by JR Handley
“Keep pushing, Marines,” said Lance.
Sabots whizzed by, and cries of pain told him men were dying. In the end, he hoped that their victory was worth the lives lost. There were already ghosts behind every corner for Lance, memories of his childhood, friends whom he’d loved and lost. He didn’t want to think about how many more they were adding. Saying a silent prayer, he kept going.
Carbine at the ready, Lance continued taking aim at the dwindling enemies in front of him. Several times when he fired off sabot rounds and expected a kill, the enemy didn’t fall. They stood, trading rounds with his Marines, who did fall when sabot rounds flew into their helmets. But he knew better than to dwell on it. They had to push forward.
Focusing on the enemy, Lance studiously ignored the wounded Marines they stepped over. The injured groaned, some screaming through cracked visors and broken helmet seals. As the line advanced, he could see medics rushing to the aid of the wounded. Lance knew he couldn’t help his comrades if they didn’t win the field first.
Then, as quickly as it began, the fight was over. The last enemy fell, unmoving.
— Chapter 24 —
Late Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 210
Outside Outpost Charlie 2, Cardamine Island
Commander, 5th TAC RGT, TF Retribution, Human Legion
Rechecking his chronometer, Colonel Alger Messer began to worry that the promised reinforcements weren’t coming. He’d tried contacting his field marshal several times but got only silence. Frustrated, he made a decision.
“Lindy, get your battalion moving to finish clearing the rubble. We’re searching for survivors while we wait for reinforcements. You’ll have 4th Batt with you, and while you’re clearing the rubble, 1st and 2nd will provide security.”
When the Marines under his command began following his directives, Messer recorded his decisions. He knew it would seem contrary to his last orders, but without prompt relief, their allies would surely die. If any still remain alive, he thought. The Marines were making good progress and were already clearing into the tunnel. They’d been at it for a few hours when the first bodies began coming out of the debris.
The work was grueling. Detonating the minefield outside of the outpost blew a crater into the tunnel, pouring mounds of earthen debris into the passageway. They moved the debris without proper equipment, and the strain wore on all the Marines. Then it began raining. The drizzle didn’t affect progress at first, until the sprinkling rain picked up, pattering into a torrential downpour. Cursing inside his helmet, Messer pulled the 2nd Battalion off the perimeter and put them to work clearing the rubble. Obviously this mission was turning into a recovery operation, and any hope for finding survivors dwindled rapidly.
“Sir, we’ve got a live one!” screamed a Marine. “You need to come now!”
— Chapter 25 —
Early Evening, Post-Revival Day 210
Outpost Charlie 1, Cardamine Island
Commander, 6907th TAC RGT, TF Vengeance, Human Legion
As he blasted off round after round of ammo, Colonel Lance Scipio couldn’t help but notice that the gray polycrete walls were marked with fresh sabot holes. He hated that this mission cost the Legion lives and time they didn’t have. They succeeded in pushing through the troops left behind by Spartika, whittling down their numbers, but it was bloody. The insurgent fighters seemed impervious to pain and sabot fire. Lance knew Spartika had left them behind to torment Nhlappo and her allies. He proudly considered himself to be one of those allies, fighting for a brighter future for humanity.
Spartika’s insurgent Marines fought on despite the number of sabots the Legion rained down on them, often carrying on until only charred remains were left smoldering where a person once fought. These troops were odd; they didn’t seem to value their own lives. The Marines in Task Force Vengeance began calling them wazimu, “crazy warriors” in the language of their forbears. Regardless of what they were called, Lance knew they needed to be put down, and it pained him. He fought to save humanity from the yoke of the White Knights. Killing fellow humans was antithetical to his goals.
During the first brief respite from the action, Lance ordered his Marines to halt and rest while runners brought down fresh ammunition carousels. They’d chosen to rest at one of the natural chokepoints, giving them less of an area to cover, allowing them to maintain as smaller guard. The passageway narrowed in front of them before coming to the main corridor. Lance supervised the construction of a hasty defensive barricade, built from the security doors of the secured upper levels. It would stop sabots, though nothing larger, so most of the Marines rested off to the side. Ricocheting rounds still posed a threat, but this was better than nothing.
While they rested, Marchewka walked over and stood at the front of the line. He peered through the firing slats they’d left between the interlocking doors. The barricade was ugly but got the job done.
The barricade was blown back into the Marines on guard duty, crushing them under the weight of the doors. The commotion re-energized the regiment, and soon they were trading sabots with the enemy.
Sabot rounds slammed around Marchewka. Rounds were ricocheting off the polycrete walls in the narrow passageway. He had joined the 6907th at the barricade marking the forward line of advance, hefting his carbine and taking the first opportunity to join the battle. He seemed to be enjoying himself and bellowed a loud approximation of a laugh through his external speakers.
Is that a trick? thought Lance. Is Marchewka trying to scare the enemy and bolster our morale?
As sabots flew past his head, Marchewka calmly aimed and fired shot after shot into the enemy. The sabots bouncing off the combat armor of the other Legion Marines motivated the 6907th, turning their relaxed nature back into one of violent action. Lance thought it was beautiful to watch, his regiment standing for their brothers in the face of the enemy. Before he could lose himself at the moment, Xena popped into his helmet’s internal speakers.
Lance, the field marshal took off into the fray. He must be protected. Take Sashala and clear a path. Protect him at all costs. He’s the only one with the old master codes. Why aren’t you moving yet?
Not bothering to notify Sashala, assuming she would follow him into the melee, Lance took his AI’s advice, unslinging his carbine as he ran. He sprinted past his Marines, who were advancing in a disciplined and orderly manner. Just like we’ve trained a million times, he thought as he charged past them. Heedless of the danger, Lance followed his commander around a blind corner, running smack into a squad of their relentless foe. Insurgency Marines. One of the enemy fire teams recovered first, pivoting their forward momentum into a coordinated thrust at Lance’s stomach with their assault cutters, while the rest surged past him towards Sashala.
Dodging to the right, Lance tripped over his own feet and stumbled into a combat roll that would’ve caused his training cadre to roll over in their graves. Recovering his footing as he returned upright, he realized he’d lost his SA-71 carbine along the way. Frakk. The retaining strap snapped under the pressure. He instinctively reached for the Flenser pistol on his right hip, firing sabots downrange seconds after it cleared its holster.
Lance got off a few rounds before the massed insurgents tackled him, taking him back down to the ground. Landing awkwardly, he struggled to reach for the sword on his back, only to have his arms pinned by the aggressors holding him. Staring up into the blackened visor of his killer, Lance screamed every vulgar insult he’d learned in his years of martial service. He waited for it, the death blow that would end his fight. Nothing happened.
Looking around wildly, twisting his head around inside his helmet for a better view, he tried to figure out what had happened. He couldn’t see anything; dead bodies on either side blocked his view of the larger battle. The insurgent on top of him locked up like his suit had malfunctioned, and Lance was able to get free. Not wanting to give the enemy another chance, Lance quickly scampered back in a crab walk and unsheathed his sword. In one fluid
motion, he used his assault thrusters to help him get back to the upright position and decapitated the enemy. With that threat neutralized, he smoothly turned his momentum into a strike against the enemy locked up next to the decapitated insurgent.
Scanning the corridor, Lance saw the rest of the enemy insurgents in the group that had stayed to fight were being brutally dispatched by Sashala. Not giving it another thought, he noted the lack of blood. He’d started to contemplate what that might mean when Xena reminded him of the urgency. A glance at the reticle display on his visor allowed Lance to find his lost weapons and return to the fight.
Reaching his pistol first, he holstered it and headed over to reacquire his carbine. When he got to it, Lance noticed the casings on it had split open. He grabbed the carbine and, after performing a quick function check, determined that the weapon was dead. Snagging the ammunition carousel, Lance grabbed one of the enemy’s carbines, checked to ensure it worked, and slapped in his fresh sabot reservoir. Rearmed, Lance linked back up with Sashala and resumed their hunt for their commander.
Charging forward, Lance fired sabot after sabot into the onrushing enemy insurgents. Still they came, heedless of their wounds. Slinging his new carbine, he grabbed his sword, its obsidian blade looking like the scepter of the devil as the red emergency lighting illuminated the passageway. Moving nimbly, he wove in and out of the onslaught, slicing off heads and limbs along the way.
His ever-present shadow Sashala sprang after him, stabbing unprotected necks and joints as she went. Not bothering to ensure they were dead, the two kept pushing forward into the swarm as they looked for Marchewka. The enemy kept coming like a horde of swarming parasites, ignoring them as they pushed forward. Another turn led them to an open room and their lost Field Marshal.
The room crawled with insurgents. And at the center of it all stood Marchewka, a whirlwind of claws as he fought against the pressing mass of bodies. Watching his commander in a hand-to-hand fight was like watching every one of his childhood nightmares come to life. Marchewka moved, sometimes so quickly that it was hard for Lance to follow, all four of his upper appendages attacking Spartika’s insurgents. Each of his claws sliced quicker than Lance could with his sword.
While Lance stopped to assess the best way to save his commander from his over-eagerness to find his mother, Lance’s aide-de-camp sent him a request for a private conversation.
“Sir, Major Roy here. The map interface says we’re just around the last blind corner. What’s your sitrep?”
Still panting after his headlong rush into the enemy, Lance took a second to respond.
“Well done, Kaden,” he said. “There’re too many enemies to count here, and the field marshal’s smack dab in the middle of ’em. Push forward and hold that intersection. I’ve updated the other regiments. We’ll have the insurgents surrounded at my location if we move fast. When you’re positioned to hold what you’ve got, detach troops to extract the task force commander.”
With his veteran Marines forming up at his rear and holding the passageway, Lance and Sashala pushed into the massed enemy. A quick tap on his helmet from Sashala was all the signal he needed. They both started slashing their way into the enemy ranks. The only way to take down these frakkers seems to be to cut off their heads, he thought as he fought forward.
They were able to get into the area surrounding their field marshal, but Marchewka showed no sign of quitting the fight. He’d managed to rip an enemy’s arm from its socket and was using it to bludgeon the warriors closest to him. Throwing the limb at the closest enemy’s helmet, Marchewka spun in a fluid motion and used his claws to decapitate the nearest foe.
“Sir, you can’t save your mother if you die here!” Lance screamed as he tried to clear a space around his commander so they could pull back. “Captain Grimgerde deserves to wake up to you alive!”
The mention of his mother seemed to calm the massive Jotun’s battle rage, and together with Sashala, they fought their way back to their lines. Immediately upon their arrival, Lance’s Marines fired into the horde of Spartika’s insurgents who’d followed them. After they caught their breaths and checked their equipment, Marchewka began receiving calls from their Task Force Retribution liaison officer, Colonel Messer. Lance didn’t know what was said, but when the conversation was over, his commander approached him.
“Colonel Scipio, the Sangurians from Retribution took heavy losses. Heavier than ours. They lost two whole regiments – everyone in the two Sangurian regiments. They ran into a trap. One you’ll need to watch out for.”
Lance stood staring at his commander as he processed this information. They’d already lost their Sangurian allies. Thousands dead in the opening moments of the campaign. The prospect of securing the rest of Tranquility was starting to look grim. If they were better able to bring the full might of their numbers to bear, the outcome would be a foregone conclusion. Instead, their limited air power would hold them back. Frakkin’ Hardits, he thought. Because of the losses in the air war over Serendine, they held back from a total war against the insurgents. Even knowing they might have to turn on the Sangurians, he still felt their loss viscerally. He’d just fought a campaign on Serendine with those warriors. He knew their alliance was tenuous, but he’d hoped that in the end, they’d go all in with the Legion against their shared enemy. Snapping out of it, he responded to the field marshal.
“Sir, we need to send in the reserves to reinforce them. Regardless of the losses, we need to secure that outpost for the rest of the Cardamine campaign to follow smoothly.”
“I’ve already ordered the reinforcements to join the gutted Task Force Retribution. The Stork pilots will be landing momentarily to pick me up, and you’ll be taking over as the Vengeance task force commander,” said Marchewka.
Before Lance could respond to the change of command, Marchewka headed topside to meet the shuttle en route to pick him up. He seemed to have already forgotten the wild battle happening behind him. Knowing he was truly in overall command, Lance had his AI, Xena, pass the news on to the other regiments in his newly acquired task force. They were all spread out along the corridors they were clearing, so he knew this would be a staff meeting on the fly. They didn’t have time to stop for the officers to go to a single gathering point. He continued advancing behind his Marines as he prepared to conduct the planning session, trusting their subordinate commanders. When they were all on the secure command channel on the LBNet, Lance spoke.
“Listen up. Spartika has sent shock troops to hold the line at all costs. We’ve been pushing them back all day. These frakkers don’t seem to know when to quit or when to die. Our Sangurian allies went up against these blasters as well, and lost. Both regiments lost, all hands. Be–”
Lance’s conversation with his commanders was interrupted by Xena.
Lance, details matter. The Sangurian Regiments were lost, but there was a lone survivor. Now, do try to be more precise… I do have other duties and tasks besides handling your sorry arse.
Accustomed to Xena’s sass, Lance wasn’t fazed but smoothly transitioned the conversation back to the task force’s objectives.
“Right, I’ll try. Now, can I conduct my meeting so we can get back to killing the enemy?” he asked. With no answer forthcoming, Lance continued his briefing.
“Moving right along, we’ve got a slew of them bunched up in this large maintenance bay. Don’t let the fight to clear them out make you forget your six. We’ve several more levels to secure. When we secure the bay, I want a check of the dead. Something isn’t right, and I can’t put my finger on it, so we’ll check while we regroup for the final push. They appear impervious to the sabots, so send in your Dragoniers. Use any of their dead you find as a shield to guard the Dragoniers, and remember your grenadiers. Fire shall cleanse these unrighteous frakkers. Scipio, out.”
Once they’d followed his tactical orders, the victory came easily with relatively few causalities. They’d managed to roast the insurgents into submission, though Lance
couldn’t help but admire their resolve. Every one of Spartika’s rear guard fought until the bitter end, and there wasn’t a single survivor. With the field secured, Lance’s order to investigate the dead was carried out.
Lance was called to oversee the field autopsies performed by his troops. As expected, the frakkers he’d just ordered roasted looked like lunch left on the stove too long. What really surprised him was the early stage of decomposition they’d noted in those they’d taken down with sabots and thrusters. Before he could contemplate the deeper meaning behind these revelations, Xena cut into his internal helmet speakers.
Lance, quickly, attach your worms to the AI chest cavity.
Without further explanation, Xena went unnaturally silent as she waited for her request to be obeyed. Deciding to trust the AI who’d been with him through so much, Lance connected the worms from his fingertips to the AI compartment on the side of the dead Marine’s chest. Once connected, Lance felt a shock before his suit momentarily froze, and a dull pain went through his head.
Suddenly it stopped, and Lance had full control of his suit again. After what felt like forever but he knew to be less than a minute, Xena spoke.
Lance, they’re using the AIs from dead Marines – theirs and ours. They’ve also used empty suits, powered by AIs being held as part of the reformat protocol. Those bastards are lobotomizing AIs and letting them go crazy. That’s why they don’t stop when you shoot them. They’re zombie suits with rogue AIs.
The explanation from Xena brought a collective gasp from the assembled officers of the Legion. They’d all grown up with their AIs and considered them extensions of themselves, and the idea of one being abused in such a way was horrifying. A breach of trust among warriors, and one not easily forgiven. For the first time since the fight with Spartika started, it became more than a grudge match between her and Nhlappo. It was now personal, and Lance knew that it would result in more blood.