Please stand by. This is the Emergency
Broadcast System. The Federal Government has declared a state of emergency and
has invoked the War Measures Act. Martial law is in effect. Please do not panic and await further
instructions for your locality. The Prime
Minister will address nation at 5 PM eastern standard time, 3 PM mountain
standard time. This station will keep
you posted as to any further news as soon as it becomes available...
Please stand by. This is the Emergency
Broadcast System. The Federal Government has declared a state of emergency...
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| Flickr / Morning Calm News |
The Martian war machines came
striding south over the hill. For their
huge size, they were strangely quiet.
One would have imagined loud thumping noises as they walked, but they
only made a slight whine as their tall spider-like legs fluidly moved. At first, only two machines were visible,
then two more appeared over the rise.
There were just four machines, but four identical machines had already
mauled the Canadian First Mechanized Brigade that had opposed them first.
Captain Kale thought it was odd
he wasn't scared as he observed the alien machines moving towards his fighting
positions. His first time in actual
combat and it wasn't even against a foe the U.S. Army had ever prepared
for. For a moment he was enthralled by
the sight of the 100 foot tall war machines.
The photos he had seen at the intelligence briefing had not completely
prepared him.
They had six spider-like legs,
and walked - or was it a scuttle - forward two pairs of legs at a time. The central body was like a flattened egg, a
rounded tear drop, that had the narrow end forward. On top of the body was a thick stubby pillar
that contained sensors and the terrifying beam weapon that burned through steel
plate like it a blowtorch through a tin sheet.
This was the enemy and he had to stop it.
Kale took his eyes off the
distant war machines and looked to his left and right. He could see both neighbouring tanks were
already buttoned up, with only the turrets visible over the hill. However, they were both well camouflaged and
he only spotted them as he knew where they were. His company of M1A2 Abrams tanks were the
core of the first line of defence against these southward moving Martians. He couldn't see the rest of his mechanized
battalion, but he knew additional tanks and TOW armed Bradley IFVs were well
camouflaged around them.
Just a week before they had been
on maneuvers with the Canadian Armed Forces at Wainwright, and now they were
dug in, hull down, along a low ridgeline overlooking a creek and the Number 2
Highway. The Martians would be facing an
impressive amount of firepower waiting in ambush. The sound of distant helicopter rotors
reached his ears and he knew the Apache gunships were maneuvering into
position. The show was about to start
and he had a front row seat. He dropped
down into the turret and shut the hatch behind him, buttoning up his tank. Looking through the commander's sight, he set
the magnification to 4x on the lead war machine and designated it as the target
to the gunner. "Sabot!" he
shouted into the mike.
"Up!" replied the
loader, as he loaded the armour piercing round into the cannon.
The laser rangefinder showed 2100
metres and closing. The aliens were well within range. The 120 mm gun had a 90% chance of scoring a
kill on an enemy tank at 2000 metres.
Still, he held his fire. The
gunships were to initiate combat and the tanks were to fire immediately
afterwards.
Somewhere behind him, several
spotting helicopters, edged themselves up above the treeline. Only a bulbous extension at the top of a mast
above the main rotor for each Kiowa was visible to the enemy as they did
this. With all the sensors and laser
designator in the bulb, it was not necessary to expose the entire
helicopter. Spaced out well around the
Kiowa, the Apache gunships hovered like impatient wasps. Cued by their spotting helicopters, the
Apaches did a brief popup above the trees to ripple off a pair of Hellfire
missiles, 5 seconds apart, then descended back down to maneuver into new firing
positions. Each of the war machines had
been illuminated by the laser designator of a spotting chopper and the
Hellfires homed in on their targets. The
barrage of Hellfire smoke trails was the visible to everyone.
Suddenly the order to fire
crackled over the battalion radio net.
"Fire!" Kale repeated to his company.
There was a sharp crack and the
tank vibrated as the main gun fired. "On the way!" shouted the
gunner. All along the ridge, the 14
tanks of his company opened fire into their designated kill zones.
As the cannon breach moved forward, the
loader was already in motion to open the breach, and load a new round into the
gun. They could get off 6 rounds per
minute this way.
Explosions began to erupt all
over the body of the Martian war machines.
Hellfires struck the bodies of the war machines dead on target. Each
Hellfire had high explosive shaped charge for a warhead. When they exploded the blast was concentrated
into a single point where it would vapourize steel plate, turning it into a
supersonic jet of plasma that could burn its way through nearly a yard of
steel.
The war machines were staggered
by the blasts, their legs stopped moving forward and were still. Seconds later, still shrouded in blackish
smoke, the armour piercing shells from the 120mm guns on the tanks struck home. Each round was a sharpened rod of depleted
uranium, one of the densest materials produced by man. Unlike the Hellfires, these shells punched
right through armour with the sheer kinetic energy of a heavy projectile
travelling over 1200 meters per second.
Capable of punching through nearly a meter of steel, a single shot kill
against enemy tanks could be achieved with 90% certainty at distances of 2000
meters.
The smoke was dense, and hard to
see through. Kale switched his sight to
thermal mode to get a better picture.
The war machines were still standing, but they were still. Suddenly, they begain moving foward
again. "Shit!" he exclaimed. The gunner could see what he saw as their
sighting system could be synced.
"Fire at will!" he ordered.
The gunner just pulled the
trigger, and the main gun roared again.
Neither could believe the amount of punishment the alien machines had
just taken. Round after round landed on target.
Bright flashes could be seen through the thermal sight indicating the
shell hits on the war machines. The
volume of fire was steady, but the machines came on. The distance was down to 1900 meters and
closing.
More firepower was needed. The interior of the tank was full of cordite
fumes from the firing that burned the lungs and eyes. In the old days, spent
shell casings would also have littered the floor of the tank, but the 120 mm
shells had combustible casings that burned up in the breech on firing.
"New orders. Concentrate fire on
the lead machine!" he radioed out.
The tank company responded almost immediately to his command. The lead machine flashed with hits from the
tanks, but kept coming. The range was
now 1500 meters. Suddenly there was a
brilliant fireball as an explosion erupted from the machine. It seemed to see-saw for several seconds then
went crashing to the ground.
A cheer went up from the crew of
the tank and Kale could almost imagine the cheers inside the other tanks. "Select second target!" He ordered.
The second war machine had taken
a lot less fire. It had closed to 1600 meters. Its primary weapon swung to bear
on the firing tanks, whose positions were clearly marked by their muzzle
flashes. A bright beam of light flashed
out and struck the turret of an M1. For
a split second the tank seemed untouched by the brilliant blue beam. The next
second it exploded in a massive fireball, its ammunition cooking off. With unerring accuracy, the war machine
picked off three more tanks as it continued pressing forward.
It was time to head to the
second line of prepared positions. "All tanks, fallback!" Kale ordered over the radio. "Bradley's prepare to cover."
All of the surviving tanks popped smoke and began backing up out of their fighting positions to head to the second line of defence. The Bradley fighting vehicles, armoured personnel carriers with 25 mm guns and TOW missiles fired from their previously hidden positions. A wave of wire guided anti-tank missiles shot out towards the advancing martians...
