“In order to complete the mission,” Gabriel began, thinking quickly as he brought up a smaller screen in his HUD. He scanned the surrounding terrain to check if his plan would work or not. “We’re trying something different. Something we really shouldn’t do. And, no offense sir, it’s something I shouldn’t talk about over the air. We might be compromised already.”
“I’m about to try something a little different as well, Wraith,” the captain replied bitterly. “I’m remaining on station at location Foxtrot Two, unless they catch up and kill us. It’s marked in your cortex. I’m linking for support with Anvil Station, but it’ll be days before anybody can get here. Can you knock out those ground lasers? They shredded the Illiad, and there’s no way I can complete my mission so long as they’re up and running. You want air support from the Eye, I’m going to need them gone.”
“If they’re in the city, sir, I’ll take them out,” Gabriel promised, his voice firmer than he thought it could be. He paused, hesitant. “You’re telling me everyone is gone?”
“Focus on the mission, Commander,” the captain ordered sternly, avoiding Gabriel’s question. “And take out those cursed lasers. Eye out.”
“Shit,” Gabriel muttered as he rolled back face-down. The ground was unpleasantly close, and his inertial compensators were kicking in as the planet’s surface came closer. His rate of descent began to slow as he opened his comm for his squad. “Broadcast. Wraiths, listen up. Change of plans. More info as soon as we’re grounded. End broadcast, secure private link from here on out, authorization Theta Gamma One Four.”
“Accepted,” the audio feedback of his HUD informed him. “Command: ready.”
“Gabriel, I’m on the ground,” Joshua interrupted suddenly. Gabriel saw the camouflaged suit stride out from the large cloud of dust its impact had created and move to secure the new landing zone. He was quietly pleased the normally rebellious Avalonian was doing his job without question. I guess I won’t have to kill you on this drop, after all, he thought.
Five seconds to impact, the computer suddenly declared on his HUD. Four, three, two, brace, impact.
The legs of the solid suit absorbed the majority of the impact, protecting his body as the suit reflexively rolled to the right. The energy of his impact was transferred to his compensators as they howled in overdrive, the diminutive engine near the small of his back revving as it channeled the power of his suit’s kinetic energy into keeping him alive.
He grunted as he rolled, soaking up the rest of the impact by dissipating the kinetic energy. Despite the compensators and the jelly, the landing jarred his body and slammed his mouth shut. He winced as his teeth clipped his tongue. He tasted blood as the salty liquid filled his mouth. He swallowed the blood and hoped his tongue was not cut in half.
Ignoring the pain in his mouth, he continued his roll and popped up onto his feet, his Lynx tracking across the deserted hillside as he moved forward to help Joshua secure the landing zone. Solid thumping noises could be heard behind him, signaling the arrival of the rest of his squad. He glanced around the cleared area before he looked upwards. The blue beams were still tracking throughout the sky, picking off the Wraiths they had missed before, but overall the firing was dying out. He swallowed bile and felt queasy as the stomach acid and blood mixed in his guts. He shook his head, the magnitude both of what he had to do and their luck finally sinking into his heart.
Nothings, he reminded himself as Wraith after Wraith was struck by the beams; all men who were once a weapon were now nothing more than a falling piece of meat. He sighed and watched as pieces of one suit disintegrated under the impact of a blue beam. We’re all nothings anyways. Our duty is to the Emperor and the Dominion. Dying is part of our duty. Our duty to protect the Dominion and eliminate everything which may harm it.
He scanned the sky and saw, for a fleeting instance, the tiny shape of what he tentatively identified as the Eye dart out of the atmosphere. Following the ship closely, from his educated guess, were two unidentifiable Abassi vessels in dogged pursuit. Gabriel offered the captain of the Eye a brief thought before he turned his attention back to his own mission.
Good luck, Captain.
#
“How come I never have any luck?” Joshua complained as soon as they had a reliable communications relay set up. Though not in range of the Eye of Solomon yet, once the ship was in a secure location they would be in contact. The Avalonian looked at his squad leader in disgust as he tapped his right arm. “Stupid servo locked up on me. I can’t bend my elbow.”
Gabriel sighed and looked at Joshua, who was smacking his elbow joint with little success. The rest of the squad had managed to avoid any form of damage, though having the Avalonian useless put a serious dent in his battle plans. He thought about simply putting a round through Joshua’s head for a second before he shook off the thought. He might be redeemable, Gabriel conceded. Or at least his suit might be.
“Esau,” Gabriel said with a quick nod of his head. The suit’s head nodded slightly, matching Gabriel’s quick movement perfectly. Esau moved next to Joshua and began to beat at the joint with his armored hand. Joshua yowled and tried to pull away.
“I already tried that trick!” Joshua protested as Esau continued to hammer on the offending elbow joint. Esau stopped and looked at the taller man.
“You want this fixed or not?” Esau asked. He glanced over at Gabriel. “You’re nothing to us but dead weight if you can’t lift your arm to fire your gun. You know what that means, right?” Joshua followed his gaze and saw Gabriel looking at him. Looking at him and not speaking, not making any sort of noise whatsoever. Judging him.
“Fix the damn thing, quick,” Joshua hissed in a low tone. “Before he gets that idea in his head.”
“That’s what I thought,” Esau muttered and started to pound on the malfunctioning armor once more. A few quick strikes released the joint with an audible pop! Joshua bent his elbow, testing the released joint. The servo complied and the Lynx pointed skywards. His mechanical head bobbed happily as he turned his gun from side to side, testing out his range of motion. It was nearly perfect.
“Hell yeah,” Joshua whispered. “Alive for another five minutes.”
“Wraiths,” Gabriel said as he climbed to the top of the hill. Gabriel scanned the area but could see no sign of Abassi leaving the safety of the distant city. Like rats cowering from the predators... “Any second now the Abassi are going to figure out they missed some. You know how they are in combat, and you know what we have to do. To complete our mission, we have to kill that damned laser system. The captain of the Eye relayed to me before he left that the lasers are somewhere in the city.”
“We’ve got to go urban combat,” Esau smiled thinly. “I love urban combat, all those buildings to crash through. Wraiths are good for two things: killing things and breaking shit.”
“I thought we were just good at killing?” Twist asked, perturbed. The man was not known amongst his fellow Wraiths for his wit.
“Remember,” Gabriel interjected, raising his voice slightly. “There are reports civilians are waging an underground war here. The damned Abassi haven’t pacified the planet yet. It’s a credit to your people, Twist. We don’t want to kill any more people than necessary. Ibliss has been under the control of the aliens for a year now. Let’s free these people and bring them back to the grace of the Emperor.”
“Oorah!” the squad chorused loudly.
“Markus, how’s our perimeter looking?” Gabriel asked as he looked around at the valley below. In the far distance he could make out the suburbs of Newcastle. Somewhere past that was the downtown area, where the lasers were more than likely stationed. And people think the Abassi can never understand us, he thought with a mental grimace. They know us well enough to place their defensive lasers right in the midst of civilian structures, where we wouldn’t nuke them from orbit. Bastards.
“Good, I think,” Markus replied as he walked over to his squad leader, his mechanical strides long
and quick. “So far as I can tell, we slipped in undetected.”
“That’s the first bit of good news I’ve heard all day,” Gabriel muttered.
“Gabe, is it true the rest of the guard is gone?” Twist asked in a quiet tone. Gabriel thought for a moment before he responded.
“Does it really matter?”
“Well, yeah,” Twist nodded thoughtfully. “We’re going to need the fire support of the other squads to do this without dying.”
“Then yes, Twist,” Gabriel answered curtly. “They’re all dead. We’re probably going to take casualties also. It’s us against the world.”
“Hell yeah,” Beeker hissed through clenched teeth. His dark face grinned maniacally. He shifted his helmet to look at Gabriel. “Those are odds a true Zulu warrior gets out of bed in the morning for.”
“I swear to God if I hear one more thing about Zulus...” Esau let his voice trail off, the humor evident in his tone.
“Those are odds that a Wraith loves, Beeker,” Gabriel corrected with a slight smile of his own. “Markus, on point. Joshua, rear guard. Twist, get with Esau. You’re the only one who knows his way around here and I want a detailed map of your city, something we might have missed in the briefings. Hell, I forgot. Sorry. You grew up in the deserts, right? Damn, this sucks.”
“Oh yeah, baby,” Markus said excitedly. “Point.”
“Fuck,” Joshua groaned at the same time. “I hate rear guard.”
“Stow it, Wraith,” Gabriel ordered. He shook his head at the pure insanity of his men. “Esau, try to link up through private frequencies with other Wraiths. Don’t tell them what we’re doing, since the ‘net might be compromised. But see what they’re doing, and see if they are proceeding with their missions or what. If they’re smart they won’t tell us much. I need to know if we have anyone else around and...alive, though. It’ll help, some.” Ease my guilt about surviving a little bit, for starters, he thought.
“Okay,” Esau nodded and began to work within his suit. Gabriel looked around at the rest of his squad. His squad. His...friends. Each of whom he would send off to die without a second’s hesitation. It was his duty, all of their duty, to be sent off to die. It was...an honor to die at the Emperor’s behest. He could not hesitate, could not pause in the way of his duty. They – no, he – could not fail.
None of them could afford to fail one another. Not if they wanted to stay alive, in any case.
So began Gabriel’s war – with a footstep and a decision.
“Lead the way, Markus.”
Chapter Eleven
One thing that had not been in their briefing about Ibliss was the hills south of Newcastle were strewn with rocks. Rocks which could throw off the balance of the suits, rocks which could set off a massive avalanche and bury them all. Since the mission had not originally called for them to land there, it was only Twist’s relative familiarity of the area which saved them from themselves. Gabriel was thankful for having the Boer in his squad, though his problems with Beeker were evident. Gabriel knew he would have to read up on the history between Anvil and Ibliss if they survived the mission. He knew of their bloody feud from the previous century, but not the details of events which led to the armed conflict.
The pale man from Ibliss had climbed the hills his entire life, living as his Boer ancestors had millennia before. Twist had not been ashamed of his heritage, though, despite his relative poor upbringing and being born an Imperfect. His intimate knowledge of the hills and how to avoid the quick-death traps in the soil kept more than one Wraith alive. Gabriel was glad that despite Twist’s reluctance to be cordial with Beeker, he was willing to put everything aside for the sake of the mission and, indirectly, the Dominion.
The sun was at their backs and sinking as afternoon turned to evening. Gabriel avoided looking up, since the wreckage of the Fifth Fleet was growing clearer as the sky darkened. The fires aboard the ships still burned bright as oxygen escaped through the damaged hulls, their exposed skeletal structures a haunting image to behold. The Illiad had crashed an hour before, the massive ship creating a mushroom cloud far to the west as the reactors went critical upon impact. The fusion-powered engines had lost containment and the ensuing blast had been terrifyingly beautiful, the blue-colored shockwave racing across the plains.
Gabriel waited patiently as the blue-tinged wave washed over them, the armor of the advanced Wraith suits protecting them from harm as the fusion particles reached them. The molecules of the intense radiation bombarded their suits and caused their external temperatures to rise a few degrees, but human ingenuity saved them.
The nanomolecular bonding which formed the basis of the suit chassis was immune to every radiation known and theoretical. Nothing dangerous passed through their jelly, either. The dark metal of the suit retained some of the heat from the explosions but converted it to energy using techniques similar to geothermal heating. Each member of the squad was full-up on power supplies, despite the massive amount of power used to slow their descent in the initial drop.
Gabriel was immensely pleased with the progress they had made, even with the rugged terrain slowing them down. Their route around the outskirts of the city had kept them out of sight of the relative few patrols the Abassi sent out, and even away from the nomadic Boers who could have possibly helped them. For reasons unknown to anyone in the squad, the Abassi mostly ignored the nomads who lived out in the deep deserted plains of the main continent. Gabriel made a mental note to pass the information along to the Deebs. Assuming, he thought, we survive this insanity.
Gabriel no longer had any doubts as to why the Wraiths preferred men who were borderline psychotics. Any normal man would have given up or suffered a mental breakdown. A normal man would know when to quit, when to call it a day and just give in. Psychotics like me don’t have anything to break down, Gabriel realized. Kind of hard to go crazy when you already are. Plus, we’re far more likely to start killing things and breaking shit. It’s what we do best.
“Contact,” Markus called out suddenly as he flattened himself, as best he could, against the rocky ground. Gabriel snapped his head up and watched as the Wraith ahead of him nearly disappeared visually as the suit activated its camouflage. Gabriel dropped to one knee and pressed his body against a small outcropping of rock, confident his suit was responding similar to his point man’s. Gabriel spotted the others already down and partially hidden, their suits changing rapidly to blend in and disappear.
“Identify,” Gabriel ordered softly.
“Acknowledged,” Markus confirmed and began to crawl forward on his belly.
Gabriel’s gut churned nervously as he waited for Markus to report. He glanced at his readouts but did not see whatever it was that had spooked Markus. He switched over to his “command” mode and a smaller view screen appeared. He blinked and realized he was seeing what Markus now was watching. He looked down into the wide pass below them, almost a kilometer away. The view did not comfort him.
Two Abassi land vehicles, which the Deebs had dubbed “Sharks”, were patrolling the southern road out of Newcastle. The massively-armored, land-bound vehicles had dual-cannon turret mounted on top of a flattened dome. Inside each vehicle, Gabriel recalled, were thirty or so infantry. And those, he remembered with sickening dread, were armed with deuterium-edged war scythes, which could rend open a Wraith suit like a hot knife through a warm stick of butter. The deuterium negated the defensive advantages the Wraith suits’ armor provided them, using bosons to cause a quantum flux in the nanomolecular bonding. This, in turn, led to a failure of the suit dynamics. Luckily for them, the scythes were only good in hand-to-hand combat. The scythes, Gabriel knew with certainty, were the reason the Wraiths had been armed with the Lynx cannon in the first place. The junonium-tipped rounds shredded the armor the Abassi used, accelerating tiny beads to ten times the speed of sound, which kept the Abassi far away. Distance was a Wraith’s advantage and strength. Allowing Abassi infantry to close was akin to asking a burglar to house-sit.
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The Sharks moved slowly down the road, their turrets deliberately turning from side to side as the patrol kept an eye out for any enemy. The dull paint of the vehicles did not let any light reflect, and their engines were silent as they ran. A part of Gabriel marveled at the advanced alien technology while a larger part thought of ways to destroy it. The best way, he thought, was to blow everything the hell up. But how?
“Damn,” Gabriel whispered as Markus, oblivious his commander was looking over his view screen, quietly echoed Gabriel’s sentiments. Gabriel closed the window and glanced over at the squad. All were silent and motionless, lest a single movement betray their location.
“Two Sharks,” Gabriel informed the others, his words clipped as he replayed the image in his head. “No infantry deployed yet. Hit them before they deploy. Joshua, Twist, join Markus and move half a klick forward. Make certain there’s no one else following. Beeker, Esau, we’re going back and around to their front. Two prongs, one from the front and rear. Destroy the rear vehicle first so they can’t retreat quickly. Esau, when I give the word, jam their comms; I want them deaf and dumb right when we hit.”
“Got it,” the Imperfect from Solomon acknowledged. The others quickly joined their assigned teams.
“Remember,” Gabriel ordered as he began to slink backwards, away from his cover and towards the ambush point he had planned. “Wait for my word, then attack.”
Careful to avoid knocking any rocks loose, Gabriel, with Esau and Beeker right behind him, moved quickly back down the hill and away from the patrol. The occasional large brush helped provide some cover, but Gabriel knew they were horribly exposed if the Sharks continued at their current pace. He increased his speed and the suit, designed for stealth and hit-and-run tactics, kept the disturbances to the surrounding terrain to a bare minimum.
Wraithkin (The Kin Wars Saga Book 1) Page 15
