With Your Shield

by Chris Kennedy

  He turned to find Enkh’s arm blade through the last Besquith’s chest, but the Besquith was holding his rifle, and had just fired it through Enkh’s suit. Both dropped to their knees and fell forward into each other. As the CASPer was heavier, it pushed the alien backward and fell on top of it.

  Markus spun to check the courtyard, but the battle was over and had been won; a handful of CASPers were the only things standing. All the Besquith were down. He strode forward and rolled Enkh’s suit over. His command display showed she was still alive, but fading fast, so he ejected her canopy. She smiled up at him, her face locked in a grimace of pain. “Told you…I was going to practice…the flip,” she said. Then her features relaxed, and her smile smoothed. She was gone.

  Markus went to search the other CASPers, and saw Private Walker climbing from her mech with blood all over her chest. Her movements were uncoordinated, and she collapsed next to it as she made it out of the machine.

  “Medic!” Markus transmitted, sending a beacon to the closest medic.

  The medic, Corporal Jonathan Wyatt, was already out of his mech, and he ran over and knelt next to her as Markus exited his CASPer. He grabbed his medkit and ran over to her, but the medic shook his head. “Don’t waste the nano,” Wyatt said. “The damage is too great, even for the nanites.”

  Walker’s hand twitched in what might have been a wave to get Markus’ attention. “How’d I…do?” she asked softly.

  “You did great,” Markus said. “You saved her life.”

  “Good,” Walker said, then her muscles stilled.

  “She’s dead,” Wyatt said, looking up. “Sorry, sir. She was too far gone when I got here.”

  Markus nodded and sighed, looking around the battlefield. They had won, but at a great cost. He climbed back into his CASPer and turned toward the buildings that had collapsed. He wanted to go and help dig the survivors out of the rubble, but he was terrified of what he might find once he got there.

  * * *

  Free Trading Station, Above Kelfor-6

  “The Besquith ship is approaching weapons range,” the Zuparti said. The leader of the Zuparti contingent, his eye was already starting to close from the backhand strike he’d taken when he’d let the Besquith onboard the station.

  “They’ll get it done,” Sergeant Yvonne Jacobs said. “We’re the Golden Horde. We hold what you’ve got.”

  “Their weapons are preparing to fire…”

  “I’m telling you, they’ll get it—” Without warning, the ship on screen detonated spectacularly from the inside as nuclear weapons went off near both its main engineering spaces and its Combat Information Center.

  “The ship is destroyed!” the Zuparti chittered excitedly.

  “They’ll get it done,” Jacobs repeated softly, her eyes suddenly moist.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kelfor-6, Zuparti Base Camp

  The battle was over, for now, and the Golden Horde shifted into rescue and recovery efforts. Sansar oversaw the operations from her CASPer. “Alpha Company on rescue. Bravo Company maintain overwatch.”

  Markus surveyed the remains of the base and the limited number of CASPers moving around through it. There weren’t that many left from either of the companies. He jogged over to the pre-fabricated building and started using the strength of his CASPer to move rubble out of the way. Carrie was somewhere in there. He could hear the comms of similar efforts happening around the base, but he had one focus. He tossed the last of the ferrocrete out of the way and started peeling back metal layers. To his relief, he saw movement.

  First, he saw Major Enkh crawling out from under a console and opened a comm channel. “Major Enkh, Lieutenant Nicolos here. Are you okay?”

  She looked up at the CASPer and gave a thumbs up. When she spoke, her voice was rough. “Yeah…a bit banged up, but I’ll survive.”

  “Major…”

  Enkh pointed to a corner of the room still covered by metal. “Peel that back, Spartan.”

  He reached over and carefully lifted the metal and tossed it aside. He saw Sergeant Clark, or what was left of him after the metal from the roof had hit him, and Carrie laying there. One of the consoles had fallen on her legs. He stood and waited while Enkh made her way over, stumbling quite a few times, trying to keep her balance.

  She fell to her knees and touched Carrie’s neck, then he heard her call on the company channel. “Medic to NetOps!”

  Markus let out the breath he had been holding…she was alive. The console would have to be lifted off, but he knew better than to do it now. They would have to wait for the medics to assess the situation.

  He wasn’t sure how long he just stood there until he realized someone was calling his name over the command net. It wasn’t just someone; it was Colonel Enkh. “Spartan! Spartan! Spartan, are you with me? Spartan get your head back into the game. Make a path so the medics can get into the building, then go check the warehouse.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” He used his CASPer to tear a hole through a couple of the walls so the medics could evacuate anyone left inside. Some of the troopers were already setting up a triage area where the wounded could be gathered. Once he saw the paths he created were good enough, he ran over toward the warehouse to assist with rescuing the survivors there. Not only that, but they’d need to find and distribute the ammunition kept there in case the Besquith returned.

  * * *

  After several hours, the majority of the cleanup was complete. There hadn’t been any more assaults, but everyone was on edge—one wave didn’t seem right. The Horde had found their cache of extra ammunition, and it was, thankfully, mostly intact. Squad by squad, CASPers came back to the warehouse so the troopers could get out for a few minutes and stretch while their mechs were re-armed and recharged. A few opted to take some stims so they could stay awake and alert, but mostly just the newer members of the company. The veterans were used to this kind of deployment and just grabbed a cup of coffee.

  When it was Markus’ turn, Volk and Hobo were waiting when he climbed down. “I’ll need to get back out there fast, Hobo.”

  Hobo nodded. “We’re on it, sir.”

  Specialist Kawa had joined in with the maintenance crews to assist, since he knew the CASPers better than anyone on the planet. He climbed up and worked to replace the control line to the arm-mounted laser while Volk and Hobo recharged the mech and guided pallets of ammunition over to be loaded.

  Markus helped himself to a cup of coffee while he watched the maintenance crew work. He took a few moments to walk around to the other, younger, CASPer troopers and give them words of encouragement and remind them that they had executed the mission of the Golden Horde. They’d held what the Zuparti had.

  He saw Irish sitting on an empty ammo container with his head down and knew that look. He grabbed a refill for himself and a second cup of coffee, and he walked over. “Drink this; you’ll need it. There’s no rest for us anytime soon, Irish.”

  Irish smiled sadly and looked up at Markus. He accepted the coffee with a nod. “Thank you, sir.”

  Markus dragged over another empty ammo container and sat down. “You did good out there, Trooper.”

  Irish nodded but said nothing.

  “This can’t be your first-time losing troops in combat…” Markus raised an eyebrow.

  “No, sir. Just never…basically my entire squad. My last company, the contracts weren’t this big.”

  Markus nodded. The Golden Horde, being one of the Four Horsemen, and the only one of them to specialize in defense and fortification, tended to take the largest defense contracts of any company on Earth.

  “Did you ever hear about why I switched to intel?”

  Irish looked up again and shook his head. “Hazard mentioned it was something big, but he wouldn’t go into details.”

  “He wouldn’t. We don’t tend to tell each other’s stories.” Markus took a sip of the less-than-stellar coffee. It would help keep him sharp, but it tasted like shit.
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  “It was a defense contract, much like this one,” Markus continued after a moment. “Everything went pretty smoothly. There was supposed to be some opposition, but when it didn’t happen, we just figured they’d decided that going up against the Horde wasn’t a good idea. The last day of the contract, I had my squad out on patrol, and we were ambushed.”

  Irish watched Markus and listened.

  “It was Besquith. They took out my squad, then took out the squad who came to support us. I was the only person to survive, because I got knocked out, and they left me for dead.”

  Markus shook his head. “Two squads, dead, and I was convinced it was my fault. Turns out the Besquith had some kind of jamming tech we hadn’t seen before. Same kind they tried to use here, as it happens. I couldn’t get into my CASPer anymore—I just couldn’t, even if it was just to do sims. I went to the colonel’s office, ready to sign my papers and leave the company.”

  Irish eyes opened wide in surprise.

  Markus nodded. “Yep, I was done. Then Colonel Enkh offered me a spot in intel, and I took it. I did it to make sure what happened to my squad never happened again. You know what? It worked…that’s why Hoplite is my pet project. To keep our troopers alive. You did your best today, Irish. We were up against overwhelming numbers, and we did the job. Losing troopers happens. It’s an unfortunate side-effect of being a combat trooper.”

  Irish looked thoughtful and polished off his coffee with a grimace.

  “I’ll tell you something else. I heard from Hazard that you stuck up for Walker when she screwed up in training and kept her active?”

  Irish nodded.

  “Well, she did great today. She was an asset out there, and there are probably troopers alive right now because of her—because you saw something in her that others didn’t. Keep that sharp eye, Irish.”

  Irish looked over at where the CASPers were lined up. “Looks like I’m ready. Thanks, Lieutenant.” He rose, walked over to his CASPer, and mounted it without hesitation, his shoulders no longer slumped.

  Markus nodded to himself and tossed the rest of the coffee away. Any more of that, and he’d have a hole in his stomach worse than a MAC round.

  Hazard cleared his throat from behind Markus. “Quite a speech, Spartan.”

  Markus stood. “Thanks. Just seemed like he needed it.”

  Hazard clapped him on the shoulder. “Good job. We’ll turn you into a decent officer yet.”

  Markus chuckled and headed back over to his CASPer, shaking his head. “Okay, Hobo, you done yet? There’s work to do!”

  * * *

  After everyone had cycled through the rest and rearm station, the work shifted to repairing the walls and getting the defenses back online. Meanwhile, Sansar met with Major King in one of the command building’s conference rooms to decide on their next moves. While the top floors of the building had been destroyed by the cruise missile strike, the lower floors, thanks to Jeha engineering, were mostly intact and stable.

  The officers reviewed the after-action reports and determined they had come out fairly well, although they had lost quite a few of the intel team, including Sergeant Clark, who had gone out shoving Sergeant Baker out of the way to save her life. Surprisingly, though, some of the CASPers in the warehouse were going to be salvageable, and would be operational after some limited repairs, which would help bolster their defenses. The bottom line was that the base and space station had held, although they had lost quite a few troopers defending both of them.

  “So,” Major King asked, “do we go try to find their base, in case there are more of them?”

  Sansar considered for a moment and then nodded. “We have to. We can’t leave a Besquith base on the planet…and we have to figure out where those fighters came from. They had to have been based on the planet, unless there’s another ship hiding somewhere in system.”

  King nodded. “Okay, I’ll start drawing up a plan to deal with the Besquith…but how do we find out about the fighters without the War Pony in-system?”

  Sansar shrugged. “The only ship in-system is the Zuparti transport, and it’s not armed beyond basic anti-piracy weaponry. Happily, at least the battlecruiser has been dealt with; we’re lucky it turned out as well as it did.”

  King nodded. “That is a hell of a thing. A Besquith battlecruiser…that still gets me. The Besquith manning a battlecruiser? Just doesn’t seem right.”

  “I agree. I still haven’t figured that one out. Go ahead and draw up the plans for a patrol. I’d love to have Spartan’s new CASPer out there to help, but the power problems are bothering me. I’m afraid it’s going to have to stay here. Besides, it took some damage when the warehouse collapsed, and that’ll take time to repair.”

  King frowned. “I know. I really think it would help on a recon like this, but I agree. Last thing we need is a stranded CASPer out there. I do want to send him out though…”

  “He’s still technically intel, Major,” Sansar pointed out.

  “True, but did you see him out there? He’s still got it, and he’ll be damn careful about getting caught in an ambush,” King replied.

  “I’m worried about him, though. You didn’t see him standing over what was left of computer operations. It took me nearly a minute to get him to respond.”

  “Let’s get Lieutenant Quinn’s take on it. I was planning to send his platoon, or at least a squad from his platoon anyway,” King suggested.

  Sansar nodded. “Okay, get him in here as soon as he’s free.”

  King’s eyes grew distant for a moment, then she nodded. “He’s on his way.”

  Sansar reviewed the status of her troops and was pleasantly surprised. Spartan’s Hoplite idea was something to keep in mind for the future—hopefully, there would be time to work on it once the Besquith issue was sorted. Something like that would be great on a recon mission for trying to find an enemy compound.

  A moment later there was a knock at the door.

  “Come on in, Lieutenant,” Major King called.

  Hazard came in. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

  “Lieutenant,” Sansar said, “we need a platoon to go find out where the Besquith came from.”

  Hazard nodded. “A full platoon?” He shrugged. “We’re up to the task, ma’am, although I’ll have to fill in some from other platoons. We’re down quite a few.”

  “I know you are, Jacob. Everyone is.” King turned in her chair. “I was thinking about Spartan.”

  Hazard scratched his head but said nothing.

  “Have a seat, Lieutenant,” Sansar said, and indicated an empty chair.

  Hazard nodded and sat where indicated. “Ma’am, he did a great job today, no doubt…” His voice trailed off.

  Sansar leaned forward in her chair. “But?”

  He shrugged. “Markus is intel now. I mean, he did a hell of a job out there today…but should we be sending out a platoon under his command?” He raised a hand as King started to speak. “I’m not concerned about my position, ma’am. I know it wasn’t anything about me, and I know you’re tempted to see how he does leading a platoon…but he’s intel. The troopers will follow him—I have no doubt of that—I’m just concerned about long term. If he’s coming back, I’m all for it. We need troopers like him…but is he ready for it? Better yet, does he want to do it?”

  Sansar sighed. “We don’t know, Lieutenant. I value him in both places. He’s an excellent trooper and an amazing programmer. More importantly, though, he’s the kind of person I want out there today. It’s why I kept him after…you know. Would you want to go up against him?”

  King and Hazard both shook their heads. “Oh, hell no. Ma’am.” Hazard voiced his opinion.

  “Eloquent as always,” Sansar said.

  King nodded. “There’s not much else for him to do right now…the computer system is set up. We expected he’d be spending the rest of the contract working on the Hoplite, and I don’t want him sitting idle.”

  “Any reason he can’t keep workin
g on that, ma’am?” Hazard asked.

  “It took some damage when the warehouse went down…that’s going to take time to repair, and it’s not exactly our top priority right now.” Sansar noted.

  Hazard grimaced. “Without that CASPer of his, this could have been a lot worse. If we hadn’t had advance warning they were coming…”

  King nodded. “I’d call that an understatement, Jacob.”

  He nodded. “I’ve been keeping him busy since the attack. I know Carrie getting hurt got to him pretty good.”

  “And that’s my concern, Lieutenant,” Sansar said.

  Hazard leaned back in his chair. “Ma’am, you know how it goes. Everyone’s got that one something that’s going to get to them. I’ll say this, though; he didn’t hesitate to engage during the attack, and I’d trust him at my back any day. There’s no way he didn’t know she was buried under that rubble during the assault.”

  Sansar considered for a moment then stood. “Okay, Lieutenant. Take out the platoon. Have Spartan lead First Squad; he’s been working closely with them if I recall correctly?”

  Hazard nodded to Sansar as both he and Major King rose as well. “Yes, ma’am, what’s left of it, anyway. They’ve been doing well together. I think he even managed to get through to our problem child. Too bad she didn’t make it.”

  King nodded. “She was definitely turning around. Okay, sounds good to me. Make it happen.”

  They filed out of the room, and Hazard headed back toward the warehouse to get the platoon together.