by Andrew Beery
Chapter 21: Levenbrech…
Lord Captain Asdartu sat in the command chair of his newly commissioned AE Rotan. His First Officer, a sycophant named Asktear, stood by his side. The Rotan had been in orbit around the planet Levenbrech for the better part of two weeks. The planet was in a general state of unrest. The toad-like creatures that inhabited this world went into a mating cycle every four months. During that time they were… challenging to work with.
The shipyards in orbit around the planet were always a target for worker dissatisfaction but even more so during times like these. The fact that there was a general sense of unrest within the Empire did nothing to help the situation.
Several labor strikes had been going on before the Rotan arrived in orbit. Asdartu dealt with them harshly and quickly. It was amazing what a few well-placed KEWs could do when they landed on a communal nesting ground with the force of thirty six megatons of high explosives each. In very short order, work had again resumed on the shipyards. It would take many months, even years to replace the ships Asdartu had lost in his failed attempt to deal with the Hupenstanii situation. He would not fail his brother, the King, again.
“Lord Captain?”
It was his Communications Officer who sought his attention.
“Report, Lower Centurion Turfas,” Asdartu commanded.
“Lord Captain Asdartu, a message buoy has just entered the system. It is from the Basharite system.”
“Have the message decoded and sent to my quarters. High Centurion Asktear, you have the bridge.”
“As you command,” the two officers echoed each other as they crossed their arms over their chests and bowed ever so slightly.
***
“Alright ladies and gentlemen…” Gunny Sergeant Jeremy James Hammond yelled from where he was seated in the combat shuttle. “I want everybody locked and loaded. When we hit the bleed’n ground grab your gear and get your bollocks up and off your seats right quick like. I want every one of ya worthless pieces of meat off this shuttle before the dust settles. Is everybody clear?”
“Yes Gunny!” came the loud reply.
“I didn’t HEAR you!” JJ shouted back.
“YES GUNNY!”
Commander Stone watched his newest Gunnery Sergeant work his troops into a frenzy. To someone not in the military it might seem as if the Gunny was being unnecessarily harsh but, in point of fact, what he was doing had a purpose. The most dangerous time for a Marine were those few minutes between when a shuttle landed and when the Marine got his butt off the shuttle.
In those moments the only thing a Marine could be was a target. Marines were not effective when all they were was a target. The Gunny’s job was to turn them away from being targets and instead make them predators. Marines made great predators.
Their LZ was a small patch of dirt in the midst of some serious jungle about five klicks from T’Nagra City. A small reconnaissance team had cleared the landing zone after determining the best way into the city undetected.
The briefing notes AG had received indicated the long abandoned Basharite city was once again filling with people, only in this case the people were Ashtoreth replicant soldiers. Scouting reports estimated nearly ten thousand Gators were calling this city their home right now. A good many of them would have been decanted in the original replicant facility that had been neutralized earlier in the week.
If the information JJ had received from the Ashtoreth technician named Roc was correct, there was a good chance that any replicants created after that primary facility was shut down might actually be willing to aid the Infinity Brigade Marines… that is if they could figure out how to make contact with them.
AG received a signal from the pilot. “Master Gunny touch down in thirty seconds.”
“You heard the Commander! Bollocks up. Hold your gear like ya love it and let’s get ready to move out!”
As the shuttle settled to the ground the doors cycled open in a fraction of a second. The first few Marines actually hit its edges as they practically flew out of the vehicle. Commander Stone was the last out. The shuttle was already in the process of taking off so he jumped the fifteen feet to the ground. His Stark suit had not trouble absorbing the force of the impact. In point of fact, his replicant enhanced body would have had little trouble even without the Stark suit.
Three more shuttles swooped in and the process repeated itself. All told there were a hundred and five Marines in this task force. Their objective was to create an LZ within the city proper to land more troops. Admiral Kimbridge wanted this threat eliminated quickly. The sooner they could definitively secure this planet the sooner they could begin to disrupt the Ashtoreth operations elsewhere… and ultimately put an end to their interference within the GCP.
AG waved Corporal Manu over to where he and JJ were standing. “Well Corporal are you ready to begin earning your pay?”
“To be honest Sir I’m processing the fact that I get paid. But in answer to your question… Yes I am. This area near T’Nagra doesn’t really have much in the way of dangerous predators or plants. The men should be careful about touching the Snatch Vines. They are not poisonous in and of themselves but the tree they will pull you into is covered with sharp venomous thorns that that can kill a man in less than a minute.”
“Sounds like fun,” AG said.
Manu paused to consider this before saying, “Earthers seem to have an odd sense of humor.”
AG chuckled, “That we do Corporal. That we do.”
“Little John, you mentioned the possibility ‘dangerous predators’… would you care to elaborate?”
“There really aren’t any around. Most of the things big enough to take down a man have been killed by the Draks.”
AG and JJ looked at each other. “And the Draks are…?”
“The closest Earth analog would be a spider but these don’t bite; they don’t have venom; and they don’t spin webs.”
“OK what do they do that allows them to control the big predator population?”
“They lay eggs… just under the skin. The larvae feed off the host before erupting as mature adults some six weeks after hatching.”
JJ looked green. “The host lives with these things inside it for up to six weeks?”
Manu shook his head. “No the larvae invade the bloodstream pretty quickly. The host typically dies within a few hours of the eggs hatching due to embolisms throughout the body.”
“Just out of curiosity, how big are these Draks?” Gunny Hammond asked.
“Not very large. No bigger than a man’s fist.”
JJ looked at the massive Basharite. “Your fist or my fist?”
“A man’s fist,” the Corporal answered as if that explained everything. He looked at the position of the reddish sun which was hanging in the western sky. “It would be best if we got to the outskirts of the city by nightfall.”
“Why is that,” AG asked.
“That is when the Drak come out.”
***
Roc worked his way through the ever increasing mass of soldiers. Most were ordinary grunts who would follow faithfully any orders they received from their chain of command. All of the officers, however, were sympathetic to his father’s cause. They still represented slightly less than a third of the total forces that Praefectus Niegar had assembled and hidden here in a slightly smaller replicant facility located below T’Nagra City.
Roc, and the others that were part of the insurgency, were slowly skimming the cream of the replicant crop. The age of the equipment in the facility worked in their favor. Bio-generators had an expected failure rate. Roc and his compatriots simply tweaked those numbers a little. Soldiers, technicians and officers were being reported up the chain of command as defective clones. The insurgents were then shuffled out of the facility to a hidden base on the surface that the insurgents had established on the western side of the city.
This way when the coup attempt finally came to pass, General Bar’Jona would be able to sandwich the forces loyal
to Praefectus Niegar between his. Given enough time General Bar’Jona would outnumber Niegar but time was a commodity not under his control… and certainly not in an abundant supply.
Unaware of the growing discord within his own ranks, Niegar was in a rush to begin securing Basharite population centers. By occupying civilian population centers Niegar hoped to force the fighting to occur on the planet’s surface where he felt he had a better shot at being victorious. Of course all of this was a moot point if the Empire did not send ships to secure the space about the planet.
Niegar correctly reasoned that so long as the GCP forces that held orbital space, they could choose, at any point, to start dropping large rocks on their heads. If they ever learned of the Ashtoreth presence that is.
For this reason Praefectus Niegar had ordered his men to stay away from the surface. This, of course, only helped Roc and his team to move insurgents… but it raised another interesting question in Roc’s mind.
Why hadn’t the humans started dropping kinetic energy weapons on them? Surely the human’s sensors had spotted the Ashtoreth encroachment on this city. Their KEWs would be a most effective means of wiping out the Ashtoreth presence.
What Roc didn’t know was that his doppelganger’s conversation with, then Sergeant First Class, Hammond had caused the Infinity Brigade to rethink their approach. They wanted the potential allies that Roc and the insurgency represented. There was also the issue of damaging the city which represented an important historical archive for the Basharite people.
Fortunately for Roc and his father, their questions would soon be answered in the form of a visit from Commander Stone and the Infinity Brigade.
***
Lord Captain Asdartu read the message for a fourth time. The planet called Bashar was now occupied by the same forces that he had faced in the Hupenstanii system. His failure there was directly responsible for what was occurring now within the Empire proper.
His brother, the King, was dispatching over five hundred warships to deal with the situation decisively. Asdartu and the Rotan were ordered to break orbit around Levenbrech and join the armada at their rallying point near the star system known as Signus III.
He reread the last line again. ‘Command of the Armada will fall to Lord Admiral Nsati of the House Durass. You are to obey his orders as if they were mine. Do not fail me again brother.’
The House of Durass and the House of Astarte had been bitter enemies for longer than recorded history. Certainly his brother, the King, knew that there was no love lost between Nsati and Asdartu. It had been a bitter pill when she had been promoted to ‘Lord Captain’… the fact that she had now been promoted to ‘Lord Admiral’… ahead of him was a humiliation almost beyond understanding.
Nsati was one of the few females allowed to serve in the armed forces. That this ‘female’ would be allowed to serve in the capacity of ‘Admiral’ was… unthinkable… and yet there it was.
What machinations must have taken place behind the scenes in order to pull off such a thing as this? Was this his brother’s way of punishing him? If she were successful when he had not been, what would that mean for him? On the other hand, if she failed then all of House Durass would pay the price for her failure. Perhaps this was his brother’s reasoning. Did he want Asdartu to foil her efforts and then rush in to save the day?
Lord Captain Asdartu was still pondering these questions as he called the bridge and gave his navigator the coordinates of their rendezvous point.
Chapter 22: T’Nagra City…
Commander Stone scanned his HUD one last time. Nothing. The path ahead seemed clear. Why was it he had an odd feeling about this? He and his men were only a few hundred feet shy of the city wall.
The word ‘wall’ was being excessively generous. It had once been a brick and mortar fence complete with wrought iron ornamentation along the top. Most of the mortar had crumbled away over the years and the wrought iron had given way to the elements. Still the pile of rocks that now constituted the wall seemed intimidating.
“Did you ever get that feeling something wasn’t right?” JJ whispered off to his left.
“Yeah,” AG agreed. “Like right about now. We know from orbital scans that there are three to four thousand Gators not three kilometers from here. You would think they would post some type of guard or observer on the edge of the city.”
“Maybe they’re not expecting company,” JJ offered by way of an explanation.
“Would you make that mistake?”
JJ snorted. “Like as much I’d forget by Mum’s birthday.”
“That’s what I thought,” AG agreed. “Have the troops go to full camo mode. We are done conserving power. I’m going to widen the spectrum on my HUD. I suggest you do the same. If there is something out there I want to see it before it sees me.”
AG expanded the dynamic range of his HUD to include thirty percent more ultra violet and infrared. His eyes would not be able to process those frequencies of light so his Stark’s AI automatically shifted the spectrum by condensing colors. As a result, he would not be able to distinguish subtle shades of blue, green or red but he would be able to see deeper into the fringes of his normal optical range.
The effect was startling. Certain features around him lost clarity but others popped out in a way they never had before. One example was the ground in front of them. Where before it had appeared solid and relatively undisturbed… now it seemed filled with numerous, irregular, dark circles.
“What do you make of that?” Stone asked the Gunny once he had confirmed he had adjusted his HUD as well. “Do those look like Gator-sized holes?”
“Bloody well do. Why do ya suppose we can’t see them with normal optics?”
“I think we are looking at trap doors. I’m betting they are rigged to collapse once you step on them. They are probably covered with several inches of normal topsoil.”
“Any guess as to what might be sitting at the bottom of those holes?”
“Nothing good Master Gunny… nothing good.” AG looked over the distance between where the cloaked Marines stood and where they needed to go. “I’m going to have my AI flag the location of each of those traps and relay the information to the AIs in everyone else’s Starks. Make sure everybody avoids those holes. I’m not worried about them being hurt by a punji stick while they are wearing their Starks but I’d bet my bottom dollar that those traps are rigged to alert someone if they get triggered.”
AG led the way forward. Unfortunately the ground was exceptionally soft and after a few steps it was obvious that even though the marines were cloaked… they would leave very visible tracks.
“OK, change of plans,” AG said. “Master Gunny, I’m going to crank up the output on my legs. I should be able to make it across in about three jumps. Its only about two hundred and seventy feet from here to there. I’ll be leaving marks in the dirt where I land but that will be better than a full set of tracks. When I get to the other side I’m going to shoot a monofilament tether across. Have one of your guys tie it to a tree… preferably one without any snatch vines. Then I want everybody to cross hand over hand using the tether.”
“Got ya Sir. Any particular reason why it has to be our commanding officer who goes over first?”
“Aside from the fact that he is your commanding officer and he said so?” AG grinned.
“Just say’n Sir… seems a shame some of our younger troops don’t get a chance to have any of the fun.”
AG thought about the conversation he had had with Captain Ruck at a restaurant called Teddy Peters. Something about having a hard time leading when you were queued up for replication.
“You know Master Gunny, as much as it pains me to do so, I’m going to admit you may have a point. Who would you recommend we send over?”
Without missing a beat Gunny Hammond yelled over his comms, “Corporal Little John, Front and Center Post!”
***
Manu Yreeb never imagined much happening in his life beyond the gathering of t
he next harvest for the masters. The coming of Admiral Kimbridge and her Infinity Brigade had changed all of that. Now he dared to dream… and dream he did. He dreamed of leading the Brigade one day. He dreamed of the worlds he would help to free from slavery. He dreamed of seeing the stars in ways and numbers that even his most distant of ancestors could not have. What he never dreamed of was acting like a tree while standing in the middle of a potential combat zone.
Following Commander Stone’s instructions, he had jumped in three massive leaps to his current position just past the crumbled wall that marked the western most edge of T’Nagra City. He fired the tether gun with marksman like accuracy as per his training on Paradise Island. The far end was secured to a Moko tree which had a stout base. His end however presented a problem. There was nothing he could reach with the length of tether he had available that would hold the line high enough to allow the marines to cross without leaving a mark on the sandy soil that covered their approach.
Gunny Hammond had finally suggested the only course of action available to them… ‘Little John’ would need to become a tree. And so Manu held the tether high in the air as each of a hundred marines used it to cross. The task would have been impossible had it not been for the mechanical strength of his Stark suit and his ability to lock it in place.
The last person to cross was Gunnery Sergeant JJ Hammond. He looped his legs over the tether and used one hand to pull himself along. In his other hand he carried one of the Moko tree fronds. He used this to smooth out the sand where Manu had disturbed it during his initial jumps. It was an odd sight to see a tree branch floating in the air. The Camo and the thinness of the tether made everything else invisible.
***
General Bar’Jona had had his soldiers setup a number of heat emitting decoys near Praefectus Niegar’s position. The thought was that if any of the ships in orbit felt it necessary to drop KEWs, they would miss Bar’Jona’s people and instead hit the Praefectus.
General Bar’Jona was not entirely happy with the location of his camp. If the truth be known, he would have preferred to have his growing cadre of insurgents located someplace further away from the edges of the city… but his choices were limited.