by JR Handley
She knew the road curved through the pass, sloped downwards, and then headed straight towards the outer defenses of New Detroit City. They’d have to avoid the minefields, but she’d already marked the sniper emplacements on the tactical maps. With the intelligence they had on the city, Nhlappo knew the odds were in their favor. They’d be attacking from the shadows of the mountains, in armor that the older suits wouldn’t be able to detect until they were closer to the lines. The massive explosion in the pass had destroyed the element of complete surprise, so she could only hope Spartika thought the avalanche had killed her troops as it had been intended to.
Route firmly in her head, Nhlappo reviewed her situation one last time. She knew that during her assault on the front lines, Scipio’s task force would come out of the old city. The Legion’s overall battle plan called for that hit from within their lines to demoralize and disorient the enemy. She knew Scipio hoped their earlier victories would also demoralize the enemy, but she doubted the rank and file were kept in the loop. But Scipio was too naïve, and Nhlappo worried that his inexperienced worldview might hurt their chances of success. If he hadn’t made it work despite the odds so many times before, she’d have ignored him off-hand. But he reminded her too much of Arun, and she’d let her emotions become a weakness.
Unlike Scipio, Nhlappo didn’t count on the insurgents splitting their focus during their assault. Instead, she intended to make the Legion’s superior weapons win the day. She knew that if they failed, the system was lost to the Legion. They didn’t have the resources for a second expedition to unseat the Aux traitor. With so much riding on their victory, she couldn’t allow herself to entertain the idea of losing.
“Now who’s got the childish worldview?” she muttered to herself.
While the engineers assigned to her task force had worked hard to allow them to use the pass, her Marines hadn’t been idle. She hadn’t wanted their prisoners to alert the enemy, so she’d sent her sergeant major and a small escort detachment to take them and their wounded to Alabama Depot. They’d also managed to destroy all the enemy drones which the insurgents sent them to investigate, and she called it a win for her marksmen. She knew it wasn’t much, not on a modern battlefield, but they managed to keep information from Spartika. She had to know they were here, but she wouldn’t know how many survived the avalanche. When they marched, they’d have regained some of their element of surprise.
Nhlappo gave the order to advance out of the pass. She hoped they’d be able to get the prisoners and the wounded back to Akoni City for processing and medical care. She’d come to depend on having the capable mind and body of Sergeant Major Anderson at her side, and wanted him to make it back in time for the final battle. They marched for almost two hours at a steady clip, and she knew they would soon be within range.
“Spread out! You bunch up, you die. Kill those frakkers instead!”
With that, Nhlappo took off at a steady pace down the road towards the outer defenses of New Detroit City. The peaceful late morning was broken by the sounds of the battle that started, though she knew it was just beginning. She could see the trench works that encircled the walls of the city she’d built. It sat on the surface, having only been intended to be a temporary encampment. The walls of the city were made from the rubble pulled out of the destroyed Detroit City and then coated with a thin layer of polycrete to give it a uniform appearance. Those walls had taken a beating during the attacks by the New Order and had evidently been patched in several places.
Scanning in front of her, she could see the pilots had done their job. The city was on fire. Judging by the areas burning, Nhlappo knew the Legion pilots had gotten several of the weapons lockers. A few of the hot spots on her HUD were coming from the area where the barracks sat. Looking closer, she saw that many of the heavy weapons platforms were also destroyed. She’d built them when she commanded the fortified city, before Spartika’s mutiny. Without those crucial interlocking fields of fire, the insurgent’s chances of preventing her attack decreased.
“We win if we get into their trenches,” she reminded her subordinate commanders over the LBNet.
Trusting them to ensure their Marines spread out, Nhlappo focused on the larger picture. She began assigning priority targets and updating the data. She factored in her memories from her time commanding the city, and passed on her orders. She could tell the insurgents were in disarray, and it appeared that the aerial raid had done significant damage to their command structure. Spartika’s defenders had been sloppy, allowing her task force to spread out along a large portion the perimeter. If they’d been paying attention instead of hiding in bunkers from the air raid, they’d have taken her task force out while it was bunched up. Her descent from the pass had been slow and sloppy, and while they’d been harder to see on the sensors, they weren’t invisible. Skilled sentries would’ve seen them, but it was too late for that now.
Marines began dropping all around her as she ran, using their assault thrusters for added speed. She was thrown from her feet as incoming mortars exploded around her. Her lifetime of training served her well, allowing her to turn her tumble into a roll. She was back on her feet so seamlessly that it appeared as if she’d performed the roll intentionally. With a renewed vigor, Task Force Justice pushed towards the enemy trenches, and sabot fire rates increased from both sides.
— CHAPTER 75 —
Late Morning, Post-Revival Day 220
Supply Depot, Baylshore
Commander, Task Force Vengeance, Human Legion
Buzz.
Buzz.
Colonel Lance Scipio was woken by the constant, irritating buzzing along his neck, and a voice coming from his hip.
Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey, said Xena from his leg, and he slowly came to.
Shaking his head, Lance looked around until he regained his awareness. While wiping the sleep from his eyes, he slowly remembered where he was. He was on the maglev car, in the tunnels under the Supply Depot on Baylshore. The engineers had been clearing the tunnels, inching them ever closer to the old Detroit City. Frakk, he thought as he stood and stretched. Feeling more limber, he snapped on his helmet and waited for the slight pop that told him he had a good seal.
“Send it, Xena,” Lance told his AI.
While you were sleeping, I worked my sexy little arse off. We’ve cleared the tunnel as close as we dare until we’re ready to begin the final assault. We lost a few of the suits, but we still have a few remaining. I’ve slaved them into my network so I can protect you from yourself. I’ve alerted all the other AIs, so your entire task force is coming online now. Time for you to go forth and do colonel-y things!
“Thanks, Xena.”
After he acknowledged his AI, he switched to the command LBNet to address his commanders.
“We’re at the final mile. It’s time to prepare for battle. When your regiments are ready, send Xena an update. The engineers are developing defensive plans to harden the maglev train so it can offer us some level of protection. Now get to work!”
Within fifteen minutes of his orders, Task Force Vengeance was headed down the final stretch to the abandoned city. While they carefully maneuvered, Lance pulled up the LBNet and began addressing his Marines.
“Listen up. When we breach the maglev, we’ll be underneath Old Detroit City. We move tactically and silently from here. If we find any sentries, I want tactical kills. We’ll be moving topside into the middle of New Detroit City. When we get up there, it’ll be a frakking killing ground. If they’re not Legion Marines, then assume they’re hostile. Understood?”
“Uh, sir,” asked someone in his regiment, “we build fortifications above ground now?”
“Shut up, Carl,” Lance ordered the junior Marine.
— CHAPTER 76 —
Late Morning, Post-Revival Day 220
New Detroit City, Baylshore
Commander, Task Force Justice, Human Legion
The morning sun appeared deceptively cheerful as it shone brightly over
the trenches that encircled New Detroit City. However, the sabots kept coming. Task Force Justice continued in their attempts to push past the outer defenses. Field Marshal Nhlappo knew they had to get into Spartika’s lines if they were going to win the field. She fought beside her Marines in a vicious hand-to-hand melee. She stabbed with her assault cutters, slicing through the weaker armor of the insurgents. She stabbed, thrust, and fired her carbine into them, pushing deeper into their ranks, leaving dead and dying Marines around her.
She became focused entirely on killing the enemy in front of her – killing them, and moving on to the next insurgent who stood between her and Spartika. Her son deserved justice. The cowardly sakra who’d left him to die in the Second Battle of Detroit City needed to pay. Spartika hadn’t been content to condemn her son to die; she also initiated a mutiny, attempting to steal the only family Nhlappo had left, the Human Legion Marine Corps. And before Tirunesh could fully process the back-to-back tragedies, the frakking witch had destroyed the memorial to her son. Until she had Spartika’s bloody carcass at her feet, the ghost of her baby, her precious boy, couldn’t rest.
The harder she pushed, the more Nhlappo felt her injuries. The wound she’d sustained securing the Multi-Use Factory weighed on her more as the fight dragged on. She’d never adequately recuperated, having insisted on getting right back in the fight. As she rounded a bend in the trenches, Gabriella popped up in her helmet’s internal speakers.
Nhlappo, your carbine’s ammunition level is at twenty percent. I recommend that you change your ammunition carousel at your earliest convenience.
Acknowledging her AI, she quickly thrust at the enemy in front of her. While parrying the formula counterstrike used by the insurgent Marine, Nhlappo stepped inside the insurgent’s grasp and head-butted him. In rapid succession, she again slammed her heavily armored helmet into the weaker faceplate of the enemy. Damn, I love this upgraded armor, she thought, hooking her shin behind the enemy’s leg and knocking him off balance. As he fell, Nhlappo brought her carbine to bear and fired several center-mass, point-blank sabots into him. When the shots didn’t kill him quickly enough, she stabbed her assault cutters into the stricken foe, shoving the force of her entire body behind it.
The more she fought, the deeper her battle rage went. She lost track of everything except the friend or foe identifier on her HUD. She stabbed, thrust, and parried, despite her exhaustion. She fought on, despite the pain in her chest. She fought on, even when the stitches in her side reopened and blood began trickling out from the wound. She heard an annoying sound in the background, barely registering to her, but she fought on.
When she ignored the alert, Gabrielle cut off the carbine, pulling Nhlappo back to the present. Momentarily confused, she almost missed her sergeant major’s voice over the command LBNet.
“We’re losing too many Marines. Some of our forces broke and ran under the pressure of the brutal enemy assaults. They’ve turned our flanks. We can’t take much more of this,” Anderson told her.
His blunt words brought her back to the present. Nhlappo quickly fired off several grenades, to buy her time. She needed to study the situation reports that were streaming in and formulate a new plan. Gabrielle, who seemed to intrinsically understand her job, began breaking off the relevant data and displaying only that on her visor. Nhlappo saw the percentage of battle losses slowly climbing, as small unit after small unit began breaking and fleeing. They fled individually and in small unit groupings, but they were all starting to break and fall back towards the pass.
“Sergeant Major, we can’t keep folding like this. It’s time to pull back. We need to prevent this retreat from turning into a rout,” Nhlappo emphasized before ending the discussion.
With the task force retreating, Nhlappo knew she needed air support.
“Gabrielle, I need to you to coordinate with the pilots and get us some air support! Without relief, we’ll be overrun.”
— CHAPTER 77 —
Early Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 220
Above New Detroit City, Baylshore
Commander, Consolidated Air Squadron, Human Legion
Her pilots were beginning to get jittery as they waited for the Human Legion Marine Corps to request another strafing run, but Commander Mawr Bryn let it pass. They were grounded on the abandoned farming fields of the Alabama Depot, the engines still running as they waited for the sabot sponges to call for assistance. Many of the pilots had removed their helmets and were goofing off while they waited. Mawr knew her pilots would be there for her when it mattered, so she pretended not to hear the breaches of discipline. Besides, she knew their AIs were listening for the calls to return to the skies.
While the fighter pilots enjoyed their antics, she reviewed the footage and looked for ways in which her pilots could improve. She even had her AI analyze her own flying; Mawr wasn’t above self-reflection and improvement. Pilots who got overconfident tended to die quickly, in her experience, and she wasn’t ready to meet her ancestors yet. She knew her time would come, but she hoped she could postpone it by several decades.
Troops retreating. Total rout, a computer-generated voice informed her through her secure channel. Request immediate air support. I say again, request immediate air support.
Mawr’s AI quickly informed her that the new voice was Gabrielle, Field Marshal Nhlappo’s AI. She instantly realized what the implications of that could mean and ordered her pilots back into the fray.
“Task Force Justice is in danger of being overrun. Back into your birds and head towards New Detroit. They need us to bail them out, but we need to be careful. Zero friendly fire casualties, am I clear?” she demanded as she began lifting her Stork towards the sky.
“Glad I insisted on keeping a quick strike force of Storks configured in attack mode. If all our birds were set up as shuttles, those Marines would be dead,” she told her AI.
The AI didn’t have time to answer, as Mawr was soon in formation and headed towards New Detroit. They didn’t have far to travel before they were engaging targets, strafing the massed enemy insurgents. They sent missiles and sabots into their bodies, while continually juking to avoid being shot down.
“Request permission to risk going into tether range,” said one of her pilots.
She answered without thinking as she pulled on the stick for a low strafing run of her own.
“For our fallen!”
— CHAPTER 78 —
Early Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 220
Old Detroit City, Baylshore
Commander, Task Force Vengeance, Human Legion
The final slog through the maglev tunnel from the Supply Depot was slow, as the enemy ignored the Legion’s strict schedule. The tunnel was oppressive; the minimal overhead lighting failed to cut through the darkness. Lieutenant Sashala Kraevoi knew the constant drip of water from the polycrete walls was wearing on the Marines of Task Force Vengeance. They were already trigger-happy and anxious to get on with the final battle of the Tranquility Campaign. She didn’t blame them; she was ready to finish the war, as well.
Sashala knew the methodical pace was necessary since Spartika’s insurgents had increased the number of mines in the tunnel close to the fortified city. The booby traps had gotten more ingenious, though they hadn’t managed to outsmart the Legion engineers. Given the sheer number of mines the enemy had close to the tunnel exit, she suspected Spartika would get lax. When Marines think they’re safely in the rear, they tend not to leave many troops on sentry duty. Sashala and her task force were counting on it, hoping they would be able to maintain the element of surprise.
When the task force finally cleared the last booby trap and mine, Lance sent his small squad of Spec Ops Marines to clear the way of any enemy sentries. Sashala stood impassively, watching him work. She knew her job was part bodyguard and part advisor, so she was always in the background, waiting to be needed. After he sent Senior Sergeant Schutte ahead, Lance turned to her and opened a link to her secure LBNet.
“I’ve just promoted you to Major and am sending you to monitor the Spec Ops Marines’ progress. Come back to me,” Lance told her.
“If this promotion means I can’t stay by your side, I will castrate you. That little love stick is mine now,” she said.
Sashala had been intent on making him smile and relax, and it worked. He gently patted her arm before shooing her towards the waiting Sergeant Schutte. Turning, she cleared her visor and glared at the rest of his staff. She silently dared them to say anything about Lance’s gesture, before she turned away. She performed a quick function check on her gear. She then made sure her secondary weapons were all secure. Knowing the Spec Ops guys loved operating under stealth, she clipped her carbine to her back and checked the secureness of her small hand axe and knife. Sashala didn’t bother to test their blades. She knew they were sharp. All her blades were well cared for; she treated them like they were her flesh and blood.
Satisfied that she was ready for anything the insurgents could throw at her, Sashala trotted out of the maglev train. It was another twenty feet out of the tunnel before she caught up with the Spec Ops Marines. Looking around where they stood, she found three insurgents lying in pools of their own blood, throats slit.