“Destota, I have to agree with Major Noku.” Dawes said, crossing her arms firmly and glaring at me. “This seems suicidal.”
I looked back and forth between them, and without really knowing why, my temper flared, and anger boiled up. I grabbed Ivata by his combat harness and slammed him against the wall. “I am sick,” I said, my voice deadly calm. “Of everyone assuming that because I believe firmly in the violence of action that I am somehow crazy, insane, or mentally unfit to lead in this organization. We have emerged victorious in every engagement in which I have been present, and our actions on Atom will reverberate through the galaxy as we take on the Gilbaglian Empire.”
Ivata swallowed and frowned but said nothing. “You don’t win wars by avoiding risks, Major,” I turned and looked at Dawes. “You don’t win wars by avoiding the inevitable. I knew, and all of you knew that coming to this system to face the Meyges could mean the end of all our lives. Sitting here waiting for reinforcements so we can safely do something is pointless.”
Ivata reached up one hand and put it on my wrist, gently. “You’re right, Colonel, and I apologize.” I released him and took a step back. “I suppose we have all become so adapted to enjoying the safety of a starship that some of us forget that there is still warfare to be waged on a planet.”
I nodded once and saw Dawes nod as well. I turned back to the munitions locker that held our heavy explosives. I secured the magnetic packs to my lower back, where the armor encased my body. This was new, and specialized armor freshly created by Vandorian Arms, the weapon suppliers that kept our equipment functional.
It was all black and partially mechanized, the gloves and arms had strong motors in them that increased our grip in zero gravity. The new helmet looked positively strange with a long attachment for range-finding and in-depth HUD that also showed a targeting reticle. It was ablatively covered to protect against the energy weapons that they Meyges used, and it also provided full-body coverage to protect against the damage caused by the swords the Gilbaglians carried. I would still carry a sword, but I’d also gotten a weapon upgrade. I now carried three thousand rounds on a drum in my right hip, which were belt-fed to an upgraded rifle that was shooting a six-point-eight-millimeter depleted uranium armor-piercing, fin-tipped round.
“Colonel Valentine is correct.” Rumbled a deep voice from behind me. I turned to find the Shipmaster standing in the doorway. “And Major Noku is also correct.”
The ancient Cetoplin moved into the room and stood with his massive hands clasped behind his back. “But you must remember that these enemies are vile and will kill without remorse.”
“Good thing I love killing birds.” I replied, pulling a bandoleer of grenades around my torso and securing the strap. “When did you sneak onboard?”
“We’ve been here since you left Earth, in an advisory role. I understand that you have lost one of your strike team.”
“No offense,” I said, securing an extra drum of ammo to my left leg. This made Dawes gasp. “But you’re a little old for this one, Shipmaster.”
“I agree, however,” He gestured and two armored Cetoplin stepped into the room. “First and Third class would like to join your unit, Colonel.”
I scoffed and shook my head. “Didn’t your people get slaughtered by the Gilbaglians the last time you fought on the ground?” I pulled my sniper rifle out of the locker and Ivata spoke.
“How many weapons are you planning on needing?”
“I only regret that I only have two arms.” I replied with a cool tone. I rounded on the Cetoplin. “Look, no disrespect, sir, but my own people don’t want to follow me into this one. How about you and your people just sit this one out?”
Shipmaster looked taken aback. “Colonel, we have been warriors…”
“I’ve been training for this since I was six.” I replied. “My father taught me, and then the Vandorian government taught me more.” I pushed the huge rounds for my rifle into loops on my combat harness, twenty in all, and selected a suppressor from the locker as well for the big rifle. Dawes openly gaped. I slammed the locker door shut, my armor making clicking sounds as I moved to look at the assembled group.
“I don’t have enough practice at this shit to know when I’m being an idiot.” I snapped. “And frankly, I’m done caring. I’ve been fighting this war since the Phelbs attacked Vandor thirty years ago, and now I have to fight people I thought were the allies of the human race. Now I find out that I have to fight your ancient enemies,”
I held out an armored, gloved hand in the knife-hand gesture at Shipmaster. “Because apparently nobody in any fucking galaxy can take care of their own fucking problems.” I kicked shut the locker that hadn’t quite managed to shut itself.
“I’m sick of it.” I said with real anger. “I am sick of hearing about how crazy I am. I am sick of hearing about how violent I am. I am sick of being on motherfucking starships while they shoot at each other and I can just stand here with my dick in the wind and hope I don’t get blown up. I want to go home, oh, but wait,” I held up a hand.
“The Gilbaglians destroyed my home planet. I want,” I said, turning and picking up my helmet. “To go home to my wife and meet my daughter when she is born. I’d like to maybe just do something simple like live and die in a normal way, but no, here I am, solving everyone else’s problems.” I rammed my helmet down onto my head. “So, if you’re not with me, then get the fuck out of my way.”
I picked up the massive bag of gear that I’d filled before Ivata and Dawes had ambushed me to tell me what a bad idea this jump was going to be and strode out of the room. I didn’t stop, even when Ivata asked me to, I just kept walking. I would go to Atom my damn self if I had to, to stop this nonsense. I was getting sick of war beyond anything I can explain.
I walked into the hangar bay and strode straight up to my aeroshell. The rest of the unit was assembled, geared similarly to me, and they ascended ladders into the shells, which were made of a composite polymer that would slowly flake away as we descended to the surface, and would break away in layers until we were about ten thousand feet above the green forests of the planet, and then it would deploy the soldier inside and let our parachutes open.
“Anyone else not want to go?!” I shouted.
“Sir, no sir!” Came the resounding reply.
I brought up a menu on my head-up display to examine the bio signs of the soldiers as they climbed into their shells. Then a new one was added onto the bottom: Noku, Ivata: Major. He’d decided to join me after all, and I was grateful for that. I knew he wasn’t a coward, but he had grown too use to fighting from the ship.
“Captain Dawes, launching in ninety seconds. Begin diversionary bombardment.”
“Copy.” She replied in a clipped tone.
“Colonel Valentine,” A new voice over the comm. “Shockwave is going to make a plough run through the enemy formation, follow our trajectory, you will have cover with the debris on the way through.”
“Copy that, Captain Jones.” I replied. “We appreciate the support.”
A plough run through the enemy formation would basically just be the Shockwave firing all her weapons and diving through the formation, making the enemy ships move. The action would absorb all enemy attention, and also probably cause some severe damage.
“Makalos will also make a plough run.” Said the voice of Captain Jolis Dare, a Phelb, from Australia like Creston Severson. “Best of luck, Colonel.”
So, the Dreadnoughts would rip the Gilbaglian formation apart, and we would drop through the holes made. I updated the information on the HUD, loving the information available to me and the others.
“Colonel?” Ivata’s voice, and an icon appeared that showed this was a private connection.
“Yes, Major?”
“I apologize. You are right, we need to do this. But don’t ever slam me against a wall again.”
I chuckled. “You’ve got a deal, Major.”
The countdown timer on my HUD read 0:00, and the a
eroshells were hurled from the ship. On the display I watched a sensor view from the outside of the shell, as the big dreadnoughts veered off from their primary course and turned directly towards the formation of Gilbaglian ships, which looked long and spindly compared to the brick-like bulk of the Vandorian ships. Weapons of every variety possessed by the Vandorian Fleet spat fire in every direction, each one hurled with lethal precision towards an enemy.
The three unknown contacts that hovered at the edge of sensor range came into view and I blinked to zoom in on them and saw that they were not, as we’d feared, Meyges transports. Sensor data finally rolled in and…
“Abort, abort, abort!” I shouted into the comm. Instantly, the aeroshells broke apart into tiny shards and the suit thrusters attached to our armor engaged to push us together. “Night Stalkers, cold breathing mode.” This would effectively make us invisible to the enemy ships. “Shockwave, we need a tow.”
“A tow?” Jones shouted. “Are you out of your fucking mind!?”
“No.” I said with a grin. “We need a tow to those three transient contacts.”
“Why would you want to go out there?” She shouted.
In reply, I linked to the computer on the Shadow of Eternity and sent images that I had recovered from my mission to the flagship. I sent them to Jones and Dare, and there was a full thirty seconds of silence on the comm.
“What is the situation?” Dawes finally demanded.
“Extending tow line now, Colonel.” Jones said.
“I need six volunteers.” I said. Ivata, Davos, Miller, Jones, and to my surprise, Daniels signaled readiness. That made six, I guess, fuck it. “Alright,” I said firmly. “Listen up, Night Stalkers, I want anyone not coming with us to proceed on mission to the surface of Atom, harass the Gilbaglians. Everyone with me,” I brought up and transmitted the images of the three contacts. “These are Gilbaglian super destroyers. They carry the leadership of the Gilbaglian people, and despite their size, they are wildly under-staffed. They each carry four of the leaders, with the lead ship carrying five.” I designated targets, then designated Ivata and Davos to one ship, Miller and Jones to another, and the leading ship, Rosita Daniels and myself.
“This is…the highest risk of mission, boys.” I said softly.
“Sir.” A voice I didn’t quite recognize. Through the carnage of the battle around us, I saw the icon for the tow line that had been fired towards my group, and I turned myself slowly to orient on it. “This is First Class.” The voice said in my helmet. The Cetoplin.
“Go ahead.” I replied, holding one hand up slowly, and ordering my armor to detach from the main group and only the six of us to be towed off behind a warship traveling at almost a quarter of light speed in the opposite direction.
“We are tethering off with you.” The Cetoplin said. “We will accompany you to the primary flagship.”
“I told you to stay on the ship.” I snapped.
“Human, while we respect your combat abilities…” He chuckled. “We have been fighting this war much, much longer.”
“Seems like you were hiding on a hidden planet for most of it, but whatever.” Ivata quipped. He was back in his better frame of mind, then.
“We were in hiding because our ships were damaged. We fought as long as we could before we escaped to the surface.”
“Cut the chatter, you’re coming or you’re not.” I snapped. “Three, two, one…”
The tow cable from Shockwave caught up to us, magnetically grabbed our tether line…
…and I felt like my eyeballs leaped out of my head and touched the inside of my visor.
The acceleration was crushing for several moments as the cable began to retract into the ship to make it shorter. Shockwave barreled ahead through the debris and the destroyed ships, then turned sharply. “Release in five…” I grunted through the pain.
Four seconds later it released the first group, then the second, and finally my group, now of four, directly at the ship. Jones had timed the maneuver perfectly.
“Okay, Valentine,” Jones said over the comm. “If you pull this one off, the first round is on us tonight.”
“Jones, if we pull this off, we might get to go home.” I replied, straightening my body and aiming myself at the bow of the Gilbaglian starship.
“Colonel Valentine.” Uh oh, I thought. It was Mallory, on the secure comm from Earth. “What in the fuck are you doing?”
“Um.” I said, thinking quickly as the bridge of the starship began to swell in my vision. They wouldn’t be too likely to see four small shapes hurtling through the void at them. “The person you have called is not answering at this time?” I said lamely.
“Is it really the Gilbaglian leadership?” She asked.
“Even if it isn’t them, it is their ships.” I said.
“You do remember what happened the last time you tried this, right?”
“Well, I remember destroying a command and control flagship, if that is what you mean.”
“I remember thinking you were dead.”
“How about I leave the helmet camera on this time. Would that make you happy?”
“How about the next time you decide to change your objective mid-mission to clear it with your leadership?”
“I don’t answer to the Navy.” I rolled my eyes.
“No, but you do answer to me, as the commander in chief of the armed forces.”
Well, shit. She had me there. “Yeah, so, we decided to switch objectives…”
“Uh huh. Your helmet feed stays on, Valentine.” Her voice softened. “Be careful.”
“Do my best. Landing now, might get ugly.”
“Ugly how?”
I pulled the massive rocket launcher out of my drag bag that was still attached to me and aimed it. “I really need to focus here.”
“Destota, is that a rocket launcher?” Ivata asked.
“Sure is, can everyone please stop talking to me for a moment?” I asked.
I lined up the sight on a spot in the hull, that I’d identified from the plans I’d gotten as a weak point in their armor and fired. The rocket sped away from me, my thrusters keeping me from tumbling off in the opposite direction. I tracked the rocket on my HUD and watched as it ripped a gaping hole in the hull.
“Three feet by two feet.” Ivata said.
“Hope your aim is good, Daniels.” I said, tucking my arms and legs and shooting straight for the hole. I slipped through, rolled and let my thrusters bring me to a stop. The damn gravity was so light I felt like superman, after training for the last weeks in heavy gravity.
I rolled to one side and let the others land behind me, the Cetoplins landing feet-first easily.
The Gilbaglians were there waiting for us. The funny thing about their weak point, is it was right above the ship’s barracks. So, there was no sneaking aboard this time.
“Humans!” Some Gilbaglian shouted.
I shot him in the face. “Shut up.” I replied.
Then the battle was on for real. The four of us ripped through the unprepared Gilbaglians, even as three of their behemoths, genetically messed up warriors staggered into the battle. It took less than five minutes, and when it was over, I stood checking over my rifle and making sure the new weapon hadn’t suffered any damage. Then I picked up my drag bag and walked towards the doors behind Daniels and the Cetoplin. A Gilbaglian hand reached up and grasped my leg, causing the others to spin around and train their weapons on him. I reached down and looked at him, the dying alien glaring at me.
“Evil…human…”
I felt sort of bad for him, laying there in a pool of his own excrement from his ripped-apart innards, blood, and brain matter of his companions. So, I decided to give him a gift.
I pulled a grenade off my bandoleer, activated it, and slapped it into his hand. “Here, hold this.” I said, then stepped over him and out the open hatchway, where the others had engaged more Gilbaglians. I stepped out into the firefight and felt two rounds glance off my armor. I l
ooked down and then walked forward into the fight, walked right up to the Gilbaglian closest to me, and grabbed him by the throat. I lifted him off the deck and looked him in the eyes.
“Are your leaders on this ship?” I growled at him.
The alien nodded, eyes wide with terror, and raised a hand to point towards the center of the ship. “C-….C-…Citadel.” It gasped.
“Thank you so much.” I said in my friendliest voice.
Then I gripped his body with my other hand and ripped his head from his shoulders.
I dropped the remains and walked forward, drawing my pistol with my right hand, picking up my bag with my left. I fired four times, killing the other Gilbaglians, and walked towards the center of the ship. Daniels caught up to me as we strode down the long, wide corridor and glanced up at me.
“Yes?” I asked.
“You…um, don’t like these guys much, do you?”
“Not particularly.” A behemoth stepped around a corner and I stopped, turned and fired twice into it’s face. It didn’t die, so I holstered my pistol and dropped my bag as it raised fists that each were as large as my head. The others fanned out and began to fire on other defenders, I looked up at the alien and then drew my sword.
“I hate them for destroying Vandor.” I said calmly, swinging as the alien struck at me, and severing an arm. “I hate them for killing my Lieutenant,” Another swing, the other arm. “And I hate them for lying to my people for five thousand years.” I decapitated the behemoth, which had spent its last moments of life bellowing in agony. I turned, threw my sword on a flat arc, and decapitated another Gilbaglian, then turned and punched my fist into the chest of another that rounded the corner at the wrong moment. I glared into its odd goat-like eyes and gritted my teeth. “Fuck you.” I said, then pulled my bloody arm back at held up the heart I grasped in my gauntlet for the others to see. I dropped the bleeding organ to the deck and stepped on it as I went to recover my bag. The others broke and ran, and my companions just stared at me.
Requiem of a Nightmare Page 22