Colonel Robert was in overall command of the joint operation and would be heading up the western column, with Drake at his side. The Hellhounds would come in from the northwest simultaneously, meeting up with Robert’s Guard in the heart of the natives’ territory.
Colonel Hendershot intended to leave as many of the native women and children alive as he could, but Rai imagined Colonel Robert had no qualms about slaughtering them all. In the end, all that really mattered was wiping out the natives’ warrior class.
Of course, a proper study of the savages hadn’t been conducted to determine if they actually were male and female, or if their biology was as alien as the planet they lived on. Perhaps this was to prevent any sort of moral dilemma on the part of the mercs. You can’t agonize over killing women and children if they haven’t been designated as such. In the minds of most of the mercenaries, “alien” was the only term used, and that was the prism through which the mercs would see them.
The initial survey group only had a handful of CASPers watching over it when it was wiped out. According to the reports Rai had been allowed to access, those CASPers were MK8 suits: top-of-the-line. She had a difficult time believing that spear throwing primitives could manage such a feat, no matter how badly the CASPers were outnumbered, but somehow they had. The natives couldn’t have known that by murdering the survey party they would be bringing Hell to their doorstep. Robert’s Guard consisted of nearly 100 MK8 CASPers and an additional 300 infantry troopers. The Hellhounds were bringing another 30 MK7 CASPers, 70 infantry, and a handful of self-propelled artillery to the party as well. Those numbers didn’t even account for the nine armored personnel carriers and two mobile command units that were being deployed to Zala IV’s surface.
* * *
Colonel Hendershot stood on the bridge of ECS Byrne as the transport transitioned into the Zala system. The mining consortium that had hired his Hellhounds might not have been able to develop Zala IV yet, but they had convinced the Cartographer’s Guild to establish a small stargate inside the system. The ore from the planet would pay for that gate many times over, once it started flowing.
Byrne came about as she settled onto a direct course for Zala IV. Colonel Hendershot hated space travel, but in his line of work it was a necessary evil. One went where the work took you; it rarely ever came to you. When Byrne reached Zala IV and her thrusters were shut down, everyone would be floating if they weren’t wearing mag-boots or strapped in. For all the advances that had been made in space travel, artificial gravity wasn’t one of them.
“Full sensor sweep of the system,” Captain Garth ordered from where he sat in his command chair in the center of the bridge.
“Aye, sir,” the sensor tech replied. “I’m picking up another vessel already in orbit around Zala IV. It’s Minotaur, Captain.”
“They’re hailing us, sir,” the comm officer spoke up.
“Audio only,” Captain Garth ordered.
“Well, well, well…” Colonel Robert’s voice filled the bridge. “Looks like you’re running a bit behind, Hendershot. You get what you pay for, I guess.”
EMS Minotaur wasn’t a hired ship like Byrne. Robert’s Guard owned their own transport. Whether Robert had bought it or had the vessel custom-built, Hendershot didn’t know, but it bore the bullhorns insignia of Robert’s unit on its hull.
“All that matters is that we’re here,” Hendershot answered, ignoring Robert’s jab.
Captain Garth didn’t take insults to his ship and crew lightly, but he had the sense to keep his mouth shut. Hendershot was thankful. Though Minotaur wasn’t truly a combat vessel, she was armed. Byrne had no weapons whatsoever. Hendershot didn’t think even Robert was a big enough fool to engage another merc unit over a few insults, especially when they were under contract to the same employer, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Get your men ready, Hendershot,” Robert ordered. “We’ll be dropping onto the planet in less than six hours.”
“You worry about yours, Colonel, and I’ll worry about mine,” Hendershot said. “We’ll be ready when the time comes.”
“Roger that,” Colonel Robert said as he cut the transmission, leaving Hendershot and Garth frowning at each other.
“You weren’t kidding about that guy living up to his rep,” Garth commented. “I really don’t understand how someone hasn’t shot that bastard yet.”
“Trust me, I know what you mean,” Hendershot replied.
“I’ll have the dropships prepped to start carrying your men and equipment to the surface when our friend over there gives the word.”
“Thanks.”
“Just promise me you’ll be careful down there,” Garth said.
“Hey, I paid you in advance, didn’t I?” Hendershot laughed, and turned to leave the bridge. Even with the help of Garth’s crew, getting all the Hellhounds and their gear to the surface of Zala IV was going to be a tough job. The raging EM storms had to be navigated carefully, and Hendershot wanted to be a part of the process. His command style had always been very hands-on, and as the years went by he’d never seen any reason to change it. But first, he had a briefing to conduct with his officers.
* * *
“Attention!” Captain Gunter snapped as Colonel Hendershot entered the briefing room. It usually served as the recreation room for the crew of Byrne, but the ship’s captain had loaned it to the Hellhounds for the time being.
Lieutenants Rai and Peterson, Sergeant Glover, and the corporals were seated around a large table in the center of the rec room, but snapped to attention. Colonel Hendershot took the seat at the head of the table, Captain Gunter moved to take up a position standing slightly to his right and behind him, then the rest of the personnel sat.
“We’ve only got a few hours until the show starts, boys and girls, and there’s a lot of work to be done, so I’ll keep this short,” Colonel Hendershot said. “As you know, our contract is to clear out as much of the hostile native population as we can. We’ll be working closely with Robert’s Guard on this one, and Colonel Robert will have overall command of the op. You are to obey his orders as you would mine for the duration. If you have an issue with Colonel Robert or any of his officers, you bring it to me, and I’ll handle it. They’ll give us enough trouble as it is. Let’s not cause any of our own. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” the gathered officers replied. None of them looked happy about the situation.
“I heard this contract is going to be a piece of cake, sir,” Corporal Reed spoke up.
“Yes and no.” Colonel Hendershot frowned. “We know very little about our enemy, and that’s a dangerous thing. According to the reports of the initial survey group, they’re a primitive race. We know they use spears, bows, and the like as their primary weapons. There won’t be any MACs or laser fire coming at us on this op, but that’s no reason to be complacent. There were a handful of CASPers that accompanied the initial survey team as security. Somehow these savages managed to take them out. Our current best guess as to how they did it is…well, it would be easier to just show you.”
Colonel Hendershot produced a small holo-emitter from his pocket and activated it. The image of a hulking bipedal creature appeared. Overall, the biped was human in shape and form, covered in shaggy hair, and was so strong that thick layers of muscle could be seen beneath the thing’s hair. It clutched a spear in its hands, and wore clothes fashioned from the hides of animals that clearly bore no resemblance to Earth fauna. On the belt about its waist hung a long, deadly looking knife. The savage’s eyes glowed a hot shade of red, and matching fangs protruded from beneath its upper lip.
“That’s what we’re up against folks,” Colonel Hendershot said. “But before you start laughing, let me put some scale to his image. This guy here and the others like him stand between eight and ten feet tall. I had a xenobiologist take a gander at this image before we boarded Byrne. I was able to show her some of the classified footage of the attack on the survey group. The footage was badly d
istorted from the damage done to the drone that captured it, but she was still able to get a feel for these creatures, based on how they moved and other stuff I’m not going to pretend to understand. She believes these aliens might possess strength on a level we haven’t anticipated, with muscle that is far denser than ours on a molecular level. If she’s right, that could mean some serious trouble.”
“Did you share this intel with Colonel Robert, sir?” Lieutenant Rai asked.
“I did.” Colonel Hendershot nodded.
“And what were his thoughts on it?” Sergeant Glover leaned forward in his seat.
“He laughed,” Hendershot answered honestly. “Colonel Robert doesn’t see these savages we’re going up against as a real threat at all.”
“Do you, sir?” Lieutenant Peterson asked, sipping at the cup of coffee he held.
“I think everything should be taken seriously. That’s how you stay alive in this line of work.” Colonel Hendershot looked directly at Peterson as he continued, “That said, there’s no definitive proof that these savages are a credible threat to us. I’m merely suggesting that we not be overconfident when we hit the planet’s surface. We’ll know pretty blasted fast if these things can hurt our CASPers or not, and we can reassess things as needed. Until then, folks, let’s keep our eyes open, our ears to the ground, and let’s be careful out there.”
“Roger that, sir.” Peterson smiled.
“Now let’s get down to business.” Colonel Hendershot sighed. “Captain, if you would.”
Captain Gunter activated a screen within easy view of all at the table. It showed an image of the clearing the Hellhounds would be dropping into. It was large enough for two dropships to touch down and still have some defensive room between them and the clearing’s surrounding tree-line.
“I want that clearing secured by the numbers, boys and girls. There’ll be no need for us to set up any sort of real basecamp; we’ll be moving out as soon everybody’s down and ready to go. That doesn’t mean we want to let any of the locals sneak up on us while we’re doing it. There are no roads where we’re going, so our APCs will be next to useless, except as mobile firebases and ordnance transports. I expect a lot of breakdowns with them, and their movement will be restricted by the terrain and the density of the more wooded areas.”
“So, my CASPers will be taking point?” Lieutenant Rai asked.
Colonel Hendershot nodded. “Yes, the bulk of them will be taking point. I want the rest spread out along the body of the column made up by Peterson’s infantry. We’ll move as a single force toward the center of the savages’ territory, unless the situation demands otherwise.”
“Where will you be, colonel?” Sergeant Glover met Hendershot’s eyes.
“I’ll be in the command car accompanying the APCs, so you can stop worrying about me already, Mom.” Hendershot grinned and then turned serious. “Look, we’re professionals, people. We all know our jobs here. Let’s try to make sure everyone comes home. We drop in less than five, so let’s get going.”
* * *
Everyone rushed to prepare for the descent. Dropping onto an alien planet was one thing. Dropping onto a planet with an electromagnetic field as strong as the one surrounding Zala IV was quite another. The EM field would likely wreak havoc on the dropships’ instrument panels, the CASPers they carried, and basically anything else electrical in nature. The knives the mercs all wore strapped to their thighs were about the only things they knew for certain would still work as intended once they landed.
Kylie ran into Rai as she was headed to strap in. Her face was pale and sweat dotted her forehead.
“You look like death,” Rai said. “Are you okay? Are you sick?”
“I’m okay,” Kylie said. “Just a little nervous.”
“Are you ready to do this?” Rai asked.
Kylie didn’t answer immediately.
“That isn’t the enthusiasm I was expecting from you. Is something wrong?”
Kylie chewed her bottom lip. “No, I’m ready. I always am. It’s just…”
“What?” Rai asked, concerned. “We only have a couple of minutes, so spit it out.”
“What we’re about to do…it’s basically eradicating a species because they’re in the wrong place.”
“After all the combat you’ve been through, now you’re growing a conscience?”
“Our job is normally to take out a warlord that’s terrorizing a planet or overthrow a corrupt government that has its people under siege. It’s not to go in there and slaughter a bunch of aliens on their home turf. I guess I’ve just started thinking how I would feel if the shoe was on the other foot, and someone came to our planet to wipe us out so they could to do whatever they wanted. It seems unfair.”
“We just talked about this job an hour ago and you were fine,” Rai pointed out. “What’s changed? You’ve never had a problem with a job before.”
Kylie chewed her lip again. “Things have changed a lot for me in the 30 minutes since we talked.”
“You’re acting crazy,” Rai said. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I guess I just started to think about the fact that these creatures, aliens, or whatever you want to call them, are intelligent enough to fashion weapons and wear animal skins. That means they aren’t animals. It isn’t like we’re herding cattle here. These creatures can think and reason.”
“Maybe,” Rai conceded. “But that doesn’t make them good.”
“Who decides that?” Kylie said. “Just because we win doesn’t automatically make us the good guys. It just means we have bigger, better weapons.”
“You can’t think too much about the details behind the mission,” Rai said. “We’re hired to do a job. That’s what we have to do. If you dig too deeply into the politics of it all, or take sides, you compromise yourself. That’s the sort of thing that’ll get you killed.”
“But shouldn’t we treat life as sacred and do all we can to preserve it? Why is our only plan of action to go in there and start destroying?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Rai asked, growing increasingly annoyed. “You’ve done a 180 on me. I’ve seen you kill plenty of times with no remorse. This makes no sense.”
Kylie broke down in tears, and Rai had no idea how to respond.
“I’m sorry,” Kylie said. “Something happened after you left.”
“Ok, tell me,” Rai said. She glanced at the digital display that showed they only had a little over two minutes left before the drop.
“A few weeks back we got a furlough to go to the mercury beaches on Invicta. Do you remember?”
“Of course, I do. We went together. I met up with Adler. You went off with Silver. It was a good weekend.”
Kylie nodded. “Things with Silver were amazing that weekend. Maybe they were a little too amazing. I thought I was careful, but…“
“No,” Rai said, immediately understanding where this was headed.
Kylie nodded her head. “I took a test after we talked earlier. I was not expecting the result I got.”
“So, you mean you’re—”
Kylie started to cry again. “I am. I guess my whole perception of life has changed in the last hour. Life seems so much more precious to me all of a sudden.”
Rai hugged her friend and then held her at arm’s length, forcing Kylie to meet her gaze. “Listen to me. We’re here now, and we’ve got a job to do. Nothing has changed there. What has changed is that now you have a much bigger reason to stay alive. So what we’re going to do is go out and kick these things in the teeth like we planned, get back without a scratch, and then plan your next move. You have to keep a clear head. There’s another life depending on that, not just your own.”
Kylie nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I guess that’s true.”
“Come on,” Rai said. “Let’s go get strapped in.”
“But the EM field…”
“The ship’s hull is well insulated against it, and we’ll be suiting up, t
oo. Anything the hull doesn’t block, your CASPer will. You and the little one will be fine.”
“Ok,” Kylie said as she headed toward the dropship bay where all the soldiers were strapping themselves in and making last minute adjustments to their suits. “See you on the ground.”
* * *
Under normal conditions, the drop from the upper atmosphere of a planet to the surface was like a turbulent airplane ride—the bumpy, jostling equivalent of riding a horse that hasn’t been broken. Dropping through an EM field like the one surrounding Zala IV was a lot like that, only the bronco in this case was crazed, demented, and pumped full of steroids.
The ships began to break away from Byrne, falling away toward the misty green planet, dropping like a handful of pebbles discarded by an intergalactic god. The dropships rattled and shook as they fell—iron angels cast out of heaven, hurled toward the land where they would crash to spread chaos and disorder.
“Things are about to get bumpy,” the pilot, Captain Kennedy, said over the dropship’s internal comm, his voice breaking into static with every syllable. “Everybody strap in and hold on.”
“Bumpy huh?” the copilot, Lieutenant Simon, asked. He grinned. “That’s one way to put it, I guess.”
The dropships were equipped with thrusters, which were supposed to slow their descent and allow their landings to be controlled. In EM fields like this one, sometimes the thrusters worked. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes entire systems would cut out without a moment’s notice, despite the hardening of the ship’s circuits.
“All systems green so far,” Kennedy said.
Everything was good, and then it wasn’t. They hit the storms without warning. One moment the descent was controlled, and the skies were clear. The next, they were a raging mass of electrically-charged clouds, bursts of lightning, and strobes of energy that pulsed and flashed around them like the firing neurons of some giant sentient being.
Dropship Alpha Banger entered the atmosphere like a falling rock. Flames sprang to life around her, engulfing her hull. Simon kept her nose up, but he was losing control quickly. The ship jolted, bounced, and bucked, not caring about the human cargo inside or the valuable assets in the hold. Lightning flashed in the clouds surrounding her, and internal lights flashed on and off intermittently, with most finally remaining off.
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