Everything booted up, and the powered armor confirmed a good connection to Jerome’s implants.
He disengaged the cradle; plugs and tubes pulled out and he stepped free, sealing all of his ports.
“Hey, Dooks,” Jerome said, turning so his back was towards the other man that was walking out of his cradle.
Dooks looked him over, making sure he was all sealed up.
“Looking good, sarge,” Dooks said. Jerome turned around, facing the man.
“Turn around, yah big bastard,” Jerome said.
Dooks did so, Jerome eyeballing his powered armor and pressing a panel that looked open but was indeed closed.
“Good to go,” Jerome said, tapping the man’s shoulder lightly.
Unless in combat, it was better to hit with as little force as possible.
Others were doing buddy checks as well, making sure everything was good.
Jolie was looking at them all, her pistol still out and ready, looking anxious as hell.
The other resistance people milling around all watched them with interest.
“Time to get our guns,” Jerome said, moving to his enlarged and modified ammunition pack.
Dooks got him lined up and latched the main pack into place. It was twice the size of the normal repulsor pack.
He also got the smaller packs attached to Jerome’s legs; they had been armored and connected into the secondary feeder lines on the main ammunition pack.
Jerome tucked the feeder belt into the belt on his front and helped Dooks get his ammunition packs on.
Grunts, muttering, and the mechanical whir of servos punctuated the troopers’ work.
Everyone was ammoed up and checked over in ten minutes.
They grabbed repulsors, checking them with drills done so often they were instinctual. Feeding belts were checked and slotted into position. Repulsors were cocked and belts clicked as rounds were moved.
Jerome moved through his section. There had been eleven, including him, when they had entered Masoul System. Now there were just five. All of the sections were like that, but he was focused on checking their gear himself. He turned to face Haas and Zukic, who were standing near the armored door that led into Landing City. The other sections were checked by their leaders and moved closer to their officer and warrant.
Haas waited until they were all there, before looking at them all. Jerome stood straighter, seeing the pride in Haas’ eyes.
“Already we have carried out a mission the likes of which the EMF has not undertaken in its history. Each and every person here has done their duty and more. I am proud to stand among men and women such as yourselves,” Haas paused, looking at them all. They smiled, and a mix of feelings welled up in Jerome.
“Today marks the end of our mission. Our fellow troopers need us, and the Triple-Twos aren’t going to let them down,” he said, his solemn face splitting into a grin.
He looked to Moretti. “And just for today, I’ll say that you’re a Triple-Two with us.”
Troopers patted the man’s back as he blushed.
He might have still been a spy, and he would have cursed them all out for doing the same act some thirty years ago, but they were the only people with whom he felt he could be himself.
Jerome saw how much that meant to the man as he went red with embarrassment and also happiness. The man might not have been part of any group before, but here he had made friends with those that would lay down their lives for their comrades.
Nothing quite like that, Jerome thought with a smile, looking at his platoon, his family.
“Alright, Triple-Twos, let’s go and fuck up Harmony’s day,” Haas said. His helmet dropped forward with the sharp noise of metal striking metal. The rest of the platoon did the same.
The research and development area was replaced with darkness, the sounds of bolts locking, and then his HUD coming up.
Jerome’s implants laid over the most important information, while the powered armor’s HUD displayed the outside world.
It didn’t even seem that Jerome was wearing a helmet, other than his inability to move his neck sideways more than a few degrees.
Haas moved out first, Jerome to his right and Tyler to his left, their section trailing behind with Mark tagging behind Jerome and Holm behind Tyler. Yu, Young, and Bobbie were in Tyler, Jerome, and Holm’s sections, respectively. Zukic was to the rear with Moretti.
“Shut the door behind us, will you, Jolie?” Tyler said as they got into motion.
Haas opened the door and led them out into Landing City. Jerome’s filters altered and the world changed from full color to greenish tints.
It was a bit annoying, but he could still see better than any Chosen on Masoul.
Haas led, the powered armor racing over the ground even at their lowest power setting. Jerome couldn’t even feel the weight on his powered armor’s back.
He focused on looking at his HUD, checking the mini-map as they linked up with the sensor grids that the resistance had distributed across Landing City.
The seventy-ninth floor was a mass of engagements, the Chosen pushing up over their fallen and overtaking the troopers that had been thrown on the defensive.
“Blades,” Haas called.
Jerome pulled the blade from his side.
They passed a small group of Chosen with no one around. The platoon opened their ranks, blades catching the fire’s light.
The passing powered armor reached out, their blades passing through the Chosen, the servo motors barely registering resistance.
The platoon ran on, ten bodies looking around with shock still on their faces.
***
Jaka had followed Moretti faithfully for the majority of his adulthood. Moretti had taken him under his wing when he had been nothing but an angry child without a family.
Moretti had turned him into a Chosen, he had shown him the path of Harmony. Jaka had gained power and the respect of others.
Harmony was good and right; they had looked to bring Jaka to this stage.
He looked to his watch. Moretti’s Chosen had become washed up in the charges heading up towards the troopers.
The resistance had ambushed groups with Harmony’s own heavy weapons. They’d also gotten their hands on EMF weaponry and grenades.
They struck from maintenance hatches and vents, hitting the Chosen and running away before the Chosen had time to hit back.
They were infuriating, but nothing other than an itch compared to the troopers that were working through Landing City. With the access areas that connected the underground tunnels gone, central tower had the most Chosen at around half a million.
They needed to win here and press on to the other towers.
Jaka hoped that Moretti and the research people could get more devices like the ones Moretti had given him and his forces. They could turn the tide of the battle.
He had finally reached the forward areas of the battle, but he stayed back, checking his working watch and pulling free Moretti’s gift.
There were about fifteen minutes to go. He glanced around the corner; they were on a housing floor.
The housing units had been destroyed; holes from rounds and explosives showed the troopers just hundreds of meters away.
Forces were fighting in scrums here and there where Chosen had found a way to reach the troopers.
The troopers hid behind cover made from gray material. It stopped all but the heavy machine guns’ rounds.
The noise was deafening as hundreds of weapons traded tracers.
The floor was slick with blood; the smell of copper and death filled Jaka’s nose.
Bodies lay all over the floor, stacked three and four high in areas.
Jaka had seen terrible things; he’d taken more than one person to the educators. The cold and callous nature of the educators was understandable. The troopers fought with determination; they had fire to them.
A group of Chosen advancing past Jaka were struck by a grenade launcher.
No on
e else seemed to even realize they’d died. Each person was fighting their own fight.
Jaka felt explosions in the floor; he looked to his timer as it reached zero.
He raised the flare above his head and roared defiance at the troopers.
They would win, and he would remember the Chosen that had been ripped apart by the troopers’ weapons.
He grabbed the pull string at the bottom of the flare and pulled.
“For the sake of Harmony!” he bellowed.
Jaka had no time to realize that he wasn’t holding a flare or some device that might mess up the troopers’ helmets. He was holding a grenade above his head. He and four thousand others had been given flares. Some didn’t work, others had been lost, others had pulled their strings early or late.
One minute the Chosen were pushing forward, their leaders getting them moving and yelling encouragement. They knew that they would win with the new inventions.
Then explosions ripped through the ranks, cutting out the majority of that leadership. Thousands died or were maimed as shock spread through the ranks of Harmony fighters.
***
“That’s the signal,” Haas said.
Mark put his blade away. They’d killed fifty or so Chosen on their way to the front lines. Now the time for discretion was gone. He and the other troopers grabbed tape from the front of their chest plates, revealing their names or nicknames. Another strip of tape came off their shoulders, showing the insignia of troopers, their units and rank.
They ran up the last flight of stairs, and then they were among the rear guard of Chosen.
Haas backhanded a Chosen that got too close. The Chosen died with the scream still in their throat, the powered armor hand taking off their head.
Haas moved out into a large lobby that held lifts. Tyler moved out to the left, Jerome to the right, pushing out from the center of the Chosen lines.
Mark and his section moved to Jerome’s side, and Holm did the same with Tyler’s. They just didn’t have the people to have a section on either side. With two of them together, they still didn’t make up a full section.
Though now they had more firepower than two platoons.
Mark didn’t hesitate as his implants worked with his powered armor, identifying Chosen with red halos.
They were still confused as the lines opened up and the powered armor moved forward.
“Fire teams!” Haas said. It was clear that being in a line limited the powered armor’s abilities.
Mark moved, Dashtund following. Ko, Niemi, and Dominguez rushed off in another direction.
Mark saw Chosen in a housing unit. He didn’t slow his momentum, crashing through the wall and firing at the targets obscured by the wall and dust that was still coming off of his armor.
Dashtund jumped through the doorway and fired at the Chosen in the corridor. Mark followed and they advanced.
The platoon had broken down into two- or three-person fire teams. The idea was to move and hit the most Chosen in a limited time.
If there was a big target, they moved back together and hit it with everything.
Chosen were everywhere; thankfully the sensor network was still working, and their implants tied them to the troopers that were recovering from the shock of seeing their enemy explode across their line of advance.
Mark was moving behind Dashtund when he saw a group of Chosen were reloading a heavy machine gun and wheeling the thing in a cart towards the front lines.
They stopped. Mark fired and jumped at them. Some scrambled behind the corner, while the others died under the repulsors’ tracers.
Mark ran through the corner, catching a Chosen in the head with his knee. His left fist pulped another’s chest, and his right elbow shattered a third’s chest.
Rounds pinged off his armor. He jumped, turning in the air, and fired at the remaining two. They went down.
Dashtund moved up, covering down the corridor they had been advancing up as Mark got to his feet and cut down three runners in the corridor the heavy gun had come from.
“Cover,” Mark said, moving to the heavy machine gun. He grabbed the barrel and bent it into uselessness.
Mark checked the corridor and saw the rest of his section come barreling out of a section of wall.
Ko gave him a wave as they went right through another wall.
Mark turned back to Dashtund.
“These fuckers are about as dumb as a fucking brick,” Dashtund said.
Mark moved around Dashtund, his repulsor firing; he didn’t even feel the recoil as his and Dashtund’s lines of tracers moved from side to side, cutting down what had to be the beginning of the Chosen build-up to the front lines.
Chosen were running at the incoming fire, getting themselves cut down.
“Well hopefully they won’t get any fucking smarter. Moving,” Mark said. Two powerful steps put him fifteen meters up, his weapon firing the whole time.
“Don’t leave me behind.” Dashtund took an open door off its hinges as he misjudged his step and took out a housing unit’s wall. “Fucking—it was like that when I got here!” Dashtund said, firing on the Chosen, a few rounds sparking off his armor.
Mark laughed in his armor.
They got to the corner, and Mark used his repulsor as a deadly bat, crushing anything that it hit.
Dashtund fired and moved forward. Rounds fell from his gun as he toggled the trigger, focusing on groups that looked to be putting up a fight.
Mark cleared his area and added his own fire to the mix.
Anything within ten feet of him didn’t look human by the time they hit the ground.
Blood and gore now rested on the powered armor.
Chosen looked at the powered armor in confusion; many remembered them being beside Harper, their broadcasts showing them as the powerful rearguard, the tool that would lead to taking down even Earth’s Military Forces.
It led to hesitation. Ask any veteran trooper: inaction was worse than nearly any action at all.
Dashtund and Mark moved up, their armored boots not finding the floor once as they advanced through the Chosen pocket, their repulsor barrels cherry red and smoking hot as they moved on.
“Front lines aren’t too far now,” Mark said, looking to his HUD. None of the platoon had gone down, though Tal was showing mechanical issues. He was with Haas, Zukic, and Moretti. Their job was to get Moretti to safety; he was more valuable than all of them. He knew Harmony.
“No mercy!’ Haas yelled.
“We are troopers!” the rest of the platoon responded.
“We need a new fucking reply, sounds corny as fuck!” Dashtund said, even as he and Mark fired into the newest group of Chosen they’d found.
“I’m willing to hear suggestions,” Mark said.
“Come on, you fuckers!” Dashtund said, clipping a few that tossed useless grenades at him.
“That’s a good one,” Mark said, the hallway clear as they moved on.
“Huh, guess it is. Got caught up in the moment.”
***
Fighting had been just meters apart, but then the lines had gone up with grenades.
Alexis didn’t question it, she just added to the confusion. The troopers pushed the Chosen back, and holes opened in the Chosen’s lines as they were pushed out of the housing units that the troopers had occupied just hours before.
Positions were shored up, wounded were pulled to the rear, and barricades were given a liberal coating of spray-ite.
Ammunition flowed forward but the troopers didn’t advance; they didn’t want to overreach their positions and get hammered back into them. Their fire reduced as Chosen cleared from the easiest lines of fire.
More Chosen filled in from the rear, but it was a hard battle; the only way they got back to their positions was through piling their dead on one another.
Then weapons fire ripped through the Chosen from the sides.
Shooting an enemy straight on was good and all, but they could hide in depth and get nice positions t
o hit you. Fighting two forces to your front and side, you were leaving your sides exposed somehow.
For a few minutes, Alexis just thought that she was seeing things as lines of tracers ripped sideways instead of back and forth in front of her.
Then she caught a round in the knee. She screamed in pain and fell backwards.
“That’s my wife, you fuckers!” Tyler yelled.
She knew that voice anywhere.
“‘Bout fucking time! If you call this a fucking honeymoon, I’m going to kick your ass!” Alexis yelled, the pain and her relief making her not give a flying fuck about what channel she was on.
She pulled out sealant and sprayed her knee liberally, which was probably going to have to get replaced. She pushed herself out of cover again.
“What, don’t like old shit-tacular Masoul?” he asked on a different channel.
“Not without you. Fuck me, is that you in powered armor?” she said, watching a group of five heavily armored people that must have been powered or else they wouldn’t have been able to move that mass.
“Definitely a subject for later, and yup, hi honey!” he said, cheerful as ever.
powered armor opened up with their weapons, the whole group firing in concert. They advanced, streams of tracers suppressing the Chosen as they leapfrogged. It was a textbook maneuver as powered armor advanced, always firing, always pushing on.
The battle cleared away, troopers ceasing fire as the powered armor came into view.
Four sets of powered armor headed right up the corridor Alexis was in.
Tal, who Alexis only recognized because his name was written on his chest, grabbed her harness.
She felt herself being pulled up as if she was a child. Tal dropped her off with the medics. Nerva was there as well, his armor showing that he had just come back from the frontlines himself.
Haas walked up to Nerva and got talking. A medic came over to Alexis, checked her injuries, and applied painkillers.
“Get back to the aid station, they’ll cut out the crap and print it new,” the medic said, turning to deal with others coming into their care.
“All units, push forward. The Triple-Twos in their powered armor will act as support,” Nerva said to the section leaders and above within central tower.
Masoul (Harmony War Series Book 2) Page 35