Rikas Marauders
Page 103
“Having fun yet, Lieutenant?” Rika asked.
“Gobs, Colonel,” Karen replied, glancing at Leslie and Alice. “Brought the whole gang, eh?”
“Yup. Yig’s outside, giving Aaron and his folks a hand. How are things looking on the ground?”
“Just peachy,” Karen replied as she took aim with her GNR, firing a sabot round at a distant target. “Chase is staying on the right flank with the B’muth, and Lieutenant Chris and Staff Sergeant Kristian are on the left flank, which has been taking a pounding. The Niets really want to take down the walkers.”
“They massing in the center at all?” Rika asked as she tapped the platoon’s forward feeds and surveyed the Nietzschean formations on the far side of Bridge Street.
“Hard to say,” Karen replied. “They’re hitting the flanks harder, but not as hard as they could be, based on what we’ve seen. Granted, it could be that Smalls’ shots killed more of them than expected.”
“Like things ever go that way,” Lieutenant Colonel Alice interjected snidely. “They’ll be building up, waiting for us to pull troops to reinforce the flanks. Then they’ll hit us in the center and split our force.”
Rika nodded.
It made sense. The Niets had far greater numbers, and they were treating the mechs like a conventional enemy, expecting that they could simply overwhelm them.
The problem with the enemy’s logic was that, numbers-wise, the mechs were already overwhelmed, but still holding steady. Just under one hundred Marauders were facing off against at least five thousand Niets that were holed up in the city center, maybe more.
Being at a numerical disadvantage was where her people shone.
“Sounds like the perfect time to punch through their lines,” Rika said. “Care to scout ahead, Leslie?”
Leslie chuckled, her shoulders rising and falling twice before her body disappeared, rendered invisible by her stealth flow armor.
“We’ll follow in five,” Rika said as she looked over at the mechs and Alice. “Everyone green on stealth capability? I want to get behind their lines before we hit them.”
“I got tagged a few times,” Karen reported. “Left side is repairing—gotta love ISF tech—but I’m only seventy percent effective.”
“OK,” Rika glanced out the windows at the hundred-meter stretch of road between them and Bridge Street. “You stay here and keep up pretenses. We’ll keep to the left side of the road, so take your pot shots on the right side.”
“And Leslie?” Karen asked. “Will she be on the left side, too?”
Alice cocked an eyebrow. “She’s already off-comms. Going to have get out there to tell her to stay left, Colonel.”
A burst of air slipped past Rika’s lips. “Don’t worry about Leslie, she’ll already be on the rooftops. That woman never travels on the ground if she can help it.”
Five minutes later, Rika and Alice left Karen’s command post, joined by Tex, Kelly, Shoshin, and Keli. Gunnery Sergeant Aaron elected to stay behind with Karen.
Rika signaled Corporal Yig, instructing him to take Goob, Cole, and Fiona over the rooftops on the right side of the street, but to stay away from the edges.
When they reached the southern side of Bridge Street, Rika flashed a single pulse to her team, ordering them to halt, and considered her options.
Bridge street was a wide thoroughfare, easily seventy meters across, with a park occupying the central boulevard. Rock formations, water features, and abstract art filled the park area, and just a cursory look identified several Niets tucked into the landscape. A sweep with her IR overlay showed a total of thirty-seven, but she imagined there were more of them out there.
She sent another ping to the team, this one telling them to switch to random scramble channel A8.
Yig and Kelly sent acknowledgements, and then Rika eased out from cover and began to carefully cross the street.
It had been late the previous night when the Marauders dropped on Memphis, and few civilians had been out and about when Rika’s platoons hit the dirt—courtesy of a surprise drop that was aided by the fact that the Niets still didn’t know Rika’s stolen ships were no longer crewed by Nietzscheans.
She imagined that this would be the last time they could use that particular bit of subterfuge. The chaos caused in the Nietzschean fleets by the Battle of Albany could only last so long.
The result, however, was that most of the civilians had been at home when the fighting started—something Rika had planned on, what with Kansas having once been a Genevian world—and the streets were clear of any vehicles.
With only a short time on the ground, Rika had not been in contact with any local Genevian leaders—or resistance, if there was any. She hoped that when the dust settled, the Genevians would be in a position to take control of their world and, in short order, their star system.
Although, if they weren’t, the Marauders would still have to move on. If the people couldn’t rise up and take what was theirs, she couldn’t stay and coddle them. The attack on Kansas was primarily for intel; intel that would be in the local Nietzschean command’s databases—and possibly their commanders’ heads.
Rika breathed a sigh inside her helmet.
She checked over her new ISF-issued AC9CR rifle to make sure it was ready to do her dirty work, then and began to cross the road. Thanks to the ISF stealth tech, she had made it across the eastbound side of Bridge Street and stepped onto the curb, creeping along the sidewalk until she reached a paved pathway that ran across the grassy expanse.
She had to step more carefully on the hard surface, but it was her best option, since her feet would sink deep into the loamy soil and crush the grass—a dead giveaway to any observant Nietzschean.
She’d made it five meters along the path when a pair of Nietzscheans rose from behind a statue nearby and walked toward her.
Her first instinct was to shoot them where they stood, but she stayed her hand, knowing it would give the entire group’s advance away.
Rika shifted to stand at the very edge of the path, the two Niets passing within centimeters of her as they strode past. As they moved toward the street, Rika saw more Niets slip out of cover, and move across the park to the street.
Rika chuckled.
Karen replied with an affirmative ping, and Rika sent a double pulse to her team, in
forming them that the time to reach their assigned positions just halved.
Which meant she had three minutes to make it to her spot.
Tex and Alice’s acknowledgements put them ahead of her, on another path that ran across the center boulevard. Rika walked as quickly as she dared down her own path, avoiding another dozen Niets as she went, before crossing the northern side of Bridge Street and moving down the adjacent street to the furniture store.
That would be where the enemy was coordinating the assault from. Her group would disrupt things there, while Yig and Kelly’s fireteams would knock the Nietzschean company on its ass.
Three minutes later, Rika was at the entrance to the furniture store. Alice and Tex pinged their locations, and she marked them on her HUD.
Tex was front and center, ready to blast his way past the barricades the Niets had set up on the street. Rika considered reminding him that it wasn’t the best use of his stealth gear, but decided that it would provide one hell of a distraction, and she could use it to her advantage.
Alice was situated atop the building across the street from the furniture store. The out-of-the-way position didn’t surprise Rika overmuch—she was still shocked that Alice hadn’t put up a fight about coming along in the first place.
For her part, Rika had decided to slip into the furniture store itself, easing past the door when a Nietzschean soldier walked out. Within, she saw several low-ranking officers milling around the front. She carefully moved through their midst and into a section of the store displaying artful seating arrangements—some of which had Nietzscheans sitting in them.
Rika saw the black obelisk in a far corner of the room and nodded.
Near the NSAI was an ornate wooden table with two majors and a colonel standing next to it. A holodisplay above the table showed their view of the battlefield, and Rika was glad to see that it largely reflected the strengths and positions she had believed the Niets to hold. It also vastly overestimated the number of Marauders out on the southern side of Bridge Street.
From what she could see, the Niets didn’t believe that the force they were fighting consisted exclusively of mechs. Even more amusing was that they’d tagged several mech fireteams as entire platoons—and in one case, a whole company—of soldiers.
Her statement was interrupted by a Nietzschean suddenly rising from a nearby couch and walking right into her, spilling a cup of coffee across her stealthed form.
“What the…” he said, stumbling backward. “Intruder!”
She knew she had only seconds before the Niets all spotted her. Relying on Niki to send out the call to the Marauders to begin the assault, Rika backhanded the soldier who had ruined her cover, while simultaneously firing three quick shots at the officers standing next to the wooden table.
The first two rounds punched holes in the heads of the colonel and one of the majors, but the third major—a brutish-looking woman—moved with surprising speed, and ducked behind the table.
Rika had no time to go after the Niet, as rounds struck her armor from a dozen shooters. She pulled her AC9CR rifle off her shoulder, and fired on the closest group of Nietzscheans.
Her opening salvo of rail-shot was punctuated by the front of the store exploding in a hail of brick, steel, and glass.
Rika tapped Alice’s feeds to see that the lieutenant colonel was still atop the building across the street. After Tex’s explosive entrance, there weren’t many Niets standing out there, but she was keeping the remaining few suppressed.
Trying not to be actively disgusted with Alice, Rika pulled up the feeds from Kelly’s and Yig’s teams, noting with satisfaction that they’d hit the enemy in the rear right as the Nietzscheans had finished crossing Bridge Street, but before they had formed up to advance down the adjacent avenues.
Even though it was only nine mechs against nearly two hundred enemies, Rika considered the odds to be just about even.
The AI laughed.
Rika’s HUD showed no more motion in the room, though EM still pinged from the armor of several of the soldiers. And of course there was the major who was hidden under the table, apparently thinking Rika still couldn’t see her.
Rika kept an eye peeled for any hidden enemies while moving toward the NSAI tower. Once there, she placed a breach kit on one of the data access ports, and let Niki get to work. She followed along with what the AI was doing, enjoying her newfound ability to understand the quantum intelligence’s actions.
While picking up some new tricks from the AI, Rika turned to the planning table and the Nietzschean officer below it.
“I can see you,” she growled. “You’re the last woman standing; no one’s coming to help.”
The Niet didn’t reply, and Rika reached under the table and fired a light pulse blast from the emitter in her left hand.
A muffled cry came in response, and then a wavering voice followed. “OK, OK. I’m coming out. No need to pummel me.”
Rika snorted and took a step back, glancing toward Tex, who was approaching through the furniture store. “Don’t give me ideas.”
The stocky woman emerged and scrambled to her feet, pressing her butt against the table as she sought to put as much distance as possible between herself and Rika’s towering form.
Tex grunted, and gestured for the Niet to come around the table. “Get over here, squishie. It’s your lucky day.”
“Lucky?” the woman asked as she edged around the table.
“Yeah! Colonel Rika, here, told me I’m not allowed to rip out your spine, so you get to keep wasting air.”
The Niet swallowed loudly as Rika turned her attention to the table’s holodisplay.
Rika’s HUD showed Potter’s overview of M Company’s status: Yig and Kelly had pinned the Niets across Bridge Street, where Karen and Aaron and elements of second squad had caught them in a vise. Several groups of the enemy had already surrendered, though a few squads were holding out against the pummeling that the mechs were delivering.
into her mind.
The holo before Rika lit up as Leslie spoke, showing a brigade moving in from the city center. She cursed silently while reviewing Leslie’s feed.
When the new enemy forces reached Bridge Street, the mechs would be forced to either retreat, or engage in a level of combat that would be detrimental to the city and the civilians hiding in their homes and businesses.
A laugh slipped past Rika’s lips.
Rika looked at the view before her on the map, noting that most of the businesses on the north side of Bridge Street would be empty.
She chuckled, shaking her head.
Chase sent a long groaning sound.
Chase groaned.