The Tetra War_Fractured Peace

by Michael Ryan

  After a three-hour wait sitting like obedient children, we were driven an hour and a half through territory under our allies’ control. When we reached our destination, the lieutenant ordered us out of the transport and called another meeting.

  “We’ve got a new threat out there, soldiers,” he said. “The Errus designed mini-mecha flying armor. It’s fast, sleek, and can hover-jump. I’d like to have Blue Squad on the left flank prepared with HE-14s. Red Squad, put down covering fire. I need a volunteer from Green Squad…”

  I tuned out the lieutenant and studied the incoming intel. The mechas were long gone already. The problem with using “real-time” Command intel was that by the time it got passed to you and you reacted, the field had changed. Two mechas could be replaced by a squadron of heli-jets in under a minute. Everything moved lightning fast.

  If you were in a rain-soaked jungle, the situation was less fluid.

  In an open desert, you could track your enemy reasonably accurately with satellites and ground spotters.

  But the bulk of the Pugnale Ridge battle was to be fought in urban environments.

  One thing Major Balestain was not was stupid. He’d moved his troops into the suburban sprawl of Vipsunpolis, a city of twenty-five million. It was also a border town, sitting along a thirty-kilometer stretch where the Federated States of Rhanskad met Chemecko’s easternmost territory.

  Major Butcher was busy proving his reputation was justified.

  Tedesconian troops had mixed with elite Chemecko commandoes who were more familiar with Rhan tactics and were using the city’s civilians as effective cover. After witnessing ten minutes of actual on-the-ground fighting, I realized why all sides were sanitizing their media reports.

  Thousands of bodies lay along streets that were impassable to civilian traffic; devastating bombardments had left craters, toppled bridges, and collapsed tunnels.

  All around the city, buildings burned. Refugees attempting escape along the border river were trampled and drowned by their panicked peers. Factories had been mortar bombed; civilians downwind of industrial plants died in horrible agony as their lungs fried from chemical burns.

  Our unit received a change in assignment as we were relocating to the front. Command directed us to join a company-wide support group that was providing cover fire for a team of humanitarian aid workers searching for survivors in a city block known as West and Twenty-Third. Our squad fell in line with the rest of the platoon, which was positioned on the right flank of the company. We crossed over a deserted highway and a set of electrified bullet-train tracks. The scene when we entered the destroyed neighborhood looked like a drug-addled artist had created a surreal scene painted with a dystopian cyberpunk nightmare in mind.

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  I silenced my secondary notifications. The default programming was oversensitive for my taste, and I set it to only alert me to missiles that had locked on me, as opposed to the entire platoon. I ordered my squad to take cover behind a huge pile of concrete rubble that had once been a building. “Somebody speak to me,” I said. “I want a lock on wherever those bastards are firing from!”

  “I have a pic,” a corporal said over the squad comm.

  “Don’t tell me,” I instructed. “Send it!”

  My screen flickered, and I studied the pic. “Okay, Callie, move two hundred meters south. Take four greenies. Set up a shot.”

  “On my way,” she said.

  Callie and I had been able to finagle a couple of Gauss sniper rifles out of the armory, along with twenty MQ rounds apiece. It cost us a case of smuggled Earth cigarettes and a month of mess hall desserts. I was going to miss the chocolate pudding, but staying alive seemed like an acceptable trade-off. Without sniper capability, we’d have been seriously compromised in our available tactics. Abrel and Mallsin were intel specialists, but being stuck where we were, there wasn’t much use for their abilities, so I used them to direct the pawns.

  A heli-jet screamed over a nearby building and buzzed us, and dust momentarily clouded my DS. When the air cleared enough for me to make out a target, I fired off an antimissile round to deflect an incoming HE, and moved to new cover.

  “We’re going to have to send up some forward observation drones,” I said. This was something the lieutenant should have already ordered.

  “Send up a set of drones, now!” the lieutenant ordered. “Purple Squad, I’m making you responsible for keeping eyes in the sky.”

  “Yes, sir!” someone from Purple declared.

  I went back to my squad-comm. “I need Bollaniet and Flolingtz to move behind Callie and provide overwatch to her shot. Callie, what have you got?”

  “Looks like five or six in a mortar and missile team,” she answered. “They’re set up on a rooftop. Pic’s on the way.”

  She sent me an image that placed the building on our city map, and I zoomed in as best I could. I could tell it was a residential tower, probably filled with terrorized civilians. We couldn’t lob mortars or shoot missiles indiscriminately, which tied our hands. Of course the Teds, under the command of Major Butcher, had no such limitations.

  “Sergeant Ford,” the lieutenant said over a direct comm.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  “There’s a platoon of enemy tanks six clicks to our southeast,” he said. “Should I be concerned?”

  At least he was asking for advice. There was always hope that a near-death experience would change someone’s habits. I took a moment to look at two maps and pull up a Command report. I marked an area and sent a pic to him.

  “See that hill I marked?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “In about two minutes, we’ll have a dozen of our own tanks coming over the crest. They’ll be engaging the enemy, and it’s likely to be ugly for both sides, so they won’t have much free time to devote to us.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m still alive after as many drops as I’ve done for a reason, sir.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Hey, and forget about that other stuff, Sergeant.”

  “Sir.”

  I moved to a well-hidden area and scanned through Command updates and field-supplied maps. All the TCI-Armored troops were supposed to be uploading video and pics in real time as the battle unfolded. But as with many directives, once the excrement hit the ventilator blades and most of the troops were concerned with survival, getting any instant intel from the combatants was proving almost impossible. I keyed over to Callie’s private comm line. “You haven’t told me you loved me today.”

  “That’s ’cause nothing too scary has happened yet,” she said.

  “You just jinxed us.”

  “No. It’s only that we seem to be in more of an orchestrated event than a real fight. I don’t like it. Not a bit.”

  Abrel’s indicator popped onto my screen.

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  “Hold one, Callie,” I said. I switched over. “Go.”

  “I’ve got four of these mini-mechas moving down the central boulevard toward us.”

  “Roger.”

  “And I received a report from five clicks over to the west. A squadron of heli-jets is doing strafing runs, moving east.”

  “Roger.”

  “And there’s a company of light infantry with flamethrowers.”

  “Roger.”

  I waited.

  “Abrel?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s not enough?”

  “Okay, take Mallsin and whatever you need from the squad and deal with the pyros. When you’re done, give me some support with those mini-mecha jobs.” I switched back to Callie. “I need you to hurry up with that mortar unit.”

  “I’m moving up to a higher position,” she said. “Estimate one minute and thirty seconds until I’m ready for a shot. I’ll advise.”

  “I’m going to see if I can get over
one more block without the world falling on me,” I said. “Find me when you’re finished.”

  I pinged a dozen troops in the vicinity with instructions to join me. The mini-mechas were about four meters tall and moved much faster than their larger, more gangly cousins. The four approaching had multibarreled Gauss guns attached to both arms. A pair of shoulder-mounted grenade launchers for each unit completed their offensive capacity, which was proving devastating to everything in their path. For defense, they could fire antimissile rounds and countermeasures such as chaff and flares from rear-mounted blocks.

  Roughly one hundred and fifty lightly armored infantry accompanied the mechas – tactically valueless troops that meant nothing to me except wasted ammunition and unnecessary death. I wasn’t sure why Major Balestain was being so reckless with his own boots unless he valued them as little as the stories indicated he valued humans.

  As much of a shame as it was to mow down nearly defenseless troops, I had no choice but to instruct my squad to flank them. I ordered them to mount a cross-fire attack that I hoped would distract the mini-mechas, causing them to make a defensive move to protect the foot soldiers.

  The cross fire began, and I took three corporals with me to engage the mini-mechas.

  The machines proved to be faster and more powerful than I expected.

  “Callie?”

  “I’m moving toward you,” she said. “One mortar unit down.”

  “Good. Pick up Abrel and Mallsin if they’re free. I’ve got a problem here.”

  “That bad?”

  “Gotta run,” I said.

  My system screamed warnings as six missiles locked on me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, pecoraz and paradeez.

  ~ Holy Writs of Vahobra, 18:20

  Rookies tend to panic when a missile-lock alert flashes red on their screens.

  It’s not easy to remain frozen when a kinetic round or missile is streaking at you faster than the speed of sound – your instinct is to run or at least try to take cover. Your primal brain makes a binary decision: fight or flight. It’s not easy to fight a sliver of depleted uranium that has such incredible momentum that it can puncture TCI-Armor, and the image of splaying molten metal searing through your flesh is a tough one to ignore.

  I’ve witnessed armored soldiers surviving direct hits from explosive rounds, but the resulting heat cooked their skin. None of the ones I’ve met seemed all that happy they’d survived, although admittedly I’ve never taken a poll.

  The best strategy to survive a missile that’s locked onto you is to fire a countermeasure: chaff, heat, an antimissile round, or an exploding screen. Once you’ve done so, you wait until the last fraction of a second and then drop, jump, get behind cover, or run. If you have nerves of steel, you can run at the absolute last moment, because high-speed projectiles, even ones with guidance systems, can’t overcome their momentum at the final stage of their flight.

  It’s waiting until that point passes and taking effective action that’s the tricky part.

  Not one but six missiles had locked onto me.

  Which was problematic.

  The way to defeat a TCI-Armored veteran who understands momentum and has the guts and experience to stand still until the last instant is to fire multiple rounds at slightly different intervals.

  I’d taken out a few mechas using this method.

  Because it works.

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  The CPU had factory settings that would kick in under certain circumstances. I suspect designers figured if a soldier panicked, they’d have something in place to attempt a miracle save. Suits were expensive. Manufacturers profited from making and selling them, so I didn’t entirely trust their auto-saves.

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  One of Callie’s hacks was followed by one of her Easter egg messages.

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  I fired two chaff rounds and a pair of flares, and dove through the ground floor window of the building next to me. Everything I said earlier about waiting till the last moment is off the table when six missiles are coming at you, so instead I relied on the integrity of the building’s walls. They appeared to be made of permastecrete or something similar. I wasn’t familiar with Rhanskad building techniques, but if they were anything like the way the Chemeckos built things, I figured I’d be reasonably safe.

  The first missile followed me through the window, but it couldn’t adjust in time once I’d made a hard right turn. I hit the floor next to the exterior wall and watched the explosive round slam into an interior wall and detonate. The next round was another HE. It had changed course enough to hit the exterior of the building at the precise point where I’d taken cover. I felt the vibrations of the explosion through the wall.

  I forced myself to my feet and used jet assist to leap a few meters farther into the building’s interior.

  A kinetic round punctured the wall and struck right where I’d been lying on the floor a moment earlier. I jumped again, throwing myself even deeper into the edifice’s depths. Rounds four and five were also KE armor piercing, and each made a tiny hole in the permastecrete. The fifth nearly hit my leg.

  The final round was high explosive. Had the fifth KE incapacitated me, the sixth would have fried me like an egg.

  I remained motionless as the fire from the last round flared and burned out. No additional rounds came through the window or struck the exterior of the building.

  Versus Christ! I thought, mixing my blasphemies. My heart was pounding a rapid-fire tattoo in my chest, like a synth-meth drummer in a trash club. I suspected my suit CPU might have been damaged, but then the medical programming pumped whatever nano-pharma it decided I needed, and all was right again.

  I stood and scanned the damage around me.

  I was in a residential apartment complex. A home. Collapsed interior walls increased the instability of the building, which had been weakened by strikes besides the ones that had nearly killed me. The floor above me was cracked and partially collapsed. Vibrations from explosions in the upper stories sent crumbling chunks of permastecrete and dust falling toward me. The air was a dingy gray blizzard in my DS. I crept to the window and eased my flex-remote cam – affectionately known as the “fun-zone scope” – over the edge of the sill, and panned it left to right.

  The mini-mechas were about a click down the road. Callie’s, Mallsin’s, and Abrel’s icons appeared on my tactical screen, as well as a good portion of our squad. A few other members of our platoon were near Abrel, probably orphans picked up because their squad leaders had been reduced to ash. I retracted the cam and was about to jump over the sill when a woman ran toward me.

  She appeared in the rearview pop-up in my display screen, so I turned to put her into the main window view.

  I switched on the suit’s exterior audio. “I’m with the joint Guritain and Rhanskad force. I will not hurt you.” The translator program spat out something I hoped was a good rendition of my message.

  She began beating me with an iron frying pan.

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  “Please stop,” I said. “You’ll only hurt yourself. I’m on your side.”

  The woman collapsed to the floor and dropped the pan, her shoulders shuddering as she wept.

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  I wanted to help her.

  I felt compelled to explain, but I knew roughly translated words from Common English to Rhanskad electronically transmitted from my suit’s speaker would be the opposite of empathetic. But I hesitated to walk away. To leave a broken, crying widow to mourn by herself didn’t feel right, so I sat next to her. She wept louder and kicked the frying pan across
the room.

  I took it as a sign that she recognized I wasn’t her enemy.

  Or perhaps she realized she was powerless against me if I were.

  I began to say I was sorry. The optical contacts didn’t allow me to cry like a human being. I found that sad.

  I wondered if I’d become so dehumanized that I didn’t care about the woman, even though it was part of our mission to save and protect innocents like her. She curled into a fetal position and convulsed in misery. I reached for her with gentleness and used my power-enhanced fingers to stroke her hair.

  I lost track of time.

  My screen blinked at me accusingly.

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  I ran full speed, jumping over debris and the bodies of the dead.

  After firing a volley of HE missiles, I distracted one of the two remaining mini-mechas that my squad was battling.

  My DS pop-up displayed whom I’d lost: four green privates, one corporal, and a sergeant I’d only recently befriended.

  Thankfully, the rest of my friends were still alive.

  Callie was set up in a sniper’s nest. She had an excellent line of sight on the intersection where the bulk of the fighting was piling the streets high with enemy light-armored infantry corpses. Whenever TCI-Armored troops and regular infantry collide, it goes badly for the regulars. But the enemy generally has something else up their sleeve other than cannon fodder – like other TCI-Armor, mechas, or heli-jets.

  Because of the tall structures that surrounded us, enemy heli-jets weren’t much of a concern. And our squadrons were keeping them busy in high-altitude dogfights and back-and-forth attack-evade maneuvers.

  A good heli-jet pilot knew better than to attempt to take out a single grouping of troops while being hunted by equally deadly adversaries.

  If the only fights were between the apex predators, the rest of us could have stayed home and watched the battle on one of the networks.

  The mini-mechas were an attempt by the Teds and Meckos to create adversaries for the Specialized Drop Infantry troops that weren’t quite as big as the oversized mechas that would force Gurt Command to divert massive assets to defeat them. We’d have been outclassed if forced to fight the mini-mechas one-on-one, but fortunately for our cause that day, new, expensive, and experimental meant they’d only deployed a few of the units.