“Short version is Kat has the key. Got it. You catch that lady? How long 'til you get here?” Kel asked.
Kat's comm popped in everyone’s ear. “Another round of blues had to be shown the door. Entering the tram tunnel now. Good news is I'll be there soon. Bad news is that Chen's tracking me. She's going to send more goons that I'm probably leading right to you.”
“Don't worry about that. Just get here.” Kel turned to Morpheus, “You have any way to block that?”
“If she is disconnected from the panamorphic environment, then neither will be able to track the other. My guess is she's using some other means. In any case, the blues she fought at the entrance would have pinged her location. Her most strategic course of action would be to find a more covert route to us or get here and eliminate any incoming threat.”
“Thanks Professor Obvious. You're a real help.”
“Most welcome, sir.”
Kel spun on his heel to respond but thought better of it. There was no use arguing with a machine calculating it was right because it was programmed to be. “Alright kids, trouble inbound. Eyes up and guns out. They're fixing to put a hurt to us.”
“The only thing they're going to have to fix is a ton of broken toys after we're done breaking them,” Fluff growled.
Twenty-Nine
Sergeant LaGarron snatched the Elysian Marine before he could run past the corner of the building. Blaster bolts from a twenty millimeter heavy blaster machine gun ripped up the street, finishing its tyrannical display of force by sheering off the side of the structure. Deprived of its sacrifice of young marine, the gun raked the other way, blowing past the troopers on either side of the street.
Leading entire platoons of Elysian Marines, the Devil Hunters broke through Outpost-1's defenses, invading the fortress city like a flood through a broken dam. Making their way across the ghost town avenues and byways had been easy until a deluge of blaster fire stopped them in their tracks. Scores of Swarm infected people of all descriptions, both human and alien, had surged from the protection of the buildings, using advanced military tactics to stall the lancer led advance.
“Paladin Alpha Six, this is Red-Seven. Sending two wounded and one KIA back along Avenue-Three to CCP Bravo. How copy, over?”
He barely heard the reply from the Paladin Company Commander, switching over the call to his squad leaders. “Sergeant Blaine, Sergeant Fortney, I need a fire and maneuver element to help me take out that gun.”
The two other NCOs flagged their thumbs up, shouting commands to their corporals to get the squads moving. One squad sunk into the shadows of a nearby building while another crossed the street using a combination of directed fire and guile.
“L.T., I'll be right back,” LaGarron said to the platoon commander. Directing his attention to another Marine, “Hey you. Yeah, you. Come with me. We're going to put a pounding on that crew. What's your name?”
“Lance Corporal Zaynia Collero.”
“You're with me, Collero.” LaGarron directed the marine to stay behind him as he shimmied into a first floor window. Helping her through, the two made a frantic dash for the third floor. On their next set of stairs, blaster fire streaked in through the walls, painting the hallway with smoking holes. One narrowly missed Collero's head. She hit the stairs hard with a shriek, taking cover against the incoming rounds.
LaGarron pulled her to her feet, taking notice that the tiny shout was due to a fifteen centimeter sliver of wood protruding through her arm. Holding her wrist, the lancer yanked out the offending shiv, immediately slamming a SLAP patch on it. “No time to think about making it through this or we'll never make it through this!”
The duo raced up the last flight of stairs, exiting on the third floor. The building had probably been designated command and control back when the first outpost had been built. Not needing it and having no reason to tear it down, the Chen had left it in place. An occasional ghostly hologram danced by dust encrusted office furniture sitting amid dangling wires. A stray blaster bolt flew into the room overlooking the street, vaporizing the carbodex ceiling tiles into a dusting of white powder.
LaGarron took cover from the street to watch the marine taking a knee. She studdied the lancer NCO, not believing what she was seeing. “Three flights of stairs, a SLAP patch, and huffing it into this room and you look like spring freshness. You got someone in that armor with you helping to push it along?”
“Just me and some of the best mechanized tech Athalon money can buy. Guard the door, marine. Going to dust this gun emplacement with a little note from home.”
“Is that a SAGA missile, Sergeant?”
LaGarron swiveled the tube from the magnalock on his back. Pulling on both ends, the launcher snapped into fire configuration, twice its folded length. Holograms sprang to life in his HUD, giving him firing solutions to the target. “That's it. Space, Air, Ground, and Aquatic Micro Missile System.”
“You guys have the best toys, Sergeant.”
“We try not to let it go to our heads, Marine. Plus, we like to share.” LaGarron lined up the shot against the gun crew currently suppressing the street.
Sergeant Blaine's squad was doing an impressive job of answering the gunfire with a tidal wave of their own, drawing the enemy to continue engaging them. Sergeant Fortney's squad was almost in position. They would catch the team in a crossfire so they wouldn't have time to rip off the side of the building LaGarron was currently standing in. The crossfire flared to life, pinning the enemy between the corner of a building and a slagged vehicle.
“All Paladin-Red elements, this is Red-Seven. SAGA out!” He flicked off the company freq and called back into the room, “Going hot!”
LaGarron liked working with Elysian Marines. They were typically better trained than their Elysian Army counterparts, especially when they worked beside a task force of lancers. The marines had a less spectacular explosive engagement system they called the Dust Devil. A type of rocket propelled grenade, the Duster was good for non-armored vehicles and engaging dug-in infantry. The Lance Corporal heard the preparatory command, meaning that she had to take cover.
“Back blast area clear!” LaGarron called out.
A large bore blaster bolt sailed into the window, punching LaGarron straight to the chest. The shock of the round catapulted him from his feet, knocking the launcher over a desk in the ruined office. The diminutive marine low crawled over to her wingman, reaching for the drag handle set on the back of every lancer's armor. Straining against his weight and that of his equipment, several grunting heaves were executed in order to pull the downed lancer to cover.
“Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead,” She muttered.
“Not... dead,” LaGarron croaked through the external speakers in his helmet. “Don't get up. Sniper.” Retinal tracking in his HUD accessed his desire to access the TACOM. Radio frequencies blurred by until it settled on the one he wanted. “Red-Six this is Red-Seven. Marking a sniper at three-four-two degrees, two hundred meters, my location. Request fire suppression on target. How copy, over.”
Orders were received and relayed, judging by the screaming NCOs in the background of the return call. “Read you Lima-Charlie, your last. Standby for CDM on your location. Red-Six out.”
“Collero, when I tell you, pick up that launcher and say sight-line. That will trigger the non-optic external holos to engage so you can fire the launcher. My armor held but my arm is dislocated. You have to make the shot.”
“Sounds like a good day to be a Marine!” Collero shouted. “Man, Corporal Travis is going to be heated he didn't get to do this.”
The mic inside his helmet squelched. “Red-Seven this is Red-Six. We have your tango at three-four-two degrees, two hundred meters, your location.” There was a pregnant pause where nothing came over the channel. “Splash one tango. You are Charlie Mike your discretion, how copy, over?”
“Good copy, Red-Seven SAGA out.” LaGarron sat up, propping his shoulder against the side of the office desk. He
found it funny that the previous owner had covered the side of the desk in children's stickers. One of them read World's Best Dad, in a word balloon over a child's rendition of what the world's best dad should look like. “Alright, Lance Corporal. Get that tube over your shoulder and send that gunner below us a love letter signed, sealed, and scorching care of the Elysian Marine Corps!”
There was no yahoo or any other exclamation from the wily junior enlisted. There was the activation code for the external optics followed by a pull of the trigger. The rocket rushed from the launcher, coughing a deluge of smoke packed force out of the back end. Carbodex drop ceiling tiles melted or were simply blown apart from the drive trail, showering the two war fighters in white powdery debris.
The missile impacted the gun crew, rupturing the power battery for the weapon. The explosion that followed sent the four man team flying into the air, on fire and screaming along their trajectory. The side of the building caught fire for a moment, finally succumbing to the force of the attack with the entire side crumbling to cover what was left of the gun. The stunned faces of blue jump-suited fighters in the opposite building remained that way for a fraction of a second. Their guns came up, swatting at Collero's floor from across the street. She ducked behind the cover of a desk and the office holoprojector, not bothering to hide the grin on her face from her less than full face helmet.
“What's so funny?” LaGarron shouted.
The Lance Corporal retracted the missile launcher, returning it to the magna-lock on LaGarron;s armor. “This reminds me of growing up in LaRocha on Elysium. We used to build forts and then cut loose with epic snowball fights.”
“Only if you see a snowball here, it's probably a grenade.”
“Speaking of which…” Collero said as she loaded a twenty millimeter grenade into the side breach launcher under her CR-45 blaster rifle. Priming the action arm, she risked exposing the weapon for just a moment. There was an audible POOT from the grenade sailing across the street. Another explosion ripped into the ruined building with less fire and fury than the SAGA. A second one lobbed in behind the first, popping into the death knell for the second half of the group shooting at them.
“If the briefing is right, they're not going to stay dead,” Collero said, her voice thick with annoyance. “Man, it hurts my brain to say that out loud. Come on, Sergeant. Let's get you someplace less exposed to patch up that fancy armor.”
Mara brought down the plasma sword in a high stroke, complete sheering off the arm of her attacker. A back swing brought the blade into the blue's chest, knocking her into a flock of reinforcements. She drew from the Crucible, generating an explosive wave of force, blasting the entire mob through a set of windows on an opposing building. Raising her hand, she drew together strands of power, causing the structure to shake. The angry Swarm-infected mob jumped to their feet just as the entire facade buried them beneath tons of rubble.
Mara retracted the blade on her plasma sword. “Twin Hells, that sucked.”
“You okay, Marshal?” Sergeant Corvin asked. He aimed his CR-55 at the mess of carcrete and carbodex. Behind him, an entire platoon of Elysian Marine Vipers secured the scene, protecting the Force Commander from additional threats as she recovered.
“Ma'am, all due respect, but if you run forward of us again, I'm going to have Private Kidomorra sucker punch you in the back end so you can't walk. You'll have to dedicate all your space magic to flying around without legs. Copy?” Lieutenant Haro barked.
Corvin almost choked when he heard the haughty Viper platoon commander bark at the senior most officer of the campaign. When Truveau didn't correct her, he figured the two women either had an understanding or the marshal would mud thump her later.
“Sergeant Corvin, we have another wave of the blues coming up Avenue-Seven, moving around the Palisade. I suggest we crawl in behind First Platoon and wait for Paladin Actual to field more Marines on the ground, before we do anything interesting.” Haro suggested.
Mara directed her attention from the wrecked building to the marine officer. She could tell the L.T. didn't want to have a lancer oust her platoon sergeant. She could also tell she liked having to babysit the operation's commander even less. Elysian Viper Marines were considered special operators tasked with surgical raids and long range tactical reconnaissance. There were few units tasked in the assault that could provide cover and security to the new chief, so they drew the short straw. Mara didn't want this to be any more painful for them than it had to be but she was having a hard time reining herself in. What she wouldn't give to be by herself with her Requiem Rifle, the open road, and a bandit clan to beat on.
“Make it happen, L.T.” Mara ordered.
“Don't mean to speak out of turn, ma'am, but weren't we sent here to liberate these people? Seems a lot of rounds going downrange into people we should be helping,” commented one of the Viper sergeants.
Lieutenant Haro watched for the marshal's response, as did Corvin. He could tell that on some level, Haro wanted this marshal to fail. There were many on Elysium that felt that way, but the marshals had spent decades keeping the shining jewel of the frontier safe, thus they weren't usually openly challenged.
“Sergeant Cerone. You are correct that we should be doing everything we can to help these people,” Mara agreed. “Please let me know what I can do for that? Also, can you please explain that to the dead marine whose throat was ripped out by one of the blues I just dropped a building on? For some reason, they aren't responding to my petition for them to put down their weapons and come out all peaceful like.”
Haro stepped in to support the marshal. “You heard her, Marine. Keep dusting until the dust clears.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
The Vipers were on the move. One element formed her security while other squads slithered along the alleys dispatching threats along the way. They were moving smoothly until they got choked at one tense intersection by a nearly platoon sized elements of Swarmers rushing them from above. They dropped from the third story, firing on the way down. Even from that height, the enhanced landed more from a jump than a fall, suffering no injuries despite the distance. Four of the Vipers were shredded by blaster pistol fire. When the blues hit the ground, they went to SMBs to take the marine threat, head on.
The aggressors moved like a cohesive unit, deploying tactics Mara remembered from going through LASSO, the lancer assessment and orientation course. The enemy wasn't acting like common conscripts. They were behaving like genetically augmented troopers with years of special operations experience. In the CORAL, the Hagen Accords made it a war crime to use genetically modified troops. Even in the Frontier, it was unusual to see, because no one past the Outer Boundary had the funds for such a thing. Even Swarm-tech on the other side of the border, which was legal, couldn't be made on this scale cheaply, especially with the level of performance they were seeing now.
Mara dropped her rifle to its sling in favor of her sword. The marshal swept across the enemy group like a broom shooing spiders off a porch. Sundered flesh split under burning jumpsuits as the fiery weapon counted off notches for her belt. The crew broke into teams to direct fire at the marshal from two separate directions, straining her ability to deflect the bolts in the Crucible.
Mara struggled to maintain the Crucible deflecting rounds aimed against her protective detail from the multi-pronged assault being leveraged against them. Corvin and Haro were quick to pick up on the change in tactics, directing the marines to lay down fire in concentrated patches against the group. The rest of the Vipers unleashed their fury against them in a barrage that shredded their assault. The squad leader for the blues, a tall Xoban, dropped to all six, trying to duck away from an acute case of ten millimeter induced death. Nanite infused blood from the fallen oozed to his body, absorbed under the exoskeleton common to his species.
Reinvigorated from the fresh donation of nanites, he bounded over to two of the marine fire teams picking up an SMB in two of his six arms. He fired his way into them, tak
ing down multiple troopers with rapid shots. The remaining team leader fired round after round repeatedly into his chest, horrified at watching them close almost immediately. The final sight of Corporal Madison Leumont, from Solvineaux on Elysium, was her body falling next to her severed head.
Mara flew into the fight, lopping off one of the Xoban’s legs. She spun in a tight arc, taking one of his arms for her effort. The creature dropped next to his lost stump long enough for the nanites to pull it back onto him. He rolled away, recovering the arm as well on his way back to his feet as though nothing had happened. Mara flung the blade through the center of his chest, the burning plasma field cooking him from the inside out. Recovering the Requiem, she blew gaping holes into multiple target points, walking forward into her target. Haro and Corvin followed suit, dumping multiple mags into the creature until it was nothing more than a smoking ruin.
The trio dropped to a knee to reload and recover.
“LANCE report,” Mara called out.
“We don't call it that, Force Commander. It's a LINE report for us. Liquid, Injury, Network, Equipment.”
Mara was starting to like this officer. Blunt, direct, and wanted her marines to be seen for their worth. “Fine, Lieutenant. LINE report then.”
Calls went back and forth through the street. As the platoon was being assessed, a runner from First Platoon dropped into their huddle, making good on the link up with the other group.
“Not looking good, ma’am. We have five Vipers capable, two snipers on over watch. We have ten wounded in need of CasEvac and –”
“Six dead,” Mara finished for Haro so she wouldn't have to say it. “L.T., gather your Vipers and get your wounded off this rock.”
“If it's all the same to you, ma’am, send that wounded lancer sergeant from the other platoon back with my people. I want to ride this right down the throat of the person responsible for my dead.”
The Revenant: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Hunter's Moon Book 2) Page 37