“Zavage, Zy Pel, notice anything strange about that infantry?”
“Yeah.” Zy Pel spoke with relish. “They aren’t legionaries.”
“Speculate. What are we facing?”
“Rebels in captured suits,” suggested Zavage. “If those newts were given force shields, why not give humanoids Legion armor?”
Zy Pel wasn’t listening. He threw back his hood and sniffed deeply at the frozen air. He shook his head and replaced the hood over a face already burned red by the brief exposure to the cold. “Don’t know,” he said. “Can’t be sure.”
Before Osu could question the man further, they ducked instinctively in the deep hollow as the clear skies cracked with thunder.
“Aircraft inbound from western horizon,” Stryker announced. “Twelve Saturn bombers with Falcon escorts. I estimate forty fighters.”
Below their concealed position, the suspect legionaries were staring at the incoming aircraft, mostly in a very un-Legion level of consternation. The soldier with the personal missile launcher was one of the few to act like a professional. He dropped his tube onto the snow and began to swap out his load, pulling a round from the store on his back.
It was painted with a blue band. Surface-to-air munition.
The man took a knee and readied to fire at the incoming aircraft.
“We’ve got to help.” Stryker sounded shaky.
“Keep it together,” snapped Osu. “We stay on mission.”
“Why aren’t they firing?” said Zavage.
Good question. The camp had anti-air defenses that would extract a high blood cost from the Saturn bombers if they dared to attack. Missile strikes would have to penetrate a formidable point defense grid backed up by the other smaller forts that surrounded the all-important dig site.
So why weren’t they firing?
The throb of powerful engines resonated in Osu’s chest. The Saturns were coming in low for tactical bombing. Either their pilots were suicidal, or they had a reason to be so confident.
A few missiles rose from the legionaries running to man the camp defenses, but it was a pitifully ragged response. Below Osu’s position, the soldier with the SAM ready seemed to realize that his unit was not the target and held his fire, jogging for cover in the trees.
Even through the optical wizardry of his goggles and binocs, it was difficult to see what was happening in the air as the fast-moving aircraft screamed in against the backdrop of a huge sun setting in a blood red sky.
A fireball bloomed overhead. One of the attackers had been dusted, but fighter or bomber, he couldn’t tell.
But if it was difficult to see the results of the battle in the sky, on the ground it was hideously apparent.
The turret guns thundered as they fired upon their own camp.
Accommodation blocks exploded into a twisting plume of dust, and flame.
Two turrets combined fire to blow out the southern wall from the inside.
And all around, legionaries were running, shooting back, and trying to coordinate a defense in a crazy situation where friend had become foe. Mostly, though, they were dying.
Another thunderclap announced yet more aircraft entering the battle as the first wave of Falcons screamed in, shooting plasma bursts at ground targets, not only in the main camp, but burning up the secondary forts too.
Plasma guns were usually only effective in space, because in a planetary atmosphere you had to close to within spitting distance to get maximum effect. But with the air defenses off-line, that’s what the Falcons were doing, coming in so low over the trees that their crowns were flattening before diving inside the camp walls and hurling gouts of burning plasma over helpless legionaries.
The treacherous main guns paused to avoid hitting the aircraft. Then they resumed fire the moment their target zones were clear.
Not one of the northern turrets, though. It collapsed, toppling outward and throwing up an enormous dust cloud.
And maybe the legionaries weren’t entirely helpless. The air crackled with small arms fire from Camp Faxian. Two of the first wave of Falcons emerged from their strafing run with smoke belching from their engines. One exploded as it tried to regain the air; the other crashed into the trees, which began blazing with fire despite the cold and ice.
Another of the camp’s main guns fell silent, fingers of smoke curling up from the turret.
The others continued to rain destruction.
Osu’s team was stunned into silence. His every instinct screamed to disobey orders and go to the aid of their comrades in the camp, but what could they achieve?
The bombers were almost over the target zone.
“Colonel’s Retaliation, Colonel’s Retaliation, this is Colonel’s Remorse.” The voice came over the general broadcast frequency. “Do not respond to this message. Proceed to objective without deviation.”
The voice was automatically neutralized to make identification of the speaker more difficult. They hadn’t exchanged call signs for this operation, but this had to be Malix himself.
High in the sky, bombardiers rained down bombs.
Bombs, not missiles? Fuck! That could only mean one thing. Nukes.
“Colonel’s Retaliation, Colonel’s Retaliation, this is Colonel’s Remorse. Do not respond. Proceed to objective without deviation. Colonel’s Retaliation–”
Someone threw Osu to the bottom of the hollow a moment before the first of the bombs hit Faxian.
Even with eyes squeezed tightly shut behind his goggles, the explosions were so intense, so bright, it felt as if an army of powerful flashlights had been switched on inside his skull. Giant hands slapped his brain and pummeled the air out of his lungs. He sensed a wave of heat howling overhead, but the hollow protected them from the worst of it. In fact, he realized, the hollow had probably saved their lives.
All of them were staring at the bikes and their toxicity sensors. If they started flaring rad-alerts, then all of them would die from radiation sickness long before they reached Bresca-Brevae and this Captain Fitzwilliam.
The seconds ticked by. The bikes stayed silent.
Through lungs seared and bruised, the legionaries began to breathe more easily.
They might not live out this day, but it wouldn’t be radiation that killed them.
Osu looked out over the devastation.
Mushroom clouds expanded over holes in the forest where the secondary forts had stood. A much larger column twisted over Camp Faxian, its cap expanding lazily into the bloody sky.
“Nydella,” he groaned.
Of the five outer walls of the base, two were blown out completely. Where moments before they had been gleaming like burnished gold, now they were scorched and dull.
Incredibly, Osu could see a few dazed survivors moving through the ruins.
Survivors… Nydella might still be alive!
“We’ve got to help them,” Stryker screamed. He jumped onto his bike and drove it off the edge of the glacier.
NEXT ISSUE: Surrounded!
ISSUE 2
OSU SYBUTU
Oso Sybutu’s world had broken.
The heat from the irradiated firestorm he called home licked at his face through the opening in his cloak’s hood.
The main guns had turned inward.
In the woods below his position on the glacier’s edge, phony legionaries swarmed north on an unknown agenda.
We have been betrayed.
And Sapper of the Legion Stryker had just ridden his bike off the sheer edge of the glacier.
“Sarge!”
Osu didn’t know what to do next.
Hic manebimus optime.
Hold the line.
Hic manebimus optime. The legionary motto.
The Legion had excavated a desiccated language – long dead even before the Scramble for Earth – and found a saying they had made their own.
We are here. That’s what the words meant in the original Latin. We’re gonna make a success of this place. And we ain’t budging for nobo
dy.
These were history’s earliest recorded words spoken by a legionary. The first legionary… It made for a good story and the Legion lived for its ancient tales of glory even those borrowed from the ancients: the Czech Legion and the Romans.
That suited him just fine because Osu was Legion to his core. Cut him open, and you would find the guinshrike emblem stamped onto his bones.
Hic manebimus optime.
Hold the line.
He steeled his nerves and forced himself to look into the mushroom cloud above Camp Faxian.
“We are Legion,” he told it. “We’re not done here. We’re just getting started.”
Then he scrambled out of the hollow so he could lay his body over the edge of the glacier and look down.
Until very recently, a single sheet of ice must have covered the entire region, but as the climate warmed and the ice receded, it had left behind a block on top of a rocky outcropping that dropped forty feet to the forest below.
Osu watched, horrified, as Stryker completed a near-vertical descent. He’d picked the man for his bike handling skill, but this was something else. Stryker had dipped his ride’s nose and was surfing a cushion of repulsive force down to the base of the slope. At the bottom, he sprayed snow over the figures in legionary armor as he kicked down into an abrupt halt.
If anyone else had attempted that, they’d have broken their necks. Only one problem. Although the soldiers Stryker had joined in such a dramatic arrival had appeared as stunned by the air attack on Camp Faxian as Osu’s team, that didn’t mean they were friendly.
Actually, that wasn’t the only problem. Zy Pel was gesturing to the west where a gray army was swarming across the cleared zone around the camp and advancing on its ruins. They were newts. Hundreds, maybe more. And they were gunning down anything that moved.
First things first. Since Stryker hadn’t broken his neck, they’d better go rescue him.
Urdizine and Yergin were already on their bikes, ready to take the longer way down to join Stryker.
“Wait! Don’t let yourself be seen.”
The two on the bikes looked around at Osu as if he’d gone mad.
“I know that’s legionary combat armor down there, but I don’t know who or what is wearing it. We will hope they’re friendlies but assume they’re not. Zavage, join Urdizine and Yergin. Work your way down their right flank. Zy Pel will do the same with me on the left. I want a closer look.”
As Osu was activating his bike, they were all blown flat against the snow as enemy Falcons screamed over their heads heading east, their force keels bending trees and raising a cloud of fine snow in their wake.
The sappers dusted themselves off and descended the slope with their bikes in stealth mode.
During the Orion Era, equipment running stealth mode had been completely invisible to the eye and even to the most powerful sensors. It sounded fanciful today, but the accounts of the tactical doctrine that resulted were so detailed that Osu believed them. As he circled left, with Zy Pel following in the footsteps his boots had punched into the snow, the bike’s motor ran near silently. Osu held it by the handles, putting its snow-camo body between him and the suspicious legionaries.
This was the extent of stealth mode in the modern era.
Whoever Stryker had ridden into, they were more interested in him than in keeping watch. Osu was within a hundred yards and still hadn’t been seen. Stryker was gesticulating and shouting at the mystery soldiers, unable to understand why they wanted to head north and not west to help any survivors at Camp Faxian.
They certainly didn’t seem alert enough to be intercepting comms. “Zavage,” Osu called over the radio. “What’s your status? Over.”
“Inside tree line due east of Stryker. We saw a few stragglers deeper in the trees, but whoever they are, they look like they’ve moved off to the north.”
Without warning, the soldiers around Stryker sprang into life, leaping onto the sapper and dragging him off his mount and into the snow.
“Zavage,” radioed Osu, “move your team in and grab our man. We’ll cover.”
Using their bikes sideways-on as cover, he and Zy Pel sighted targets in the uneven struggle going on in the snow. Stryker was doing his best to give his attackers hell, but whatever they really were, they wore Legion armor with muscle amplifiers, and they outnumbered him five-to-one.
What made Osu hold his fire was their reaction after they had Stryker upright in the snow with arms and legs pinned. They just held him there, as silent and as motionless as Stryker’s occasional lunges for freedom would allow.
Waiting.
Waiting for what?
Not waiting for anyone to come rescue their captive, that was for sure. A single bike approached silently from the tree line beyond. They didn’t appear to notice it. But Osu did. He noticed the absence of the other two bikes even more. Where are they?
“This is Zavage,” came the answer over the radio. “We’ve sighted more of them in the woods. Estimate company strength. So far, they seem more interested in getting north quickly than engaging us, but we’re keeping an eye on them while Yergin moves in to snatch Stryker.”
From the forest to the north emerged three figures in legionary armor. Osu took the one in the middle to be an officer. Stryker’s captors shuffled him around to face the ‘officer’, pulling back his hood to reveal Stryker’s snarling face.
“That’s right,” Osu muttered to himself. “Keep your eyes on your boss.” Then in a clear voice he added, “Zy Pel, when Yergin moves in, take the shot on the officer.”
“I have the shot,” replied the team’s marksman. “Holy skragg… not again!”
Osu couldn’t see what was getting Zy Pel worked up.
But there was no time to ask. As if the situation weren’t already weird enough, the VIP walked to within touching distance of Stryker and removed her helm.
She was a Kurlei. Gray, narrow face with razor-sharp cheekbones, oversized eyes, and empathetic head fronds like metal-sheathed fishy dreadlocks. Same rare species as Zavage, who would flirt with anything carrying a pulse, irrespective of species or gender, but was so terrified of the females of his race that he would lock himself away rather than encounter them.
Yergin gunned his bike and sped in to make the rescue.
Osu steadied his blaster sights on one of the Kurlei’s escorts and whispered, “Zy Pel, take the shot.”
As soon as he heard the crack of the slug thrower rifle next to him, he pulled on his blaster’s trigger. Bolts sizzled through the air, but Osu already knew he’d missed and so too had Zy Pel.
A pressure wave was pushing from behind, ramming his cheek against the saddle of the bike he was using as cover. Then a scream of protesting air assailed his ears as a flight of fighters flew low overhead in pursuit of the aircraft who’d destroyed his home, the oversized force keels revealing them to be FVA-7 Spikeballs.
He picked himself up from the toppled bike he’d sprawled over and resighted on a confusing scene. The Kurlei’s escorts had picked themselves up from the snow and were trying to protect her with their bodies, facing outward at the new threats. Those who had grabbed Stryker now opened up his clothing, baring his chest to the Kurlei officer who was rubbing her face in the man’s flesh.
What was she doing? He couldn’t take the shot; she was too close to Stryker. So he poured blaster bolts into one of the escorts.
Beside him, Zy Pel was muttering in horror. “Not again. Not again. Not here. Not now.” But he kept it together enough to put three rounds into the other escort, who staggered back.
Exposed now, the Kurlei officer was revealed as a creature from hell. Its jaw had extended until its chin was now a sharp spike. But it was her teeth that transfixed him. She was sprouting huge canine fangs before his eyes. As she licked her growing fangs with her long tongue, she opened her arms as if in prayer and sniffed greedily at the frozen air.
She appeared oblivious to the weapons fire. Her only desire was to sink those fangs
into Stryker’s flesh.
Yergin flew in at speed, spraying the group with blaster fire and knocking the ring of captors around Stryker into the snow.
Osu and Zy Pel poured fire into the enemy who had been thrown clear of Stryker.
But it was not over yet. At this range and against legionary armor, Osu’s blaster was not delivering kill shots, and Zy Pel’s rifle was faring only a little better. Yergin was deadlier, firing into armor weak spots at a range measured in mere inches.
From the woods over to the east erupted scattered bursts of blaster and railgun fire. It sounded like Urdizine and Zavage were too occupied to help any time soon.
“We need to get closer,” said Osu, and mounted his bike, ready to drive into the fray.
The enemy seemed confused by the sudden close quarters combat, but not the Kurlei. She employed the renowned athleticism of her race to jump through the melee as Yergin kicked and fired his way through to Stryker. She landed on the bike’s control panel beneath the handlebars, facing the sapper.
Zy Pel – the man who would keep calm in the direst circumstances, more than any legionary Osu had ever known – gave such a scream of horror that Osu’s blood turned to ice.
Osu abandoned Zy Pel, driving his bike straight at the enemy.
Yergin’s advance had stalled under the blows of railgun stocks raining on his head. Stryker had his hands around the Kurlei’s waist, trying to tug her away from the bike, but she kept an unbreakable hold around Yergin, her face buried inside his cloak as if feeding upon his flesh.
“No!” yelled Zy Pel as Osu slammed his bike into two of the enemy with a sideswipe against the backs of their knees.
Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set Page 6