The goblins seemed endless. Now that the marines were fully occupied taking down boar riders, regular goblin infantry were able to make their way out of the portal, too.
These goblins stayed out of the way of the boars and seemed to be setting up base around the portal. They carried wood, rope and other materials from the other side of the portal.
Between the constant threat of mage riding boars and piles of corpses, these goblins were almost impossible to take out. Extremely quickly, semi-sturdy walls were made out of the wood with corpses in front to act as sandbags.
The goblins seemed completely unaffected by the vast amount of their own dead in front of them. Mateo couldn't be sure, but he even though he saw a goblin infantryman loot rags off the corpses to wear himself.
The lack of empathy and compassion from the goblins sent a horrible chill down his back. The scene really reinforced the fact that these devilish little creatures are some of the worst ever depicted in human's fantasy.
Mateo saw all this from his position at the .50 cal. He had run out of ammo a few seconds ago. With nothing else he could fire due to his injury, he was stuck watching the goblins fortify their position.
He turned to check the marine's status. All of the E-Mag and gunpowder ammo was used up. Everyone was either using the heavy ordinance from the supply crate or laser.
It was getting harder and harder to move weapons and ammo from the center position to the sides. The goblins had been trying to cut off the teams and isolate them for easy kills. These maneuvers were dealt with extreme prejudice.
Mateo knew they couldn't continue like this. Several marines had already had close calls or minor burns from fire balls, and boar bodies were starting to block firing lanes. He had to make a judgement call.
"Group up at the center position!" He yelled over the chaos. Shouting at the top of his lungs riddled his side with pain, but he had to. He couldn't let anyone get killed because he was too cowardly to handle a little pain.
The marines were trained soldiers and quickly followed his orders. The left side quickly grouped up in their LMTV and drove over using the bed of the truck as a mobile firing position.
Only Tony and Whisper were left on the right side with him in the LATV since Ralph ran over for the heavy weapons a few minutes ago.
Although this left them with less manpower, the .50 cal had been enough to even it out. Now that it had run out of ammo, they were experiencing the hardest push from the goblins.
The goblins had obviously detected their weakened position and focused on them. Mateo took the wheel and drove them over while Tony took the front seat and shot out the window. Whisper used the .50 cal hatch to fire out the top.
Although they were only a few hundred feet away, the amount of goblins that focused on them made the journey feel like miles. Fireball splashed heat against the armor plating, warming the interior to a scalding degree.
Rocks were thrown with slings that easily bounced of the armor. The impacts echoed inside the vehicle.
Whisper had to duck inside the vehicle several times to avoid the fireballs and rocks. One goblin rider moved infront of the LATV thinking that they would stop.
Unluckily for them, the LATV had a plow mounted up front specifically designed to ram into things with minimal damage.
"BRACE!!" Mateo refused to slow down and rammed directly into the 1500 pound boar.
The LATV jolted horribly as metal met flesh. The solid steel frame and plow groaned with effort as the vehicle hit. The occupants were flung forward, smashing into whatever was in front of them.
"Dammit, Mateo. A little more heads up would be nice. I think you just broke my skull," Tony complained.
"You'd be dead if that happened," Mateo replied.
The large mud tires of the LATV rumbled over the dead boar like a speed bump. The trio inside bounced along.
While driving, Mateo loaded up a red flare round and fired directly behind them. The bright light spooked the hoard of trailing goblins. This gave them the quick respite the vehicle needed to quickly accelerate again and make it safely towards the center group.
Mateo quickly checked the time in his HUD. 8 minutes. They still had 8 minutes until the ammo resupply arrived. Unfortunately, Mateo didn't think it would be enough for them to pull through.
Even with the fresh ammo, they would be overrun. There were simply too many goblins for them to handle. They had easily killed over a thousand goblins and they didn't seem to stop coming either.
Finally getting a moment of safety, Mateo took a quick breath before leaving the LATV and running towards Olivia.
"What's the plan Mat? We don't have long." She asked when he got there.
"Pack up as much as you can into the vehicles. Rig the rest to explode. We'll make this fight mobile."
"Ah hell yea! Let's Fury Road this shit," Olivia said. She was immediately on board.
"Cortez! Get your team and pack whatever you can into the vehicles. You have 1 minute. Also, send up a red flare. We are retreating," Olivia ordered.
"Ralph! Rig the crate to blow," Mateo ordered at the same time.
The men moved immediately. This was a life or death situation. Taking half the men for logistics put a huge strain on their defenses.
The goblins pushed hard. They sent every mage and elite goblin they had towards them. Fireballs splashed down on the vehicles one after another. The outer armors slowly turned bright red as the heat started to melt them.
The vehicles were organized in a triangle around the supply crate. There were holes in the defense at each point. The goblins surged towards the points, trying to get inside.
The .50 cal emplacement the marines jerry-rigged on top the LATT was replaced with a laser version. The same happened with the one on the LATV. The seats of each vehicle were filled with heavy ordinance. The bed of the LMTV as filled with boxes of whatever it could fit.
Ralph rigged some C4 to the larger rockets and mortars that they couldn't move or utilize.
"If the red and blue wires get a little too friendly then we all go boom! Oh what it would feel like to go out in a blaze of glory. I'm so sorry my pretties, but I can't go with you quite yet," Ralph said to himself. He was fully and truly obsessed with explosives.
Within a minute, everything they could use had been packed. Olivia and Mateo had been planning the whole time while firing at the enclosing goblins.
The plan was to make circles around the portal and shoot as many goblins as they could. They essentially planned to train the goblins while taking pot shots.
They would only have to worry about the mages and any foolish goblins that tried to stop in their path. Only the LATV was built to ram. If either of the other two vehicles had to ram, the engine would be damaged and they'd be stuck in one spot again.
They wanted to have the LATV up front for exactly that reason. The LATT would be in the center and goblins could fire out either side from inside or on the newly placed roof armament. The LMTV would be last with a mounted weapon in the bed to cover their rear.
They expected most of the mages to follow from behind and fire at their rear. They hoped that an emplacement there would be enough to stop any from succeeding.
Seeing that the vehicles were all loaded up, Mateo gave the order.
"Move out! Start harassing the goblins."
The electrical motors of the vehicles whined loudly as current surged through them. Thousands of pounds of torque spun the wheels madly kicking up mud and throwing it behind them. The wheels caught and the vehicles jolted forward before accelerating at a rapid pace.
The small convoy retreated slightly to about a thousand feet before circling the portal and firing at the goblins. At this range, the smog diminished the power of the laser weapons, but there was nothing they could do. If they got too close, they'd get surrounded and stopped.
After moving more than a few hundred feet, Mateo began to worry.
"Ralph, what happened to those explosives? Why hasn't the crate exploded yet?"
"Oh just you wait. It's going to be beautiful!"
"I don't care about beauty! The thought of rocket launcher wielding goblins is already giving me nightmares!"
"Just watch," Ralph said cryptically.
Mateo turned to see the goblins hesitating around the crate.
The crate obviously carried important weapons for the humans. They seemed to protect and gather as much as they could before running away.
One of the larger, smarter goblins approached before grabbing a box of grenades from the crate. He shook it around and only heard the sound of rattling. Seeing that nothing happened, he said something in their language to the smaller dumb goblins around him.
The goblins quickly gathered and pulled everything out of the crate. Over 100 goblins had gathered and were playing with the weapons around the crate. Seeing that the humans had left something behind, more and more goblins kept coming to investigate.
Eventually the last box of grenades and a strangely conspicuous thing with small red and blue vines were left. The smart goblin got a weird feeling from the thing with red and blue vines, so he picked up the last box of grenades.
The second the box of grenades was lifted from its spot…
BOOOOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM
The area around the crate turned into a ball of fire as explosions chained one after another. Only a crater was left.
Seeing the explosions, Mateo finally breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't know what Ralph had done, but the fact so many goblins were killed left him with a small smile.
Incapable of not fanboying about the explosion, Ralph explained what he had done. He didn't care if anyone was actually listening to him.
"I wanted to make sure the poor explosives we left behind experienced killing at least one goblin. So I had to devise a way to delay the explosion. I could've just set a timer, but I had no idea how long it would take for the goblins to gather. They might have never if they thought it was too much of a risk. So I set up a simple circuit that broke the second a box of grenades were lifted. The explosions chained off each other!" Ralph explained with an almost fanatic reverence.
He turned toward Whisper and pulled him close by his collar. The small, silent man could not resist the mountain at all.
"Don't you think it was beautiful! Oh the bright flashing of lights that leave afterimages in your eyes! The thud in your chest as the shockwave passes through you! The devastation left behind! Oh it's perfect. It was so worth disabling their inertial fuses"
Whisper simply turned his head and wiped the spit that had flow onto his helmet's visor. Ralph was a diehard demolitionist.
The convoy circled around the portal, firing at any goblins that got too close. Although they were much safer now. They amount of goblins they killed was massively reduced.
Their accuracy while farther away and moving was massively reduced, too. At this point, they were more monitoring the situation than actually participating in it.
As they were finishing a loop around the portal, Tony looked towards the relay station hoping for news. He didn't expect any, but he actually saw a green flare. It looked like it had been sent up a short while ago.
"Mateo, look! Green flare," he called out.
"What? Why a green-," he was cut off.
whup Whup WHup WHUp WHUP WHUP.
The distinct sound of a helicopter slowly made itself known.