by James Evans
The two railguns spat at almost the same time and the top of the Can crumpled in a spray of sparks. For a moment the street was quiet, then the Can exploded, sending gouts of flame into the air.
“Your secret weapon was a psychopathic Marine?” said Denmead, outraged at the hideous risk of the plan, “What if it hadn’t worked or he’d been killed before he placed the bomb? What if he had tripped and fallen flat on his face?”
Atticus shrugged as the Marines piled into the factory, clearly pleased with their day’s work. “Technically not a bomb, more of an improvised white phosphorous incendiary device that. But in answer to your question, Governor, if he had failed we would have tried something else,” Atticus said simply, “and now we know this works, we’ll find a safer delivery method. Drones, for example.”
“Why didn't you let the snipers kill the pilot then?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
He coughed, looking slightly embarrassed, “It wasn't a courtesy I'm afraid. He's injured and a burden to them. If they want to put him in another of those suits, they either have to wait for him to heal...”
“Or they have to kill him so they can redeploy him,” she said, finishing his unspoken thought.
“Yeah. It's not very sporting but these chaps aren’t really playing cricket,” he said apologetically.
Another squad of Marines came into the factory, Marine X at their head.
“Good work, Marine X,” said Atticus.
“Thank you, Sir, although we lost Wilson when that bastard turned the flamethrower on us. We just weren’t fast enough pulling back. Sorry, Sir.”
Atticus nodded. His HUD already showed Wilson’s status as ‘Awaiting Deployment’, meaning that her backup was queued and ready to be loaded into a new body.
“I’ll talk to Wilson once she’s back on her feet,” said Atticus, “remind her that we prefer our NCOs raw rather than barbecued. The rest of you,” he said, turning around, “fall back, we’re done here.”
15
“Lieutenant? You’re ok, Sir, just a bit of a bump. How many fingers am I holding up?”
Warden tried to focus but everything was a blur, and his ears were ringing.
“Sir, I’m going to flush your eyes out. Try and keep them open, you’ve probably got some dust in there from the explosion but this ought to help,” the voice said. A damp cloth was wiped gently across his face then water was splashed over his eyes. As it ran off, Warden found his focus returning and his eyes began to feel better as he blinked them clear. A water bottle was pressed into his hand, and he swilled some around his mouth then spat it out, repeating several times to clear the taste of dirt and the gritty sensation, then he took several deep gulps.
“Again, Sir. Can you tell how many fingers I’m holding up?”
“Yes, I can Goodwin, thanks,” Warden said.
Goodwin leaned back and said, “Ok, you’re shouting but there’s no blood coming from your ears so I think you’ll be fine. Let’s put your HUD back on. Set it to compensation mode and let it establish a baseline for audio and compensate for your hearing loss.”
Warden nodded consent and Goodwin helped him fit his HUD back on. Immediately the sound around him quietened and he selected an option to confirm exposure to an explosion. The HUD ran a diagnostic hearing test with him and then began to filter external noises to help him recover. Speech became clearer and a flood of data started to come in.
“What happened?” he asked, still a little confused about recent events.
“The manufactory exploded, Sir. Do you remember?”
He shook his head and immediately regretted it, wincing as pain shot through his skull.
“Yeah, use the HUD if speaking is a problem. You almost certainly have a concussion, you were closer than most when the explosion went off,” Goodwin explained.
He remembered something! “Milton,” he croaked, “did she make it?”
“She actually did a bit better than you, Sir. She was facing away and moving in the right direction. The blast threw her around, but she landed without cracking her head. You’re both pretty banged up but still operational. Sir, I want to give you something for the pain, but first I need to know if you’ve got any broken bones. Don’t scream or it’ll make your head worse. I’m going to check, slap the floor if it’s bad,” said Goodwin.
Being felt up by a hot sweaty Marine while they were both covered in a thick layer of dust and filth wasn’t even slightly fun. It was painful too but, improbable as it seemed, he didn’t have any broken bones. Lots of bruises, though, and he was sure that some of his bruises had bruises.
Once Goodwin had established there was nothing seriously wrong and had checked the HUD readout for heart rate, blood pressure and blood oxygenation, Warden got a shot of painkiller and a dose of combat stimulant. Nothing major, just enough to let him work through the pain. Then Goodwin hit him with a massive dose of anti-inflammatories and a cocktail of other drugs to support his recovery.
After a few moments, Warden’s head stopped pounding so badly and his limbs felt less leaden. He stood up and checked for dizziness, performing a quick balance test as recommended by the warning symbol on his HUD. Goodwin cleared him for duty and he thanked her, then looked over to where the manufactory had been on the sled. There was nothing left but a crater, a big one. He remembered it had been extruding something, turned on and active when it should have been switched off and dormant.
Warden walked over to Milton, who was sat on a lawn chair by the remains of a temporary hut that had been flattened by the blast wave. She was filthy, covered head to toe in dust.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Like I got slapped in the back with a cricket bat. You?”
“Feels like I’ve got a drunken Welsh choir in my head and I just visited an incompetent masseur who moonlights as a shot-putter,” Warden replied.
“Most of the casualties just have minor shrapnel wounds and some hearing problems. We lost Green, Long, McGee, Headley and Scott though, half the Section.”
“Yeah, I saw the HUD report. It’s fucking bad news all around. The only saving grace is that more of our people weren’t closer when it went off,” he said, then looked around, kicking at the dust for a moment. “I’m sorry. If I’d listened to your advice and not tried to have my cake and eat it, we might have got someone here who’d have checked the thing over before moving it. They must have set it to produce an explosive charge if it was moved without authorisation.”
“Shit happens. No point crying about it now, the lads understand and they were backed-up; they’re already queued for redeployment in the cloning bay.” She paused to work a kink out of her neck. “Marine X is a bit grumpy.”
Warden sighed. Marine X was one of those people for whom boredom and inactivity were always the biggest problems.
“What’s got his knickers in a twist?” he asked, although he didn’t really want to know.
“If I understand it, he’s been hoping he’ll get killed next so we can redeploy him in that last Ogre. He wants to try it on for size.”
“Hah. It’s tempting to slot the bastard now but we’d have to wait for him to catch up. Anyway, you saw what he did on our most recent video night, does he even need a suit like that?”
“Not in the usual sense of the word, no. I can’t help wondering what he’d be like in it, though. Certainly a damned site more effective than those Deathless bastards.”
Warden nodded but he wasn’t going to worry about Marine X’s weird body fantasies.
“How long was I out?”
“About fifteen minutes. Pull up a pew,” Milton said, gesturing at the rock beside her. “It’ll take another fifteen or so for the techs to finish rigging up that monster and filling the hopper,” Milton said, pointing at the dumper truck. The Marines near the truck barely came up to its axles. The thing was an absolute beast.
Warden sat down and pulled a slightly battered ration bar from his webbing. It looked just as squashed
as he felt and it had the taste and appeal of sun-dried cardboard. Humanity had been an interstellar species for centuries but still couldn’t make energy bars that tasted or felt like something you would actually eat if you had a choice.
Warden shook his head as he contemplated the horrible bar. They can squirt my brainwaves through an interstellar wormhole the width of a pin and deploy me in a cloned body within a few hours, he thought, but they can’t make a protein bar that you could persuade a four-year-old to eat, not even a chocolate one. A few more gulps of water didn’t ease the chewing but it did wash the taste away.
“Do you think it’ll work?” he asked quietly, nodding at the dumper truck.
“Maybe. It’s not a bad idea, just a bit unusual. I think it’s worth a try and even if it doesn’t work, it’ll be a good show. If you hadn’t dreamed it up, the Deathless might have caused all sorts of trouble with this site before we noticed they were here. Plus we took care of a load of them all at once and with very few casualties. Not a bad days’ work, all things considered,” Milton mused.
They sat in silence for a while, watching the activity around the dumper truck until, finally, it seemed like it was winding down. Warden looked at Milton, she nodded and they began walking, somewhat gingerly, over to their reason for coming to this god-forsaken hole in the ground.
It was hard to grasp the sheer scale of the thing. Was there any land vehicle he’d seen that matched it for sheer size and bulk? Warden couldn’t think of one. The spec sheet said it could carry six hundred and fifty tons of rock and that it had a top speed of about 75kph, over firm terrain.
He nodded at the techs, “Jenkins, Richardson, Barlow. Who wants to give me an update?”
Barlow piped up first, “We’ve got everything ready, Sir, as ordered.” He held up a data slate and flashed some sort of dashboard at Warden. “We’re good to go as soon as you want.”
“Will your modifications work?”
Barlow sucked air through his teeth like an old-time mechanic looking over a dodgy repair job.
“Should do, Sir, should do. I, er, wouldn’t like to guarantee the plan will come off as you hope but I think the truck will do her bit. Probably.”
“Good. Sergeant, that’ll do for now. Get your team to their assigned places and let’s move out, on the double.”
Marine Fletcher was sticking well back from the group, still trying to get used to her new body as the Marines yomped across the open terrain. In what Lieutenant Warden had described as an ‘ironic’ situation, she found herself redeployed in one of the Deathless Ogre clones just a few days after being killed by an identical body on the bridge of the ship during her last action. Ten had been wildly jealous but Fletcher wasn’t seeing the funny side.
For the attack on the open-cast mine, she had worn standard fatigues and webbing. Standard Deathless fatigues, at least. They hadn’t been expecting trouble so no-one had worn power armour. For the next stage of the mission, the plan called for an entirely different approach. They had ditched the rovers several kilometres out at a secure location, or as secure as they could find, and now she was suited, jogging along with the rest of the Troop.
The rovers were designed for moving people and small cargoes; they weren’t good for carrying full troops of Commandos in all their gear and they certainly couldn’t handle an Ogre in power armour. They’d had to fit her into the armour once they had reached the drop-off point. Armoured, she was truly enormous.
Warden suppressed a grin as he imagined Ten’s reaction when he saw her all kitted up.
But his good humour faded as he remembered how little power armour they had been able to bring for this mission. Some Marines were equipped, most weren’t. The mission required speed and power and they just didn’t have enough reliable rovers to carry all the armour.
The Deathless suit that Fletcher wore was performing well. It was high-quality work and Warden wondered, not for the first time, why the quality of the Deathless kit seemed to be so much better than the discipline and training of the enemy troops who used it. Then again, he was relying on a Penal Marine as a core part of this plan, so maybe he shouldn’t be too critical of the enemy. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Goodwin, how’s it looking?” he said, glancing at the Lance Corporal sitting nearby, back against a rock, watching a data slate.
“It’s all good, Sir. We’re on target for final approach in four minutes.”
“Excellent. Get me a feed, would you? I want to be able to see the approach stage so we can get the timing right. Milton, make sure everyone is ready to go. We’ll keep Fletcher and the others back until the fireworks start, then they advance as swiftly as possible. Goodwin, you stay here with Bailey and Parker and once you’re done with that,” he said, gesturing at the data slate controller, “get us some drone support, ok?”
“Yes, Sir. Three minutes to final approach stage. The feed is available when you need it,” Goodwin confirmed.
A new video feed icon appeared in Warden’s HUD.
“Roger that.” Warden flicked on the video feed.
“Marine X,” he said, “how are you doing?”
“Peachy thanks, Sir. No sign of trouble. How long till things get exciting?”
“A couple of minutes. Goodwin, send him the feed so he can see what’s going on.”
“Ok. I can see the target now with the old Mark 1 eyeball. We’re starting to turn. Ground doesn’t look too rough.”
“No, but are you strapped on? We have no idea how bumpy this will get.”
“Feels like a massage chair at the moment but I’ve got a couple of lines keeping me in place so I can’t fall off completely. We’re lined up now.”
“I see it on the feed.”
“I’ve got a pretty good view here too,” Ten confirmed.
“I’m revving her up now, Ten,” said Goodwin, pushing the truck’s accelerator control.
“Yeah, thanks for the heads up. Doesn’t seem any bumpier. No signs of life.”
“She’s at 60% speed now. You should be ok on this ground,” said Goodwin, “unless I hit a boulder,” she murmured.
“Lieutenant, we’re not using this thing again are we?”
“No, we’re not. Strictly a one-way transport.”
“Ok then. Goodwin, why don’t you redline this thing and see how far over the manufacturer's specs it’ll go.”
“It won’t go over specs at all, Ten. We didn’t do anything to the engine.”
“Ah well, about that. You might not have done anything to the engine but it’s just possible that I might have. Couldn’t just sit here twiddling my thumbs, right? And this plan will work a lot better if the truck’s going faster, yes?”
Goodwin looked at Warden who rolled his eyes and gestured for her to go ahead.
“Yes,” confirmed Goodwin, “the faster it goes, the more effective it’ll be but you still have to get off. I don’t fancy your chances of disembarking safely anyway, let alone if you’re going faster.”
“Lance Corporal, I have been doing this job since you were a twinkle in your daddy’s eye. I wouldn’t have volunteered if I thought it wouldn’t work. You just set that accelerator to maximum and get ready with your little party favours. I’ll take care of this end.”
Goodwin looked at Warden sceptically.
“It’s ok, Lance Goodwin. If he says he’s got it handled, we can trust him. I wouldn’t ask him to feed my goldfish, but this is what he lives for. Open her up.”
Goodwin nodded. “Ok Ten, Lieutenant Warden says I can go ahead. Let's see what she can do.” She slid the control to maximum and left it there. The haptic feedback from her slate was working overtime as the quarry truck accelerated, bouncing a little on the uneven terrain.
Over a thousand metric tons of truck, ore and added extras, barreled toward the enemy base, faster and faster.
“It just hit 75kph, Ten.”
“Walk in the park, I bet you can get it over a hundred and twenty-five. I’m pretty much relying
on it.”
“Doubtful but she’s giving it all she got. What did you to my engines anyway?” Goodwin asked.
“I’ll tell you later; you just keep it lined up and get ready.”
“Roger that, Ten,” Goodwin replied over the comms. She muttered under her breath, “You mad bastard.”
“Couldn’t agree more, Lance Corporal but I’m not going to bet that he’s wrong,” Warden agreed.
“That’s it, starting to feel like there’s a real driver behind the wheel now,” Ten said.
“I don’t know what you did, Ten, but she just hit a hundred and twenty, and she’s still accelerating.”
“Keep it going, Goodwin. The more speed you can give me, the better. Lieutenant, I think someone just noticed us. You might want to get ready to move.”
“Roger that, Ten. I see lights on their wall. Keep us updated. Milton, let's get the first teams moving.”
Warden turned his attention back to the feed, blowing it up to full scale as if he were there. The cameras were attached to the front of the enormous vehicle and he could now see the base clearly. It was monstrous. The Deathless had built walls at least nine metres high and they were topped with long, thick, spikes which jutted from them like tusks. It looked like the whole thing was extruded out of foamcrete or something similar. Tough, durable and extremely bullet absorbent. They must have some impressive fab technology to have been able to construct this edifice so quickly.
Their target was the entrance of the base, a wide gap, easily big enough for three rovers side-by-side. The gigantic dump truck was another matter, though. The wheels alone were five metres high and the truck was far too wide to fit through the gate. The plan wasn’t to drive it in; Warden had something much better in mind.
“It’s maxed out at 141kph, Ten!”
“What’s that in Imperial? Eighty-eight miles an hour? They’re going to see some serious shit, now!” said Ten, “Cue the music.”
Warden looked at Goodwin, “Music?” he asked, frowning.
“I have no idea, Sir. You’ll have to try Ten’s feed.”
