War Wolves: Boxset 1-3

by Jonathan Yanez

  “Ragnar,” Rippa said, giving the member of her team a stern look. “We talked about this.”

  “Right, right, sorry, sorry.” Ragnar waved to Riot and her unit again before moving to a seat alongside the far wall.

  It was then that Riot noticed the constant booming of the Dreadnaught’s guns had come to a halt. She had ignored the weaponsfire until now. Now that it was gone, it was strange to have a moment of quiet.

  “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, Trilords, humans, and of course, our resident Grovothe. I’m your pilot Troy, and we’ll be lifting off in five,” Troy’s voice cracked over the ship’s comms. “We’re just waiting on our escorts now.”

  “Understood.” Rippa touched her right ear. “Strapping in.”

  Rippa moved to the far wall where Ragnar was already strapping himself in. She pressed a blue button on a control panel. Another line of seats rose slowly from a hollow space in the floor, facing the seats on the far wall.

  “We can’t be sitting on opposite sides of the ship, now can we?” Rippa asked. “Please take a seat and settle in. We have a lot to go over.”

  Riot followed the Grovothe’s instructions. She chose a seat in the middle of the row, facing Rippa and her unit. She made sure the safety on her weapon was engaged before crossing it over her lap. Her helmet went under her seat.

  Humans, Grovothe, and the Trilord all buckled in. To Riot’s surprise, the buckles that came over her shoulders actually unraveled themselves and locked into place with the belt across her lap. The technology was something like one of the wristbands that was straight when you slapped it onto your wrist then conformed to your arm once it made contact.

  “The objective today is pretty simple.” Rippa sat across from Riot. Her expression was hard as she took the time to look each of them in the eyes. “We’re one of three teams hitting the three Zenoth hives on Raydon today. We have the privilege of taking down the largest target. We can expect heavy resistance. We get in, destroy the ship the Zenoth are building, and hightail it back to the rendezvous. Any questions?”

  “Do the Zenoth have these new weapons and armor of theirs operational?” Riot asked. “If they don’t, how durable is their exoskeleton?”

  “Good question.” Rippa looked over to Brimley. “Brimley is our resident genius on the Zenoth. Brim, care to take this one?”

  The dark-haired Grovothe nodded, pursing her full lips. “We don’t know if the weapons they have been developing thanks to the Karnayers are operational yet. The last time we went down into one of their hives, they did not have the weapons ready yet. If they charge us as usual, their greatest assets are their sheer numbers and the pincers that extend from their mouths. Don’t get caught in one of their holds, and whatever you do, don’t get surrounded.”

  “Since we have the mechs, we can take the front assault and clear the way,” Rippa said. “Your team can—”

  “I’m not trying to piss in your cereal here,” Riot said, raising a hand, “but the War Wolves aren’t going to play second fiddle. We’ll be up there on the front with you. Our armor is stronger than it looks, and we have nanites injected into our bloodstream that will heal us instantaneously.”

  Rippa opened her mouth as if she were about to argue, then thought better of it when she saw the intensity in Riot’s eyes.

  Atlas slammed the transport ship’s door closed before coming over and taking a seat with the rest of his unit.

  “Firing engines,” Troy said over the ship’s comms. “Hold on to your butts.”

  The thrusters roared to life, filling the transport ship with a heavy thrum. The transport ship shuddered as it lifted from the hangar bay floor and maneuvered into space.

  Riot was rattled in her seat for a brief moment as the ship exited the force field bay screen that separated them from space. She stared past Rippa’s head at the windows behind her that showed a black background with hundreds of bright lights in the galaxy.

  “If you put these in your ears, we’ll all be connected.” Ragnar reached for a case under his seat. Inside were a dozen small earpieces with a short wire coming from the top. “Just put it in your ear, and I’ll do the rest.”

  Riot took the offered earpiece. It looked harmless enough. It was a dull cream color with a tiny antennae poking out of one end. She placed it into her right ear.

  “You’ll be able to hear us talking with you, via the earpiece,” Ragnar explained, pointing to his own ear. “When you want to say something back, you’ll have to press your ear to speak.”

  “Gonna be kinda hard to apply pressure on our ears when we’re wearing our helmets,” Wang said, looking over to Riot for agreement. “What do you think?”

  “Vet, maybe you and Doctor Miller can get with Ragnar on this and figure something out?”

  “Roger that,” Vet said. He unbuckled his harness and switched sides in the row of seats to sit next to Ragnar.

  Doctor Miller did the same thing. The trio began talking in low, excited voices.

  Riot took the opportunity to fill Rippa in on her plan. “Doctor Miller may be staying here on the transport ship. She’s a noncombatant, and well … it doesn’t look like we’re going to do a whole lot else besides combat, here.”

  “Understood.” Rippa placed a hand on either side of the harness that was keeping her still in her seat. “Why do your people only refer to you as Warrant Officer Riot? Do you not have a first name? Or a last name?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Riot saw Ketrick perk up at the question.

  “Better not to go there with the warrant officer,” Wang warned from his seat.

  Rizzo shook his head and made the motion of slicing his throat with this right pointer finger.

  “She’s a bit sensitive when it comes to her first na—”

  “That’s enough Corporal Wang,” Riot said, leaving no room in her tone for argument. “I prefer to go by my last name.”

  Wang shut his mouth.

  “It’s something that I’ve wondered myself.” Ketrick leaned forward to look past Rizzo, who sat on Riot’s right. “But I’ve never asked.”

  “Maybe she is ashamed of her first name?” For the first time Rippa looked at Ketrick without disdain.

  “Perhaps,” Ketrick answered.

  “You know, maybe you two always going at it isn’t so bad after all,” Riot growled. Her name was one she had inherited from a grandmother on her father’s side. It was a name she had been teased and ridiculed for at an early age. As soon as she’d reached high school, she’d started to go by “Riot.”

  “Are you afraid we will laugh at you?” Brimley asked from her seat between Rippa and Atlas. “I assure you, we will not.”

  “It’s Gertrude, okay?” Riot shouted.

  “There is nothing wrong with that name.” Rippa looked let down, as if she’d been expecting something truly horrific. “I have an aunt back home named Gertrude Widebottom. She is a beautiful woman.”

  Brimley and Atlas nodded along with shrugs as if they, too, saw nothing wrong with the name. Ketrick, on the other hand, wore a wide grin on his face. The two canine teeth that extended out like a predatory animal fell over his bottom lip.

  “Not a word.” Riot set her jaw so hard she could feel her muscles twinge with the pressure. “Not a word, you Trilord son of a gun.”

  “No words, Gertrude.” Ketrick settled back into his harness.

  The only thing keeping Riot in her seat besides the straps was the need for the mission to succeed. Heat touched her face as she thought about a dozen ways to kill Ketrick. “I’m going to make you pay for that, you little ba—”

  “Heads up to enter your mech units as requested,” Troy warned over the ship’s comm. “We’ll be touching down shortly.”

  63

  It’s a temporary fix,” Vet said, working on Riot’s helmet. “But with Ragnar and Doctor Miller’s help, we’ve been able to splice into our comms. We’ll be able to talk to Rippa and her unit, as well as each other now.”

  “Good,
” Riot said.

  As soon as Rippa had heard the announcement over the comms to prepare, she had unstrapped herself along with the rest of her unit. Ragnar had passed last minute instructions to Vet and Doctor Miller before joining his unit by their mechs.

  The four Grovothe warriors that made up the Spartans knelt before their mechs and lowered their heads. Riot could barely make out what they were saying over the hum of the engine. It sounded like some kind of prayer, led by Rippa.

  “If it’s our time to go, then it’s our time to go,” Rippa said with her eyes closed and her voice as cold as iron. “Our death day has already been decided long ago. Let us fight without compassion for our enemy, fearless in the face of combat. Defeat is not an option. Today, we will teach the Zenoth horde the meaning of fear. We are Spartans, and we are strong. We stand as one!”

  “We stand as one!” the other three members in her party repeated.

  As one the unit said, “Strength in struggle. Victory at all costs. Death to our enemies.”

  The Grovothe opened their eyes. They stood up, preparing to mount their mech units.

  “Wow, I’m glad we’re not going to have to fight them,” Doctor Miller said, blinking her large eyes a few times. She worked on Wang’s helmet, syncing his to the Grovothe comms. “Kinda intense, right? I have goosebumps.”

  “Perhaps the halflings are not as weak as I thought.” Ketrick shrugged.

  Riot looked on as Rippa and her Spartans mounted their mech units. A control panel near the left foot of their suits of armor had a built-in hand scanner. Each pilot placed their hands on the instrument. A loud hiss filled the room as the center of the mech units opened.

  Each armored suit stood twenty feet tall. For the five-foot-nothing Grovothe, it would be a high leap to enter the chest cavity of their mech units. This had been fixed with a narrow stepstool that slid out of the chest fissure, allowing the Grovothe access to their cockpit.

  A moment later, Rippa and the rest of her unit disappeared into their mechs. With a hiss of hydraulics, the steps retreated back, and the openings to the cockpits closed. One by one, the blue lights showing through the armor’s helmets blinked on with a sinister glow that made the flat black mechs even more intimidating.

  “How come we don’t have a prayer when we go into battle?” Vet asked with his ever-present scowl. Ketrick’s war paint still on his face in the shape of his own handprint made it hard for Riot to take him seriously.

  “Touchdown in four minutes, boys and girls,” Troy warned over the ship’s communication speakers. “Get ready.”

  The mech Rippa had entered turned its helmeted head over to Riot and the others. Rippa’s voice came from the armor suit. “My unit will drop a minute before touchdown and secure the landing zone.”

  “Roger that,” Riot said as the ship shuddered. Out of the small, square windows in front of her, Riot could see the ship entering the planet’s atmosphere.

  The transport ship rocked harder. Riot was pressed against her seat’s restraints as the oxygen around the ship burned. Entering the planet’s orbit was strikingly similar to entering Earth’s orbit.

  The ship rocked and rolled. Riot clenched her rifle in her right hand, her helmet recently updated by Vet in her left.

  Here we go again, Riot thought. It’s on you to get them in and out in one piece. You can do this. You got this.

  The Archangel transport ship finally came to a steady glide. The windows outside showed what looked like a red-and-cream desert stretching out for miles in every direction. Two other transport ships moved in the distance farther to their right. The other two Grovothe teams tasked with taking out the two smaller hive targets moved on.

  “Helmets on,” Riot said, looking around her squad as she donned her own. Everyone besides Ketrick obeyed.

  As soon as Riot had placed the helmet on her head, her visor came to life with readouts and displays of weapons and equipment. Her heads-up display showed her everything in running columns on the right, left, and even on the bottom of her visor.

  When Riot looked over to Ketrick, the display pointed out the weapons he held on the right column, his race on the left.

  “We’re ready for descent, Spartan team,” Troy’s voice came into Riot’s helmet.

  “Roger that,” Rippa barked. “Let’s do it.”

  The Grovothe started a countdown as the Archangel transport ship came to a hovering spot above the planet. “In three, two, one.”

  The four mech units had actually been standing on top of a deployment hatch. As soon as the pilot’s countdown reached one, the hatch snapped open, dropping the four mech units.

  Whoosh!

  In a blink of an eye, the mech units disappeared through the floor. A strong gust of air rocketed through the ship. A moment later, the doors slowly closed.

  “Warrant Officer Riot,” Troy spoke into her helmet, “we’re about a minute until touchdown. You’re clear to unharness.”

  “Understood,” Riot said as she slammed her fist against the harness release button on the center of her chest. At once, the harness and lap belt strapping her in began to coil back into itself. “War Wolves, on me.”

  Riot strode to one of the side doors, grabbing on to a handle near the hatch. Everyone followed, except Doctor Miller, who moved to join them, then thought better of the moment and remained seated.

  Memories of the doctor’s genuine interest in her well-being, as well as the safety for all those in the unit, crossed Riot’s mind. The nightmare she had of being an old woman alone also pushed to the surface. Before Riot could convince herself it was stupid, she motioned to the doctor. “That means you, too, Bubbles. If you want to stay, you have my blessing, but the team’s not complete without you.”

  “Me?” Doctor Miller stood like a kid who had been called in from riding the bench all season. “I don’t know. At first I thought I wanted to stay, too, but now I don’t know. This is a combat mission, not an exploratory venture.”

  “It’s your call,” Riot answered back.

  “Okay, I guess I can go. But we really shouldn’t call ourselves the War Wolves. I mean we’re a peacekeeping exploratory team sent out—”

  “We get it, we get it,” Riot hushed the doctor, already regretting her decision. “Right now, we need to focus.”

  Riot’s helmet below her eyes came out into a shallow point that ran the length of her nose to her chin. The visor extended from halfway up her nose to just past her eyebrows. Once again, Riot was struck by how much it reminded her of an ancient knight’s helmet.

  One of the new updates to their armor was the ability for her visor to shift from a dark tint to clear. Riot tapped a button on the back of her left forearm, where a control panel regulating different functions of her armor stood ready. With a flick of a button, the dark visor on her helmet went clear.

  Every member of her unit, minus Ketrick, who didn’t wear a helmet, did the same, to look Riot in the eyes.

  “Here we go again.” As she spoke, Riot took the time to look them all in the eyes, even Doctor Miller. “Into the belly of the unknown. But it doesn’t matter. We could be entering a fight against the entire universe, and I wouldn’t rather have anyone else by my side. When we go out, we’re not alone. We’re not single individuals looking out for his or her own safety. We’re looking out for each other first. Nothing breaks us—nothing!”

  Riot pounded a fist on the chest of her armored suit. Heavy thumps from everyone in the circle around Riot answered back. “Let’s introduce the Zenoth to the Marines and make them remember forever, this day! The day the corps paid them a visit! Oohrah!”

  “Oohrah!” everyone shouted back.

  Adrenaline raced through Riot as she felt the familiar tingling sensation spread through her body, to every finger, to every toe.

  “Touchdown in three,” Troy said over the comms, “two, one.”

  The transport craft landed with a jolt on the planet’s surface. The door in front of them slid open from the middle, o
ut to either side. A bleak landscape greeted them. The orange sun just cresting the horizon was already promising a hot day in the near future. Dry, red sand crunched beneath Riot’s boots.

  Rippa and her team had already set up a perimeter around the transport ship. One giant armor suit at each corner created a secure box for the ship to land inside.

  Everything looked calm. No wind blew at their unit, no sounds of scurrying animals or alien birds overhead. The only noise came from the Archangel transport ship that lifted off once more.

  Sand whipped at Riot’s armor as the ship regained the air. Riot’s heads-up display marked each mech unit with the Grovothe pilot’s name on the bottom of the outlined unit.

  The mech unit with the name Rippa underneath jogged toward Riot. The twenty foot armored beast moved like a human in long, easy strides; nothing like Riot had imagined.

  The mech armor’s metal arm reached with a long finger and pointed east.

  Riot’s helmet compensated for the brightness of the rising sun. She followed a straight line to where the mech unit directed her attention. In the distance, no more than a click or two away, a mound rose from the ground.

  The mound reminded Riot of a volcano that had recently been pounded by an orbital strike. All around the mountain-like form were blackened craters, courtesy of the Dreadnaught’s attention during the night.

  “That’s the hive we’re going to take out,” Rippa’s voice came over Riot’s comms. “I’d say we’d take the lead, but I don’t think you’re going to go along with that.”

  How hard are you going to make this, Riot? she asked herself. As much as she didn’t want to take orders from a commander she wasn’t familiar with in the field, she understood the importance of a command chain while in the field. Rippa knows the enemy, and she knows the terrain. Arguing with her will only weaken the unit. Give her a chance.

  “This should be your show,” Riot said into her comms. “This is your backyard and you’ve engaged this enemy before. Take the lead.”