Rikas Marauders

by M. D. Cooper

 

Rika said before detaching the hard-Link cable from the console.

 

 

 

  Rika called the platoon sergeant.

 

 

 

 

 

  Rika stepped aside as the two RRs on the lower level jumped back up before replying.

  Sergeant Kristian added.

 

 

 

 

  Rika groaned and closed the connection. She surveyed squad one’s status. Kelly, Crunch, and Shoshin were still absent, covering the entrance to engineering, hopefully with backup before long.

  Fireteam one had arrived a minute earlier, and other than a few disabled limbs and minor flesh wounds, squad one was ready to roll.

  Rika announced.

 

  The mechs surged forward, alternating suppressive fire with heavy weapons bursts that cut through the enemy’s ranks. Corridor by corridor, one threat-laden intersection after another, they cleared a path toward the bridge.

  There were several pitched fights in open spaces where the Niets were able to mass and bring superior firepower to bear, but the enemy seemed ill equipped to deal with mechs that could jump a dozen meters in the air and land behind their lines.

  After seven minutes, squad one had made it far enough forward that Rika was ready to let the Niets know what she was doing.

  “Nietzschean scumbags, this is Captain Rika of the Marauders,” she announced over the 1MC. “We’d like to thank you for hosting us today, and dying so easily. We have engine control and we have helm, but there’s still a lot of you pesky bastards aboard. So I figure it’s best to work from the top down.

  “Ship’s logs show captain as a Commander Kiers. Well, Commander, hope to see you soon. Keep your seat on the bridge warm for me.”

  Niki commented.

 

 

  “I liked it,” Aaron grunted as he checked a room on the squad’s right.

 

 

  Rika peered up a ladder and fired on a shape above before sidestepping to avoid return fire.

 

  Rika set a two-second fuse and tossed a grenade up the ladder shaft.

  Flames shot down behind her as she moved to the head of the group. Just seven hundred meters of ship to go, and she’d get to see if Niki’s idea would work.

  * * * * *

  Kelly called down to the fireteam.

  She sighted down the concourse, watching the group of Niets advance along the maglev track. There were ten of them; two in heavy armor, three in lighter armor, and five in nothing but cloth uniforms.

  Idiots all have death wishes.

  The heavies were in front, protecting the others, and Kelly considered her options. She only had two DPU rounds, just over sixty projectiles for her GNR, and enough charge for two electron beam shots—if she kept the bursts short—plus a cluster of ‘nades, and over a dozen mags for her JE-87.

  Second squad better get here soon.

  She selected her best option and fired a DPU round at the maglev rail beside the advancing Niets. The uranium rod shattered against the track and sprayed shrapnel into the unarmored enemies.

  The heavies stopped and looked back. Kelly watched Crunch peek out from behind a vertical column and fire on the backs of the Niets. Kelly added to his attack, and the two heavies fell.

  They made short work of the rest.

  Kelly asked.

  The sound of Shoshin’s chaingun came from her left, and she turned to see him firing on a group further aft that was well entrenched behind a derailed train.

 

 

  Shoshin suggested.

  Kelly asked.

  Crunch laughed.

  Kelly replied.

  Shoshin gave a single laugh.

  Kelly spotted something down the concourse, near the end, and cycled her vision, zooming in. It looked as though there was some sort of smoke or fog gathering.

  Then she magnified further.

 

  Crunch called out.

 

  Kelly tried to count the number of drones, but there were so many and they were moving so fast that she couldn’t manage. There had to be over a hundred, though—maybe more.

  Crunch fired on the leading wave.

  Kelly didn’t reply, but started taking aim at the drones with her GNR, lobbing her projectile rounds.

 

  Crunch ordered, and Kelly obliged by dropping down to the train car below and sliding behind it.

  Shoshin was firing on the drones with his chaingun, and Kelly set the timer on a ‘nade and chucked it at the incoming bots.

  It exploded midair, taking out two of the drones, but that was just a scratch.

  CJ said as she crouched next to Kelly and fired a missile at the drones.

 

 

  Kelly didn’t have time to be relieved, as the drones opened fire on the Marauders, laying down a withering blanket of beams and kinetics.

  The maglev rail beside Kelly was torn to shreds, and to her left, one of the support columns buckled and collapsed. She looked up and watched the arch she had been perched on moments earlier pull free of the overhead and fall toward her.

  Shit! I’m not dying again!

  * * * * *

  The Fury Lance had two doors to its bridge, both emptying out onto a broad foyer, which was strewn with the bodies of over two-dozen dead Niets.

  Rika looked to her right, where Aaron helped Kim sit up so he could apply biofoam to a hole in her stomach, while she kept repeating that she was okay, sh
e could still fight.

  “Of course you can, Private. Once we put your insides back where they belong, I expect you to pull a trigger just like the rest of us.”

  “Put it in my hand, Sarge, I got it,” Kim grunted out between rasping gasps.

  Rika clenched her jaw and stepped over a fallen Niet on her way to the bridge. She slammed a fist into the starboard door and called out over the 1MC.

  “Better get in your escape pods. We’re coming in, and we’re gonna grind you to pieces. You’re no match for the Marauders.”

  “Rika’s Marauders!” someone called out wearily from behind her.

  Rika looked back at her Marauders and nodded before turning back to the bridge. “Surrender, or prepare to meet your maker…or find your star, or whatever you fucks believe in.”

  Niki announced.

 

 

  No response came from within the bridge.

 

 

  Rika piggybacked on Niki’s visuals from the ship’s internal cameras.

 

  “Last chance to surrender! We don’t kill hostages.”

  No one on the bridge moved, which was impressive in and of itself.

  Not that their bravado would buy them any mercy.

  Rika nodded to Ben and Whispers to take the door down.

  she advised.

  Acknowledgements lit up on her HUD, and Rika calmed her breathing. This was it. Take the bridge, force the surrender of everyone aboard, win the day.

  Ben and Al were out of explosives, but two pairs of mech-fingers prised the door open, and then heaved the two halves back, tearing them right out of the frame. Four mechs flooded through the opening, laying down pulse fire and fists. Aaron and another four followed, and five seconds later, the ‘all clear’ came.

  Rika walked onto the bridge and saw that two of the crew were dead, several were down, and Commander Kiers was writhing in Kerry’s grasp, his feet a dozen centimeters off the floor.

  “Commander Kiers,” Rika said in greeting. “I’ve been looking forward to this for…oh, about half an hour, now.”

  “Fucking mech-meat. You’ll never take the Fury Lance!”

  Rika glanced at the mechs around her as they secured the command crew. “Does he know something we don’t?”

  Ben shrugged. “Doubtful. We could still kill him.”

  “Our drones wiped out the rest of your force. It’s just you, now,” Commander Kiers raged.

  “You mean the drones you sent down the concourse to take back engineering?” Rika asked.

  The commander nodded, but his expression changed to one of worry.

  “Yeah, our AI got control of them just in the nick of time. It was a close call. Then she used them to cut your troops to ribbons. Thanks for giving us what we needed to wrap this up quickly.”

  Kiers yelled something unintelligible and began to struggle again.

  Rika shook her head. “Restrain him and toss him in the corner over there. I want him to watch while we seize or destroy his fleet.”

  Niki called out.

  Rika complied, then turned to the holotank at the front of the bridge. It was only displaying the crest of the Nietzschean military, but she found it hard to believe that the commander hadn’t been trying to communicate with his other ships after his own came under attack. She hit the ‘recall command’ sequence, and the last scan data appeared before her.

  Rika nearly crowed with delight.

  Three of the destroyers were already breaking out of the clouds, and two cruisers were hot on their tail. One cruiser was falling deeper into Armens, but two Marauder dropships were visible, flying away from it.

  The other ships—four cruisers and one destroyer—were still holding their course, but this data was a minute old.

  Niki called out triumphantly.

  The holotank flickered, and now two more cruisers were rising out of the clouds, while the final destroyer began to fall. Rika felt her breath catch—it was the ship Chase was on.

  She was about to issue the command for Niki to dive after it, when the Marauder dropship detached from the destroyer’s hull and began to boost upward.

  “Comms?” Rika asked aloud, eyes fixed on that ship.

 

 

 

  Rika clenched her teeth as guilty tears of relief flowed down her face. She wanted nothing more than to talk to Chase at that moment, but she needed to find out what was happening on the two cruisers that were still holding in the clouds. If she started talking to Chase, she might lose her edge.

 

 

  Rika asked Niki.

 

  Niki sounded relieved, and Rika felt the same way. The entire time they had been fighting through the Fury Lance, the fear that the other teams had all failed had lurked in the back of her mind.

  One company assaulting ten cruisers with a total complement of over ten thousand, and winning? This would be the stuff of legends.

  “Wait…” Rika said as she reviewed the scan holo and the raw data that was scrolling in a panel to the right. “Vargo Klen. I don’t see him. Did he make it out?”

  Niki replied.

  Rika glanced at Aaron as he approached and gave his update.

  “We are secure, Captain. There may still be some Niets holed up here and there, but based on the numbers that the cryo systems show, all but a few of their soldiers are dead.”

  Rika clasped a hand on his shoulder as the second-to-last cruiser fired its engines and began to climb out of the clouds.

  “Almost there,” Rika whispered.

  Niki reported.

  Niki highlighted the location where Klen’s dropship had last been seen, and Rika scowled at the scan display. “I don’t see anything.”

 

  Rika bit her lip. She’d been the one who sent him out there—granted, she’d sent everyone…but he wasn’t a mech. He couldn’t handle what they could.

 

  Rika felt her breath catch. “Which means he could fall like a rock.”

 

  “Do it. We’re not leaving anyone behind.”

  Niki said quietly, for Rika’s ears alone.

 

  Niki replied on the combat net.

  Rika watched the feeds from the two dropship pilots that were still attached to the hull of the Fury Lance as they pulled free and eased around the starship toward t
he bay Niki had indicated.

  The moment they were within, the bay’s doors began to close. Three kilometers behind them, the Fury Lance’s engines roared to life, and Rika felt a small shudder beneath her feet.

  Niki said.

  Rika pulled up a view of the clouds around the ship on the forward display, as they turned and began to fall through the gas giant’s atmosphere. All around the vessel, lightning flared, striking the shields and the cooling vanes with increasing intensity.

  “Is that normal?” Aaron asked.

  “Nothing we’re doing is normal. But the ship can take it; she’s rated for a lot deeper than this.”

  “After spending weeks down here heating up like a toaster?”

  Niki replied, her tone filled with more determination than confidence.

  A shudder began to run through the deck as they dropped, and then suddenly they all felt a moment of weightlessness as the ship fell faster.

 

  The secondary holotank came to life, showing the front half of the dropship. It was spinning wildly, but Rika saw that the cockpit hatch was sealed.

  There was a chance.

  Niki spun the Fury Lance so that its engines were facing down toward the planet core, and let them fall until they were within one kilometer of the dropship.

  The shuddering in the deck plates had intensified, and Rika couldn’t help but notice that they were now more than five hundred kilometers below the cloud tops.

  Lights began to flash on several consoles, and an alarm sounded. The bridge’s forward display flashed a warning that the hull of the ship was over 700 degrees kelvin.

  Niki cried out.

  Rika turned to the feeds from the other dropships and watched with dismay as the red-hot ruin of Klen’s dropship was set on a cradle.

  The moment the clamps wrapped around the wreckage, Rika shouted. “Go! Go!”

  The deck lurched under them, and Niki cried out.

  Rika ran to the back wall of the bridge as the dampeners and artificial gravity cut out at the same time. Suddenly the ship’s engines were ‘down’, and 10g of thrust slammed everyone into the rear wall.