Battle Earth: 12 by Nick S. Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

into his mic.
    “Rains, we’ve got trouble. Need an alternate pickup point, and we need it now!”
    “If I’d listened to your orders, Colonel, then we’d already have left your ass behind!”
    “Enough of the pleasantries, get us out of here!” Taylor hollered over the sound of gunfire.
    Taylor watched as two of the Guardians strode out into the middle of the street and began laying down fire on the vessels hovering overhead. The platoon engaged the Mechs. Taylor looked up; the Guardians were blowing holes in the Mech aircraft, and one of them was already falling out of the sky. But even as several in the platoon were celebrating, they could see dozens of Mechs landing in the street either side of them.
    “Rains!” yelled Taylor, “We can’t get out of the city like this!”
    “What do you want us to do, Colonel?”
    He looked around and could see the building the other side of the street was a police HQ. It was eight storeys high.
    “We’re at the police HQ, thirty metres from the city museum.”
    “Museum? What the hell are you up to down there?” Rains asked.
    “Does the Police HQ have a landing zone on the roof, and if so, can you provide evac from that point?”
    As he waited for a response, he shouldered his rifle and took a few shots at one of the Mechs that landed on the street a few metres from where he was sheltering.
    “We can do that, but you’re gonna have to lay down some cover fire! ETA two minutes!”
    Taylor looked back at the carnage around him. Dozens of Mechs lay dead in the street, and a medic was attended to one of their wounded.
    “Up to the roof of the HQ now!” he yelled.
    He got to his feet and rushed across the road. The Guardians were still standing in the centre laying down fire without any concern for the enemy gunfire at all. He stopped at the entrance to the HQ and took cover, taking aim at a Mech dropping from the sky and fired a six-shot burst at the creature.
    “Come on, move it, Marines!”
    The last of them got up to cover the ground, but Fuchs was hit in the hip as he made his way across. He dropped like a stone, but two of the others grabbed him a second after he had fallen down and dragged him onwards and through the doorway. The last of the marines were inside when Taylor shouted to the Guardians.
    “Come on!”
    They turned and rushed inside. One of them ducked under the doorframe, but the other went right through the frame and smashed it apart with little resistance. The atrium had high enough ceilings for them to stand up straight. There were two elevators ahead and stairs beside them. He rushed to the elevators and hit the buttons to call both down. He turned back to the Guardians as the doors opened.
    “Get in!”
    They hunched to get inside each of the elevators as he leaned in and pressed the buttons for them before turning back to his own people.
    “Go on, move!”
    They rushed on up the stairs, and he was quick to follow suit. Eight flights of stairs felt like nothing at all when they knew what being left behind would mean. When Taylor finally reached the rooftop, he found the Guardians blazing away at two enemy craft and driving them away from the rooftop. He took a deep breath and revelled in the air that reminded him where he was. In that moment he knew what he was fighting for. Not just revenge and survival, but the world that was home.
    Taylor turned to see Rains’ copter and two others. They were flying a few metres above the rooftops, and several Mechs were taking shots at them but not finding their targets. In the distance, they could see the silhouettes of a whole fleet of enemy craft heading their way. Taylor raised his rifle and used the scope to look a little closer, but they were still just dots on the skyline. Even so, he knew that meant they were only a minute or two out, and there were far more than they could handle.
    Matthews and Anders rushed onto the rooftop with their platoons as the three copters came in to land. The first hit