“Dominguez! How we looking?”
“Dumb, ugly, and ready to fight… oh wait, you were asking how we’re looking not how you’re looking! In that case, we’re a hundred percent, all accounted for, full charge, full ammo.” Her joking tone turned serious.
“Damn upstart, Company sergeant majors,” Mark muttered, smiling.
“We have good hearing, lieutenant. Heard you set off a nuke.”
“Fucking saw it,” Niemi said.
“Took out half the factory complex,” Ko added.
“I might have had something to do with a nuclear reactor losing stability,” Mark said, reviewing his messages and commands and checking the condensed report Dominguez had ready for him.
In minutes he was up to date with everything that had happened to the Company. They were down another five Troopers and eight more were wounded too badly to come along.
Another explosion seemed to rip through the moon in the direction of the nuclear reactor.
“Looks like a few of the rods weren’t out in the open fully. Just had another nuke go off right as the Harmony fucks were looking around for their buddies,” Waz said.
Mark grunted.
“Looks like some of the nuke rods made it to the moon’s actual surface. Some of those rods are melting their way through the ground. If they hit some ice, well, I hope you lot are ready for a firework show,” Ko said.
“Listen up!” Ortiz said overriding everyone’s channels. Everyone promptly shut the fuck up and waited.
“Devil Dogs, you will be the vanguard. We’re going to run through Chosen’s lines and push deep into their territory. Our aim is to sow sensor sticks across the battlefield. I want to know everywhere there’s a Chosen. Hit the enemy and move on. Do not get stuck into any long conflicts. Priority targets are command areas, armories, and supply dumps. All Platoons will have Carrier and Combat Shuttle support, so you see a nice target, send the coordinates higher and someone will fuck it up. Do not stop, do not pause, and do not have mercy,” Ortiz said, his voice raw and hungry.
“No mercy!” They all chanted in reply; the Devil Dog Regiment, the five other Regiments that were pushing out, and the twenty others that were staying behind in their main position. It was a terrifying noise for those Chosen that heard it. For the Troopers, it was a cold promise as they checked their weapons.
“Ko, Niemi, Waz, I’ll set a general direction, you operate your Platoons accordingly. If I see something that needs to be done, I’ll point it out. You see something interesting, let me know and I’ll look into turning it into a pile of dust and bringing the Company on target,” Mark said. He wanted them all on the same page.
Three green lights showed on his HUD.
“Two minutes!” Zukic yelled out to the Regiment. Last checks were made, and powered armor moved, their footsteps throwing up angry dust into the air.
Mark checked his Repulsor’s belt feed, taking it out and putting it back in and cocking the action on the big gun. It worked smoothly. He grabbed his blade on his left side, it came free easily, was fully charged and, while it had scratches on it, there were no chips in its edge. He slid it back home and checked the AMR. It moved easily and he was good.
He let out a breath to calm himself, his augments caught onto his actions and pumped in chemicals and hormones that would calm and focus him.
He breathed through his nose, taking in the cold air and chemicals. He smelled like sweat and his armor smelt like oil, metal, and plastics.
“Fuck, I hate waiting,” Dominguez said on a private channel.
“Me too, luxuries of a higher rank,” Mark replied dryly.
Dominguez snorted and Mark grinned, his own nerves making his stomach a soup of acid and nausea.
“Move out!” Zukic said.
“On me Devil Dogs!” Haas yelled, his powered armor pushing out ahead in the odd ground-eating lope of the powered armor working in low gravity.
He was tilted just above the ground, his footsteps throwing him forward at alarming speed. He looked more like a racing bike instead of a person.
“Move it!” Mark growled, and as one the entire Regiment surged forwards.
They were all tilted and pushing off of the ground whenever they came in contact. They rushed through torn up factory equipment. They had started a few kilometers from the actual lines that had been drawn through the factories and Combat Shuttles were still coming in across them, hammering the Chosen that were holding onto that line with everything they had.
Mark looked around. It felt more like they were horse riders rushing towards their enemy than mortal men. Their armor hit pipes and debris, sending it flying as they accelerated faster and faster.
“No mercy!” Haas said.
“No mercy!” The cry ripped out of Mark and the other Troopers’ lungs as they came out into the open of the lines. Five hundred heavy powered-armor-wearing men and women, Troopers to the last soul.
Red carats filled Mark’s view.
“Watch your fi...” A gurgling filled the channel as Zukic’s powered armor tumbled.
Mark’s Repulsor fired, but it wasn’t the chainsaw it usually was. The recoil dampener stopped it from throwing him backwards or sideways.
“Make sure you don’t hit any friendlies!” Mark said, taking over for Zukic who was showing red on his HUD.
Others were falling as they rushed forward.
Mark fired and moved, checking his HUD. He’d got to the point where he watched his HUD and let his training take over for fighting the battle.
They didn’t pause, and their tracers ripped into powered armor or made the Chosen dive for cover.
It took minutes for them to cross the line, where they jumped over the Chosen and continued on.
“Rear rank give those fuckers some grenades,” Jerome said.
Mark had his Company around him as they moved forward, smashing through the factory like human shaped bulldozers. They shook off walls and debris, and tossed pipes into space.
“Contact!” Ko called out, and red carats appeared. Mark saw the Chosen reinforcements that were making up a second line for their friends to pull back to. They were hastily building it and hadn’t yet got the message that the Troopers had smashed through the first lines.
“Incoming support!” Juarez, his warrant, said, as auto cannon opened up the factory roof, diving low and firing into the Chosen. Missiles made Mark’s visor tint darker as streams of tracers were traded between the Regiment and any Chosen that had a weapon nearby.
These weren’t even PACs, just regular Chosen. Their wearable armor was little protection against the Repulsor and its rounds.
Mark checked his HUD; the Regiment was fanned out in a half circle surging forward and firing outwards at any Chosen they found. Techs and their sensitive powered armor were covering the area in sensor sticks as they moved. They didn’t pause or slow.
The Carrier Fearless was kilometers away in support. Combat Shuttles were flying directly above the Devil Dogs in an arrowhead formation. As he watched, the Combat Shuttles pushed outwards more so that their wings were outside of the Regiment’s lines. Their auto-turrets lanced fire down around the Regiment, taking out any clusters of Chosen that appeared on the Troopers’ HUD and their sensors.
Four groups of two shuttles were back and above them. Two split off, coming in on a gun run, laying auto-cannon and missiles into the Chosen that someone had targeted.
Mark fired on a Chosen hiding up in the catwalks. They were one of the bolt-action rifle users. They were good and their guns could punch through PA if it hit the right spot. Mark’s rounds ripped the person and their cover apart as he looked towards the front. They were still rushing ahead. His Company had lost twenty people already, but the armorers had fitted booby traps to the armor. The Chosen weren’t going to get their remains or their armor.
“Mark, you’re Regiment sergeant major if I go down,” Haas’s voice was harsh, talking to the Company sergeant majors and above.
“Yes, s
ir,” Mark said, not even thinking about hitting the green light as his jaw worked.
Rounds pinged on Mark’s armor, and he side-stepped, getting himself out of the heavy machine gun’s line of fire. Other Devil Dogs fired back, and the machine gun went silent.
They had sporadic contact, they were behind the Chosen lines.
Platoons started peeling off as they found armories and supply depots.
“Got a defensive position, calling in fire,” Waz said.
“Understood, rest keep moving, we need to find as much to fuck with as possible,” Mark said. Red carats were appearing on his map as they started finding the rear areas with resting Chosen that had come back from the lines or were preparing to go up to them.
The Combat Shuttles’ fire picked up as they spread out again and raked through the Chosen before the Devil Dogs came into view, leaving them scared and confused as the Troopers fired on them.
They fought back, but it was like a sandbar in the ocean. Many were regular Chosen instead of PACs. Even the majority of the PACs were out of their armor.
“Niemi, take that armory, Ko with me, let’s get that cafeteria,” Mark said, indicating the two larger facilities that had been erected in, under, and through the factories floor.
Two twin green lights came back on his HUD.
Chapter 38
Combat Shuttle Two-One-Four
Blue Moon, Fernix System
10/3294
“Coming in, low and fast,” Yu said to Bernice, the other pilot on his wing.
He felt his shuttle’s weapon systems as Young and Bobbie fired the auto-turrets, ripping through factory roofs and flooring.
Targets were everywhere. Yu fired his auto-cannon, raking a Chosen line.
Yu fired missiles on present targets. They smashed through roofs, turning them into ragged open metal. The targets below were hit by the following Combat Shuttle.
Yu rolled up and away as Chosen heavy machine guns with sights set in the sky started filling it with tracer fie.
He heard the chilling noise of rain on a tin roof; they were being hit by the Chosen.
“Missile launch!” Young yelled as alarms went off.
Yu rolled the craft down, just meters above the factories, and debris that was floating away from the moon’s surface was ripped into the air with the passing of his Combat Shuttle. The auto-turrets went on point defense.
Yu was flushing missiles out, trying to hit marked targets and give the enemy missiles less to detonate.
Yu didn’t need to look back to feel the massive ammunition lockers that took up Bobbie’s cargo hold. There were hundreds of thousands of rounds back there.
He skewed right and spun, letting out flares as auto-turrets took down two missiles. Fire from the Combat Shuttles above the Devil Dogs’ formation got the other two as Yu brought the craft around.
“Fucking hell,” Bernice said, sounding breathless and scared.
“Damn straight.” Yu dropped the throttle as he looked for more targets; he didn’t have time to think about how close he’d been to death. There were still Troopers down there and Chosen to kill.
An armory went up under a barrage of auto-cannon fire. Its fireball ripped up into the air, and it was short-lived but it still pushed Yu’s Combat Shuttle to the side.
He rolled with it, angling his flaps and using his thrusters.
“Damn, I hate flying in this almost space, almost atmosphere,” Yu muttered.
“My damn stomach agrees!” Bobbie yelled back.
“We all know that you have that augment to deal with nausea,” Young quipped. Her hands were flying over the console, identifying targets and working with their sister combat ship to take down targets and conserve ammunition.
“Fine, well I am friggin cross-eyed looking at all this crap sideways and upside down, and fucking twisting around like a fucking tornado,” Bobbie complained. “I need a beer.”
Yu couldn’t help but laugh as he threw his Combat Shuttle into another dive. “I’ll get you one if you can get those heavy machine gun fucks off of my right side.” Yu targeted the guns with his implants.
“Never just a yes with you, is it?” Bobbie commented. Moments later, auto-turrets were ripping angry tracers at the heavy machine gun positions that were lighting up the sky with their own angry tracers.
“New coordinates, we’ve got an armory,” Young said.
“If I worked this hard back in the slums I’d own the friggin place!” Bobbie spat.
“You dipping?” Yu asked, taking them on the track for the armory.
“Yeah.”
“Nasty fuck,” Young complained.
“Haas does it too!”
Yu tilted the craft downwards, and rounds hit off the Combat Shuttle’s armor. He returned their fire, auto-cannon style. The Combat Shuttle shook as he fired, the deep bassy thump of rounds ripping into the positions he could see through the opened roofs of factories. Cermite, dirt, metal, and people were hit with exploding shells.
There were considerably fewer red markers when he pulled up and tilted slightly, coming high to get Young a better firing solution.
Bernice came in from the left, bleeding speed, all of her guns firing and her auto-cannon getting whoever Yu had missed.
“Not when he’s with me!” Young said back.
Bobbie sighed and spat again.
“Fuck this is one hell of a job,” Yu said, chewing on his gum violently.
“Firing solution, firing,” Young said. “We’re going to need more missiles.” Four missiles streaked out from the under-wing missile launchers and their angry red trails hurled them towards their target.
This one was a factory that had had its roof removed by some kind of ordinance.
Yu looked to the ammunition magazines; they had a ton of rounds, but they were down to half of their missiles.
“Let me know when we’ve got ten missiles left,” Yu said.
Two of the four missiles impacted, and they dug deep into the bunker. The factory disappeared as munitions went off and debris was thrown into the air.
“Course!” Yu yelled, focusing on his piloting as he started dodging metal plates, pipes, bits of machinery, cermite, and people.
Young didn’t respond, she was quickly sending him information and a new flight path.
“Fuck,” Bobbie cursed as a new alert flashed through Yu’s HUD, but he didn’t have time to look at it. It was taking all of his piloting skills to miss and swerve around debris. With some of it he could do no better than plow through what looked to be the least damaging.
The auto-turrets started firing on defense.
“Talk to me, Bobbie,” Yu said, flying as if his life and his friends’ lives depended on it.
“Fucking missile launch.”
“Fuck,” Yu hissed, as near-alarms started going off.
An explosion made his back end kick out as he started to see the end of the debris field. He saw the effects of rail-gun rounds, and the moon throwing factories into the air with the impacts of Carrier weaponry. Tracers tore into the sky and down towards it. Missiles followed suit.
Combat Shuttles were hit and turned into fiery explosions, or swerved away from the planet. The unlucky ones dove into the factories, ripping through machinery and storage until they were torn apart or destroyed.
Another explosion sent debris shifting all around him.
“Our wing mate is gone,” Bobbie said, his voice dull.
“Coming out of the debris field,” Young said, as another explosion buffeted them and alarms rang out for damaged systems.
Bobbie turned them off as Yu cleared the debris field, but the auto-turrets caught the last few missiles. Yu took them high and towards the arrowhead Combat Shuttle formation over the Devil Dogs.
“Report,” Yu asked, even as Young was sending missiles at a new target and auto-turrets were raking Chosen positions. The Devil Dogs had barely slowed as they moved through, designating targets, shooting up Chosen, and generally rolling
through the Chosen’s rearguard.
“Left wing’s fucked up, thrusters are a bit screwy. Wouldn’t want to fire the missiles out of those tubes, got shrapnel. The cargo hold has got skylights.”
“I’m running on a few primary control runs, mostly secondary and tertiary systems. Moving missiles from left tubes to right,” Young said.
Yu listened and looked at the HUD of his shuttle with highlighted damaged areas. He pulled the shuttle side to side to test its control and winced. “I’m calling it. Young, talk to flight control, get us a new Combat Shuttle and get this one ready to be stripped of ammo and patched up. You too, Bobbie.”
More missiles fired out of their right tubes and they drained their right missile rack. Hopefully it would help the people on the ground.
“New track, going to Fearless, they’ll have a new ride ready for us,” Young said as squares made a path to the Carrier looming overhead.
“Got it,” Yu said, pushing up for the Carrier through the flight plan’s squares.
Chapter 39
Factory Complex Three
Blue Moon, Fernix System
10/3294
“Fuuucking shit,” Jerome said as missiles hit an armory nearly five kilometers away. It tore up factories and sent people sprawling. Jerome rolled, and came up with his Repulsor. He moved forward with his boots clamping to the floor as he fired at the Chosen, raking their ranks with fire.
A Combat Shuttle came overhead, the fire opening up new skylights in the factory ceiling and cutting down Chosen below.
“Tal, get your people up high!” Jerome shouted. Dooks and Sasaki’s people were moving up on either side, firing at the Chosen.
An blast went off as a machine exploded and four Troopers were killed, three were wounded.
A red light lit up Jerome’s HUD as he heard a grunt.
Shit. Jerome thought, and already the Company was advancing ahead of him. He released his Repulsor, letting it dangle as he moved to the wounded. Medics were heading up but they were slower and keeping out of the line of fire as much as possible.
Fernix (Harmony War Book 4) Page 14