by J. N. Chaney
“Top?”
“I agree with the gunny. I think we’re still a go.”
“Me, too. OK, nothing’s changed,” the platoon commander said.
Rev was only in the net as a courtesy, but there wasn’t much he wanted to say anyway. He couldn’t fault what either the gunny or the master sergeant just said.
A moment later, his map chimed, and he brought it forward. New positions had been added for the fixing and blocking forces, as well as the assault force’s avenue of approach. Rev asked Punch to pull an overhead view of where his target had stopped, but it was well under the cover of the trees.
“Can we get a live topo?”
A ground image popped up. The spot was on a gentle slope with two small seismic gashes. The tree trunks would impede his approach, but it would impede the paladin more. It was surprising that it could even maneuver in there at all.
This wasn’t Centaur country, which made Rev a little uneasy. If they were waiting for the Marines to attack, a more open area would have suited them better. But that unease didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take advantage of the terrain and forest.
At a klick out, just after a series of light tremors, the formation broke up. Second Team, along with Top Thapa, branched to the left, while Third and Fifth drew in to a wedge with Rev and the lieutenant in the middle. First followed in trace.
Second Lieutenant Harisa led her team toward the four Centaurs as a fixing force. She seemed capable, but she was still a boot on only her second combat mission, and Top Thapa was moving with the team. Their mission was to engage the four, but at a distance, keeping them occupied and in place. If they could get the Centaurs to chase them, all the better.
As Third and Fifth approached their target, First Team, led by Gunny Lupe, split off to the left to interspace itself between the four Centaurs and the fifth. If the Centaurs broke away from Second Team, First was to slow them down long enough for Rev to finish, and then everyone would break contact.
Whatever nervousness Rev had started to fade as his warrior-self began to emerge. As always, he wondered if Punch was goosing up some sort of adrenaline spike, but it didn’t matter. He was getting excited, ready to tilt at the opposing knight.
Ha! I guess a paladin is a kind of knight. Surprised I hadn’t made that analogy before.
He was glad it was a paladin, though, instead of the less-powerful riever. He’d done much better against the heavier and less-mobile paladin stand-ins during his training exercises.
They closed the distance, and his target hadn’t moved. He hoped it stayed there. No one knew just what capabilities the five Centaurs, cut off from their forces, had. They hadn’t knocked out comms, for example, something that was usually the first thing they did upon a Marine landing. They knew the Marines had landed, but could they pinpoint their positions? And if that lone Centaur could detect the two teams heading at it, would it run?
If it retreated, Rev was certain they could run it down. But if it tried to link up with the others, that would be a big fly in the ointment. They just had to move quickly enough to block that possibility.
The platoon commander stopped them about 150 meters from their target paladin, spreading the two teams out farther, with him and Rev in the middle of what was now a line. It was almost go-time. Rev checked Pashu once more, reassured by the tiny green LED that he was ready to go. Like an athlete getting ready for a match, he rocked back and forth, stretching his legs.
Now that he had the jousting knights image in his mind, Rev couldn’t shake it. He imagined the paladin up ahead in the trees, waiting for the signal to charge. He felt the urge to just charge, at least, to join in combat, and while no one knew what a Centaur actually felt, it just seemed to fit.
“Just a few moments until First Team is in position,” the lieutenant passed to Rev on the P2P.
Rev plotted his way forward while he waited. The way was fairly clear for the next twenty or thirty meters, and then the laurel and other undergrowth took over, looking like it went all the way to the bottom. The laurel was a little lighter to his left, which would make his advance quicker, but would give him less cover.
“Lieutenant, we’ve got something that looks like a trail here,” Gunny Lupe passed on the command circuit before Rev had made up his mind which would be the best way forward.
He then sent over an image. There was a definite . . . something there. Not a cleared trail like an access road, but more like a large game trail. But there was no game to have made it.
“Could it be seismic?” the lieutenant asked.
“Doesn’t look like it, but it could be the ground settling after those last tremors.”
Rev watched the lieutenant as the team leader took in the information. He visibly nodded to himself, then passed, “Make sure you have someone keeping eyes on it, but we’re still a go. I’m sending Pelletier forward now.”
He switched to the platoon net and passed, “We’re on. Third and Fifth, move out. Second, get ready to engage on my command.”
Rev almost jumped forward like a racehorse at the gate.
“Easy, Pelletier. Don’t outrun us,” the platoon commander told him. “And don’t start your attack before telling me so I can give the order to Second.”
Rev gave him a thumbs-up, and he slowed down. A knight didn’t go into battle without his squires, after all. And he knew he had to take it down a notch.
“Get ready.”
“So, you’re in charge now.”
“Ah, you care.”
Rev laughed, and that took some of his excited edge off, allowing him to focus. He guided those Marines on either side as he went down the slope, into the denser mixed-laurel undergrowth at the bottom, then started up the other side, all his senses trying to pierce the trees to where he knew the Centaur was waiting.
“Our tin-asses are moving out!” the second team leader broke into the platoon net.
Rev hadn’t been watching them, so focused was he on his target. But yes, he could see them starting to head north, toward them. And then, his paladin started moving, not toward him, but in a line to the others, which would intersect his fellow teammates.
Rev wheeled to the platoon commander, who was ten meters behind and to his left. “I’m going.”
Lieutenant Omestori didn’t hesitate. “Second, engage. Make them turn back. Pelletier, go for it.”
But Rev was already moving. With the thicker trees down at the bottom of the slope, Third Team might not be able to engage the paladin with their Yellowjackets and Morays. They’d be cut down unless Rev could intercept the Centaur first.
But it was moving too quickly, as if it were out in the open. Shouts arose from the team as Rev bolted past Strap and Nix. Ahead, trees burst into splinters and smoke, and there, ahead, Rev caught a glimpse of the thing. This was no time for fanciful dodging. Rev bulled forward.
Yazzie, twenty meters ahead, and Tomiko, another ten past that, stepped forward with their Yellowjackets, firing in unison, and an instant later, Yazzie seemed to come apart in a puff of mist.
“No!” Rev shouted as he caught another glimpse of the paladin barreling through the trees at full speed.
Tomiko pulled another Yellowjacket from her holster at the same time that Rev fired. He knew he was too far away for a kill even if the trees didn’t block his shot. He might not have been close enough for a kill, but he was sure close enough to gain the Centaur’s attention. Instead of firing at Tomiko, the pedestal started to rotating toward him as it seemed to jump sideways.
“They’re using the damn trails!” Gunny Lupe shouted over the net, but Rev barely noted the fact. He had to nail the bastard in front of him before more of his team was killed.
Rev’s capacitors whined, charging up his beamer as he dodged around the trees, trying to close in and get a clear shot. A Moray
exploded near the Centaur, but it kept coming.
Rev reacted without thinking, and a tree in front of him exploded into splinters. Too close for comfort.
Not once had Rev trained in a heavily wooded area, and that could cost him. This cat-and-mouse in an old-growth forest added another dimension to the fight.
It limits that asshole, too.
He angled to his right, hoping to pull the Centaur away from the team, and he crossed a trail, although he almost didn’t recognize it as such. Suddenly, Gunny Thapa’s warning sunk in. That was how it moved so quickly. But with Rev’s lighting it up, it had stepped off the trail and was just to his right, breaking through the underbrush as it tried to orient its gun on him.
“Range?”
As the Centaur stepped forward, Rev had a clear view of the thing, the pedestal coming around to bear on him.
But Rev had already started sprinting right, down the trail. He knew this was risky and didn’t even know if this would work or not. But playing hide-and-seek in the forest was going to end up with him being fried. This was a real Centaur, a living, thinking opponent, not a de-toothed simulation.
Rev sprinted ahead, not at the Centaur, but at an angle, as the pedestal kept tracking him. He was closing the distance, but indirectly. The question was if he would ever get close enough sticking to the trail. The Centaur was on the move, too, which put that up in the air.
Shit!
He was close enough, but he had no shot. Too many trees in the way.
As if a reminder, the paladin detonated its shredder and devastated the surrounding area, but the same trees that blocked Rev’s shot kept him from being hit.
The shredder blast also cleared out most of the undergrowth and some of the smaller trees, and still running full speed, there was the tiniest of openings, giving him a window of opportunity.
Rev didn’t have to aim and fire. All that practice paid off, and he thought the shot, aiming and firing in an instant. The paladin had seen the opening as well, and it detonated another shredder blast, but the split second it took the Centaur’s blast to reach Rev made the difference. Rev was past the opening, back to where he had some of the forest’s protection.
Rev’s shot hit the Centaur dead on, not at the side vents. But at only forty meters, it made no difference. The braided beam ate through the armor, and the paladin went up in a volcanic blast.
“Miko, you OK?” was the first thing he asked.
“Damn, that was close. But I’m here. I don’t think T2 is, and Nix is—”
The lieutenant overrode her. “Pelletier, is it dead?”
“Roger. That explosion was it going up.”
“At least we’ve got that. Yazzie is KIA and Nix is down hard. First Team’s engaged.” He switched back to the platoon net. “Reiser, recover what you can of Yazzie. Hussein and Gantz, get Sergeant Nix. Break contact, Break contact. All teams, break contact . . . oh shit. First Team, break fucking contact now!”
Rev could hear a crescendo of fire come from the south. Rev shifted his field of view, and First was mixing it up with the four Centaurs. From what he could see, two of the Marines just went down, while the rest were in one of the seismic faults. There was no sign of their Tarantula Hawks.
“Can’t break contact. We’re locked together tight,” the gunny passed, then calmly added, “Suggest you break contact.”
Rev was already moving, taking the trail.
“Pelletier, what are you doing?” the lieutenant yelled over the net. “You need to get back. Let Second Team take it.”
There was no way the team could hold off four Centaurs, and Second was too far back to offer support. Rev had a hollow void in the pit of his stomach. The bastards had set a trap, and the Raiders had walked right into it.
But the trails they had used to set the trap could be used against them, too. Rev bolted past Tomiko and charged down the trail.
“Pelletier, turn around.”
“Can’t hear you, sir.”
“I can’t after you erase that transmission.”
A modern Olympian can cover 400 meters in just under 40 seconds. Rev was augmented beyond those athletes’ capabilities, but this wasn’t a running track. “Trail” was a generous term for the clearing in the trees that allowed for the bulky Centaurs to pass through. The footing, while acceptable for the sixteen-legged Centaur mech, was treacherous. Over fifty seconds after he started, Rev reached the beleaguered Marines, but not before another, Bambam Sinclair, had fallen—but one of the paladins had been hit, and either from the Moray or by self-destruction, it had been destroyed.
That left three: two paladins and a riever.
The surviving First Team Marines had made their stand about seventy meters off of the trail Rev was on. He couldn’t see them, but he could see a paladin through the trees. Rev angled off the trail and into the undergrowth. The Centaur was intent on the Marines, its cannon belting out a blast.
He didn’t wait for Punch to tell him to fire. Pashu belched out a blast, hitting the Centaur in the side vent. The explosion was spectacular, a piece of Centaur or wood scoring Rev’s cheek. He didn’t feel his normal exultation. He wasn’t done yet.
Rev scoured to his left, searching for the next target, while his cannon recharged.
“Hurry up,” he urged it. That would be all he needed—getting a target before it was ready. But ten seconds later, the LED went green.
He kept running as another explosion sounded in front of him until he saw a fifteen-meter-long gash in the forest floor. A tree with half of its roots exposed had fallen over the crevice, and next to the wood, he caught sight of a helmet.
“Where are they?” he shouted. According to his display, the paladin had to be just to his right, but Rev couldn’t see it.
The head turned, and a hand pointed to where his display said the paladin was. At that instant, the tree over the gash exploded, and the Marine disappeared. Rev didn’t know if they were hit or not, and he didn’t have time to check.
Rev charged. There was usually a four to five second gap between shots, and if he could get off a shot, he might be able to take out another Centaur. And there it was, moving forward, the pedestal almost dead on him. Rev dove and rolled, coming to his feet as the blast went over his head. Thanking the training he thought was useless, and the fourteen percent rise in probability of success, Rev came to one knee and fired. The blast hit dead on. For a moment, as his beamer cycled, Rev thought the paladin had weathered the shot, but with a blast, the paladin went up, the shockwave knocking Rev head-over-heels. He came to a rest against the trunk of a ruined tree. Pal-5 or not, it knocked the wind out of him and rang his head.
“That almost got me.”
Rev picked himself up, looking for the last Centaur, but his display was intermittent. He couldn’t see it. The blast had knocked it out. But he knew about where it had been, about a hundred meters to his right.
He glanced at his beamer. The charge light was still red, and he realized he hadn’t heard it charge up.
“Check the beamer circuit.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Shi—!”
Leaves and wood exploded, and Rev felt the slightest kiss of an energy beam. He was up and moving before he knew it, heading instinctively for a slight rise in the terrain. He might not have his beamer, but that didn’t cripple him. He sprayed the forest with his .50 cal, wishing it had been upgraded to the 20mm that had been discussed. He couldn’t see the riever, but he could
hear it, and hopefully, the .50 would capture his attention.
A small tree fell forward, and there it was. Rev didn’t know how he’d missed it. The pedestal locked in on him as Rev darted to his right, firing the .50. Rounds pinged off the armor, but the riever darted in reverse.
“I need one of those gashes in the ground. Not the one First Team is in.”
“One hundred fifty-three meters to your zero-six-five.”
Rev didn’t need his display. His augments told him where he needed to go. He fired another belt, ran fifty meters, and fired again. A moment later, he was rewarded with the sound of the riever in pursuit. He blindly fired another burst, then ran on, leading the Centaur away from the team.
And there was the gash. Thirty meters long and about two deep toward the middle. It would have to do. He stopped, took cover behind a large tree, and fired another burst of .50 cal.
Hopefully, that’s enough.
And there it was. He caught glimpses of the thing as it picked its way forward. He needed a clean shot at the thing, but no closer than twenty-six meters. With the trees, that might be an iffy proposition.
He hugged the back of the tree and pulled out his Optisight, quickly bent it, and held it out until the tip was around the trunk. He was taking a calculated risk that the riever wouldn’t notice the three-centimeter lens, but he had to watch for his chance.
The riever had slowed down as it picked its way forward, using the trees for cover. It knew Rev was ahead, and it wasn’t going to rush in. Rev was trying to figure out how to use that for his advantage when forty or so meters out, the riever crabbed sideways to get around two trees, giving Rev a clear shot.
He switched from the .50 cal to his Morays and swung around the tree when another quake hit. Rev was caught off balance, and he fell face-first to the dirt. This was a stronger one, and as Rev scrambled to get a shot off, he kept falling. The riever, in full view, spread all twelve legs, bracing itself, and its pedestal started to zero in on Rev despite the shaking.
