“What does that even mean?”
“It means you will become who you are meant to be, in time.”
“I’m not meant to be anyone. I’m a grunt, a weapon, a merc for the Diorite Commonwealth and when I die, they’ll just call up the next starving kid desperate enough to do anything to get out of the shit.”
Noshi’s hand caressed Erik’s arm. “I am on a path I never imagined. Things will become clear to you as you go forward.”
“I’m crawling into darkness,” Erik murmured, his attention on the soft touch against his skin.
The girl’s smile was as brief as a blink. “You get used to it.”
Erik flinched. “I’m sorry. That was wrong of me.”
She slapped him hard and quick, the sting more surprising than painful.
“Never apologize. You must be strong and sure always. Anything else will be see as weakness. Perception becomes reality.”
“You sound like Mosan.”
“Your kill-sergeant knows the truth of war. There can be no mercy, no hesitation. You must be stronger and deadlier than anyone else. If you do not, the probable future will become uncertain, and without certainty we can never know victory.”
“You sound like a slug.” Erik scowled.
“They sense things beyond what mere humans can understand. I am learning from them.”
“What happens when there are no more enemies? When the Helos are extinct?”
Noshi sighed. “There will always be enemies; it is the way of war. If they do not present themselves, they will be created. Erik, I came to deliver orders to your squad. They are to prepare for deployment. Your training is complete Erik. Now you go to war.”
Chapter 6
Sitting on a crate of supplies, Erik sucked on the nutri-tube and watched the newest volunteers stumbling out of their landing craft.
“Fuck me.” Timber’s voice spoke in Erik’s headset. “Were we ever that clean?”
Erik grunted. Most of the new recruits would be dead by the time this world was claimed. Casualties were part of the reality of war. The trick was to last as long as possible.
A familiar computer-generated voice spoke in his ear. “Trooper Erik. Trooper Timber. Assignment.”
“Receiving,” they both replied.
“Reconnaissance team Argo-Typhon, to sector Kilo-17. Support armor platoon Echelon nine. Eliminate all enemy forces.”
“Break time is over.” Erik let the nutri-tube retract and stood up.
“Time to kill some mother-fuckers,” Timber agreed.
They turned their backs on the fresh meat and shouldered their weapons. The standard trooper rifle fired a solid round the size of a man’s index finger down a barrel ringed with electro-magnets. Each shot broke the sound barrier as it left the muzzle of the rifle. On full auto the blast of the rifle would chew through armor and shred anything organic.
The rifles were fitted with scope technology to assist accuracy and additional functions to transmit sensor data for orbital bombardment targeting and data uploads.
An experienced trooper of the Diorite Commonwealth in the right position could turn the tide of battle with this weapon.
They crossed the plateau where the Diorites had established base camp eight hundred meters above the surrounding terrain. For the first week after Erik and his fellow marines had made planetfall, the sky had been streaked with vapor trails and the ground rumbled with the descent of supply ships bringing armored units, weapons, supplies, and construction bots down to the plateau. The rock underfoot vibrated as machines worked ceaselessly to strip anything useful from the landscape. First, they took the grass and trees. Then they mined the minerals buried beneath the surface. It was all taken up to the summit of the plateau where other machines used the raw material to print megalithic blocks of krete and construct defensive walls.
On the plains below, a network of excavation trenches provided defensible positions for the regiments of troopers fighting against the forces of the Helos. Erik’s place was not behind such walls. He needed to face the enemy on his own terms.
Smoke and mist cast a dark pall over the torn ground. The only color were the rainbows on the surface of the hydrocarbon pools that filled the rutted tracks where tracked vehicles had stirred the dirt to mud. The armored units had rolled out an hour ago and were now closing on the enemy’s last known position.
The two troopers filed onto a transport vehicle waiting to lift a squad to the battlefield below. The other troopers onboard nodded in respect as the two veterans took their slots in the standing frames. The carrier shuddered under power and lifted off, cresting the edge of the plateau before dropping into the swirling mist.
Erik listened to the sparse chatter over the comms. The 18th regiment were waiting for the latest Helos counter attack. Down there, a thousand men dug in to the mud and rock of Kursk Seven-A.
A marine’s place was not behind such walls, and Erik’s comrades were not part of the defenses. They were the assault forces of the Diorite Commonwealth who provided the machines of war while the humans provided the meat. It had been this way for longer than Erik had been alive.
Timber’s life-signs dropped into sleep mode on Erik’s HUD. His friend barely stirred when the rest of the armored squad thundered out of the tail end of the transport, throwing themselves into the meat-grinder of war.
II
This land had no name that Erik knew. One planet after another. Different atmospheres, different terrains, different environments. Some deadly, some not. All reduced to rubble and ashes by the carpet bombing of the orbital bombardment. Only when the Helos had been crushed did the human mercenaries land and begin the cleanup. The Helos themselves had usually moved on, leaving one or more of their soldier species to fight to the last in their name.
Erik waited until the exit light flared red and the clamps retracted from around his chest. He ran for the exit the way he always had. Charging into battle, ready to destroy any foe.
Timber’s armored boots hit the ground a second after Erik’s. The two troopers used the dust cloud raised by the hovering transport as cover while they ran to the shadows cast by a nearby ruin.
“Kilo-17?” Timber asked through a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Yeah.” Erik crawled to the edge of a rubble pile and adjusted his HUD to scan the surrounding area. A city had stood here until recently. Now broken roads, destroyed buildings and drifting piles of wind-blown trash were all that remained.
Night was coming and the temperature dropped. Darkness meant different enemies—ones for whom the night was a natural environment and lived for the nocturnal hunt.
“Life signs,” Erik reported. Timber slithered up beside him and waited while his sensors completed a matching scan.
“Check.”
“Fucking Zaran,” Erik murmured. The coiling serpent shapes rose out of the holes and cracks where they lay dormant during the day. Using the scopes of their rifles, the two troopers tagged each target for an orbital strike.
The first of the world’s three moons crested the horizon, adding a sliver of reflected light to the deepening gloom. The Zaran rose on four thick tentacles that joined at a bulbous head. Each membranous sac was swollen with the slowly digesting remains of whatever life had built this city.
“Targets marked,” Erik transmitted.
“Tagged and bagged,” Timber confirmed. The troopers eased below the line of sight and made a careful retreat from the impact zone.
“We’re clear,” Erik reported.
“Orbital strike commencing.” The soft feminine voice coming over the comms was computer enhanced. Diorites didn’t talk the way humans did. They looked nothing like them, either, with their massive slug bodies and heads covered in meter-long tentacles that acted as sensory and communication organs. To Erik, the only thing uglier than a Diorite was whatever enemy the Helos threw at them. That voice would be the only warning they would receive. The missiles and rockets screaming down through the atmosphere were supersonic.
By the time you heard the incoming shell, you were already dead.
Erik and Timber went to cover as the ground quivered with the first detonations. A kilometer away the surface erupted in a spray of mud and shrapnel. Fire burned the air and became smoke. The troopers watched the muffled flashes of the artillery inferno.
The visual sensors in Erik’s faceplate HUD cycled through the electromagnetic spectrum. Depending on which species the Helos sent against them, and in the wake of the orbital firestorm, sensors scanning for body heat may not be a reliable way of detecting an incoming force.
“Clean and clear,” Timber reported.
With Erik in the lead, they retraced their steps. Charred remnants of Zaran flesh were scattered among the freshly blasted rocks. The troopers didn’t look for survivors.
“Map confirms Axander and armored unit Echelon Nine are five clicks on bearing three-five,” Erik announced. “We should check in on them.”
“Coordinates locked in,” Timber agreed. They kept walking, climbing over hills of broken rock and the local version of krete, their weapons sweeping the surroundings as they went. Being vigilant and ready to react instantly had kept them both alive for over a year in service to the Diorites.
Twenty minutes and three kilometers later, Erik signaled Timber to halt. “Movement.”
“Got it,” Timber replied. “Not Zaran,” he added after analyzing the sensor data. “Could be Skivs?”
“It’s not moving like the Skivs.”
“You’re a First Trooper. Fucking deal with it.” Timber stated the obvious.
Erik would deal with it the way he had been trained. The same way they dealt with any foe when they made planet fall.
“All right, arm the fuck up!” Erik ordered.
A chill mist seeped from the ground and hid whatever shapes moved in the dark. There was no hiding from the scanning technology that detected heat, movement, and bio-electric signatures.
The glowing dots on Erik’s HUD moved closer in a haphazard way, as if they were uncertain and without strong leadership.
“We should move in and destroy them.” Timber spoke from his position at Erik’s left.
“I’ll know what the fuck I am facing before I destroy it,” Erik replied.
“What does it fucking matter?” Timber came back. Erik’s armored hands flexed into fists. First Troopers do not respond to petty barbs issued by fellow troopers, he reminded himself. Every instinct and his warrior’s conditioning screamed that he should respond to the challenge and strike Timber down.
“We will know our fucking enemy,” Erik said again. The Diorites had no military tradition that the humans could ascertain. Their rules were as simple as their training. Destroy the enemies of the Diorite in whatever form or location they were found.
The humans had developed traditions for war, passed on from training personnel like Kill-Sergeant Crysto and honed and sharpened in battle by troopers like Erik. Know your enemy meant being certain of your target before opening fire. There was no victory in killing your own.
“I’m First Trooper on this assignment, so you will not fire without my word,” Erik advised. The order might have been unnecessary; for a battle-hardened veteran like Timber, weapon discipline was unquestioning. It removed any chance of failure. The responsibility of discipline was a circular thing. From Erik to the troopers he led and back to Erik. If they failed, then he failed. Even on a duo-mission like this, where the responsibility was shared with Timber, the accountability was Erik’s.
“Cover positions. Be ready for anything.”
Timber and Erik moved into place, hunkering down behind piles of rubble, the long muzzles of their rifles tracking the scattering of targets moving across their helmet screens.
Erik noted the lack of training in the movements of their targets. Whatever species approached, they were not an organized military force like the Skivs, the Ap’Aesh, or the reptilian Skurgen, all equal to the human forces in terms of supplied technology and training.
“Ten meters,” Erik reported.
A breath of wind stirred the drifting smoke, and a shape drawn in dark stripes and muted colors appeared through the mist.
Not Skivs, Erik thought. “Hold.”
A bipedal figure scrambled over the lip of a shell crater. It wore no armor and carried no weapon that Erik recognized. It seemed no larger than a child.
Sighting down his rifle scope, Erik hesitated. It was a child.
III
“Cover me,” Erik ordered. The broken ground crunched under his armored boots as he walked out of cover and approached the child.
The small figure’s face was dark with dust and grime, streaked with the tracks of tears and glistening smears of snot.
It wore no protection beyond the over-sized wrappings of filthy clothing and frayed boots. Erik knew the atmospheric makeup of the planet included a perfectly breathable level of oxygen, nitrogen and trace elements; there was no reason for the child to have protective gear. If anything, it confirmed his assumption that the young one was human, or close to it.
“SKIVS!” Timber bellowed across the comms channel. A wave of enemy force dropships crash landed a hundred meters behind Erik, and the Skivs came charging through the cover of drifting smoke.
The enemy stood over ten feet tall on thick legs supporting bodies protected by natural armor made of layers of chitinous shell. The faces of the Skivs were dominated by gaping mouths with long teeth, and their arms were twisted vines that could pick a single hair off the ground or pulverize krete with a punch.
Erik threw himself into the cover provided by the slope of the blast crater, grabbing the kid pushing it over the edge as he went.
Rising to one knee, Erik blasted the nearest Skiv. The enemy convulsed under the assault and kept charging. Long sinuous arms swung, and prehensile vine-like tentacles slammed into Erik’s armor. The darkness and swirling mist shredded with the tracers of weapons fire as his aim was knocked upwards.
His suit’s warning systems alerted Erik to the crushing power of the dark cords tightening around his chest. An enraged Skiv could crush a human in armor like they were an empty nutri-pac.
Fire flashed past in Erik’s peripheral vision. An incendiary grenade flared yellow and orange, expanding like the sun and engulfing the skiv in burning fuel.
The grip around Erik’s chest slackened and his air filters struggled to keep the worst of the stench of burning flesh out of his nose.
Shifting focus brought the next enemy into Erik’s sights. He opened fire, aiming for the single least armored point on the towering Skiv. The super-sonic slugs tore into the thick bark flesh below the creature’s head. In one long burst, the Skiv’s head came off its shoulders and Erik snapped to the next enemy. There was no shortage of targets.
“Timber! Orbital strike! Target this position!”
“I ain’t ready to die yet!” Timber snarled. He fired a steady blast of fire into the advancing ranks of Skivs.
Erik tossed a hex-charge into the advancing mob of Skivs. Fire was the one element that would break their attack. Erik and Timber brought the fires of Hell down on the surviving Skivs. A steady blast of weapon fire culled the ones who staggered through the spreading blaze of the incendiaries.
“Aseebee!” A woman’s voice, loud and shrill with panic. Erik shifted his rifle to cover the direction of the voice. The larger figure scrambled over the pile of rubble, almost crawling on hands and feet as she rushed to gather up the child who lay huddled and screaming nearby.
The Skivs closed to melee range, the tendrils whipping through the air and kicking up dust and stones as they attacked. Erik fired a controlled burst into the charging form that filled his helmet view. Skiv vines curled around Erik’s armor and alarms sounded, warning him that he was in danger from the pressure.
Erik’s ears filled with a screeching howl as he fired again into the Skiv, sending splinters of Skiv bark flying through the air. His suit servos whined as the massive Skiv went limp and crashed
against him.
“You gonna kill that thing? Or fuck it?” Timber asked over the comms between bursts of weapons fire.
With the crushing weight of the Skiv pressing him into the dirt, Erik strained to get clear. A hex-charge exploded close enough to tear the Skiv corpse away and send a hail of gravel raining down on Erik’s armor.
Timber stepped up and extended a hand. “On your fucking feet, First Trooper.”
“I’m up.” Erik rolled to his feet and scanned the area. Chunks of bleeding Skiv were scattered across a battlefield silent except for the crackling of burning Skiv meat.
“Where’s the fucking kid?” Erik asked.
“Who cares?” Timber kicked a Skiv head and sent it tumbling into the smoke before marching off in the opposite direction.
Erik switched his comms to external, “Kid!? We will not harm you!”
“Erik. Over here,” Timber cut in.
On the other side of the crater ridge two figures were huddled together, skin gray with dust and ash.
“The larger one is showing life signs,” Timber reported.
“Yeah.” Erik’s scans told him the same thing.
A human woman rocked the dead child against her breast.
“You should leave this area, it is not safe,” Erik said.
“Yu koshi! Yu koshi casa meshen, ga-lo. Sou-ek, nakit tow!” The woman spoke gibberish to Erik’s ears. He waited while his suit computer analyzed the language and attempted a translation.
“Go on, get the fuck out of here!” The broadcast voice turned his words into a close approximation of the language the woman spoke.
The woman scrambled backward, the child’s limp body cradled in her arms. She looked around and stumbled over the crest of the rubble pile and hurried away.
Timber came striding over, his rifle leveling at the retreating woman’s head.
“Hold!” Erik ordered. “Report file. Civilian presence. Human stock. Unregistered.” The information was transmitted into the Diorite network. Many of the worlds they fought on were occupied with indigenous species. Some of those were sentient. This was the first time he had encountered anything that could be human.
Hard Corps Page 6