by Sam Bradbury
‘Call us when it is clear,’ he said. ‘We’ll be right behind you.’
The Intruder sped off and I stood there with the jet pack on my back. Okay, just me and you now, I told it. We’re going to bag ourselves some AA guns.
Chapter Seventeen
The jet pack was a metallic embrace from behind and it seemed to thrum on my back as though it knew it was being called into action and was impatient to begin. I located the throttle and boosters on my left, the cannon on my right, took a deep breath – and toggled the twist grip. A set of gyroscopic stabilizers unfurled around me. The boosters engaged.
I was right. It was like flying an Exoskeleton – and remember what a sorry excuse I was for an Exo pilot? Two aborted attempts to get off the ground later and I was airborne at last. I was right about something else too. The AA cannons weren’t able to target me and I reached the first rig in one piece, not even having to dodge a single RPG round.
There on the deck of the rig were infantry to meet me, but I had surprise on my side. These grunts, I almost felt sorry for them; they were stationed in one of the most heavily fortified defence positions I’ve ever seen and they weren’t expecting a full frontal assault, especially not from a guy by himself. I doubt these troops ever saw action and no way were they elite. Why put your best soldiers where they weren’t needed? They were cold, bored and out of shape, and I tore into them, making my way along the route to the AA cannon turret. I got there to find the place guarded by two operators who wheeled, cursing and reaching for their sidearms. I put them down, then went to the ammo store. The best place to set the explosives.
With freezing fingers I set the demo charges, then took off, heading up to meet Rico.
‘That’s it. Raiders – Raiders evasive,’ hollered Rico, and moments later came the first explosion as my charge ignited the ammo. Then a second series of reports as the ammo began cooking off and discharging, beginning a long chain of explosions that tore the insides out of the rig. There was a scream and screech of tortured, rupturing metal and the gun platform, crippled, seemed to sink to its knees on the rig as the metal struts of its legs buckled. I engaged boosters to move further away from the explosion, just as Rico arrived on an Intruder.
‘I stand corrected,’ he said, ‘nice work.’
I looked across at the next rig, a stretch of choppy sea and a causeway of icebergs between us. ‘Looks different,’ I shouted to him over the roar of the dropship’s engines.
‘I was just thinking that. I’ll do some recon, then meet you over there. There’s a route across those icebergs.’
I made it across the bergs to the second rig where there were more infantry to meet me and – worse – more grunts wearing jet packs.
Now I discovered something. You could say good news and bad news. The good news? If I hit an enemy jet pack in the right spot the whole pack would explode, taking the grunt with it. A messy, painful death, but effective. The bad news? I was wearing an enemy jet pack and just as vulnerable.
I tried not to think about it. I tried not to think that I was facing guys who probably had hours of hands-on training using these things whereas I’d been wearing one for a matter of minutes. I tried to remind myself that these troops were probably Stahl’s most expendable men. Now I reached the second rig and Rico came online.
‘Yo, Sev, there’s no way up. You’re going to have to go down to the bottom of the rig and take out the support pillars. Two timed charges should do it.’
Away he went, leaving me to leap from pillar to pillar, setting the charges and fending off Hig infantry at the same time.
Two bozos from a platform opposite sprayed bullets at me and for a second I tried to remain behind cover as the metal around me rang with the sound of bullet strikes and ricochets. The thing with this jet pack, there was no cover to find. Usually your cover was the air. And trying to manoeuvre it beneath the support struts of the rig was proving increasingly difficult. For the first time I began wondering if I’d taken on more than I could handle. Just two charges, I thought. That’s all I need. Then we can hit the harbour.
I came out from behind cover, used the jet pack to boost myself into the air and surprise my two snipers opposite, strafing shots across the platform where they stood. One screamed and fell into the ocean below; the other disappeared from view, just his leg visible, twitching as he died. I set the first charge, then made my way across to the next pillar, returning fire as I went, the stabilizers narrowly missing uprights on either side of me – one clip and I’d be sent off balance, probably hurtling towards the sea. Set the charge, and then set the second charge.
Now I had two minutes to make my way to the top, the only place there was enough altitude to get off the rig before it blew.
I headed through the main cargo hold, boosting up levels then flinching as bullets rang off the metal. I looked up to see Higs on platforms at my twelve, raining bullets on me. The stabilizers were hit and I staggered, targeting the infantry and returning fire. They took cover, soaked it up then came back with a salvo that sent me hiding behind a crate in the hold. I was losing time. A voice in my headset told me. ‘You have – one minute – and – thirty seconds – remaining.’
Of all the settings, I liked her the best. She sounded softer, more calming than the other pre-sets.
‘You have – one minute – and – twenty seconds – remaining.’
I stepped out from behind the crate and engaged the boosters, shooting up a level and finding one of the grunts in my sights, taking him out with a short burst. On this deck I turned and ran towards some metal steps. Shit. Out of commission.
‘You have – one minute – remaining,’ she whispered in my ear, like she was counting down the time to bed, not a bomb.
I ducked as from behind me came the rattle of an assault rifle, and bullets pinged off my pack. Christ. If they hit the main power supply, I was dead. Like those grunts before. A messy and painful death. I turned and fired wildly behind, seeing sparks fly off metalwork and sending the gunners scattering.
‘Come on, Sev,’ urged Rico, ‘get out of there.’
‘You have – fifty – seconds – remaining,’ she breathed.
I was sweating now. I wondered if the countdown woman would be the last voice I ever heard.
From somewhere else came more Higs, more infantry, opening fire on me. I returned it, using the boosters to get to the next level, Rico in my ear telling me to get the hell out, countdown woman sighing, ‘You have – thirty-four – seconds – remaining.’
Thirty-four seconds till I die.
I saw a set of steps and made for them, boosting up through the hatch and twisting at the same time, taking out two enemy troops there – more by luck than judgement.
‘You have – twenty-four – seconds – remaining.’
Ahead of me I saw a gantry that led to another set of steps, these taking me –surely – to the top deck. I made my way towards it just as two more grunts came running across my sight line, one of them screaming at the other, ‘There he is. Kill the Vektan dog.’
Christ.
‘You have – fourteen – seconds – remaining.’
The first one crouched, shouldered his rifle and opened fire, a burst that if I hadn’t twisted in time would have ripped into my neck. I staggered as the bullets slammed into the jet pack, pulling me backwards. I heard the hiss of something from behind me – the jet pack hit. That didn’t sound good. Desperately I pulled the trigger, more to force them into cover than in hope of hitting them.
‘You have – ten – seconds – remaining.’
The second one opened fire too and I took cover behind a large metal box, cursing. And this was it. So close. So fucking close. They had me pinned down and I patted myself down looking for – yes – a frag grenade.
‘You have eight – seconds – remaining.’
I cooked it and threw. Ducked back behind the metal box and heard the screams at the same time as the explosion. Then I hurtled out from behind cover t
o see one of them, his face hanging in shreds, slowly folding to the deck, while the other stood, dazed, concussed, and I took him out with a shot as I thundered up the gantry, pushing past him as he fell and, reaching the steps, engaging the boosters.
Except …
‘You have – two seconds – remaining.’
The boosters failed to engage. Instead came a warning alarm, a low klaxon sound that said something was wrong – something was terribly, terribly wrong.
And I wasn’t getting up these steps in a hurry.
‘You have – zero – seconds – remaining.’
I ran up the stairs, feeling more than hearing the thunder from the rig below as my demo charges activated and started a chain of explosions that would cripple the rig and me with it if I didn’t get off.
And even as I reached the top of the steps bits of the shuddering, exploding structure were beginning to hive off while below me I could see Helghast troops throwing themselves from platforms into the sea below, hoping to avoid the explosion. Behind me there was the ripple of another blast and I felt a wave of heat that made my mind up once and for all, and rather than burn to death on the rig I hurled myself off it.
Now I’ve done some dumb things in my time. But leaping off a rig wearing a jet pack with a bleeping warning alarm has to rank among the best of them. Still, what was the alternative? Stay behind and die in the fire? I’ll take my chances with the water any time, thanks.
And they engaged. The boosters engaged. For a second I allowed myself to believe that I’d made it when a piece of shrapnel from the explosions behind me punched into my jet pack, and suddenly it was on fire.
I had an image of the grunts I’d dispatched earlier screaming, unable to claw the furnace from their back before it exploded, and desperately didn’t want to go like that. Frantically I grabbed at the buckle. Fingers slick with blood clawing at it.
Snick.
It came off.
Whoomp.
The pack exploded midair, and buffeted by the explosion I fell, hit the deck. Not the soft landing I’d hoped for, but no bones broken far as I could tell, so I lay there for a second to luxuriate in the feeling of being alive. I scrambled to my feet to watch as with a great grinding of metal the huge rig sank into the sea, which roiled and seethed at the sudden rude introduction of thousands of tons of platform. Before I knew it – just as I was thinking that I was home and dry – a huge tidal wave of water was rolling towards me. I was too late to avoid it. It hit me, knocking me off my feet, taking me underwater.
Then, above me, grinning at me from the deck of an Intruder as I surfaced, was Rico. ‘Hey, look who decided to go for a swim.’ He indicated the harbour. ‘You ready to do this?’
Chapter Eighteen
The harbour was a freezing stretch of metal with glinting ice coating every surface, and icicles like rows of fangs along handrails that lined the seafront. We were at full strength now. Behind us we’d left the smoking piles of the rigs, neutralized, and our blood was up, ready for the fight as our Intruders approached the harbour. We watched Helghast troops scurrying to their positions, their breath clouding, frantically gesturing to one another as we came closer and closer.
And they couldn’t believe it. A breach of their outer defences was unthinkable for them yet here it was, almost imminent. Watching them, it was difficult not to gloat. They thought they were impregnable. If you’d shown them some tattered Intruder dropships and just a few handfuls of exhausted ISA troops and said that these are the guys to make you look like chumps, they would have laughed in your face. But here we were, making them look like chumps.
But don’t get cocky, Sev. It ain’t over till it’s over. The Helghast still had greater numbers and vast firepower – and they were ready to prove it right now. As we attempted to land, the machine guns on the lower deck of the harbour opened up and suddenly all was noise: the roar of the dropships’ retro thrusters, the relentless crash of the machine guns, bullets slamming into the ships and ricocheting from the deck, the air alive with sparks and splinters. Jumping from our Intruder, Rico and I dived for cover in time to see Helghast infantry moving into position on the top of a heavily fortified bunker at our twelve. Among them I saw a WASP trooper, but before I had a chance to pin him down he’d fired, a cluster of missiles that fizzed through the glacial dusk and into Intruder Three, just as the last of our guys leapt from it.
‘Albini,’ screamed Rico into his pick-up. ‘Albini, are you okay?’
‘Affirmative, Raider Command,’ replied Albini through a cloud of static. We breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Got out of there just in time.’
I looked around the deck. The next Intruder had landed and ISA guys were piling off, but the machine-gun nests had found their range and at least half of them were cut down. I shouldered the assault rifle and fired volley after volley, Rico doing the same, screaming into his comlink, ‘Find cover, goddamnit. Find cover.’
Now there were enough of us to lay down cover fire as the rest of the Intruders docked and the men dispersed, but we were pinned down, the remorseless clatter of the machine-gun nests keeping us crouched behind the crates. I peeked and saw a WASP trooper taking aim and took some shots at him. Enough to send him back behind cover.
‘We’re not going anywhere until we take out those machine-gun nests,’ hollered Rico, his assault rifle jumping in his hands as he too returned fire.
The WASP trooper took aim again. I saw him too late and he fired, the missile battery twisting as it came exploding into crates in front of us, one of our guys blown apart in an explosion of blood and uniform.
I blinked away the image, instead firing wildly at the WASP trooper so that he ducked down, cannon unmanned for a moment.
‘We need one of those,’ I said, pointing, and Rico nodded.
‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to the top of that bunker.’
‘You got it. Give me cover,’ I yelled back as Rico slammed in another clip then leaned from the side of his crate, his assault rifle barking, and I left the safety of my hiding place and scrambled up the harbour to the next crate, three grunts pinned down behind it. Bullets thudded into the titanium, rebounding from the metal walkway, the noise deafening. Only a crazy person would leave cover now.
A crazy person or me. And I took off for the next set of crates. Kept low. Into the storm of hot death sent from above. Then to the next one. Rico followed suit as we made our way to a set of frozen steps, thundering up them to surprise a group of hostiles on the upper deck.
We dealt with them and Rico pointed me in the direction of another set of stairs. I went for them, was in the bunker now and racing through, taking out unwary Helghast as I moved forward.
On the roof a set of WASP troopers thought they were immune from attack and were manning a pair of floor-mounted cannons. They didn’t hear or see me coming – not until I opened fire on the first one who spun, screaming, blood arcing through the air as he hit the floor. The second was reaching for his pistol, but I got to him first, dug my thumbs through his mask and into his eyes, twisting and breaking his neck at the same time. He screamed, gurgled and collapsed at my feet and I pulled my fingers free of his skull with a squelch. For a moment I looked down at him, disgusted with myself. Sick with what war had made me do.
Secure that shit, Sev, I thought, and I took hold of a WASP launcher, squinting down the sights. Down a level were the machine-gun nests dug into bunkers, keeping up a relentless barrage, orange muzzle flash bright against the grey concrete of their surround. Below them along the harbour, pinned down behind crates, were my guys, so I took aim at the first nest, took it out, heard Rico cheering over the comlink, then shifted my aim to the second. As it went up, I heard the Raiders urging each other forward and they began to swarm up the harbour.
Their artillery gone, the remaining Higs couldn’t deal with us and within minutes we’d worked our way over to the facility side of the harbour and were regrouping. Rico, Jammer and a few others made it first, reaching a sto
rehouse where we found ourselves looking at a huge steel door. On the other side of it was a hill that led up to the cable-car station, the cable car leading to the main complex – to Stahl Arms. That was where we needed to be. One problem. The Higs knew we were coming. And how.
Rico moved over to me, keeping his voice low. ‘If we move in now, they’ll throw everything they have at us.’
‘Copy that,’ I said.
‘Think we can make it up the hill. Just us and a couple of other guys?’
‘What’s on your mind?’
‘Let the Higs think we’ve moved out. Let them reduce the alert status, then push forward, take the cable-car station.’
‘And then what? Attack? Four of us?’
‘No, not attack …’ He grinned. ‘Infiltrate.’
I nodded as Rico thumbed his headset. ‘All Raiders, listen up,’ he barked over the comlink. ‘We’re about to unleash a shitstorm of Helghast activity here. I need all of you to clear out.’
They bitched and moaned as Rico explained that he wanted them to hook up with Narville’s men. And he was right; they should. Somewhere out there the guys who had escaped the jungle base were under the leadership of Doc Hanley. Now, I liked the doc well enough and he was a fine medic – even if his bedside manner left a lot to be desired. But he was no military leader. The men needed guidance.
As Rico convinced the men, Jammer worked on the control panel for the door. At last she stepped away as it opened; beyond it, the hill.
‘Good luck, Rico,’ she said. Then turned to me. For a moment I let myself swim in her gaze – in the biggest brownest eyes I ever saw. ‘Sev,’ she said, acknowledging me with a smile that was slightly crooked. It was like God had created the perfect mouth so he just had to add an imperfect smile to even things up.
Then she turned and went, and Rico was watching me watching her, shaking his head and smiling. Paavola and Schofield remained behind with us and we waited for the dust to settle, then began to make our way up the hill.
