Military Sci-Fi Concept - No Title Yet.

"Thirty yards! Just past that burned out car, left side of the road." Yelled a spotter from the 2^nd story balcony of an old apartment building. "It's a quick little bastard, it's in the grass."

The spotter was giving overwatch to my platoon. Staff Sergeant Miles "Hutch" Deveraux. He was up there keeping a lookout for any Gomli tech that might be trying to get eyes on our position. And it turns out. He spotted something. "Well, Fuck..."

"Hutch! Keep talking buddy, what's that thing doing? Has it picked up our scent?"

Miles peered through his Infrared Scope, trying to see if he could get a read on the little bot trouncing through some tall grass; just down the main drive leading up into the apartment building complex they were holed up in.

"I got nothing boss. I can't see it anymore. Bugger has disappeared in the grass." Miles yelled back down to the courtyard where I was standing.

"Copy that, Ranger!" I yelled back up in response. Turning to look back at the remainder of my squad. We were all huddled around our busted ass LAV, Light Assault Vehicle. "Well, this whole fucking op just took a goddamn turn for the worst", I muttered as I looked at Sergeant First Class Michael Evans.

Michael just peered back at me and shrugged. Really? Shrugged. Well, I guess that means we really are in a pile of drogger dung. I took a moment to check my gear. AR-400 Assault Rifle. Check. M12 Distortion Pistol. Check. Two M42 Incendiary Grenades. Check. 6 Mags for my Rifle. Check. Radio. No Check. Why is my radio missing? Well, because a goddamn Gomli EMP took every piece of electronic equipment we had out. Except for a few random things that were in a shielded box. So, we have an IR/NV Scope. So, there is a silver lining at least. Gomli bots, easiest way to see them? Infrared. Easiest way to radio Big Brother and ask for a pickup? Well, a working radio would be a start. We don't have that.

So, to sum up the last, oh I don't know. Forty minutes or so? We left out of Camp Delta, heading east into the Gomli territory DMZ to do a; and I quote, "Routine Inspection", of a water treatment facility. So, we're just driving along, minding our own damn business. Then we get hit with an EMP that knocks out our ride, and we careen into the side of this here busted ass apartment complex. Those damn Gomli and their fucking adoration of EMP's. I can't believe we haven't come up with a counter to that shit yet. The bullshit part, the Gomli are bots. Not Human's, Not Rugo's, Not Felce's. They are bots. Well... bio-mechanical organisms. They are living creatures, made from metal. If that makes any sense. There is some weird shit out here in the verse.

"Hey LT! We got activity on the south side. Grass is moving an awful lot." Came a shout from the other side of the courtyard. I turned my head in that direction, pretty much in unison with SFC Evans.

"Whaddaya got for me Corporal?" I yelled back.

"You may want to come see this for yourself..." he said in response. Not yelling anymore. He was barely audible seeing as he was about 25 yards away. I shook my head, cursing slightly under my breath. I started making my way past the LAV and through a gate leading out of the courtyard.

"Evans, stay put." I called out as I started off along the side of a concrete half-wall that met with the side of the building.

He just shrugged. "What is it with him and the damn shrugging all of a sudden..." I said to myself as Corporal Steve Burge came into view just on the other side of the modest apartment building.

The building wasn't particularly unique. Two stories, maybe about six domiciles inside of it, three on each floor. Probably 700 or 800 square feet a piece. Not too unlike some of the apartment facilities we had back on Earth. No. Not terribly different at all.

They were on a world known as Larmak. The planet, not too unlike Earth, orbited a main-sequence star that was remarkably similar to Earth's Sun. The star's name was Indalas. It was right around 236 light years from Earth. Along the fringes of Alliance space going towards the galactic perimeter. Out here, it was basically Gomli space. Thus, Larmak sat within the Alliance/Gomli De-Militarized Zone. As one would expect, Gomli and the Alliance were in the midst of an intergalactic war. Although technically they were under a cease-fire. There were millions of settlers on Larmak. Folks from pretty much any conceivable part of Alliance space. And Gomli... Well, they tried to declare that Larmak was in their territory. It really wasn't, but they apparently didn't get that memo.

So here we are... out here on a backwater planet doing the dumb shit the Alliance brass wants us to do. Which was fine by me. But why this godforsaken place? Larmak was a shithole. Ultimately, that's neither here nor there. And in case you were wondering. We are Rangers. My name is 1st Lieutenant Andrew Erikson. And it was my ass that was stuck out here with my squad on a dumb shit op to secure a WTF. Otherwise known as a Water Treatment Facility. The big wigs like to call these patrols, "Routine". But they aren't. Nothing "Routine" about it. We are here for a reason. You don't send Rangers on "Routine Patrols". You send Rangers to fuck shit up.

I came up alongside Burge and tapped him on the shoulder. My AR-400 held at the low-ready.

"What you got Corporal? For the second time." the remark containing a bit of annoyance in it. Burge didn't even budge.

"Just over there." He pointed in a direction just south of the apartment complex. Probably 70 or 80 yards away. It looked like a small hill with a bunch of shrubbery and small trees lining it. The grass was tall. Something this stupid planet was known for. Larmekian Wheat Grass. This shit was harvested all over the world. Odds are the majority of Alliance space has eaten something with Larmekian Wheat Grass as a key ingredient in it. This variety of the plant-based gold, however, was the high-dollar seller. Naturally, this stuff got exported all over the verse. It's not just grown here anymore. So that made the original stuff worth that much more. You gotta love capitalism.

Instinctively, I reached to my shoulder to key my radio. "Hey Hutch..." and then it dawned on me. "Oh yeah...the fucking radios don't work." Simultaneously to my own narrator, I cursed aloud. This drew Burge's attention as he looked back at me with a slight chuckle. "Shut up..." I said back to nothing.

"We need Hutch down here with that damn scope." I said, as I fiddled with my rifle in my hands. I peered back over towards the courtyard only to see Evan's standing at the gate looking over towards where we were standing. I sidestepped a few paces so he could get a clear view of me and waved at him, then pointing up to the balcony above him. Apparently, he got the message because moments later Evan's came hustling over to where we stood. Carrying the IR Scope.

"Read my mind did ya?" I said as he hustled up beside us. He nodded and handed over the scope.

"Did that EMP break your vocal cords or something?" I asked...staring at him as I took the scope from his outstretched hand.

"Negative, LT. Just don't have much to say." His hand came up to rub the back of his neck. "Curious why the screaming and blood spilling hasn't started yet mostly. Gomli don't ever wait this long to attack."

I recoiled a bit at that statement. He had a point. They don't normally wait this long. We've been standing around, "Securing our Perimeter" for shit, twenty minutes now. Nothing but some glimpses of their little recon bots. They gotta know we are here.

I brought the IR scope up to my right eye and peered through it in the direction of the hill. "Let's see what we can see". Looking through the scope, the otherwise normal colors of the world inverted. Black shapes and outlines were the "warm" spots and anything white. Well, that was the cold stuff. When you were looking for Gomli though. You were looking for the strange black splotch that moved around. I've touched these things before. They didn't really feel that hot. But for some reason, in an IR scope. They lit up like beacons if you got a good viewing angle on them.

And there they were... two of them. Hidden in the grass. Their splotches were disrupting the otherwise white glow of the wheat. They were just sitting there. I hit the rangefinder button on the scope, to see if I could get a read. It came back as 77 meters. "Who the fuck set this shit back to metric?" I cursed under my breath as I continued looking. It wasn't that I disliked metric. I just preferred Imperial. I grew up with it. I was comfortable with it. My two squad mates didn't humor my question. They just let that one float away on the wind.

I let the scope down and looked back towards the apartment. "Alright, let's get back to the LAV. I think we've stood out here long enough. Being nice fleshy targets for the tin cans for too long is bad for your health." This comment earned a chuckle from both of my companions.

"Yah LT...as if that was something you really cared about. I've seen the stupid shit you do." Burge remarked as the three of us made our way back to the courtyard.

"Look...It's not my fault you haven't grown a pair of balls yet." I retorted back to him.

We cleared the meager 30 yards or so fairly quickly, coming back in to not-so-safe safety of our LAV.

"So, what'd you guy's see?" Hutch called down to us from the balcony. I looked up at him and tossed the IR scope back up to him. He caught it with ease.

"Not much. Two Gomli recon bots in the grass by a hill. About 80 yards out. Not sure what they are doing."

Hutch mulled this over for a moment. "LT, how the hell are we getting out of this mess? There's not much between here and fuck-you town. And it's twenty clicks back to the FOB. " By "Fuck-You Town", Hutch was referring to one of the civilian towns that bridged the gap over a large canyon to the east. We had to drive through it to get to the WTF we were heading to. But that town was humorously, also about twenty clicks away. So... We were quite literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. No Man's Land as it were. And with this delightful bunch of Gomli bots for hosts at this stupid party. We were kind of screwed.

"Working that out Hutch" I responded, yelling up to him. "Now shut up and keep a look out."

Hutch grumbled something and went back to looking around.

"So, the way I see it, LT." This was Evans talking now. Oh boy. He has words. "I think we just make a break for the FOB, if we can get even half the distance back to the base. We can just make a shit load of noise and someone is bound to come looking to see what the hell is going on.

Brilliant idea. No, I mean really. It was a brilliant idea. If you wanted to die of course. So, here's the thing. Those little Gomli Recon bots that are scurrying around out there, being all stupid secretive and shit. Well. They go boom. Oh, and they are fast as all get out. See, People, Human's specifically. We can run, say... 20mph. 25 if you are a fucking track star. But you may as well be naked to reach those speeds. Us Rangers, yah...we are oh so far from naked. Body Armor, Helmet's, packs with 60 pounds of gear in them. You know...stuff we need to do the Ranger thing. Oh, and guns. We have guns too, of course. So, even the most fit of us, can run maybe 20mph. And that's a big maybe. These little bots. Oh, they do 40 or 50mph easy. And they don't get tired. Human's. I think you get my point. And I have seen these things go boom before. They don't just pop off like some little firecracker. Oh no. A single one of these bots can tear out the entire side of a 10-story building. Think of the worst terrorist bombing you can think of, and you get the idea. They are insane. Therefore, we don't try and shoot them. They go boom. Be a real shitty day if you shoot one and it's too close to you and your buddies.

So that leads me to my next point. Why have we been just standing around with our thumbs up our asses? Well. There's not much to say to that really. There isn't anything else to do. The bots won't do anything to us as long as we seem non-threatening. And if we don't run for it like a group of lemmings off a cliff. They'll leave us alone. We are so interested in their movements though because it's when they leave that we have a problem. These little guys don't stick around when daddy Gomli show's up to come play.

"Yah...that's a stupid fucking idea Evans, and you know it." My response was bitter. But it really was a stupid idea. Evans' simply nodded. See. Even he knew it was a dumb idea.

"Look, for right now, I'm thinking we just hang tight. We'll be passing our check in time in about ten mikes. After that, they'll be wondering where we are." I was laying out the only plausible plan we had at the moment. It wasn't a good plan. It was just.... what we had to work with. "After another thirty mikes or so, they'll start hitting the area with scans from orbit. At that point, we just make sure we've got a nice bright fire for them to see, and then we'll hopefully get recovery dispatched our way." I kicked the dirt around my feet. My boots now covered in the loose dust that flung up into the air. "So yeah... just keep your eyes on those bots. We don't want any stupid surprises."

My three squad mates all responded with a not-so enthusiastic "Hooah". Great. Just what I wanted to hear. Enthusiasm was dripping from these guys. Although to be fair, the four of us had been riding together for over a year now. Become quite the little team we have. As you have no doubt come to recognize, we are Rangers, or more specifically. The Orion Systems Alliance Army 1^st Infantry Division, 171^st Rangers Regiment, Fox Company, 7^th Platoon. Oh, fun fact. That's my platoon. Where is the rest of my platoon you ask? Back at base. We lucky four were chosen for this op. I wonder if this was a setup by the battalion commander to remove me from their equation. I've not exactly been on their list of favorites the last few weeks. Mostly because of damages to Alliance property. Not my fault by the way. The Gomli are just a shitty bunch of drogger turds. They fight dirty, despite their whole mechanoid robot deal they got going on.


After looking at my watch again. For probably the hundredth time. I think we were about twenty minutes overdue at this point. I don't even know why I bothered looking at my watch. Force of habit I suppose. It's dead, not much use now. Every few minutes or so, Hutch would call down to us keeping us apprised of the Gomli bots. They were still out there. Which was good news. It meant, that at least for the moment. We were not going to have to deal with their parents. Evans, Burge and I had settled into a small triangle at the rear of the LAV. We were seated on the ground sharing the contents of our MRE's with one another. Since there wasn't much else to do, we decided food was a great idea. Hutch just ate his MRE up on the balcony. He wasn't coming down until there was a reason for him to come down.

Unfortunately for us, the peacefulness of the Larmekian afternoon was abruptly ended.

"You guys feel that?" Evans said as a noticeable tremor started to emanate from underneath us. It's intensity growing. Safe to say that we felt it too.

"Yes Evans, we feel that." I said as I quickly stood and slung my AR-400 off my back and into my hands, thumbing the safety and putting it to low-ready. "You guys good?" I said, as I looked to each of them.

Evans had just as swiftly stood and readied his AR-400, Burge had done the same and started moving to the corner of the concrete half-wall, next to the open gate. As I peered up at Hutch, he had his LR-40 DMR out and propped on the balcony railing, scanning for targets. Myself and Evans quickly moved around to find defensible positions in the courtyard, Evans using the edge of the LAV while I moved to a concrete planter that held no plants. Kneeling behind it, I had a decent view over the half-wall out towards the road leading into the apartment complex. This place was kind of isolated. But there were some smaller buildings around to the other side of the main. When we first got here and secured the area, we had marked those as secondary and tertiary fall back points should we need to exfil the courtyard.

"Hey LT...the bots are gone. No sign of them." Hutch yelled down from the balcony. He was motioning around his entire field of view. And then gave a knife gesture at his throat.

Lovely. Well, there goes the whole idea that we could just wait this one out. "Copy that Hutch, be ready for anything." I yelled back up to him as I looked across the yard to Evans. He just nodded to me and started scanning again. That damn tremor was getting worse. Felt like the ground was about to reach out and swallow us all up in one giant bite.

You know. I shouldn't have brought that up. "Do you guys see what I am seeing?" I said loudly over a rumbling noise that was starting grow around us. There wasn't an immediate response from anyone. I think they were in shock. I don't blame them. I'm in shock too.

About 50 yards out from in front of the courtyard, the ground just opened. A huge pit forming, consuming the road and about teen feet to either side. We'll just say it was about 40 feet across. I have never seen anything like this. After a few more seconds, a massive tubular machine came charging out of the hole and flew up into the air about twenty feet, then came back slamming into the ground in front of us. Fairly sure that was only part of it. "What the fuck is that thing?" Burge screamed as he manically looked to Evans and me. I have no idea kid. None.

"Hold your fire!" I yelled, I wanted to know what this thing was before we went dumping rounds into it. To be honest, I wasn't even sure our weapons would hurt that thing.

The large tubular monster than just came rumbling out of the ground sat there motionless. The head of the thing was glowing orange, with massive circular buzz saws counter rotating around the circumference of the head. I'm thinking the word terrifying is not going to do this justice.

The monster laid there for several moments before a chain of reports started sounding off from the creature's direction. I scanned around my position but wasn't seeing any dust popping up. Evans was doing the same. "The hell is that?" I said aloud to myself as I turned my gaze back to the weird worm machine.

A row of panels suddenly shot off from the top of the worm, followed by four large objects launching into the air. As they sailed into the sky and then of course came back to the ground. They landed with four large thumps.

"Open Fire!" I yelled, as the four lumbering behemoths started to march on our position. And there they were. Papa Gomli. Fucking really? All that drama for these stupid bastards. They were the same Gomli that I had grown to hate. The big lumbering bastards. They looked like metal golems. Large blocky heads, on a blocky body with massive arms and fat legs. Not terribly imaginative. But yep, this was them. Gomli in the flesh. Or metal rather. We could bring them down with our weapons, but I worried we might not have enough ammo. Meanwhile, the Gomli have laser repeaters built into their arms. So, basically unlimited ammo. Must be nice having a weird ass bioreactor for a heart. Just pumping juice into those things.

My squad had already danced this jig before though, four on four. Those are odds I can deal with. I fired my weapon at the closest bot, still 30 some odd yards out from the courtyard gate, placing several short bursts into the behemoths head. As I fired, I noticed that there were other lines of shots coming in from other angles. My squad performing just as we had always trained. Focus fire on a single Gomli at a time. They will go down eventually.

The automatic, ratatat of our weapons echoed off the building behind us, as the Gomli lumbered closer. Just as I was starting to wonder why they hadn't started shooting yet, the first laser blast zipped by my head. "Son of a...." I exclaimed as I ducked and weaved to my right, making sure to keep my body as concealed as I could. Their shots were coming in force now. Laser rounds plinking off the metal fence that adorned the top of the half-wall in front of us.

Our concentrated fire continued for a few beats longer, as I ducked and moved along the lengthy planter box trying to avoid getting my head taken off. "Reloading" I yelled as I ducked down to eject my magazine and quickly pulled another from my carrier. My weapon was ready to go in under 2 seconds as I came back up to continue firing. Just before I pulled the trigger though, the big Gomli bastard started fritzing out and exploded in a blue and white spectacle. "One down!" yelled Hutch from atop the balcony, as he turned his DMR to the next target, leading the way for us to follow.

The second Gomli behemoth to come wobbling down the main drag, was only a few yards behind the first one. It was clearly dazed from his cohort exploding like he did. I placed several bursts directly into the middle of his dome in concert with my squad. The incoming fire lessened a bit, allowing us a small reprieve. "Get ready to start shifting to point bravo" I yelled. The Gomli, might be slowed for the moment, but they were still gaining ground on us.

Just then, the most beautiful sound imaginable came screaming in from overhead. An MC-70 Valkyrie gunship, with all four of it's thrusters angled down pulled a dazzling maneuver directly over our heads as its engines roared. The 30mm Gatling Laser cannon on its chin immediately went to work as the craft pitched it's nose down towards the Gomli.

All four of us ceased firing and just fell back onto our hutches as we stared up at the iron goddess floating above us. "Thank the fucking gods!" I yelled, as the hovering beauty ripped into the remaining Gomli.