Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

8

THE INNER CITY OF TEREKSTAN

KANE LOOKED AT THE STREAMING COLUMN OFsoldiers about to cut into Chadbourne’s line. He looked left to see if Jackson and the soldiers on the right flank were making their way off the roof and down to the street.

Not yet—which meant it fell to Kane to try and stop what was about to happen. He tried yelling into the radio: “Sergeant! Freeze! Don’t move—”

The radio earpiece crackled to life, but the noise from the fire being laid down by Chadbourne’s men made the words a hopeless garble. The warning was lost.

To Kane’s left, the Terekstan regulars kept firing at their location, nearly pinning them, while Chadbourne steadily walked into a trap. He wouldn’t see that winding street up to the right until it was too late.

Kane knew he had no choice. It was either move now, or let this whole operation go south.

He turned back to the solders hugging the stone walls near him, spraying bullets toward the open corridor, firing the occasional RPG to make the enemy back off.

With time, Kane might have been able to let the fight just play out like this until they had a good sense of where the enemy had positioned his troops. But blasts from their small, compact tanks were ripping out chunks of the corner buildings.Our cover is slipping away…

He thought of times other officers had given orders like the one he was about to issue. To move, even though you knew that at least half of your soldiers would be obliterated.

But there was no alternative. Every second, the danger grew worse, and Chadbourne’s entire column was about to be wiped out.

Kane turned to the soldiers behind him. They already figured what was coming. Experienced from countless skirmishes around the world, Kane knew they could read his mind.

The armored vehicles beside them kept blasting away.

He gave the command—one AAV to head left, right into the mouth of the open square, giving some cover to the squad, while the other AAV and its ground troops followed Kane to intersect Chadbourne’s column before it was too late.

A few nods. A barely heard “Roger, Lieutenant” from the armored vehicle drivers. Then: “Okay, let’s go!”

And there was no looking back for anyone.

Kane had no idea how the left wing was doing. Hopefully they’d soon be joined by the second rooftop party, spilling out onto the square. With luck they could take out the tanks with some heavy explosives and force any ground soldiers and snipers well back.

And if they got that far, Kane could order the surrounded force to punch out of their hole…then get the hell out of here.

Kane kept leading his men forward, ducking a hail of gunfire, dodging RPGs that seemed—amazingly—to just miss his soldiers. He turned and spotted Cammie, as kickass a soldier as he’d ever seen, taking the lead. She had a taste for this—losing all fear, maybe never even having any to begin with. Her gun turning white-hot in her hands, blasting at the enemy.

Amazing shooting. She paused only to lob a grenade or two. Then he saw a red dot bloom on her forehead and she fell forward, her finger still tight around the trigger.

Lot of good people are going to fall here.He heard the stinging whine of a bullet zipping past his head.Too close. Almost had my name on it.

The enemy across the courtyard had spotted their move and probably guessed that they were heading to spoil the ambush. But Kane had gotten his troops in good position to force them back and give Chadbourne cover.

Without warning, Chadbourne’s solders and vehicles came rushing forward, racing to what they saw was the main action ahead, to where trapped marines waited to be rescued.

Kane looked back and pointed ahead, signaling that everyone had to move now—and fast.

But he could see it was too late.

A flurry of rocket grenades hit the first of Chadbourne’s AAVs, then the second, creating massive blasts that even from a distance nearly blew Kane off his feet.

Chadbourne and his men stood exposed. They started scrambling for cover, but the nearest refuge was across the plaza, back where Kane had come from…

And now the perfectly positioned enemy line appeared and started mowing down Chadbourne’s troops. Some were riddled by machine gun fire, others vaporized into craters on the street thanks to the powerful RPGs.

No,Kane thought.Don’t let this happen. Don’t let—

He was close enough to see Chadbourne now, see his teeth set, eyes ahead, looking for some way out of this goddamn trap. But even with Kane and his solders trying to provide cover, taking shots, drawing fire, there was no way out.

Something hit Chadbourne—a rocket grenade? Some hyper-charged pulse rifle? Or something else?

Chadbourne had just turned back, maybe to see how many soldiers he had left. Maybe he caught a quick look at Kane trying to help. But then—Chadbourne literally exploded, his body a reddish cloud erupting on the ancient cobblestoned street.

Immediately Kane realized two things: he had failed to protect his own marines, and now he had to get his troops behind him into position to somehow try to get those trapped marines out, all without proper backup.

Because that’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? A rescue mission—get them out?

He was no longer certain about anything.

Kane ordered his troops to move left—and see if anything could be salvaged out of what he now knew was an absolute clusterfuck about to get even worse.

Jackson and the marines from the right, just down from their own rooftop nightmare, fell into line behind Kane’s group. A quick glance told him some good people had fallen.

No time to dwell on any of that. He heard voices and the sounds of fire from just ahead. They had almost reached the building with the trapped marines. Showtime.

“Private Richards? You hear me in there? Time to link up. Get your men moving now!”

“Yes, Lieutenant. But there’s still a lot of fire—”

“Movenow, Private.”

A heavy explosion—the Terekstan regulars peppering the area with RPGs.

“Y-yes, Lieutenant. Moving out now.”

“Good. We’ll do our best—”

Another explosion, bigger this time.

“—to keep this hole opened.”

Though Kane’s soldiers had arranged themselves in a phalanx formation, using the walls and still-smoking tanks as cover, the situation was anything but good. All too easy to have the trap close on them as well.

There was no need to give any orders; his people picked their targets of opportunity, kept pumping out rounds, in full battle mode—fighting for their lives as well as their fellow marines standing beside them.

Come on, come on,Kane thought.

Every second let the enemy move a little closer, try to plug that hole, tighten the goddamn trap so now it encircledboth groups of marines.

But then, somehow, through the smoky haze of a thousand rounds and dozens of rocket explosions, the trapped marines streamed out.

And with them in sight, it was time to get the hell out of here.

What would the textbooks call it? A fighting retreat. A maneuver as old as war itself, from the Greeks all the way down to the failed wars of the last century, and ultimately to this mess. The idea of simply shooting as much as you could while getting your ass out in one piece as fast as you could.

Kane saw the trapped soldiers, some firing as they ran to join up, others just full-on running, hungry, possibly even starving, and God knew what their water situation was….

Kane’s armored vehicles—the only two still operational—had pivoted and started zipping a line of fire around the buildings, creating just enough mayhem so that the new arrivals could join up with Kane’s force.

One jarhead with a sooty face, eyes bugging out of his head, teeth looking ghoulish in his blackened visage, came up to Kane. “That’s it, sir—everybody’s out.”

This had to be the private whom Kane had been talking to all along. “Good work, Richards.” Their force had now doubled in size, but who knew how much fight was left in them?

The marines continued to be hammered by the never-ending fire, some falling onto the cobblestoned street. His surviving medics tried to get to them—if a jarhead was still breathing, there was no way they’d be left behind.

“Okay, let’s double-time—”

Zip…

A bullet cut into Kane’s shoulder, like someone had taken a knife to the soft skin behind the shoulder blade. The bullet had found a small spot where his armored jacket gave him no protection. Dammit!

“Move!” he yelled through the pain.

And the two groups, now intermingled, started hustling out of the plaza, back to the street, the AAVs now behind them, moving as fast as they could. Because they all knew that if the Terekstan troops closed the opening at the other end of the long street, it was game over.

Kane ignored the blood now seeping under his armored jacket and coating his skin; he could feel the material of his fatigues rubbing against the open wound, making it worse. But he had to keep moving—after all, this was his show. Hiscall .

He was the one who had ignored orders. Now, as a result, dozens of marines lay dead, a pair of high-tech AAVs were trashed, and they still weren’t out of this hellhole of a city.

He kept looking up to make sure that the other end of the street remained clear, that they still had a shot to get across the river. The Terekstan troops could follow, but he’d have a good position from which to push back at them. At least that was the plan.

As the AAVs brought up the rear, Kane saw that the gunners were laying down as much covering fire behind the group as possible.

All of a sudden, it looked like this plan might in fact be working. The cost had been high, but for the thirty marines rescued, it was worth it.

He looked back at the rear, the smoking, burning inner city falling behind. Dammit—it wasworking!

Dark figures quickly filled the street at the other end. Some crouched—setting up rocket launchers, no doubt—while others began filing down the street, hugging the dark building walls—closing off their only exit and sealing it tight.

So it had come to this: there was absolutely nothing more to be done, nothing but to keep going, driving forward. Kane imagined that every marine felt his stomach tighten. Every marine mentally calculated how much ammo they had, how many grenades, how many able bodies remained to fire back and give them some chance of getting out.

Even Kane had to admit the odds didn’t look very good at all.