by Michael Ryan
I retrieved a grenade from my pack, but Sergeant Veetea held up his hand.
Veetea moved to a wooden slab at the base of the bunker, Gauss rifle at the ready. He reached out and pulled on the door handle, and the lucky part of our plan kicked in. It opened. The rail-gun crew hadn’t expected an enemy to get this close, so it was unlocked and unguarded.
We rushed the door.
The two Ted operators with light armor by the big gun didn’t have time to be surprised before they were neutralized.
A third soldier was armored, but unarmed. Our plan required preserving the usefulness of the rail-gun, so Veetea and I whipped our EPL blades free. Callie pulled out a data line and plugged into the firing control system. The enemy soldier had an instant to realize what was happening, but he hesitated, which would cost him his life.
I moved in low.
He kicked at my plasma-laser blade.
I twisted and brought the knife around to his midsection.
He grabbed my arm.
Sergeant Veetea rammed his blade into the soldier’s side, where there was a gap in his armor, and tore upward. The laser sliced through his ribs like the bones of a chicken. A geyser of blood sprayed the wall, and the man screamed in agony. Veetea spun, ripped the knife free, and then drove the wicked point through the guard’s throat, severing his carotid artery.
The dead soldier crumpled to the floor in a crimson pool.
“Let’s get him out of here,” Veetea said.
I grabbed his boots and Veetea took his shoulders, and we carried him to the door and tossed him through it – a precaution in case he’d activated a self-destruct weapon. We ignored the other two corpses – they hadn’t had time to trigger anything.
Veetea turned to Callie. “Status?”
“I’m nearly ready,” she said.
“Avery, figure out how to open that door,” he said, pointing to a thick metal slab near the base of the big gun.
I slammed a red button that I assumed would open the munitions door, and it slid to reveal a choice of ammunition. I selected the nearest projectile – a Ted high-explosive mortar round. The mortar was recognizable, but the rail-cannon wasn’t familiar. Fortunately for me, most of the basic military jobs were designed to be performed by idiots, and figuring out how to load it was nearly self-explanatory.
Now it was up to Callie.
Sergeant Veetea accessed the Second Platoon comm and notified them that the bunker was in our hands. We knew that someone on the Ted team would have realized the gun had fallen, and would be mobilizing resources to take it back or destroy it, so we braced for an assault that was sure to come.
“Callie?”
“One second…okay…hold on.”
“Take out the other RC first,” he said.
“Okay, I’m about ready. Go!”
She was talking to herself, as neither Veetea nor I had access to the firing control system. A red light flashed. Then, a moment later, a green light illuminated, and Callie instructed me to load another HE round.
The other batteries had no defense against a high-explosive charge hitting them from such close range, and the battle was effectively over when the last bunker blew apart in a shower of cement and steel.
We listened for sounds of attack on our bunker and, when none came, exchanged relieved glances.
“Let’s join the cleanup,” Veetea said.
I moved to the door, and he held up a hand as Callie stood to join us. “Callie, you stay here. Work some hacking magic. Maybe you can find out what these bunkers were guarding.”
“You bet,” she said.
“Come on, Avery,” he said. “It’s time to go do some old-fashioned soldiering.”
In this case, old-fashioned soldiering meant hunting down the remaining ground troops and butchering them in a no-quarters fight they had no chance of surviving.
~~~
The Second Platoon leader was Lieutenant Larson, a human name, which was somewhat of a rarity among the troops. He gave Sergeant Veetea and me the roles of unguided rovers on the battlefield. He opened a comm dedicated to speaking with Veetea, but Veetea set it to auto-relay to me, a sign of complete trust that I appreciated.
“You worked some magic there,” Larson said.
I let Veetea respond.
“Thank you, sir,” Veetea said. “I have one unit still inside attempting to obtain intel from the computer system, sir.”
“Excellent,” Larson said. “Let’s clean up this mess and see if we can’t get lucky with that.”
“Of course, sir.”
The Second Platoon had lost two soldiers in the exchange, but we had the enemy outnumbered twenty-six to nine. We had no intel or evidence indicating other troops were based here, but that didn’t mean our assault hadn’t been reported.
“Take this spot,” Veetea said. He sent me a pic with a high point marked. “I want to be sure none of these Teds makes a run into the jungle. It’s probable they’re operating under a no-comm order to keep this place secret. If they send a runner out, we’ll know. If they all try to bolt, I suspect we’re screwed.”
“Done,” I said. If the remaining troops bugged out, we could expect to be one with the universe a few moments later. It wasn’t unheard of for the Teds to realize a target was overrun and turn it into a giant crater, even if their own troops were still on the ground.
I was still alive when I got to my watch position, so I put the idea of being nuked out of my mind.
My armament had been partially replenished, and in addition to the grenades and Gauss bolts I’d burned through, I’d been issued five MQ-12 rounds for my sniper rifle. The specialized bullet was the mini-cousin to the MQ-14, capable of doing ugly damage at considerable range. The twelves weren’t quite as expensive as the fourteens, and they were also authorized for use on low-priority personnel. Of course, the purpose of having a cumbersome sniper rifle and devil rounds was for situations where a sniper was needed, but I was getting restless. I told myself I needed the practice.
The LRGS-32, a relatively new long-range Gauss sniper rifle, required a stable base. Solid rock is the preferred foundation, but in a theater like this one, it was usually impossible to find. I didn’t have the time to be subtle, so I used my EPL blade and cut down a couple of trees that were in my field of fire.
If anyone noticed, they didn’t have a free moment to shoot me. It helped that we were fighting with nearly a three-to-one advantage.
I attached a mounting spike to my armored boot and drove it a meter into the dirt. I loaded a round and brought up the weapon’s interface on my DS, attached the rifle body to the mount, and locked the weapon to my hands and right forearm. I’d left my BV-87-LL telescope with Callie, but that wasn’t a problem. I didn’t need to hit an enemy in a precise manner with the MQ-12; a body or head shot would kill instantly, and an appendage hit would enable someone on the field to finish the job.
Not that I’d ever put a round into a leg or arm on purpose.
I decided I’d go for a head shot if possible. The days of torso targeting were long gone with the startling advents in accuracy of the new generation of weapons, at least for sniper-certified shooters like me.
Surveying the field, I picked the most distant target: a soldier who was pinned down between two units from the Second. I had to wait three agonizing minutes to get a range on him, and then for a fraction of a second, the soldier exposed his left elbow. It was enough to dial in the rifle, and the distance came in at just under four clicks from me. The LRGS interfaced with my positioning system and took into account the curvature of Purvas, the ambient temperature, humidity, and wind.
The computer took a sampling and assessed the conditions. The breeze was a mild five kilometers per hour, but that didn’t tell the whole story. There were gusts that hit ten, which posed a challenge. It was probably not going to greatly affect my sniping, but I wanted to be as accurate as possible.
A long-range shot, if it deviates even slightly, can ricochet off TCI-A
rmor.
I put the doubts out of my mind and trained the sights on the spot where I’d seen the elbow a few moments earlier.
I waited.
A flash of color showed between the leaves, and instinct commanded me to fire.
The MQ-12 was hurtling toward the soldier’s helmet as he broke cover. The exposure was only five or six centimeters, but that was sufficient. The round struck with enough force to penetrate.
The kill was instantaneous.
~~~
I was about to talk myself into taking another shot when Sergeant Veetea sent me a message.
<
The Ted trooper numbered six on my map view had drifted well beyond the original point of engagement. Six was being flanked by two of ours from the Second, and I watched as the distance grew over the next four minutes.
Several long moments later, the enemy unit was twenty clicks out. He wouldn’t dare use their comm gear lest it give his position away. At this point, both sides undoubtedly had starships monitoring for any sat transmissions, so radio silence was the only way to guarantee survival.
“Avery, we’ve got a runner,” Veetea said. “Let’s move.”
I began breaking down my equipment.
“Now, Avery!”
“On the go,” I said, even though I needed another moment.
The voice of the Second Platoon’s lieutenant came over my comm. “Sergeants, you’re released to chase that runner down. I’ve sent up a drone and will relay tracking. He’s now mission priority. The Second is going to secure and search this area once we mop up the rest of these nuisances. Tell your sniper that was a great shot, although I don’t officially sanction his choice of weapons.”
“Will do, sir,” Veetea said. Then to me he asked, “What the hell do you call that?”
“Practice, Sergeant.”
“Try to stick to protocol,” he grumbled.
I could tell he was proud of the compliment from the louie, so I just replied, “Yes, Sergeant.” By this point I’d stored my weapon and was running through the jungle. I wanted to make an appeal to bring Callie with us, but I realized my orders were practical. Letting the runner get somewhere to report our presence would bring about a bad ending to what was forming up to be a good day.
The Ted runner had two problems.
First, he had to move fast.
Second, he needed to evade us.
Moving quickly through the jungle in an armored suit left tracks big enough that even a green recruit could follow them. Deep boot prints, broken branches, and squashed vegetation were easy to track. There was also the drone that was relaying his position back to us, although we all knew we’d be out of its range soon. He had to at least try to be careful, whereas we had no limitations on our speed, and we didn’t care about leaving a trail.
It still took us an hour to close the twenty-click gap down to one.
“He crossed here,” Veetea said, indicating a stream.
“I see it,” I replied. We’d lost the drone relay and were tracking the runner using conventional means. We had the advantage of being able to scan and adjust our cameras’ focus, but it still came down to looking for broken patterns in nature.
We crossed the stream and split up.
I went downstream, and Veetea went up.
The runner wasn’t stupid. He’d found a way to conceal his escape and used it to his advantage. If he stayed in the water, following him would become exceedingly difficult. The question was whether he could exit the stream without leaving a trace. There was also the problem of deciding what to do if I came to a fork in the waterway. I put that out of mind until it required a decision, but I did call up a command map of the area to attempt to guess which way he might be headed.
<
“Sergeant?” I asked.
“Yeah, I got it. We can’t let him escape, so we’re going to have to continue. Mission parameters are as follows: continue tracking until you engage and destroy, or twenty-four hours passes. Upon either of those conditions being met, seek out Callie first, me second, Second Platoon third. If you can’t make contact, attempt to rejoin the Fourth.”
“Acknowledged. Good luck, Sergeant.”
“Ditto that.”
I was looking for footprints on the gravel bank, marks in the mud above it, or unusual breaks in the foliage that would indicate the runner had left the stream. I supposed that he could travel for days trying to avoid detection, but he had to know that the information on the platoon’s position was time sensitive.
It wouldn’t help his cause to delay his report a week.
He had less than a day before his intel became worthless, and I suspected he was thinking along the same lines.
Unless the stream led right to his headquarters, or reunited him with other Ted soldiers, he’d have to exit soon and set a course in the right direction. Of course, he could have headed upstream, in which case he’d be Veetea’s problem. I set an alarm for twenty-four hours and pushed my wandering thoughts from my mind so I could concentrate on tracking him.
Three hours later, the primal reptilian part of my brain buzzed an alarm.
There was an anomaly along the bank: a small rock’s underside was exposed. The distinct line of green moss that covered the stones along the bank had been disturbed, and an oblong rock was tilted slightly in the wrong direction.
I exited the stream and scanned the nearby vegetation for clues.
A grenade sailed out of the jungle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When war burns across a continent, the law falls eerily silent.
~ Judge Tocolucn Boolveren
Time slowed.
A TCI-Armored body can easily withstand a grenade unless it’s timed perfectly and detonates near vital organs just as it contacts the armor. The real danger when a grenade is headed your way is whatever’s coming behind it.
I didn’t have the time to search for the enemy. I didn’t have time to determine if the runner had launched the grenade so he could escape or to mount an attack. I only had time to take evasive action and prepare for the worst.
I dropped back onto my left leg, away from the incoming orb.
Lifting my right leg, I bicycle-kicked the grenade and sent it flying off at an angle. It exploded in the air behind me, and the force of the blast knocked me into the stream. A thousand rounds of Gauss rifle fire hit me next, the bolts shredding the water around me and pinging off my suit. I wasn’t sure about the Ted soldier’s suit, but my armor was capable of taking a hundred thousand of those rounds without significant damage.
Which he would know.
I wondered why he was bothering with a light weapon, and guessed he was out of anything powerful enough to kill me.
It was one of those assumptions that didn’t matter. If he hadn’t used up his grenades fighting the Second Platoon, I was about to be dead.
Coming out of the water, I retrieved my own Gauss rifle and returned fire.
I’d exhausted everything big I’d been equipped with, too, except for my sniper rifle, but that weapon was worthless when your enemy was twenty-five meters away unless it was already loaded, targeted, and ready to fire – obviously not the case.
I pointed my Gauss rifle at his camera lens, and he returned the favor. We moved toward each other, weapons firing on full auto, but when we were ten meters apart, we both realized at the same moment that this fight was going to come down to hand-to-hand engagement. I continued firing as I sized up my odds. I was standing in thirty centimeters of water, and my opponent occupied slightly higher ground.
That was my first disadvantage.
My second disadvantage was the mountainous gray shape on the opposite bank that opened an eye and peered in our direction.
I was caught in a pincer maneuver by an armored soldier and an inquisitive dino-lizard.
My attempt to consider my possible advantages came up empty – unless I did the unexpected and threw the manual out the window.
I stopped firing and rushed the Ted, ignoring the annoyance of his continued Gauss rounds pinging off me like angry flies. The move took him by surprise, and he was slow to react.
He tried to club me with the rifle – a reflexive act that would have no effect, driven by instinct rather than training. My shoulder armor hit his chest with the force of a locomotive, knocking him backward. I followed through with a sweep kick to his legs, but he saw the move coming and dodged it, delivering one of his own to my groin plate.
I felt no pain, but made a mental note not to allow my automatic moves to become as predictable as my adversary’s. In a street fight, his kick to the family jewels would have instantly dropped me. He’d obviously been well trained in hand-to-hand, but the suits changed everything, and there was little chance either of us could do any real damage to the other, barring a fluke.
He unsheathed an EPL blade from a calf scabbard and lunged at me. The attempt was foolish – either he didn’t realize that the blade, deadly and durable as it was, would take considerable time to cut through the secondary inner coat of my armor, or the Ted version of a suit was different than mine, and he thought he could get through in seconds.
I freed my plasma-laser blade and we faced each other, knives in hand.
I checked my rear view again and swore. The dino-lizard had taken an interest in our struggle and was swimming toward us from the far bank like an elephantine crocodile. Only the top of its scaled head and the tip of its tail were visible above the surface, and murder glowed in its red eyes.
The Ted fighter slashed at me, but I easily evaded his blade and parried with my own. The laser knife sliced through his suit’s external skin, but stopped at the hardened inner capsule that was the basis of its protection.
When I checked again, the dino-lizard was halfway across the river, and an idea began to take shape. I tried some halfhearted thrusts with my blade to keep the Ted off-balance, and then pirouetted and began wading deeper into the water as though trying to escape.
