Rage of Winter (Terran Strike Marines Book 2)

by Richard Fox

  Chapter 3

  Hoffman awoke to the distant sounds of Xaros drones flying overhead, the thrum of their anti-grav systems ringing through his ears. Muffled explosions flashed at the corners of his vision. Doughboys died by the hundreds in the Utah Mountains as he struggled back to consciousness. The flashback always ended the same way: armor soldiers firing rail cannons and annihilating a Xaros construct before it could tear through the St. George fortress.

  Silence buried the chaos. His ears rang. He opened his eyes to stare at the silhouette of a giant blotting out a sky. Snow swirled around his massive friend.

  “Sir! Sir! Wake up.” Opal knelt over Hoffman, ignoring the sliver of metal protruding from his side. Blood had frozen around the untreated wound.

  “I’m here, Opie,” Hoffman said, sitting up. “Hoffman for King, report.”

  No answer. The Mule was a disaster, upside down and the hull ripped away like a kill ravaged by wolves. Small fires traced through the electrical systems, the cockpit crushed against a rock outcrop. Black soil was mixed into the snow, tracing a path along their crash route.

  “Help me stand, Opie.”

  The doughboy’s big hands grabbed Hoffman and lifted him in one motion. “Sir called Opal ‘Opie.’”

  He looked at the doughboy. “Is that OK?”

  Opal stared at him with wide eyes and furrowed his brow. “Opal is Opal 6-1-9.”

  “You’re hurt. We need to get you fixed up and check on the team.”

  “Others here,” Opal said. He marched to the form of Gunney King lying akimbo ten feet from the Mule wreckage, pointing at the downed Strike Marine with a plate-sized knife hand. “Gunney King.”

  Opal marched closer to the wreckage. “Corporal Garrison. Arm hurt.” The other Marine sat next to a hunk of the outer hull, one hand gripping his gauss rifle, the other arm clutched against his side.

  Hoffman stretched his neck right, then left as he followed the bleeding doughboy to a thick pine tree where Masha and Medvedev were tied up facing away from each other. “Prisoners.”

  “Good work, Opal.” Hoffman shivered against the cold. He reset his armor and waited for the warming elements to ramp up from sleep mode to combat readiness.

  “Opal thirsty.”

  “Sit down and rest. You’ve lost a lot of blood. I’ll have a look at your wound in a moment.” Hoffman walked to Garrison and squatted down. “How bad is it?”

  “I’d be smeared all over this planet if it wasn’t for my armor,” Garrison groaned. “Left shoulder throbbing like a son of a bitch. Mule tried to tear me apart when we landed.”

  “Get your ass up and find the ship’s emergency kits.” Hoffman looked at his forearm screen and frowned at an ugly crack across the display. He touched Garrison’s icon and the computer responded. He sent an order for Garrison’s armor to administer a quick dose of stimulants and painkillers.

  “Ha, the good stuff. I knew there’s a reason I liked you. Is Opie OK?” Garrison asked, rolling into an upright position and adjusting his gauss rifle sling to his right hand.

  Hoffman nodded. “He has the worst wound of the team, as usual. Get to it, Marine. I need to rouse Gunney.”

  Hoffman stood over King’s form.

  A few paces away stood Garrison, facing the prisoners with his rifle ready. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “He looks so peaceful. Hard to imagine him yelling at me. Can I just draw a couple simple things on his armor before he wakes up?”

  Hoffman gave him the look.

  “Right. I’ll just move a little closer to the hot spy chick and her freakishly large bodyguard. I wonder what he can bench press.”

  Hoffman linked his IR band to King’s armor CPU and checked his vitals. The man was unconscious, but his armor didn’t read any major injuries. Hoffman sent a command for King’s armor to send a whiff of ammonia into his helmet.

  “Gunnery Sergeant King, report.”

  The man groaned for half a heartbeat, then scrambled to his feet. Standing too abruptly, he staggered around, pointing his side arm with his right hand and pawing for his rifle with his left. “Team, rally. Rally around the crash site. Set up security. Pancakes with strawberries. Pancakes with strawberries. Can I get some service around here!”

  Hoffman spread his hands as he calmed his top NCO. “Easy, Gunney. Take a second to get your bearings.”

  “What? Ahh…I’m OK. I’m good.” King grunted and cursed under his breath as he circled the wrecked Mule. “Team, sound off, by the numbers.”

  Garrison’s IR mic chirped on their squad net. “Garrison, checking the wreck.”

  “Opal, guarding prisoners.”

  Silence.

  “That’s the entire team,” Hoffman said. “We split for the extraction, remember?”

  “Yes, sir. Are you OK?” King asked, hesitating before adding, “Did I say anything unusual?”

  Hoffman patted him on the shoulder as he walked past him. “I need to work on Opal. Check on Garrison and the prisoners, then salvage what you can from the Mule.”

  Smoke swirled toward the sky from at least three locations. The Mule had broken apart after shearing a path through Koen Aspen-like trees and plowing into the side of a mountain. Fat snowflakes fell straight down without wind to divert them. Visibility shrank to less than a hundred meters as the sun set.

  Hoffman found Opal digging through the wreckage like an angry demon. The doughboy flung a door panel over Hoffman’s head, then grabbed one of the benches and tore it loose. “Where rifle?”

  Hoffman looked up at the sky as snow fell into his face. Silence ruled the forest.

  “Opal. Your rifle can wait. I need to look at your injuries.”

  Opal tugged something from a tangle of metal. “Arrrrrgh! Broken! No! Opal kill enemy. Rifle kill enemy. Arrrrgh!” He pulled back his right fist and punched a section of metal, ringing it like a gong. Seconds later, he slammed the broken rifle against the metal, then dropped it, then started tearing the remains of the Mule apart. “Broken!”

  Hoffman reached out to calm the mottle-faced doughboy, then jumped back to avoid an arm thicker than his leg.

  “No! No! No!” Opal slammed both fists on the canopy of the Mule cockpit.

  King slid to a stop next to Hoffman. “What the hell?”

  “Calm down, Opie! You can use my rifle!” Garrison yelled from where he was standing guard on Masha and Medvedev, wincing in pain as he tried to placate the doughboy and guard the prisoners at the same time.

  “He’s cracked. Is this what they do when they shut down?” King asked.

  Hoffman stepped in front of King and pushed down his gauss rifle. “He’s just angry. Doughboys get attached to their rifles. Part of their programing.”

  Opal’s all-out fury continued until he staggered and fell from exhaustion and blood loss. “Rifle broken…”

  Hoffman ran to his side, surprised by the distance the doughboy had covered during his tantrum. He assumed a defensive stance. “Easy, big guy. I need you to follow my orders.”

  “Play that stupid video,” Masha suggested.

  Hoffman gestured at the smoking wreckage of the Mule.

  She nodded at his tactical sleeve with her chin. “Use that. Think outside the box.”

  Hoffman ignored her. His armor was covered with blood, debris, and snow. “Go slow, big guy. Listen to sir. Follow my orders.”

  Opal stood at attention, slowly because of the frozen metal protruding from his side. “Yes, sir.”

  Hoffman opened a combat first-aid pack. “Lie down on your right side and hold on to that rock. King, I’m going to need help with this. Second thought, switch with Garrison. He’s stronger.”

  “Garrison, you heard the boss.”

  Garrison slung his gauss rifle and hurried to Hoffman’s side. “That doesn’t look good.”

  “I hope you’ve been eating your performance bars. You must pull that out in one try. No slipping. No hesitating. I’m going to cauterize it and glue down the skin flaps as fast as I
can.”

  “Are you giving him pain meds?” Garrison asked.

  Hoffman shook his head. “They don’t do anything for doughboys. On three. One, two, three.”

  Garrison gripped the twisted piece of metal with his right hand and pulled. “Come out, you son of a bitch.”

  “Opal, let go,” Hoffman said.

  Opal relaxed his latissimus dorsi, the muscle running from his upper back almost to his hip like the flank of a horse, and Garrison yanked the metal scrap free. Hoffman plunged the cauterizing tool into the muscle and swept it along the length of the wound.

  “By the Saint,” Garrison muttered.

  “Didn’t know you were religious,” Hoffman said as he wiped the sizzling mess with disinfectant squares. “Why didn’t you use both hands? I told you to use all the powerlifting muscle you’re always bragging about.”

  “Left arm is still a bit wobbly.”

  Hoffman looked at the arm in question. “You mean broken?”

  “Probably. Call it a stress fracture. With a dislocated shoulder thrown in for good measure.”

  Hoffman shook his head. “We don’t have time for ‘who’s the toughest Strike Marine?’ If you’re injured, I have to know.”

  “Yes, sir,” Garrison said. “The meds my armor sent into my system have my teeth buzzing right now. My left arm doesn’t hurt as much, but it’s not moving right either.”

  “Opal? Status?” Hoffman asked.

  “Unit fluid levels are suboptimal,” answered the programming deep in Opal’s consciousness.

  “Drink some…we don’t have any water, do we?” Hoffman looked around. “Snow. Eat some snow, Opal.”

  The doughboy picked up a hunk of dirt-encrusted ice and bit into it. Squeaks and cracks came from his mouth as he broke down the ice between his massive molars.

  “He going to make it?” Garrison asked as Hoffman unrolled a sling from the medical pack and tied down Garrison’s left arm.

  “Doughboys are made tough,” Hoffman said. “His system will replace his blood loss quick enough. None of his organs were damaged. No need to worry about shock with him.”

  “Lucky guy,” Garrison said. “Course, he doesn’t get the benefit of synthetic opioids and amphetamines at the same time.”

  “You weird out on us, I’ll trigger the antidotes,” Hoffman said.

  “Kind of wish Booker was here,” Garrison said, his teeth chattering.

  Hoffman helped the corporal move his rifle sling into place. “I’m going to watch Opal for a few minutes. You’re on prisoner duty. We’re moving ASAP.”

  “Not a lot of inventory in this Mule,” King said. “Best not to stay here for too long. We left a trail of burning fuel for half a kilometer—like an arrow pointing straight to us.”

  Hoffman helped Opal up to a sitting position as the doughboy continued stuffing his mouth full of snow. The green and brown of Opal’s skin pulsed as new fluid flooded into his system. He looked up at the overcast sky as snowfall flitted through the wreckage and evaporated in the flames. The distant roar of fighter engines and crump of explosions carried on the wind.

  “We need to get moving,” Hoffman said.

  “Yes, sir,” King said. “You think the Kesaht will come for us?”

  “They know where we crashed. I’m going to assume they will.”

  “Lieutenant, can we…get…some of…that…fire…action?” Masha said through chattering teeth.

  Medvedev stared at Hoffman, ignoring his minor injuries and his guard.

  “I’m…freezing…over here,” Masha said.

  “You and me too, sister,” Garrison said.

  “Such a gentleman, Corporal Eric Garrison. Would your armor fit a poor little thing like me?”

  “No,” Garrison said. He looked around. “What? Everyone knows it won’t. I’m not a heartless jerk. It’s just that my armor only fits me. And it really creeps me out when the spy uses my full name.”

  “She doesn’t need armor,” Hoffman said.

  Masha glared at him.

  Hoffman turned his back on the prisoners. “Opal, sit them by the fire. Not too close.”

  Darkness and a special kind of cold came quickly in the mountains and Hoffman adjusted the internal settings of his armor. “Team, minimize comfort settings. We need to conserve battery power. I’m going to attend to the pilots.”

  “Roger,” King said.

  Hoffman found Sakkatos first and stared at the tangle of metal and composite plastic. Extracting his body was like taking apart a three-dimensional puzzle in a snowstorm at night. He took the man’s dog tags and scanned his identification as KIA. “Sorry, Sakkatos.”

  He searched the man’s gear for a token of Saint Kallen or other religious artifact but found none. Exhaustion spread through his body without warning. He craved silence. No matter how hard he tried, he could only remember the beginnings of prayers.

  Weber was just as stuck, but the crash had done less damage to the man. Hoffman had expected to find a bloody rag doll in the copilot’s seat, but other than the missing hand and bloodstains, the copilot could have been sleeping.

  “This is taking too long,” King said and he smashed open an ammunition crate. “We should be kilometers away by now.”

  Hoffman tried to mark the crash’s grid coordinate, but there was no connection to the GPS satellites. “Agreed, but let’s not rush to failure. Koen is looking like a bad planet to be lost on.”

  “I have the survival kits, including a pair of light enviro suits. Do you want me to give them to the prisoners?” King asked.

  “Give me a minute.” Hoffman stared at Sakkatos and Weber and did some quick mental math on how long it would take to extract them from the wreckage.

  “You should give them a proper burial,” Medvedev said. “They were brave men.”

  Hoffman planted his gauntleted fists on his hips and stared down at the man. “They’ll get it…just not right now. You’re an Ibarra legionnaire, aren’t you? What does this tactical situation call for?”

  “That we move out before the enemy catches up to us,” Medvedev said. “We are exposed to an air attack.”

  Hoffman didn’t answer.

  Missiles streaked across the sky, falling from high orbit toward the nearest navy base. As King finished gathering supplies, Hoffman watched the distant light show, explosions reflecting through the gloom that shrouded the mountain peaks.

  King lifted two shrink-wrapped bundles. Hoffman nodded.

  “You had enviro suits and allowed us to suffer? That is a clear violation of section nine of the Hale Treaty and the Articles of War,” Masha said.

  “Do you not want them?” King asked.

  Masha shivered uncontrollably.

  “Put them on. Take in some nutrient paste and water. We’ll be on the move in five minutes,” Hoffman said.

  “I will untie you to put the suit on, then bind your hands in front because I’m such a hell of a nice guy and I don’t want you falling down the mountain. One wrong move…and we will make other arrangements to transport you.” King tossed the first pack onto Masha’s lap and untied her from the tree.

  Hoffman went to the case of emergency supplies and looked through the contents: a half-dozen packs of nutrient paste, a first-aid kit, water-purification tabs, two emergency beacons, and four all-purpose battery packs.

  In normal combat conditions, Strike Marine armor carried enough power to operate for three days without resupply. The cold weather would be a constant drain on the systems, and moving over rough terrain would sap the reserves even faster. The spare battery packs were designed for the lighter, more efficient void suits Mule pilots and crew would wear and might buy the Strike Marines a few more hours of performance apiece.

  Opal tossed Hoffman a beat-up cardboard container from the wreckage, a “box of nasties”—meals carried onboard. Hoffman opened it up and slipped a bag of nuts and a frozen ham sandwich into a pouch on his belt. He picked up a cup of coffee with a sealed lid.

  S
hivering still, Masha zipped up her enviro suit. Her lips were blue. The lieutenant warmed the cup of coffee with a pull tab and handed it to her, saying, “Tell me about the Kesaht.”

  She worked her fingers against the container as it warmed up and held the thermos near her body. “You don’t know about the new threat to the Terran Alliance?”

  Hoffman motioned to Medvedev, and King tossed the Ibarran the other enviro suit.

  “One mission at a time,” Hoffman said. “I know of them. Just never faced them in battle.”

  Masha laughed.

  “That’s the first genuine sound you’ve made since we met,” Hoffman said.

  “Oh, Hoff. You’re so sweet. I just find it amazing that nothing has changed in the Strike Marines. Admirals and politicians love their comms lockdowns,” she said. “The Ibarra Nation’s been skirmishing with them for a few years, mostly on artifact worlds, though they have launched a few raids. You don’t know anything about the fighting on Oricon or Balmaseda?”

  “The Ibarrans provoked them?” Hoffman asked.

  “They hated us—Terrans and Ibarrans both—before we even made first contact,” Masha said. “And the Kesaht were raiding systems before the Ibarra Nation and Earth had our latest…impasse. Who do you think attacked New Caledonia?” Masha asked.

  Color drained from King’s face. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Masha ran her hands down her arms and tugged gloves built into the suit over her fingers.

  “We can catch up later, yes?” she asked. “We’re better off someplace that’s not so exposed.”

  Medvedev had almost changed into his enviro suit.

  “We’re waiting on you two,” Hoffman said. “Why are the Kesaht attacking us here? You said you’d run into them on artifact worlds. Isn’t that why you’re here? The Koen ruins?”

  Masha shook her head. “I’m just here for the skiing. The Kesaht are here in numbers. This isn’t a raid. It’s an assault.”

  An animal screamed in the distance as a predator tore it apart. The keening death cry could have been a child or a lost soul disintegrating. A mob of killers yipped and screeched at the moon, snarling and snapping at each other as they rendered flesh from bone.