by Ben Winston
“Some of your rounds are breaching their armor, Corporal. The tracer rounds that follow are what is hurting them,” one of the armored figures said from behind him. “I never would have thought this old girl would do more than piss them off.”
“Maw-Deuce has something to say to everyone, regardless of race. Welcome to the Magnificent Seventh Marines!” Henderson replied without taking his eyes off his targets. He glanced down at his assistant gunner who was getting another box of ammo ready. “Armor piercing and tracers, Joe. Regular rounds just bounce off.”
“I’ll call it in, Boss. Watch the heat!” the other man replied.
Henderson nodded. “Get another barrel ready! If we can drop these, we’ll swap ‘em before any more show up!”
‘Joe’ nodded and grabbed a long leather and plastic case that had been lying off to one side.
Henderson kept firing, but tried to use shorter bursts since he could tell the barrel of the big gun was indeed beginning to heat up.
Between the three Alliance Marines and the sheer punching power of the big machine gun, and the grenades tossed by the rest of the Marines those three spiders were knocked down quickly enough for Henderson and his helper to change the barrel.
“What are you crazy fuckers doing out here, Corporal?” the Alliance Corporal asked. “By the way, I’m Corporal Phil Johns, Alliance Marines.”
Paul nodded to him. “Paul Henderson; USMC. My team here is Private Joseph Barlow, Private Eric Wilson and Private First Class Jerome Herschel. We saw you guys were in trouble so we’re trying to help. We’ve been ordered to ignore our original orders and assist you folks to the best of our ability. Our command folks should be talking to yours by now,” he slapped ‘Joe’ on the shoulder. “Any word from the uppers?”
Joe nodded. “Contact on all fronts, the aide area is half a click behind point bravo. Command has linked up with the aliens and they are working out the best way to kill these fuckers. A new ammo mix is coming in and should be here any minute. We’re to send back our hot barrels.” He touched his ear. “Hang on a sec…”
They waited while Joe listened. “Command is repositioning the mini-guns on each side of the heavies. We’re getting two guns assigned to us. From what I understand, we’re to set up the minis on each side and have them clear out some of the brush for us. We’re also getting claymores and more grenades.”
“So use the mini’s as lawn mowers huh. I hope their bringing a lot of ammo. Wilson, grab one of the Alliance guys and few of our extra sandbags see if you can throw together some kind of shelter for the mini’s when they show up,” Henderson ordered.
Johns passed the order along to one of his teammates who immediately got up and started working. Phil turned back to Paul. “We’re so used to always fighting on the run, building any fortifications is a unique exercise.”
Paul nodded. “I was meaning to ask, since we didn’t see any, don’t you guys have any heavy weapons like the Maw-Deuce?”
“Not crew served. However, I get the feeling that’ll be changing soon. Normally, we’re what you would call a ‘light rifle company.’ We’re structured as a fast strike unit. Heavier weapons slow us down. Normally, we’d harass and lure an enemy in to the rest of the battalion. But they’re all engaged in town; we were tasked with holding one small remote exit from the main hive. We had it sealed with a force field, but the fucking Aracs dug new exits.”
“So, where is the main hive Corporal?” Herschel asked.
“Under the village,” Phil replied. “Once the smoke clears from this, we’re going to have to go in there and clean it out.”
“Johns! Quit talking and get to work! The Aracs are sending two squads in your direction. These are armed, so tell your new friends to keep their heads down!” Sergeant Tul-sa called over the platoon channel.
“You got it Sarge!” Phil replied and turned to the men building the fortifications. “Heads up, we have incoming and these have guns!”
Paul had already reloaded and cocked the big gun. He began slowly panning back and forth.
“Paul,” Phil said. “These are going to be armed. That means either laser or particle weapons. Your body armor isn’t going to do much to protect you. Try to keep your heads down, okay?”
Paul nodded, but kept scanning the woods. A rustling from behind them signaled the arrival of their ammo restock as well as the two mini-guns. Each mini-gun had four panting men carrying ammo for them.
Discovery
Northwest Territories
Canada
Planet Earth
Sol System
Colonel Cren’lith was not unaware of the plight of Vulpas Unit. Neither was the Command and Control Unit aboard the Honor of Vengeance. However, there was nothing Cren’lith could do to send them any help because he simply had no one to send. Even he was shooting Aracs with a pulse rifle from the back of his assault shuttle while the main gun on the roof fired on larger groups.
Cren’lith’s aide had been wounded and was lying on a bench because the fighting was too heavy to get him to the aide station forty feet away. The aide station itself was actually hovering off the ground because it had gotten too dangerous for it to remain on the ground.
The Aracs had obviously been planning to take the village. When the attack began, whole buildings simply collapsed into the ground. The Aracs had undermined the major buildings of the community. The Aracs had expected those buildings to be filled with panicking humans, but found the armed Alliance Marines instead.
In most cases, those Marines used their armor to jump clear of the wreckage before getting entangled and had managed to inflict considerable damage on the waiting Aracs. However, it didn’t take long for the Queen to switch tactics and now there were armed Aracs swarming over the entire area. There were literally thousands of Aracs, far more than the xenobiologists had thought possible. They were also mostly mature Aracs, which was another facet of this mission that was supposed to be impossible.
It was clear that there was only one hive in this area, but it was much larger and better equipped than anyone thought possible. Before long, it had quickly become a real fight and not just a hive clearing. Of course, if the Marines had tried to invade the hive in the state it had been in, the entire unit would have been lost in short order.
‘Where did they get the weapons?’ Cren’lith asked himself, not for the first time. There simply had not been enough room in the small pod for very much equipment, and certainly not enough room for all the weapons they now carried. It did not matter, they had weapons and they were using them; that is what mattered now.
“Has anyone seen any new soldiers coming out of the ground in the last hour?” one of his commanders asked over the command net. Glancing at the clock, the big Simonian saw it was almost dawn here; they had been fighting continuously all night long.
“We’ve been a little busy over here, Br’nit. What’s wrong, are you running out of playmates? You can have some of mine!” another commander said.
Cren’lith opened his comm. “Report! Are the Aracs running out of reinforcements?”
“It looks like it from here, Colonel, which is why I asked. None of my people have seen any new Aracs come out of the ground in the last forty minutes.” Br’nit replied.
“Anyone else?” Cren’lith asked. “Can anyone confirm this?”
“It doesn’t look like there are any more coming out of the openings over here. But we’ve been tossing those fire grenades into the ones we could find. It took them awhile to want to come out of them!” another commander reported.
“We should be seeing the results pretty soon if they have indeed ran out of soldiers,” another commander said. “At the rate we’re killing them off, they should start to thin out pretty quickly!” That commander’s report was punctuated by the staccato sounds of weapons firing in close proximity.
“Vulpas Unit! Report He’rsree!” Cren’lith called.
“Sir, Captain He’rsree was badly wounded a few moments ago. This is Lieutenant Der’sery
. We’ve sustained heavy losses Sir. The help of the Terran Marines certainly saved us from complete loss. We have managed to contain the exits and have sealed three of five. Our medical section is overwhelmed and we could use reinforcement as soon as possible Sir.” Der’sery reported. “The Terran Commanders were with Captain He’rsree when her position was overrun. Three have joined their ancestors; two others are wounded but still fighting. The Aracs are no longer sending out soldiers. We thought perhaps a main tunnel to the hive might have collapsed.”
“Well done, Lieutenant. We will get someone out there as soon as we can. It looks like the hive has run out of offensive soldiers. We are seeing a major reduction of Arac soldiers here as well. Try to hang on for a little while longer; we should be able to get someone out there soon,” Cren’lith promised.
“Lieutenant Der’sery, this is Command One, we’re sending down our mobile ESAR medical units. If you can, put out markers where you want them to land and set up. EVAC shuttles are also being sent,” AI Honor’s voice called over the channel.
“Understood, Command. What of the wounded Terrans? There are a lot of them.” Der’sery asked.
“They will be treated the same as our own soldiers. They are to receive every need and treatment; however, no technology can be allowed to fall into the Terrans hands. I am truly sorry, but cybernetic prosthesis can only be fitted to Alliance personnel,” Honor repeated the orders she had been given.
“Command One, do you object to gaining a few new Marines?” Der’sery asked. It was clear she was smiling when she asked.
“Of course not, but let’s leave that until we get everyone taken care of okay?” Edgigly replied in place of the AI.
Marine Embarkation Bay
Alliance Apollo Base
Selene, Earth’s Moon
Sol System
When I heard that Vulpas was returning to the base, I made sure to be on hand to welcome them home. No one told me what had happened. I knew it had been really bad down there and there had been horrendous battles, but I didn’t stop to think about casualties. It didn’t dawn on me nor did anyone tell me how much it had cost.
I arrived at the Main Marine embarkation area in my armor to welcome ‘my’ team home. The Marines that got off the first shuttles were quiet and sullen. I didn’t see Captain He’rsree, Sergeant Tul-sa nor anyone from my old squad. I did recognize a few faces from other squads that I had met briefly during the battle on Honor of Vengeance. I approached one of the very tired looking women.
“Excuse me Private. Can you tell me which shuttles the Captain or Sergeant Tul-sa might have come in on?” I asked.
She looked at me and it seemed to take a few moments for her to recognize me. She nodded and led me back into the assault shuttle. There she pointed to a large group of black, plastic looking body bags. “They came in on this one, My Lord. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“All of them?” I asked. My voice cracked somewhat but she understood me.
“Captain He’rsree survived her wounds and made it to the aide station. But she had an allergic reaction to the anti-venom and died almost immediately. Theta team,” That was the name of ‘my’ squad. “Went down into the hive after a group of Terran Marines that had been taken by some Arac scouts. We lost all contact with them ten minutes later during a battle. When reinforcements arrived, they recovered three bodies, two Terran Marines, and Private Ca’lis. A search was conducted, but nothing more had been found of them. While the search of the hive is still going on, it has been over sixteen hours since their signal was lost. Command has them listed simply as missing, but there is no way they could still be alive and not have made it back to the surface.”
I nodded my thanks to her, bent down and picked up the body of Captain He’rsree.
“Sir, you don’t need to do that. We’ll get them taken down to the morgue,” the trooper tried to tell me.
“No,” I said. “She made sure I got home, I need to return the favor.” I stepped past her with my burden. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but Sarah helped by guiding me.
Once I delivered her to the Morgue, I returned to the assault shuttle for the next friend I would never see again. After the third trip, the Marine I had first approached dropped her gear and joined me. The next trip, three others from Vulpas joined us. That was when I found out that almost half the unit had been killed and thirty-six more were wounded bad enough be taken to the infirmary. Less than twenty percent of the unit could answer muster, and it would do so without any officers and only half the sergeants.
I had taken the afternoon off to welcome home my friends. When I finally made it home I had no strength left. I sat down on the floor just inside our front door and cried for the loss of my friends.
Office of Doctor Sir Eric Cowan
AI Lab
Alliance Apollo Base
Selene, Earth’s Moon
Sol System
Right after the Marines had left for the Honor of Vengeance and Earth, Ced followed me back to my office to tell me about his ideas for new Marine combat armor.
At first, I thought he was nuts and had gone really over-board on what he wanted to do, but when he started bringing up schematics and drawings he’d made in the short time since first mentioning improving the armor, I began to realize he wasn’t crazy. A little ambitious maybe, but not crazy.
The new armor would employ a completely new outer shell that, by itself was superior to what is currently in use. But, he didn’t stop there. The armor shell was layered and structured in such a way as to support a special energy matrix not unlike the inverted warp field we’d discussed earlier. Each set of armor would have to be built for the trooper because one of the improvements was to make it as formfitting as possible. The less excess room inside the armor, the less it slid around and transferred kinetic energy to the occupant.
The current design had the Marine wearing a special suit to be used as a liner under the armor. The new design incorporated that liner into the inside of the shell. Body wastes would still be recycled and processed by the armor just like the original units do, but in this system it would do so more efficiently.
The current combat armor in use had not been significantly upgraded in over three hundred years and that had been a slightly larger, more powerful power unit. The new system would have a small cobalt reactor built into it. It was a type of cold reactor that did not produce a lot of heavy radiation. It was very powerful, but was not nearly as efficient as other reactors. It would need new fuel cores every two hundred and fifty hours of operation. There was a safe storage area that would hold an extra power core as well as a small unit capable of replicating new cores provided there was available materiel. The old core would be recycled, but because of the radiation it did have, it would have to be recycled by a unit larger than the suit carried.
I shook my head when I saw that. Basically ten and a half days of continuous power before needing replacement. If a Marine had to spend that much time sealed up in their armor, I’d feel very sorry for them. But there were other power options available for the non-combat versions that lasted much longer, but those units were built mostly for long term survival in a non-combat environment, like an ejected pilot, or crewmen that gets caught in a decompression event.
Reading through the specs Ced had drawn up was like reading a science fiction story. However, about two-thirds of the way through it, I realized that everything Ced had outlined so far, could be done with our existing technology. If he could build and incorporate the stuff he was talking about building, I was damn sure going to find a way to write the software to make it all work together.
There was only one tricky part of the whole system; in all the models Ced had worked out, Christy’s biocytes had been included as an emergency trauma treatment function. The only problem was that the ‘cytes were designed for use in the medical bays only. The ‘cytes needed raw material and a lot of external computing power in order to function properly. We’d need to bring Chri
sty and her small team in on this project as soon as we could. Biocyte use in the armor would require them to be redesigned, but this new armor could seriously save Marines lives. Not to mention the lives it could save if the fighter pilots and ship’s personnel could use it. Hell, engineers had to wear special suits when working in the power rooms anyway.
My door chimed announcing a visitor just as Ced and I started to discuss this new project. I saw Sarah smile, so I knew something was up. Christy walked in after I granted entry.
“Hi Ced! Eric, Sarah said you needed to talk to me?”
Sarah had anticipated our need and had asked Christy to come to my office.
“Well, yes, we do need to talk to you. But before we get into that, how is the biocyte project doing?” I asked.
“Remarkably well. We are still working up all the case files and getting the data ready to be sent off to the Alliance Medical Service for final approval. If they approve their use, then my part of the project is over except for the occasional upgrade or software update. Did you know that everything we create that has a marketable value within the Alliance is automatically patented under our names? Once the ‘cytes are released for widespread use, the companies that will handle the production are required to give me a five percent royalty on every sale?” Christy replied smiling happily.
Ced nodded. “Yes, by your Earth standards, I would be considered a very wealthy man. I have nineteen such patents under my name. What you might not have been told was that if the Alliance classifies your work, such as they have done with Eric’s AI work and many of my own inventions, they pay you ten percent of the amount that would have been created if the invention were to be released to the civilian market. It is one of the ways that the Alliance tries to award ability. Even our aides and assistants get a piece of the pie; usually between a half and one percent of the generated income.”
I was floored. I had no idea we even got paid. “So I guess I should check my credit balance one of these days, huh?” I said grinning.
“It would not do you any good at the moment, Eric,” Sarah said. “Because of our situation and the current emergency, you aren’t actually getting paid. However, you are also not being charged for anything either. There is nothing you could order that the Alliance would not cover the price of.”
