“WOOO HOOOO!” I yelled as we rushed over the ground. My one fist held onto Yasu as I leaned out of the shuttle; my other hand held the bead support weapon. She planted her feet, grabbing onto me with all of her servo-assisted power, ready to pull me back in once I’d stopped my idiotic stunt.
I lined up my bead cannon with the enemy positions my HUD was highlighting through the shuttle’s sensors. I zoomed in, aiming close but not at the native fighters, as I crunched in on the weapon and squeezed off a burst.
Thraaaap! The beads exploded as they hit the ground, throwing up dust and debris, making the group of would-be attackers duck. I looked for a new target and let off a longer burst, getting used to the buck of the bead cannon. Again, the weapon burped rounds in a telltale thraaap! that reminded me of a Gatling gun but with each of its projectiles like miniature bombs upon impact.
The other support weapon teams got the idea. They, too, leaned out of the other air locks and were on the rear ramp, hosing the enemy groups and emplacements.
My nerves were forgotten as I looked out of the shuttle at the others in close formation. Apparently word had gotten out as team serviced weapons burped. It felt as if we were invincible; nothing could stop us as we charged into battle. I crunched back in on the bead cannon and lined up my next strafing run.
I saw the landing zone come up ahead.
“Support, increase rate of fire!” The shuttle became the epicenter of weapons fire as beads, rail gun rounds, and volatile plasma spat out from every opening, ripping up everything in sight that looked questionable. The shuttle’s thrusters flared, cutting our acceleration and halting us.
I grabbed a pull bar above my head used when the shuttle was in zero gravity, stopping myself and Yasu from being thrown from the shuttle as it touched down.
“All right, out you go. Move, move, move! Gun teams, on top of the shuttle roof—lay down supporting fire.”
Then, on Yasu’s channel, I said, “Disengage your boots and hold on.” I gave her a second. I used all of the servo-assisted power I could get out of my arm to pull me and her up into a swing onto the side of the shuttle. She held on, quickly detaching her own boots as I walked up the side and onto the roof. She let go of me once on top, giving me a cold stare, probably from carrying her up the side of the shuttle. I didn’t have time for it as I checked my cannon and she loaded her rail gun.
I checked my arcs as I messaged the original owner of the cannon.
Other Mechas threw themselves onto the roof with leaps, hoists, or by simply walking up it like I’d done as they turned outward. The power station was the only feature of the land for miles. A road led to a metropolis but any other features were hidden from view.
The owner of the weapon jumped onto the roof in a single bound, passing off his rifle to me.
“It’s loaded and safety’s on.” I got out from behind the gun and dropped to the ground below.
I put my rifle at the low ready, pointing to the ground and cocking it as Yasu and I followed the commandos who had already made it to the entrance to the power plant. We split up at the first intersection. Both Yasu and I brought our rifles up into our shoulders as we walked quickly through the hall. Three people ran from left to right across the corridor we entered the building through. Yasu took down one as I took down two. I grinned to myself.
At least I’m still better with a rifle. I mentally applauded myself as we moved up and checked the alien’s vitals. My HUD said that they were still alive.
“Secure them,” I said to the team behind me. They did so as another took their place.
They announced their presence with an underarm tap to me. I tapped Yasu as we moved from the wall, now with enough people to cover both sides.
“Corridor running left to right,” she called on the close channel that would reach those within ten meters.
Again, the tap was passed up as they signaled their acceptance of the news and what they had to do.
Another team of two couples moved up on the right.
“One, two, THREE.” We burst around the corner. Not finding anything, the teams moved down their corridors as another went straight.
“Where do you want the prisoners?” the team that had bound the natives asked.
“Hold them in the corridor until we can find a room to leave them in.”
“Yes, sir.”
We were moving down the corridor again as we came across a room to our right. We lined up again, ready to take the door. Yasu moved past to cover straight ahead and I checked the door.
“It’s unlocked. Entry in three, two, one.” I pulled the door with me as the person behind me charged into the left and another to the right. Yasu followed them, and I followed as the team behind us covered the hallway past us, coming to the door in case we needed immediate help.
The room was filled with machinery. “Left all clear,” Yasu and her partner said.
“Right all clear.” I lowered my rifle and pulled out my universal jack, inserting it into a port on the machinery.
The other teams were moving to the next room in the hall already as the others and I pulled any information we could get from the confusing machines.
We ran queries against the information. Not finding anything that we needed immediately, we tacked onto the end of the advancing teams.
“Sir, we have enemy forces approaching,” the gunner team’s leader said.
I pulled his sensor readings, seeing the advancing vehicles and their dirt plume. “All right, disable the vehicles. No damage to the drivers and such. Then I want you to fire a secure radio to them.”
“Yes, sir.” He sounded confused, but he had his orders.
“We’ve found the control center, sir,” the teams that had gone straight reported as the support weapons on the shuttle began firing. The people around me, and no doubt the rest of them, moved to face the fire.
“Good. Jack in and make sure everything’s kosher.”
“On it, Commander.”
The greatest thing with command is having people obey you, even if you were throwing around orders that sounded strange to yourself.
“Right side point here. Cleared our section of the building. Seven beings all stunned.”
“Has anyone got a suitable collection point for the beings?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. We’ve got a storage closet on the straight path in to the command center,” the team leader for left side said.
“Good work.” My HUD showed I had an incoming communication from the support weapons commander. I quickly changed over as I noticed the firing had stopped.
“Vehicles are disabled and we launched a communication unit to them as close as possible. It’s among the disabled vehicles but the remaining vehicles have pulled back.”
“Understood. Start moving your people to the roof of the plant to cover the entire area.”
“Sir.”
“This is left side. We are clear. Entire power plant is cleared and secured.”
“Good. Get in defensive positions. Squad commanders, oversee it.”
I connected to the communication unit that the support group had launched via special launcher to the convoy.
“Hello. I want to talk about the release of the operators of this power plant,” I said, my translator still set on translating the language I found on the machines; hopefully it was the same as these reaction forces spoke.
“This is Major Luret. What are your demands and what is your name?” he said gruffly. It was a fifty-fifty chance whether someone was going to pick up the communication unit.
“My name is Commander Salchar.” Well, I had to look somewhat official, feeling a little guilty at using not only my gamer name but the given “rank” by the others I knew. Though it had nothing behind it but bluster, I doubted he could figure that out on the other end of a communication unit.
“I wish to discuss the release of the power plant personnel into your care.”
“What do you want in return, pirate?” he said in a
disgusted tone.
“Information.”
“What kind of information?”
I needed to go out on a limb. If he reported to higher-ups, I could have the support squad kill him.
I pulled up the sensors on the shuttle and the Mechas, making an image of the major. He looked humanoid, like every alien I’d seen, with scaly skin like that of the shuttle pilot but with a larger, snouted head. These aliens looked similar to standing crocodiles without tails and much smaller heads.
“Sensor reports on the ships in orbit as well as shuttle ones. I will also need a complete training cycle for all positions. Also any news articles pertaining to us.”
“Want to show off the slaughtering scum you are,” he spat.
“Good. Then you can send it to us. You have five minutes. I have a short period here between where they’re alive and they might be dead.” I didn’t expand on why this might happen as I changed channels to one called holding team.
“Have you got the personnel?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“All right. Get them to the door closest to the disabled vehicles.”
“We don’t have gravity carts to move them, and they’re heavy bastards.”
“Well, wake them up, but keep a guard on them so they don’t get any ideas.”
“We can do that, sir. Could I get some more people to assist?”
“I’ll send what I can.” I switched channels.
“Organize a party to assist the right raiding squad in moving the prisoners.”
“Sir.”
I changed back to the channel with the major on it. “Once I give you back your people, there will be a perimeter of fifty kilometers around this power plant. Anyone coming inside will be killed. Air traffic is to be kept back two hundred kilometers and not above us. If you bring in artillery, we will destroy it. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have my data?”
“Transmitting.”
“Holding team, point them in the direction of the disabled vehicles and let them go.”
I confirmed the transmitting data I collected. “Prisoners will be released momentarily.”
The flow suddenly stopped when I received all of the information. At the same time, I saw the still bound group of fifteen aliens running for the vehicles for all they were worth.
“All right team leaders, work out shifts,” I said on the general push as I accessed the command chat.
“So, anyone new in here?” Rick answered.
A little bit of stress lifted off my shoulders.
“We’ve got contact with eighty percent of the human battalion and we’re gaining more connections. Though some people are isolated, like you, in power stations with no interaction with other commandos. We’ll gain contact with them when we get back on our ships. Though we’ve been able to make a better roster for all of the people we have,” Min Hae supplied, leaving out the assumption that we were leaving Chaleel.
“Good, and it’s good to hear you two again; the straight text messages just aren’t the same. I have a personal favor—have we found the members of MT?” I asked nervously, knowing that I was putting my people ahead of the others as I promised to myself that I wouldn’t.
“Yes, we have.”
Bok Soo spoke up. “We also found that all of SR is here too. As we’ve found with our own crews, everyone is between ten and twenty, in decent shape, mostly Mecha Assault Two players, military, or physically inclined in some fashion. We were mostly taken from Korea, Japan, and the western coast of Canada and America. It also seems we have a smattering of Australians. Loud bastards, though,” Bok Soo said with feeling.
“Do we know who individual ship leaders, commanders, and the like are?”
“Not yet. There are a lot of competitive groups among the ships’ humans vying for power,” Rick said.
“Great.” I knew that they were going to pick the biggest and baddest groups to lead their ships. It made my position more insecure as they’d have their eyes on my position, wanting to gain more power. When I could, I needed to set up a real chain of command in the other ships. Though without physically being there, it was going to be problematic.
“What’s the status of our disablers?” Bok Soo asked.
“There’s heavy fighting in the city and not all of the other ships got stun rounds. There’s been bloodshed, but there’s nothing we can do about that now,” Rick answered. He was jacked into what was going on way more than me and Bok Soo were.
Guilt swept through me. I quelled it. There would be time for that later; now I had to keep my people alive. I’d find out later how bad it had been.
“All right. Just tell him to get what we need as fast as possible and then bug out. I’ve gotten the information I requested from the natives of the planet. I’m transmitting it to you—spread it out. We’ll want copies. Also, seeing how long we’re here, we’ll begin training.” I saw another channel was open.
“Have to go, officer’s calling.” I cut their channel and opened the requesting channel.
“Yes, Officer Turek?”
“I see on sensors that the personnel of the facility have been released.”
“Yes, sir. The major was adamant when I requested that we get a perimeter fifty kilometers wide in all directions and clear airspace.”
“You should have sent a few to show good faith, not all of them!”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t think of that.”
He sighed, annoyed. “You’ve just come out of basic. It’s expected you’ll be nothing more than a moron.”
“Yes, sir. The men are wondering how long we’ll be staying here.”
“It was dependent on how long it would take us to hold these power plants. Now, with them in our hands, we’ll just have to wait for a smaller fleet to arrive and take custody of the planet. They’ll be able to eradicate any terrorist activity and help the authorities turn this planet back into a contributing free planet,” he said proudly as I winced inside.
Although I knew it wasn’t the Sarenmenti’s fault for their current position, I didn’t want to include them in my plan, due to their devotion to the PDF. If I added them, then there were that many more people who could potentially tell the ship’s crew, stopping us before we’d begun.
I just hoped that, if we did get ourselves free, the Sarenmenti would see the truth and listen, instead of becoming even closer to the Syndicate. I needed every soul I could get behind me, if it was human, Sarenmenti, Kuruvian or otherwise.
“Yes, sir. I will let them know. Should we set up shifts? My species require frequent feeding and regular sleep periods as well as periods of activity.”
“All right, you know your own species better than I do—continue on. I’ll be around to keep an eye on you and drop in at random times to make sure people aren’t slacking who should be working.”
“Yes, sir.” I changed to a general channel, to every human connected to the network we’d created.
“All right, listen up. We don’t know how long we’ll be on planet. We’ll be waiting for another fleet of ships to arrive and take over for us. In the meantime, everyone will be doing sleep lessons and lessons in the field. Squads without a leader are to designate one by fair vote, or one will be picked for you. Leaders and commanders, create shifts as well as training schedules based upon what you have. Salchar out.”
Reports filed in slowly from the groups around the planet on their readiness. I grinned as I sat in my room. Finally, we were getting somewhere, it seemed. Someone kept checking on me at irregular intervals, no doubt checking to make sure I hadn’t gone and disappeared.
After being away from everyone for a few hours, as the flood of reports slowed, I picked myself up, moving to the area around the shuttle where everyone was training in the time we had. We only worked on our hand-to-hand combat and weapons drills. No one was to train at the new station simulations such as sensors, tactical, or any of that. I didn’t need the Sarenmentis finding out we knew h
ow to work something other than a Mecha.
Yasu saw me as I walked out into the open area.
“Here, I’ll show you how to do an arm bar,” she said, her eyes alight as she caught me.
I didn’t like the sound of that as I turned, beating a hasty retreat for the firearms training area.
“Salchar, could you help me demonstrate?” she said, her voice like honey while her eyes flashed in malice.
Crap. This is going to hurt. I pasted a smile on my face as I cringed inside. “Yes, baby.”
Her eyes told me she was going to get me back for my words.
You just had to provoke her.
I removed my sword and the rest of my battle rattle as I walked into a corridor drawn in the sand. The other commandos spread around to get a better view of the fight, all of them grinning. Sadistic bastards.
“Advance,” Yasu said, breaking off my line of thinking as I forgot everything else, letting my body relax as I stepped inside the “corridor.”
I bowed to Yasu, a little shocked as she mirrored me. Yes, I know how to fight honorably in Japan as well as every other damned country. I raised my fists as I studied her.
She faced me, with her hands at her side, and a look of confidence and gloating. She thought she was better than me in hand-to-hand, and I was going to have to take her down. Though it meant I would have to actually fight, and not let her get the arm bar as she wanted. I wouldn’t get her respect by going down like a twerp.
I advanced.
She responded with a flurry of fists. I blocked as she pounded on. She still wasn’t used to her Mecha; I could tell as her hits came lighter than what the Mecha could put out. I rocked with the blows and the kicks, which made me stagger instead of falling on my ass. What she lacked in the Mecha’s power, she made up for in speed and number of blows she landed. She was pissed.
She jumped backward as I brought my leg up in a kick aimed at her groin. My practice spent using my nerve ports to change my power output over the manual controls paid off. Her grin disappeared as just my toe made contact with her Mecha, but with all of the Mecha’s servos behind it.
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