by Chris Hechtl
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“ … Bury the bastards and anyone too slow to get out,” a male voice snarled over Jethro's audio.
“That was Captain Zhukov. He's still alive,” Bast reported.
“But he won't surrender. It's die or drop to them. Okay,” Jethro said. “We'll do it his way then,” he said grimly. “Pass the warning on to the other suits. Watch for falling rock.”
“Roger that.”
“And give me Zhukov's location and heading. I think I need to deal with him personally,” he said.
“You'll need to double back; this way won't lead you to him,” she warned. She projected a path on his map. He grunted and then turned and followed it.
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Lieutenant Singh refused to leave the injured. He got the others who were less injured to help carry the worst outside. The walking wounded went down the corridor to the bitter cold outside. “I'm out of supplies,” he said, shaking his head as he wiped at his brow. He could barely see; the flashlights and little ambient light from the tunnel behind him were all he had.
“I'll do what I can,” Lieutenant Kinoshita said. He darted up the hall back into the base.
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Lieutenant Kinoshita passed a limping and gravely wounded suit. He kept going though. He managed to get to the sickbay, but there were no more trauma kits. He looked around, then grabbed the sheets off the few beds there and then ransacked the cabinets for whatever he could find. He bundled it all up in another sheet, then slung it over his shoulder and headed back the way he had come.
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Lieutenant Sng was beyond bitter over the entire experience. He'd managed to get out of his suit with a little help, and Doc had patched his wounds so he wouldn't bleed out. He followed the egress out the door, unsure of where it would lead. There was no way he could get far, not in his condition.
When he got outside, he saw Lieutenant Singh busy patching someone else together. So, that was where the doc had gone he thought absently. He felt exhausted, tired, but he kept going, cradling the rifle he'd managed to salvage in one hand against his chest.
The lieutenant limped up to a group of his own troops who had knelt and had their arms raised in surrender. Unholy rage filled him, banishing his fatigue and pain in the heat of the moment. He hefted a rifle one-handed to his hip, and with a snarl, he cut them down from behind like wheat.
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“Bastard,” Sergeant V'n'r said when he saw the guy kill his own troops. He leveled his weapon and shot the guy. The heavy gauge Gauss rifle was a bit much to hit an unarmored target, however; the human's body exploded under the kinetic impact and pressure wave.
“Charlie One to all units. It looks like some of the enemy isn't in the mood to allow their own people to surrender. Watch for it. All Charlie units, we've got the inner defensive zone. All air units, you've got the outer.”
A chorus of rogers came back to him.
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The shock and awe of combat, of being so badly beaten, stunned and broke the Death's Head morale.
They were used to being on top, being the predator, the bully who taunted their victims and played with them with no hint of remorse. That anyone could beat them, be as ruthless and better at their job than they were, to go toe to toe with them was their breaking point.
Jethro caught one of the enemy suits as it tried to limp to the back door. He'd hunted her’ she had managed to guess she was being stalked from the smoke-filled corridors and had panic fired behind her.
He'd finally gotten in close enough to get a shot off, DX'ing her weapon.
He'd then waded in, growling over his radio as he continued the chase. She ran around another corner, obstructing his shot so Bast re-routed him.
He got a shot as she cleared another intersection, catching her in her leg. She dropped and then tried to crawl away.
When he got to her, warily he realized that despite her injuries she wasn't willing to surrender. The injured female crawled backwards on her back, skittering on her armored ass away from the terrifying monster that had turned the tables. He decloaked and moved in.
“It's not possible! It's not supposed to be this way!” She shook her head angrily. She tore her helmet off and tried to pick up a weapon. Jethro batted it aside as she tried to point it in his direction.
“You're an animal! A monster! Inferior!” she shrieked at him. “We're better than you!” She pawed at her sidearm.
“Why? You aren't better. Welcome to the food chain. What goes around comes around,” he growled at her. He saw her wide eyes and savored it for a moment. When she tried to raise her weapon again, he shot her between the eyes.
Her body slumped back as her head exploded from the round. He grimaced at the splash of blood, brains, and bone and did his best to step around it.
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The Cadre units used their shields to shrug off small arms fire as they advanced and ran down the enemy units. Tikaani shot a soldier in the back and rear, making him drop. She came closer and noted his vital signs. He was alive; the suit was damaged so he wasn't quite out.
“That's not fair,” the human said coughing as he went down. “We're supposed to be better. We're the real inheritors; you're just a mistake,” he growled, trying to rise again.
“Fair? You use your armor against people that have none at all, against helpless civilians, and you bitch at me about fair?” Tikaani said as she leveled her rifle at the fallen soldier. “This is what I think of you and fair,” she said as she pulled the trigger.
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The surviving suits and injured got out from the back door and then dispersed, running for their retched lives in all directions. Sergeant V'n'r saw them and ordered his troops to pick them off. The dispersal meant they couldn't use some of their more effective weapons, however, and the people who weren't in armor and were limping away were an issue. He wasn't certain about taking captives and wasn't set up for it.
The gunships and Reaper drones answered the problem for him however. As the personnel got clear of his fire team's engagement zone, they entered the outer zone. One by one they were cut down or blown apart by the aircraft. None of them escaped.
“We should put mortars on that back door or close it,” he said.
“Let them run into the killing fields,” Sylvia said. “If they have a way out, they'll chance it and run. If they have to stand and fight, they can hurt our people as they go down. This is easier.”
“Right,” the Veraxin drawled.
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Lieutenant Zevaya looked through the back door and saw her soldiers getting torn apart by the weapon fire. To hell with chancing that, she had another way out. She went to the refuse chute and lifted the lid. She looked back the way she'd come in the dark, unsure before she took the plunge. “Here goes,” she murmured.
If she was lucky, the chute wouldn't be fouled at the bottom, and the water not too deep.
She slid down the chute and then sped up faster than she'd expected when it hit a near vertical section. She squealed in shock and fear as she plunged into the cold, icy water below.
She was immediately yanked away buy the current. She tried to protect her head as she tumbled in the water. She knew she was in trouble; the water was frigid. But if it got her out of the caves and down river, she would be theoretically out of the Marine's kill box.
When she saw light, she felt relief; her body was already going numb. She managed to use some of her last strength to swim to the surface, following her bubbles. The current dragged her along; it was fast and fierce.
When she got near the surface though, her eyes went wide in shock and terror. The top of the river was iced over! Frantically she tried to grab something, tried to pound her fists into it but she couldn't get through. The current dragged her along and the last bubbles of air slipped out of her lungs. She tried to fight it but the cold and lack of air seeped in and made her sleepy, the exertions made her more and more exhausted. There wasn'
t much more for her to do as the fight left her but die.
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Lieutenant Robinson stood there by the rear exit, looking out the door to the disaster outside. From the looks of it, no one got away. None. She shook her head. She had seen Lieutenant Zevaya pass her in the dark, but the woman had gone a different way. Perhaps she had another way out? She was tempted to follow the other woman but decided she wanted to be with Dimitri. She had one last thing to do. She checked her holstered pistol, nodded once, then went looking for him in the dark.
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Jethro noted it was all over but the mop up. “It looks like most of the enemy that ran did so,” Sergeant V'n'r said as Jethro got to the back door. He shook his head at the sight of fallen bodies outside.
There were a few wounded lying by the door. He waved Jasper through. Jasper checked them and kicked a few weapons away as the exhausted-looking human doctor put his hands wearily up.
“Go ahead and keep trying to save their lives, Doc, like it means much of a difference,” Jasper said as Jethro turned away.
“Roarack, Lobo, get to the front entrance if you can. Nia, help them. All other suits, spread out and hunt the remaining troops down,” he said just as a man showed up with a sack full of loot. The guy stood there, wide-eyed. Jethro pointed to him with his free hand and then pointed down to the ground. The guy nervously nodded and got to his knees as he dropped the bag. He held his hands up. “I've got a prisoner here. If you catch any, bring them to Charlie outside.”
“Gee, thanks,” Jasper complained.
Jethro did a quick search of the guy, then had him get up and march out the back door corridor to Jasper and the other captured troops.
“We've got three officers still unaccounted for,” Bast warned. “Zhukov, his second Zevaya, and a pilot. ONI has flagged the pilot as a priority catch,” she said, putting an image up on his HUD.
Jethro grunted. “Let the others know,” he ordered. “Find them,” he ordered as he re-engaged his cloak.
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“Why aren't you out there? Why didn't you go?” Dimitri demanded as Mabel came to him.
“Shh,” she said as she reached up and took his helmet off. “There is no retreat. I saw from the doorway; they cut down anyone who tries to escape.”
“But …”
“No retreat,” She murmured.
“Then we go down fighting.”
“Together,” she said softly. “Hell will be much the sweeter knowing I have you with me,” she said, eying him. He nodded and looked over his shoulder to the corner and then back again.
Lieutenant Robinson wrapped her right arm holding her pistol around Dimitri's neck. She pulled him in to kiss him, at first a peck, but when he turned his head to hers she kissed him full on the lips.
His momentary distraction was his undoing. She bent her right arm at the elbow to point her pistol at the back of his head. Before he could react, she pulled the trigger. The round went through his head and into hers killing them both.
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When the bodies of Zhukov and Robinson were found, Jethro sounded the all clear. They still needed to find Lieutenant Zevaya, but he was sure she would turn up eventually.
He stomped through the corridors back to the front entrance as the colonel moved in with her forces to secure the area.
Jethro came out into the waning light to see medics with Lobo and Roarack. The duo was being carried by a pair of suited Marines on stretchers. He felt Bast scan them and then come back with a report. Lobo was serious but not critical. Coyote was still patching him up.
He turned to see Nia as she waved off the helping hands of the medics. “Just some puckering now, my suit took care of it,” she said. She shooed them off. “Go on, I got this,” she said.
Jethro snorted.
He noted the Marines nearby and also impatient-looking Bast. “What?” he asked. She shook her head. “What??” he asked tiredly.
“The cloak?” she asked.
“Oh,” he said sheepishly. He flashed his IFF and then decloaked. He got more than he expected when he did so as he was suddenly slammed on his right side.
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PFC Bob Ilumin was nervous, scared, and admittedly a little trigger happy. He'd just gotten his rocker and didn't want to blow it. But he also didn't want to get killed either. Just because they said it was all clear didn't necessarily mean it was true. He was certain they'd missed one, maybe more than one. When he saw his HUD blink and flicker an icon almost directly in front of him less than two meters away, he turned on the source and opened fire as something appeared, sure he'd found an enemy in their midst.
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Bast saw the incoming fire and the source. “Blue on Blue! Check fire! Blue fire! Check fire!” she said frantically over the net as she tried to deal with the damage, spin up the shields, and send a bot out to shut the private's gun down. Unfortunately, in disabling many of the gun's higher features in its microcomputer to get around the security protocol, Bob had also disabled the feature preventing the gun from firing on a friendly IFF. He had also disabled it from accepting commands from outside sources while it was in his hands.
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Anastasia was standing nearby and had come to parade rest when she had noted the colonel's arrival in her shuttle. When she heard the weapons fire so near and the frantic blue on blue call, she turned and saw a private firing on a gray suit. She lunged forward, grabbed him none too gently by the shoulder and yanked him hard back on his ass. He kept firing, however. She grabbed the barrel and yanked it up and twisted it harshly out of his hand. He screamed in shock and pain.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Marine?” she bellowed.
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Colonel Harley and the others had hit the deck when the close weapon fire had gone off, startled by its proximity. When she saw the grizzly bellowing at a private on his back she got up and dusted herself off. “What the hell is going on here?!?” she demanded as she strode angrily forward. When she got closer, she saw beyond the grizzly and gasped, eyes arrested by the sight of a downed Cadre suit.
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Anastasia saw the colonel out of the corner of her eye. She started to turn to look at the woman as she planted one boot on the idiot's chest when she saw the direction of the colonel's gaze. She turned her head to the source and saw a gray armored suit on one knee, propped up by one fist. She could see bare metal on the flank and chunks torn out of its side, arm, thigh and backpack. She at first thought he was fine until she saw the gaping hole under his armpit. “Man down! MEDIC!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs. “Man down!”
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The other Cadre saw Jethro go down and rushed forward to help. Pam was the first to arrive. She wasn't certain what to do, but Zako took control of the suit and put her hand over the wound. All she could do was sit back and wait as other suits moved in and put their hands on their fallen leader.
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Bast was too busy concentrating on keeping Jethro alive. The rounds that had breached the armor had torn up his chest, shoulder, right arm, and spine. His vitals began to flatline as the major artery hits started to bleed out. He had massive internal trauma and internal bleeding. She directed the nanites to the worst of the damage in flashes of code.
“Stay with me. Come on, Jethro, stay with me,” she whispered fiercely as his consciousness faded.
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Colonel Harley saw the suit and then turned to Anastasia, then the gun she was holding and the man she was practically standing on. “MPs secure this man,” she said, pointing to the PFC. “Get the medics in here now! Air lift him out. Use my shuttle!” she snarled.
Letanga got to the hapless PFC and snarled at him as the grizzly got him to his feet. “What the hell is wrong with you, Marine?” he bellowed. “You can't tell a cat suit from a human?”
“Sorry, sir!” the guy gulped, fighting back tears of pain and anguish. “I didn't know!” he stuttered
, then broke down.
“You didn't know? You didn't fracking know?” Letanga said grabbing the guy by the throat. The guy's eyes went wide.
“As you were,” the colonel said coldly, stopping Letanga as he stared with a bare-toothed expression into the private's eyes. He could smell the fear, smell the guy's urine. He held that gaze for a moment, then let go.
As he turned away, Anastasia let the idiot fall back to his knees as the MPs arrived.
“I thought you were going to tear his throat out,” she said quietly.
“I damn near did,” Letanga said as he stepped aside for the medics.
“You think he was just stupid or the Guild?” he asked, turning to the colonel.
“I don't know,” she said. “We are going to find out. I'd like to say it was the Guild, but I don't want to let paranoia rule us,” she said with a shake of her head. Their victory had just been tarnished by the incident. If the warrant officer died …
Epilogue:
With the data the Cadre A.I. had gathered, it was much easier for the Marines and surviving Cadre suits to dig out General Drier and his supporters. The Marines hit the furthest bases first like a tsunami. Some of the nearer bases were hit with the Marines last thermobaric rounds, then assaulted by the troops to pick through the wreckage.
General Drier's body had been positively identified as had most of his surviving leadership. Within his base, they'd captured hard copy maps and information that they used to hit bases that Zhukov hadn't known about as well as safe houses and personnel in the cities, towns, and farms. Some of the assaults were performed with a mix of Marine and local law enforcement.
Within a week, the fighting was over except for the occasional spot of violence in the cities and towns. The entire planet's population seemed to sigh in relief.
Jasper hated guard duty, but that was what the duty called for. He wasn't alone though; outside the temporary Government Administration building, a couple local LEOs were there for crowd control. There was a crowd, but they were pretty boisterous and gleeful over their newfound freedom and lease on life. Jasper hoped it was worth the blood it had cost.