Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

4

TEREKESTAN—OUTSIDE THE CAPITAL

KANE’S FORCE STOPPED ON A CURVED SECTIONof highway, the sides littered with smoking tanks, twisted artillery guns, and what looked like smoldering smudge pots. But from experience, Kane knew that they were bodies. Whether they were civilians or soldiers was anybody’s guess.

And now they were close enough to hear the firefight ahead, the surprise noose closing on the other marines.

The acrid smell began to seep into Kane’s lead vehicle. Gomez coughed, then said, “Shit.” Some of the other grunts began hacking as well.

Kane hit some buttons on the dash, and a holo-graphic floating map of the city appeared in the air. He could touch points to enlarge them, or change the POV, though he didn’t need that feature right now.

Chadbourne’s voice sounded in his ear. “Lieutenant—any orders?”

“Hold on—I want a live shot of this mess.”

Kane scrolled down to access the live sat feed over their position. And then he could see it all. Three groups moving quickly toward a position four, maybe five city blocks away…while the marines who were trapped there fired back.

They had—in Kane’s estimate—maybe ten or twenty minutes.

“Fuck,” Kane grumbled. He pointed to the live enhanced image and began to turn it so he could plot the best way to their position—when the image suddenly vanished.

“What the hell?”

“Lieutenant?”

“Hang on, Chadbourne. Just hold it a second.”

The satellite feed had gone completely dead, and, Kane assumed, so had every other bit of live intel that had been fed to his onboard computer. Now they had no eyes, no information. He tried to get back the archived map—that too was gone.

So they were shutting down everything. They’d probably try to kill his battalion’s communications system if they didn’t already know he had an analog override.

Kane tried to remember the images he saw, the streets, the path taken by the now-allied government and rebel troops repelling the nasty American invaders, who only hours ago had been the city’s defenders.

“Okay. All set. We’re going to head northwest, then come up on the rear of one of the armies heading straight toward our guys.” Classic end-run strategy. “But we can’t waste a lot of time when we get there. There are still two other groups moving toward them.”

“Exit strategy, Lieutenant?”

Kane wanted to laugh and say,Just get the hell out.

“We’re going to go get to them and open a corridor out.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

And after that?Kane wondered. When they got back to the rally point? Were they still going to get extracted…?

No time to think about that. Even now, they were perhaps left to face an even larger force, some Russians in the mix for good measure, all heading their way.

Or maybe…the U.S. in this case would want to clean up its own mess.

A few missile-equipped fighters—that was all it would take.

Whatever. Too late to turn back now. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Kane stopped the line of armored vehicles. “Break down the column,” he commanded, and quickly two of the other vehicles came alongside, leaving just the other two behind.

A voice screeched in his ear. “Where the hell are you?! They got us in a goddamn trap here!”

He would have liked to answer the beleaguered marines, but the less anyone knew about what was coming, the better. Then Chadbourne came on: “Lieutenant, we’re running blind here?”

“’Fraid so, Sergeant. Going to be an old-school operation.” Which meant that they had no tech advantage or even parity with the enemy in what was about to happen. It also probably meant that a lot of good men were going to die in this crappy city.

“Okay Sergeant, you carry on straight until you’re in contact with the enemy. I’ll follow my plan.”

An end run. Cutting to the left and then circling back.If I can remember the layout of this old city. The curving streets, the dead ends, the roads that narrowed, then led to nothing.

All their vehicles sported twin pulse cannons and each was topped by a rocket launcher. In the old days, these troop carriers would be considered close to tanks.

And the troops? Armed with a mix of plasma guns and machine guns. Kane’s squad liked to customize. Everyone was also well equipped with grenades.

Lot of firepower—but would it be enough?

“Show time,” Kane said. He looked at his driver, a tight-lipped woman who rarely said anything. Every once in a while he caught her smiling at something one of the squad said.

“McBride,” he said to her, “take us right—fast as this thing can go.”

She gunned the vehicle, and the others had to race to follow alongside. Now it all came down to memory.

“Cut left—shit. Hold on.”

Kane rubbed his chin, realizing, now that he was in the city proper, how much he needed a map, even the old-fashioned kind. If he wasn’t mistaken, one of these roads should loop around to some broad boulevard that looked like it was one of the main arteries being used to wipe out the marines.

He briefly wondered how this story would play out. What would be said? How would the U.S. government explain it to the relatives, the parents, the wives and lovers? No one believed anything the government said anymore…about anything. So it almost didn’t matter.

“Yeah—okay. Head down there,” Kane ordered.

The third armored vehicle had to fall behind as the cobblestoned road quickly narrowed. As Kane watched the progress from the open turret, he started to hear the familiar sounds of endless war—the rapid chugging of machine gun fire, the repetitive dulled booms of rockets exploding inside buildings.

The Terekstan forces were probably knocking the buildings down brick by brick, ready to bury the marines. Kane was painfully aware that he might just be adding his troops to the body count. In which case, Command might have been right to order mission termination.

Fuck it—too late now.

He turned to the twin gunners on top of his vehicle. “Hold your fire until we can see what’s happening.”

With one voice, the two gunners—in a prime spot to be taken out—replied, “Yes, Lieutenant.”

Kane rubbed his chin again. A nervous habit. Rubbing, thinking. What was ahead? What was the best way to get the pressure off the trapped marines?

The cobblestone street curved around, then opened out into a plaza. And ahead he spied the Terekstan troops, and off to the side, the rebels, maybe even with some Russian regulars thrown in for good measure, moving down three streets simultaneously, all nicely coordinated.

Then a rumble, deep, something felt in the gut. Tanks. Real goddamn tanks, definitely from Mother Russia…unless they were the Chinese knockoffs.

How many soldiers just for this advancing wing alone? Two…maybe three hundred. And probably an equal number on the other side.

Kane took a breath. Crazy overwhelming odds. Kane’s forty-two soldiers…against all that lay before him.

One thing Kane knew for sure—if it turned into a toe-to-toe battle, fighting for every meter of street, then the end result was a foregone conclusion: all the marines would die in this quaint city tonight. Did the grunts under him know that?

He looked around the armored troop carrier. Faces grim. Eyes wide. Weapons clutched. Kane thought of giving them a little rallying speech. But if there was one thing he knew about his marines, it was that their bullshit detectors were set to high.

Still looking at the soldiers, he spoke into the radio mic hugging his cheek. “Sergeant, got the enemy in sight?”

The radio crackled to life, and when Kane heard the gunfire, the explosions, he knew that Chadbourne was doing more than just seeing the enemy.

Kane pointed to the twin side doors of the vehicle. A soldier on each door awaited Kane’s move. No speech, no flag waving, no “Semper fi’” or commands like “Leave no marine behind.”

Just a single word…

“Go!”

The doors popped open; the marines moved out. And all the while Kane was thinking:We don’t have a goddamn chance.