by M. D. Cooper
she announced.
Rika said to the team.
The team moved out of the courtyard, heading west through the university campus. Scenic walks and buildings of all shapes and sizes surrounded them, and Rika wondered what it would have been like to have the time and leisure to spend years in such a place.
She barely remembered her childhood, or much before the war had started when she was twelve. When she was fourteen, her parents had been in an attack on Hollis; Rika had somehow managed to get offworld on a refugee boat. From there, she had been shuffled around by the Genevian government until she reached the age of sixteen—when she was able to get out of the camps.
That was what she mostly remembered: fear of the war, fear of the Nietzscheans, and then fear that she wouldn’t survive on the streets.
She had only been nineteen when the cops picked her up for stealing food. Never had a chance to attend a school like this, to enjoy her youth.
To relax.
She wondered about visiting Innoa, and enjoying its caves. If Basilisk had been there before, maybe they could go again. Perhaps she could find out what it would be like to just live for a while.
Before the next time they were in the shit.
Rika pulled her mind away from her reminiscing, and back to the present. Distractions like those would be a fantastic way to never see the caves of Innoa.
They neared the edge of the university, and could see the stone façade of the museum rising above the surrounding buildings five blocks away. The team formed up behind a high wall, with drones monitoring their immediate surroundings.
Rika said.
Barne dropped a holoemitter on the ground, and the museum rose up before them.
Leslie turned her helmeted head to Rika, and shook it slowly.
Rika nodded, sending Leslie a warm smile over the Link.
* * * * *
Chase leaned around a column and fired his JE34 rifle at the Niets. He didn’t think that he’d hit any, but at least they weren’t trying to come up the stairs anymore.
one of his soldiers called out.
The soldier tossed the grenade to Chase, who caught it and primed it. Chase then pulled a feed from one of the platoon’s few remaining drones—most of which had been destroyed by the Niets’ EM fields—and looked for the best angle for his toss.
There was a building with an awning across the street. If he could get the grenade to hit it, the ‘nade would roll off and land right on top of the enemy troops behind the truck.
Chase pulled his arm back, and swung with all the strength his powered armor leant him. From the drone’s feed, he saw that the grenade’s trajectory was true. It hit the awning, and fell out of view.
Two seconds later, an explosion flipped the truck over, and Chase assumed the Niets behind it were dead. That had to put the count of enemies at the museum’s front door at less than thirty.
Of course, he had only two fireteams at the front; his first was at a side entrance, and the rest of the platoon was spread even thinner.
He also had casualties. Two dead, and seven others across the platoon in some state of serious injury. Without comms, he didn’t expect that they’d hold out much longer. He was considering telling the platoon to amass at one of the south entrances, and break out of this deathtrap. He could maintain a fiction of a defense at the front door for a few minutes, at least.
So much for finding Rika in the Marauders. Chase shook his head. What a fool’s errand this had been. After searching for her for half a year, the only thing he was going to find was a shallow grave on some distant world.
Still, if he could take out a few Niets before he died, that would be something he could accept. If it saved his platoon, that would be even better.
A group of Niets appeared down a side street with a heavy slug thrower. The kinetic weapon had more than enough firepower to tear apart the columns at the front of the museum.
Confirmations came over the link, and behind them, the two fireteams began to fall back through the museum’s entrance.
He could tell the corporal hadn’t moved, and Chase looked back at the woman.
Don’t thank me yet, Chase thought.
The fireteams retreated through the museum’s entrance as Chase fired from position; then he moved to another and fired again. He knew the enemy would see some of the Marauders leaving, but with luck, they’d think that the defenders were just falling back through the doors and no further.
He pulled back, closer to the entrance, aware that alone, he could be easily flanked amongst the columns. As he slipped behind one, he heard the whine of the slug thrower discharge, and a column exploded five meters to his right.
Another pillar exploded, and he ran toward the door, dodging behind whatever cover he could find as the slug thrower tracked him.
So much for luck, Chase thought as he glanced over his shoulder
At which point he saw the slug thrower explode.
The Niets crewing it were thrown wide as the weapon blew apart in flames and shrapnel. He knew that shot hadn’t come from his troops, and he tried to raise whoever was out there on comms, but got nothing.
More shots rang out, ballistic rounds that hit half a dozen Niets in rapid succession. An HE grenade exploded where a group of Niets was clustered, and then a car partway down the block flew into the air.
The Niets must have decided that whoever was left at the museum entrance was far less dangerous than whoever was hitting them from behind, and a dozen of them rushed up the stairs and took cover behind the columns. Chase considered hitting them from the rear, when the remainder of their force rose from cover, and raced toward the museum’s main entrance.
“Oh, shit!” Chase cried out, and ran into the museum, thirty Niets hot on his tail.
* * * * *
Rika was just settling into position when she saw the Marauders begin to fall back through the museum’s entrance. She tried to raise them; they needed to stop. A hammer and anvil didn’t work nearly as well if there was no anvil.
Shots came from amongst the columns atop the museum’s stairs, and Rika prayed that enough Marauders were still present to
hold back the Niets.
She eased her weapon over the edge of a building, and was about to fire on a pair of enemy soldiers when she saw an a-grav pad float into view—a large-bore kinetic slug thrower resting atop its platform.
Niets never fight fair, Rika grumbled. Good thing I don’t, either.
She repositioned on the rooftop, and took aim with her GNR-41C, switching its mode to fire one of her last few uranium sabot rounds, and mentally pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
The weapon’s jam notice was flashing on her HUD, indicating that the sabot round wasn’t seated properly in the chamber. Rika cycled the round out and back into the chamber, and the warning disappeared.
She took aim again while the Niets fired the gun, blowing a pillar apart. Rika fired once more, and the jam notice reappeared.
FAAAWK! she shouted in her mind, and unlatched the chamber cover, sliding it aside. The round was seated properly and the accelerator was aligned.
Then she saw that the jam sensor was cracked. No wonder.
Rika quickly sealed up the chamber, disabled the jam sensor, and fired on the Niets’ weapon.
The uranium rod flew true, and its sabot dropped off a moment before it hit, tearing the gun apart. Rika moved down the rooftop, firing her ballistic rounds on a dozen other Niets who were hiding behind a stone wall, and then lobbed a grenade at another group behind a car.
Thanks to her two-seventy vision, she saw one of the Marauders still alive in front of the museum’s entrance. She tried to signal him, but he turned and raced inside the building.
Fuck…no! Rika swore. Then she saw why—the Niets were all fleeing into the building, apparently far more fearful of her than whoever was still inside.
Rika leapt down from the rooftop and into the street, firing with her JE78 at two Niets who weren’t fast enough. Then she lobbed another grenade amongst the columns, trusting its blast to clear a path for her.
Seconds later, she was up the marble stairs. Cowards though they were, the Niets would be waiting for her inside the door; even her armor and reflexes couldn’t withstand concentrated firepower from twenty weapons.
She glanced at the high windows along the front of the building, then ran and jumped through one; shards of glass and steel rained down as she fell into the museum’s large foyer.
As expected, the Niets were waiting with weapons trained on the front entrance. She fired a few more rounds from her GNR into their midst as she raced to the dubious cover of some strange twisted sculpture.
Once crouched behind the sculpture, Rika lobbed another grenade out to where her HUD showed the highest concentration of enemies to be. She didn’t wait to see if it hit anyone before rushing to a column, which she climbed using the same trick as she had in the bunker—hanging from the capital at its top.
The Niets were firing at the pillar’s base, and Rika leaned out and shot a uranium round into the base of a different pillar, then another one. Both stone towers fell as their bases crumbled, raining chunks of marble onto nearby Niets.
Rika had hoped the roof would fall, too, but it seemed to be holding. She was about to take out another pillar when part of the ceiling finally came down. Many of the Niets had retreated back toward the entrance, but the debris still caught a dozen of their number.
She scanned the foyer and saw no movement other than the enemies clustered near the entrance. Rika jumped down from the pillar and clambered over the debris, firing wildly at the Niets, forcing them out of the museum.
Then something hit her back, and Rika spun to see a Niet, half-buried by the fallen ceiling, firing on her. Before she had a chance to put him down, a trio of shots rang out from further back in the foyer, killing the Niet.
Rika saw a lone Marauder step out from behind a pillar and walk stiffly toward her. His right leg was hit. It didn’t look critical—just bad enough to disable the armor’s knee joint.
His helmeted head was fixed on her and he lowered his weapon.
Her mind was ready for combat, ready to kill; but not ready for this. It took a moment—one that felt like hours—for her to process what she was hearing.
Chase is here, on Pyra, a Marauder. Did he come to find me? He is going to get himself killed!
The thought turned her attention back to the entrance, certain that the Niets were there, ready to mow them both down.
But no enemies were visible.
Rika shook her head, barely remembering how to form sentences.
Rika stared down at Chase in wonder, as he cleared his visor and smiled up at her.
MOP UP
STELLAR DATE: 12.23.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: City Center, Jersey City
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Theban Alliance
Rika stood atop a building near a decorative garden in Jersey City’s center, surveying the destruction that victory had wrought.
The ground shook as three B’muths walked down a street, their forty-millimeter gatling guns pivoting as the gunners within checked for targets.
Rika suspected there weren’t any remaining.
The battle was over.
In space, the Marauders and Thebans had fought the Nietzschean ships to a standstill. Word amongst the troops was that the Niets were so used to a sweeping victory that they relied on overused tactics that the Thebans had been well-prepared for.
Plus, no one had retreated.
Still, Rika had to give the Nietzscheans some credit. They had held on until a Septhian fleet jumped in, apparently responding to drone-borne messages that the Old Man had sent, asking for help.
A lot of Thebans were angry with the Marauders. There were already calls for the mercenary organization to be brought up on charges of war crimes by many in the Theban populace.
Luckily, there were more Thebans who viewed the Marauders as their saviors—many of whom had apparently been concerned about Nietzschean aggression for some time.
That same group was pushing hard for Thebes to join the Septhian Alliance, and that movement was gaining momentum in the public forums.
Rika considered the irony in that. With Ariana dead and the Niets on their doorstep, that initial mission she had been bought for would likely be fulfilled. Thebes would become a province of Septhia.
Those local politics mattered little to Rika—though she did still keenly feel Ariana’s death. But what she felt most strongly was pride—and no small amount of amazement—that the Nietzscheans had been defeated both on the Pyran surface and in space.
It had been a long time since she had seen a victory like that.
A platoon moved through the streets below, falling back toward the muster site on the southern side of Jersey City. It wasn’t Chase’s, but his was close, also moving back to the muster site.
As much as she didn’t want to leave his side, Basilisk had orders. There were still buildings to sweep, and cover to provide.
At first it had surprised Rika that the Marauders were leaving so soon, but with the Theban regiment moving in from the west, Marauder command felt it was best not to have both forces in the city at once. Too much risk of an incident between the armies.
Rika leapt down from the building and approached Barne and Leslie, who
were speaking with Captain Ayer on a street corner.
“I hear you found your long-lost love?” Ayer asked with a smile as Rika approached.
Rika laughed. “Yeah, first freedom, then this. Starting to wonder if maybe the universe doesn’t hate me after all.”
“He’s put in a request to transfer to my company already,” Ayer said.
“He’s what?” Rika asked.
“Yeah, I’ve put things in motion to approve it. He seems competent—served with distinction back in the war.”
Rika was at a loss for words. In the museum, Chase had told her that he had served in the GAF, but they hadn’t had time to get into details before being given new orders for the final push to clear out Jersey City.
She wanted to reach out to him, to ask him to tell her everything; but they were still in a hot zone, and she wasn’t going to distract him further. If he felt anything like she did, he was already distracted.
All this after just one night in a bar, Rika thought. How could it mean so much to me after so little time?
But she knew there was more to it than that. Chase had pursued her for months, always kind, always supportive. And he had searched for her and found her. With all the worlds amongst the stars, he had found her on this small piece of rock, drifting in space.
“Rika, you with us?” Ayer asked.
“Uh, yes. Sorry, ma’am.” Rika flushed, glad to know her helmet hid her embarrassment from her CO.
“Yeah, right. Get your head out of the clouds. I just brought Basilisk back up to full strength; I don’t want to have to replace its CO when you get your daydreaming head blown off.”
“Filled?” Barne asked. “With who?”
“Seriously?” Leslie asked with a broad smile visible through her cleared visor. “Are you an idiot? Who do you think?”
BASILISK
STELLAR DATE: 12.24.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Commissary, MSS Romany
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Theban Alliance
