by Mark Wandrey
A white beam lanced from orbit, white-hot like a welding torch, and connected with the ship. The entire rear section of the ship exploded, sending armor and debris careening in all directions. KzSha troopers scrambled for cover. The Aku performed an incredibly fast sweeping motion with their feet, digging into the ground a half meter, then dropped into the resulting hole. Only the angled tops of their shells were still visible as partially melted starship parts tore through the ranks.
Koto saw two of his squad drop off the status board, cut down by scything debris. Another was yellow, wounded but still operational. A wounded KzSha was more formidable than the healthy troopers of many other merc races.
“They fired from orbit!” Oso said, rising up from where he’d taken refuge behind a dug-in Aku. The creature’s head popped up a few centimeters, big eyes examining the situation before retreating back into the muddy dirt.
“Peacemakers,” Koto said. The other ship, five kilometers away on the opposite side of the ravine, opened fire with its lasers. It didn’t fire at the plummeting streaks, though, it fired into space. “No, you fools,” Koto said, but he was on the wrong frequency, so he addressed his men. “Orbital assault underway! Rally at the village!”
More lasers lanced into the sky and missiles streaked away, accelerating at incredible speed. Fire didn’t rain down on that ship like it had on the other one. He changed frequencies. “Ship Two, do you have any of the creatures aboard?”
“Yes, we have almost a hundred,” came the immediate reply. More missiles raced away; and were shot down in just seconds. So, the ship in space hadn’t been disabled—they were holding their fire because of the slaves!
“Change of orders, make for the ship holding the creatures,” he said. “Bring as many of them as you can.”
“But commander,” Oso complained, “they are too slow!”
“Carry them if you must! The Peacemakers won’t kill beings they believe are innocent bystanders.”
“Weaklings.” Oso laughed, lifting a shocked Aku and tearing it free of the mud with his powerful combat armor.
“Indeed,” Koto agreed, ripping one from its hiding place as well, and the two KzSha used their mechanically enhanced rear legs to explode into the sky, wings coming alive, sending them in a parabolic arc toward their objective. A dozen more troopers followed close behind. The second ship spared some laser fire for the plummeting streaks. The 40 falling stars instantly bloomed into hundreds of tumbling, flashing, burning meteoric fires. Koto ground his mouthparts together. He knew what it meant. “Humans.”
* * *
“Incoming laser fire,” the computer reported.
“Buddha, deploy shields!” Jim Cartwright, commander of Cartwright’s Cavaliers, ordered over the squadnet.
“You got it, Jim!” his top sergeant said. Jim tensed his muscles against the suit’s harness and used his pinlink to trigger his own orbital drop shell. There was a tiny explosion, followed by a roar of racing wind from his descent as it ripped away the eight petals of his drop shield.
“Successful deployment,” his suit’s computer told him and autonomously applied some breaking and lateral thrust from his jumpjets. Now free of the protective shield, the CASPer began to build the battlespace within his cockpit. The bulbous canopy in front of him, where the chest of the roughly Human-shaped suit sat, became a Tri-V holographic projection of wherever he looked. The computer also sent live visual feeds to his pinplants, giving 360-degree visibility. You couldn’t sneak up on an alert pinplanted CASPer driver.
The suit fired its jets randomly again, making it look like one of the deployed shield parts, and Jim’s back thumped painfully against the pads. Even though he’d shed a good 20 kilograms from the first time he’d strapped into a CASPer, he wasn’t used to getting bumped around as much. The problem was, he still had a lot to lose if he wanted to wedge his fat ass into a Mk 8 CASPer, like most of his squad were using. For now, he stayed in the bigger, roomier Mk 7, just like Buddha.
“How you doing, little Jimmy?” Buddha asked. The computer flashed the Tri-V image of the other Mk 7 with his top sergeant in it.
“A-okay,” Jim said. He’d have given Buddha a thumbs up with the suit, except the arms were still locked at his side. In reality he was exulting. It had been four months since he’d driven a CASPer. He didn’t realize how much he missed it, even being shot through the atmosphere from space. A HALD drop was about the most terrifyingly exciting thing you could do with your clothes on.
His air speed indicated they were falling at more than 500 miles per hour and descending below 22 kilometers. The only remaining part of his shield was a cone-shaped segment enclosing his feet, helping his aerodynamics, and the flight pack on his back. “How you doing down there?” Jim said toward his thigh.
“Splunk good,
“Sergeant Ortega reports Second Squad is all accounted for,” Buddha said. Jim nodded and changed to the command channel.
“All good, Hargrave?”
“One slight damage, kid,” the gravelly voice of his second in command, who had A Company, 2nd Platoon, for this drop. As planned, B Company was still on Bucephalus, with 1st Platoon in its drop tubes and 2nd Platoon in Phoenix dropships. A last-minute change, just in case. “How are your troops?”
“We’re all good,” Jim replied and consulted his drop computer through his pinplants. “Three minutes to touch down. No change to target plan.”
“Be safe, Commander.”
“And you as well,” Jim said, and he switched back to the squadnet and consulted his altimeter. “Ten seconds,” he told the men in his direct command. “Hang on, Splunk.”
“Kick ass,
“Yep,” he said, triggering his play list. “Radioactive” by a long dead band called Imagine Dragons began to blare in the suit. “Kick ass time.” The nose shield blew away, and he was in complete control.
Unlike the mothballed and salvaged CASPer he’d used in his early days as Cartwright’s Cavaliers commander, the Mk 7 he piloted now was both brand new and customized. Made for orbital drops, it had lighter armor and a powerful flight pack, although its weapons were less impressive. The suit excelled at quick deployments and lightning strikes, just what this mission called for.
“Okay,” he said over the squadnet, “let’s do this by the numbers. Watch for collateral damage, pick your targets, and everybody goes home.”
“All up!” Buddha called.
“Lead the charge!” all nine of his squad replied as one. Jim smiled in pride. Quite a few of the Cavaliers were new now. Everyone in his squad was familiar to him. They were family.
He checked his radar and saw he was less than a kilometer above ground. There were a pair of APCs visible, just beginning to move, and dozens of huge insect shapes. Probably KzSha. At least this much was more certain, and he sent the data to his troopers.
“Get recorded confirmation as soon as you can. Buddha, heavy weapons, take out those APCs.”
“On it,” his Top said. A second later, two rockets shot out from the CASPers, and the APCs were no more. Jim nodded as he oriented and fired his suit’s jumpjets long and hard, feeling almost four Gs crush against him. The proximity alarm pinged in his pinplants, he bent his knees, and the suit grounded with a boom.
“Cartwright’s Actual, I’m down,” he transmitted on the command channel and cut the music. “Bucephalus, status update.”
“Commander,” Captain Su replied from orbit, “we have retreated to a higher orbit to present less of a target. There was no damage from enemy action. The first ship was eliminated on th
e Peacemaker’s instructions; we cannot engage the second ship as it holds hostages.”
“Understood,” Jim said as he released the now expended orbital drop thrusters and pulled the CASPer-sized laser rifle from its retainer on the suit’s thigh. “Have 2nd Platoon, B Company prepare to deploy. Tell Major Alvarado we might have a remote listening post based on the accurate orbital fire.”
“Understood,” the captain said. “Stay safe, Commander. Your mechanic sends her regards.”
Jim felt his cheeks get hot, knowing she was talking about Adayn, who was quite a bit more than his friend.
“Call ’em out, Buddha!” Jim barked after verifying there were no immediate threats.
“All down and operational,” the big Samoan said.
“Very good.” He consulted his battlespace. Fed from live datalinks with all the CASPers within range, it gave an amalgamated view from 20 different suits, scattered over a square kilometer. Details were extensive. His CASPer was a bit lighter because of the extra sensors and computing power needed to run the battalion, although he only had one company to wrangle now. “I mark ten bogies in our immediate area,” he said and flashed them in red to the entire platoon. Two glowing points showed APC wreckage. “Scouts out, move east,” he ordered. The radiation was so bad, there really was no discernable magnetic north. Courses were based on preset gyro readings from their suits. “And watch your rad counts.”
The platoon formed a skirmish line and moved east as he’d directed. Two Mk 8-equipped troopers ranged out front, one from each squad, moving much faster and with better point sensors. Private Stodden from First Squad and Private Howell from Second Squad, the two scouts, worked well together. A little too well, truth be told. Jim had separated them just before he left on his trip because they caused so much trouble off-duty. While too green as mercs to earn a handle, Jim thought of them as Rick and Morty.
“Skirmish only, Stodden and Howell,” Jim ordered. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Stodden said.
“You can trust us,” Howell added, but there was a hint of mischief in his voice. Jim sighed.
He watched his sensors as the two smaller Mk 8 CASPers bounded forward in the planet’s relatively light gravity. They moved with surprising grace, never jumping more than twice their height, and never in the same direction twice. It was as close to random as you could get.
The planet’s strange, radiation-resistant vegetation didn’t grow more than 10 feet tall, an aberration for most low-G worlds where you might find 200-foot-tall trees or other megaflora. The environment seemed to favor short, wide-leafed plants that reminded Jim of a cross between a palm tree and a broad leaf maple. Using visuals, he could see the two CASPers bound over the plants intermittently as they raced away. It was both a way to get good forward views, and to draw fire. Scout and skirmish. It didn’t take long.
A laser pulsed across the sky, then another. Jim’s computer logged the beams of coherent light, invisible to the naked eye but perfectly visible to his suit’s sensors.
“Contact!” Private Stodden said. “Medium laser rifles.”
“Can you ident the race?” Jim asked.
“Looks like wasps,” Private Hartman said.
“We could tell as much from the air,” Hartman’s squad leader, Sgt. Ester “Buckshot” Martin said. “Give the commander a positive ID.”
“Should I walk up and get a better look?” Stodden asked, the sound of his suit’s jumpjets audible over the radio.
“Stow that shit,” his sergeant barked. More and more lasers crisscrossed the sky, evidence the two skirmishers were stirring up the slavers.
“Knock it off,” Buddha said, his deep Samoan voice booming out. “We need to know if they’re SleSha or KzSha. SleSha don’t have wings. Can you see wings?”
They were at the edge of Jim’s effective battlespace, and there was a lot of clutter, but two of the bogies suddenly jumped into the sky and flew at Hartman.
“KzSha,” Jim said. He cursed. The SleSha were a handful because they had a hivemind; the queens could control the warriors with a sort of telepathy, and the warriors fought to the last breath and were tough. The KzSha, though, were really hard to kill, as they were individually sapient and ten times as tough. More massive than a Human, they wore top-notch combat armor, could fly in low gravity (like here), and had two bladed middle arms tough enough to cut steel or punch through carbon-ceramic armor.
“Break off,” Jim ordered, “bring them to us.” The pair of scouts bounded a couple more times, fired a few magnetic accelerator cannon, or MAC, rounds, then retreated. “First Squad on me. Buddha, Second Squad around to the north and envelope.”
“You got it, boss,” Buddha said, and the other eight members of his squad, minus its skirmisher, quickly cut away, moving low and fast.
“They’re coming in hot,” Hartman called out. “Looks like we kicked over a hornet’s nest.”
“So original,” Stodden said. A missile shot up over the low vegetation and instantly angled toward Hartman, who was in the air. Stodden took it out with a flurry of lower-powered laser pulses from the counterfire system on his suit.
“Much appreciated,” Hartman said as he grounded and covered his partner. Their skirmish/scout model Mk 8s only had a shoulder-mounted MAC and defensive laser counterfire systems, as well as a dozen CASPer-sized grenades called K-bombs. Hartman pitched a K-bomb in the general direction of their pursuers before heading off again, this time staying on the ground and using the foliage as cover.
Jim saw the detonation and ground his teeth, hoping it wouldn’t deter the enemy pursuit. From what he’d heard about the KzSha, though, he didn’t think it would. As he started to move, he felt Splunk stir against his thigh. She’d probably been asleep and the explosion caused her to stir.
“Wake up, buddy,” he said down his suit’s interior. “Trouble’s coming.”
“Fight now,
“Yep,” he said and removed the safeties on his heavy weapon. “First Squad, here they come,” he broadcast on the squadnet.
“Second Squad is rounding the corner,” Buddha told him.
As his top sergeant, Buddha had coordinated the troop movements while staying alongside Jim; he suspected Hargrave had something to do with that. Less than a minute later, Stodden and Hartman bounded past Jim’s line, and he prepared to fire.
His suit’s sensors showed radar reports of the onrushing KzSha, yet he waited for more direct targeting. Their reputation of being hard to kill was formidable motivation. He felt Splunk move upward into a better position in case he needed her technical expertise. A second later, the first group of four KzSha burst through the underbrush.
Jim blanched at the sight of them. He’d faced down waves of the enormous spiderlike Tortantulas, and even taken on a massive fusion-powered tank single-handedly once, but the sight of the huge armored wasps was sobering. When the aliens saw the line of CASPers, they didn’t hesitate for even a second. They leapt into the air like grasshoppers, their wings a blur, and fired at the Humans as they came.
“Engage!” Jim barked, and all ten of First Squad’s troopers opened up with a combination of laser, chain gun, and MAC rounds.
Two of the KzSha were blown apart in sprays of greenish blood, the result of multiple weapons impacts. Another took at least two hits, one of which severed a pair of legs and a wing, sending the insect crashing to the ground. Enemy fire fell among the Cavaliers but was deflected or absorbed by the formidable Human armor. The final enemy was also hit, but the single laser that found it splashed off its armor without effect.
The trooper just to Jim’s right, Private Rick Partlow, swung his CASPer-sized laser rifle from right to left like a huge baseball bat. The Mk 8’s mechanical muscles drove the weapon with armor-cracking force into the hurtling KzSha, which had just angled its abdomen forward, intending to impale Partlow with its huge gleaming stinger. The laser rifle was designed for CASPer melee use, the KzSha wasn’t. Partlo
w cracked its armor and broke its leg, but it ricocheted toward Jim, still ready to fight.
Jim had just enough time to deploy his left arm shield and partly turn before several hundred kilos of armored wasp slammed into his suit. A razor-sharp forearm was aimed at his cockpit but glanced off the arm shield as they crashed together. The inertia took him off his feet, and the two went down in a tangle of arms, legs, and weapons.
“Damn it, Partlow!” Buddha yelled. “Check your down range!”
“I…got…this…” Jim grunted as he gave a well-timed thrust with his legs, rolling over on top of the wildly flailing alien. One of the KzSha’s arms flashed and sparks flew off Jim’s armor. “Oh, you want to play it that way?” he yelled, using his pinplants to release the right arm’s meter-long, molecularly hardened, chromium steel blade. It flicked out and locked into place, and Jim thrust down with all his machine-enhanced strength, pinning the KzSha trooper to the ground with a sickening Crrrunch! of shattered armor and a splash of blue blood.
He gave his jumpjets a bump and bunny-hopped back, jerking the blade free, just as the alien’s stinger shot up. It barely scraped against his boot as he cleared the threat.
Corporal Ramsey fired a thudding MAC round into the alien, taking a chunk of its thorax. It still tried to get up. “Fucking die!” Ramsey yelled and fired twice more, blowing it to pieces.
“I’m sorry, Commander!” Private Partlow exclaimed, sounding chagrined.
“No damage done, Private,” Jim said, “just listen to Top and watch your follow through.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Those were the skirmishers,” Buddha warned, “here comes the main force.” Jim checked his battlespace and saw at least two dozen more KzSha troopers racing at them, flying just a meter off the ground.
“Form the line!” Jim barked. All ten CASPers lined up with Jim in the center. “Prepare for MAC volley fire.” The instant the KzSha burst through the bloody shredded foliage he yelled, “Fire!”
