by David Tucker
Her mind quickly inventoried her other munitions as her shots joined the fray, with the high-frequency, compressed ionised-gauze rounds not good enough to dislodge her enemy. In dismay Rotas saw that each shot left a clear blue glow as it belched from her rifle and collided heavily into the Skinks’ advancing defence; they were clearly going to need something more powerful.
Acrid fumes engulfed the corridor as shots ricocheted off shields and bit deeply into the nano-grade walls, roof and floor. Soon the two shielded targets were joined by several more. A blockade presented itself, leaving limited options for Delta’s shots. The Skinks slowly began to advance in unison, a tactic Rotas had seen effectively demolish troops before.
Scanning past the wall of shields, flicking over each attacker with practiced eyes, Rotas checked their weapons for weaknesses. The enemy mainly had lower-grade gauze rifles, but the occasional Skink had a military-issued weapon the same as their own, posing a bigger threat. The enemy’s shots were a lot less disciplined though, and the few that did hit her men’s positions either dissipated on impact or crackled unceremoniously on their shields.
Rotas took little comfort in this, knowing their own shields wouldn’t hold forever. This thought and the predicament of also being overrun spurred her to action the only plan she could see working.
“SQUAD, hold your ground,” Rotas yelled, as her voice fought to be heard clearly over the squad’s HUDs. The intensity of the battle was growing, and Rotas knew she needed to end this confrontation now, before the Skinks overwhelmed her position. Rotas clicked her comm to the closest of her men.
“Stiggs switch to your nade, let’s see what those shields can really do.”
Stiggs, the youngest member of Delta 1, stepped forward, selecting his high-yield negative-ion grenade from his internal HUD’s interface, the rest of the team covering as he aimed his blade arm over his commander’s right shoulder.
“FIRE IN THE HOLD!” Stiggs yelled.
The pulsating nade catapulted from his armoured arm towards the wall of shields. Rotas clenched her teeth and turned her face away slightly. With a loud pop, the explosion sent the blockade and the men behind it flying into a chaotic mess. For a split second the explosion seemed to hang suspended, with chunks of bone, body, metal and shrapnel flying into the depths of the corridor to join their previously dismembered comrade.
Rotas looked on in disbelief at the magnitude of the blast and its aftermath. It kicked with enough force to knock the remaining few Skinks painfully to the ground, reverberating all the way back to Rotas and her own squad’s position. She held her ground, absorbing the blast as she leant into it, her armour trembling.
Taking the opportunity to its fullest advantage, Rotas quickly stepped forward, breaking cover. Her boots clanging heavily against the steel as she ran, Rotas utilised her blade, flicking her rifle into its holster.
The metal on metal scrape of the one-metre sword was unmistakable as it slid cleanly out from its inbuilt sheath above her armoured hand, however still affixed to her wrist. An impressive thirty centimetres in width, and standard issue for all troops of the SED Marine Corps, it was a reputable weapon, well proven for Rotas. The knowledge of its speed and efficiency in penetrating armoured troops was mirrored in the fear-stricken faces of her enemy.
Rotas recalled her training manual:
A marine’s blade is an easy-to-use innovation of Terithian Power Armour, always located on the opposite arm to a marine’s preferred shield arm—
Rotas sliced through the first Skink and blocked the incoming butt of a rifle with her shield. Sliding her blade under the shield, she penetrated the Skink’s abdomen, spilling his guts over the floor, the words of the manual running through her head, becoming a chant for her battle flow—
When deployed your blade will make for an impressive display; but more than equal to this will be its functionality and impression when used for delivering the heretics to the SED. Indeed a Sacred blade is, and will be, the showcase of our superior weaponry; a fully retractable, Grade-one, self-sharpening nano-steel sword which is made for practicality, virtually unbreakable when striking against a solid object.
Another Skink struggled up from the blast and Rotas dove on top of him, her sword’s broadness severing the scrambling troop’s spinal cord and lungs—
This is why it is the number one choice for a marine’s armament, and when penetrating even the strongest suits of power armour it should be used as a primary weapon in hand-to-hand combat. Where even ionised gauze or plasma rounds fail, your blade will almost always prevail. Take good care to never lose it, as they are exorbitantly priced and will be docked from salary if the loss is due to negligence.
Rotas pulled his blood-coated blade free from the next strike, due to it being a physical attachment to her arm, requiring her to use some effort to pull it back. The chant had given her confidence in her attack, but looked down in disgust – she hated getting such pretty weapons tainted with infidel blood.
Rotas was now well within the enemy’s position and she saw movement behind her in her HUD’s rear-vision warning. It was unlike her to take risks like this, but she knew she had to if it meant victory for her squad. Her TPA whirred noisily as she spun with all her strength, the hit cleaving in a backhanded upward slice, scoring the top half of the recovering Skink’s head and helm heavily, bringing him to his knees.
Rotas was running short on time as more enemy Skinks were recovering. With enough momentum from her initial strikes to penetrate through the last few quickly, she landed her blade through the final man’s half raised rifle and into his lower ribs.
Rotas watched closely as the blade bit fatally, pinning the Skink’s rifle against his chest. Quickly repositioning herself, she pushed the blade further within the armour, finishing the job, as the Skink’s eyes bulged—
With a start, Rotas saw movement in the corner of her eye, sooka, she cursed in her native tongue, I missed one! One last Skink had remained unnoticed underneath a fallen comrade, and was pulling himself free. Rotas knew she was in a bad spot, the blast effects having worn off and she had taken too long on her last kill, thinking it was the final one. Sooka! She cursed again for her stupidity.
Rotas tried to draw her blade back, but was dismayed to hear the sound of cracking bones and slurping flesh as nothing happened. The Skink was firmly skewered and wouldn’t budge, with the blade still confined within her enemy – Piz’duk manuals always lied. The combination of the Skink’s armoured plating and the rifle snagging on the flat sides of her blade, Rotas was firmly attached to the dead man. She desperately struggled to free her arm and shake the dead Skink free, as the final recovering Skink approached.
The only surviving enemy, the leader of the small group, was clearly a well-seasoned veteran, like herself, who had lived through many battles to tell the tale. Unlike the others, this one pulled out of his stupor quickly, wiping the smeared blood from his eyes and forehead and searching frantically for his own weapon. Rotas panicked, shaking her arm violently … but it still wouldn’t pull free!
Sooka! Sooka. She was going to be blown away with a freaking, already dead, Skink causing the end of her!
The leader of the enemy group composed himself, cleared the ringing from his ears, and knew exactly what to do. Raising into a crouch, he kept himself carefully between Rotas and Delta 1’s deadly position. The Skink blinked the last remnants of the blast from his dazed eyes and reclaimed his own weapon, which Rotas noted with a tightening gut needed both hands to lift off the ground. It was one of their heavier and more expensive models, a straight out ion-rifle that needed no gauze casings; a deadly and proficient cannon for killing SED soldiers like herself.
Carefully the Skink steadied the cannon and took aim, while Rotas desperately tore at her arm trying everything to free her blade and take cover, “Aww sooka,” she yelled, it was too late—
She bit her lip in pain as the first three or four shots tore deeply into the left side of her abdomen, the armour ab
sorbing the impact of at least two of them before she had time to flare her ion-shield back to life. She felt the familiar burn screaming at her as she felt the warm trickle of blood.
The burning cold pain of an ion-round was never forgotten, or ignored, and Rotas was only slightly relieved when she felt his suit’s med-gel pour over her wounds. But it would take more than gel to numb its true effects … and a lot more to get me out of this mess, she thought angrily. The gel did blunt the pain enough for her to stay upright though, and she knew it was stopping any internal bleeding … for now.
Shit … I’m smarter than this and normally far more careful aren’t I? How the hell have I let myself get into this situation? Rotas didn’t have time to contemplate the answer. Sparks were flying in an amazing display as her ion-shield received and only just withstood the salvo pouring into it. She felt helpless as the Skink began closing the gap between his rifle and Rotas’ shield, trying to bring down her protection.
Rotas saw his ugly, scarred smile as the Skink drew closer and saw the exposed flesh beneath the damaged armour. Rotas could tell this Skink was one of the deranged fanatics – possibly from the Order that cannibalised its victims – he clearly relished in the sight of the injury, laughing hysterically.
Rotas groaned as she strained to keep her arm, with shield in place, still in front of her. Her wounds were throbbing and she was struggling to remain resistant. It took everything she had to keep the shield above her and in place. She stared keenly as the endless stream of blue energy leapt out of the crazed attacker’s weapon and into her small buffer without letup; it was forcing her back slowly, even though her feet were firmly fixed to the ground. She started sliding backwards, dragging the combined weight of the attached deceased Skink with her as her armour-clad feet screeched across the floor and the sheer firepower pushed her along.
Rotas searched for an advantage but saw none, she was at the mercy of the Skink. The weapon was mighty powerful and Rotas could do little as she fell to one knee, the combined onslaught of the fanatic’s relentless attack and the weight of the dead Skink on her blade forcing her to yield even more pathetically—
A red flash inside her helmet shot across her HUD warning Rotas of the inevitable collapse of her shield, adding gravity to her already hampered position.
I’m too damned old for this shit, she thought sourly, these damn Skink bastards never give up. Rotas couldn’t think of a way out and the endless onslaught kept her full attention and dictated her raised shield’s forward position. Her blade arm was still no use either. With body still attached, it anchored her into her humbled crouch and forced her to remain in the Skink’s firing line. Sooka, shit, shit … What can I do?
A monotone female voice echoed inside her suit, annoying her all the more.
“Status, armour plating breach in abdominal region D-12, 11 and 9, ion-shield battery down ninety-one per cent; ramification, seek medical attention immediately, avoid further combat until ion recharge; the next available MMR droid will assist—”
“Shut up, I know!!!” But her voice was barely audible as Rotas now concentrated only on her survival. Rotas saw the Skink veteran being spurred on in blood-lust, rising higher trying to finally score her armoured head above her shield. Howling in sheer animalistic rage, the enemy closed to within a mere metre of Rotas, the sound of crackling energy lifting above the whining of even the rifle as her shield began flaring and flailing in dying colours.
For a fleeting second, Rotas was a private, back in the jungles of Cal’tedor, covered in mud and blood. She remembered the many times she had seen this same plight and she was right there just like before, with her four fellow squad members, over twenty years ago, covered in a downpour straight out of hell.
They – her lieutenant and fellow squad members – had fallen in combat shortly after their shields had failed them; as a SED private she’d never forgotten the look on their faces, the pure anger, dismay and surprise. She’d watched as the greatly outnumbering force of Skinks ambushed them, pouring thousands of rounds directly onto them from assault platforms hidden amongst the treetops. The air had been filled with plasma, particle beams and ion-gauze rounds, all of which had ripped through the foliage and into their squad’s armour and flesh with no mercy.
In over a hundred different places the deadly assault had rendered her comrades, friends and some of the toughest and elite soldiers of the SED, sprawling into a bloody and utterly useless, dead mess …
Rotas blinked to clear the image. She knew if she was to survive now, as she had then, she needed his strongest ability – to simply ride through the worst her enemy could summon … stay calm … rely on her well-versed weapons, and survive!
The incessant warnings inside her suit wouldn’t let up, but didn’t really connect as she looked through the shield and into the eyes of her attacker; time seemed to slow as they met each other’s final gaze. Rotas saw the fire that burnt in the Skink’s eyes, fire she’d seen and felt many times before, a fire which meant one thing, ‘I’m taking you with me you bastard’.
The Skink leader drew himself to his full height, sensing the final collapse of the shields … the horrid Skink relished in the seconds of victory he was about to enjoy. Both had eyes widened as her shield gave a hissing squeal, wavered once more and finally collapsed. Yet it wasn’t Rotas who took the incoming fire. At the last second she was saved by Phoenix, the squad’s sniper and her second in command, yelling at her, “DUCK!”
Rotas instantly dropped the few centimetres she could, just as the Skink’s shots were about to tear into her faceplate. Luckily, half a centimetre was all Phoenix needed. The Skink’s head exploded! Her handpicked squad of hardened Delta marines responded by the book, just as they’d been trained to when someone was threatening their own.
The head exploded with such tremendous force that the crazed fanatic’s helm flew straight up, hitting the bulkhead a good five metres above him, splattering his mess against the ceiling.
Completely covered in the Skink’s putrid spray, Rotas slumped before gingerly trying to regain her feet and composure. The decapitated Skink collapsed in front of her, where a small river of dark black blood issued forth, evidence that it had indeed been an Eater from a cannibalistic clan of Skinks.
Rotas pulled her blade free, finally, from the other dead Skink still attached to her, with the assistance of her foot pinning him to the ground, the cogs whirring as the blade slid back inside her armour above her wrist. She looked up in disbelief.
“That was way too close,” she breathed to herself. She turned from the bloody mess, wincing from her burning wounds. Phoenix lowered his eyes from the scope of his custom built, particle-disruptor sniper’s rifle. A blast from which, especially when wielded by Phoenix, had a devastating effect even at a long range; the shorter distance, as was just demonstrated, reflecting the power of such a well-tuned design.
Rotas stumbled back to her men, clutching at her side, wheezing.
“Shit Phoenix, in the name of … I mean damn man … sooka that was close! You just love to take your damn time don’t you?” Rotas joked as she tried to steady herself, the words not coming out quite as she’d hoped, or in the fashion of their squad captain.
Phoenix’s visor rose slowly as smoke poured out from within and he blew out a puff of the cigar he was, against regulation, smoking inside his armour. He drawled with a knowing smirk, “Well that gone and makes us even from the otha day I guess sir.”
Rotas grinned as her visor opened and as she put an armoured hand on Phoenix’s shoulder grabbed the cigar and took a long draw, “Yeah, see that’s where you’re mistaken Phoenix, I believe you’re still way too far in my debt to even think about calling things …”
Rotas felt the world start spinning momentarily as her lungs burned and she felt the prick of a needle within her armour hitting her with some of the good stuff, as she’d come to call it. She regained her balance and brushed off Phoenix’s steadying arm, “Damn bastard stung me a bit, I will
give em that.”
Phoenix eyed the decapitated Skink behind Rotas, “Well I wouldn’t go losing your head over it sir.”
The resulting laugh brought up the taste one never wanted after being shot, not that one would want that in the first place though, Rotas mused. She opened her visor fully, to spit out the blood that had now filled her mouth and probably one of her lungs. She managed the pain by continuing the banter with her number two.
“You always had a sick sense of humour didn’t you Phoenix?—”
“Try growing that back, holy-crap man did you see that?” Stiggs sidled past Phoenix, laughing at the mess of Skinks now lying all around them. The rookie referencing the Skinks reason for their nickname, in the ability to grow back after monumental loss. West and Ace also joined from behind their cover. The MMR – the Mobile Medic and Robotics droid – approached with them, disabling its cloaking field as it hovered past the squad towards the injured marine on its five hissing ion-pulsars.
Rotas slumped forward again from the second shot of meds and painkillers her suit’s vital monitoring system administered in preparation for the MMR’s procedures. She was starting to get a bit tired of her suit jabbing her but knew her wounds must have warranted the excessive meds, so allowed it to continue without complaint.
The MMR hovered behind her catching Rotas as she rocked backwards, its many slender, multi-jointed robotic arms pulling her into place as it hoisted her into a half lying half sitting position atop the body-contoured workstation. Now atop the droid, Rotas turned as Ace reprimanded Stiggs and pulled him back roughly.
“Move back newbie, unless you want to interfere with the Cap’s meds, and I’m sure she’d be real happy if you did that, yeah, just like when you screwed up the stealth run on Halution.”