Magnus was out of breath when he punched through the rooftop door and stepped back into broad daylight. “This way!” he ordered, pointing to the northern edge. They bypassed several mortar emplacements that had been ranged in to cover the beach—Magnus had no doubt the weapons would be fired up soon in order to cover the COP’s southern border.
As soon as he looked down, Magnus’s AI began overlaying friendly and enemy positions on his HUD. Fire teams two and three were advancing methodically, but more ’kuda kept appearing from the trees. Magnus wondered if they’d found a cave with some sort of ocean access inside the mountain.
“Flow,” Magnus said, “see how far back you can start taking them out.”
“Copy that,” Flow replied. The Marine had already removed the MS900 sniper blaster from his back and was opening the bipod under the barrel.
“Mouth, Cheeks, I want you leading the fire teams, but no friendly fire.”
“Roger,” the two men replied as they began shooting targets marked by the fire team below.
Magnus leaned against a cooling unit and steadied his breathing. “In position, lieutenant,” he said to Wainwright.
“I see you,” replied the CO. “Happy hunting.”
Magnus shouldered his MC90, activated the sights, and double-checked that his helmet was paired with the weapon’s firing system. His weapon wasn’t like the fancy new prototypes the Corps was developing. But the MC90 was reliable and—despite only having two firing modes—was fairly versatile. Plus, in a firefight, the best weapon was the one you were shooting
Magnus called out three targets for Flow before taking aim at a ’kuda snaking down a trail to the far right. The fish had clearly chosen its path well, avoiding the central blaster fire from teams two and three. Magnus guessed it had plans to flank the Marines. The ’kuda’s plan probably would have worked too, were it not for the two rounds that Magnus placed center mass. The fish fell down an embankment and stopped dead against a palm tree trunk. In comic relief only a Marine could appreciate, a coconut fell from its lofty height and landed on the ’kuda’s head. No way anyone’s believing that one, Magnus thought to himself as he filed the occurrence under “Stories I’ll Never Tell.”
The Akuda continued to charge from the jungle, racing down the volcano’s southern face. By mid-afternoon, the Fearsome Four were running low on ammo as their superior position had afforded them a continuous supply of targets. Fortunately, fire teams from second platoon came to resupply them.
“The platoon commander says we can relieve you if you want,” said the team lead, her accent heavy, and one Magnus couldn’t quite place.
“Thanks, Sergeant Meenaz, but if it’s all the same to you, we’ll stay on until the flow stops.”
Apparently unable to resist the opportunity, Lance Corporal Michael “Flow” Deeks replied, “Oh, the Flow never stops, baby.”
Meenaz looked at Flow and then back to Magnus. “Whatever works for you guys, we’re good.”
“Welcome to the party,” Cheeks added over comms, giving Meenaz a super cheesy tip of his helmet.
“Dumbass,” Mouth said over a private channel. “You know she can’t see your face.”
“Exactly,” Cheeks replied. “Right now, I’m her wildest fantasy.”
“Hey, Mr. Wild Fantasies,” Magnus said. “Why don’t you turn your attention to the three ’kudas coming down your left flank.”
“Dammit!” Cheeks yelled. He spun around and brought his MC90 to high ready position then fired on the trio.
2
The afternoon turned out to be a steady defense of the village as ’kuda poured down the volcano’s side face and assaulted the hotel. TACNET data and comms updates revealed that the rest of the hastily created COP was experiencing similar assaults with equal success. The enemy wasn’t throwing everything they had at the village. “Just enough to wear us down,” Magnus said to himself.
“What was that, sergeant?” Flow asked.
Magnus sighted in on a fish who was slinking through a cluster of boulders. “Just talking to myself, Flow.” He squeezed his MC90’s trigger, sending a blaster bolt through the woods and into the ’kuda’s chest. A second shot landed centimeters from the first, boring a small hole in the fish. It slumped forward into a rock, the last of his breath escaping through the new outlet.
“About how the ’kuda are wearing us down?” Flow asked.
“Something like that.” Magnus fired on another fish that was making a run for a large fern. The trio of blaster rounds caught it mid-stride, causing it to tumble head over heels. It collapsed, shooting up forest debris in its wake. The whole afternoon had been like this—taking out one fish after another. “Just feels like they want to keep us occupied, draining our resources.”
“Copy that,” Flow replied. Magnus watched the lance corporal send a single blaster bolt from his MS900 into a fish’s head, obliterating its skull.
The Akuda weren’t exactly the smartest aggressors in the quadrant. In fact, they’d been known to send countless fish to their deaths for reasons Magnus never understood. But when the planet’s oceans seemed to offer an endless supply of the gill-headed bastards, what did it matter? Sure, the morality of willfully sending thousands upon thousands of soldiers to certain death seemed insane to Magnus… but he wasn’t a fish. For all he knew, that was completely logical—and ethical—to the Akuda.
But Magnus also had a strange feeling that maybe the Akuda weren’t as dumb as everyone thought. The fish had demonstrated a level of groupthink that was startling, organizing mass movement without the use of conventional communication systems. And they certainly fought like mad hellions in close quarters combat, schooled in some sort of primal fighting techniques that the Corps had been trying to reverse engineer for over a year. It was only the Repub’s superior weaponry that had given the Marine’s a temporary advantage along the way, but all energy weapons need ammunition and maintenance. Which meant maybe this war wasn’t going to be about firepower…
It was going to be about attrition.
And that’s why Magnus was worried. It didn’t matter how good your weapons were or how well your troops fought. If you couldn’t resupply your warriors, no amount of battlefield superiority would help you win a war of overwhelming numbers. The Marines might kill a hundred of the fish for every ten Marines, but the fish would just keep coming until there were no more Marines to resupply.
Cheeks had just finished downing a pair of ’kuda making their way down a wee-worn path near the volcano face’s middle when Magnus heard voices on the roof behind him.
“Need any help, sergeant?” someone asked.
Magnus noted that the person wasn’t speaking over TACNET, just open air. So he expected to see a civilian when he turned around. Instead, he was met by four Marines in black and gray Mark VI armor, carrying their helmets under their arms. They were also wielding… the prototype MAR30. Neither the armor nor the blaster were in production yet. Supposedly. He’d fired that weapons platform once during a battalion demo day, but it was rumored to be years away from production. And the Mark VI suit? He’d guessed it wouldn’t see the light of day anytime soon either. But, damn if it didn’t look good.
“If you’re in the mood to fish for your dinner, be my guest,” Magnus said, removing his helmet in order to talk with them face to face. He extended his hand toward the foremost Marine. “Sergeant Adonis Olin Magnus.”
“Sergeant Adam Musgrave,” the man replied. “We’re with the—”
“The 79th Recon,” Magnus interjected.
“What gave it away?”
“Actually?” Magnus eyed the man from head to toe. “It was the beards. Nothing sticks out like non-reg.”
Musgrave and the other three operators chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“First thing I did when I got out of indoctrination school,” a second Marine said, feeling his orange-colored beard, “was grow it out.”
“It only took you twelve months,” said another man i
n the squad.
When the heckling died down, Magnus said, “Well, nice to have you boys here. But only for a few minutes, I’m assuming?”
Musgrave nodded. “We had intel that ’kuda were massing in this direction and we were asked to check it out, but it looks like you’ve got it under control. So we’re being tasked with an op further downrange.”
“I’d hardly call this massing,” Magnus said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder, “but it’s keeping us out of trouble.”
“I hear that,” Musgrave said. “If we ain’t shooting something, we’re pissing on something else.”
“And pissing only gets Marines in trouble,” Magnus replied.
“Oorah,” said the red-headed Marine behind Musgrave.
“Say,” Musgrave said, wiping a finger over Magnus’s name placard on his chest, “I’ve heard of you, sergeant. Well, maybe not you, but—”
“He was my grandfather.”
Musgrave gave Magnus an impressed look with a raised eyebrow. “You don’t say. Not every day you meet the grandson of an esteemed war hero. You have a brother too?”
“Argus. He’s with our company, fourth platoon.” Magnus could practically feel the Fearsome Four ease their fire rate—he’d never talked about his family with them.
“Damn. Two Magnuses in one conflict. ’Kuda bitches better run.”
Magnus cleared his throat. “Well, like I said you’re welcome to pull up a chair and score some kills if you guys want.”
But Musgrave waved him off. “No way we’re squatting on someone else’s perch, Magnus. We’d better get a move on anyway. Daylight’s slipping, and recon does their best work in the dark.”
Magnus extended his hand again, saying, “Pleasure to meet you gents.”
“Hold up,” Musgrave said, reaching to his chest plate. He de-magged a black sheath from his armor and flipped it over in his hand. Then, pointing the handle toward Magnus, he said, “This is for you.”
Magnus looked down at the offered gift, taken aback by Musgrave’s generosity. The spec ops boys always got all the fun toys, so even without seeing the knife, he knew it was high-end kit. Exchanging small tokens of appreciation, recognition, or even friendship was fairly normal in the Corps. But when something like this was extended… well, Magnus knew it was no small thing.
He took the sheath and pulled out a prototype duradex combat blade, then he whistled. “What’s this for?”
“For being stone cold,” Musgrave said. “Those three sluggers behind you haven’t stopped firing since we got here, which means they respect your orders, and you turned to meet us instead of telling one of them to, which means you were willing to deal with what was most likely an inspection from a butt-scrunched CO instead of making them do it.”
Not willing to negate his points, Magnus replied, “Thank you, sergeant.”
“My pleasure. And do yourself a favor when this is all done.”
“What’s that?”
“Consider the recon. We could use some heat like you. All four of you.”
Magnus looked at the knife and then back to Musgrave. “Maybe we will.”
“I’ll put in a good word for you with Caldwell,” Musgrave added with a wink. “We don’t hand those knives out to just anyone, ya know. Own the field, bitches.”
“OTF,” Magnus replied.
* * *
“No fair,” Cheeks said, looking over at Magnus. “I want a knife.”
“You don’t get a knife,” Mouth said. “The mystics already gave you a cock the size of a Madras donkey’s. Knives are for everyone else.”
“Hey, speak for yourself,” Flow said, throwing Mouth an elbow a second after he dispatched a ’kuda with his MS900.
“I’m just saying, Cheeks here’s got—”
“We’ve all seen,” Flow said. “No need to revisit my nightmares.”
Magnus sighted in on a cluster of ’kuda taking cover behind a copse of palms. While he could eventually pick them all off himself, it’d be more efficient if he had some help. “Hey, big dick and friends, shift right. Marking the targets on your HUD.”
The boys laughed as Magnus felt them turn to the right. They locked onto the icons he’d illuminated and opened fire. Their blaster rounds met plenty of targets that poked around the trees, but even more ripped their way through the trunks and hit the fish where they hunched. With so much overwhelming fire, the enemy toppled out from behind the palm grove like wheat cleaved from a field.
“You thinking of putting in for recon school?” Flow asked.
Mouth answer first. “After that invite, he’d better be.”
“Damn straight,” added Cheeks. “You get a bead to the major like that, you take it.”
The truth was, Magnus didn’t need the favor. He already knew Caldwell—no small thanks to his grandfather. But this was the very thing he was trying to avoid. Favors. He didn’t want handouts, he wanted justice. You get what you earn, and you miss what you weren’t good enough to target yourself. So he had a hard time knowing what Musgrave saw in him—a Marine worth his plate armor or just another Magnus.
“Maybe when all this is over, I’ll look into it,” Magnus said. “You never know. But I’ll only do it on one condition.”
“Dick enlargement therapy?” Mouth asked.
“Shut up, Mouth,” Flow said, this time striking him with the butt of his weapon.
“Watch it!”
“I’m taking you with me,” Magnus said.
“Right.” Flow chuckled. “Cause that’s how it works.”
Magnus knew what Flow meant. You didn’t pick who went with you to one side of the Corps or another. That was like shouting at the ocean and telling it not to send waves to a certain part of the beach. No, the Repub told you where you were going, and that was that.
But if Magnus was going to leverage his connection to Major Caldwell, it wasn’t going to be for himself. It’d be for these three mag draggers. Flow, Mouth, and Cheeks had been with him… to hell and back, and then back to hell a few more times. They’d weathered splick no one had seen before, at least as far as Magnus imagined. So if there was some way into an elite fighting unit that got to do things for the Repub that made a difference, he wanted to see them going. They deserved it. More than anyone else, and certainly more than him.
“I’m serious, boys.” Magnus tracked and fired on another fish, dropping it in a flopping heap of gills and fins. “If the Corps wants me in recon indoctrination school, then they get all of us. If not, no deal.”
Flow ceased fire and looked over at Magnus. “Mystics, you’re serious right now, aren’t you.”
Flow couldn’t see his face, of course, but Magnus was giving him the most serious look he could. “And if they don’t want us, I’ll buy you your damn knives. That goes double for you, Cheeks—dick or no dick.”
“Definitely dick,” Cheeks said.
3
First, second, and third platoons held the village on T’io Mi’on well into the evening, resisting the Akuda’s steady assault with unrelenting streams of fire on both northern and southern advances. Unlike some of the other firefights Magnus had endured, this one was relatively benign, though he and the others still lamented the unnecessary loss of three of the four Marines who’d accompanied the Luma emissary to the bridge. Magnus knew the event would remain with him long into the future, standing out as a sore spot in the conflict. He’d already distrusted the Order and their methods, but now—seeing everything firsthand—he swore he’d never trust a Luma again. Mystic bastards, he thought.
As Magnus finished debriefing with Wainwright in the company’s makeshift HQ—a deluxe bungalow in the hotel’s shadow—he walked out to find the rest of the Four lounging in some broken lawn chairs by a fire pit.
“Damn, this martini is good,” Flow said with his helmet off. He sipped from the water line protruding from his collar, making a show of how amazing it tasted.
“You wish,” Magnus said. The truth was, they were all ready for so
me much-needed leave. It had been ten months since their last evac to Capriana, and they’d seen their fair share of action since then. In fact, the last two months had provided the most intense engagements of the entire conflict. Their platoon had cycled out more than half its numbers, and Magnus knew Mouth and Cheeks were both showing signs of PTSD, though neither man would admit it, and Magnus was reticent to bring it up.
Rumors of Marines having psychotic breakdowns during the lulls in between firefights were becoming more common too. Several arrests had been made in barracks where things had gotten out of hand. Fortunately, none of Magnus’s direct reports needed to be subdued… at least not yet. He cursed the day that he’d need to order one of the Four to stand down.
Magnus pulled up the splintered remains of a wooden cabana chair and sat by the fire. “Pour me one, would you, Flow?”
“No problem, sergeant,” he said, then leaned into Magnus’s face with his neck.
“Mystics, Flow, this isn’t a make-out session!” Magnus shoved the man off him. “Plus, you smell like splick.”
“You don’t smell much better.”
All four of them laughed as Magnus set his helmet on the grass. He leaned back and looked up at the stars. “Mystics, if this were any other season of my life.”
“Copy that, big daddy,” Cheeks said. Then he put his arms up as if leaning them over the shoulders of some imaginary people on his lap. “I have a blonde on this leg and a brunette on this one.”
“Just two?” Mouth asked, looking at Cheeks in amazement.
“Nah…” Cheeks placed both hands a half a meter from his groin as if he were holding a space ball. “Third one’s right here.”
“Yeah, you wish,” Flow said, kicking Cheek’s hands away from his crotch.
“What about you, Magnus?” Cheeks asked. “You never talk about having girls back home.”
“For one thing,” Magnus said, studying the stars, “it’d just be one girl.”
“Come on now, sergeant,” Mouth said. “We all know you’re man enough to—”
Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6 Page 64