With Your Shield

by Chris Kennedy

  Terax dropped his head. “It is not ready.” He pointed over to where a foundation and frame sat, though the walls and roof were not yet constructed.

  Sansar frowned.

  “I will instruct the Jeha to have it built now.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You have Jeha on planet? We weren’t aware there would be anyone but your team.”

  Terax ducked his head and backed up a few steps. “Yes, yes. Much better at construction and engineering. They have designed all Zuparti structures here, and we contracted them to assist with building them.”

  Sansar crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. “Very well. Please have the warehouse ready as soon as possible. We need a place to work. Also, where should we set up our command center?”

  Terax pointed at the main building of the complex, which was thankfully complete. “You can set up there. It is where our command system will go. You have the computers?”

  Sansar nodded. “They’ll be coming, and our team will start setting up within the next few days. I anticipate we’ll have your base setup done within the week, but you can work with Major Enkh for that.”

  Terax whistled low, confused. “Major Enkh? You are Colonel Enkh?”

  Sansar nodded. “That’s right.”

  Terax shrugged, feeling that further questions weren’t really welcome. “Good, good. We will keep working.”

  He ran over to the nearest Jeha and instructed them to work on the warehouse. Within moments, all the Jeha stopped what they were doing and made their way over to it.

  * * *

  Markus, along with Irish’s squad, were among the first wave of CASPers on the ground. They had gotten a communication from Major King that the warehouse they were supposed to move the maintenance racks into wasn’t ready, so they had designated an area to stage things in the meantime. Irish had the veterans stay armed, with the newer troopers disarming to help with the unloading and moving. Markus wished he were in his Hoplite so he could test it out, but that time would come.

  Within the hour, two full companies of CASPers were on the ground and spread out. Each platoon, and each squad within the platoon, had their mission, and they were executing it. Some were heading out to the perimeter areas where the walls would eventually be constructed and were assisting the engineers in their APCs. Some areas of jungle were marked to be cleared, which would be handled the next day, so they had a clear kill zone beyond the wall. No one wanted an enemy to be able to sneak up on the base under cover.

  The cargo loads from War Pony would continue into the night, as they had arrived late in the planet’s afternoon. Lights were set up to keep the landing pad lit for safety. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but it did make it easier.

  The troopers were on high alert. This was the most vulnerable time of any contract, when they were busy unloading, moving materials around, and had not yet built any of the defensive structures. Every trooper that wasn’t a part of the unarmed loading crew was watching their sensors with eagle eyes, expecting an attack at any moment. It wore on the nerves, but it was the best way to ensure you didn’t get surprised. They had all been through the ambush scenario on the way, and it was fresh in their minds.

  Markus was likely on a higher stage of alert than anyone. As he scanned the area around him, a comm came in from Major King. “How’re you holding up, Spartan?”

  “All clear here, ma’am.”

  “That’s not what I asked, Spartan.”

  He was silent for a moment. They both knew what she meant, but he was hoping not to talk about it. “I’m fine, ma’am. Thanks.”

  * * *

  In the command center, Sansar watched with satisfaction as her techs started setting up their communications equipment, and all the other technology that was required for basic operations. Much of the technology they were setting up would remain after the contract, so they were killing two birds with one stone.

  Outside, the CASPers were almost done unloading. She looked through the windows and saw a CASPer headed back toward the landing pad with its canopy open. That had to be Spartan, going back up to get his new mech. She had been receiving progress reports via Major Enkh and was encouraged by what she had read. It looked like the new mech could give the Horde an edge, and she was anxious to see it in action.

  Looking out another window, more CASPers assembled the pre-fabricated buildings that would act as barracks, a chow hall, and everything else they’d need for the contract. It was almost like being at home. Except for the metal-eating bugs.

  * * *

  A while later, the dropship came back down for its final drop off. The first thing to come down the ramp was Markus in his custom-painted CASPer. He kept the additional sensors offline since they weren’t necessary. Through the cameras, he could see quite a few people stop what they were doing to look. It must have looked different, stepping off into the artificial light with a crate mounted on the shoulder. He thought it looked ridiculous. They’d have to come up with something a bit more fitting for drone deployment once they had the materials to work with. He tried not to think about it and moved over to the now-nearly-complete warehouse.

  The Jeha had given them the okay to start moving in. They had completed the roof and were just finishing the last side and the door mechanism, so there was no risk of anything falling on an unarmored worker. Some of the CASPer troopers had also chipped in and were hefting some of the heavy material into place so the Jeha could finish faster. They had a vested interest in completing the place where their mechs would be stored.

  Markus walked in and followed Hobo’s marker to back the CASPer onto its rack, right beside his assault mech. The troopers and mechanics that were in the warehouse stopped what they were doing and watched, gaping in awe at the strange paint scheme.

  Hobo turned around, hands on his hips. “Nothing to see here. Back to work everyone!” They knew that meant they wouldn’t get any answers, so they all returned to work.

  * * *

  Elsewhere in the Kelfor System

  Major Ketaryl paced, General Betreth sat behind his desk, and Captain Stor-Al stood against a wall in the room.

  “I don’t see why we don’t attack now. They are vulnerable. Their defenses are not prepared,” Major Ketaryl said.

  Betreth growled. “Is that what you would do, Little Bug?”

  Ketaryl stopped her pacing. “Yes! They are easy prey!”

  Betreth shook his head and laughed, though even a laugh sounded menacing coming from the Besquith. “This is why you are not in charge. They may seem vulnerable, but it is when they are the most ready for an attack. The humans are not completely stupid; do not underestimate them.”

  “At least send the fighters!”

  Betreth bared his teeth. “Perhaps we should…go ahead and let your fighters be shot down. It is doubtful they will be of much use anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Ketaryl clicked her antennae in frustration.

  “Do you think they do not have missiles on their mechs ready to shoot things down? No, we will wait until they are comfortable and believe they are in no danger. Humans get bored easily—they will lower their readiness, and then we will strike when they least expect it.”

  “Fine.” Ketaryl left the room, not wanting to be around the Besquith any longer than necessary. She always had the feeling they looked at her like they would a snack.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kelfor-6, Zuparti Base

  Over the next week, the defensive wall was built and made ready. The only slowdown had been clear-cutting some of the jungle, but that was easily accomplished with the lasers on the CASPers. Cutting through a tree was easy compared to cutting through something that was trying to kill you. Where necessary, they’d used explosives to destroy large root systems or stumps. The result was 100 yards of open ground in every direction from the wall.

  Interspersed along each wall were heavy lasers, rocket launchers, MACs, and heat-seeking missiles. It wasn’t standard,
but it was specifically requested by the clients, so they were incorporated. They were also charging a premium for the hardware, as each of them was individually wired. Normally they would have set up a remote connection, but the Zuparti were paranoid that someone might hack the system and turn their own weapons upon them…so there was a wire running from each emplacement back to the main building. It would likely take another week to finish all that, get everything covered, and run the wiring through the building. The Jeha had been helpful in creating conduits for the wiring. Sansar had heard they were charging extra for it, since that wasn’t part of their original contract.

  She looked over toward the warehouse where the CASPers were housed and maintenance performed. There had been no contacts so far, which was fine with her. She thought about the length of the contract and wondered why they had requested such a long time period. Typically, six months was enough to set up and train the locals…but they had wanted a year. There was also the matter of the lack of seismic activity. For a planet to have two instances in one day and then nothing seemed…odd. She saw a squad preparing for patrol, and then saw Spartan’s CASPer join the group. It was finally time for him to start field testing. Major King had requested that Spartan stay with the team building the fortifications for the first week, due to his experience, and all had agreed. Now, it was time to see if the credits spent on this project would pay off.

  * * *

  Markus joined Irish’s squad outside the warehouse and was pulled into the squadnet by Irish. “Okay, team. We’ll be patrolling the north and west walls today. Standard patrol but stay frosty. We haven’t seen any activity yet, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something out there waiting. I’m particularly concerned that we haven’t seen an apex predator on this planet yet.”

  Markus nodded to himself. He approved of Irish’s leadership style and was impressed that he was thinking about things like an apex predator. He made a note to talk to Hazard when he got back from patrol.

  Once Irish was finished with his brief, Markus transmitted. “I’ll be following along, but don’t worry if I wander a bit; that’s what I’m supposed to do in this mech.”

  Irish responded, “Copy that, just let me know when you’re going to deviate so I don’t think something’s wrong.”

  Markus nodded in approval. Even though Markus outranked him, it was still Irish’s squad, and he was acting as such. Good man. “Will do.”

  Irish led the squad toward the gates that had been built into the fortifications. They could have simply jumped over the walls, but every squad used the gates. First, it saved the jump juice in case they needed it outside the gate. Second, it gave the Zuparti who were being trained on the gate controls opportunities to learn how they worked.

  Irish commed ahead so they could start opening the gate. “Staff Sergeant Johnston and squad approaching gate for patrol.”

  A Zuparti voice responded, “Approach approved. Gate opening.” Apparently, he forgot to close the comm channel, because they then heard, “Was that right?” Followed by a chuckle from a Human, and then the channel closed.

  Markus grinned and followed Irish’s squad out of the gate. Irish turned them toward the north end of the fortifications. The gate had been built into the middle of the east wall, based on a request from the Zuparti.

  Markus commed, “Okay, I’m going to move a bit outside of your formation and activate my secondary sensors. It shouldn’t interfere with yours, but let me know if you get anything odd.”

  Irish responded, “Irish copies. Good hunting.”

  Markus veered off and went to the edge of the jungle and activated his full sensor suite. He was anxious to try out the drones, but he had so few, he wanted to wait for a while. They had a whole year on this planet; he had plenty of time.

  The squad made the turn and started moving west along the north wall, and Markus mirrored them, further away. He furrowed his brow as he saw a ping on his sensors in the jungle.

  “Irish, I’ve got something. I’m going to step into the jungle a little bit to check it out.”

  “Copy that. Want us to wait?”

  “Negative, it’s a small signature; I just want to see what I’m picking up.”

  Markus turned into the jungle. He was glad they had done some clearing so he could move around without having to push trees out of the way. They hadn’t completely clear cut here, but they had thinned everything out for an extra hundred yards or so beyond the kill zone so their CASPers could move through it, and they had more visibility.

  As he got closer to what he had detected, the signal grew stronger. Whatever it was, the signal was electronic, and he frowned and kept moving diagonally toward the target. He didn’t want to walk directly at it, just in case. Using the cameras mounted on his CASPer, he zoomed in on the location—up in a tree—and his eyes widened. It was a sensor beacon, and it was active. He captured images to send to intel so they could identify the make and who might be using it. Rather than acting on it, he resumed a course that paralleled the squad’s. He didn’t want whoever was using it to know he’d noticed. A normal CASPer wouldn’t have noticed it…as evidenced by the fact that none of the previous patrols had.

  “Nothing to see here, Irish. I’ll catch up, but I’m going to stay in the jungle for a bit.”

  “Copy that, Spartan,” Irish responded.

  Markus would normally have reported what he found immediately…but something in his gut told him to keep it off comms for now. He was back to moving parallel with the squad and saw another mark on his sensors. Once again, he took images when he located it and kept moving.

  Through the patrol, he found a total of eight sensors. Had they been there before the Horde built the fortifications? It seemed odd that he didn’t see any on the ground, so he concluded the sensors must have been placed after the fortifications were up, and the CASPers had finished their clear cutting. Nothing else explained why there weren’t any in the area they had cut down, unless they had deactivated when disturbed. He shook his head. This wasn’t the time to be distracted; he could think about it later.

  After a few hours, the patrol was over, and they headed back in. Once Markus had backed his CASPer into the mounting rack, he climbed down and removed his helmet. Hobo, Volk, Kawa, and Burke were waiting for him.

  “How’d it go?” Hobo asked.

  They all waited, expectant looks on their faces.

  “Worked great. Check the power levels; I think it’s draining a bit more than we expected. That’s fine, but I need a good projection on how long I can stay out.”

  Kawa nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you deploy any of the drones?” Burke asked.

  Markus shook his head. “Not yet. I’ll save that for another trip, since we have so few to test with.”

  Burke nodded.

  Irish came up and saluted. Markus returned the salute. “Good job, Irish.”

  “Thank you, sir. Everything go okay?” Irish looked up at the Hoplite; already mechanics were performing their standard post-patrol maintenance.

  “Yep, perfect. Come with me, we need to talk to Major Enkh in intel. I found something out there.”

  Irish raised an eyebrow but didn’t question him. “Yes, sir.”

  Markus nodded. Irish was a hell of an NCO. He reminds me of me.

  They made their way to the prefab building which was being used as the planet’s network operations center. Markus spotted Major Enkh, and they both approached and saluted.

  Major Enkh returned the salute. “Didn’t expect to see you in here, Spartan. And this is?”

  “Major, this is Staff Sergeant Johnston, the squad leader I was accompanying while testing out the Hoplite.”

  Carrie, sitting not far away, heard Markus’ voice and turned around with a smile. He spared a wink for her and then turned his attention back to Major Enkh.

  “Ma’am, I found something on patrol. Something in my gut said to keep it off the comms, but we definitely have a problem.”

  H
e handed her his slate, with an image of the sensor beacon he captured on the screen. Irish craned his neck to get a look as well and frowned. Enkh’s expression mirrored Irish’s. “What the hell?”

  “That was my thought, ma’am. I found eight of them around the perimeter. Never would have spotted them without the extra sensor suite.”

  She nodded, flipping through the other images. “Okay, send these over to counter-intelligence. They should be able to narrow down the make and who uses them.”

  Markus took the slate back and punched a few codes to push the images to counter-intelligence, as well as the coordinates where each of the sensors was found.

  “Ma’am, I have to assume they’re all around us…I’m going to ask Major King to assign Irish’s squad to the other sides of the compound so I can scout those out as well. I didn’t approach or even visibly take notice, so hopefully they don’t know that we know they’re there.”

  She nodded. “Good job, Spartan. I’ll push this up to the colonel; she may want to talk to you.”

  He nodded. He had expected that. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Markus and Irish left the building, and Irish ran a hand through his short hair. “Damn…they’ve been watching us all along?”

  Markus shrugged. “No way to know. I know that I didn’t see any on the ground that were active…. So, either there were more, and they deactivated when we cut them down, or they were placed after we finished the clearing.”

  “Neither one sounds good, sir.”

  “You would be correct in that assessment, Staff Sergeant. Go ahead and debrief your squad. I’m going to do some digging into this and prep the drones for deployment next time out. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Irish glanced at him. “Shit.”

  Markus nodded and veered off toward the office that had been allocated to him in the pre-fabricated administration building.