He continued to go through the assault plan, which they were to rehearse over and over inside the large cargo hull of the New Beginnings. The commander of Third Century, Centurion Miles, a pale lanky man with reddish hair was introduced to them, and once the briefing ended, the entire Century followed their commander to the cargo hull to receive a more detailed briefing and introductions.
46.
Centurion Miles turned out to be the friendly kind of commander, and Ethan got to talk to him on several occasions. It seemed he had read up on the records of every man and woman of the century, and more than once he hinted at opportunities for people who excelled like Ethan had on several occasions during training.
"Your marksmanship skills, leadership skills, empathy and concern for your fellow recruits, like the one who killed himself... What was his name again?"
"Jed Boone," Ethan said. The Centurion nodded.
"Boone, yes. Unfortunate business, very unfortunate. Anyhow, you defended him on several occasions though. And you helped other recruits as well, during the mountain run. And in Infantry training, you did very well, gained the rank of optio, became skilled at heavy weapons, exoskeleton certified and you were practically recommended for officer training, even though that carries no weight unless you have combat experience and an application signed by yourself, Optio Wang," he paused. "Optio Wang, why don´t you believe in yourself?"
Ethan was taken by surprise. He hadn´t expected that question. The centurion let him think for a moment before he spoke.
"You don´t have to answer that question. At least not now. If you make it through Titan though, we´re going to have a chat again. You´re officer material, Optio Wang, and I would very much like to guide you."
Ethan liked his commander and he eventually learned from some of the more experienced legionnaires that he wasn´t just well liked — he was also respected for his combat leadership. Centurion Miles had risen through the ranks in the Legion and was one of the youngest centurions alive. The alive bit was important too. He wasn´t some reckless hero wannabe, but a genuinely smart tactician who had pulled his men through some pretty impossible situations in the past.
The journey took three weeks. They could have gone quicker, but Tribune Wenger had made it clear they needed the time to rehearse and prepare for the mission. Ethan couldn´t have agreed more. So he gave everything when they trained, and expected nothing less from his peers and superiors.
The Alcubierre drive made it impossible to appreciate the vast distances they covered or the enormity of space. He learned that the ships in the expeditionary force used a drive that basically moved space around them, while the ships themselves didn´t move very quickly at all. This was an old concept and he´d read about it in science fiction novels before, but only now that he was inside what everyone referred to as the "warp bubble", he realized what it truly meant. The viewports showed nothing like he would have expected — no stars, no planets, nothing but distorted streaks and blurred light here and there. Only when they exited the warp bubble did he truly see their surrounding space. Titan laid before them, covered in a thick layer of cloud, broken only by flashes from scattered thunderstorms. The three starships entered an orbit around the moon that would take them directly above the landing area, and less than an hour after entering Titan´s orbit, the bombardment began.
A claxon began to sound and lights in the ceiling began blinking, signaling the attack was on and every man and woman was already kitted and ready. Decurion Trudeau slapped Ethan on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up. Then the legionnaires of the Ghost Legion boarded the dropships that would take them down to the surface.
47.
The dropship shook as they entered the atmosphere. Titan had a thicker atmosphere than Earth, and the added resistance meant that the ride was bumpier that Ethan had experienced in training.
"Don´t worry, this is nothing compared to Oxtaba," one of the experienced legionnaires said, a metallic voice inside his helmet. A few others, including Decurion Trudeau, commanding Ethan´s squad, chuckled and grinned. Ethan had no idea where Oxtaba was, but it didn´t matter. He got the idea. It didn´t make him feel any better though. He adjusted the position of his .50 cal. For the fiftieth time, he checked all his straps and zip locks, making sure everything was in place. His heavily insulated gloves would have made it hard to do, but artificial sensors made it feel like he was wearing thin mittens instead of gloves meant for the extreme cold on this moon.
The brass had decided they needed maneuverability more than firepower, so most of the heavy equipment was left behind. The cold down on the moon probably had something to do with it as well; they were well insulated against it, but paid a price by ditching some of the heavy armor and weaponry. So no nuke cannons or exoskeletons or most of the equipment he´d learned how to use as a heavy trooper. Here, they were all light infantry. Well, if the brass said so, they probably had good reason.
"How long till we hit the surface?" someone asked. Clearly a sign of nervousness — everyone already knew the details, and a timer above the exit hatch counted down the seconds.
"Forty seconds and counting," another answered. Ethan looked at the counter and focused on the red number moving ever closer to zero. The counter passed the ten second mark.
"Ten," a robot voice began to count down.
"All right, everyone ready?" Decurion Trudeau said.
"Nine, eight, seven..."
"Hell yes," someone said.
"Six, five, four..."
"Time to kick some alien ass!" That was Ariel. Ethan looked at her. She looked tense.
"Three, two, one, zero."
"And we´re on the ground. Welcome to beautiful Titan, legionnaires," the pilot said. "Best of luck to you all."
The exit hatch opened and a gust of wind blew in. Ethan immediately felt the cold, even through his insulation. Or it could’ve been just the sound, howling winds and distant cracks and bangs, making him think he was cold.
"We´re on steady ground, legionnaires. Move out, defensive formation," the decurion said, and the legionnaires exited the dropship. The twelve man squad set up a defensive perimeter, and waited for the remaining ships to land. Since the Third Century was to stand back and provide support wherever they were needed, the dropships were to wait until further notice. In a pinch, they would be able to provide quick transport to the furthest reach of the expeditionary force (EF), much faster than the Century could move on foot. Especially through this hostile and more or less unknown terrain. They did have maps, but the ice and slush made these obsolete pretty quickly and the thick atmosphere made satellite images unreliable.
Once the entire Century had landed, they began moving east, to get closer to the rest of the EF. The dropship hung back a few hundred meters, but followed in the same direction.
Ethan had time to consider the circumstances. Titan was an inhospitable place. Even at midday, it was dark, and everywhere they walked a thick liquid methane soup, or slush, sucked at their boots. It rained constantly, methane rain, which clung to their clothes, and-
"Squad, listen up," Decurion Trudeau said, interrupting Ethan´s train of thought.
"Third Cohort just reported that the settlement has been leveled. They are sending in a century to look for survivors, but I say forget about it. The Lumins have no need for human survivors, and if they leveled the settlement, they did it to get rid of pesky humans." The decurion paused for a moment. He was probably receiving new information all the time, Ethan thought.
"Now, I just got word that a platoon from Third Cohort is missing. There´s no sign of them. Hold on... All right, First Century, Second Cohort has engaged the enemy just outside the old research facility. We are to hold off on using the dropship, but we are going to move in the direction of the fighting. My guess is we´ll join the fight soon enough, so be ready for anything."
They began moving toward the old research facility, as did most of the rest of the cohort, now that they´d made contact with the enemy.
"Incoming!"
Ethan couldn´t tell who saw it first, but he screamed along with the rest of them as the world blew up around them. He took a knee and sighted the .50 toward where he thought the rockets came from, fired a burst, followed by another, then waited. He couldn´t waste his ammo on things he didn´t see, so he used his eyes, searching for movement, light, whatever would give an enemy away.
There, something moved. He sighted and fired almost instantaneously. He hit something, whatever it was.
A flash streaked above him and he heard a loud crashing sound from behind. He turned and saw the dropship shake in the air while black smoke spewed from a big hole where the pilot had sat just moments before. The dropship dove and crashed into an unlucky trooper who hadn´t seen what was coming. The explosion made him avert his eyes, and he turned back toward the advancing enemy. He´d seen displays and photos of the Lumins, but never a live one. He´d expected to see them now, but instead, something resembling a robot was what drew his attention.
"That´s not a Lumin!" one of the experienced legionnaires shouted. Ethan realized this was something new to them as well. “Mech droid” were the words that came to him, since it seemed to be the best way to describe the... thing. A simple, but sturdy fighting machine with one purpose — to kill them all.
"Form a line, form a line!" Decurion Trudeau shouted above the noise. Ethan checked his left and right before he resumed fire. He emptied his magazine, ejected it and pulled another out of one of the bags strapped to his thigh. The .50 magazines were thirty rounds each and he had several of them strapped to his body and more in the backpack. And yet he burned through the second just as fast as the first. At this rate, the ammo wouldn´t last long. The dropship was supposed to resupply them when they wore out their personal load, but that option had obviously gone up in smoke.
"Preserve ammo, make it count," the decurion said, as if he´d read his mind.
A scream from the helmet comms made Ethan look around. Decurion Trudeau was down with a hole in his stomach. Another round took his left foot straight off.
"Take cover!" Ethan shouted, "Ariel, help me out here!" Ariel leapt over, as did Julian and another guy. Together, the four of them carried the decurion a few meters away and put him in an shallow depression. Decurion Trudeau screamed all the way, and his face contorted in ways that scared Ethan more than any enemy could. He gave him a morphine shot and the decurion stopped screaming and seemed to relax a bit.
"Decurion, stay with me," he said, while Ariel and the legionnaires tried to stop the blood loss as best they could. Ariel applied a tourniquet to his leg, which slowed the bleeding to a trickle, but the stomach wound looked too final to do much about.
"Wang..." the decurion forced out, before a coughing fit made the rest unintelligible.
"Sir, what did you say?" Ethan replied. At the same time, the other legionnaire tapped him on the shoulder and nodded toward the stump where the tourniquet still sat. The exposed flesh had already frozen. Shit, this is cold. Decurion Trudeau spoke again and he turned back toward him.
"Don´t sir me, I work for a... living." the decurion mumbled, and coughed again. Then he gritted his teeth and forced out the words.
"Wang, you must bring them home... You´re a natural leader... Home..." His eyes rolled back and his breathing stopped. Ethan stood up and felt the urge to salute the dead squad leader, but instead he turned toward the remainder of his team, who had finally brought down the first mech droid.
"Where are we on ammo?" he said.
"Three mags," one said, and the rest chimed in, "two full and a half mag in the weapon."
"Three full mags."
"One full mag and one almost full in the weapon."
That wasn´t much, but it would have to do until they were resupplied, somehow, Ethan thought.
"Julian," he continued, "you´re the tech guy. I want you to re-establish contact with Century HQ ASAP. Can you do that?" His friend nodded.
"I already did." His face looked dour through the visor though, and Ethan braced for the news.
"They were overrun five minutes ago. I made contact with Third Cohort, and they say all of Second Cohort is down. Third still have a Century and a half, and they´ve established a stronghold near the old research facility. They lost all their dropships though. That means no resupply and no way off this god-forsaken rock."
"So basically we´re fucked," Ariel said as she joined in the conversation. Ethan then realized they were speaking on the open squad channel. Julian chuckled.
"We sure are."
49.
The survivor head count came in at five. Thomas, the surfer, laid a few steps away from where Ethan had been when the fighting started. The lower half of his body laid spread out across the surrounding area and his face had frozen inside his cracked visor. Ethan realized he didn´t know much about most of the dead bodies that surrounded them, and it was probably for the best. His best friends were still alive though — Ariel and Julian, childhood friends from back home in Atlanta, Will Salazar from heavy infantry training and finally a legionnaire who went by the nickname Pole. Pole was probably named for his height, standing at least a head taller than the tallest of them. Pole was one of the experienced legionnaires and had fought in the asteroid belt and on Oxtaba, which Ethan had begun to realize was a planet in another star system.
"What the hell happened to the Lumins?" he said. "I´ve never seen them use anything like that — Mech droid or robot or whatever it was. It took hundreds of rounds to bring it down; .50 caliber rounds! It´s definitely a new weapon, I can tell you that much."
"Then we need to tell someone," Ethan said.
"I´m on it," Julian said. A moment later, he shook his head. "I´m unable to reach Third Cohort. All their comms are down. My guess is they´ve been overrun. This piece of shit equipment we´ve got isn´t designed to break through the Lumins jamming systems, so there´s no use even trying. The Lumins are pretty good at electronic warfare."
"So what do we do?" Ethan asked. "We´re cut off, probably the only surviving humans on the surface with no way to communicate and we have important intel that needs to reach home."
Ariel kicked at an empty shell, sending it skidding across a pool of liquid methane.
"We need to get the hell out of here," she said. "We need to find a way off the surface of this godforsaken ball of ice."
"So, what are our options?" Pole said. "It´s not like we can call for backup or anything. Even if we got word to Legion somehow, they might decide it´s not worth the risk coming down to get us. The Lumins just wiped out two cohorts."
"We have a mission; return the intel. What happens to us is secondary," Julian said, earning a nudge from Ariel.
"Sure it is. Problem is, sending a message is just as difficult as getting away. You just established that sending a message is impossible, so let´s concentrate on finding a way out of here."
"Alright, alright," Ethan said. "Yes, the intel is first priority, but Ariel is right. The only way to get the intel into the right hands is to get the hell out of here. So let´s figure it out. How do we do it?"
"We could steal one of their craft," Ariel suggested, earning a sideways look from Ethan.
"And how do you propose we fly it?" he said.
"Well, it´s not like any of us are pilots anyway. We´ll just have to try-"
"We repair one of the wrecked dropships," Will said. "If we´re lucky, we may find one that´s salvageable. It only needs to work long enough to get into orbit."
"We´re going to need a pilot though," Pole said.
"Well, if we can find a ship to repair, we may get lucky and find a pilot too. Hell, it´s worth a shot." Will replied.
"Good," Ethan said decisively. Someone had to make a decision. "We search for a salvageable dropship and a pilot then." Better than waiting to die from starvation. Both air and water were recycled inside their suits, and with very little loss — it would last them a long time. The fuel cells that heat
ed them inside their suits would also last a long time, barring unforeseen failures. Within a few weeks though, they would starve. They had combat rations that would sustain them for a while, but sooner or later they would run out. By that time, some of them might choose to eat a bullet, thinking it would be quicker and less painful. He shook his head, to expel the thought. They had a mission, and a plan, however hopeless. Better than doing nothing.
They began to search the wreckage nearby. Two cohorts meant about a hundred dropships to be searched. And they only needed one that could be repaired. Ethan felt that thought lifted his spirits somewhat. He´d seen worse odds.
50.
Two days later, with days being Earth days, since Titan was tidally locked with Saturn, his hopes had dropped somewhat. They had searched all over the landscape, carefully, to avoid being detected of course, and they still hadn´t found anything resembling a salvageable dropship. Most were blown up, burnt out, totally wrecked and the few that weren´t had sustained so much hull damage that even if they could make the engines run, they wouldn´t survive the trip through the atmosphere. The constant drizzle, fat drops of liquid methane, made their suits slick and worked the nanos into overtime, wiping the visors. Sometimes they’d leave a thin layer of color, like gasoline on water. The cold seemed to penetrate even the multiple layers of insulation and heating, and the natural light of Titan made every hour seem like dusk. It all contributed to a feeling of despair that seemed to rise among them.
Dead bodies laid sprawled everywhere — frozen witnesses of the meeting between an unprepared force and an overwhelming enemy — while the ones that had blown up or been cut to pieces were quickly covered by the slush. The second day, when they found the place where the Second Cohort HQ had made their last stand, they had become filled with hope when they found the Cohort comms officer laying across what seemed to be a powerful communication device. Julian had quickly began checking it out, only to find that a hole that went straight through the officer´s head had also penetrated the device´s mainframe. They found Tribune Wenger nearby, with a hole through his helmeted head that suggested suicide. He´d probably been among the last to fall.
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