by JR Handley
“What the hell happened on Cardamine Island? Xena, I want you scanning for anything that can be weaponized. Now we’ve got to be alert for traps from Spartika and whatever happened here,” he ordered.
The speakers inside his helmet clicked once in acknowledgment, and Lance went back to scanning the helmet cams of each of his subdominant commanders.
With the outer courtyard secured, Lance ordered the entrance into the city to be breached. All around the open area, small explosive charges gave off muffled booms. With the doors opened, the 6907th TAC poured into the city. Lance followed 6th Battalion as they moved slowly and smoothly into the center ring, the well-choreographed movement flowing into the city until the courtyard was empty. There were no traps, though he remained vigilant.
— Chapter 33 —
Late Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 211
Jotun City, Cardamine Island
8th BN, 6907th TAC RGT, TF Vengeance, Human Legion
Senior Sergeant Holly Lapasa waited in the courtyard for the drones to finish their search. The wait gave her time to remember when her life changed for the better. The day then Senior Sergeant Lance Scipio put out the call for Aux technicians, giving her a chance to improve her situation. Anything was a step up from being an Aux, but she loved the opportunity to become part of a team again. Her musings were interrupted by Captain Phanias Hadry, her company commander, calling her over the Whiskey Company LBNet.
“Sergeant Lapasa, we breach in two minutes. I want 4th Squad first into the breach,” her commander ordered her.
Holly didn’t get the chance to acknowledge her order, because the line was cut. Switching over to her squad’s channel on the LBNet, she passed the word to make ready for the breach. While her Marines prepared, she scanned the courtyard and joined her fire team waiting to breach the door. The strange rock pattern in the courtyard was odd, but what caught her attention the most were the numerous skeletal remains of Jotuns. They weren’t in combat armor, so their bodies had been exposed to the elements long enough to decompose. Her training made her cautious, and she continued to scan the rooftops for signs of sniper activity but found none.
Satisfied that the area was secure, Holly went to where her squad was stacked against the building. They were lined up flush against the courtyard wall, stacked behind the explosives specialist. After checking the entrance into the city and finding it still in security lockdown mode, Colonel Scipio decided to blow the doors. Charges were placed on a large, ornately carved synth-wood door, and everyone waited for their orders.
All around the courtyard, the four battalions of the 6907th pressed tightly against the wall, knowing they didn’t want to be in the back-blast of those charges. Holly could see Marines all around her looking up at the high ground on the building’s roof, as she, too, wished they had friendly forces up there. But the Marines were where they were ordered to be, waiting for the colonel to say the word that would unleash hell into the stone building. She was still worried, as she thought the demolition specialists weren’t using enough explosives for the enormous entryways. Hell, if Holly had her way, they’d just order an orbital strike and call the city a casualty of war.
Knowing it wasn’t her call to make, she reviewed her orders. She would need to communicate with the breach section leader before pressing into Jotun City. Wanting to maintain operational security, she pulled him into a private comms channel.
“You’ll breach on the CO’s signal. I’ll be right behind you, just like we’ve trained. Remember, slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
Holly punctuated her encouragement with a pat on his shoulder, then turned to inspect her own kit. She ran a diagnostic on her armor, carbine, and communications while she waited for the countdown timer. The customary buzzer was drowned out by the concussive roar of the overcharged entry breaching explosives. The minute the charges blew, Holly followed her Marines towards the entryway, only to find the doors still standing. I knew it, she thought with satisfaction.
“No need to panic, but if those doors aren’t blown in thirty seconds, we’ll have our new privy cleaning crew. Make those doors disappear, engineers,” Colonel Scipio said over the regimental comms channel.
Around the courtyard, the regiment restacked and prepared for the next charge, which would hopefully grant them entry into the squat, rocky building that was Jotun City. The engineers consulted their charts. Holly could see the 4th Squad engineer using the air in front of him as an ad hoc chalkboard. When he was satisfied with whatever calculations he was running, she watched him place more explosives onto the door before giving her the thumbs-up.
Again, the timer started, and Holly waited. After the silence was punctured by another explosion, Holly followed her Marines into the city and to the right. The rest of 4th Squad poured in, with every other fire team alternating as they split the doorway, clearing the building as they went. They cleared the entry chamber, which Colonel Lance Scipio had marked on their maps as a security checkpoint, without complications. They were preparing to blow the next door when the Marine thought to try the access panel. Before the sapper could set the following charge, the door slid into the wall, letting the startled Marines press through the doorway into the main inner level of Jotun City.
Holly followed her breach section to the right again, setting a rear guard as they poured throughout the city. She watched her tactical overlay and saw that 3rd Squad went left out of the security entryway, allowing her to pull back their rear guard. She didn’t expect trouble, though, since more Marines from the 6907th were behind her.
The inner layer of the city was cleared, though the progress was slow as they searched for traps and enemy forces. They found themselves in a series of hallways with rooms off the central passageway. Each room had to be cleared individually and marked on the interactive company maps. During the process, 2nd and 4th Squads spread out together to the right, with Holly’s squad taking the innermost section and 2nd clearing the rooms on the outermost of the passageway.
The process of clearing the city dragged on, and Holly could see that her Marines were getting complacent as they cleared room after room and found nothing. They’d just turned a corner when they reached the first locked door. She almost called over the fire team to breach the locked door when Holly decided to give her newly upgraded AI the chance to hack the locking mechanism.
It worked, and Holly was able to get the door to slide open. Her Marines poured into the room, and she followed behind them. Like in many of the rooms in this section, which were once barracks for the Jotun officers, there was a built-in closet and restroom. The corporal reached for the knob, preparing to twist the handle to open the door without checking for traps.
“No!” she screamed at him, feeling like the world had slowed down as the door opened.
Pop.
The sound was underwhelming, and Holly started to relax until she saw something spray from the fire suppression system. Scanning through her ACE-4 Combat Suit’s readouts, she realized that the fire retardant had been deactivated, and a toxic liquid sprayed from a replacement tank on the ceilings. Before she could send up a report and warn them about the strange trap, she began to feel a white-hot pain as the substance ate through her armor and into her exposed shoulder.
At that point, Holly ceased to think and could only feel. And scream, at least initially.
— Chapter 34 —
Late Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 211
Jotun City, Cardamine Island
Commander, 8th BN, 6907th TAC RGT, TF Vengeance, Human Legion
The assault was going just like they’d planned – textbook, really, thought Lieutenant Colonel Isabel Mayer. Her battalion performed as they’d been trained, and her NCOs were keeping the momentum going. Not wanting to get in their way, Isabel held back with her command staff and supervised her battalion as they cleared the sectors that Lance assigned them. Her thoughts of Lance were interrupted by the sounds of screaming coming from the area assigned to his old company.
&
nbsp; “Follow me,” she ordered her staff.
As she ran towards the screams, her AI assured her that her staff was following her. In under four minutes, they rounded the corner that marked the extent of Whiskey Company’s progress. The shrieks over the LBNet got louder, the closer they got to the room, and she prepared for the worst. Turning towards the room, she saw that it looked like it was in the process of being cleared. Except the Marines inside were rolling around on the ground as their suits and flesh melted into a congealed puddle on the ground. The screams continued for a few more moments, slowly losing volume and intensity as they morphed from screams to murmurs and then to small groans.
Everywhere she looked, she saw Marines rolling around on the ground, wailing. They clawed at their melting uniforms, rubbing, desperate to get the acidic bacteria off them. Instead, all they managed to do was pull off more of their deteriorating armor, speeding the process that liquefied their bones and flesh. All around her, Isabel saw Marines struggling against the urge to retch. They’d been bred not to have a gag reflex, but it didn’t prevent them from dry heaving at what they saw before them.
Isabel knew that there was nothing to be done for these Marines, but those standing around could still be saved. She knew the corrosive material would spread, and she could already see fracture lines on the helmet visors of the Marines closest to the open door. She took a deep breath, mentally girding herself against what she was about to do. I can’t save them, she thought. The Marines in that room are as good as dead, but the ones out here can still be saved.
“Stay back,” Isabel ordered the Marines standing around dumbfounded. “It’s a bactabomb. It’ll eat through your armor. Pull back. Seal the door now!”
The Marines were slow to react. They stood around, staring in horror at what was happening. Their friends were melting in front of them, puddling on the stone blocks that made the floor of Jotun City. Shoving them aside, her sergeant major quickly slammed the button sealing the door to the room.
“The bactabomb will peter out well before it gets through the floor. If not, there’s nothing but dirt underneath it. But how do we stop it from breaching the integrity of the door?” asked her senior NCO.
“I’ve initiated my command override. Now the same substance that houses the corrosive bacteria is being pumped into the room.”
“Roger. Let’s pass that override around and ensure it doesn’t happen again,” replied her sergeant major.
Giving him the thumbs-up, Isabel got on the comms with the engineers assigned to her battalion and requested an emergency seal to quarantine the room. No sense in taking chances, she thought to herself. She’d been on one too many void combat assignment and had seen what those bactabombs could do to a warship. She never again wanted to see what they did to human flesh.
Knowing that she couldn’t let this happen to other Marines, Isabel sent an emergency update through the 6907th LBNet.
“Now hear this, now hear this. The enemy has rigged bactabombs in place of fire suppression systems. The initial explosions set off a small fire, triggering the fire suppression and pouring bactabombs on the unsuspecting Marines. Be on the lookout. We cannot let that spread. If you encounter one, initiate quarantine and save the ones you can before it’s too late. Colonel Mayer, out.”
With the emergency message delivered, Isabel ordered her Marines to resume clearing their section of Jotun City’s inner ring.
— Chapter 35 —
Late Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 211
Outside Jotun City, Cardamine Island
Commander, 273rd TAC RGT, TF Vengeance, Human Legion
“Here’s hoping the brain-heads tested these,” said Colonel Gorgas Atropia, the commander of the 273rd TAC Regiment.
With those words, the door light turned green, and Atropia stepped out of the Stork shuttle as his breath caught in his throat. While fighting the urge to panic, he could see the ground below him in crystalline detail, as if time had frozen at that moment. The feeling didn’t last, however; time seemed to have distilled into a moment of clarity before he launched into a full-fledged rush to the surface. He was pulled out of his shocked state by his AI.
Snap out of it, Atropia, his AI told him. You need to be ready to not die when we hit the dirt.
Grunting, Atropia quickly reassessed his situation and used his assault thrusters to adjust his positioning. Can’t miss my own landing zone, he thought. Especially not on his first independent assignment. His regiment was dropping outside the southern walls of Jotun City and would be one of Scipio’s three prongs to the assault on the fortified city. Their drop zone was set a few klicks outside the walls, so he knew they’d have to coordinate on the fly. Pleased that he knew his mission, and with the chance to operate on his own with his new regiment, Atropia began taking in the scenery.
The descent from the Stork was slower than he’d expected, but he was too distracted, scanning for potential threats, to appreciate the beauty of it all. The view from the heights was too valuable to waste on sentimentality. Atropia looked for any possible threat or dangerous ambush areas. He made liberal use of his enhanced helmet optics, trusting his AI to carry its weight. When his AI told him that he was on target, he set his thrusters to automatically correct themselves and bent his knees for his final landing. The ground grew closer, until he knew it was time to brace for the landing. He thought about the landing, and in an instant it was there, and he tumbled into the standing position.
“Frakk me,” Atropia said to himself in the sanctuary that every Marine enjoyed inside his combat armor.
The sound of another Marine thudding down near him got Atropia’s attention, and he began delegating to his subordinate commanders. One of his battalion commanders hadn’t even landed yet when Atropia started issuing tasks. In just over fifteen minutes, the entire 273rd had landed, and their landing zone was secured. Not wanting to get held up at the LZ, he got his troops on the move towards Jotun City.
While they headed north towards their objective, Atropia began reviewing the data from the Legion’s first high-altitude combat drop. They’d lost several Marines, not because their suits failed, but instead because they landed on top of each other. Reviewing the stats, Atropia realized that these jumps would revolutionize Marine combat tactics. But he knew that could wait, and instead began searching for how many effective troops he had. Other than a few small groups that had missed the landing zone and would have to link up with him later, his regiment was fully intact. Some sprained ankles and broken bones, but nothing the combat suits couldn’t compensate for with the pharmacology and nanites. If the Marines lived through the fight, the medics could patch them up later.
The flat terrain lent itself to speed, and they made excellent time to the outskirts of Jotun City. Standing in the shadow of its outer wall, he marveled at how something so squat and utilitarian could manage to look graceful. But where are the doors – or are there sally ports? he wondered. Not pleased with the lack of actionable intelligence, he called a halt and dispatched his scouting and mine-hunting drones. They were crazy little things, small enough to fit into his palm but full of the best sensor technology the Legion had access to. They were silvery and reflective, easy to spot, but moved so quickly that even skilled AIs interfacing with autonomous weapons often couldn’t hit them.
With the reports in hand, he began assigning his troops to the various sectors and ordered the regiment to resume its march. Remembering that Marines on the other task force had been lost to mines, he sent even more of his drones ahead. The ground was declared mine-free, so when they were within a few meters of the entryways, Atropia ordered his Marines to charge. They needed to get under cover of the wall as quickly as possible, in case the city was defended. They quickly spread out against the walls, stacking behind the breach teams who’d rushed each of the four entrance points on the southern walls. When everyone was ready, Atropia set a countdown timer.
“The 273rd’s the best regiment in the shite show Tranquility has become.
When we breach, I want us aware of potential booby traps. Combine that with the explosive violence of action. The countdown starts now. Atropia, out.”
Three, two, one.
The door breaches exploded, and his Marines rushed through the dust into the outer ring of Jotun City. The first several rooms and sections were cleared without incident. Each of the rooms, which seemed to be offices and workspaces, were cleared and searched for anything useful. The Marines also looked for potential traps; too many had lost their lives to the unseen dangers already. They found several tripwires, disarmed them, and pushed forward. Atropia followed behind his Marines, as they stacked at the next room they were about to clear.
When the section leader tapped the breach team’s corporal in charge, the first Marines opened the door and rushed inward. Two fire teams followed, clearing the large conference room. Atropia followed to assist, wanting his Marines to see him leading from the front. Scanning the room, he saw that the conference room had a small alcove with a curtain over it. His HUD lit up, displaying red warning lights, as an energy spike registered behind the curtain. He never got a chance to pass the word.
Buurt, buurt, buurt.
The curtain was ripped to shreds as an automated turret opened fire on the Marines, spewing hundreds of sabots per second. All around Atropia, whizzing sabots spattered his Marines before they could bring their carbines to bear. As he tried to bring his carbine up, someone grabbed him from behind and yanked him out of the room. He stumbled under the pressure of whoever was dragging him out of the room, ending up sprawled on the floor of the passageway. Looking up, he saw his sergeant major staring down at him, his visor clear so Atropia could see who he was.