by Richard Fox
“Like I said,” said General Hue, the Strike Marine on the box, giving a nod to Steuben and then holding up a data slate, “the situation in orbit is tenuous…at best. After the Ardennes was destroyed, Admiral Ericson assumed command from the Normandy. She does not have the combat power to seize the Crucible. We do not expect relief from Earth for up to a week, not with the Vishrakath bombardment being what it is.”
“We won’t last four days out here,” a Ranger said. “Not with this much radiation.”
“Which is why we’re going to attack,” General Laran said, her voice large and carrying across the command tent. Background chattered dimmed as she continued.
“There is a Kesaht dome city not far from here,” she said. “My armor will spearhead an attack on the walls and seize a foothold within. The Kesaht are fanatics, but intelligence suggests they won’t destroy their own city to harm us. Once we’re inside, we’ll hold a section and relocate all personnel. The dome will protect us from the radiation and we’ll hold out as long as we have to.”
Steuben crossed his arms over his chest but said nothing.
“We have a concept for this operation,” Hue said. “Intelligence is thin on the defenses around the city. Thus far we’ve only encountered Rakka troops, none equipped to survive the environment. Best guess is that the Kesaht are using them as suicide troops to keep us disoriented while they ready an attack.”
“Which is why we must strike now,” Laran said. “Violence of action. The longer we wait, the more vulnerable we are.”
“Sir, ma’am,” a Strike Marine major spoke up, “our men will ask about the possibility of evac to orbit. Is there an answer?”
“The Kesaht are keeping our fleet under pressure,” Hue said. “They can’t give us air cover for an evac without leaving the ships vulnerable. If we try and pull everything out, their fighters will either destroy us on the ascent or wreck enough ships in orbit we won’t have any place to dock. We’re between a rock and a hard place right now…and the fleet’s taken a number of losses since we jumped in system. Finding enough life support for every survivor on the ground right now will be…problematic.”
“Cortez burned his ships,” Hoffman muttered. “He didn’t wade ashore after a wreck and try to make the best of it.”
“Muster areas to the north of the perimeter,” Hue said. “Armor’s taking point on this. Ground infantry will support where possible and fill in the gaps once they’ve breached the dome. General Laran has command. I have your assignments…”
Hoffman watched as the rest of the officers looked over their orders on gauntlet screens. His remained blank.
“Valdar’s Hammer,” Gideon said, loud enough to distract the other officers. “I want you all with my lance.”
Hoffman gave Gideon a curt nod and felt his gauntlet vibrate with a new file. He shared the operations order—barely more than a few slides of terrain and maneuver graphics—with Steuben.
“What do you think?” he asked the Karigole.
“Desperation is a poor impetus,” Steuben said. “But it is better to strike out and seize victory than to sit around and wait for death.”
“You think this will work?” Hoffman raised an eyebrow.
“I will die trying to win before I let defeat overtake me.”
“You should’ve been born human, Steuben. You would’ve made one hell of a Strike Marine.”
Chapter 7
Opal gripped the edge of a fallen wall and hefted it up, hinging it against its base where it had toppled over from who knew how long ago.
“Good job, big guy,” Garrison said as he got beneath the wall and pushed it up, walking his hands down the face as it hinged upward. “We’ll have this perimeter rebuilt and ready to hold back the—”
The wall cracked and collapsed into a pile of dust and bricks around Garrison’s knees.
“Or that. That.” Garrison pulled his boots up and out of the detritus.
“Supply!” Gunney King called as he walked over, holding a case in his hands, which he set down and cracked open. “Nutrient paste. Ammo. Filters. Reset for a prolonged operation.”
King looked up at the night sky, the flash of exploding fighters and trace of rail cannon shells through the upper atmosphere speaking to the battle raging in orbit.
“Don’t plan on there being a second loggy run,” King said. “What we have left in orbit is cut off.”
“Great. I wanted my last meal to be…” Garrison reached into the case and pulled out a small cardboard box. “Peanut butter and jelly paste.”
“Ha. Beef taco,” Duke said, removing a battery pack along with his food.
Garrison stepped away from the crate to make room for the rest of the team and opened a panel on the side of his armor. He ejected his spent food tube and tossed it into the rubble, not concerned with disguising their position from the enemy—they knew where Gold Beach was. He slammed in his next meal and replaced a spent battery cartridge.
“I’m starting to wish I’d paid more attention to the whole operations order,” Booker said. “I suddenly care about logistics…or the lack there of.”
“You all read the warning order?” King asked.
“Attack and hold the Kesaht dome,” Max said. “Armor leads. We backfill on their order. Little too simple if you ask me. We still don’t have effective comms beyond a hundred meters. You think this’ll work, Gunney?”
“Don’t matter what I think,” King said. “Our armor can take the radiation for a lot longer than the sailors and loggies running around Gold Beach. They don’t get into someplace safe in the next day…Booker?”
“Debilitating effects of radiation poisoning within six hours,” she said. “Incapacitation and…once their seals fade, they won’t last much longer.”
“Any word on reinforcements?” Max asked.
“Nothing.” King shook his head.
“We must effect a tackle by shoelaces,” Gor’al said. “Or we’ll all be dead goat flossers.”
“I am so glad we kept him around,” Garrison said putting a palm to his visor.
A tremble rose through the ground.
“Ain’t all bad news,” King said. “We don’t have to walk the whole way to the battle.”
Gideon rolled around a corner, his legs transformed into treads. Hoffman and Steuben rode on the armor above the treads, holding onto Gideon’s shoulders.
“Mount up!” Hoffman yelled as they passed. Three more suits of armor in their travel configuration came to a stop next to the Hammers.
“Worst ride is better than the best walk,” Max said as he jumped onto Santos’ treads and helped Opal and Garrison up with him.
“You good, Opie?” Garrison asked the doughboy.
“Hold tight.” Opal linked elbows with Santos, the armor’s upper arm nearly as big as Opal’s torso.
“We hit contact, you all need to bail out,” Santos said as he rolled forward. “Crunchies make lousy shields.”
“Very considerate of you,” Garrison said as he leaned back, one hand gripping one of the twin vanes of Santos’ rail gun. The armor was pitted from bullet strikes, its surface covered by a thin sheen of dirt.
“Don’t suppose you have some more info on this operation to share?” Garrison asked. “Figure you big boys would know more than ‘attack and hold.’”
“You need more than that?” Santos asked, his helm—nearly three times the size of Garrison’s head—glancing down at him.
“We’re Strike Marines,” Max said. “Meant for precision strikes on key enemy targets. We normally deploy from orbit…detailed mission packet…rehearsals. You guys are the hammer. We’re the scalpel.”
“You all are Valdar’s Hammer, aren’t you?” Santos asked as he slowed slightly and spread out, taking up the right flank for the formation with the other three armor in his lance.
“You know what I mean,” Max said.
“It’s catch-as-catch-can out here,” Santos said. “We’ll knock a door out of the dome, secure an
inner perimeter. You all just stay behind us, provide cover until we call you forward. Can your doughboy handle that?”
“Opal’s pretty smart for a doughboy, aren’t you?” Garrison banged a fist on Opal’s shoulder.
“Kill enemy. Smash.” Opal nodded slowly.
“Thanks for backing me up on that one, big guy,” Garrison said.
“Can I talk to him?” Santos asked. “Or is he imprinted on you all in some special way? My father told me some weird stories about doughboys from the Ember War.”
“Ask him,” Max shrugged.
“Opal…what am I?” Santos nudged the doughboy slightly with his elbow gear.
“Armor Corps mark IV combat application suit,” Opal said. “Standard armament. Rotary cannon. Gauss—”
“He knows all that but he’s so…monosyllabic,” Santos said.
“He’s got a database.” Garrison tapped his helmet. “Reports what he knows with accuracy. You ask him for an opinion on something, he has trouble.”
“Doughboy, what do you know about armor? Not our specifications,” Santos asked.
“Breitenfeld…sir said it special for armor. He knelt. Touch hole in deck. Iron Heart place,” Opal said.
“Iron Hearts…I remember them from that Last Stand on Takeni movie,” Garrison said. “Weren’t they—”
“They’re one of the lances at Memorial Square in Phoenix,” Max said. “I had to help my kid with a report on it. Lots of Templar stuff. My oldest son loves all that. I think he wants to go Armor when he gets older. You think that’s a good idea, Santos?”
“Ask me after all this is over,” the armor said. “My pop didn’t want this for me, and he was a Strike Marine.”
“I keep waiting for all this to end,” Garrison said. “For kids to grow up without compulsory service or a lifetime at war. Not looking like that’ll happen any time soon. Opal doesn’t mind. He loves the fighting, ain’t that right?”
Opal tapped the head of his war hammer locked to his back.
“He’s lucky,” Santos said. “Nothing to worry about. He was made for this.”
“If ignorance was bliss, then he’d be the happiest thing on this planet,” Max said. “You worried about coming out of that…what’re you in? A pod or something?”
“Death before dismount,” Santos said. “Pathfinders ahead report enemy activity outside the dome. This is where you all get off.” The armor slowed and the Marines jumped off.
“Good luck and stay—” Garrison raised a hand as Santos sped off, leaving them in a cloud of dust. “Kind of a dick, ain’t he?”
“Shut up, he gave us a ride,” Max said, pointing to a three-story building amidst other blast-damaged structures. “There. King’s in there. Let’s go.”
The three hurried to a doorway, the decayed wooden slats of the entrance fallen like a drawbridge before the frame.
“Get an IR hub set up on the roof,” King said as he slapped Max on the back, directing him toward a flight of stairs. “You two up to the second floor. You’re security for Duke.”
“Moving.” Garrison went up the stairs awkwardly as the steps were made for taller four-legged Sanheel, not him.
He and Opal found Duke lying on a table a few yards back from a window opening, Ice Claw already braced against his shoulder and a power pack attached to the rail rifle.
“Do I have to tell you not to walk in front of me?” Duke asked.
“I’m telling Gor’al where you keep your wintergreen dip,” Garrison said as he directed Opal to a corner with line of sight down the street. Then he went to the back of the room.
“It’s in his kit bag,” the Dotari said, “beneath the toilet paper and next to his slate full of pictures of human females in various stages of undress.”
Duke, keeping his eye against the optic, slapped at the bag attached to his hip.
“God damn dip thief, parakeet. If it’s gone, I will kick your ass so hard you won’t need a Crucible gate to get back to your home planet,” Duke said.
“Quiet!” King sent through the IR. “Why do I have to tell a sniper about noise and light discipline?”
Duke grumbled and readjusted the stock against his shoulder as the sound of distant gauss fire carried through the dead city.
“Hurry up and wait,” Garrison said. He touched a button on the side of his neck armor and a small tube extended up to his mouth. He sucked a bit of nutrient paste down and let the taste linger in his mouth.
He looked around the room to Opal. The doughboy was as focused and steady as ever, and Garrison realized that he did envy the battle construct. His life was simple, uncomplicated…void of the fear that fought to overtake Garrison’s mind.
In the distance, the Kesaht dome gleamed beneath the darkening sky. Just how they would smash their way into the place was still hard for him to grasp. The armor’s rail guns could take out a starship.
“Don’t want to be near that when they fire,” he muttered.
“What?” Duke asked.
“Armor. Rail guns. Make your Ice Claw look like a toy.”
“Hush, girl,” Duke said, giving his weapon a pat, “he didn’t mean that. You know you’re the best.”
Gor’al and Garrison looked at each other, locked eyes, and shrugged.
“Now we wait,” Garrison said.
“I hate this part,” Gor’al added. “At least we’re not doing it inside a metal death tube…of terror.”
Garrison wagged a finger at the Dotari.
“We’ve got that going for us. Not much else. But we’ve got that.”
****
Hoffman shifted his legs against the dusty floor. He had one shoulder to the wall and his head close to a window ringed by broken glass. A chill had crept through his power armor, the price he accepted to keep his armor’s power levels at minimum to extend the battery life.
“No signal yet,” King said from other edge of the window. The gunnery sergeant brushed dirt off his gauss rifle. “Armor moved forward…almost night. Anytime now. Hate this part.”
“I’m with you,” Hoffman said. “Got to wonder if the plan changed and word hasn’t got back to us.”
“Can’t be ‘that guy’ that didn’t get the word,” King said. “But there’s always ‘that guy’ on any mission. Max? We green on comms?”
The commo specialist, crouching next to Duke’s table, double-checked his gauntlet and flashed them a thumbs-up.
“Network’s connected to other rally points behind us. Armor’s online. They’re just being real quiet for some reason,” Max said.
“It’s getting hairy inside the Kesaht fish bowl.” Duke cast video from his rifle optics to Hoffman, and the lieutenant saw shadows moving behind the semi-opaque dome.
“I’m surprised they haven’t come out to play yet,” King said. “They know we made planet fall. They’re still putting pressure on what’s left of our fleet. They know how bad the radiation is out here.”
“You don’t know the Toth,” Steuben said from the next floor up. The Karigole was visible through a jagged hole where most of the second floor should’ve been. The rest of the floor had fallen and compounded on Hoffman’s first level. “They are cruel. They enjoy knowing we suffer, that we are driven to desperation on this poisoned world. They will strike when it is convenient for them and when we are at our lowest ebb. That is why we must attack now. They think the Terran Union is just as craven as they are, despite the damage Earth has inflicted.”
“Never did get to hear any of Admiral Valdar’s stories about that fight,” Duke said. “Not that he’d talk to little ol’ me. Saw the documentary about the Toth incursion. That maneuver the Breitenfeld did, jumping within the Toth fleet and unleashing the missile pods? Brilliant.”
“Wasn’t Valdar,” Steuben said. “Not his concept at least. That was Admiral Makarov.”
“Rest her soul,” Booker said. “She and the 8th Fleet saved Earth’s bacon when they jumped out into deep space and slowed down the Xaros. Shame the fleet was lost wi
th all hands.”
“The Midway came back,” King said with a shudder. “Came back with Xaros drones too. Hate those things. Good job, sir.” He reached over and tapped Hoffman on the shoulder.
“Yes, you destroyed the last one aboard that Dotari ship,” Steuben said. “Valdar was right to choose you to be his ship’s complement.”
“Would’ve been nice to be there when he really needed us,” Hoffman said. “Maybe this whole operation would’ve gone differently if he and the Breit were here.”
“What’re the Ibarrans even doing with him and our ship?” Max asked. “Probably wasting them both. Damn tube-baby psychopaths. No offense to any proccies here. All y’all are good people.”
Hoffman glanced over at Gor’al, who’d taken Adams’ place on the team. She’d been on the mission to save the Dotari, but reassigned soon after with no explanation from the brass. He’d later learned that she was suspected of being an Ibarran sleeper agent, a fear that proved true when the Ibarra Nation broke prisoners out of a Martian prison.
He’d come face-to-face with Adams on Eridu, and that woman wasn’t the same person he’d fought beside for so long.
“I bet the Ibarrans are out on some beach,” Garrison said. “Drinking mai tais with those little paper umbrellas. It’s not like they’re worried about this war. Assholes.”
A flare shot up and burst over the city.
“Go time.” Hoffman stood and put a finger to his trigger. “Max, relay everything you get from—”
The thunder crack of an armor’s rail gun firing, several times the size of the weapon Duke carried, slapped against the building, loosening dust and sending a light fog into the room. Hoffman wiped his visor clear and peered out the window as more armor fired their rail guns. Opalescent shields flared against the dome…flared and held.
“Ah…shit,” Hoffman said quietly.
“Movement,” Duke said and tensed against his weapon. “Got Sanheel in the ruins maneuvering against the Armor.”
