by M. D. Cooper
It was textbook Nietzschean strategy: blitzkrieg a world. If they were unable to take it quickly, destroy and occupy large population centers. Dislodging their troops always resulted in heavy civilian casualties.
Rika was leading one such dislodging action at that very moment.
Leslie and Barne were with her, as well.
Technically, a lieutenant named Clancy was in command of the platoon; but somehow, over the last day, everyone had begun to defer to Rika as they worked their way ever deeper into the ruins of Jersey City.
Rika clambered up a beam rising out of the rubble, and watched the nearby buildings for signs of the enemy as the platoon spread out in the street below.
She spotted movement four blocks down and cycled her vision, confirming the presence of Nietzschean soldiers.
Rika called back to the Marauder’s surface-to-surface artillery teams, ten kilometers behind them. she said.
Less than a minute later, two grey streaks fell straight down from the sky, lobbed high into the air before they dove into their marks.
The street, and the part of the building where the Niets were hiding in the shadows, exploded in twin balls of fire. As the haze cleared, Rika called her thanks back to the artillery platform, while also letting Lieutenant Clancy know that she didn’t read any more hostiles from her vantage.
Below her, the platoon split up; its four squads each taking a different street toward the center of Jersey City.
She moved down the street being traversed by fourth squad—second from the right flank—and slipped past the soldiers.
Several of the Marauders nodded to her as she moved by. Some shook their heads, but most ignored her. Seeing their attitudes—not to mention their armor—brought a lot of old memories back.
Most of the armor and equipment in the Marauders was Genevian, Unfortunately, so were the troops, and that meant many of the soldiers thought of her as nothing more than a tool.
Rika thanked her stars that Captain Ayer hadn’t felt that way when attaching Rika to fourth platoon.
* * * * *
“Basilisk,” Captain Ayer shook her head slowly as the team entered the company’s HQ—currently set up in the back offices of a water-storage and pumping plant. “You’re some tough Sons and Daughters o’ Bitches. I’m sorry about Jerry; he was one of the best.”
As she spoke, the captain rose from her desk, and the other two people in the room, a man and woman, also turned their attention to Basilisk, their eyes solemn as they looked on.
Ayer walked around the desk and approached Leslie, clasping both of her hands. “I’m so sorry, Leslie. I truly am. I’m here if you need to talk.
Leslie nodded silently before taking a deep breath and wiping an eye.
Ayer then turned to Rika and shook her hand without hesitation. A gesture that spoke volumes about her opinion of mechs.
“Rika, I’m happy to finally meet you, but it saddens me that it’s under these circumstances.”
“Thank you, Captain Ayer,” Rika replied.
Lastly, Ayer turned to Barne, and clasped his hand. “Sergeant Barne, I see you survived your first mission with Rika. I’m glad to see the two of you are unscathed.”
“Captain Ayer, of course I am. I’ve got Rika at my back. She’s Basilisk.”
Ayer glanced at the coiled snake carefully painted on Rika’s chest. “So she is. I’m surprised that you feel that way.”
“No reason not to, ma’am,” Barne said, his tone crisp and equivocating.
“Glad to hear it,” Ayer replied.
“Rika, I’d like you to meet First Sergeant Meg, and Gunnery Sergeant Stewart.”
“Nice to meet you, Rika,” Gunnery Sergeant Stewart said with a smile, while First Sergeant Meg only nodded and said, “Rika.”
“Glad you were able to make it up here to meet us,” Ayer said once the formalities were over.
“Was a slog up the coast,” Barne said. “But we heard this was where they were dropping the beer, ma’am.”
“No beer yet, Sergeant, but I do have some gifts for Rika, and some real armor for the two of you.”
Rika wondered what those gifts could be, but didn’t voice her question as Ayer continued.
“The Niets may have done a drive-by on Berlin and toasted it something fierce, but Marauder ships aren’t commanded by pusillanimous cowards like the GAF was, and it would seem the Thebans aren’t either. For now, they’ve managed to push the Nietzschean ships back from Pyra, and are engaging them near Fresna.”
“Good news is that we don’t have to worry about Niet birds in our skies. Bad news is that they dropped over a hundred-thousand of their dickhead commandos down here, and we’ll have to clear them out the old-fashioned way.”
“Do we have any orbital support?” Barne asked.
Ayer nodded. “We’ve got the Brisbane in orbit, and an artillery platform set up a few klicks to the north. It’s a bit of a Niet magnet, so first platoon is keeping it safe until the Brisbane gets the shield generator down here. The Thebies have a few ships up there, too. They’ve taken what shots they can, but now the Niets have a lot of civvies rounded up, and the Thebans don’t want to blow away their own people.”
“So it’s time to send in the mercs,” Leslie said.
“You need to sit this one out, Corporal?” Captain Ayer asked, a sharp edge entering her voice. “I feel for you, and I feel your pain, too; but you signed up for this gig. Last I checked, so did Jerry.”
Leslie swallowed and glanced at Barne and then Rika. “No, ma’am. I go where Basilisk goes.”
“Glad to hear it,” Ayer said with a curt nod. “We’re going to send you out with Lieutenant Clancy and fourth platoon. However, I first need to square away some housekeeping.”
Ayer turned to Rika as she spoke, and Rika wondered what could be coming next.
“Back in the war, a mech saved my life. Another mech saved an entire platoon under me. I watched mechs do the war’s hardest work with the least thanks. You never got medals, ribbons, or promotions; that’s not how the Marauders operate. I have authorization from General Mill to give you a field promotion to Second Lieutenant.”
Rika felt a surge of mixed emotions, but shook her head.
“No, ma’am. No disrespect to you, but I cannot accept that promotion.”
Ayer’s face clouded. “Why not, Rika?”
“Because I’m a slave, and slaves can’t be officers.”
“Shit, Rika, didn’t you get the message? It should be in your queue on the Marauder’s general—aw, fuck.” Ayer sighed and gave Rika a wink. “We try to be more efficient than the Genevian Armed Forces were, but it’s not always easy. You never got tokens to access the general net, did you?”
“No ma’am,” Rika shook her head.
“We’ll square that away once we’re done here, but let me be the first to inform you that you are not a slave. There was a data packet that got left out when you were sent to Pyra—it was a bit of a rush job, not our best work. You were only to have to work off half the cost that it took to buy you at that disgusting auction. However, when the Old Man learned about how you saved your team when you could
have disappeared, he decided that you had gone above and beyond the call of duty—especially for someone who thought they were a slave.
“You’re free and clear, Rika. You owe the Marauders nothing, and when we’re done here, I’ll have the company’s technician remove that compliance chip, and get proper enlistment paperwork drawn up for you.”
Barne let out a whoop of joy, while Leslie reached out and grabbed Rika’s arm. “Rika,” she said with a smile.
Rika couldn’t find the words, but she felt a tear slide down her cheek. She drew herself up, and wordlessly saluted Captain Ayer.
She had finally been set free. There was no hesitation in her mind now. She was a Marauder.
Captain Ayer smiled and returned the salute. “Now, Lieutenant Rika. I assume that you’ll properly enlist?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Rika said the words with a calm certainty.
“Excellent. The gifts, by the way, are right-mount GNR and a new left arm. Now let’s get Clancy in here, and go over how we’re going to kill all these fucking Niets.
* * * * *
Rika had worried that Clancy would have an issue with another officer attached to his platoon. As it turned out, he was a first lieutenant, and the pecking order was clear—for the most part. Though he was in charge, Rika had a lot more experience in the field, and he was to take her advice.
Barne had them all beat for time in the service—even more than Clancy’s platoon sergeant—but that just meant he’d make sure the officers didn’t screw things up too much.
The plan had been straightforward: move south into the city, secure the manufacturing district on its north side, and then cross the canal into the downtown area, and flush the Niets out.
Except there’d been a lot more Niets on the north side of the canal than anyone had expected. Second and third platoons were still further back, but Captain Ayer had instructed Fourth platoon to push forward and secure the north side of the canal—which was now only four kilometers distant.
As Rika slipped past squad four’s lead fireteam and down E street, she scanned each building for heat signatures and movement, while also monitoring feeds from the platoon’s drones.
The drone had picked up a shadow moving at the head of a nearby alley. Rika unslung her JE78, ready for close quarters combat. She pulled a drone’s feed from high overhead, but was unable to see into the alley with the refuse and overhangs from the buildings on either side.
She considered sending a drone into the alley, but didn’t want to give away her intentions. Rika glanced at the twelve-meter high building, and crouched before springing up over the protruding roof, landing as quietly as possible, and then dashing across the to the next street and dropping down at the other end of the alley.
Rika crept down the alley’s narrow confines, staying in the deepening shadows, and searching for whomever, or what-ever she had seen. She progressed five meters into the alley and then stopped, pressing herself against the northern side as a dull scraping sound reached her ears.
Nothing showed up in her enhanced vision, and she was considering sweeping the darkness with an active scan when a shape darted out from between two large metal bins.
“Got left behind, did you?” Rika asked as she reached her left hand out to stroke its head. The dog didn’t shy away, and she smiled to herself, happy to see that someone accepted her without reservation.
Though she knew that thought wasn’t entirely fair. Leslie had never once seemed disturbed that Rika was a mech; nor had Captain Ayer.
As Rika stood, she heard a sound from behind her, and she snapped her knees straight, leaping into the air as an electron beam streaked through the space where she had been a moment before.
Rika arched over backward, and saw four shimmering figures at the entrance to the alley.
Shit, that’s good camo, she thought while firing two projectile rounds from her GNR-41C, followed by a full auto spray from her JE78. The large caliber rounds from the GNR took out the Niet with the electron beam, and the other rounds drove the rest of the enemy back around the corner.
Barne chuckled in their minds.
She saw Leslie’s location on the combat net, and fired a few shots out of the alley’s mouth to keep the Niets engaged with her. One ducked around the corner and fired a few rounds, which missed because Rika was halfway up the wall of a building, and climbing.
Another Niet tossed an HE grenade into the alley, and Rika raced up the wall, tearing out bricks and mortar as she went. The explosion blew past her just as she reached the top.
Rika heard weapons fire on the street below, and moved to the edge of the building to look down. Leslie was across the street, just emerging from cover, and squad one’s lead fireteam was half a block to the north.
The Niets were all dead.
Rika stayed on the rooftops for the next kilometer, ranging further ahead and using her drones to scout the alleys and streets around her. She was now within two kilometers of the canal, and the downtown district on its far side, and she scanned the gleaming towers that rose into the air.
The streets on the north side of the canal ran at a forty-five-degree angle to the waterway, which provided line-of-sight protection for the platoon as they advanced behind Rika. Unfortunately, the manufacturing district had given way to smaller commercial buildings, which were still tightly packed, but were often only one story high. They wouldn’t provide much cover if any significant fire came from the three-hundred-meter-high buildings across the canal.
Rika sent her drones further into the sky, and overlaid their feed with the images delivered from the ships and satellites overhead.
The combined visual showed a lot of activity in the towers along the canal. There were also a lot more heat signatures than could be accounted for by the Niets alone. Marauder Intel and Analysis determined that the towers were occupied by at least a hundred thousand Theban citizens.
Artillery was out of the question.
Along the northern edge of the canal—on the side Rika was approaching—lay a wide, heavily wooded park. At first, it appeared as though the park was empty; Rika sent her drones down into the trees. They passed through an EM shield, and suddenly picked up dozens, then hundreds, of heat signatures in the trees.
The Niets were waiting for them.
Three of her drones went offline, and Rika assumed the enemy had deployed EMP countermeasures against them. Rika released another passel, but kept them high and further back.
Barne offered a suggestion.
Rika liked the plan.
CRASH
STELLAR DATE: 12.22.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Northern Districts of Jersey City
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Theban Alliance
Rika said.
Leslie cocked her head as she crouched next to Rika, considering the idea.
Rika brought up the canal’s far shore, looking for other options.
Leslie shrugged.
