley's 25mm Bushmaster chain gun roared into action as Kim unleashed a rapid barrage at the behemoth lizard. Each High Explosive (HE) round struck true, causing the creature to falter momentarily with every small explosion against its thick scales. Yet, the monster's resilience was astounding; while a few hits did cause visible wounds around softer and fleshier area’s, the barrage was far from enough to bring the creature to a halt.

The beast in turn, shifted its now furious gaze towards the Bradley, its eyes glinting with malevolent intelligence. Muscles rippled beneath its armored hide as it repositioned itself, sizing up the armored vehicle as its new primary threat. Abruptly, the creature let out a deafening roar that echoed across the battlefield, sending an involuntary chill down the spines of every soldier in the vicinity. The sheer power and volume of the sound caused the Bradley's hull to vibrate.

"ARMOR PIERCING!! FUCKING USE AP!!" Hofmann shouted as he saw the thing sprint towards them at a mind boggling speed.

Sergeant Kim reacted instantly, switching ammunition. "Loading AP!" He called back, his voice desperate. Just as a mechanical clunk signified the switch in the chamber, the sergeant held down on the trigger once more, and the Bradley's chain gun released another furious volley. Each shot struck with a more noticeable effect than before; the rounds found their mark, digging into the thick hide of the creature. A series of high-pitched metallic pings could be heard as the AP rounds made contact, some ricocheting off, but several penetrating deep into the monster's tough exterior. Dark, viscous fluid, reminiscent of blood but with an odd luminescent quality, spewed out from the beast, painting the asphalt as it crumbled to the ground, slamming into the IFV before sending it rocking back.

The force of the impact knocked several of the crew off their seats, and the Bradley was sent screeching back several feet. Hofmann was momentarily dazed, his vision blurred, and his ears rang from the brutal collision.

"Out! Out, now! Everyone dismount!" DuPont yelled, his voice filled with urgency, grabbing hold of the lever to lower the Bradley’s ramp and pushing it with all his might. With a mechanical hiss, the ramp slowly began to descend, revealing the hazy outside atmosphere.

The infantry inside of the uncomfortably cramped vehicle scrambled out, some on their feet, others rolling out. Even as the infantry did their best to shake off the dizziness from the impact, the sound of the 25mm Bushmaster cannon continued to roar, engaging other targets down the road. By this time the second and third Bradley in their little convoy had also come to a halt, forming a makeshift defensive line alongside the main road. A cacophony of fire roared from each vehicle as soldiers poured out of their respected vehicles and made a beeline to the tree line and out of the open with the world around them turning into a blur of pure chaos.