Fernix (Harmony War Book 4)

by Chatfield,Michael

He found Alexis; she’d been hit with shrapnel that had carved into her torso and up into her stomach.

  There was a blood mist coming out of her, as the thin atmosphere meant her blood and internals were being pulled out.

  “Stay still,” Jerome said, as she started moving and yelling. He stuck a line to the floor, reeling himself in as she pulled a modified sealant can, designed for his PA hands. He sprayed it liberally over the wound.

  “Fuuuuuck!” she screamed through gritted teeth. Jerome finished and she grunted. “Get the others.”

  “Damn straight, you ain’t a Victor for nothing, keep it together,” Jerome ordered, moving to the next wounded who was knocked out, with a bad concussion. The other had bled out too much through their leg and their face was mangled up.

  “Kill me, please, hurts so much,” she asked.

  “Go in peace sister,” Jerome said, his blade coming down in one quick motion and stabbing up into her skull.

  He flicked the blood off the blade, his face like stone.

  The medics took a few more minutes, and got to work on Alexis and the knocked out Trooper.

  Jerome turned and headed forward, checking his casualties and dead. It was a telling number and it cut him to his soul.

  A missile - by design or by sheer luck on the Chosen’s side - hit Tyler’s Company, and Jerome’s HUD changed to show Ali as a black mark on his HUD. They were doing damage, but they were getting torn apart.

  “Haas we’re going to need a Combat Shuttle to get our wounded out of here,” Jerome said.

  There was a pause.

  “Find an evac point and call them in,” Haas said, sounding out of breath and as if he was talking through his teeth. A glance showed he was yellow; walking wounded.

  “Yes, sir,” Jerome said, moving up to the forward elements of his Company. Without Alexis, he had no sergeant major. “Dooks, take command if I go down.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dooks said. Tal and Sasaki displayed green lights to show that they understood.

  Jerome looked at his HUD and found an open looking area, and he marked it as a possible evac point and sent it to the Combat Shuttles. They could figure out the best place for an evacuation area, he needed to be with his people and organizing them.

  “Up in the catwalks now,” Tal said. His entire Platoon spread out and covered the rest of the Company from above.

  Jerome greened up, watching as Tal’s Platoon rained tracers and their remaining screamers down on the Chosen positions.

  Mortars started coming in, and their rounds ripped through roofs, machinery, catwalks, and people. A few caught Chosen or nothing, others got Troopers.

  Jerome gritted his teeth against the pain of seeing his friends and fellow Troopers get cut down in droves as if they were wheat.

  Tracer fire from heavy machine guns and metal-storm rifles only added to the destruction. Still, through it all, the Troopers’ momentum carried them. They were bloodied and at half of their combat strength, but still they charged forwards, cutting into the PACs and regular Chosen.

  ***

  Ortiz looked at the maps of the Troopers. They were pushing heavily into the Chosen’s area, and they were getting cut down, but they were getting the Carriers and the Combat Shuttles coordinates that the scouting patrols hadn’t been able to get.

  They were moving through, capitalizing on Mark’s nuke. It was vicious, but nowhere as bad as it could have been. The Chosen were reeling from the attacks. The original lines were getting reinforced, and when the Chosen came again they would run into spray-ite walls and stationary Repulsor positions.

  He saw as the Devil Dogs called in for a medical extraction. He winced looking at the numbers; they were being bled by his orders. He knew when he gave them that they would probably bleed themselves dry, just so that he could buy his lines some time and wreck the Chosen’s lines of supply.

  Trading with the devil and hoping that the dice come up in our favor, Ortiz thought.

  He wanted to be out there, on the receiving end of his own orders, not stuck behind the lines making sure that they were reinforced, turning the area into a bastion for the Troopers that had been left behind.

  New Combat Shuttles came in, supporting those that were already above the Devil Dogs.

  A missile landed among another one of the advancing Regiments. The nuke went off above the factories, ripping a crater down into the moon below the factories. Troopers seemed to disappear, black marks scrolling down his vision as his bunker shook angrily.

  There were wounded and a few Sections still alive.

  Ortiz watched as someone got control of them and turned them into an all around defense, and pooled their wounded together. Their Combat Shuttle support was thrown around and taking their time coming back to the area, as the heavy machine guns had taken control of the air for the time being.

  “I want fire on these coordinates,” Ortiz said, directly to Lieutenant Celik on the Carrier Fearless.

  “Sir,” Celik said. Moments later, rail cannon were brought to bear, their weapons thumping, and the machine gun emplacements disappeared as the factories they were on turned into spinning debris.

  “Permission to move in support of Fox Regiment,” Haas asked, talking about the Regiment that was trying to pull themselves together after having a nuke go off in their midst.

  Ortiz waited a few moments, knowing what he was consigning the Devil Dogs to.

  “We’re not going to leave them behind,” Haas said, his voice soft as if he knew what he was asking for and telling Ortiz.

  “Do it, I’ll get you any support I can,” Ortiz said.

  “Yes, sir,” Haas said.

  The Devil Dogs’ direction changed and they tilted towards Fox Regiment. They called their medical extraction for the Fox Regiment instead.

  “Devil Dog is moving to support Fox. I want them to have every piece of fucking support we have on their position. Get me some medical evac shuttles! Get me an overlay of Tiger and Panther Regiments,” Ortiz said. He didn’t know why the captains were allowing their people to name their companies, but they seemed to like it. In war he was willing to let a few things slide; it was a lot easier than referring to them by their Alpha numerical code.

  Chapter 40

  Factory Complex Three

  Blue Moon, Fernix System

  10/3294

  “We’re moving in to support Fox Regiment; I want everyone to be ready to dig in. Once we get there, we will evacuate all of the wounded via Combat Shuttle and push towards our final objectives,” Haas said.

  Tyler felt himself green up on his HUD. He knew what Haas’ order really was. They were going to get all of the wounded onto the Combat Shuttles, spending their lives to save their brothers and sisters.

  “Move it Troopers! I thought you knew how to use powered armor!” Tyler yelled at his Company, and they surged forward, moving for their new objective.

  They ran and fired, and the wounded were dragged by magnetic cord. If someone fell, they were hauled up by their brothers and sisters. They were juggernauts hurtling through the factory complex of the Blue Moon.

  Tyler felt an odd calm come over him as he ran. They might die, but they weren’t going to go easily.

  “I want an all-around defense, use any and all cover you can find to get dug in. Techs, I want you ready with that spray-ite!” Haas yelled.

  It didn’t take long for them to exit the factories and find themselves in the crater left by the nuke.

  The factories had been flattened around, others had collapsed. There were three kilometers of cleared factories before the crater dug into the planet.

  Mortars were raining hell down onto the Troopers. Rail cannon and CIWS from Carriers hit targets in the distance. Combat Shuttles flew over the opening, wildly, their various weapon systems firing on the surrounding factories.

  Combat Shuttles moved around the Fox Regiment like flies, hitting anything that wasn’t a Trooper. A Combat Shuttle came out of the sky, its engines flaring madly, an
d it bounced on the cermite pad crashing through machines, its ramp opening to the Fox Regiment. Wounded were dragged and stuffed in the shuttle, there was little time to be careful as people were piled in. Once the Combat Shuttle was filled, it took off across the crater, tilting away from the Blue Moon and towards the nearest Carrier. Another Combat Shuttle came in to land, but its engines were hit and they had to pull away.

  The Devil Dogs moved around the Fox Regiment, using breaching charges to make holes to hide in. Others used machinery or whatever was still standing. Tyler slid into a hole that had already been made.

  Two more casualty evacuation shuttles landed, ammunition was tossed off and wounded tossed on. A tech hooked Tyler up with ammunition before rushing off to spray-ite a machine that was being turned into a defensive position.

  Tracers ripped out of the direction the Devil Dogs had come from. Tyler fired back, but it wasn’t necessary as five Combat Shuttles in arrowhead formation tilted forward, their missile racks jet engines and smoke as their auto-cannon made solid tracer lines to the edge of the factories, turning their already torn facade into slagged metal.

  It was an awesome and terrifying display of firepower.

  Tyler checked his lines.

  “Dashtund, Iliev, pull in a bit, we don’t have enough people to cover all of our frontage,” Tyler said. Che was dead, as well as Ali. So many others were dead or wounded that Tyler had voted to collapse his Company into two Platoons instead of three.

  Already there were more Chosen coming out of another location around the crater, their tracers aimed at the Troopers’ lines.

  Tyler wasn’t facing them, but watched as rail cannon rounds made five more craters, the fire dying down as the Troopers cut down the last of them.

  They were holding for now, but Tyler had been fighting in the EMF for eleven and a half years. Nerva had taught him tactics, how to read a battle, and he could read this one. They didn’t have enough ammunition, enough power, or enough air.

  “Let’s make these bastards understand who the fuck they’re dealing with!” Haas yelled.

  The Troopers let out a wordless cry, a few yelling “No mercy!” as they watched their areas. More Combat Shuttles were taking wounded and rushing off as Chosen ran for them from every direction, then mortars started raining down. The Carriers were taking them out as fast as possible.

  A Combat Shuttle was hit with a mortar, turning it into a fireball of falling wreckage over the dead ground between the Devil Dogs and the advancing Chosen. The Troopers held their fire, as many of the Chosen were too far away to hit.

  The Chosen were new to fighting and were wasting their ammunition shooting at distances of a few kilometers.

  “If you’ve got an AMR, use it,” Tyler yelled, letting his Repulsor hang and grabbing the rifle clipped to him. Just hours ago he had pulled the trigger on this very rifle and put all of these actions into motion.

  He checked it over, the scope linked to his powered armor as he looked for a good target. He saw a Chosen throwing their arm forward, leading a group of PACs.

  He fired the round, which pierced the PAC officer’s armor and exploded inside.

  But Tyler was already looking for a new target, and he fired as he saw another that looked like an officer type. He fired again. Other AMRs along the lines were firing, and PACs dropped to the ground, their armor punctured, and the Chosen inside were turned to mush by the AMR’s round exploding.

  Combat Shuttles rushed over, their guns blazing as they lit up the sky with missiles and weapons fire before disappearing so heavy machine guns couldn’t fill them with holes. A few were unlucky as they were hit with multiple heavy machine guns, exploding or going dead as the crew were killed and the shuttles plunged into the factories.

  It wasn’t war, it was chaos with people fighting to survive in its midst.

  Chapter 41

  EMFC Fearless

  Fernix Prime’s Orbit, Fernix System

  10/3294

  Captain Hall had seen the same events unfold as Ortiz. He could see what it meant for the remainder of Fox Regiment.

  Celik and Yeltsin were talking to one another, moving the ship and bringing down fire on the priority targets that Guy called out. Rasalov was working to get the best sensor picture from the sensor sticks to the Troopers powered armor, the Combat Shuttles, and the Carriers themselves. There was a lot of data to sift through, but he and his assistants were able to find Celik and his gunners even more priority targets. Armories exploded beneath their guns, food storage areas disappeared, and Chosen positions were rolled up and destroyed by weapons fire.

  The Blue Moon was burning, but Hall knew it wouldn’t be enough to save Fox Regiment.

  He was about to turn off the feed because he didn’t want to see more people die, when he saw that the Devil Dogs were moving in to support them.

  Yes, go, go you beautiful bastards, he thought, hope welling up inside him as the Devil Dogs’ Combat Shuttle moved in to support the Fox Regiment. The medical evacuation shuttles they’d called in for their own wounded moved to assist Fox Regiment and get their people out.

  They settled into a defensive position around the Fox Regiment. Hall looked to his various screens, examining the eighty or so bases that the Troopers controlled over the six factory zones of the Blue Moon.

  Only three of the bases had pushed their forces out to take advantage of the massive nuclear explosion.

  Most were too far away for the explosions to give them any relief, and a few others were playing political games that Hall knew was going to cost more lives than it was going to save. Those commanders didn’t care as long as it wasn’t their lives and that they got to line their pockets with credits after the fact.

  “Yeltsin, let’s see how good you are at flying this damned thing. Take us down there, I want us providing in-close support for the Devil Dogs and Fox Regiment. Guy, I want you to see if we have any Combat Shuttles that could get their wounded the hell out of there,” Hall said.

  “Yes, sir!” Yeltsin said, almost welcoming the challenge.

  Guy just raised a thumb as he walked into his implants.

  There was little else that Hall could do as Fearless moved down towards the two Regiments’ position.

  Well this has got to be one hell of a sight, Hall thought, hoping to put the fear of the EMF and firepower into the Chosen. If it gave the Regiments even minutes, then it was worth it.

  “We’ve got incoming contacts,” Rasalov said, his voice dark and annoyed.

  “On screen,” Hall said, and it only took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing.

  “Fuckers. Okay, flush Combat Shuttles and put all the close-in support weapon systems we have on fighter defense.”

  Looks like I won’t be able to help them much at all, Hall thought, his jaw working. He needed to have a Carrier to command if he was going to be able to save anyone else.

  Chapter 42

  Factory Complex Three

  Blue Moon, Fernix System

  10/3294

  A shadow passed overhead, blocking out the stars above. A Carrier’s side showed, its kilometer-long face firing CIWS and every kind of weapon at their disposal to hammer anything around the Devil Dogs and Fox Regiment. Combat Shuttles took off, new ones replacing them just seconds later.

  Some heavy machine guns fired on the Carrier, and the Carrier seemed more than happy to return fire with their much heavier and faster guns.

  Jerome could see that more Combat Shuttles were rushing out of the Carrier’s hangar blisters, aiding those on the ground, and hitting anything that was trying to hit the Carrier.

  “Fuck,” Jerome said as he saw new contacts on his screens. He had hoped that the Harmony bastards had lost all of their fighter craft, but it seemed that they had been hiding for a chance to hit Carriers up close and personal.

  Fearless looked to be giving them that opportunity.

  CIWS lit up the sky, millions of rounds rushing out to hit the Harmony fighters that we
re sprouting out from hidden landing pads and coming in low across factories to obscure their sensor read.

  Combat Shuttles fired missiles and the Carrier moved away, unable to give support as the Harmony and EMF forces clashed above the Blue Moon.

  Jerome turned his sights to what was happening on the ground; there were still more wounded to go, but there were few Combat Shuttles able to lift them. The Troopers couldn’t move from their positions as the Chosen were now getting close enough to pose a real threat to the Troopers if they moved out into the open.

  “Well we’re pinned royally and truly,” he said, tilting his Repulsor and putting a line of tracer into PACs that were getting too close for his liking.

  “Haas is wounded, medics have him,” Mark said, assuming command. “Get those mines out across our frontage, we hold here, we get the wounded out then extract ourselves.”

  He left out how badly Haas was injured. His suit showed him as a black unresponsive marker.

  Jerome greened up as he saw Tyler, his Platoon officers and warrants doing the same. There was no time to pause, or to stop. If they did, then the PACs could pin them down and tear them apart.

  The Troopers’ rate of fire climbed as the PACs got closer. The Troopers focused on them as the regular Chosen ran behind, using their distraction to close with the Troopers. Some of them were hauling heavy machine guns. The AMRs were taking them out as quickly as possible but these bastards knew how useful those guns were. They’d been trained to get that gun in position and operational no matter what.

  Jerome had known for a long time that these Chosen were not like the ones on Masoul or Osdal, these were a professional military.

  They might be green, but they had been trained for years, and now that training was unfortunately paying off as two Trooper forces’ worth of Chosen were moving to engage the Troopers up close. Nearly twenty thousand Chosen.

  Another Combat Shuttle gunned its engines and pushed off, a new load of wounded stuffed into its cargo hold.

  A mortar went off close to Jerome, right between two Troopers; they were ripped apart, and shrapnel dug into Jerome’s side. He grunted as pain flared up. His augments got to work to keep him alive and combat capable.