Marine Raiders: Strike Back (Blood War Book 2)

by Rod Carstens

  But he wasn’t a hybrid. He was human. How he had ended up helping an alien race in their quest to destroy the Confederation was never far from his mind. He kept going over and over it in his mind, as if he could learn to somehow undo his past and, therefore, his present. All he had done was feed information on the Confederation military operations on Rift to the chairman as requested. Sure, he knew it was classified, but as the chairman had said it was just to give Von Fleet a leg up in the contract wars with the other large corporations. He hadn’t known that the chairman was passing this information on to the Xotoli. Then the chairman introduced him to Ms. White and explained their relationship. Von Fleet had a contract with aliens to supply them with the mineral resources that were a Von Fleet specialty, and the corporation was reaping huge profits from the relationship. It was all done very discreetly through various methods in the Autonomous Zone. He hadn’t needed to know the details then, just that what he was doing would be richly rewarded within Von Fleet when the time came. The chairman promised Carroll promotions and bonuses that would make him rich. It was a business deal. That was all.

  It was a business deal until the day the Xotoli attacked Rift and Ceti. Then that business deal became treason. Carroll had been taken off Rift and onto a Von Fleet ship just prior to the attack. That was when both he and the chairman had learned the real reason for Von Fleet's relationship with the aliens. Ms. White had taken over the Von Fleet ship with hybrids that had been embedded without the chairman’s knowledge. She had made them watch as Ceti was invaded and Von Fleet’s entire inventory of the precious Von Fleet crystal was taken. Carroll and the chairmen were traitors to their species, their government, and their corporation. She had told the chairmen the same. They’d had little choice. They were now agents for the Xotoli. Ms. White had ordered Carroll to divorce his wife and "marry" her. If he refused, she would simply eliminate the woman and force Carroll to "marry" her anyway. So he was now married to a Xotoli hybrid that ran a network of hybrids throughout the Confederation. It was she that had ordered the chairman to appoint him as a senator. She also installed herself as Carroll's chief administrative aide. During his every waking moment, she stood as a constant reminder of his treason and the danger to those he loved.

  Ms. White strode into the room.

  She was tall with white blond hair that came to her shoulders and the icy beauty of a high fashion runway model. Both men and women reacted to her every time she walked into a room.

  Carroll stopped pacing. She didn’t like it when he paced. To her, pacing was a sign of nervousness, and she wouldn’t tolerate such weakness. At the sight of her, Carroll was filled with two conflicting emotions at the same time: fear and a thrilling sexual excitement. The few times she had deemed to sleep with him had been the most erotic and exciting sexual encounters of his life. But it would take him days to recover. She said sex without pain was like eating without spices. She believed in a lot of “spice.” He knew she used sex as a weapon to control him just as she did the correction sessions ­– as she called them.

  "Are you ready?" Ms. White asked.

  "Yes, Ms. White."

  Anger flashed across her face. Those cold, beautiful, pale blue eyes hardened.

  "How many times do I have to tell you to call me Raina when we’re not at home. If someone hears you, they might become suspicious."

  "Of course, Raina."

  "Do we need a session on this?" she asked, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

  Carroll’s stomach knotted in fear.

  "No, no we don't," he said quickly.

  "Good. Don't make me remind you again or there will be a session." She paused and what was close to a satisfied look crossed her face. "I just received good news. The Confederation's raid on 703 will be met by a special naval landing party. Your information has proved valuable once again."

  Carroll hid his stomach-churning unease at the news. He had received a communication from the chairman informing him of the Confederation’s coming raid. When the Confederation military planners had approached Von Fleet for help with details about 703, the engineers who worked with them had simply reported the cooperation to their superiors. When it reached the chairman's desk, he passed it on to Carroll. Had he not, Ms. White would have paid the chairman and his family a visit. Now the Marines would be met by a superior force.

  "According to my source, they should arrive as the Marines are in the midst of their raid. It should be a fiasco for the Confederation," Ms. White said with a hard smile.

  "I was afraid we didn't get you the information in time for you to pass it on."

  Ms. White’s head snapped up from her pad.

  "Is that your way of trying to find out how I communicate with my superiors?"

  "No, no. Please don't misunderstand. I was just concerned that we hadn’t lived up to your expectations."

  Ms. White stared at him for a long moment. "Very well."

  The display on his desk popped up and his secretary said, "An aide from Senator Katte is here with a personal delivery."

  "Certainly. Send them in."

  A pretty young aide stepped into the room. Ms. White's head lifted, and she watched the girl intently as she handed Carroll the stick of information.

  "Thank you. You may go," Carroll said, dismissing the girl.

  "That is no way to dismiss someone Col," Ms. White said pleasantly, standing and approaching the girl. "The senator meant to say thank you, Ms.?"

  "Monica. Monica Johnson, Mrs. Carroll."

  "Then you know who I am," Ms. White said as she walked up to the girl. Her eyes were holding the girl’s. Carroll had seen her like this before, though it was usually an attractive young man who held her attention. She held out her hand and the girl took it. The girl’s face flushed, and her breathing increased. Ms. White held her hand longer than necessary, her eyes holding the girl’s with a predatory gaze. Carroll knew that Ms. White had just shared sexual pheromones with the girl. She had explained, with some satisfaction, how she was able to bed any human who caught her eye. It was part of the Xotoli’s genetic design to help her accomplish her mission, just another tool to control the weaker humans. It wouldn’t be long before he found the girl at their house.

  The girl remained transfixed until Ms. White withdrew her hand.

  "It’s been very nice to meet you, Monica. I do hope we meet again," Ms. White said softly.

  "Oh, it was." The girl hesitated and then said, "My pleasure entirely. I do so hope we can meet again."

  "Don't worry, dear, we will."

  Ms. White watched the girl closely. Carroll saw Ms. White’s claws come out of her fingers with excitement as she watched the girl leave. He had seen what they could do. Ms. White had the same look on her face when she was hurting him as she did looking at the girl.

  "She’s a very attractive child. She’ll be amusing."

  If Ms. White had any weaknesses, it was sex with humans. She couldn’t seem to get enough. Men, women, it didn't seem to matter. The only common factor was age. They were always young. He wondered what that was all about. Did the Xotoli make all their hybrids so sexual? Or was she different? If he could figure it out, it just might give him some leverage against her, something he could use to survive this horrifying situation.

  His secretary's image popped up on his desk.

  "Senator, I apologize for interrupting you, but it’s time for you to go over to the senate building."

  "Thank you," Carroll said.

  "I may not be able to be in the committee meeting with you, but understand that I will be watching you. I expect an excellent performance." Riana said.

  "Yes, of course."

  "Do not forget the timing. You know when to leave the room. Do not hesitate or you could be injured or killed. I have my best teams in place, and they will stick to the timetable. They will not hesitate, even if you’re still there. If that were to happen, you would be of no use to us, and I would make sure I took out my displeasure on your family. Do I make myself
clear?"

  "Yes, Riana."

  "Good. Now run along. You have important work to do for us today. Today will be a day to remember. With your help we will cut off the head of the military and civilian leadership and crush that little Marine raid all in one fell swoop. It will be a day to celebrate," Ms. White said with a cold smile.

  Carroll strode into the outer office and left for the senate office building. His hands were so slick with sweat that they slipped on the door handle as he left his offices. Fear always did that to him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Xotoli Outpost

  Exoplanet 1123.567

  Von Fleet Planet 703

  1st Marine Raider Battalion

  Alpha Company

  1st Platoon

  The retrorockets fired ten feet above the surface, slowing Hu's descent. He bent his legs, letting his armor take the force of the landing, and hit the ground with a grunt. With a loud snap, the retrorocket pack off his armor, disengaged and dropped to the snow-covered surface. It had worked precisely as it had been designed. Now Hu hoped the rest of the new equipment would work as well.

  The first moments after a drop were always disconcerting. He had started in the belly of a SOC, fallen through the slipstream of the ship, and suddenly found himself standing in another reality – one that could get him killed unless he got oriented quickly. Hu crouched as he began to take in his surroundings.

  Pulling his new collapsible rifle, the M48, from its snaps on his chest, he scanned the bleak landscape. Snow and ice blew around him, limiting his vision. He was in the middle of a large open ground, that was part of the mining complex. The area seemed to be some sort of a vehicle staging area. Hu glanced at his heads-up for the position of the rest of his fire team. Gras, Lena, and Bien were spread out to the right and left of him and to his rear. He watched as they moved toward his position. He unfolded the buttstock of the rifle. It snapped into place with a familiar click.

  He hadn’t been inserted in the correct location. He was at least a half a mile too far west. The entire insert was screwed up. To his left was a chemical factory, just as the briefing had said it would be, but he was on the wrong side of the administration complex that stood next to it. Yellow lights lit up the area. Off to his right, tracers from a firefight lit up the darkness. Somebody had already run into something. Yet the huge facility still seemed to be working normally, strangely silent with no alarms. To his right was one of the processing plants that turned the precious metal ore into usable material. Seeing it from the ground, he now knew that the drop zone and been too small. It was too tight for an accurate drop in these winds. All of the rehearsals and memorization of the complex Major Aijuba had insisted on were going to pay off. Even though he was far outside his drop zone, he knew where he was in the monstrous complex without having to rely on his heads up display.

  He was facing their assigned objective, the control center complex and the dome behind it, where the staff of the facility had their living quarters. He could see the massive production towers to the right of the control center. The towers were his landmarks, stretching in a long line down the valley. Cranes rose hundreds of feet above the surface, red lights blinking at their tops. Robotic trucks lined the road in front of them. The trucks would pull up to the cranes, and the huge arms would lower their buckets into the ore hoppers. There was a line of trucks waiting to be unloaded. As they stopped beneath the cranes, the powerful arms moved in sync, lowering huge buckets and picking up loads. Behind them stood enormous structures, almost as wide as the cranes were tall, ready to receive the ore. A door snapped open when the cranes swung the ore buckets around to the structure. In the low light emitted from the structures, with the wind and snow rolling through, the cranes looked like huge, dangerous mechanical aliens ready to crush Hu and the rest of the platoon. The ore would be processed to remove the iridium, rhodium, and other minerals that were critical to a technologically advanced civilization before they cracked the planet open for the Von Fleet crystals at its center. As far as Hu could see, the cranes and ore carriers were working normally. The scene looked just like the videos they had been shown by Von Fleet engineers who had worked on 703, except more and more tracers and explosions filled the dark sky to his right. That fire was an indication something wasn’t right. They weren’t supposed to encounter this type of resistance; the briefings said there were no troops just security guard types. Something was very wrong; the fire to his right was from heavy weapons, not security guards.

  As Major Aijuba had pounded into them during training, Aijuba's Rule Number One: A special operations mission required surprise to be successful. They seemed to have achieved it because the fire to his right was only sporadic. But it was becoming more coordinated as more weapons were opening up. He needed to move before additional defenses came online.

  Hu and his fire team needed to reach their objective as quickly as possible and avoid any contact while doing so. He had to get to the control center with his fire team. According to their beacons, Lieutenant Taro and Staff Sergeant Elias were about half a mile closer to the control center to Hu's right. Nani was about the same distance away to his left.

  Gras, Lena, and Bien reached Hu’s position. Without orders, they formed a small circle around him, each facing outward, providing 360-degree cover.

  "Let's move out," Hu ordered.

  Aijuba’s Rule Number Two: Special operations missions required speed. Don’t hesitate. Move. Get to your objective before the enemy can recover from their surprise.

  Hu trotted toward the position of his lieutenants and Nani. He could see the rest of the platoon closing in fast. He switched to company view. He didn't like what he saw. The other two platoons were scattered over an even wider area than his and were struggling just to organize fire teams. Just like the major had told them time and again, Hu knew that there was nothing he could do but continue with his part of the mission and let the other guys worry about theirs. Raiders never quit.

  Hu and the rest of the fire team began moving toward the gray and black control center complex. He looked up at the huge lighted dome that held the personnel dormitories and the company store. Past it, he saw the other outbuildings that were indications of the small community of workers. Hu tripped over something and almost fell. He looked down and saw a frozen human arm partially covered in snow. Through the blowing snow, he could see the mound of human arms, legs, and torsos it had fallen from. Then Hu realized that he was standing amidst a number of identical snow-covered mounds. All were human remains, and there were too many of them to count. Some of the mounds were as tall as Hu. The hybrids had slaughtered civilian workers just as they had on Rift. Hu was looking at a field of horror. The one thing he was thankful for was that they were covered with snow and debris; he couldn’t see their faces or the little details that would make them more real.

  "Fuck, Hu. Do you see what this is?" Lena said.

  "Yeah. The fuckin' hybrids," Bien said.

  "Guerre à mort," Hu said, repeating the old legion saying. No quarter, given or asked, a fight to the death. Hu switched his comm to the squad frequency.

  "Hu to Nani."

  "This is Nani go."

  "We just found what they did with the civilians. There are mounds of body parts in an area to the west of G5. Just like on Rift they slaughtered them all."

  There was a long silence before Nani said.

  "Bookmark the position so their remains can be recovered someday."

  "Roger. Hu out."

  Hu bookmarked the location on his armor’s GIS then moved out quickly, wanting to get away from the remains of the slaughter. He jumped over the first row of buildings and landed in a narrow street between the rows of buildings. The others followed. As they landed, he jumped again. Using this leapfrog tactic, someone was always on the ground, able to cover the others as they moved. He kept his jumps low, just high enough to skim the top of the building. It had taken weeks of practice in his armor to develop the skill to judge just how m
uch strength to use to clear a building. During training, Hu had ended up either smashing into a wall or over shooting the building more than once. As Major Aijuba had beaten into them over and over, the longer you were in the air, the easier a target you became. Hu and his fire team moved quickly over the rows of buildings without encountering a soul. On the last jump over a single-story office building, Hu saw that the battle to his right was intensifying.

  A large caliber weapon was firing on the second platoon from one of the crane towers. The orange flash of the gun gave away its position as the exploding rounds ripped into buildings around the second platoon. They were returning fire, but the M48's weren't doing much damage. Then there was a large flash from the second platoon's position followed by an explosion forceful enough to knock a huge arm off the crane. The heavy weapon ceased firing. One of the squad leaders had used their new portable scram cannons. Another piece of technology was passing the combat test.

  Clearing the last row of buildings put them at their jumping off point for the attack on the control center, and Hu and rest of the fire team were waiting behind a stack of building supplies. It was a long, low building with a number of cables and communication equipment covering its roof. Streetlights spread pools of orange light along its front. It faded into the huge habitat dome at the rear of the structure. A number of people carriers were parked in a lot outside of the center. The lot and a large concrete ramp separated Hu and his fire team from the building. There would be no cover except a few people carriers once they began their attack. A single reinforced airlock door was visible on the platoon's side of the building. Hu waited for the order to move out. His fire team was responsible for breaching that airlock so the others could get inside. Lieutenant Taro had made them practice breaching the airlock and the wall, but it was the lieutenant's call. Hu could see Taro and Nani moving rapidly to their jumping off positions. It wouldn’t be long now. The platoon was now in position, spread out in a long line to his right. Taro would give the order at any moment. Hu could almost see Taro double checking the platoon’s position before giving the go order.