Into the Battle

by Rosone, James

  Hunt watched a falling soldier point his rifle down at the Zodarks; the Delta fired his rifle at the enemy with critical accuracy. The whole thing was so surreal.

  As the free-falling soldiers got closer to the ground, a small rocket or oxygen unit expelled something near their feet, and their falling bodies suddenly slowed down. When they landed, they looked as if they had only jumped a few feet in the air, not out of the back of an aircraft. It was the most amazing tactical stunt Hunt had ever seen.

  When the Deltas landed on the ground near his fleeters, they immediately went into action. With their rifles tucked in their shoulders, they ran at full speed right for the Zodarks. No fear, no hesitation, they just charged forward, their rifles firing.

  Turning to look at the enemy line, Hunt watched the Zodark attack starting to falter. Several Zodarks were hit by the charging Delta soldiers. The two groups were now locked in steady combat, firing at each other as the distance between them continued to close.

  As five Delta soldiers ran toward his position, Hunt wasn’t sure if he should try to flag one of them to stop and talk with him or just stay out of their way.

  Three of them ran ahead toward the Zodarks. One of the super-soldiers knelt down near one of Hunt’s wounded fleeters and treated his injuries while another Delta walked toward him.

  Hunt couldn’t tell who it was right away because of their helmets and visors. As the lone figure got closer, he saw the name stenciled on the man’s armor and smiled.

  “Captain Hopper, it’s damn good to see you,” Hunt said, remaining crouched down and out of the line of enemy fire.

  Zodark blaster bolts were still whipping overhead and around the area. Oddly, it didn’t seem to faze the Delta commander in the least; he just walked up to Hunt like it was no big deal.

  “Captain Hunt, it’s good to see you’re still alive. Admiral Halsey sends her regards,” Hopper said. He walked past Hunt and fired a few shots with his rifle before ducking down behind some cover. He turned to look at Hunt. “I’m sorry for the delay in getting to you and your crew, sir. We had to assault another Zodark orbital defensive position before we could come to your rescue. The orbital assault ships are entering low orbit now. They’ll begin dropping the RASs shortly.”

  Hunt had been a little ticked off at the wait. They’d had no idea there were Zodarks in the area when they’d crash-landed. He had lost a lot of good people because they had to wait until it was their turn to be collected.

  Hunt sighed. “It’s water under the bridge at this point, Captain. Thanks again for arriving when you did, though; I think we would have been in some serious trouble if you hadn’t. Is there a Zodark base nearby we didn’t know about?”

  Hopper shrugged. “Not that we’re aware of, but there’s a lot about this new world we don’t know or understand—like a magnetic anomaly that screws up our sensors from the air.”

  Gunfire and shouting continued around them as the Deltas pushed well past the fleeters’ positions. They were pursuing the Zodarks into the woods, something Hunt had no intention of joining.

  Looking up at his Delta commander, Hunt asked, “Am I keeping you from managing your unit?”

  A short pause ensued, and then Hopper looked down at Hunt. “No, sir, I’m managing the battle from my suit, coordinating between my AI, the neurolinks, and our drones deployed all over the place. I have complete situational awareness of what’s happening around us right now and where my soldiers are advancing. Besides, Master Sergeant Royce is leading the assault for me, and the man’s a freaking beast of an operator. He’ll hunt those Zodarks down and finish them off.

  “Oh, before I leave to go catch up to them, Admiral Halsey said my orders are to recover you and protect the rest of your crew. I’ve held a dozen of my guys back to pull security while the rest of the company pursues the Zodarks and either captures or kills ’em.”

  Hunt let out a stressed laugh. “Twelve soldiers? That’s all you need?” he countered.

  Hopper chuckled. “It may not seem like much, Captain, but my Deltas are substantially better soldiers than these Zodarks. We’re quickly learning that our rifles are far better than theirs in a fight—especially if we have any sort of distance or an open area to fight in, like what we have here and in those trees.”

  “When’s our crew being brought back to the Voyager, or where are they going to send us?” Hunt asked.

  Hopper pointed his right hand up, and Hunt saw several shuttlecraft descending. They looked like they’d land close to where the bulk of Hunt’s people were.

  Once the shuttlecraft had settled on the ground, the spacers advanced toward them. The wounded were the first to board, then everyone else. It would take a few trips to get them all brought back to space, but soon they’d be back in a familiar environment, a starship.

  Before Captain Hunt headed over to the last set of shuttlecraft, he extended his hand to Captain Hopper. “Thank you, Captain, for coming to our aid. Please convey my thanks to the rest of your men.”

  Hopper nodded. “I’ll see you back on the Voyager in a few days,” he replied. “In the meantime, my unit is going to hunt down the remaining Zodarks in the area before we move to another hard spot that needs capturing.”

  *******

  RNS America

  1st Orbital Assault Battalion

  “Big Red One”

  “Listen up, RASs! This is it—the big drop, the mission we’ve been training for,” barked the lieutenant. “In a few minutes, we’re going to board the dropships. Fasten yourself in and get ready. Once we land, I want each squad leader to hit their objectives and expand the perimeter rapidly. More waves of troops are landing after us to get that perimeter expanded. Squad leaders, make sure your squads are loaded up with extra ammo, grenades, medpacks and water. Now, move out!” As he finished his speech, the NCOs swiftly took charge of things.

  The hangar bay of the RNS America was abuzz with activity. NCOs and officers pushed their soldiers through the last-minute checks and opportunities to load up on as much extra ammo and supplies as possible before they boarded the dropships. No one knew for certain how long they’d be on the surface or when they’d get a supply drop, so they were stocking up on the most important supplies they’d need in a fight: ammo and medpacks.

  “This is it, Big Red One! Time to load up and get this show on the road. I’ll see each of you down on the surface,” shouted their battalion commander, Major Ernie Coons.

  Sergeants and officers yelled at the soldiers to pile into the dropships. Months and months of training had led them to this very moment. Now it was time to execute what everyone in the military knew was perhaps the most dangerous job in the Army—an orbital assault. A platoon of fifty-two soldiers packed in like sardines, unable to do anything other than hope and pray the pilots were able to deliver them to the surface in one piece.

  Private First Class Paul “Pauli” Smith was nervous as heck. His stomach had been doing backflips for the last hour as they prepared to leave. Now the time had arrived to cram into that metal box that would drop them from space to the planet below.

  “Come on, Pauli, let’s go,” called out one of his friends excitedly as he trotted toward the ramp that led into the dropship.

  Pauli pushed aside his nerves and concerns and slapped a big grin on his face. They’d trained for years to do a mission like this. They were the Big Red One, the 1st Orbital Assault Battalion, a unit that traced its lineage all the way back to the 1st Army Division of old.

  Boarding the dropship, the Republic Army soldiers settled into their seats and fastened their straps. A few minutes later, their lieutenant boarded and sat down in the chair next to the platoon sergeant.

  The outer door to the ship closed, and there was a slight hissing noise as the lander sealed. A minute later, the drop arm that was attached to their lander extended, separating them from the rest of the orbital transport. Once they stopped moving, they sat for a few minutes just hanging there, waiting to be released.

&n
bsp; Clink. The transport had released them.

  Pauli felt a slight tap against his leg. He turned to see his friend Tom sitting next to him in the jump seat. They’d been friends since basic training.

  “This is it, Pauli. We’re on our way,” Tom said, a grim look on his face.

  Pauli just nodded; he’d had the same thought. This is it. We’re really on our way to an alien planet to go fight real aliens. How crazy is this…

  The dropcraft buffeted a bit as they left orbit, beginning its descent into the upper atmosphere.

  “Remember your training, and you will make it out of this alive!” the lieutenant bellowed as they continued their descent.

  Pauli snickered to himself at their lieutenant’s pep talk. Does he really believe that? he asked himself. If it’s your time to die, it’s your time to die. Ain’t nothin’ changing that…

  The dropcraft shook a bit more as it veered from right to left like the pilot was trying to avoid something.

  A loud voice came over the intercom. “We’re receiving ground fire from the DZ. This is going to be a hot landing,” the pilot called out, to the angst of everyone strapped in.

  The ship lurched swiftly to the right, rattling the soldiers inside so intensely that it felt like the entire lander was going to fall apart. They slid through the air. “We’ve been hit!” shouted the pilot. “We’re going in hard; everyone get out once we land!”

  Oh God, please let me live! Pauli silently prayed.

  Seconds later, they crashed on the ground with a thud. The sounds of metal crunching, sparks crackling, yelling and screaming all echoed inside the cramped lander. A sliver of light then appeared on either side of the shuttle as the doors opened. Everyone snapped their harnesses off and bolted for the exits.

  As he left the damaged dropship, Pauli observed chaos everywhere. Large and small blue blaster bolts fired at the dropships bringing the infantry down to the surface and at the grunts already on the ground.

  Pauli turned to his right to call out to a couple of his buddies, only to see them get cut down by rapid enemy blaster fire. One of their heads exploded right in front of him, her headless corpse dropping to the ground like a sack of cement.

  Turning toward where the blaster fire was coming from, Pauli brought his M85 to his shoulder and fired several times at what he thought was a machine-gun position. A tall figure stood behind a large blaster that fired relentlessly at the landing craft that were still descending.

  Pauli ran for cover, then caught his first good look at the enemy. Two Zodarks clad in body armor, grasping wicked-looking weapons in each of their four hands, charged toward his comrades. The two beasts jumped right into the middle of a cluster of soldiers who had just exited one of the dropships.

  Pauli was transfixed by what he saw. One of the Zodarks slashed at the soldiers, cutting several of them up before they even had a chance to react.

  Pauli snapped himself out of it. Raising his rifle, he fired several times at the giant beast. He hit the Zodark, killing it—but not before it had killed or maimed several of his comrades. It was horrifying.

  “Take that position out!” someone yelled.

  “Flank right!” bellowed someone else.

  “Medic! Help! Medic!” cried another.

  “Frag out!”

  Crumpf…BOOM…

  “Pauli! There you are. Come on, man, let’s go,” called out one of the corporals, his fireteam leader.

  Pauli looked at the guy, who couldn’t be older than twenty-two. He saw fear in his eyes, but also a determination to live. Nodding, Pauli followed his fireteam forward. They covered each other as they ran to catch up to several soldiers assaulting one of the machine-gun blaster.

  Pauli threw his body against a massive tree trunk just as a group of blaster shots hit the other side of the tree. Dropping down to the ground, he saw the next couple of blaster shots rip right through the tree where he had just been. Bringing his own rifle to bear, he sighted in on a Zodark that was shooting at him. He depressed the trigger a couple of times, and one of his magrail slugs exploded the alien’s head.

  Got you, you bastard.

  “Let’s move!” called out his fireteam leader.

  Jumping to his feet, Pauli ran forward to the next covered position, a cluster of large rocks next to some more trees. When the four other soldiers in his fireteam joined him, they all heard some hideous-sounding shriek. “What the hell is that?” one of them asked.

  “It’s those damn Zodarks. It’s a yell they do in battle or when they’re preparing to charge,” the corporal said as he stuck his head around the corner of the rocks to see what was happening.

  “Oh, crap! Here they come,” he shouted, firing his rifle several times at something charging toward them.

  Pauli popped up from behind the rocks and fired a handful of rounds at the cluster of Zodarks running in their general direction. He hit one of them, then shot him several more times until he dropped to the ground, dead.

  Moving to the next Zodark, Pauli fired a couple more times. The guys in his fireteam added their own fire. One of the privates opened up with his M90 SAW, cutting half a dozen of them down with a barrage of blaster shots. In short order, their magrails had made quick work of the charging enemy soldiers.

  “You see that?” asked Pauli. “Unless those Zodarks use a blaster, they need to get in close to kill us. We just need to keep them at arm’s length with our magrails. We got this.”

  Pauli then ran around the rock formation he’d been hiding behind and charged forward. For whatever reason, he didn’t feel scared anymore. It was like a switch had just flipped in his brain.

  *******

  An hour later, the fighting had died down until it petered out altogether. The Earthers had captured the position, and with it, control of the area. It had been a fiercely fought battle. The RASs had assaulted the place with three battalions of orbital assault troops. They’d sustained one hundred and forty-six killed and another two hundred and eighty-one injured during the assault. However, they counted a total of four hundred and thirty Zodarks killed, twenty-four captured.

  With the enemy position under human control, the soldiers went to work rebuilding the defensive positions and turning the place into a new combat outpost or COP. In time, their engineers would set up planetary defensive weapons of their own. Until that time, the RASs would turn the place into a defensive fortress, ready to repel any further Zodark attacks.

  Chapter Six

  Occupation

  RNS Voyager

  New Eden

  Admiral Abigail Halsey looked at the latest report from New Eden. The ground operations were well underway. In the last twenty-four hours, they had landed twelve of their thirty-two battalions of RASs on the ground. The Army had thus far managed to capture or disable ten of the fourteen Zodark bases they had identified on the planet. In the next twelve hours, the last four bases would be assaulted and captured.

  Halsey shook her head briefly as she read the casualty report. It was high, but not as high as she had expected. The orbital bombardment they’d carried out prior to attacking the positions with ground forces was a strategy that was paying off.

  They needed to keep offloading the rest of their soldiers and get the mining operations going as soon as possible. With the system clear of Zodark ships and New Eden almost freed from Zodark control, they had to get these minerals mined and shipped back to Earth. She wasn’t sure how much time they’d have before the Zodarks returned in force, but she wanted to make sure they were ready for them when they did.

  A chiming noise sounded, letting Halsey know someone was waiting outside the door to her office.

  “Come in,” she called out. The ship’s computer recognized her voice and opened the door.

  She smiled when she saw her friend. “Miles, it’s good to see you again. I’m so glad you weren’t hurt. How are you doing?” she asked as she got up and walked around her desk. She gave him a quick hug, and they exchanged pleasantries and
sat down on the couches in her office.

  “Thank you for rescuing my crew, Admiral,” Hunt said. Then he leaned forward. In a quieter voice, he asked, “What do you want us to do now? Without a ship, we’re a bit out of sorts.”

  “That’s a good question, Captain,” she said with a nod. “It was something I wanted to ask you about. I didn’t want to make any personnel moves without consulting with you first. As you know, our ship took some damage in the final fight to take the planetary defensive systems down. We have a few openings from some casualties we sustained. Would you be open to any of your crewmen or officers volunteering to fill in for them?”

  Hunt smiled. “I think many of them would jump at the chance. Not having a ship right now means we’re either going to be filling admin billets back on Earth, or God forbid, stuck in a training billet,” he said with a chuckle. “Speaking of Earth, when’s the next transport heading back? Could the remainder of my crew hitch a ride? I think we should report back to Admiral Bailey what’s happened. I’m sure I can pick up another command of one of the new warships being built.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Miles, you don’t dwell on the past. You just jump right back into the fight without missing a beat,” said Halsey. “To answer your question, yes. I’ll make sure the remainder of your crew that doesn’t want to stay here catches a ride back on the transports. It’s probably going to be at least a week after we get the mining operations going, though. I was going over the resource needs for those Trimarian reactors, and I want to make sure I’m sending you guys back with enough minerals to produce at least six of them. The next transport will hang around until it has reached its full capacity, enough for twenty more reactors. I’m hopeful I’ll be able to keep the gravy train moving back to Earth every four or five days once we get things up and running.”