Fortress Beta City (The Sleeping Legion Book 2)

by JR Handley

  — Chapter 32 —

  Early Evening, Post-Revival Day 2

  Front Lines, New Detroit City, Baylshore

  Headquarters Security Detachment, New Detroit Regional Army

  After spending the morning preparing for her trip to Beta City, Nhlappo decided to show her presence to her Marines before departing by conducting inspections. The main reason she trooped the line so frequently was to ensure that her Marines were ready, but it also helped that she made herself visible to the Marines who had only joined her after the Battle of Khallini in 2584. It had been twenty-seven years ago, but a lot less when you took out the time in cryo.

  Privately, she worried about whether she could trust anyone who would switch sides, but General McEwan liked to remind her that not too long ago they had switched sides themselves. Abandoning her White Knight overlords hadn’t come easy to her, yet somehow that decision didn’t seem the same as what the Marines and Spacers had done after Khallini.

  Once she had ensured that her combat armor was perfect, she tucked her helmet under her arm and called her aide and security detachment to escort her. Trooping the line usually took her several hours, but she could pick up the pace if she was feeling particularly generous with her Marines.

  Tranquility-4 orbited its sun on a 30-hour day, making sunsets happen in the early evening. She had made it around the perimeter of New Detroit City, and was about two thirds of the way done when the setting sun forced her to slow down. With the sun setting along its easterly route, she had the benefit of the sun behind her. Unfortunately, the shadows disturbed her visibility. With her attention to detail hindered, Nhlappo slowed her pace and began paying closer attention to the Marines in front of her.

  Nhlappo stopped to inspect young Lance Corporal Morris Rhett, when she noticed damage to the greaves of his ACE-2 Combat Suit. She quickly bent over to inspect the damage and prepared to ream the young lance corporal a new orifice when a burst of warm fluid sprayed the side of her face. The sound of a single weapon firing in the distance echoed as Nhlappo fell to her side attempting to pull her helmet on. She looked up in time to see Major Manual Casillas fall on top of her clutching at his neck.

  Blood pumped from his throat in spurts with the rapid beat of his heart. Now on her back kicking her legs, Nhlappo struggled to clamp a hand over the fist-sized hole in her aide’s neck, but knew the obliterated artery was a death sentence. Bits of his combat armor had been destroyed by the incoming projectile and fused themselves with the wound.

  As Casillas tried to gurgle something out to her, his visor inches away, Nhlappo ripped his helmet off to hear him. Just as Casillas opened his mouth to speak, she was ripped away. Lieutenant Gardiner, her security detachment leader, screamed something as he began dragging her. She fought Gardiner as she watched her aide’s twitching body become still. Unable to continue dragging the struggling Field Marshal any longer Gardiner threw his body over her and wrapped his arms around her to hold her down. If need be, he would be her human shield.

  The following fire fight continued for several minutes. Sabots impacted the Tranquility dirt around Nhlappo and Gardiner, sending puffs of smoke and bits of ground into the air. Though the Marines on the line appeared unable to identify a target, it didn’t stop them from adopting a spray-and-pray approach.

  Nhlappo’s security team treated the incident as an attempt on her life and acted accordingly. Cutting off Nhlappo’s attempts to coordinate the fight, Gardiner and his Marines pulled her away by her arms. As they forcible spirited her from the front, her eyes never left Major Casillas blood-drenched body.

  Once the security detachment managed to get Nhlappo into one of the hardened bunkers set behind the lines, which had been intended to protect the troops from air raids and artillery bombardments, they let her loose. Expecting her to attempt to fight her way back to the lines, they all shuddered as she fell to her knees. As if the war itself felt her anguish, the incoming rounds stopped and the gunfire weaned itself down till the front was silent.

  When the adrenaline finally left her system, and she was simply left with the deep despair that always accompanied the loss of her friends and family, Nhlappo did something she hadn’t done since her son Serge had died – she cried. Her blood-drenched fists rained down on the ground as she screamed her rage and despair to the heavens. Mixed in her screams were vows of vengeance and demands of justice from the Maker.

  Sergeant Major Ortiz approached Nhlappo and leaned against the wall of the bunker. Having suffered many losses in his career, the grizzled Marine waited in silence, letting her cry. The shadows cast by the Tranquility sun had long passed when Nhlappo finally composed herself again. In the darkness of the bunker, she stood to her feet and took in a deep heaving breath. In a flash, Nhlappo’s bloodshot, grey eyes went as dark as the Tranquility night as she turned to Ortiz.

  “I want Gardiner and his security detachment out there – now! Figure out where those shots came from. I want answers.”

  “They prepped and departed some time ago, Field Marshal,” Ortiz responded while looking at his rifle.

  Nhlappo noticed Ortiz was running his index finger along an inscribed name on his rifle. It wasn’t uncommon for Marines to name their weapons after a fallen friend or loved one. A part of Nhlappo wanted to ask about the name and share her grief. The field marshal in her took charge, instead.

  “We need to be ready for anything, this could just be a feint to draw us out,” said Nhlappo.

  “Agreed, Field Marshal. What are your orders?” said Ortiz.

  Feeling the blood and dirt on her face starting to dry, Nhlappo attempted to wipe it off with an armored hand while she thought. Only making it worse, she stopped and held her fingers in front of her face. Her once pristine combat armor was now caked with dirt and Casillas blood. Realizing she had lost more than just a friend, she reverted to a command mindset.

  “I need to fill the hole in my TO&E. We still leave for the critical Beta City mission tomorrow morning, and we cannot appear weak. You will step up–”

  Ortiz interrupted Nhlappo by thrusting the helmet she had dropped back into her hands.

  “Field Marshal, with all due respect, I’m more valuable to you as your sergeant major. I recommend Corporal Kaylee Puterman, one of the three survivors from Echo Company, 6th Battalion, 2nd Regiment. Puterman is the youngest of those survivors and most capable of adapting. I apologize for interrupting, but efficiency is key right now.”

  Instead of chewing him out, Nhlappo nodded as she placed her helmet back on her head and switched on her night optics.

  “Make it so. Tell the newly promoted Lieutenant Puterman that she hasn’t earned the right to turn down her commission.”

  By the time Nhlappo and Ortiz returned to the command bunker, Gardiner’s squad, led by Sergeant Anderson, was returning from their hasty investigation of where the shots had been fired from. Nhlappo and Gardiner were busy talking when Sergeant Anderson burst through the door.

  “Report,” said Gardiner.

  Anderson took his helmet off, typed some commands into his Aimee, then proceeded to speak as video of the mission played on the holo-display emanating from Nhlappo’s desk.

  “Field Marshal, Lieutenant, Sergeant Major, we found the spot used by the Hardits to assault the line. It’s clear this was an attempted assassination. We found several dead Hardits, and a scattering of weapons with the bodies. Something was… off with the whole scene. First, the number of sabot casings was too large for so few Hardits. Second, they appeared to have been dead for too long to have been the ones assaulting us.”

  Anderson was unable to continue because Ortiz cut him off, chastising him for such paranoid thoughts. While Ortiz continued dressing down Anderson, Gardiner ordered the security detachment to escort Nhlappo back to her headquarters. They couldn’t afford to take chances, lest more assault teams lurked out in no-man’s land.

  — Chapter 33 —

  Early Morning, Post-Revival Day 3

  Beta Ci
ty Inspection Tour, Beta City, Serendine

  Beta City Integrated Command

  Waking up to from a restful night, Lance threw on his uniform and set to organizing cleaning rotations. He walked around his City Phase Unit, inspecting and supervising the work, occasionally stopping to join. The first time he stopped, de-bloused, and joined in scrubbing the deck, Kylie Brockoye, the sergeant in charge, looked like she had swallowed something foul and tried to pull him away.

  “Sir, Captain Scipio, sir, this won’t do. You are an officer now! You can’t be scrubbing decks with us. It just isn’t done!”

  After she had said her piece, seeming to have run out of steam at the novelty of an officer doing manual labor, she dropped on all fours and started scrubbing the deck with a confused look on her pale face.

  “Marine, the world of today isn’t the one you were raised in,” said Lance. “We have human officers, have been stranded by the White Knights, and are fighting for our survival. This is a new world. Things are different, and officers will lead from the front and set the example. If I must get my boots dirty to do that, then so be it. Now, let’s get back to work.”

  After cleaning for an hour, Lance donned his blouse and reminded his Marines that the 6907th TAC Regiment set the standard, and he expected them to have finished their City Phase Unit before anyone else.

  Lance headed over to the other regiments and the City Phase Units that housed them. As with his own company, Lance would stop and pitch in periodically, spending the better part of the morning elbow deep in cleaning solutions with the rest of his temporary command. As he got to the hangar bay, his last stop, he was surprised to find that they were done and already repairing their equipment.

  “Damn! I believe that you Space Rats beat the Marines in squaring away your City Phase Unit” Lance told Senior Chief George Conrad, the first Naval NCO he ran into. “Congratulations, I’m sure senior leadership will have something to say about that.”

  Lance was walking away from the hanger bay to his quarters when Xena pinged him through his Aimee.

  All commands have reported their spaces sanitized, and now we can safely wake the Jotuns. Further, I’ve successfully integrated into the rest of Beta City’s command sequence. I have sent my cleansing fire throughout the cyberverse like some avenging warrior princess of old, and now I am the only Beta City Systems Administrator. During the conversion, I found an unknown Hardit who iced itself in the cryolab where Basil used to work. I would speculate, with 90 percent certainty, that this is Senior Lab Technician Ledatic Sayansi-Hisabati.

  Xena stopped her update, likely waiting for a reaction from Lance. He was lost in his own thoughts.

  Ledatic? Lance thought. Basil will be interested to hear about this. He’s certainly grown into true manhood since he groveled in Ledatic’s presence.

  Xena, never the diminutive wall flower, continued after growing impatient.

  I guess you could care less about my hard work and the discovery of Basil’s heavy-handed Hardit master. How rude, Marine. Anyways, I also discovered a Marine female by the name of Sashala Kraevoi had entered the base after you were iced. She voluntarily iced herself in one of the empty habdisks in 6907th TAC.

  “Have you attempted to–” Lance started.

  Now you want to talk? Nope. Now, you listen. I gained control of Kraevoi’s AI, a minxy thing by the name Jade. She is cute, I think I’ll keep her! Jade acts as if she likes silly boys, but that’s just because she hasn’t tasted my feminine joys yet! As for this Kraevoi, she is very intelligent. She isolated the entire habdisk she was iced in and set Jade as the local systems administrator. Fortunately, Jade now belongs to me, and I unsealed the habdisk. I sent Senior Sergeant Mosi Okeke to detain her. Be warned, she is feisty and broke the arms of one of your Marines. She also likes to play with knives. Now, if your puny masculine mind grasped all of that, I will send the alert to awaken the Jotuns, and we can let Field Marshal Marchewka decide the fate of these two interlopers.

  Having no questions and not wanting to prolong the conversation with his undisciplined AI, Lance told her to make it happen and continued toward the 6907th TAC. He hoped to be the one to tell Basil about his old boss being found, though with Dante as his AI, any shenanigans were possible.

  — Chapter 34 —

  Early Morning, Post-Revival Day 3

  Aerial Landing Pad, New Detroit City, Baylshore

  Command Element, New Detroit Regional Army

  The early morning rain drizzled on the polycrete pad that served as the runway for New Detroit Regional Army Air Wing. The number of Stork shuttles in the air wing was insignificant in comparison to the vastness of the star system they sought to conquer. While the Stork pilots performed their meticulous checks of the critical systems and components of the shuttles, Field Marshal Nhlappo followed behind them double-checking their work. Nhlappo was more intense than ever, and the already long process became grinding.

  “A sideways glance doesn’t count as a component check,” said Nhlappo to the pilot closest to her.

  “Field Marshal, I already–”

  “Do it again!”

  “Roger that, Field Marshal.”

  Just when it appeared that the pilots might kill their field marshal, the pre-flight inspections were done and the 181 Marines making the trip to Beta City began filtering into the secured hangar. The instant Nhlappo saw her new aide-de-camp, the young Lieutenant Kaylee Puterman, she began issuing orders to her. The first being to have Sergeant Major Ortiz conduct an inspection on the Field Marshal’s Staff. He was going to be riding in a separate Stork, but Nhlappo wanted to ensure his attention to detail would rub off on her staff. The second order to Lieutenant Puterman was to have the Security Company Commander initiate an inspection on his company of Marines.

  After the inspections were conducted, the Marines begin boarding the Storks for the day flight from New Detroit City, on the continent of Baylshore, to Beta City on Serendine. The 1st and 2nd Squads from the Security Company boarded one Stork, and the 3rd and 4th Squads boarded another. The command staff, and all the squad leaders, rode in the third Stork. It was Nhlappo’s intention to review mission priorities and contingencies with her staff en route and to better assess her new officers.

  As Nhlappo grasped the hand railing to board the Stork, someone grabbed her arm to stop her. The action was so unexpected her hand dropped to her Flenser pistol and gripped it as she whipped around. Sergeant Anderson stood in front of her with his hands held in front of his chest defensively. Shouting into the comms, over the roar of Storks, Anderson began talking. There was a nervous tone to his voice.

  “Field Marshal, call me paranoid if you’d like, but the attack yesterday wasn’t the Hardits. Those Hardit bodies should have at least been warm. They were stone cold. Add the failed mutiny over in the 5th Regiment into the equation, and this begins to smack of an inside plot. Please, Field Marshal, let us take extra precautions. It is my recommendation you switch out which Stork you ride in. Have 1st and 2nd Squad dismount and ride in the shuttle designated for you and we’ll ride theirs. It’s a simple precaution that will only take a few minutes to execute.”

  Momentarily shocked at Anderson’s continued belief that her Marines would attack her, Nhlappo sent Ortiz a message via her Aimee. Moments later, Ortiz jumped from his Stork and ran over to them.

  “Why do you want to switch Storks, Field Marshal? It will be highly irregular for you to arrive in Beta City not in the command shuttle,” said Ortiz.

  “Maybe the attempts on my life have me paranoid,” replied Nhlappo. “Alright, Sergeant Anderson, make it so. Be warned, never touch my person again. Sergeant Major, in the off chance the young sergeant is on to something, I want you riding with me.”

  Ortiz didn’t argue. Instead, he walked off and began shouting orders into the comms line. After the shuttles were successfully shifted and everyone was aboard and accounted for, the three craft took off. They banked hard in unison seeking to avoid potential Hardit anti-a
ir threats.

  They’d only been in the air for a few moments when the pilots reported that one of the shuttles was being targeted by two sky-to-air missile pods and an SA-79 Individual Missile Launcher. The pilots deployed chaff and began evasive maneuvers.

  Nhlappo’s helmet reticle showed the scene from the helmets of her pilots. She watched the fiery glimmer of the chaff blow out of the tubes of the Stork like two flaming wings as the shuttle banked away from the incoming missiles. Two missiles targeted the chaff and detonated, and Nhlappo was thrown forward as fragments from the explosion impacted their hull.

  Gripping the rig strapping her to the seat, Nhlappo watched one final missile punch through the smoke of the chaff and veer toward a Stork. The munition punched a hole into the side of craft and disappeared. A moment later, the Stork was ripped in two as it exploded.

  Nhlappo’s eyes widened as she watched Stork VIP Shuttle 426 reduced to a shower of metal, fire, and smoke as it peppered the Gjende Mountains around New Detroit City.

  “Turn this bird around” Nhlappo bellowed at the pilots, “that’s my command and I’ll be damned–”

  “Stand down, Field Marshal!” Captain Eli Zerach responded. “We can’t turn around. Our bird is frakked from the drenting shrapnel. If our forward motion stops, the pressure keeping our hydraulic lines intact will lessen. That means our bird’s hydraulic system will spew fluids everywhere, and we won’t make it to the sea – let alone Detroit City. If we land now, we stay on the ground. Pick New Detroit or Beta City, and then let me do my job!”

  After growling her anger to the gods and then consulting her staff, Nhlappo addressed Captain Zerach.

  “Our best chance is through Beta City. Charlie Mike.”