The Royal Marine Space Commandos- RMSC Omnibus

by James Evans

  “Yes, sir. Three minutes to final approach stage. The feed is available when you need it,” Goodwin confirmed.

  A new video feed icon appeared in Warden’s HUD.

  “Roger that.” Warden flicked on the video feed.

  “Marine X,” he said, “how are you doing?”

  “Peachy, thanks, sir. No sign of trouble. How long till things get exciting?”

  “A couple of minutes. Goodwin, send him the feed so he can see what’s going on.”

  “Okay. I can see the target now with the old Mark 1 eyeball. We’re starting to turn. Ground doesn’t look too rough.”

  “No, but are you strapped on? We have no idea how bumpy this will get.”

  “Feels like a massage chair at the moment, but I’ve got a couple of lines keeping me in place so I can’t fall off completely. We’re lined up now.”

  “I see it on the feed.”

  “I’ve got a pretty good view here too,” Ten confirmed.

  “I’m revving her up now, Ten,” said Goodwin, pushing the truck’s accelerator control.

  “Yeah, thanks for the heads up. Doesn’t seem any bumpier. No signs of life.”

  “She’s at sixty per cent speed now. You should be okay on this ground,” said Goodwin, “unless I hit a boulder,” she murmured.

  “Lieutenant, we’re not using this thing again, are we?”

  “No, we’re not. Strictly a one-way transport.”

  “Okay then. Goodwin, why don’t you redline this thing and see how far over the manufacturer's specs it’ll go.”

  “It won’t go over specs at all, Ten. We didn’t do anything to the engine.”

  “Ah well, about that. You might not have done anything to the engine but it’s just possible that I might have. Couldn’t just sit here twiddling my thumbs, right? And this plan will work a lot better if the truck’s going faster, yes?”

  Goodwin looked at Warden who rolled his eyes and gestured for her to go ahead.

  “Yes,” confirmed Goodwin, “the faster it goes, the more effective it’ll be, but you still have to get off. I don’t fancy your chances of disembarking safely anyway, let alone if you’re going faster.”

  “Lance Corporal, I have been doing this job since you were a twinkle in your daddy’s eye. I wouldn’t have volunteered if I thought it wouldn’t work. You just set that accelerator to maximum and get ready with your little party favours. I’ll take care of this end.”

  Goodwin looked at Warden sceptically.

  “It’s okay, Lance Goodwin. If he says he’s got it handled, we can trust him. I wouldn’t ask him to feed my goldfish, but this is what he lives for. Open her up.”

  Goodwin nodded. “Okay, Ten, Lieutenant Warden says I can go ahead. Let's see what she can do.” She slid the control to maximum and left it there. The haptic feedback from her slate was working overtime as the quarry truck accelerated, bouncing a little on the uneven terrain.

  Over a thousand metric tons of truck, ore and added extras barrelled towards the enemy base, faster and faster.

  “It just hit seventy-five kph, Ten.”

  “Walk in the park. I bet you can get it over a hundred and twenty-five. I’m pretty much relying on it.”

  “Doubtful but she’s giving it all she got. What did you do to my engines anyway?” Goodwin asked.

  “I’ll tell you later. You just keep it lined up and get ready.”

  “Roger that, Ten,” Goodwin replied over the comms, and muttered under her breath, “you mad bastard.”

  “Couldn’t agree more, Lance Corporal, but I’m not going to bet that he’s wrong,” Warden agreed.

  “That’s it, starting to feel like there’s a real driver behind the wheel now,” Ten said.

  “I don’t know what you did, Ten, but she just hit a hundred and twenty, and she’s still accelerating.”

  “Keep it going, Goodwin. The more speed you can give me, the better. Lieutenant, I think someone just noticed us. You might want to get ready to move.”

  “Roger that, Ten. I see lights on their wall. Keep us updated. Milton, let's get the first teams moving.”

  Warden turned his attention back to the feed, blowing it up to full scale as if he were there. The cameras were attached to the front of the enormous vehicle and he could now see the base clearly. It was monstrous. The Deathless had built walls at least nine metres high and they were topped with long, thick, spikes which jutted out like tusks. It looked like the whole thing was extruded from foamcrete or something similar. Tough, durable and extremely bullet absorbent. They must have some impressive fab technology to have been able to construct this edifice so quickly.

  Their target was the entrance of the base, a wide gap, easily big enough for three rovers side-by-side. The gigantic dump truck was another matter, though. The wheels alone were five metres high and the truck was far too wide to fit through the gate. The plan wasn’t to drive it in; Warden had something much better in mind.

  “It’s maxed out at a hundred and forty-one kph, Ten!”

  “What’s that in Imperial? Eighty-eight miles an hour? They’re going to see some serious shit, now!” said Ten. “Cue the music.”

  Warden looked at Goodwin. “Music?” he asked, frowning.

  “I have no idea, sir. You’ll have to try Ten’s feed.”

  He switched over rapidly, audio and visual on his HUD switching to the feed from Ten’s perspective. Opera music was playing from the truck in front of him as it sped towards the enemy base. It blared from announcement speakers at full and deafening volume.

  The music launched straight into lyrics, “O Fortuna, velut luna, statu variabilis, semper crescis…” It was rousing, but Warden didn’t recognise the tune.

  “Hadn’t pegged him as an opera fan,” muttered Warden, unsure he would ever get used to the man’s foibles.

  “What the hell are you doing, Marine X?” he asked, somewhat redundantly he realised, given that he could see exactly what Ten saw. Straps to his left and right were attached to the sides of the truck, holding him on top of the huge pile of rock and ore.

  “Sorry, sir? Could you repeat that? It’s a bit noisy here!” Ten replied as he busied himself with a reel of cable.

  Warden resisted the temptation to shout and set the HUD to transmit text at the same time. “What is that music?”

  “Bloody hell, sir. Surprised you don’t recognise it, it’s a classic! It’s Carl Orff, ‘O Fortuna’ from Carmina Burana.”

  “Very informative, Ten, but I don’t really care what it is. I’m more concerned about why you’re playing it.”

  “Ahh right. You did say you wanted the enemy focussed on me, sir. Pretty sure they won’t be paying attention to anyone else right now and maybe these buggers could use a dose of culture. Is there anything else, sir? I’m a little busy,” Ten asked politely.

  “What is that cable for?” Warden asked, dreading the answer.

  “That’s how I’m getting off this thing.”

  “Aren’t you jumping off it?”

  “Jumping off it, sir? Are you all right? You did take a nasty bang on the head earlier.”

  “I’m fine, thanks, Ten,” said Warden, manfully keeping his annoyance in check, “but I thought you were jumping off the truck as it approached and advancing on foot?”

  “Bugger that for a game of soldiers, sir. If I jumped off far enough away that it was safe, it’d be a bloody long walk. And I can’t jump off now, it’s doing over a hundred and forty kilometres per hour. If I jumped off at this speed, I’d be blown into last week. Or is that next week? Either way, I’d be dead. Nah, when you’ve got a plan like yours to implement, you’ve got to work with what you have to available. For instance, I found this winch drum in Ashton, and then I looked for some more kit, and I had what I needed to add my own garnish to your cunning plan, sir. Can I explain later, sir? If I don’t get a shift on, I’m going to be in a spot of bother.”

  “Okay, get on with it, whatever it is.” Warden shook his head, horribly aware
that things had slipped beyond his control without a single shot having been fired.

  The track Ten was playing was short but it was on a loop and very loud. Judging by the flashes of gunfire from the base, the Deathless did not appreciate Ten’s efforts at cultural enlightenment. Warden switched back to the camera feed from the front of the vehicle and could see the great, spiny wall of the base drawing closer, spotlights picking out the truck.

  And now there were more bursts of automatic fire to light up the night and reveal the location of the enemy troops as they targeted the truck. Information streamed across Warden’s vision as Ten’s HUD collated the flashes and marked enemy locations for the whole troop to see. The Deathless must be rather optimistic if they hoped to cause any damage at this range, but he supposed even an inexpert marksman could hit the truck when it was driving straight at them.

  Around here, on the other side of the huge base, Warden’s view was much the same as Ten’s except without the bulky gatehouse or the gunfire.

  Everything seemed to be working fine but he had no idea how Ten planned to get off the vehicle. Whatever it was, it would have to happen soon.

  Goodwin hummed as she watched the feed then she thumbed a control. Gunfire erupted from the front of the truck, showering the Deathless base. They had rigged looted weapons to the truck, set to fire on full automatic when Goodwin sent the command. There was no hope of aiming them, which meant that bullets would be flying all over the place. Sure enough, the enemy fire stopped as they sought cover, despite the fact that it couldn’t possibly hit them.

  Warden sympathised. It wasn’t easy to return fire while someone was shooting at you, even if part of your brain accepted that it was vanishingly unlikely you’d be hit. The baser, animal parts of the brain held the strong opinion that you should get your head down until it all went away.

  “Lieutenant, we’re in position,” Milton said. “Are you joining us?”

  Shit, he had been distracted by Ten’s antics and, honestly, by the childish impulse to watch his own plan come to fruition. He flipped up his HUD and stuck his head up to look over the boulder towards the wall. Milton and the majority of A Troop were at the base, ready to start the infiltration.

  He swore again and flipped his HUD back into place.

  “Yes, get cracking, I’m on my way. The distraction is working perfectly.”

  He glanced at Goodwin and Bailey, both intent on their tasks. Parker noticed him and turned to give him a thumbs up, before returning to his binoculars to scan the wall for targets to flag for Bailey. Nothing was happening, so it seemed the Deathless were all heading for the gate, which was unlikely to be a good idea.

  Warden broke cover and ran for the base of the wall.

  21

  The first reports were unclear, difficult to understand. A ‘walking tank’ was the way one shocked militia soldier had described it. Then a shaky video, shot on a hand-held communicator, arrived to provide details of the new threat.

  Barely twenty seconds long, the video showed a pair of armoured figures walking stiffly down the street toward a militia position. At first glance, they could have been mistaken for normal Deathless power armour.

  It was their strange gait which gave them away, their legs moved stiffly, the movement of the hips not quite right. Then they moved past a street lamp, and their scale became clear. They were at least five metres tall, maybe six, with bulbous chest pieces that jutted oddly forward.

  Light troops followed behind but the two at the front took the cameraman’s attention. Each arm bore huge weapons; a flamethrower on one and a pair of heavy machine cannons on the other.

  As they walked, so large that the ground rumbled with each step, they sprayed fire at the retreating militia. Yellow and blue flame shot across the street, incinerating everything it touched and chewing even at the concrete of the buildings and structures behind which the humans hid. Then the dreadful fire would swing away, and the area would be sprayed with high-velocity, large calibre shot from the twin-cannon.

  “Too many casualties,” said Atticus, watching the monitors that showed the militia falling back and dying in large numbers. The destructive power was awe-inspiring and Atticus, as he watched the video for the twelfth time, had to admit to being impressed.

  Years before, he had seen a demonstration of a similar system while it was still in development. A defence contractor had produced prototypes of a new form of armour and they worked well; the weapons were capable, the pilot had good control, the thing was stable and the armour was tough. It was an impressive demonstration.

  The problem was the mass of the loaded unit. The entire demonstration had been run at a specially constructed site where the ‘ground’ was actually steel reinforced foamcrete. On normal roads or any surface less solid than rock, the vehicle just sank under its own weight as soon as it stepped off its transport. In any real-world situation, it was useless, and the experiment was abandoned.

  “Come back in twenty years,” the contractor had said, “or maybe fifty, and we should have materials whose performance allows this system to work.” Nobody had really believed them.

  It seemed, however, that the Deathless had overcome the problem and produced a deployable combat unit.

  “That's not something you see every day,” said Denmead as she watched the video play again on the big screen. The video showed the militia returning fire, standing their ground for longer than anyone could reasonably have expected, then being mown down as they finally broke and ran.

  Atticus got to his feet, "No, no, it's not. But it is something I've seen before." Denmead looked at him quizzically. He wasn't surprised, it had been a little-known project at the time, and its total failure had led to it being buried.

  "Come on; we need to stop these things quickly,” he said, grabbing his rifle and heading for the door, “and I think I've got an idea that might just work.”

  Phil Jones watched the heavy armour coming down the street and sniffed as it paused to swivel, checking right then left for anything to shoot at. The militia had fallen back, unable to stop this new threat with their weaponry, and now the beasts wandered unopposed through the city.

  He had been watching this pair of Deathless robot walkers with his sniper, Pete Smith, for a few minutes from their hiding place in a patch of overgrown scrubland.

  “Looks like a walking tin can. Short-range weapons only, by the look of it,” said Phil, peering through his HUD, “but the grunts following have rifles and something that looks suspiciously like a mortar.”

  “One shot then relocate,” said Pete, adjusting the scope of his railgun, “and bang!” He said it quietly as he pressed the trigger button. The gun hummed and, a hundred metres away, there was a flash and a bang as the round struck the huge Deathless machine in the centre of its mass.

  “Definite hit,” muttered Phil as the Deathless swung around, looking for the source of the attack, “no obvious damage. Bugger me, that thing’s tough.”

  Behind the Can, the troopers had spread out and taken cover, spooked by the sound of the railgun. The two Cans kept coming, utterly undeterred, hunting the humans.

  “Ninety metres,” said Phil, shuffling backwards, “time to go unless we want to get really friendly with them.”

  “I hear you,” said Pete, slinging his gun over his shoulder, “let’s circle around and see if they like it from behind.”

  They crawled into the ditch at the back of the scrub and hurried away at a rapid crouch, looking for a new firing position.

  “So what’s this idea, then?” said Governor Denmead as she and Atticus hurried through the warehouse where they had established a temporary command post.

  Atticus hadn’t wanted her to be there. “Government has to continue, the caves of Fort Widley are the safest place we have, you should stay there rather than put yourself at risk in the city,” he had said. He might as well have shouted at the wind for all the good it had done.

  "No, time to explain, Governor. I briefed the men w
hile you were dealing with your team. You'll just have to watch and for pity’s sake, stay out of sight," he said irritably. He liked Denmead, and he hadn't meant to snap at her, but she was as stubborn as an ox. Probably why you like her, he thought grudgingly.

  Mercifully she took it in good grace and let him get on with it. So now they were making their way through the abandoned buildings of the city, heading for a spot near the last known location of the armoured leviathans that the Marines had begun calling ‘Cans’.

  They were accompanied by a squad made up of Marines from B Troop, all of whom were now, like Atticus, wearing captured Deathless bodies. They carried the heavy weapons that had been captured from the enemy over the last few days.

  The militia that each Marine had been leading had been left behind for this operation. Even though they couldn't order the governor to stay at Fort Widley, they could make sure that the militia was out of harm's way. This wasn't a plan for amateurs, however willing they had proved to be.

  “They’re coming this way,” said Atticus eventually, stopping in the ruined shell of a fab plant. The roof was gone, blown away a few days before, but the foamcrete first floor was still in place and so were the walls of the ground floor.

  “This will do nicely,” said Atticus, looking around. “Find somewhere upstairs, towards the rear side of the building for the mortar, Corporal, and make sure your spotter has good lines of sight along the street. We’ll have one sniper team down here, the other up on the roof if there’s cover. Everyone else spread out.”

  “How will this idea of yours work, Captain?” Denmead was curious, but Atticus had been very coy about his plan.

  “It’s a bit risky, to be honest,” he said finally, as the Marines found their positions and settled down to wait, “and I’m not sure it’ll work. If it does, the next attack will be easier. It’s all about making these Cans a liability rather than an advantage.”

  “But how do we do that?” Denmead persisted, irritated that Atticus wouldn’t share.