by Tim C Taylor
“The obelisk,” he said. “I need the equipment it houses to remain fully functional, but every Hardit inside to be a corpse.”
“I’m on it, Dad.”
“And I have five Marines on the ground outside in dead suits. Cut them out before they suffocate or their power cells blow.”
“On it. More help’s on its way. Aelingir got down safely over Europe with a small fleet. She’s picking up troops and will be joining us once we soften up the defenses here.”
Suddenly, Arun’s world jolted and he grabbed on tightly to Dane’s thorax handrail as he finally cantered inside the lower level of the monument, stepping carefully over the Janissary corpses and trying not to slip on their blood.
“Are you badly wounded?” Arun asked, mentally expanding the scope of his question to encompass the four Trogs, all of whom had now forced their way through the barrier.
“Bloodied,” Dane replied, “but I remain functional.”
With the other three confirming the same report on a scent level without words, Arun inspected Dane’s abdomen. The carapace was badly chipped, and he counted seven wounds where rounds had penetrated. Leon and Bwilt were as bad; Gretel worse.
“Our bodies are designed for battle,” Dane explained. “Our organs have multiple failsafes, and our blood flows through a packet-switching circulatory system designed to survive multiple wound channels of the types inflicted by Hardit rifles and Legion railgun darts.”
“Wait, Pedro designed you to hold your own in a fight with humans?”
Dane didn’t answer with words. His scent said the answer was so obvious it would be humiliating for the Queen of War to hear it spoken.
Gretel jumped around and rushed back to the force bubble. “What are they?” she asked, pointing her antennae at the sky.
Black shapes floated through the air, headed for the obelisk.
“Friends,” said Arun. “I think. OK, we’re disturbingly fit. Let’s go help out the others.”
He lost his grip on Dane’s rail and was flung back against his strange seat as his mount leaped up the ramp to rejoin their fellow Nest members.
——
Sergeant Kraken
Far Reach Strike Team, Arrow Squad
Above the Imperial Mall
Mader Zagh!
Kraken’s team was coming in blind. Some kind of anti-electronic frakk-up field had nixed the micro spy drones they had thrown at the obelisk. It had also killed the grenades they had fired through the existing breach Stafford’s sharp eyes had spotted through the fading clouds that wreathed their target.
Bleeding off his lateral speed, Kraken gave the breach a burst with his carbine and flew inside.
When no gunfire rose to meet him, he thought that just for once it would be an easy entry. As he crossed the threshold and entered the mess of stone debris, his HUD lit up with threat alerts. Janissaries were standing inside with their backs to the outer wall, waiting to shoot the legionaries as they sailed in.
But these Hardits weren’t used to Far Reach Marines.
Kraken lashed out with his boot as he came in, hitting a Hardit hand and the rifle it was gripping too.
Like any Marine, his natural fighting environment was the void of space. The ACE-6 armor couldn’t exactly let you fight planetside the same way, but it got passably close.
He accelerated in toward the inner wall of the ramp, angling his trajectory sharply upward so he actually landed on the overhead, high above the heads of the Hardits, and on bunched legs that sprang him down onto them like a missile with his carbine teeth extended and buzzing for blood.
The results weren’t pretty. And when Fallaw and Stafford followed up with their own assault cutters, the defenders were reduced to a messy pile of meat underfoot within seconds. Kraken had a minor bullet wound to his left thigh, and Fallaw a bayonet wound to his right. BattleNet reported bleeding staunched and suits resealed.
“They weren’t expecting me to bounce off the overhead like a boarding action,” advised Kraken. “Next lot of monkeys we meet won’t be so easy, so stay alert.”
Fallaw and Stafford acknowledged, and they advanced cautiously up the ramp to join with the teams who had breached and entered at higher points. It was only wide enough for three abreast, and every step of the way, the enemy could be waiting for them behind the inner curve. Fallaw took point, following his sergeant’s orders to not use spy drones to peer around the corner, because doing so would likely reveal their position to the enemy. If both sides surprised the other, Kraken was counting on his team to win out because one-on-one human Marines were superior.
Meanwhile, Kraken watched the rear, throwing BattleNet extenders at the walls as they went. The gray burrs stuck to the walls and beamed enough sensory data that BattleNet awareness stretched below to the areas they had already covered.
“Boss says any Hardit in this building needs to be a dead Hardit,” Kraken reminded his team. “Let’s see if we can oblige her without killing her father. Got it, Fallaw?”
“Don’t kill the Old Man,” Fallaw replied. “Got it, Sarge.”
“Make sure you do,” said Stafford, “because if any of us kill General McEwan the paperwork that will descend on the LT’s ass will put him in a serious state of discombobulation.”
“I think Stafford means that a heavy duty reaming will be–” Fallaw held up a fist and everyone halted, alert to a new threat.
A moment later, Kraken’s HUD updated to paint probable threats waiting for them around the inner curve of the ramp. His pulse pounded in his helmet. They knew what to do. That didn’t make it easy.
Warnings to show Stafford and Fallaw’s rapid heartbeat increase flagged too. “No, shit,” he whispered. He’d have to get that seen to, but for now he snapped his carbine to his back and activated the null zapper on his gauntlets.
“Go!”
At his command, Fallaw sent a brace of grenades up the ramp while Stafford rushed around his outside, sending a four-second burst of darts into the waiting Hardits.
While Fallaw advanced past Stafford, Kraken was fully concentrating on the flashing red cylinder that was his HUD highlighting the grenade the Hardits had thrown at them.
He leaped at the deadly weapon as it rolled down the ramp, bringing his left hand outstretched above his head. The only other thing to do was hope.
The null zapper, or Blast Containment Field Emitter (Personal), was an adaptation of the static force shield technology that had been in use in the White Knight sphere of influence since long before the Earth even knew it had become a regional political issue.
The invisible force projection was short and curved beyond the gauntlet like a catcher’s mitt. Luckily, this time there was only one grenade and Kraken didn’t need to snatch it from the air.
He caught it in the null zapper’s field and angled his hand downward.
The grenade exploded, directing its force down to blow a hole through the floor. Dust and debris blew outward, hugging tight to the ground, but Kraken already had his head up and was alert to new threats.
His two team mates were dealing with the Hardit ambush, and there were no more grenades to handle for now.
Kraken blew out a breath and allowed himself to relax… just in time for new threat indicators to erupt into this HUD, which decided they were so significant that it imposed its own custom overlay view to show a 3D map of the local battlezone.
“Contact behind!” he shouted and turned to face the new threat, carbine ready.
They’d advanced up four circuits of the tower and checked carefully for surprises all the way, but they hadn’t been careful enough. Hardits were streaming out of a doorway concealed in the inner wall of the ramp. More threats were advancing up the ramp from farther down.
Hardits and Marines exchanged fire, filling the ramp with flying rounds and deafening noise.
Kraken was hit in the leg, but before his HUD could tell him the damage, he jumped and stayed high so the others could fire underneath him.
/> They would need all the carbines on their attackers as they could get. A dozen of the enemy were blazing away.
Kraken saw their surprise to see a Marine float above their heads. And he saw them raise their aim.
All three Marines were firing away, and several grenades were flying through the air toward the Hardits. But they hit an invisible barrier and rolled down to the ground. The monkeys had their own defenses against grenades!
The grenade explosions lifted Kraken against the overhead, buffeting him so he couldn’t get a good aim.
Expect the unexpected, he’d always been taught, and he certainly didn’t expect what came next.
Some kind of blue plasma blast slammed into the Hardits from behind. The reverse of the force shields that had protected them from the grenades now told against the enemy, catching the blast and reflecting it back at them. At the same time, grenades were lobbed through the concealed entrance and the gorgeous sound of an SA-71 sang its sweet melody, mowing down the Hardits from their rear.
“Hey!” Kraken called to his team. “The Old Man’s come to save us. Just like the good old days.”
Then his body decided to notice the multiple wounds that were hurting like hell, and he fell onto the ramp with a clumsy impact.
“Ungh, Sarge?” warned Stafford. “She don’t look like the Old Man to me.”
— Chapter 46 —
Sergeant Kraken,
Far Reach Strike Team, Arrow Squad
Inside the Victory Monument
The two parties sized each other up.
When he’d been briefed to expect friendly Marines under the command of General McEwan, Kraken had expected to find the Old Man and his team in obsolete-model ACE combat armor. The three who’d saved their asses were human, and even had the build of Marines, but they didn’t dress like them. At a stretch you might call their dark blue fabric clothing a form of battledress, but to be honest it looked like the kind of dirty overalls an Aux worker and their fleas might wear. The older woman carried a pistol and grenades, and the younger man a frakking lance! At least the Wolf woman who seemed to be in charge carried an honest SA-71, but it couldn’t belong to her any more than the Marine helmet, spouting tubes and wires, which she wore without a suit.
“What are your orders, Sergeant?” she demanded.
“I don’t report to a damned Wolf in a stolen Marine’s helmet. Who the hell are you?”
She removed her helmet, and his body tensed.
Wolves freaked Kraken out. Anyone who said they weren’t scared of the human attack dogs was lying because they were feral. Insane with no morals. No boundaries. No remorse.
This one’s eyes glowed fiercely but it wasn’t the usual berserker bloodlust passion, and… they were actually glowing. There were absolutely-frakkin-lutely glowing purple like ionized moist air. And her two weird companions had lilac eyes. And the lad with lance? Toss out his lilac eyes and replace with brown ones and there standing before him was the young Arun McEwan.
Frakk! He knew who they were.
Frakk! This would change a lot of things, but not yet. Tawfiq had an appointment with death that needed to come first.
“My apologies, ma’am. We are to clear this building of Hardits but prevent destruction of equipment. We’re linking up to take the ramp before…”
“Arrows here,” called out Stafford and Fallaw as five Marines joined them down the ramp, led by Corporal Malinga.
“They’re friendlies,” said Kraken, indicating the Wolf and her two comrades, “though I wouldn’t get too near in case they bite.”
“LT wants you to hold a three-Marine perimeter here,” said Malinga. “‘We’re headed out that breach to assault the east viewport from the outside.”
“And why hasn’t he told me himself?”
“He’s still at top. No signal.”
“Ahh.” Made sense, Kraken thought. The plan was to lock the top of the tower up tight with jamming and signal barricades.
As if the day couldn’t get any more bizarre, four mammoth Trogs trotted up the ramp to the obvious delight of the Wolf and her two human companions. The aliens had armored heads shaped like tank turrets, and a rider leaned into view from behind one.
“Arun!” cried the Wolf.
The man rendered his helmet transparent and there he was. The Old Man himself. Arun McEwan.
If Kraken had harbored any doubts about the Wolf’s identity, they were swept away by the look that flashed between the Old Man and his lover.
Then the intimacy was gone, and the two old companions were all business.
“Where’s the officer in charge?” McEwan asked Kraken. “We need to take the top now.”
“Lieutenant Chey is aware of that, sir. He has the matter in hand.”
Fallaw and Stafford joined Kraken in blocking the way up the ramp. Frakk, those Trog beasts were enormous! The humans had leaped into a slot cut through the middle of the three Trog segments and disappeared behind the head armor.
“Stand aside,” commanded the Old Man. “I’ve a score to settle.”
“No offense intended, General McEwan, but you can kiss my ass. You’ve proven yourself countless times, and we all owe you our lives, but none of that makes you a part of my team.”
He was all right that McEwan. He nodded his understanding without a fuss and led his strange band back down the ramp. “We’ll guard the lower floor, Sergeant.”
“Thank you, General. Give our regards to Plasma Squad. They should be there with your disabled Marines by the time you get down the bottom.”
“Did that really happen, Sarge?” mused Stafford when the general’s party had disappeared out of view.
“Yes, Andrew, it did. You just met a living legend riding a Trog into battle. If you can’t dine out on that for the rest of your life, then you haven’t been listening to a word I’ve taught you since you transferred into the Arrows.”
Fallaw gave half a laugh but seemed lost in thought. It wasn’t difficult to figure out why.
Arun McEwan hadn’t been the only legend they’d just encountered. But the other one had been very publicly put to death.
After today, the galaxy was going to be a very different place.
— Chapter 47 —
Marine Bryan
Far Reach Strike Team, Vengeance Squad
Top of Victory Monument
The scene of carnage stuffed Bryan’s guts with disgust. And yet, it also resonated with hope.
She was back in the same open space lined with human hide at the top of the obelisk. Only days ago, she had escaped by jumping into the Karypsic, though years had passed as far as the Hardits were concerned.
But this time, it had been the Far Reach team who enjoyed superior strength. The Janissary guards were all dead, and a quick glance out the western viewport showed Tawfiq’s forces were a smoldering wreck. The strange new updated Janissaries filled the mall in enormous numbers, but they seemed too drugged up to care about her team.
Maybe she would be able to go home after all. Meet up with her cousin’s family in one of the Far Reach colonies. Settle down. It was too strange a concept to process, but it could happen. Only this morning it had seemed impossible.
“Our usual spot, I think,” quipped O’Hanlon, indicating the place where they’d set up the GX-cannon days or years before.
He had to shove an empty stone chair out of the way, which screeched in protest, but yielded so she could fix the tripod while Jintu got the targeting system organized.
She’d done this a thousand times, but maybe her optimism had jinxed the gun set up because the tripod feet locking indicators refused to show green.
Typical.
She lifted the tripod and swept clean the floor beneath with the side of a boot. Shell casings, stone chips, and a Hardit fang formed a ring of debris she had cleared.
Still the damned thing wouldn’t lock down into the floor.
“Is he sightseeing again?” she asked Jintu, a little angry that O’Hanlon wasn’
t helping with the deployment of his own gun.
Jintu didn’t reply – perhaps she had been a little harsh – and she got down onto her knees to give the situation a closer inspection.
A splash of dark fluid on the cleared floor gave it away. The hydraulics for one of the foot claws was leaking the last of its content, probably severed by shrapnel.
“It’s no good,” she said, “we’ll have to settle for suboptimal stabilization.”
What was wrong with O’Hanlon?
She looked up at him, about to give the corporal a piece of her mind, but then she realized that if O’Hanlon wasn’t acknowledging, then her comms must have failed.
But when she rose to her feet and looked around the scene, a cold fist slowly twisting inside told her she had more to worry about than a failing comm signal.
The LT, O’Hanlon, Jintu and all the others were checking equipment, setting up fire positions, or huddled in conference as before, but no one was moving.
Had she been caught out of time?
Her HUD reported good life signs and excellent BattleNet connectivity, at least within this room. So why had everyone frozen?
“Vengeance-8 to all call signs. Please respond.”
Nothing.
The LT had been trying his damnedest to block any signal coming out of this space, so the lack of response wasn’t entirely a surprise. But that still left her dealing with this alone.
Bryan couldn’t bear to look her comrades in the face, to touch them, so she rushed to the viewport instead and looked outside. Black smoke was belching from the ruins of the tanks. A pair of wounded Janissaries were helping each other off the battlefield. The world on the outside was still moving through time.
She took a deep breath of courage and walked up to O’Hanlon, who had been caught in the process of talking with Jintu, both his arms out in the kind of expansive gesture so typical of her gun team lead.
“Sorry, O’Hanlon.” She gave him an exploratory shove. He moved. Just a fraction, and then a force resisted her. It wasn’t the corporal pushing back; it was more as if he were caught in a web of force.