Assault Troopers

by Vaughn Heppner

  That’s all we had other than the sleds to take us to the black-matted Lokhar domes. Maybe as bad, if we strayed too far from the central ship, the control device in our necks would explode and we’d be dead. If we couldn’t blast our way into the domes, we’d be just as dead. If—

  “This is it,” I said, deciding endless worry wasn’t going to help me or my maniple.

  Troopers turned toward me. I raised my right arm and gave them the thumbs up. Afterward, I waited.

  Finally, I felt acceleration and I realized we had left the Jelk battlejumper. There weren’t any windows in the assault ship for us to see outside. Maybe more than anything else that told us this was an alien vehicle. Human-designed assault ships would have given us windows or screens showing what the outer cameras could see. This felt too much like a box. Our masters would bring us to the battle zone, open the box and shout: “Attack!”

  The acceleration pressing us into our seats meant the assault ship headed toward the Starkien contract vessels. Once inside their motherships, we’d head to the jump point and enter the route that would take us to a star system. From there, we’d use another jump route that led directly to Altair. That meant we’d be making two jumps before combat.

  None of us were looking forward to that.

  Time passed far too slowly. Our vessel thrummed later, and we shook once, possibly landing onto the deck of a Starkien mothership. Clangs and clanks told of Starkien machinery locking us into place.

  Thirty minutes later, a voice said into my earphones, “Jump in ten minutes.”

  All around our packed assault ship, troopers squirmed, including me. The ten minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. I tried to think about anything other than jumping. Why did it feel so awful? I don’t know. No one explained much to us. I was getting tired of that. I wanted to make them talk. I—

  We jumped, and it hurt: my guts, my head and my eyes, everything pounded and pulsed. It seemed to last forever. Even though I was strapped in, I tried to double up. I felt the bio-suit stir on my skin. The living armor didn’t like the jump either, it seemed. Muscles cramped. I twisted in my seat. I called out and in the end, I simply endured.

  Finally, far too long of a time later, the pain and twisting stopped like the snap of fingers. We’d jumped successfully. No one said anything for some time. Probably most of the troopers felt like me: grateful to just sit and not feel pain.

  “I don’t ever want to do that again,” a man finally said. A murmur of agreement swept through the troopers. We’d taken off our helmets some time ago.

  “Why does it have to hurt?” one asked.

  “This is BS,” said another.

  A third replied, “You got that right, brother. The aliens can have the stars. I just want to go home.”

  There was more of the same, troopers letting off steam. It went on until acceleration pressed us against our seats.

  “Now what?” a woman asked. “Are we heading into combat?”

  “No,” I said. “We’re heading for the next jump point.”

  “We’re jumping again?” a man complained.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll get to fight the Lokhars soon enough.”

  There was strained laughter and growls of eagerness. We were all wound tight, too tight. None of us knew anything about what went on around us. None of us saw anything in this damned box.

  This time, we didn’t have any warning. Troopers talked quietly together. I remember glancing a row over. Two men had the top of their heads practically touching. Each held cards. One was in the process of stuffing a drawn card into his hand when the awful feeling of jump struck by surprise.

  We came out on the other end in the Altair system. As the troopers came down from the funk of jump, troopers cursed and raved at our thoughtless minders. After enough bitching, I told them to pipe down.

  “We’re in the combat zone,” I said. “Put your helmets back on and stay alert.”

  That got troopers to blinking, thinking and donning the heavy helmets.

  It was crazy. We rode into a space battle and none of us knew if beams fired near or if enemy missiles had gained lock-on and zoomed the final distance to our mothership. We waited for N7 or some other android to tell us to get ready. Back in the solar system, we’d unloaded onto plenty of practice battlefields. So we knew what to do when the time came. Still, this would be the first time under fire for most of them.

  Rollo leaned against my left shoulder. “Afghanistan was nothing like this, eh?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You never rode a chopper into battle?”

  “At least I could look around and see what was going on,” Rollo said.

  “What about SEALs in a sub? Maybe that’s what this is like?”

  We shot the breeze for a time, trying to distract ourselves. Others did likewise. Finally, our headphones crackled into life.

  “This is N7 speaking. The Starkiens have successfully taken the guardian ships by surprise, eliminating eighty-five percent of the enemy spacecraft. Three have escaped, however, running to warn the nearest Jade League star system. The other surviving guardian vessels are attacking the Starkien ships. Estimated time to offloading is three hours.”

  “Three hours!” Rollo said. “That’s a long time to let our guts seethe.”

  “Eighty-five percent of the enemy ships destroyed sounds good to me,” Dmitri said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  We were doing it. We were in the middle of a space battle, and we couldn’t see a thing. I wonder if this was how the Marines felt storming Japanese beaches in World War II or the soldiers who landed at the Normandy beaches on D-Day. Fighter planes, submarines, artillery, battleships and cruisers had pounded the area and each other. But in the end, warriors in assault boats had to storm ashore and take the terrain. We were the Marines here, mercenaries treated worse than dogs. In three hours, or thereabouts, we would leap into the void of the vacuum of space and face elite Lokhar legionaries on their precious asteroids.

  I swallowed in a tight throat. Here was my chance for some payback against the bastards who had destroyed my world. It was funny, but I didn’t feel the rage just then. I felt fear. I wanted to live. I didn’t want to die in the Altair system fighting over a religious artifact that meant nothing to me.

  “Remember what they did to your dad,” I whispered to myself.

  I tried to do that. Instead, I waited and endured. That was another funny thing. Waiting in my seat was worse than going through a jump. The anticipation of something terrible felt worse than actually going through the terrible thing. Strange.

  Who were the First Ones anyway? Why was a Forerunner artifact considered to be a holy thing? I wondered what the thing did, if anything. Was the object like an alien Stonehenge? Was it like the Cathedral of Norte Dame or was it like the black stone the Muslims kept in Mecca?

  “I hate the waiting,” Rollo said.

  “You got that straight,” I told him.

  “Do you think we’ll win?” he asked.

  “We have to,” I said.

  “Don’t blow smoke,” Rollo said. “Really, do you think we’ll win? Tell me the truth, Creed. What do you think is going to happen?”

  I licked my lips. “I don’t have a clue, my brother, but we’re going to find out soon enough.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You got that right.”

  ***

  The hard maneuvering began soon thereafter. It was like being in an amusement park on a ride without windows, just jerked and slammed back and forth. Because the ship was in space, in a vacuum, there wasn’t any noise from outside like explosions. But there were plenty of noises in the spacecraft, maybe from the Starkien mothership. The sounds were clangs, hisses, creaks, ruptures, more hissing—the sounds never ended.

  “We are leaving the mothership,” N7 told us over our helmet speakers.

  Most of the other noises ended because a roar of thrusters took over. Instead of being jerked back and forth—the mot
hership likely jinking to save our lives—we were shoved hard against our seats.

  High acceleration slammed us back, and it continued. I hated this not knowing. I could tell by the stark expressions and the pale features around me through helmet visors that the troopers hated the suspense too.

  I clicked on to the wide channel and said loudly, “We’re going in!”

  Heads whipped around. Troopers looked at each other with hope.

  “Are we finally doing it?” another maniple firstman asked me.

  “That’s right!” I roared. “The Starkiens beat these sons of bitches in space combat and now we’re taking it down into their throats. Is everyone ready?”

  Troopers stared at me.

  I forced myself to laugh. “That’s no answer. Are you ready to fight?”

  “Yeah, we’re ready,” a few troopers grumbled.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “What are you, a punch of pansies? Let me hear you roar.”

  “We’re ready,” a few more said, pumping their fists into the air.

  “These Lokhars nuked us!” I shouted. “They raped our world and tried to stamp humanity out of existence. Now’s our chance to slam their heads against a wall so we can stomp on their faces. We’re giving them payback times ten!”

  “Kill them!” Dmitri shouted. “Kill them bastards!”

  “Kill, kill, kill,” I chanted. “Kill the bastards!”

  The troopers took up my chant. It was primitive in the extreme. I suppose if N7 listened in he would think himself superior to us. I expect the Starkiens might understand. They had turned into hooting chimpanzees a couple of times during the strategy session.

  I would have led the troopers into another round of shouting, but the maneuvering became crazy, throwing us this way and that in our assault seats. If we hadn’t been strapped in, we’d have twenty or more troopers with broken arms and legs.

  “Get ready!” I roared, as I felt my voice strain in the back of my throat. “We’re getting near to unloading. Make sure you’re channeled in to your maniple’s frequency.”

  Three minutes later a line appeared to the side in a bulkhead. It was a gap, a rent from something: shrapnel or a hot beam. Air howled out, and for the first time some of us could see what was going on outside. The bad news was that three troopers hadn’t sealed their helmets properly. They died: the first Earther casualties that I knew about. I spent the next minute yelling at everyone to check their suits.

  “Look,” Rollo said suddenly.

  I glanced at him. He pointed at the rent. We could see through it now.

  Bright, flashing beams nearly blinded me. Then I caught a glimpse of the Forerunner object in the distance. It gleamed white and seemed unearthly.

  “What is that?” Rollo whispered.

  I swallowed uneasily. What if the Lokhars were right? What if this was holy ground and the First Ones—who were the First Ones? Why did these artifacts matter so much that an entire Lokhar legion had dedicated their lives to guarding it?

  Where the Jelk true devils? Was the beginning of the Bible, where Lucifer and his fallen angels rebelled, a storybook about an ancient space war?

  A terrible chill worked up my spine.

  “No, no,” I whispered to myself. If the Lokhars where the angels, why had they tried to annihilate humanity? That made them devils, demons.

  “Get ready to debark,” N7 said in our helmets.

  “You heard the man—the android,” I amended. “This is it. We’ve practiced this before. Secondmen, you’re driving the sleds. Good luck and good hunting, assault troopers.”

  I lost sight of the artifact because our assault ship shifted position. I told myself not to think crazy thoughts of angels, demons and God. We were the assault troopers come to do battle against genocidal aliens. That’s all that mattered for the next few hours. Actually, winning mattered, because if we lost I didn’t think Claath would keep on using humanity. That meant extinction for us.

  “Think about payback,” I whispered.

  “Debark now,” N7 said. “You must attack the enemy.”

  -15-

  Assault ship six opened up and the sleds waited along the lower sides. I tore off my seat-buckles and used magnetic traction to clank to my sled.

  The sled was a simple vehicle: a long plank with thrusters on the bottom and skidoo-like handlebars in front. It boasted a small rail-gun in front. I demagnetized the boots and shoved off, floating to Sled Zeno-212. A twist of my head showed me that my squad followed.

  As I closed on the sled, I focused, landing, strapping in and revving the thrusters to life. The sled shuddered as the other troopers landed and strapped in.

  The seconds ticked by and the space battle went on around us. It was sickeningly glorious and beautiful. What can I say? The Forerunner artifact, the torus, the big silver donut, gleamed with an amazing radiance. We orbited the object at the same velocity as the small asteroids and sand clusters. I tried to get a mental fix on the artifact’s size. If the nearest asteroid was a mile in diameter—

  I gazed at the artifact. It had to be bigger than the Lokhar ship that had beamed my dad. Maybe that thing was three times larger. I raised my left arm, shielding my visor, my eyesight. Something was in the middle of the artifact—

  “This is truly amazing,” Ella said through the helmet-comm.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I believe a tiny black hole is in the exact center of the artifact,” Ella said. “How is that possible?”

  My throat was tight enough. This made it worse. I swallowed, and I heard N7 give the all clear.

  “It’s go time,” I said. “This is it, boys.”

  I gave the sled thrust, and we slipped away from assault ship six. We headed for the nearest asteroid, aiming at the domes there with their open bay doors. A single cannon tube in the nearest dome kept erupting with a milky ray. I followed it with my gaze and witnessed an assault ship disintegrating in space.

  “They’re killing our guys with that beam,” Rollo said over the helmet-comm.

  “While they can,” I growled, “while they can.”

  I applied more thrust, but it felt like we crawled toward the asteroid. The trip gave me time to swivel my head and take in the gigantic scene. All around this portion of holy space, assault ships moved in like sharks. I didn’t see any Starkien vessels. I imagine I couldn’t without a radar screen or something similar. They must be too far back.

  As far as I could see, space was flooded with assault ships and sleds. It reminded me of the movie Avengers, when the aliens slipped down out of the wormholes and launched down into New York City. We swarmed the Lokhar Fifth Legion, and by the number of aimlessly drifting and destroyed assault ships, sleds and individual troopers, the Lokhars were already taking a frightful toll of us.

  “This is like an amphibious landing, only in space,” I said.

  “My old man told me once that amphibious landings almost always have the deadliest results for the invaders,” Rollo said.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “I’m to your right…at your two o’clock,” Rollo said.

  I glanced back, and Rollo waved at me as he piloted his sled. Farther back, Dmitri directed his sled. To my left, Ella brought the rest of our maniple. Each sled carried four passengers and the driver.

  I took a deep breath through my nostrils. There was absolutely nothing fancy about this. We drove straight down into their guns. They slaughtered us, and the Lokhars would have annihilated everyone if Starkien missiles hadn’t finally streaked ahead and given us some covering fire, exploding into nuclear fireballs on the asteroids.

  Several things happened then. The first and maybe the most ominous: the artifact gleamed even brighter with a daunting glow. I expected to hear heavenly singing next. Would angels with flaming swords appear? Man, but I didn’t like the Forerunner object. It frightened me.

  The second thing to occur took my mind off that. Powerful radiation from the warheads struck us. I cou
ld feel leakage through my bio-suit and my bones ached. My mouth tasted like copper and other metals.

  “Our own side is trying to kill us,” Dmitri groaned.

  I laughed, and once more as in Antarctica, the laughter didn’t sound totally sane to my ears. “We’re still breathing,” I said, “even if it hurts.”

  The dome that had been slaughtering nearby sleds looked like shredded junk. One rounded wall had a single long shard jutting up, and even as I studied it, the tip toppled and fell out of sight. That was one point for the Starkiens.

  It took a slow and agonizing ten more minutes to reach the first asteroid. I could have turned the sled around and applied braking thrust. I didn’t believe we could afford even that. I’d seen single ships—the Lokhar variety—swarming from inner asteroids coming to aid their brethren. So I aimed my sled at another dome low on the asteroid’s horizon, and I shouted, “Get ready to jump and brake.”

  Rollo and Dmitri were doing the same thing. Ella believed in doing it by the book and lagged behind as she slowed for a sled-landing.

  “Now!” I shouted, shoving up and off. My squad did likewise. The sled’s thruster kicked in and the small craft blasted for the farther dome. It never made it, as a milky ray from the dome disintegrated the craft.

  “Brake and get low,” I said. “We’ll be safe from the domes on the surface.” I remembered that from the strategy meeting. It was one of the few useful tidbits I’d gained from the Starkiens.

  Jets of thrust expelled from our packs. We slowed, and I landed first, my boots touching down onto the rocky soil. Soon, my squad lay on the surface with me. I gathered the maniple, studied the situation and decided we should sweep toward the destroyed dome and learn what we could about the Lokhar layout.