“Three, two, one,” Tyler said, they both stepped out, grenade launchers ready.
They fired on their targets, the supply room’s door blew in and the decking got torn to shit, but so did the red halos which disappeared.
Alexis pulled Tyler to his feet and they moved up, looking for any of the fighter friends that might show up.
The piping opened up to show consoles but no other entrances.
“Well fuck, no wonder they were guarding this place, looks like an armory or ammo point,” Tyler said, moving to the door.
“Three, two, one,” he went in the room and to the right, seeing nothing but ammunition boxes and weapons. “Clear.”
“Clear,” Alexis said, letting her rifle drop as they looked over brand new E-12 repulsors, ammunition for all of it and a smattering of Harmony guns and their ammunition.
Tyler looked to Alexis, even covered in gore, her armor plates showing silver lines from impacts, slashes and ricochets. Her smart clothes were torn and stained with smoke, fire, and grime. She still took his breath away.
“Eyes front trooper, we get off this platform there’ll be plenty of time spent studying,” she said, smiling in her helmet.
“You do know what I mean by studying?” She asked, cocking her leg and looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Going to the library and getting a study booth?” He said as if he was guessing.
“Very good!” She smiled, shaking her head and grabbing magazines.
Tyler let out a snort and did the same, it didn’t take them long to fill their pouches and toss two ammunition packs they’d found.
***
Jerome had wanted to follow after Tyler and Mark, it had only been Mark telling him to stay and asking permission to follow Tyler that had stopped him.
He realized that the three of them had become brothers just as Mark and Tyler had. Not by blood but experience.
Haas had given Mark permission probably knowing that Mark wouldn’t be effective with his mind on other matters, plus Tyler needed back up.
He certainly wasn’t pleased about it but he’d done it, better to give an order he knew would be followed, than one that wouldn’t.
The Platoon was moving forward slowly; under their feet they could see all the way to the bottom of the maintenance area. Getting shot from below was a big problem as were avoiding broken catwalks. Most didn’t do too well after being hit by a few grenades.
“Huang, Kaj, move up through those machines in the center,” Jerome said, they were moving forward, wary since no one had shot at them in some time.
Huang and Kaj seemed to wake them up, weapons fire came from several directions where Harmony fighters had dug in.
The trooper’s response was immediate and destructive, grenade launchers thoump-ed their rounds away as streams of tracers outlined the firing positions.
Jerome checked his HUD as he moved up, firing burst after burst into Harmony fighters hiding behind a pipe. He saw a spark growing and being pulled towards the pipe.
Then he was five feet backwards, ash and dust slowly falling to the ground as the pipe he’d been shooting at and everything around it became melted metal.
“Fucking MOTHER FUCKER! This place is a fucking bomb making site of certified fucking idiot monkey fucks!” Dashtund yelled. Jerome saw him pulling himself up and shooting at Harmony fighters wandering around, they shell-shocked and stunned by the destruction.
Jerome couldn’t bring himself to his feet just yet, so he shot them from on his back.
His HUD showed Kaj and Huang as reds, medics and their helpers were already moving up.
Jerome’s ribs felt like they were broken, he and his people were a myriad of yellows and reds. Still they were doing better than the Harmony fighters.
It looked like the opposite side of the level had fared a lot worse, flames could be seen pouring out from other places the pipe had exploded.
Without armor and right in the middle of the destruction, the Harmony fuckers weren’t having a good day.
“Move in. No Mercy!” Haas yelled, his words getting Jerome to his feet.
“We are troopers!” Others responded, remembering Captain Harold’s words as they moved forwards, focused and determined. Fatigue from before forgotten, washed away with augmented combat pumps and all-natural adrenaline.
They jumped over broken catwalks, the Harmony fighters, stunned and confused, tired and scared were no match for the wave of troopers that met them.
Jerome grunted with the pain of rubbing ribs, augments pumped him with painkillers and stims to dull the pain but keep him alert.
Other augments did what they could to start healing the damage.
Jerome fired a burst into a moving group of Harmony, already troopers passed him as the last dropped to the ground. He caught up with the tail-end of the troopers and passed them seeing they had their situation under control.
So it went, clearing the fifth floor by overwhelming the Harmony forces in dozens of locations and pouring rounds into them.
Those behind them funneled down stairwells and ladders, pushing out right in the middle of Harmony controlled ground. Jerome got to the end of the floor meeting up with other troopers.
“Floor clear, linked up with One platoon,” Jerome said on the command channel.
“Clear your areas and move in sections down to the next floor,” Haas said.
Jerome looked to the leftovers of his section. Ma, Obe and Ali waited on him, checking their guns.
“Let’s go fuck some people’s days up,” Jerome said running to the nearest ladder using one hand and his feet he dropped to the floor below.
The other three thumped onto the catwalk.
More troopers followed as they picked a route through the machinery. Harmony fighters were reeling and Jerome was only too happy to capitalize on it.
They moved and fired down corridors.
“Got three on my right,” Jerome said.
“Got them,” another trooper said on the area-net. Tracers came from where the fighters had ducked behind cover. A body dropped in the corridor.
“Moving up,” Ali said moving forward the rest following.
Jerome checked his HUD as they moved, yellows and greens swarmed through the fourth and fifth floor, lines were still fighting on the third and second but troopers were starting to get behind them and turn a one-front fight into close combat.
On the first floor the troopers had moved through side corridors and were moving in on the last fortified positions. They’d had longer to build their positions but it was only a matter of time before it fell.
***
“Get me those screamers!” Ortiz called, Demar and Nerva were dealing with the fighting going on in the higher floors while he was commanding the reinforcements and Captain Harold’s forces.
The other Captain had been killed rallying his troops.
Ortiz didn’t have time to mourn on the man he had fought beside for most of his adult life. He could help to keep the man’s people alive however.
Three troopers with the one-meter-long tubes on their back were next to him within a few minutes.
“Crack those fucking fortifications,” Ortiz said, looking the two women and one dude in the eyes.
They nodded, faces serious even though they were all yellows, they were ready to do their duty.
“Good, go,” Ortiz said, ushering them towards the hardest fighting.
Nerva had given him strict orders to keep his ass in cover and out of incoming rounds’ way.
That said, he didn’t tell him anything about moving into a better position to see his people at work. At least that was going to be Ortiz’s excuse.
The screamer holding trio spread out. The pipes and machinery had given way to what looked to be a loading dock backed into the back corner of the maintenance level.
Industrial vehicles had been flipped, and metal plating put between pipes to make barricades.
They fired repulsors, E-12’s and the
ir own brand of full-auto rifles.
Troopers were arranged around them, firing in on their defenses. Harmony and trooper bodies were strewn around the barricades. Tracers pinged off of the barricades, grenades left dents.
Harmony grenades turned piping, consoles, tanks and troopers into debris.
Ortiz set his jaw watching the destruction.
It took a few minutes of traded weapons fire before the first screamer was loosed.
As it’s namesake suggested it howled upon exiting its launcher, reaching hellish speeds before slamming into a barricade. It penetrated the weak armor and exploded inside. Ortiz ducked into cover as the vehicles and paneling blew out in a fantastic display of destruction.
Ortiz looked back, seeking a smoking ruin where the Harmony bastion had been, fire suppression systems were already coating the area.
Another screamer let loose, this one hitting a heavy hauler. It must have hit its gas tanks as it went up in a fountain of flames, sending debris into the second floor twenty feet up.
The third screamer got to their feet but they were hit from multiple directions.
Ortiz pulled back, looking on his HUD, seeing two scrambling to grab the launcher from the black dot that was the third gunner.
One got the tube Ortiz guessed as they moved in the opposite direction.
Troopers opened up, angered by the loss of one of their own. Grenades fell among the now open barricades and rounds kept the remaining bastions down.
Ortiz glanced around the corner, the new gunner pushed themselves up, missing a foot they used piping to steady themselves and fired into the biggest barricade.
Ortiz’s pride in his fellow trooper turned to astonishment as something turned the screamer’s cries into a flammable apocalypse, the barricade didn’t simply blow up. It fucking vanished and turned other barricades into flying shit.
“Fucking shit!” Ortiz said, dropping to the floor as a door went past his head and embedded itself in five-foot-wide piping.
There was a hole in the second floor, metal and shit was raining down everywhere.
“Seems that fucking fire suppression system’s finally given up,” CSM Ki said beside Ortiz.
“Fucking hell,” Ortiz said, looking over what had been the battlefield, just as the suppression system dumped suds everywhere.
Ortiz looked to Ki and then very quickly away to hide his smirk.
The CSM was looking up at the sprinklers as if to ask some higher power why they were doing this to him, and that he’d dearly love to murder those fucking sprinklers.
“Up and at them, no mercy,” Ortiz said, grabbing his rifle and moving from his position. Now there weren’t any incoming rounds he was clear to go where he belonged, on the front lines.
“We are troopers!” They responded, moving through the destruction. As they moved they made sure the Harmony fighters were dead by giving them the tombstone tap.
No one got up after two rounds were through their skull.
***
Nerva looked over the reports, above and below they were clearing out the last Harmony fighters.
Control was being reasserted as sections and platoons were reformed. There were holes in those sections and platoons, there was holes across the entire Division.
RSM Dalton was currently leading the platoons on the second and third floor against the Harmony fighters while Captain Demar was working with the forces dropping from the fourth and fifth floors.
Two was mostly clear and three was nearly there.
The Extractor was theirs but it had come at a high cost.
Nerva cast his gaze to the outside of the Extractor, others were still fighting, others had finished hours ago. Two more extractors had been sabotages. Their remains falling towards the planet’s core, it’s high gravity crushing the facilities.
Fearless had completed the takeover of the freighter. It had been worse than estimated. The Harmony fighters not needing to fight anyone had built defenses. While they weren’t the best they were still effective. Troopers had been mowed down with Harmony capture EMF weaponry. Booby traps lay across the whole ship.
Techs were still combing through the ship and asking for more help to get all of the surprises the Harmony fighters had left behind.
They were a determined enemy, even with a force numbering almost six times their own, they had fought annoyingly well.
Already he was getting orders to get the troopers together and ready for transport. They were going to Shipping station and then on to Masoul Actual. Fearless and Reclaimer’s drives were already spun up and their sails were being unfurled.
It seemed that someone higher was pressing buttons and they wanted Masoul secured yesterday.
It made sense in Nerva’s mind. Masoul was the center of the sphere. It was the main point where items were transported to Earth by only the biggest haulers.
Ships dropped off their goods, getting whatever their company had purchased from other companies. Shipping station wasn’t just a conduit of the sphere to Earth, it was the shopping center of the sphere. You sent a ship there with your one good and it came back with all kinds of goods from across inhabited space.
The only other place that could do that was Earth. While Earth had more items to sell, Masoul’s shipping station had the basics. It kept the sphere running.
Maybe they should have made a few other stations as backups, Nerva thought, sighing as he saw the first call for Combat Shuttles to not just move personnel into a new fight, but to extract them to the carriers.
Reports started filling his view, the leading sections were reporting their sectors as clear.
He listened, it sounded odd, there wasn’t any concentrated gunfire.
“Demar I want you and Ortiz to check the station again, get your units reformed as well,” Nerva said.
“Yes sir,” Demar said, sounding damn tired after the constant combat of almost two Earth-days.
Nerva slurped on his meal tube, realizing he hadn’t eaten in some time, the adrenaline had left his system leaving him feeling like he had a whole in his stomach.
He traced through reports landing on one that made him sigh angrily.
“Well he was off protecting his girlfriend, what did you expect, he’s motivated by emotion more than anything. At least Mark asked for permission and told Jerome to stay behind. Haas had to order the platoon onwards instead of chasing after them. Those two are leaders,” NIDenise said, reading his thoughts.
“They might be, but they won’t become leaders if they get their asses shot up running around trying to save everyone,” Nerva thought, waving the report away. He didn’t need to deal with it right now, but he would need to deal with it. Having a Section commander running off in the middle of a firefight was not good.
“They did cut the Harmony fighters off from what looks to be their main armory. Mark cut down about forty fighters by himself with a repulsor. All of them were badly wounded, Mark is currently getting sealed up, screwed up ribs, messed up side and they’re thinking it might be easier to just replace one of his legs. Seems that he was too close to the barricades when the third screamer went off. He shielded the others but got knocked out and fucked up as a result,” NIDenise said.
“That boy is getting himself in more pain than I’d like. Remind me to have them both report to me. Seems they’re in need of a little talk,” Nerva said, flicking through request for ammunition. Now the battle was won he didn’t have to worry about people running out of ammunition. In a firefight people went through rounds like they were oxygen.
Nerva refrained from pulling his helmet off, as a younger man he might have, instead he just looked over what had been the maintenance area of the extractor.
The organic lines of piping, machinery towering through multiple floors and blinking lights of control consoles were marred with black Dents and opened metal caused by explosions. Gasses whistle out of holed pipes and catwalks were twisted, warped or downright useless.
Command consoles had been
blown to shit.
Blood and liquids dripped from the higher levels, thousands of bodies lay all across the station, from the living areas and command deck to the offices and down there in the bottom of it all.
Nerva looked over to a Trooper, shock on their face, an expression Nerva had seen too many times to be scared by it anymore. Still he knew that face would follow him into his dreams.
He stood and went over the trooper, a woman who’s name he hadn’t known but she was one of his, one of the people he had led into battle and wouldn’t be given the honor of leading again.
He reached through her broken helmet, his armored fingers closing her eyes, wondering if people did it to make them seem more at peace, or because their eyes seemed to dig around in your very soul. With their eyes open they almost looked human. Pressing firmly on human’s innate belief that they could survive no matter what. Other people died, but they wouldn’t.
“Death comes for us all. Life is but a brief flare of brilliance in the darkness, sometimes it might fade and fall back into darkness, and sometimes, oh the infinitely too few times, that flare helps ignite other flares into the future,” Nerva said, his face still stoic and unflinching, but his words were soft and precise.
None who knew Major ‘Iceman’ Nerva would expect that tone and heartfelt words.
All too many of them would understand the emotions warring inside of him.
To be a trooper was to defend your brothers and sisters lives. It was to stand against the anarchy of uprisings. They were the force that kept Earth and Her Colonies moving forward.
Life was so precious to them because they knew that it could be taken at any time. They lived their life to it’s fullest at every moment they could because of that knowledge. Once they were gone they were gone. It was a hard pill to swallow but one Nerva had come to accept a long time ago.
He took a deep breath of recycled air a new report of cleaner bots coming in to gather the EMF and Harmony fighter’s weapon tech. The workers would also be moving from orbit to help those that were left on the extractors to get the systems operational once again. The CEO’s had a ship coming in a year, they were still going to try and get their fuel to them in the meantime. War meant little to them, unless it paused their operations. Now the facilities were back under their control they’d push hard to keep up their end of a contract.
Masoul (Harmony War Series Book 2) Page 20
