Jerome followed his markers, heading for the Combat Shuttle that would deliver them into the heart of Blue Moon’s Factory Complex Three.
“Let’s go remind these fuckers why they don’t mess with Troopers,” Jerome said on the Company wide channel.
He moved out, seeing other Troopers moving out to their shuttles, both PAs and the unlucky bastards that had survived the first battle of Fernix and their ships being blown up, only to lose their powered armor.
The Blue Moon promised to be anything but a clean fight. Normal Trooper armor just wasn’t going to cut it.
Chapter 24
Combat Shuttle Two-One-Four
Blue Moon, Fernix System
7/3294
Tyler chewed on his gum as the ramp sealed closed. He’d lucked out and got Yu, Young, and Bobbie as his Combat Shuttle crew.
“Good morning, Lieutenant Tyler, ready to embrace a new day?” Bobbie asked, closing the hatch.
“Always ready with you around,” Tyler said grinning in his helmet.
“Aww, good to know you still care, Tyler,” Bobbie said, patting his armored shoulder and smiling as he passed and got into his seat behind the cockpit.
“Alright ladies, gents, and Lieutenant Tyler, we’re going to have a shitty day. Expecting lead and missile filled skies, with a side of possible nuclear payloads. Please remember the puke trough is to your front and this is a non-smoking flight. Make sure your weapons are on safe and that your powered armor is dialed down. We don’t need you ripping out your harnesses or more holes in the frigging carpet or ceiling. My cargo master keeps complaining about my DIY skylights,” Yu said even as the shuttle started rumbling to life and heading out of the flight deck.
“We will be holding around this here big bastard we call the Carrier Fearless and I am expecting a brilliant light show. It is available to you all if you want to look at shiny tracer fire and that weather I was talking about earlier. Thank you for flying Combat Shuttle Air, and I remind you to run as fast as that armor can carry you as soon as we set down. I do so love seeing Troopers run so I can get moving again.” Yu cut the channel.
“Been working on your pep talk I see,” Tyler said jacking into the Combat Shuttle’s crew circuit.
“Well, with more hazards more talk, and this one’s going to be as hairy as Bobbie’s balls after a week without shaving, so longer talk,” Yu explained.
“What makes you think I shave my balls?”
“It was more hope than knowledge. I feel sorry for the bastard that cleans your clothes - if you don’t probably burn them,” Yu said.
“I’d go with the burning,” Young said.
“I’d take that bet,” Tyler agreed. “So, what is this rumor I’ve been hearing about the rest of the fleet going in ahead of us?”
“Captain Hall put the rest of the fleet ahead of our four Carriers, the hope is that they suck up the damage,” Young said, the humor from moments ago vanishing.
“Also to use their missiles before they get screwed over by that Harmony fleet,” Yu added.
“Nukes?” Tyler asked.
“Bios. They’re going to wipe the planet clean of everything and everyone. Going to drop some of it on the Blue Moon to see if it can get in the factories,” Bobbie said.
Tyler felt a shiver go down his spine. It was heavy handed as hell, but it would work. They were going to purge the entire system. It had never been done before, but people had talked of it. No one but those in the cryo-pods would survive. Tyler just hoped that enough of the people who fought against Harmony made it to those cryo-pods. Any that supported Harmony would never wake up.
This wasn’t just a war; it was an extermination. It made Tyler feel dirty.
“We’ve got a new flight plan to get out of the missiles’ flight path,” Young said.
“Altering,” Yu said.
Tyler jumped into the sensors and had a look around with his HUD. There were hundreds of thousands of Combat Shuttles exiting their Carriers, with more coming out every minute.
The lead Carriers were grouped together, their flight decks shut, and damn close by normal standards in space, as their unarmored sides faced one another, their weapons pointing out. Tracers started firing from the lead ships, hammering weapon emplacements and sensor buoys.
The Carriers behind them were also side to side and added their fire. Explosions rippled over the Blue Moon and the orbitals of Fernix Prime.
It went on like that for a few minutes, then Harmony returned fire. Missile batteries, machine guns and all manner of weaponry fired on the Carriers. Many of them wouldn’t even scratch the armor of the Carriers.
Harmony seemed to care little. Tyler was looking at the weapons fire and, while it seemed that everyone and their sister was firing at the Carriers, their fire was controlled and focused. It might not take down a Carrier, but that smaller weapons fire could sure as hell take down a Combat Shuttle.
Carriers and Harmony fought, missiles struck the Carriers and made them shake but they kept going, their sides covered by their sister ships.
“Looks like they’ve got more of those fighters,” Yu growled as new contacts sprouted into Tyler’s HUD. They flew from the Blue Moon and ran towards the Carriers. Combat Shuttles that were heading towards the Blue Moon opened up on the fighters. They weren’t as nimble, but they were better armed and their missiles hunted them down.
The fighters didn’t need missiles, their tracer lines hammered Combat Shuttles as the two groups crossed one another.
“And we’re headed right into that mess,” Tyler said to himself as the Combat Shuttles rushed towards Blue Moon.
Missiles sprouted from the Carriers, heading for fighters, weapons, Blue Moon and Fernix Prime.
Tyler stopped chewing his gum and started grinding his teeth, knowing that among those missiles were biological weapons that would kill anything but Troopers.
Fighters were getting through the Combat Shuttles and heading right into the Carriers. His HUD was a mess of contacts; he didn’t know how pilots even started to understand it. Young was passing information to Yu, going through the reams of knowledge that Tyler couldn’t even begin to understand as they entered the battle.
“First shuttles have made it down,” Bobbie said. “First missiles have hit too,” he said a moment later, as large explosions ripped through the factories on Blue Moon.
It was a hellish scene with factories burning in the low atmosphere, fighters tangling with Combat Shuttles and battling to get past one another. Carriers and weapons’ platforms filled the sky with heavy missiles and lines of tracer fire.
There was a noise of tin on a roof that Tyler felt more than heard in the depressurized cargo hold.
“We getting shot at, sir?” the man beside Tyler asked, his face white with fear.
“Certainly feels that way,” Tyler said, chewing his gum. The cannon and auto-turrets opened up as missiles streaked free of their ports.
Tyler looked at his HUD; somehow, through all of the chaos, the rest of his Company’s Combat Shuttles were holding position to Yu, and plowing through the Harmony fighters. One Combat Shuttle blinked out and Tyler inhaled, shaking his head.
Time moved slowly as they fought through fighters and dodged fire coming from the ground. It took minutes, and every time Tyler heard weapons fire hitting the Combat Shuttle he thought that they were done for.
“Drop in ten! Up!” Bobbie barked. With his words, the harnesses unlocked and everyone got to their feet. They grabbed onto the bars above their heads in the walkways, stumbling as Yu took evasive maneuvers.
The ramp lowered and Tyler saw the battlefield in all its fury-filled glory. Tracers shot into the sky or into the factories. Explosions ripped through buildings here and there. Combat Shuttles raced over factories, firing their weapons and missiles, leaving destruction in their wake.
A Combat Shuttle was hit, and it swung hard to the right, going into a spin and crashing into a factory. Fighters sprouted from their hangars, racing to m
eet Combat Shuttles. The forces were battling it out for air superiority.
“Move it!” Bobbie said as the shuttle hit the ground heavily. The shuttle was vibrating with fire. The companies’ other shuttles were coming in and firing at the surrounding buildings.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Tyler said to himself, scanning his HUD.
“Push your people out into an all-around defense, we’re the first ones down so we need to secure this landing site for others. Operate in Platoons to move out, and secure the surrounding buildings once you’re formed up,” Tyler said to his Platoon commanders, rushing down the ramp and moving away from the Combat Shuttle that was already taking off, its turrets hammering a target to its front.
Tyler found a gap in the line of Troopers that were lying down and firing into the buildings around the landing pad. Enemy icons seemed to be everywhere.
Tyler fired on those immediately in front of him, his Repulsor adding to the angry red tracer lines, sprouting outwards from their drop-off. One Platoon started moving forward off of the landing pad and into the factories to Tyler’s left. Three moved into the ones behind him.
“Okay, Two, let’s get moving,” Dooks said, putting up way points. “Advance in Sections, supporting fire.”
One and Three Sections got up and ran, jumping back onto the ground, Two and Four running past them, never stopping their fire as they moved.
Tyler checked his HUD, finding Che was moving with Three Section. As he watched, a new flight of Combat Shuttles came in, they’d barely come into a hover when Troopers started peeling off.
“Sorry we’re late to the party,” Jerome said.
“Good to have you, my three Section’s looking kind of weak, and One and Two could do with support in between,” Tyler said.
“Moving to help,” Jerome said, clicking off and passing the necessary orders.
Tyler ran for a few meters and dropped back to the ground, firing on the factories. The wall was a shredded mess, with the new rounds turning it into flying shrapnel.
“We’ve got PACs coming from One Section’s direction,” Sasaki said.
“Get them pinned, we need to secure these other sides before we can get anything to assist,” Tyler said.
The noises of battle were dim with the nearly non-existent atmosphere. Still, Tyler could hear the whistle of the screamers and, denied air, they sounded like deflating balloons.
Well that has to be the weakest sounding screamer ever. Tyler shook his head, the other Sections had passed the one he’d attached himself to and were firing again.
“I’m getting to old for this shit,” Tyler grunted, running again.
Jerome’s shuttles took off.
“Declaring CCP over with Three Section,” Zukic said, a new marker on the HUD. “Incoming support fire on One Section’s front.’’
As he talked, a Combat Shuttle came in low and deadly, and its weapons ripped the factory a new skylight as missiles disappeared inside, blowing the factory’s walls out and sending debris everywhere.
“Move it!” Sasaki barked, and the dust hadn’t even settled before people rushed in.
Low gravity, might take fucking decades for that dust to settle. Tyler grunted as he was up and running again. They were just fifty meters from the buildings now.
A glance at his HUD showed the last flight of shuttles coming in; Mark and Charlie Company had arrived for the show, but they were missing a shuttle.
Tyler pushed his doubts aside, he needed to focus on the fight. Either Mark was dead or alive, he wouldn’t want Tyler distracted and dead.
“Take an extra bound and use the wall to fire inside!” Dooks called to his Platoon. Tyler moved with them, using the sorry excuse for a wall they’d been shooting into ever since they’d gotten out of their Combat Shuttle to stop himself. He came up over the wall, using it to rest his Repulsor on. Carats appeared.
“PACs!” He yelled, it seemed that Harmony’s reinforcements had arrived.
Tyler was firing even as he yelled, he didn’t realize the first was dead before he moved on. The new ammo was effective as hell.
We’re going to need all the small miracles we can get, Tyler thought, his augments pumping him up as he moved from target to target firing short controlled bursts with deadly precision.
Chapter 25
Factory Complex Three
Blue Moon, Fernix System
7/3294
Mark rushed off the Combat Shuttle, moving towards where Bravo Company’s third Section was moving inwards.
Both Bravo and Alpha were pushing into the factories that surrounded their landing pad. Blue Moon’s atmosphere was chaos.
Mark looked to his HUD, moving out way points for his Platoons, putting them as reinforcements for the lead companies. It was their job to fill any gaps that appeared and exploit any holes that showed in the enemy’s lines.
“Keep moving forward, I have other personnel coming down at this location so I’m going to push them towards Bravo and Alpha Company’s positions. I want to collapse us down to a single front before making a major push,” Haas said to his lieutenants and CSMs.
“Moving into support position,” Mark said, watching the Combat Shuttles take off as his people took whatever cover they could find.
“You see any of those fighters running around, send them a few good bursts,” Haas said.
Mark greened up and changed to his Company wide channel. “You see any of those Harmony fuckers flying around, shoot them.” Mark slumped down behind a reinforced barricade that had been hit by Combat Shuttle missiles and Repulsor rounds.
More Combat Shuttles came in and dropped off more people.
“Waz, move up to support Alpha Company Two Platoon,” Mark said, seeing that they were showing a mass of PACs hammering their position.
“Sir,” Waz clicked off, his Platoon moving out. Dominguez got the other Platoons moved so that they still maintained an all-around defense beyond the landing pad.
People were forming up behind them, preparing to carve out their own line of advance. The Company of Troopers in mis-matched powered armor had not set off. Those without powered armor had the AMRs, and Mark knew that Tyler had snagged one of the rifles from Fearless. The man was a damned good shot and he loved the AMR.
The Reclaimer Regiment was getting a good foothold in the exterior factories and the arrival of the new Company was allowing them to compress their forces and focus them.
“Mark, push up to the factories,” Zukic called out after a few minutes of fierce fighting. Two more Combat Shuttle drops had come in, and the second one was barely two Platoons instead of a Company. The Harmony bastards were cutting down the incoming reinforcements.
“Ko, Niemi, move up to the factories,” Mark said, and two twin green dots filled his vision. He waited until his people were moving before he started forward. They reached the walls of the three factories around the landing pad and the Reclaimer Regiment was pushing into three of them.
Mark fired at the fighters that flew across the landing pad and they seemed to get the idea and pissed off.
Mark spat into his makeshift container. He wanted to be in the fight, not sitting back and supporting it. Something had changed from his want to defend the people he cared about to destroying those that had hurt someone he had tried to protect.
Caroline was gone, but he was going to do everything in his power to make these bastards regret putting people into camps and claiming that they wanted nothing but freedom, while enslaving others. Harmony was supposed to be for the people, yet on Masoul and Osdal the people were second rate citizens, little more than slaves. The Chosen were rabid dogs.
These ones were prettier and maybe they weren’t the same Chosen as those that were on Masoul and Osdal, but they were something for him to vent his anger and his frustration at. He knew how to kill, he knew how to lead killers, and he was good at it. He would tear Harmony down for Caroline, but he would not do it in a way that would get his people killed.
&
nbsp; While he wanted to close with and destroy the Chosen, he held that darkness at bay; that same darkness that he had allowed to envelop him at the camp outside Mining City Twenty-One on Osdal Actual.
Chapter 26
EMFC Fearless
Fernix Prime’s Orbit, Fernix System
7/3294
“Missiles have entered Fernix Prime’s Orbit,” Lieutenant Celik reported from Weapons.
Captain Hall simply nodded. Fearless’s Troopers and the crew that kept her running had become close over the years. He couldn’t help but think of the imagery he’d seen as the biological weapons had hit Osdal’s Mining City Twenty-One, killing hundreds of thousands.
That was little compared to the hundreds of millions on Fernix Prime. The system had over two hundred million and now there were undoubtedly more as people had had more kids as the EMF had been racing for the system.
Hall had received the order, passed down from Nivad himself. They weren’t just going to stop Harmony here, they were going to wipe it - and any indication that there had been a rebellion on Fernix - out. New colonists would reseed and get the system back online.
The EMF had the job of butchers.
Hall felt something dark and twisted in his gut having to give that order, as he thought of his family that had grown up without him back on Earth. His wife and his children were long dead, but his grandchildren were about his age now. He was killing people that supported Harmony, but they were blind to the truth. He wished that he could have denied the order, but he knew that saying no to Nivad would result in a painful death.
He’d talked to M, who had given him the target coordinates. The man had always been a bit distant unless he was with the Triple-Twos. When he gave Hall his orders, he was practically despondent, knowing that he was instigating the deaths of millions.
Hall checked the trajectory of the biological weapons that would coat Fernix Prime, making it uninhabitable until Nivad sent another spread of missiles to clean up the mess.
The Carrier shook with impacts and missiles. The EMF fleet was now flying in partners, they each had one armored side and they were showing that to the planet and the moon, and computers were linked between the two, giving them full screen coverage and making them seem like one Carrier instead of two.
Fernix (Harmony War Book 4) Page 9