On the move to Los Angeles with everything from Cold War relics to modern killing machines. The massive convoy is ready for anything. Or so they thought.



Chapter Ten: En Route




Matt let out a snort as he was bounced awake by the truck driving over a hole in the road.

"Sleep well princess?" A squad mate known as Zach Dillinger sitting directly across from him said with a grin.

Matt yawned and said, "Sure did. There were flowers, and butterflies, and most importantly a lack of killer lizards." Due to his relatively minor wounds, Matt was given the choice to be in the same truck as his new squad than in an ambulance truck. He glanced out the back to see that it was raining. "I would be willing to bet the furry UTO troops hate rain."

"If they are anything like my dog, probably." Justin Lee, muttered. Matt learned the Private was a National Guardsman, and he was placed into his squad due to his own being wiped out.

"Well it sucks for them. Rain is great. It makes me feel refreshed." Specialist Hayward said cheerfully.

"I think it makes everything look like shit." Specialist Dillinger said in response.

"Hah! Well that UTO trooper looks like shit.!" Sergeant Johnson, their squad leader shouted as he pointed to several UTO troops. One of them, a ferret, was not wearing a full set of armor and so his fur was matted down and he looked very gloomy. The UTO were off on the right side of the highway so as not to cause any accidents with the small human vehicles.

"Makes me glad this truck is covered!" Zach said with a grin.

Matt, feeling tired again, chose to ignore the other soldiers and tried to fall back to sleep. But a few minutes later, the truck came to a slow stop as it's brakes squealed.

An MP in a rain coat walked up to the back of the vehicle. "Out of the truck. We got some civilians."

"What?!" Johnson shouted incredulously. "We have two wounded men here!"

The man peered into the back to see Matt's bandaged leg and Justin's arm. He sighed and left for a few moments. He came back with two raincoats and handed them up to them. " Put those on and make sure they cover the bandages. Now get out," He opened the tailgate. "We can fit this group into one five ton, I don't want to use two smaller trucks. You can get a ride on one of the tanks."

The men groaned and hopped out of the back of the truck and into the rain. They then helped the civilians up inside. The tailgate was shut with a clang and the truck drove over the grass and onto the other side of the highway back to San Francisco.

"Lucky bastard, has his own Humvee." Zach mumbled.

The soldiers stood in the grass and tried to hail a tank. The wheeled vehicles had the right lane, many of them towing some sort of equipment ranging from generators to artillery, while the tracked ones had the two other lanes. A large number of them were old vehicles taken from nearby Armories. To crew them, many infantrymen were hastily trained in their operation. Though currently the older vehicles were mostly crewed by only a driver and a commander.

There were vehicles such as the famous M113 Gavin APC and its many variants, the rugged old warhorse known as the M60 Patton Tank, and some oversize artillery like the M107 175mm and its big brother, the M110 with a 203mm. Matt swears a child could fit inside the barrel of one of those monsters.

They took all the fuel they could find to keep the massive column moving south towards Los Angeles. Any truck carrying fuel was quickly commandeered by the Army, all fuel was taken from civilian gas stations, and any vehicles found were siphoned. Many of the tanks could be seen with fuel drums strapped to them. Even stores were not shown mercy by the needs of the Army. Any tools were taken, as the large amounts of old vehicles would likely need a lot of maintenance. Any extra room in and on vehicles were filled with food and water, for the soldiers, and for any refugees.

They were all spread out safely to prevent a collision, such as a 70 ton tank plowing into a truck full of soldiers and killing everyone.

"Oh wow! Think we could get a ride on THAT?!" Zach shouted and was pointing off in the direction of the UTO troops.

What they saw was awe inspiring and frightening at the same time. It was a tank. A giant tank that hovers. "It hovers. It freaking hovers. It's like a sci-fi movie!"

"I have yet to see a sci-fi movie with dragons, griffins, giants, humanoid animals, and hovering tanks all at the same time. You know the lizards have to have tanks too, right? What are we gonna do about those?" Matt asked.

"Bunker busters. Those have to work. But their vehicles must really haul ass so hitting one on the move would be impossible. I think we would need to rely mostly on the UTO, considering bunker busters just are not lying around for us to blow stuff up with." Justin responded as he watched the massive vehicle move past.

Johnson went back to waving his arms at any vehicle that approached. Many just drove past, until two M60 tanks staying close to each other drove off onto the grass and stopped. The rear tank already had six soldiers on it.

The nine soldiers climbed onto the back of the front tank without needing any permission, as the commander likely does not wish to expose himself to the rain.

The tanks merged back onto the road. The M60 tanks were on the left most lane, as they were very slow with a max speed of 30 mph. An M1 Abrams tank lumbered past, and Matt was surprised to actually look down at it. The M60 towers in at almost 11 feet high, while the Abrams is 8 feet high.

Zach looked over at Hayward who was looking upset, and said mockingly, "It makes me feel refreshed."

"Shut up, man!"

---

Tyra growled as the APC passed. She wishes she was in one so she could get out of the rain and get some of this armor off of her. But at least it kept her fur dry, unlike Lelker who left most of his on an APC, despite the warnings that it was going to rain.

The humans meanwhile appeared to have no shortage on vehicles, as they had an entire army of them, and were getting more as they occasionally came across compounds full of even more vehicles. Though some looked in terrible shape. Some of them were breaking off of the rest to head towards ruined cities to search for survivors. Heavy equipment would not be needed for such expeditions, as the Rynar have evacuated to reinforce the city that the humans call Los Angeles.

Rynar doctrine for invading primitive planet has three steps. First is to drop down all over the planet and do as much damage as possible. Second is to regroup at a nearby location to form a staging point. The final step is to spread back over the planet, crushing all under pure numbers.

This doctrine is only used when the Rynar feel they can win easily. It is more of a method of showing their strength, by defeating the defenders twice in a row. Though on this planet, Tyra feels this doctrine may not work on these primitives...

"See those soldiers riding on top of those tanks?" Yire interrupted her thoughts as he pointed to two tanks with Humans on them. "I guess most of their trucks are carrying a lot of munitions. Which is good. They are going to need all they can get."

She squinted at the tanks. "Hah, at least our armor is water proof. Poor things are getting soaked, like Jaren here. You should have listened to the humans when they said it was going to rain."

The ferret simply grumbled in response.

---

"Fighter Squadron 72, we have detected Scythes heading your way from the west, looks like they have some Relks with them too. Don't let them reach your pups." Silka smiled, the operator must be a canine. Pups refers to the objective they are defending. In this case, the Human convoy moving to Los Angeles.

"Roger that, moving to engage."

The fighters changed direction and headed towards the area marked on their computers. Soon eight Scythe fighters and a pack of ten Relks came into view through the rain. Scythes could take a UTO Tempest one on one, but generally the Rynar pilots are not as well trained as those of the UTO. But even so, engaging the Scythes would let the Relks do whatever they pleased. May it be taking shots at the UTO pilots, or something else.

But ten Relks is an absurdly small amount for an attack. Silka did not have enough time to think about this as they had to quickly target the Scythes, as they were the real threat with their own missiles. "Fire when you have a lock, and be ready to evade."

Missiles began erupting from the fighters of both sides. Silka gripped her yoke as a missile headed towards her Tempest.

A few moments... she quickly turned left and the missile flew past her ship but began to turn around for another run. She dodged a second time, but as it once again moved on her again, it's fuel ran out and it began to fall out of the sky. By now they were in range to begin dogfighting.

A glance at her computer showed that two of her squadron mates were destroyed. Both were fairly new. Her, Milt, and Telk have all been quite lucky in not getting killed.

Silka destroyed two of the Scythes before she noticed something. The Relks were missing. She could not find them. "I think the Relks have headed for the humans! Finish these quick and head to the convoy!"

---

"Hey look, planes." Zach pointed to the sky at 10 figures approaching.

"They must be UTO, don't look like anything we use." Johnson said.

Matt squinted at them. "You sure? The UTO planes are supposed to be a few miles away keeping the liza-" He was cut off as blue plasma erupted from the craft and headed straight for the convoy.

Several vehicles ahead exploded and the tank quickly came to a halt to let off it's cargo." Johnson helped Matt down and they hopped the guard rail into a ditch between the two sides of the highway.

A ground shaking explosion startled the men in the ditch and the fire from a massive explosion, possibly from a fuel tanker, could be seen. Other soldiers were scrambling over the rail for protection. But the cloud of safety was lost when shrapnel began raining down.

There were screams as metal ripped into flesh. Their bullet proof vests were proving adequate against the smaller pieces, but as the screaming attests, some were too big. He heard a scream next to him and looked to see Zach on his stomach with a large metal shard stabbed into his kidney.

As soon as the metal rain stopped, his comrades scrambled to his aid. But suddenly, there was another explosion just out of their ditch which caused a ringing sensation in Matt's ears and disoriented him. Matt was grabbed by his collar and pulled a few feet on his back. Through his blurry vision he could make out the form of an M60 Tank rolling onto it's side and towards the ditch.

Two tried to grab Zach and pull him out of the way, but the metal stabbed clean through his body and actually stuck him to the ground. They were forced to leave him to get out of the way.

The guard rail crumbled like paper and the tank fell into the ditch, crushing the screaming soldier beneath fifty tons of steel. However they were not even given a chance to comprehend what just happened, as a large burning tire from a truck bounced into their ditch along with large debris from the road, which thankfully was not as dangerous as shrapnel. They moved away from the tire, which was releasing a very foul smell as it melted.

"Where the hell are the UTO?! We are getting slaughtered!" Someone shouted.

Shaking his head clear of the dizziness, Matt was surprised to see a soldier drop in with a Stinger Surface to Air Missile launcher. He managed to find one, likely still in a crate, in this chaos? The man raised the weapon and began tracking one of the Rynar craft.

The missile fired and began to follow it's unlucky victim. It tried to dodge, but the craft was too large to out turn the small missile, and the Stinger went straight into the engine's plasma vent, causing the entire ship to explode.

This brief moment of triumph was shattered however when they realized the soldier had no extra missiles and the weapon became useless.

There were the sounds of Gatling guns firing, but they appeared to be having no effect, and the vehicle based surface to air missiles were far ahead and behind the convoy, as they were expected to not be needed near the middle, where the UTO fighters would defend the left and right flanks, as well as far above.

The UTO ground troops were launching their own missiles and slowly taking down the Rynar, but their missiles were easier to dodge.

But as if some higher power chose to show an act of mercy on the humans, missiles from UTO fighters tore into the Rynar, and in moments, there were none left.

Matt peeked up over the ditch and saw a burning Abrams. He reflexively ducked when it's ammunition began going off. He chanced another look to see the turret explode off it's ring. It flew dozens of feet into the air and landed on a Humvee, which was thankfully unoccupied.

Matt let out a breath he did not know he was holding, and slumped back down. He was startled by the squeal of an opening hatch. He looked to his right to see the escape hatch on the bottom of the overturned M60 Tank opened and two men climbed out.

He glanced to his left, then his right, and was relieved that his squad had no casualties other than Zach; which was very lucky, considering the bloodcurdling screams coming from throughout the ditch and from the soldiers still unfortunately trapped in burning vehicles.