Lost in Magadan: Extraterrestrials on Earth

Taylor stood and bent his armor-clad legs to prepare for the jump. Twenty feet is close to the maximum distance the exoskeleton can leap. Still behind the stack of containers, as soon as he jumped, Taylor would be exposed to enemy fire.

“READY. SET. GO,” Taylor yelled.

Johnson stood from his covered position and began firing his laser rifle at the Russians who were peeking from behind the broken containers.

One Russian’s head disappeared in a spray of red mist. Another stepped back to avoid being splashed with his comrade’s blood.

Taylor’s left hand missed the metal railing, but his right hand made contact and clamped down on the cold steel. Taylor hung suspended in the air, struggling to pull himself to the higher walkway.

As if in slow motion, Johnson, from the corner of his eye, saw a Russian step from behind the bulkhead with an RPG already shouldered and pointed upward. In a split second, the rocket was launched in a cloud of flame and smoke. Johnson, who was not an overly religious man, said a quick prayer, as he glanced toward Ryan Taylor. Direct hit on the center mass of Taylor’s FALOS armor. Ryan disappeared in a fiery explosion. Johnson did not need to look for Taylor as the smoke cleared; he knew there was no chance of survival.

“Taylor down,” Johnson called out, as he lined up a shot and squeezed the trigger.

“Damn,” Snap muttered, as he fired another volley into the dwindling snow storm. “West, we are regaining some visibility, it looks like you may have a clear shot with the cannon.”

“Roger that, Major.”

“Catrix, it looks like there is a cluster of targets about 900 meters to the right; if you can get us up to that embankment, I may have a clean shot,” West said.

“Roger that, but we have to conserve the photon shells, we only have twenty,” Catrix said, as he sharply turned the tank toward the mound of earth.

“How does this small tank generate enough energy to power a photon gun?” West asked, as he prepared to line up the shot.

“It doesn’t, off course. The shells we use don’t contain explosives and projectiles, but rather concentrated energy that, when released, projects a ray of intense heat. They are best used against armor.”

As the tank crested the mound of earth, the wind died and the Russians could barely be seen in the distance. The white clad paratroopers were near the end of the ship where Snap’s team was waiting.

“Looks like about 40 of them,” Snap observed.

“They are kind of spread out; I don’t know if we can get them all,” West complained.

“Target the center of the group,” Catrix said.

West pointed the cannon at the center of the group and squeezed the trigger. A bright flash shot from the cannon with a sizzling whoosh. The air around the tank was instantly hot and sparked with flame. The flash of light struck near the center of the soldiers advancing toward the gaping hole in the ship. When Snap’s eyes adjusted from the blinding light, he zoomed in on the spot where the soldiers had been. The ones nearest the center had been vaporized or turned to charred ash. All the snow had melted and the paratroopers on the perimeter of the group were all lying on the ground, seemingly dead.

“The photon cannon releases a ray of light that is twice as hot as your sun. The targets that are not instantly burnt from the release of heat, suffocate as the oxygen around the initial impact is burned off,” Catrix explained. “Terrible way to die, not that I can think of a good one.”

After another 20 minutes of fighting, all the paratroopers that had landed on the ground were either dead, or fleeing across the frozen tundra, where they would surely die from exposure. Snap and West joined the rest of the team on the main level where they heard gunfire above them. The team raced up the stairwell to find Johnson defending against 14 remaining paratroopers. The paratroopers fought and died well, as the armor-clad team easily flanked their position. Once the paratroopers were eliminated the team gathered at the spot where Taylor had been killed.

“Poor Ryan,” Johnson said, shaking his head.

“Rest in peace, old buddy,” Josh Miller choked out, as he looked down at the bloody mess of armor and flesh that had once been his friend.

“Should we bury him?” Catrix asked.

“Major, who are these guys?” Davis asked, halfway lifting his gun in Catrix and Fabris’ direction.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Nox piloted his AG fighter alone. The other Ondagra and the BAS operators were in General Manpugna’s AG Fighter. The plan was for Nox to give cover fire, while Manpugna deployed the soldiers. As Nox approached the crash site, he could see no movement, no para-troopers, only blackened tundra and corpses.

Both fighters slowed to deploy the BAS operators and Ondagra, when a flash of light raced past his fighter, causing him to lose flight controls. In seconds Nox regained control of his craft in time to see a cleverly disguised tank slowly fade into the wintery whiteness.