Sons of the Lion

by Jason Cordova

  “Who you calling moolie, you stupid Euro?”

  A single shot from a MAC echoed out, missing Antonious’ head by three inches. The Liberian instinctively ducked as the tension suddenly ratcheted upwards. Every single member of the Korps was now targeting one of the Taranto S.R.L. CASPers with both MAC and shoulder mounted K-bombs. Only the strict discipline instilled upon them by Mulbah Luo and a general fear of Master Sergeant Oti kept them from returning fire.

  “That was a warning shot,” a cold voice informed Antonious. “The next one won’t miss.”

  “Leopard Six, Jackal Six. You hear that, menh?”

  “Copy, Jackal Six,” Samson replied, all business now the Italian CASPers had crossed the unspoken line. “Inbound now. Leopard Six, out.”

  Sonic booms cracked overhead as eleven objects fell from the sky at a terrifying rate. All of the Italian CASPers turned to look up. Antonious’ suit tracked their descent and saw the flatbed was their impact point. Taranto S.R.L. quickly realized this as well and began to move away from the truck as quickly as possible.

  The lead drop pod crashed through the flatbed, utterly destroying it, while driving portions of the steel frame into the concrete below it and into the island soil beneath it. The next pod impacted half a second later, the drop pod crushing the hitch joining the semi to the trailer. The force of the impact lifted the cab high into the air before it slammed back down to the pavement. The windows of the semi shattered from the impact and the engine crashed through the radiator grill in the front.

  Nine more drop pods hit the ground around the trailer, forming a nigh-impenetrable ring around the center pod. The doors dropped open and Mk 7 CASPers from 1st Company stepped out and trained their MACs onto the defending Italians. It was quickly apparent to all involved on the Korps side there was no way for Taranto S.R.L. to win if they tried to shoot their way out.

  “Alonzo!” a voice cried out from the CASPer in front of Antonious. The suit took a step toward the destroyed semi-truck then stopped. The CASPer driver turned and pointed his MAC directly at Antonious’ chest. “Cazzo di merde, bastardo!”

  The first MAC round punched straight through the CASPer’s chest armor and into Antonious’ shoulder, causing him to fall flat on his back as the force of the impact drove him off his feet. He gasped in pain as two more rounds punched through the legs of his suit, missing his legs by inches as they were diverted by the armor as they impacted. The rest of the rounds chewed up the pavement near his head as the Italian tried to finish off Antonious.

  “Open fire!” Antonious heard Samson call out. Suddenly San Pietro Island became a chaotic maelstrom as 1st Company shot Taranto S.R.L. from one direction and 2nd Company hit them from another, the crossfire destroying every Italian CASPers in seconds. Not a single shot was wasted by the Korps, nor a round errant. 2nd Company might get a bad rap for suffering more casualties than any other units within the Korps, but their abilities in a fight had never been questioned by Mulbah or the others.

  Someone knelt down next to Antonious and injected nanites into the suit to accelerate the healing process. He looked up and his Tri-V informed him it was Specialist Jon Taylor, his company medic. Struggling to breathe, Antonious began to thrash inside his cockpit. The medic quickly disabled the haptic relays within the suit so he could administer first aid.

  * * *

  Around them, the Korps began to take stock of the situation as a few began to sort through the dead. Fourteen ruined CASPers lay strewn about the pavement, smoke and dust rising from them as their systems failed one by one. The men and women inside had been torn to shreds by the magnetic accelerator cannons the Korps used as their primary weapons when laser rifles were simply not enough. There were no survivors. And, somehow, other than Antonious, not a single member of the Korps had been wounded.

  Captain Samson Tolbert sent men out to establish a perimeter near the entrance of Taranto S.R.L.’s base before walking over to check on Antonious. He saw his old compatriot was badly wounded but would likely survive. However, since the situation had escalated into a shooting match, Samson, as ranking officer at the scene, would have to report to Mulbah that his goal of not harming other Human mercs had failed.

  One thing he could not figure out was why the Italians decided to attack once it was clear to all involved they were ensnared and hopelessly outgunned. He looked at the mangled and ruined truck which had been carrying the flat trailer and walked around to the driver-side door. Using the additional strength of the CASPer, he grabbed the broken door and wrenched it open. It stuck, so he applied more power to behind his grip and ripped the door clear off the hinge. Tossing the ruined door aside, he looked in the cabin.

  There was a broken, crumpled body of a boy, perhaps fifteen, inside. It was obvious the teenager was dead from the amount of trauma on the body. A large chunk of metal had somehow broken off from the engine block and speared him clean through the heart. Blood had splashed everywhere in the interior, a testament to the force at which the boy had been struck by the rod. Samson seriously doubted the kid had even felt it before he died. He sighed, understanding now just why the Italians had attacked so quickly after he had dropped. This one was his fault, not 2nd Company’s or its captain. He had screwed up, bad.

  “Bass,” one of the suits from 2nd Company said as he approached. His pinplant showed the speaker as First Sergeant Victor Oti, Antonious’ “Top” in 2nd Company.

  “Yes, First Sergeant?” Samson asked as he stepped away from the ruined semi. He looked down at his hand and saw blood had stuck to the armor. He flicked his hand a little but the liquid clung defiantly, mockingly.

  “Bass, more underground,” the first sergeant said in a very heavy accent.

  Samson sighed. “Master Sergeant Oti, let your pinplant translate for you,” he instructed. The first sergeant was silent for a moment before he tried again.

  “Sorry, bass, I never knew about that,” he said, much clearer this time. “That’s very handy. I always felt a bit hamstrung by the limits of my English.”

  “Now try again.”

  “Bass, there are more of the mercs from Taranto S.R.L. inside their concrete bunker. They only sent out about one-third of their reported strength. We need to go into the bunker and clear them out. It’s going to be a nightmare under there, bass.”

  “We’re not going down there, First Sergeant,” Samson told him as he began to look around. The island was only a few feet above sea level, and the entrance to the bunker was only about 100 feet from shore. He was pretty sure if they could keep the concrete doors open, flushing out the mercs of Taranto S.R.L. would be a breeze. “I’ve got a better plan. Pass the message to 2nd Company to start digging a trench, eight feet deep and four wide, all the way to the shore.”

  “Bass, won’t the pavement keep the water from flowing into the bunker?” Master Sergeant Oti asked.

  Samson shook his head. “Let me handle that problem.”

  “Yes, bass,” Oti briefly snapped to attention before hurrying off. Samson sighed and took stock of the situation.

  It’s not going to get any easier from here, he thought as he closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he thought of what was still to come. Even if we get them out, they’re going to be pissed. Word will get out, too. The Portuguese mercs out of Lisbon are proud, very proud, and don’t like being overshadowed by the assault capabilities of Asbaran Solutions. They’ll fight harder than the Italians did.

  Such is life, he thought as he wandered away from his team a little to make the call to his boss. Mulbah was not going to be happy about this. Not one bit.

  * * *

  The Lion’s Gate, Freeport of Monrovia, Liberia District, Earth

  “This is absolute bullshit,” said Captain Zion Jacobs, 3rd Company, Kakata Korps. He growled dangerously as he eyed the two government-hired security guards. The men cowered as he looked at them, though it was not because of his steely gaze. Zion, for all his abilities, was not an intimidating man, standing barely five and
a half feet tall, and before his ophthalmic upgrades, had needed glasses.

  The two Mk 7 CASPers standing behind him, however, did the intimidating for him. Part of the Korps’ original five combat suits, they had been retrofitted to carry heavier armor and magnetic accelerator cannons on each arm, as well as a cluster of K-bomb launchers on each shoulder and mounts for small, laser-guided missiles, allowing Zion’s company to serve as a heavy weapons support company. These Mk 7s could dish out a lot of punishment from a distance; they were practically mobile artillery platforms the Korps could use in engagements.

  Mobility was the enemy of 3rd Company, however. Zion knew from experience he would have to make changes to the overall setup of the armaments. He loathed losing the heavy armor, so something else would have to go. The laser-guided missiles wouldn’t be much of a loss and would lessen the load of each CASPer by almost 18%. The reduction in weight would allow them to regain some of their lost maneuverability.

  The four MACs were pointed directly at the heads of the two men currently intruding in Zion’s personal space, and only orders from his boss were preventing him from eliminating them on the spot. That and because the subsequent cleanup of splattered Human remains would be tedious. Even so, it was a very tempting idea.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Jacobs…” the man on the left whined in a heavy coastal accent. Zion pegged him immediately as being from Salone, and his distaste grew. He really did not like the area, though if pressed he could never exactly say why.

  “It’s Captain Jacobs, Kakata Korps, 3rd Company Commander, sanctioned member of the Mercenary Guild,” he said his official title as he stepped forward menacingly. “And your presence here is beginning to irritate me. If you leave now, I won’t have the boys behind me start shooting.”

  “That would be illegal!” the second squeaked. Zion eyed him and nodded.

  “Shooting at someone is illegal,” he corrected. “As a lawyer, registered as such in both the United States and Liberia, I will remind my clients that shooting randomly is perfectly legal and within their rights as members of the Mercenary Guild who happen to be testing their equipment. However, if two government gawnnas accidentally wander into their firing range while they are conducting their tests…there’s no way we can be held responsible for an accident, ken? Guild Law protects us in this regard. Guild Law usurps any law of Earth, menh.”

  The two men shared a look and quickly left the premises, leaving a very disappointed Zion behind. He turned and looked at the duo in the CASPer suits.

  “Okay, secure the compound and make sure they didn’t ‘appropriate’ anything in the name of the government,” Zion ordered, sighing deeply. “Have the rest of the men double-check the outside fence. I need to find out what happened to our site security.”

  “Yes, bass,” Master Sergeant Christian Nuhu, his senior NCO, said from within his CASPer. “Want someone with you?”

  “I’m fine,” Zion told him as he pinched the bridge of his nose, a pained expression on his face. “They’re not hanging around, and word has spread already that we’re back. They’ll be running like rabbits.”

  “What do you want us to do, bass?” Nuhu asked.

  Zion sighed. “I’m not happy with what the government was doing here. I want to find out why they weren’t in their designated areas, what they probably stole, and where our hired help went. Not necessarily in that order.”

  “Got it, bass,” the master sergeant said and turned to look at the other CASPer. “Sergeant Bayed, you heard the captain, break into teams of three men each. I want Sergeant Kepah on perimeter, you secure the warehouse, and have Corporal Williams start inspecting the seals on all the boxes. I’m going to check the armory.”

  As the two CASPers lumbered away, Zion felt the beginnings of a headache form in his frontal lobe. Blaming stress, he walked through the disheveled warehouse, taking particular note of what had been ransacked and what had simply been destroyed by the looters.

  Zion’s first sign of trouble as they had approached the Kakata Korps headquarters was when he spotted the graffiti on the massive stone lion Mulbah had put up at the former main gate. The Liberian flag which had hung from it was also gone. Only after some inventive swearing and cursing did he notice the sentries who were supposed to be guarding the Lion’s Gate weren’t there. The Korps were assigned a relief force, courtesy of the Liberian government, to watch over their main base and storage site while the mercenary company was off-world. There were also supposed to be hired guards the Korps had paid for out of its own pocket, none of whom could be seen anywhere. Dismounting from the transport, Zion ordered 3rd Company to spread out while he investigated the guard shack just outside the gate.

  Unsurprisingly, all the radio equipment had been ripped out. The slates, which were to be used by whoever was on duty at the time, were both gone. Even the motorized gate opener had been stolen, leaving the chain-link fence perched precariously on the rail, and could only be opened manually by Zion and his men. The security cameras on top of the posts, as small and innocuous as Galactic tech could make them, had been pilfered as well.

  Once they opened the main gate, 3rd Company proceeded onto the base, covering a lot of ground in a hurry. When they reached the warehouse, they stumbled upon two men in the process of ransacking a small crate of unidentified goods Zion was almost certain had once been filled with slates. This angered him, since the crate of slates alone had been worth the national GDP of the five neighboring nations around Liberia.

  Zion wanted the storage warehouse secured first, since everything in the Korps HQ building was under gene-lock and could only be opened by one of the Korps’ five officers. The warehouse, where everything which made the Korps capable of deploying on a contract within hours, was far more vulnerable. It was most of the reason why they had agreed to the government’s proposal of national guardsmen on their base. Not leaving the Korps much of an option in the matter, since not-so-subtle threats of “economic sanctions” had been tossed around by the sleazy representative from the Treasury Department, Mulbah and Zion had been forced to acquiesce.

  As Zion prowled through the ruins of the warehouse, he began to wonder if those aforementioned sanctions would have been cheaper than replacing everything that had been destroyed by looters and only God knew who else. Given the fact quite a few of their goods—which had been stored on pallets—were all gone, including said pallets, suggested the Liberian government had probably been in on the theft as much as the regular criminals had. That was pure speculation, however, since thievery on a scale as grand as what had happened here could be accomplished by either side, as long as they had the proper tools and a flatbed truck to haul it all away in. Which was upsetting, Zion found as he walked along.

  Sometimes the only difference between what type of crook the Korps dealt with was whether the individual was elected or not.

  Times like this were when Zion had to reach down deep inside himself and find a quiet place, lest he go crazy and start butchering politicians in the streets. With a CASPer and a company of men backing him up, he could potentially turn Liberia into an anarchist’s paradise in short order.

  Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe. At least we’re not Somalia. Not yet. Just breathe or you’re going to stroke out.

  “Goshawk Six, this is Goshawk Four Romeo,” a voice came over Zion’s pinplants.

  “Go ahead, Four Romeo,” Zion responded as a mental image of Corporal Koffe Dayo was helpfully brought up by his pinplant, as well as his position in Second Squad. The rage was fading slowly into the background as his mind focused on something other than bloodshed and dismemberment.

  “Bass, we caught some looters near the back of the warehouse,” Corporal Dayo informed him. He sounded troubled to Zion, which was odd. The NCO from Burkina Faso was not a man who was disturbed by much, as he was one of the many who had seen his home country go to hell in a hand basket at an early age.

  “Handle it,” Zion said in a terse voice.

  “I
can’t, bass.”

  “What?” Zion blinked, confused. This was not like the corporal at all. “What’s wrong, Corporal?”

  “Bass…I don’t know how to handle this. Requesting official assistance, over.”

  Zion blinked. The men of Kakata Korps were getting better at their radio discipline, but as far as he knew nobody had ever requested official assistance on any matter while in 3rd Company. Mulbah gave his officers quite a bit of leeway to handle issues as they cropped up, and Zion had taken this tactic and applied it to the unusual formation of his company. It had proved to be an effective tactic in team building and caused many previously unheralded privates to ascend the ranks. He trusted his NCOs almost as much as Mulbah trusted Zion’s command of 3rd Company.

  “Copy, Corporal,” Zion replied as he brought up a mental image of the warehouse. He pinged the GPS on Corporal Dayo’s CASPer and found him almost immediately on the opposite side of the 50,000 square foot warehouse. He swore softly. “Be there in five. Hold them prisoner until I arrive, over.”

  “Roger, bass. Dayo, out.”

  “I wonder what the hell is this all about?” Zion whispered as he began the long trek to the other end of the massive warehouse. Warehouse Zero was one of the few buildings the Korps had left standing when they bought the old shipyards from the government; they had left the name alone while doing a lot of work around the property and beyond. Even a small starport had been built, albeit with the reluctant approval of the now-former president and his congress. The bribe alone had been enough to fund the government for almost six entire months, before the first run of increased taxes had kicked in.

  Of course, none of the citizenry outside of Monrovia’s city limits had seen any of those credits. Zion wasn’t about to point fingers and blame anybody, but he had spotted Liberia’s previous president’s newest personal yacht just off the coast before their last deployment, and it happened to have been filled with many young, beautiful women, so he had plenty of suspicions. The argumentative contract lawyer in him screamed bloody murder every single time the Liberian government ratified a new levy on Earth-based mercenary units who happened to headquarter in Liberia. Lo and behold, there just happened to be only one such company who was stupid—or patriotic, Zion could never be sure—enough to do this. Color him shocked at this random and completely surprising development.