Insurgency: Spartika (The Sleeping Legion Book 4)

by JR Handley

  — CHAPTER 2 —

  Midmorning, Post-Revival Day 200

  Kalino City, Cardamine Island

  Commander, Spartika’s Marine Corps

  The silence was broken by the sound of enemy Marines in full combat armor clamoring down the helical ramp that connected every level of Kalino City. Pacing behind the polycrete fortifications they’d erected in the cavernous vehicle staging area of Level 2, Field Marshal Spartika observed the Marines under her command. She struggled to catch her breath as she contemplated the field in front of her. They’d moved the damaged gravtanks around to create a maze that funneled the enemy into their line of fire. The skeletons of long-dead human and Jotun troops were kicked to the side by her forces, who reluctantly followed her order. She knew they wanted to honor their fallen, but this was war. There wasn’t time for niceties.

  Spartika had been monitoring the feeds from her spy drones and deployed her Marines at every city phase unit. As expected, each one was the same, so her battle plan was cross-utilized by each detachment. Lines of fire were set, traps were laid, and fortifications were hastily thrown up. When she’d seen which sally port the enemy were preparing to breach, Spartika had rushed to be there. The sound of Legion Marines told her she’d made it in time.

  “Don’t shoot until you can read their nameplates,” she whispered into their local comms channels. “We want the first volley to be devastating. Save the explosives for the main body.”

  Spartika knew she didn’t need to whisper. Their comms were secure, and they were jamming the frakking Legion Marines. However, it created the somber attitude which would encourage her troops to wait until the right moment to attack their wretched foe. Once the battalion commander told her everyone was ready, they all crouched down and waited. It didn’t take long for the enemy to get within range; they seemed to be moving with reckless speed. The enemy didn’t even wonder at the drag marks from where her troops had moved the gravtanks. The Legion never questioned the human skeletons they’d found. It’s almost as if they expected the city to be abandoned, she thought. How foolish.

  Recognizing that the Human Legion was as close as she could hope for, Spartika gave the order. They needed total surprise and complete annihilation for the mission to succeed as planned. Three clicks sounded over the comms, the signal to attack. Up and down the line, Spartika’s Marines stood and opened fire on the surprised Legion. Carbines and Minis opened fire while her hastily built flamethrowers poured liquid fire onto the approaching enemy. Until they sputtered out without taking out a single enemy. The new weapon seemed ineffective and didn’t match what her intelligence told her they were capable of. The Legion’s Dragon’s Breath had caused hellfire for the New Order. But her flamethrower sputtered out with a hiss.

  The firefight was brief. One-sided and decisive, just like Spartika had planned. The effect of so many sabots fired in such concentration was devastating, and many of their enemies were cut in two. The flamethrowers hadn’t accomplished much tactically, but they’d made the field a gooey mess. The liquid fuel puddled around on the polycrete floors and coated the enemy. After taking in the battlefield, Spartika spotted a few of them attempting to crawl to safety. She suspected they were seeking salvation from their wounds, hoping their comrades might rescue them. Knowing she had to show her Marines her mettle and appear tough, Spartika acted.

  A quick order to her commanders had them holding the line while Spartika vaulted over the battlements and headed towards the wounded. She calmly pulled her pistol and put a single sabot round through each skull. At the final wounded Human Legion Marine, Spartika stopped and watched. He was lying on his back, his helmet visor cracked, with several holes in his torso. His bloodied face occasionally twitched as he tried to use his legs to push his body towards freedom.

  While she observed his struggle, Spartika’s AI was recording the scene through her helmet camera for future use. Just when it appeared that the wounded Marine would get around the nearby gravtank for cover, safe from her troops behind the barricade, she raised her Flenser pistol. The Marine also seemed to realize she wasn’t going to let him escape, as he muttered a strange expression like it was his personal mantra.

  “Dum spiro spero,” he chanted.

  Her AI, Mixon, was quick to provide her with a translation into her helmet. It means “While I breathe, I hope.” It comes from an old Terran language, though why this Marine would be speaking it is beyond my abilities at computation. An appropriate response to this subversive human might be, “Thus always to tyrants,” in the same language.

  With a calm, dispassionate gesture, she aimed her Flenser pistol.

  “Sic semper tyrannis,” Spartika told the Marine flopping at her feet, before she put a single round between his eyes.

  Looking around, Spartika realized she didn’t have a lot of time before the next phase of her operation. She continued addressing the dead Marine, and the camera in her helmet.

  “This didn’t have to happen, Marines. This isn’t your fight. Abandon the tyrant Nhlappo before she dooms you all. The only mercy I offer the Marines loyal to that frakking sakra is a swift death. But life waits for you on the side of righteousness. It’s not too late to join me, to overthrow your unjust commanders.”

  After cutting the recording, Spartika turned and moved swiftly towards the battlements. Not quite a fast jog, as she didn’t want to show fear in front of her troops. She didn’t want to be in front of her lines when the fight started, either, and swiftly hopped over the polycrete wall.

  “Marines, in a few minutes we should have company. Prepare to make the Legion of Traitors pay for their impudence. Make ready!”

  Up and down the line, Spartika’s Marines began slapping new ammunition carousels into SA-75 GX Mobile Mini Cannons and swapping tanks in their inferior copies of the Legion’s SA-57 Dragon’s Breath Flamethrowers. Within moments of finishing the reloads, they heard the clattering of the Human Legion Marines rushing to the aid of their comrades lying dead on the deck in front of them.

  — CHAPTER 3 —

  Midmorning, Post-Revival Day 200

  Kalino City, Cardamine Island

  Commander, 9th SPEC OPS RGT, Akoni City Regional Army, Human Legion

  Sabot fire continued in the background as Colonel Belford’s Marines assembled on him. After giving the hand signal that marshalled his forces, he ordered them to move out in a company assault wedge. They formed up in the large Level 1 vehicle bay, just out of sight of the helical ramp that led down to the next level. His Marines were quick and silent as they went about their business. Their small company, minus the squad he hoped they could rescue, looked even more insignificant in the large chamber designed to house entire regiments of gravtanks.

  This time Recon Company expected trouble and prepared accordingly. After a quick check of his own gear, Belford knew he was ready to go. While his remaining squad leaders organized their Marines, he moved to the center of the wedge to control the assault as they moved out. It wasn’t the perfect formation, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to pick the “perfect” formation. He was going in blind, ready to adapt his strategy on the fly. And since stalling for the best answer could cost his Marines their lives, he ordered the assault to begin.

  The push down the helical ramp was uneventful, though their communications arrays were still being jammed. Static filled Belford’s ears, his AI impotent to stop the intrusion into their “unbreachable” communications. Knowing he couldn’t fix the issue right then, he lowered the volume on his comms and focused on critically observing the world outside his helmet. Belford turned down the ramp into the main area of the second level, the raised view allowing him to see the shattered husk that was 3rd Squad strewn around the open spaces between rows of gravtanks. They set the trap perfectly, he thought bitterly. The gray polycrete floors were stained with drying blood and a strange liquid, giving an amber hue to the macabre art painted on the ground. The wedge led up to the point where they exited the ramp and realigned the form
ation, giving Belford more time to assess the situation.

  A quick scan revealed an unusual fortification, one which didn’t match the sketched floor plans he’d received from Colonel Scipio. Had the colonel misremembered? Belford wondered. With so much riding on this memory, Belford had his AI tag the location, and ordered his company to slowly advance. Their AIs scanned the perimeter for any sign of the threat which had killed their buddies. Suddenly, the lead Marine signaled a halt. Before anyone could fully process the command, all hell broke loose.

  As one, an enemy force stood from behind the barricade and opened fire with their Mini-Guns. Without having to be told, his AI executed the unspoken order, and AIs from the Special Forces Marines obeyed. They fired off several simultaneous grenade salvos from the SA-71’s underbelly to weaken the enemy line. It worked, briefly, and Belford ordered his Marines to charge as he took off towards the enemy barricade.

  “Jump over the frakking gravtanks,” he ordered as they pushed to close in with the enemy.

  Belford thought they’d reach the barricade unopposed and was so focused on getting in under the enemy’s guns that he wasn’t paying close enough attention. He was startled back into the moment when the buzzers on his Aimee went off just in time. He dodged a pair of glowing tracer sabots and screamed his battle cry as he continued the charge across the open kill zone. Having gained the initial fury of action, and motivating his command to follow him, he ordered his Marines to utilize their thrusters. He wanted to get them across the funnel the enemy had created with the gravtanks as quickly as possible. Being in the dead zone often led to dead Marines; Belford couldn’t live with wasting more lives. But these frakkers had to pay for what they’d done to his 3rd Squad.

  Using ACE-2 Combat Armor thrusters helped cut the time it took Belford and his Marines across the dead zone, but it was still taking precious seconds to cross the long open entryway. The barricaded enemies, using pre-sighted fields of fire, were taking their toll on the advancing warriors of the Human Legion. Thankfully, his AI had added a sequence to Mark’s orders that had his Marines zig-zagging across the open area and bounding over the individual gravtanks to become hard targets for the unseen foe’s marksmen. When they finally reached the barricades, they’d lost a full third of their assault force, and every surviving Marine was hungry for vengeance.

  Bounding over the barricade, Belford jumped into the midst of the enemy and landed on top of one of the insurgents patrolling behind the Mini Gunners. He recognized their armor; they were Human Marines. They had to be from Spartika’s faction, and he knew from the Field Marshal Nhlappo’s briefing that Spartika didn’t trust her rank-and-file troops. She had NCOs who were tasked with motivating her forces to fight until their deaths. Killing the enemy warrior in front of him, who’d literally fallen at his feet, would help dishearten the foe, but Belford took no pleasure in using his assault cutters to kill his brother. The brilliant neon-blue glow of his buzzing bayonet quickly decapitated the enemy. Running on adrenaline, he continued hacking and swinging his assault cutters until they finally snapped off. Grunting, he slung his carbine behind his back and grabbed a combat hatchet from his belt.

  Using assault cutters as a saw was messy work, spraying blood everywhere. With the soldier in front of him dead, Belford grabbed the enemy’s unit flag off the barricade to scrub his visor, knowing he needed to get the blood off so he could see. The longer he mucked around with the first dead human, the more chance the remaining insurgents had to kill him. Completing the task quickly, Belford raised his hatchet and turned, charging into the enemy line, past some of his own Marines. Each was engaged in a vicious personal struggle, wrestling with enemy frakkers, trying to kill them in close-quarters combat.

  Not wanting to let his Marines die out of some misplaced sense of honor, Belford threw himself into the fray, slashing into every enemy he came across. Individual duels had no place in modern combat, and he intended to end the battle as quickly as possible. Limbs were dismembered as Belford cut into the massed Mini Gunners trying to stop his advance. My hatchet really is better than that glowing assault cutter, he thought as he dodged around another enemy insurgent, decapitating them with a flick of his metallic silver tomahawk. Before the head hit the ground, spewing blood onto the packed polycrete, Belford moved on to his next victim. His once-dull gray recon armor began to look as if some malevolent deity had marked him with a bloody paintbrush. The more he killed, the more blood covered his armor, turning him into a gory embodiment of death.

  Belford flowed through the trenches, collecting kills against the enemy insurgents. This time he wasn’t seeking vengeance with his carbine. He remembered every Marine he’d lost in what had become a very personal battle, using it to fuel his battle rage. Despite that anger, he didn’t relish adding these notches to his carbine’s buttstock. They were fighting a war that never should’ve been. They should be fighting for the freedom of their people, for all of humanity, instead of over this pointless power struggle. Sighing, he refocused his attention on the battle in front of him. Occasionally the enemy would flee farther into the cavern, abandoning their barricades, and he happily let them flee. One less body between him and victory – one less insurgent Marine who might die. The war wasn’t over after this battle, a mantra of which Field Marshal Marchewka constantly reminded everyone. If they were to win the war, he would have to prevent unnecessary losses at the various objectives along the way.

  — CHAPTER 4 —

  Midmorning, Post-Revival Day 200

  Kalino City, Cardamine Island

  Commander, Spartika’s Marine Corps

  Sabots flew past Field Marshal Spartika’s head, ricocheting off the cold gray polycrete walls. The divots they left behind marked an almost-perfect silhouette around her as she stood resolutely behind the barricade in the face of the charging Human Legion Marines. Despite the initial volleys of grenades, the Mini Gunner line was largely unaffected. Her NCOs had told her that the depth of her line was overkill, but now her caution was paying off. Despite their losses, the speed with which the Legion was charging across the kill zone meant that her remaining Mini Gunners wouldn’t be able to accurately bring their superior firepower to bear.

  Her prey was in sight, and a third of them were down before they reached her barricade. Spartika ordered her second rank of carbine-wielding Marines to activate their assault cutters and prepare to defend the barriers. Up and down the line, glowing blue monofilaments were activated and whirring in a deadly song of death and dismemberment. Pleased, Spartika grinned inside the confines of the helmet of her ACE-2 Combat Suit. Before she could take a moment to bask in the glory which should’ve been hers all along, the Legion Marines were over the barricades and inside her lines.

  With her forces engaged, she stood back with a perfect parade ground posture and watched. When the enemy got closer, she pulled her Flenser pistol out of its holster on her thigh and shot. At point-blank range, her aim didn’t have to be accurate, but Spartika was a crack shot, and her sabot hit the nearest Legion Marine in his face. There was a perfect hole through the faceplate of his helmet, identical to hers in all but the colors it presented. Scanning around her, she saw that her Mini Gunners were being cut to bits by the Legion’s assault cutters.

  “Sergeant Nova, I want your Mini Gunners to pull back and let the squad of carbineers blunt the Legion’s assault. No need to–”

  Spartika was cut off by another NCO, updating her during the melee. “Field Marshal, Sergeant Nova is dead. I’ve taken command and am pulling the Minis back as quickly as we can disengage.”

  When it was clear that the Minis were well in hand, Spartika looked over to the squad leader of the carabineers.

  “Why aren’t your Marines already advancing into the fray?” she snarled.

  As he stuttered out some pitiful excuse, Spartika grabbed him by his shoulder and shoved him forward into the fight. The Marines around him took the hint and began pushing past the withdrawing Minis to engage the Legion forces. Onc
e her troops started pushing forward into the fight as she’d directed, Spartika took a moment to check the magazine capacity of her Flenser pistol. Satisfied that it was in working order, she followed in after her Marines.

  After shooting several Legion Marines, only to see them continue the fight, Spartika quickly holstered her sidearm and unslung her carbine. With a flick of her thumb, the monofilament fibers of her assault cutters engaged, and she pushed her way into the fight. These Legion bastards don’t wanna die, she thought as closed in on the action, stepping over her own wounded Mini Gunners. From the corner of her peripheral vision, Spartika saw her threat indicator glow red and realized she was being charged from her unsecured flank.

  With a frustrated growl, she closed in for hand-to-hand combat. The Legion Marine was fast, managing to knock her carbine out of her hands before she was able to brace for impact. Without missing a beat, Spartika smoothly transitioned into a combat roll, grabbing the Legion Marine on the way down. She used his body’s momentum against him, her feet lifting him off the ground before she tossed him over her head. He was unprepared for the unconventional move and landed badly. Following through with the maneuver, Spartika continued her roll, landed on her feet, whipped out her pistol, and fired several rounds into the prostrate enemy.

  While Spartika was distracted, another enemy Marine attempted to stab her midsection with his assault cutters. She used the momentum from the thrust of his assault cutters against him like she’d be trained to do all those years ago. She didn’t release the arm or toss him away, keeping her grip on his forearm firmly in place. With the augmentations and enhancements that Human Marines underwent through breeding and nanites, the muscle memory remained in the back of her cerebral cortex, waiting to be unleashed. Her body, aided by her enhanced combat suit, reacted without thinking. Spartika ripped the arm off the attacking threat in a cloud of bone fragment, blood, and sinew.