Outcast Marines Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  KERASH! The Ru’at cyborg had indeed thrown a simple, but very powerful, overhead strike, and Solomon met it with the handle of his own spear, forcing the blow to one side—but not before it had snapped the haft of the two-bladed short spear in half, leaving Solomon with two smaller leaf-blades, one in each hand.

  Oh frack. Solomon had a moment of sheer terror as he realized that the monster had just cut through metal with its own two-handed blow. If that strike had hit him, it would have easily cleaved him in two.

  But the Ru’at serum—the purest dose of the H21 strain—was now flooding through his system, and Solomon felt sharper, more alert, stronger.

  The servos… Solomon’s thoughts raced, seeing the monster raise one giant leg in a stamp that would surely crush his ribcage. He saw the pistons firing and the external exo-skeleton flexing.

  That is its weakness. Solomon threw himself forward under the thing’s raised leg in a slide, spinning around to drive one of the blades up and into the thing’s hip, between where the metal rods hit the servo mechanisms.

  “Scrargh!” The creature roared in pain as black ichor spurted from between the plates and rods, accompanied by the whine of metal. Solomon didn’t stop but rolled again before bouncing to his feet and spinning around, this time with only one blade left.

  The thing lunged toward him, but the leg that Solomon had struck was clearly injured. There was a screeching sound as the pistons locked up, and the creature was now half-limping on one foot.

  Solomon closed in.

  “Through blood and fire,” the Outcast Marine said through clenched teeth as he darted in, blade low.

  “SCRARGH!” The monster flung its weapon up in a lightning-fast move. Even with its injured leg, it was still quick.

  “Agh!” Pain seared Solomon’s upper arm as he tried to swivel out of the way. The strike that he was going to throw went wide and lost power, harmlessly skittering across the thing’s metal shoulders.

  Time slowed around Solomon. Perhaps it was the serum, or perhaps it was his mind’s way of telling him that he was near death. His back was aflame with the previous injury, and now his arm was too. In awful slow motion, he saw the monster reverse its grip and drive its blade toward him.

  Solomon jumped. He leaned all his weight toward the beast as he grabbed the thing’s exo-skeleton and pivoted, somersaulting over the creature’s head as its blow swept past his legs.

  But even with all the adrenaline and increased strength of the H21 serum, Solomon couldn’t catapult over the creature like a gymnast. He turned in mid-air, landing on the thing’s back and grappling with one hand at its exo-skeleton.

  “SKRARGH!” The thing roared and spun, trying to dislodge the Marine.

  But now, Solomon was not fighting like the Marine Corps had taught him. He was fighting the way he used to fight on the streets of New Kowloon. Street-fighting was different from Marine fighting. It was dirty, and it was ferocious. Solomon clung onto the creature for all his life was worth, aware that he was losing it through blood loss with every heartbeat.

  Solomon jammed his own remaining blade down on the head of the Ru’at cyborg, hoping to find any bit of uncovered skin that he could.

  FZZZT! There was an explosion of light and noise as his blade hit the sunken Ru’at orb in the center of the creature’s forehead, and Solomon felt white fire travel up his arm and fling him across the room.

  The energy fence, he managed to think as he hit the floor and skidded, throwing his arms and legs wide to slow his skid.

  “Arggggh!” He skidded to a halt just inches from the lowest line of burning fire, panting and shivering with the electrical shock. To Kol, Ochrie, and Rhossily watching, they saw tiny lines of static electricity playing up and down Solomon’s body before winking out as his muscles shook.

  I’m going to die, Solomon thought. This was it. He had nothing left. He was bleeding from two severe gashes, and his muscles felt like they had been cooked.

  “SSsss…” And the Ru’at cyborg, amazingly, still wasn’t dead. Solomon managed to flop heavily over onto his back to see the Ru’at rising on its injured hip and stumbling to one side as it tried to shake its head.

  Which still had Solomon’s blade sticking from its forehead. The Ru’at light had gone out, and in its stead sparked blue-white fire. Black ichor ran down the thing’s face, dripping into its own maw as it roared in agony and confusion.

  Solomon had no weapons left at all. The thing was raising long arms to scrabble at its head where the blade still stuck, but its claws wouldn’t close on the object. Its arms and metal talons were shaking. Solomon had managed to maim it seriously, but it still wasn’t enough to put it down.

  “Ssss-SCRARGH!” The thing bellowed in pain, a primal sound that made every human in the room flinch. It was the sound of an enraged predator. It was the sound of a frenzied bloodlust as it lunged forward, charging at its prey.

  I’m going to die. Solomon saw the thing grow bigger in his vision in moments. It wouldn’t have to do much to kill him, after all. All it had to do was step on him in his current state and the bodily shock would be enough to finish him off.

  But it was running blind. It had no Ru’at orb to give it super intelligence anymore.

  It’s just another animal now, Solomon realized, and he rolled, just as the cyborg Ru’at pounced.

  The creature landed on the spot where Solomon had been.

  He lashed out with one leg, hitting the thing’s bad hip.

  FZZZZZ-TT!

  The creature, blind with fury and already overbalanced, toppled forward—straight into the waiting blue-white lines of burning fire.

  There was no time for the creature to scream or even sigh. The particle-beams of the Ru’at were too powerful for that, able to punch through the thickened, meter-wide external hulls of Marine Corps battleships.

  Those blue lasers that made the air smell like ozone as they burnt the oxygen was more than a match for one creature, even as powerful as the Ru’at cyborg was. There was a gasp from Tavin and the sound of heavy thumps as the creature’s head and parts of its torso fell to the far side of the energy fence, completely severed by the Ru’at’s own energies.

  “He did it. He bleeding well did it!”

  Solomon lay there, his eyesight starting to fuzz and go black as he heard Kol shouting jubilantly.

  Of course, all they need to do is shoot me now and have it over and done with, Solomon managed to think. Either the H21 serum strain had worn off, or his injuries were so severe that their angered voices cut through the serum’s pain suppressant properties. Solomon could barely keep two thoughts together. He felt weak, and he felt near death.

  But he wasn’t unconscious, and he could still hear what Tavin said next. The clone’s voice was tremulous with either fear or awe.

  “We have a winner,” Tavin said. “The Ru’at have judged, and the Ru’at have decided. The new general of their invasion fleet, and the commander of their cyborg forces, will be H21 Solomon Cready!”

  Conquest of Earth

  Outcasts of Earth, Book 9

  1

  Emergency Survival

  FZZT!

  Second Lieutenant Jezebel Wen of the Outcast Marines ducked as another line of blue-white plasma fire speared across the munitions locker. The tall woman in her full power armor could see multiple spouts of steam bursting into the cramped corridors from where the cyborgs’ weapons had struck the pipes and units in this part of the Invincible.

  The Invincible that is in danger of breaking apart, Jezzy realized, slamming her back against the pipes and waiting for her moment to return fire.

  Gold Channel Message Alert!

  Sender: Corporal Ratko (Tech. Sp.)

  The inside of her visor lit up with a line of green information as the suit telemetries for her squad channel burst to life. And on the other end was Corporal Ratko—the small, angry Gold Squad member who had accompanied Jezzy on her infiltration into this hulk.

  “I read you, Ratko,
but make it quick!” Jezzy breathed as she tried to sneak a look around the corner, seeing that the two cyborgs at the far end of the narrow corridor were already advancing.

  That was the thing with the Ru’at and mega-corp cyborgs… They didn’t tire. They didn’t know fear. They didn’t pause.

  Frack!

  “I’m clear, ma’am. Almost halfway across the wreckage field to rendezvous with the ship, Corporal Malady, and Willoughby.” The Outcast Marine’s voice sounded breathy and tense, and Jezzy wasn’t surprised. She had sent Ratko ahead of her on a solo, unassisted space-walk while she fought a rear-guard action, protecting the armed and primed nuke that they had found inside the Invincible, ready to use it against the Ru’at jump-ships that patrolled the Martian orbit.

  “Good to hear, Ratko. You know my orders. Two minutes and you blow.” Jezzy ducked as she leaned her Jackhammer around two large ceramic pipes and fired.

  Phada-BOOM! Phada-BOOM! Burst fire. She had no time to perform targeted kills on these beings. The metal man-things, with half of their human bodies encased in steel, were almost unstoppable anyway. Only a strike against their spinal cords would sever their essential circuits.

  FZZT! Her heavy shells struck, sending the first cyborg into a spin as a line of blue-white plasma erupted from the miniaturized particle-beam generator that was its hand and burned a line across the ceiling.

  Tsk! Lines of sparks erupted from the grillwork up there, as well as gobbets of molten metal as the creature’s fire clicked off. There was another deep, rumbling shake that moved through Jezzy’s feet.

  The Invincible had been General Asquew’s flagship in the Second Rapid Response Fleet, a vast pyramid of bronze and gun-metal colors able to decimate a planet, should it so wish.

  But now she’s ready to be scrap, Jezzy managed to find the time to morosely consider. Just like most of the Marine Corps ships that had faced the Ru’at directly.

  It was those particle-beam weapons, Jezzy knew. The ones on the bulky hand-units of the cyborgs were only child’s toys compared to the ones that the Ru’at ships held in their nosecones. Those weapons were able to burn holes straight through the double-reinforced, meter-thick hulls of even the toughest ships of the fleet!

  Jezzy knew it was all owing to the Ru’at’s more advanced technology. They were the ones who had sent ‘the Message’ to Earth, packed full of details on how to develop cybernetic and more bizarre technologies. The alien race was so far ahead of Confederate Earth that Jezzy thought, in cosmic terms, this must be like a colony of ants attempting to stop a human from trampling their nest.

  Impossible.

  The Ru’at Message had been a fake, though—or not a fake, but a sophisticated Trojan horse, and certainly not the olive branch that they had thought. When NeuroTech and the other human mega-corporations had developed the Ru’at technologies, believing them to be a gift and a way to communicate with the first alien species that humanity had ever found existence of, all it had done was build a back door to an alien invasion.

  Not that any of it mattered now, Jezzy thought. The Marine Corps Fleets were scattered, destroyed, and betrayed. The Near-Earth Fleet was under the direct control of the other Marine General, Hausman, who had just declared himself ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of Earth, and that left Asquew attempting to stave off the alien menace. And failing, badly.

  “Just get out of there!” Ratko was saying urgently. “My suit’s going to pass transmission range any second. I need to know that you’re out!”

  BOOM! Another shot from Jezzy’s Jackhammer was enough to send the already-stumbling cyborg backwards into its fellow. Luckily for Jezzy, this area was narrow enough so that only one cyborg could try to murder her at a time.

  Jezzy opened her mouth to respond, but then stopped. It would be better if she thinks I’m dead. Then she’ll blow the nuke with or without me.

  FZZZT! A line of blue-white fire shot past the edge of her helmet, so close that Jezzy swore she could smell the ozone burn. She couldn’t, of course—her power armor had a completely filtered air circulation system—but she, of anyone, knew just how the mind could play tricks on you when it thought it was going to die.

  Jezebel Wen used to be a Yakuza agent, trained to tidy up loose ends and enact the Yakuza’s justice in the Asian-Pacific Partnership region of Confederate Earth. Maybe it was this volatile and uncompromising early start that had given Jezzy her cool head during times of such imminent terror.

  What are my mission parameters? she thought as she traded more rounds with the two cyborgs who had cornered her. They both had ugly blast holes about their bodies or were buckled and scorched places in their metal parts, but they still came. Jezzy was only managing to hold them at bay by using her Jackhammer to knock them down or push them back.

  But they always—always—got up again.

  One. Keep the nuke armed.

  Two. Distract the Ru’at.

  Three. Get off the ship.

  When she thought about it that way, there didn’t seem to be much chance that Second Lieutenant Jezebel Wen was going to be able to get off this boat.

  Would these cyborgs be able to neutralize the nuke? Jezzy had no idea if their programming stretched that far.

  Would the cyborgs be able to send a message of warning to the Ru’at jump-ships outside? Maybe. Again, her knowledge of their capabilities was severely lacking. But she knew that they were capable of deep machine learning, analyzing their targets to best capitalize on their weaknesses, which showed a kind of evolution.

  “Sir! This is Ratko. I’ve got— SCRRRRR!” Jezzy’s internal speakers pulsed with Ratko’s voice, somewhere outside the Invincible, but she was cut off almost instantaneously by static.

  She must have moved out of range, Jezzy knew as she fired again, and again. Suit-to-suit protocols for their squad-level communication was a narrow band at best, and she herself had further restricted it to make sure that the alien menace outside couldn’t easily pick up on what they were doing. Or attempting to do, anyway, she thought.

  Again, Jezzy thought that it was probably better for her squad member to think that she was already dead in here. That way, when the timer was up, the corporal would activate the nuke and their plan would be secure.

  But half a heartbeat later, it seemed that Ratko had managed to get her message through.

  Gold Channel Message Alert!

  Sender: Corporal Ratko (Tech. Sp.)

  Data Packet Received: Trusted. Verified.

  On her visor appeared a line-drawing schematic of the forward munitions locker of the Invincible, sent by Ratko. It had a glowing green dot to indicate where Jezzy currently was, as well as another flashing green dot just a few corridors away.

  Emergency Survival Raft: Designation 23, the tiny hologram display read.

  “What?” Why hadn’t she thought of that? She had automatically assumed that when the Marines, staffers, and soldiers of the Rapid Response Fleet had to abandon the Invincible, all of the escape pods and survival rafts would have been ejected.

  But clearly not. Jezzy frowned.

  FZZT! FZZZZT! There was a shower of sparks and a loud crack as the ceramic pipe by her shoulder exploded in a million fragments. The cyborgs were getting close!

  Jezzy fired as many times as she dared, aiming a burst shot at the one in front’s legs. It fell to the floor under the heavy barrage, but that only meant the one behind it had a clearer shot.

  Frack! Jezzy threw herself back as she ducked under the onslaught. She was only a few corridors away from both the nuke and the emergency raft. What should she do?

  The emergency survival rafts, Jezzy knew from her training, were a slightly more advanced version of an escape pod, which were little better than metal tubes on thrusters that automatically flew to a pre-programmed location when fired.

  The ESR of the Marine Corps, however, were entire little ship ‘units’ with their own directional thrusters and positioning rockets, and sometimes, they even had their own minor armaments.
It made sense that there was one for this section of the ship, Jezzy thought. She was currently near the ‘top’ of the Invincible, and the place where the primary-one weapons were held, at that. If there was any sort of malfunction or problem up here, then the staff would want a secure way to get out—and fast!

  FZZT! Another line of burning light shook Jezzy out of her hasty thoughts. Whatever she ended up doing, she had to get out of this corridor first, and quickly, before the cyborgs rounded the corner.

  But Jezebel Wen had started off as a ruthless Yakuza, and then her talents had been honed by some of the best military training that the Marine Corps could devise in the Outcast Training Program.

  Even as the sound of metal feet clanked closer, Jezzy rolled, propped her Jackhammer against her shoulder, and fired.

  Upward.

  PHADA-BOOM! She fired in single shot as the ammo indicator light on her gun started to flash. Single shot meant that she could more effectively target the part of the ceiling she wanted to hit: the place where congealed gobbets of metal had frozen even as they had fallen, and a line cut across the gridded metal bars to the ceiling.

  Clang! Clang! Cla—

  Sparks flew, and the Jackhammer’s shells ricocheted down like deadly rain, but with a sudden, much greater explosion of neon sparks, she achieved her aim. There was a resounding crash as the already-damaged ceiling panel buckled and collapsed, dislodging dust and thick clouds of dark smoke.

  Warning! Environmental Hazard Detected!

  Suit Air Filtration Systems: ACTIVATED

  Time until Air-Filter Clog: 4.6 minutes

  Her shots had ruptured some sensitive internal organ of the Invincible, and black smoke plumed into the corridor. But Jezzy, inside the carapace of her power armor, was fully protected. For now, anyway.

  But her plan had worked much better than she had anticipated, as now there were not only bits of ceiling in the way, there were also billowing clouds of black smoke for the cyborgs to contend with.