by Richard Fox
“They come from the city?” Hoffman stepped back from the window and raised his rifle, keeping the barrel within the building to keep from flagging out the opening. Scanning around with the gauss rifle’s optics, he caught a glimpse of the centaur aliens rushing out of a building.
“Gates are still closed,” Duke said. “They just showed up out of nowhere.”
“Target with a heavy weapon,” Booker called out from the second floor. “Building ten mark three. East side. Moving south. There’s armor there about to—”
“Got it,” Duke said. Ice Claw’s twin vanes flared with electricity and a hypersonic round shot through the accelerators with a crack.
“Target down.” Duke cycled the weapon’s bolt without moving his eyes from the optics.
“New battery pack?” Hoffman asked.
“Nope,” Duke said. “Taking Sanheel. Don’t need full power. Any of their bastardized armor show up, that’ll change things.”
“Do you want to fight insane Rakka brains grafted into walking murder machines?” Garrison asked. “Because that’s how you get to fight…what’s that tremor?” The breacher pointed at the ground.
The rubble shifted, like a great worm was moving through the broken flooring and dust, then it burst up in an explosion of dirt and masonry.
“Rook rook!”
Rakka clambered up and out of a hatch that had been hidden in the ground floor. They wore crude-looking breathing masks over their lower jaws—plastic tubes connected to tanks on their backs. One beat a crudely made cleaver against the ground and locked its yellow eyes on Hoffman.
Hoffman snapped his rifle up to his hip and opened fire, killing a pair of Rakka, but it did little to stem the tide as more of the aliens flooded into the building.
Duke’s table went flying as the Rakka rampaged through their fighting position.
Hoffman fired his weapon on full auto, gauss bullets ripping through the aliens, each shot hitting two to three before embedding in one of the Kesaht foot soldiers.
“Frag out!”
Hoffman heard the warning but kept firing until his magazine ran out.
The grenades exploded with a crump, shredding Rakka and leaving small pockets of emptiness amongst the rush of bodies.
Hoffman slapped fresh rounds into his weapon just as a Rakka reached him, its yellow eyes bloodshot and alive with hate. The Rakka slapped his barrel aside, directing Hoffman’s fire into its companions.
The Rakka leapt against Hoffman, pinning his rifle against his body in the press and bear-hugging the lieutenant as it tried to bite at Hoffman’s helmet. Hoffman got an up-close look at the Rakka’s maw as its breath fogged his visor.
More hands grabbed at him, pulling his arms and legs away as Hoffman struggled and got an arm free to punch at the Rakka holding him fast.
“Sir!” Opal’s shout carried over the din of battle. “Sir!”
A blast hit the building, like a rogue wave that came out of nowhere to destroy a day on the beach. One moment Hoffman was fighting for his life, the next he was falling, jostling against Rakka and bricks until he hit the ground hard. A hunk of masonry struck the side of his head, shorting out his HUD and his optics.
He looked up and around a dark cavern, tile walls barely visible in what little light made it through the hole he’d fallen through. Rakka struggled in the destruction around him, bones broken, flesh torn in the fall.
He got to his feet and looked over one shoulder. There was a light in the distance. A tunnel. Shadows moved against the light, hulking heads and shoulders of Rakka.
The light grew brighter, and Hoffman saw that it was held by a Sanheel officer—one surrounded by over a hundred Rakka. The Sanheel pointed at Hoffman and drool worked around its tusks.
The Sanheel said a single word, and the Rakka surged forward.
“Sir!” Opal shouted. Hoffman whirled around to see the doughboy a few yards behind him, his heavy gauss cannon at his hip, his legs braced against the ground.
“Down.”
Hoffman dove forward as Opal opened fire. Bullets snapped over Hoffman’s head and he felt the punch of each one as the torrent continued. Looking around frantically for his rifle, he found only dead Rakka bodies so he drew his gauss pistol and jabbed it toward the Kesaht force. He felt ridiculous bringing such a small weapon to the fight as Opal continued his decimation.
Dead Rakka formed a carpet of mangled bodies, and a haze of blood hung in the air, jutting higher and higher with each bullet from Opal’s heavy weapon.
The firing stopped, and an odd silence filled the tunnel.
The surviving Rakka pulled back, a high-pitched howl rising from them as they tried to retreat from Opal and his smoking barrels. The Sanheel barked orders at them, lashing out with a short whip.
Opal dropped his heavy weapon and pulled his war hammer off his back. He swung it up and bashed it against a block, shattering it. With a roar, Opal crushed another brick, then he roared and beat a fist against his chest.
“Kill!” Opal charged forward, jumping over Hoffman.
Another earth-shattering crack hit and the tunnel above the Kesaht collapsed just as Opal ran under the edge.
“Opal!” Hoffman clawed up through the cloud of dust until he reached a wall made up of the collapsed tunnel, the remnants of Rakka splattered out from beneath the bottom. Hoffman beat a fist against the debris and cried out the doughboy’s name again.
His touch slid down the broken asphalt and concrete.
“Sir?” came from behind.
Hoffman twisted around, and there was Opal. His helmet was cracked, the visor broken away and his mottled skin exposed. His battle armor was battered—his left pauldron was missing and the clear fluid that served as his blood was caked with dirt down to his elbow. Opal’s breath fogged in the cool air.
“Opie?”
The doughboy sat down hard and removed his helmet. He touched the broken edges of the visor and tossed it aside.
“Ow,” Opal said, touching a gash on his head. “Air…bad.”
“This radiation…” Hoffman said, looking up and into a cloud of loose dust. “You need…where’s your spare?”
Opal touched his hip, where a compact helmet should’ve been in with his emergency gear, but found only a hook with a bit of torn casing.
“Wait—there.” Hoffman grabbed a dead Rakka’s hand sticking out of the rubble and hauled the upper third of an alien free. He removed the rebreather and pulled out the rest of the air tanks from beneath a slab. Hoffman pushed the tanks against Opal’s chest and slipped the mask over his face.
“Good seal. You remember how to do this?” he asked.
Opal set the tanks against his knees and pulled straps on the back of the mask. He pressed his palms to the filters and exhaled hard.
“Seal,” Opal said and listed to one side.
“No, no, stay with me.” Hoffman held him upright. “What’s wrong, big guy? Tell me.”
One of Opal’s irises pulsed, then contracted to a point. “Error code omega—”
“No!” Hoffman struck Opal’s shoulder. “No, you pull back. You pull back and you stay with me, Opal. I need you. The team needs you. You can’t go dark on me now, you hear?”
Opal lifted his chin slightly, then he looked slowly from side to side. “Weapon. Weapon unsecured.” He lurched to his feet and stumbled back to his gauss cannon.
“Valdar!” came from above.
“Hammer!” Hoffman yelled back. His IR crackled, but no message came through.
“Head to me,” King hollered. “There’s a slope.”
Hoffman looked around for his own rifle, but after a second he gave up with a flop of both hands against his hips. At least he still had a pistol.
Opal had his weapon by the carry handle, air tanks tucked under his injured arm.
The two made their way up a steep slope of wreckage, Hoffman pushing and steadying Opal several times until they reached what was left of their fighting position. The team were there, dead Rakka strewn
about.
“Captain Gideon ordered a retreat,” Max said. “Right before we lost all comms.”
“Gideon? What about Laran?” Hoffman asked, accepting his now-found rifle from Garrison with a nod.
“KIA, most likely,” Max said. “She was right where that Kesaht ship hit the first time.”
“Ship?”
“You missed a hell of a light show, sir,” Duke said. “Kesaht sent a kamikaze ship through to defend their city. Armor took it out with their rails, but the ship did some damage first.”
“We failed,” King said. “No way into the city. I don’t know how many lives were lost…but…”
“Armor took the worst of it.” Max tapped the antenna jutting up from his back. “We’ve got nothing right now on any channel.”
Hoffman felt his team’s eyes upon him, waiting for leadership. Their one poor chance to fight and survive had just gone up in smoke. The battle was lost, and the consequences were known.
But Strike Marines did not give up. That was not their way and he wouldn’t doom his Hammers to a quick, panicked death by faltering now.
“Then we have our orders.” Hoffman slapped the side of his rifle, knocking away dirt. “Fall back to Gold Beach and regroup. Our wounded and more Kesaht could be mingling around.”
“I have something,” Steuben said from near the top of the last remaining wall. He touched his gauntlet and a ping sounded through Hoffman’s helmet.
“Emergency distress beacon,” Max said. “Wide freq signal…it must be close if we can pick it up through the shit soup of atmo they got here.”
“Pathfinders? Flyboys?” Garrison asked.
“Let’s stop wondering and start knowing,” Hoffman said. “Steuben, you have a bearing?”
“Come,” the Karigole said as he jumped down and prowled forward, his scimitar in hand.
“Booker, see to Opal,” Hoffman said and fell back to take over the second half of his team’s maneuver formation.
The corpsman held a palm over Opal’s injured shoulder and a sensor lit up within her glove. “Flesh wound. I’ll stitch him up when we stop. His gait is off. The head injury will need a closer look soon,” she said.
“Opal, can you keep going?” Hoffman asked.
“Sir needs me,” the doughboy said, his words muffled by the Rakka breathing mask.
“Left foot, right foot,” Garrison said. “That’s how you get through anything.”
Hoffman looked between buildings to the dome, a cloud of smoke and traces of debris still churning through the sky where the Kesaht ship had been destroyed. The city within was lit up, taunting him with safety and the chance to keep on living.
“Left foot, right foot,” Hoffman said.
****
Garrison dropped down through a void in a collapsed building and landed in a pile of broken glass. It snapped and cracked beneath his boots as he turned on a floodlight mounted to his helmet.
“Anything?” Hoffman called down from the opening.
“Gimme a second,” Garrison said. “Third time I’ve had to drop into a shit hole,” he muttered to himself as he ducked beneath a beam and into a larger void. “Gor’al’s the smallest one. He should be spelunking through these death traps. Think I hit the iron and protein powder so I can be small? I’m no tunnel rat.”
He stepped into a puddle and looked down. The fluid was thicker than water, but clear. He followed a trickle toward the wall and looked up.
“Gah!” He jumped back, weapon up.
“What?” King called down.
A mangled knight’s helmet, several times the size of any man’s head, stared at him from within a crumbled wall.
“Got him! It’s armor and…just get Booker down here!” Garrison locked his rifle onto his back and cleared loose debris off the armor. The rest of the suit was buried in the wall; only a hand and part of the arm stuck out from the wreck, like a drowning man reaching for help before going beneath the waves.
“OK…we trained for this,” he said. “Years ago at Quantico. Didn’t I? Need to…shut off the beacon!” Digging a hand around the helmet, he gripped a palm-sized box, tugged at it, cursed, then tore it away. He held the device in his hand and poked around, looking for a switch.
“To hell with it.” He dropped the beacon and crushed it with his heel. “Can’t have the baddies follow that. Now I need to…”
“Move,” Booker said, shouldering him aside and connecting a line from her gauntlet to a port at the base of the armor’s neck servos. She tapped at her screen, and static hissed in Garrison’s ears.
“Svenskar ge eld…gud aro med oss.”
“That’s not Dotari,” Garrison frowned.
“Armor.” Booker took a deep breath, her eyes clanking up and to the left as she struggled to remember what to do next. “No…I remember. Daybreak, daybreak, daybreak. Armor report suit function.”
“Strid for er tro…ge ingen nad…”
“They get disorientated if they’re off-line for too long,” Booker said. “Armor. Daybreak. You copy daybreak? This is Corpsman Booker, ships company TUS Breitenfeld. How copy?”
“Gott mit uns.”
“He can hear us,” Garrison said.
“Who am I talking to?” Booker shook her head at her readings then slapped the back of her hand against Garrison’s chest. “He ain’t coming out under his own power. Have to extract him.”
“Least I can be useful,” Garrison said as he stepped to one side and began poking around the armor’s body.
“Who’s this?” Booker asked again.
“I am Armor.”
“That’s…OK. Armor, listen to me,” she said. “Your suit’s telling me everything is off-line but your…neural interface with your…womb? It’s a womb? Unless you’ve got some sort of emergency system I can’t see, we’re going to have to cut you out of there.”
“She took him. She took him and I couldn’t stop it. It’s my fault he turned. All my fault.”
“He didn’t redline.” Booker put a hand to the armor’s breastplate.
“Red what?” Garrison swept a hand across the armor, then took out a blowtorch from his kit. He fired it up and burnt small marks against joins in the plating.
“Redlining, when their neural system goes on the fritz from combat damage. Can’t do anything for them if that happens. Armor? What’s your womb integrity?”
“My face is cold.”
“Must be compromised.” Booker swiped fingertips through fluid leaking out beneath the armor. “This is amniosis. The stuff they float in.” She touched her gauntlet and Garrison heard a click.
“He can’t hear me in there, but this is bad—real bad,” Booker said.
“What? They can’t survive without that ’osis?” Garrison asked, stepping back and tapping the cutting torch against his palm. “This is going to be ugly.”
“He can, but I was counting on his womb to protect him against the rads,” she said. “Rescue protocol is to remove the soldier from the womb if it’s compromised. Something about the skull spike being exposed to air and…doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get him clear of the whole thing.”
“Tell him the fun part’s coming,” Garrison said and fired up the torch.
Booker moved to one side as Garrison began cutting.
“Armor? Armor, we’re coming in. Can you flip your evac switch on our signal?”
“Like last time. Lost him again. He’s gone and it’s my fault.”
“No, Armor, no one’s gone.” Booker turned her head as sparks bounced off the side of her helmet. “I’m Booker. Just a lowly Strike Marine. Who’re you again?”
Garrison yanked a metal plate away and it clattered to the ground. Beneath was a matte-black shell, red and white warnings stenciled all over it.
“Like a damn onion,” Garrison said, peering closer at the warnings.
“I’ll never see him again…I can’t…can’t remember anything.”
“Damn it, hurry up, Garrison.” Booker knocked on the wom
b.
“Can’t tell if this is true or dream…”
“Hold my breath as I wish for death,” Garrison said.
“The hell are you doing?” Booker hissed.
“Darkness…what’s the rest? Darkness. Imprisoning me. All that I see, absolute horror—”
Booker punched Garrison in the stomach.
“Who’s out there?” came from the armor.
“Strike Marines. Breitenfeld ship’s company. Who’s this?” Booker asked, her eyes wide.
“Aignar…Iron Dragoons.”
“Hey, I know him,” Garrison said, pulling away another plate. “Aignar, need you to flip your emergency evac switch, buddy. Should be on the inside of your pod there if I remember right.”
“Can’t.”
“Can you move at all?” Booker asked.
“Can’t help you. Green latch back of my womb…pull hard.”
Garrison shrugged, reached behind the womb and gripped something. “I guess it’s green. Here goes.” There was a squeal of metal as Garrison pulled his arm back.
The womb burst open down a seam and amniosis poured out. Booker looked inside the womb and gasped.
“Status!” Hoffman called down.
“By the Saint,” Garrison said as he crossed himself quickly and took a half step back.
“Aignar, why didn’t you tell us…OK, I need to uncouple his skull spikes,” Booker said, reaching into the womb. Her hands worked against the back of a shadowed figure’s head and there was a snap.
Aignar let out a wet choke.
“Got him.” She grabbed Aignar beneath the shoulders and pulled him out slowly. He wore a simple wet suit that ended just below the elbows.
Which was where his arms stopped.
Garrison had to look away when he caught a glimpse of Aignar’s face. The armor’s bottom jaw was missing, a gaping wound of scar tissue in its place. Fluid bubbled out of his exposed throat.
Booker got him to his side and slapped his back as he expelled more amniosis from his throat.
“Jesus,” Garrison said, looking over Aignar’s body. “What do we…what do we do?”
“Get him on his feet and get him out of there!” Hoffman called down.
“We can’t…can’t exactly do that.” Garrison tapped his deactivated torch against his leg. “How do we…I don’t know what to do, Booker.”