Insurgency: Spartika (The Sleeping Legion Book 4)

by JR Handley

  “Well done, Sergeant Major,” Field Marshal Nhlappo said. “Now you’re relieved of command. I’ll resume my duties. Unfortunately, with the lack of shuttles, we’ll be in for a long wait. Have the Marines stand down. Might as well let them rest.”

  — CHAPTER 56 —

  Early Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 217

  New Order Incubation Station, Baylshore

  Commander, Task Force Retribution, Human Legion

  The ride from Kalino City had been just long enough for Brevet Field Marshal Gashi Gaarjar to review her tactical plans. The Legion still had all the schematic data from the Incubation Station on Serendine, so plans had been made on the assumption that the facility on Baylshore would be the strikingly similar, the same crude design that placed utilitarian usefulness over visual aesthetics. She planned to land just outside the incubation station before securing the outer works and clearing the facility level by level. They couldn’t allow the New Order to rebuild their ranks; the station had to be seized and purged.

  However, as they approached the station, GG began scanning all the sensor data in real time and saw that the trenches were now manned with large numbers of New Order Janissaries. At this altitude, the ringed trenches looked like a giant bullseye, with entrances into the facility towards the center. It would make hitting the target easier. Still, the New Order wasn’t just going to roll over and die. Knowing that the landing would be a hot one, and not wanting to waste time landing outside the facility’s defensive envelope, GG planned.

  “Listen up, Marines,” she told her troops as she stood near the open door of her Stork shuttle. “We’re making a hot drop. I know we haven’t trained to disembark at such extreme heights, but trust your AI, and you will be fine. Colonel Terloar assures me the suits will hold, and the code was given to each AI to utilize the suit effectively. We’re just passengers when we jump over the target. It’ll be brutal for the entire ten-minute drop, but the Hardits were kind enough to paint us a giant frakking bullseye. Aim towards it. Even a Spacer couldn’t miss it. On the way down, keep your body relaxed and your carbine firmly in your hand. We should be able to take out a lot of Hardit frakkers on the way down.”

  Having addressed the larger task force, GG turned to her special weapons Marines.

  “Mini Gunners and Grenadiers, I expect you to make full use of the capabilities of your weapons. Rain hellfire down on those frakkers on the way down. An updated tactical map has been uploaded to every Aimee in the task force. Targets have been assigned throughout the whole chain of command, so victory will be ours!”

  With nothing left to say, GG stepped out of the shuttle and into the air, her carbine in two of her hands and Flenser pistols in her other two hands. Grimly, she brought her three weapons to bear. GG trusted her AI, Cray, to aid her aim. She began firing sabot after sabot as she fell closer and closer to the ground. The sensors assured her that her task force had jumped with her and would likely land near their assigned targets. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that one of her Marines was shooting past her, head first, with his Mini Gun blasting so many sabots that its barrel was glowing despite the cooling effect that the Marine’s descent provided.

  GG, that Marine is the living dead, said Cray. He’s going too fast and won’t be able to stop. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering his AI to self-destruct all of his munitions. His AI will time it so that it explodes in the air above the target after the AI sends her core programming code to the Storks circling overhead. At least the AI will live to fight another day.

  “Frakk, we need Marines with that sort of initiative. Record what happens for future training purposes,” GG said as she continued firing her weapons.

  As she spit sabot after sabot from her weapons, she saw that she was getting closer to the ground. It was coming at her quickly, and now the Hardits below her seemed to realize the threat. They began firing into the Marines, killing too many of them. The deceased Marines continued their descent, their corpses becoming large projectile weapons as they fell. One last victory for the Marine, one last kill to protect their brothers and sisters.

  “Cray, have the AIs of other deceased Marines maximize the effect. Detonate remaining munitions above the enemy. Make them pay!”

  The drop towards Tranquility seemed to take forever, the seconds dragging on into eternity while simultaneously speeding by as the earth grew larger and larger. Still she fired one sabot after another, until her pistols were dry and her carbine was on its last reserves. While she shot her weapons, GG’s momentum began slowing as her assault thrusters and landing thrusters slowed her descent to a survivable velocity. Before she was ready, Cray instructed her to prepare for landing.

  GG, relax your body and bend your knees, Cray said.

  Afraid of the looming splat, GG obeyed her trusty AI. She was unprepared for the jarring impact of her armored body slamming onto the soft Tranquility soil. The bone-shuddering thud she felt reminded her that the soft soil hid a layer of thick clay. A burst of her assault thrusters was all it took to boost out of the clay. Newly unencumbered, GG began advancing towards the nearest New Order Janissary. She saw that the Janissary was manning a crew-served weapon near a downward ramp into the incubation station. GG wanted to silence the threat that it represented to her people.

  She’d landed in the midst of the New Order trenches, surrounded by enemy Janissaries. Her Marines landed with her, and the battle was on. The Hardits had gotten over their shock at the unconventional assault and were firing into her task force with devastating effect. Around her, she could see Marines dying as sabot after sabot slammed into their bodies. Roaring her rage, she funneled it into a useful bloodlust and gleefully closed with the Janissary gunner. Claws out and covered in her armor’s protective coating, GG slashed into the Hardit until its blood made it so slippery that she couldn’t maintain her grip.

  Around her, she saw her Marines engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. The Legion pushed the Janissaries back, clearing the outer trenches. They neared the entrances of the station, and GG wanted to maintain the pressure. Hopping onto the task force LBNet, she addressed her troops.

  “Keep moving forward. Your armor will protect you,” she said as sabots ricocheted off her armor. “Push through. Don’t stop. No quarter!”

  She knew that the armor worked, but her Marines were suspicious of the new ACE-4 Combat Armor. The 3s had only been distributed among the Spec Ops community and the senior NCOs, so the average Marine was jumping from the ACE-2 to the ACE-4. They weren’t entirely on board with the new tech developed by the Human Legion, and the distrust showed. GG knew that unless the enemy repeatedly hit the same spot on the armor, at the same angle, the armor would save her Marines. A survivor of too many combat drops to count, she knew she would have to worry about that concern later. Using both her pistols and carbine in a technique very few Jotuns bothered emulating, she pushed deeper into the center of the New Order trenches.

  The deadly charge had an unexpected effect as the enemy Janissaries turned towards her. Their effort to single her out for slaughter exposed them to the withering fire of her Marines, allowing Task Force Retribution to strike deeper into their trenches. They created a wedge large enough to let them roll into the New Order flanks. They were close to the entrances, and GG happily joined the assault forward, trusting the local commanders to handle their Marines. Wanting a situation update, she queried her AI.

  “Cray, I need an immediate update.”

  GG, all three of the regiments landed and secured several sections of the enemy trenches. The enemy lost many troops during the initial assault and appear to be pulling back into the incubation station.

  Switching over to the command LBNet, she addressed Task Force Retribution’s subordinate commanders.

  “Keep pushing. I want these trenches cleared yesterday. When we’ve secured their outer works, hold and regroup. We advance into the facility on my command, and my command only.”

  — CHAPTER 57 —

 
Midafternoon, Post-Revival Day 217

  New Order Incubation Station, Baylshore

  Commander, Task Force Retribution, Human Legion

  With the Baylshore New Order Incubation Station trenches secured, Brevet Field Marshal Gaarjar ordered her forces to consolidate. The combat drop losses had cost the task force too many Marines, especially among their Mini Gunners. Making a mental note to get replacement gunners when their Stork exfil brought them reinforcements to hold the station, she began scanning the reports coming in from her three regimental commanders. When they all reported that they were ready to go, GG ordered the assault into the station.

  “Try not to break it,” GG ordered her task force, “but I want the engineers following behind us to swim through Janissary blood! No mercy!”

  Her order was met with a roar of approval over her helmet speakers. While they settled down, she reloaded her pistols and carbine. Her ammunition carousels weren’t empty, but she knew better than to risk running dry at a critical juncture. Weapons ready, she let herself get caught up in the momentum. She followed the lead element into the station and was shocked by what she was seeing. The layout looked like the facility on Serendine, but instead of rocky walls, there was only hard-packed clay and polycrete. Gray walls, tight spaces, pipes, and conduits as far as the eye could see.

  Looking closer, GG saw that the enemy had barricaded themselves in the places they’d predicted. The first barricade they encountered was empty, so she took a moment to study the fortification. It was made of packed earth and then poorly coated with polycrete. Clay poked through in spots where the polycrete was thin, but it was several feet thick and would stop a sabot. The Janissaries had gotten lucky; their crude work would hold. Their gun emplacements, however, were poorly sighted and wouldn’t effectively overlap their fields of fire. They’d inadvertently created weak spots for an attacker to assault through.

  Janissary tactics tended to rely on superior technology, surprise, and sheer numbers. If this was the best they could do, they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, she thought to herself with glee. And we already dissected their technology, so without militia as cannon fodder, they’re frakked.

  Screaming the Legion battle cry, GG followed her Marines in the charge against the first barricade. Jumping over it with her Marines, she closed in with the Janissaries and began to use her claws. The enemy stood resolute, despite their small numbers, and were overwhelmed by the task force. When she bent over to clean her bloody claws on a dead Hardit, she noticed how young it was.

  “The Janissaries made more troops,” she told her commanders. “Our estimates of their numbers are clearly unreliable. Advance with caution. I suspect this was only their skirmish line.”

  Task Force Retribution advanced slowly, sending out their scout drones ahead of them. They methodically cleared the station inch by inch, barricade after barricade. Each encounter was easier than the last, as the Hardit Janissaries appeared to be younger and younger. These tactics are even worse than what we saw on Serendine. Their officer is an incompetent idiot, she thought. None of the Janissaries surrendered, fighting to the bitter end regardless of their age. They all seemed to prefer death over surrendering. Not that GG would’ve accepted their surrender. She was just glad that the enemy’s ineptitude meant that her losses were minimal.

  It didn’t take long before the facility was secure enough that she could begin the tedious process of bringing the engineers in to salvage the station. GG turned over the closing moments of the battle for the facility to one of her regimental commanders, and began supervising the engineers in their repair efforts.

  — CHAPTER 58 —

  Late Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 217

  New Order Incubation Station, Baylshore

  Science Advisor, Task Force Retribution, Human Legion

  With the facility mostly secured, Master Chief Petty Officer Teon Roca-Bonga was called in with the engineers to obtain the technology of the New Order’s Baylshore Incubation Station. She followed behind Field Marshal Gaarjar as they went into the area where the abominations were made and raised. These were factory-made Hardits, growing in a vat that accommodated their accelerated growth cycle. They truly had no family, no pack to call their own. Truly despicable, she thought. Family and pack are everything, exactly as nature intended it.

  The first thing she noticed when they walked into the room was the sheer size of the cavernous space, easily three times the size of the one on Serendine. It was filled with long rows of green glass cylindrical tubes filled with a viscous liquid. They emitted a greenish glow that eerily illuminated the ranks of unborn perversions. Each tube served as the womb for the Janissary perversion inside, and it filled Teon with rage to see an artificial Hardit. Neither the gods nor the ancestors would approve, as the New Order used science to remove the gender of the being, perverting the natural order of things. The Janissaries were neither masculine nor feminine but something else, something the gods would despise, and they didn’t deserve to live. If she continued to allow them to live, the gods would surely punish her pack.

  Decision made, Teon knocked over the nearest Marine engineer, taking the carbine from him. Teon was someone who preferred using her brain over her brawn, and generally went unarmed. Today, the gods demanded she act against her nature and violently destroy what never should have been. With the newly acquired carbine in hand, she turned and began spewing sabots as quickly as she could depress the trigger. The Marines around her seemed to be in shock as she killed the Janissary younglings. The other Hardit engineers, seeing what Teon was doing, followed suit and similarly armed themselves.

  “None can live!” Teon screamed to her brethren as she fired still more sabots.

  The room seemed to explode as glass shards flew in every direction. Other rounds chewed into the packed clay and polycrete walls, many of the Hardit militia choosing massed volleys to aimed rounds. It was working; fewer and fewer tanks remained intact. All too quickly, Teon ran out of ammunition and turned to the task force commander standing next to her. Knowing she had to explain, Teon answered the field marshal’s unspoken question.

  “They’re nefnasts, impure, and can’t be allowed to defile my people.”

  Without saying a word, the Jotun merely reached one of her appendages that these enigmatic Jotuns used like hands, and pulled out a new ammunition carousel. With the fresh sabots offered to her, Teon took them and fitted them into her purloined SA-71 carbine.

  “I should order you to stop,” Gaarjar said, “but these beings are a cancer that must be excised.”

  Turning to her Marines, Field Marshal Gaarjar surprised Teon as she addressed her forces.

  “Marines, leave some weapons with these Hardit engineers. They’re going to secure this cavern while we search the passageways for any possible electronic anomalies. Further, your AIs began having trouble recording this data, and nothing in this room was recorded. Move out!”

  Knowing her sacred duty was still upon her, Teon turned to the remaining engineers and spoke.

  “Destroy all of the abominations, lest their perversions anger the gods!”

  — CHAPTER 59 —

  Late Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 217

  Near Makoni Ship Factory, Baylshore

  Commander, Anti-Air Detachment, Spartika’s Marine Corps

  The overcast sky created a somber mood as the former Aux, Captain Joel Deacon, scanned the open field in front of him from his position in the woods outside the defunct ship factory. They’d created small hidden outposts in the tree line, with sniper nests hidden on the higher branches. They were shielded by the purple foliage that allowed for excellent fields of fire. They’d be covered until the moment came to rush out onto the open plains to fire at the Storks. He knew it’d be dangerous, but it would cripple the Legion’s air capabilities if this worked.

  Checking his tablet, he saw that all the tethers were set. The trap was baited, with guerilla forces defending the various worthless positions all over the cont
inent of Baylshore. He knew the Legion forces would have to assault this position eventually; they couldn’t let Spartika build an air force. Not that we have the pilots to fly the damn birds anyway, he thought. Going over the plan again, he decided he was satisfied that all the tethers were dispersed in an interlocking pattern.

  Suddenly, he heard the ping from his tablet, telling that the enemy was inbound. Taking a calming breath, he addressed his troops.

  “All right, boys and girls, now’s the time we make those bastards pay. They’ve dishonored our commander. They’ve betrayed our beloved Human Marine Corps. They’ve betrayed the White Knights, and they’ve betrayed us. Now we’ll become the righteous arm of justice and give ’em what they deserve.”

  He received the appropriate hurrah from his Marines over the LBNet. They’d worked hard to come up with secure channels, preventing the Legion traitors from listening in. His NCOs gave him the proper two-clicks signal in the affirmative, acknowledging his orders. Now they could only wait.

  Soon his musings were cut short as the Storks lowered into a hover and prepared to land. It was now or never. If they waited, the shuttles would disembark their traitorous troops. Success was the only option. Joel knew that failing Field Marshal Spartika would end in his death. Not wanting to trust his life in the hands of others, and knowing that leading from the front inspired the Marines, he ran out into the open field. Sighting with the optical reticle, he took aim at the nearest shuttle and fired the tether. With the target locked in, he clamped the tube to the ground and fired.