* * *
“Incoming laser fire,” the computer spoke.
“Buddha, deploy shields!” Jim Cartwright, commander of Cartwright’s Cavaliers, ordered over the squadnet.
“You got it, Jim!” his top sergeant said. Jim tensed his muscles against the suit’s harness and used his pinlink to trigger his own orbital drop shell. There was a tiny explosion, followed by a roar of racing wind from his descent as it ripped away the eight petals of his drop shield.
“Successful deployment,” his suit’s computer told him and autonomously applied some breaking and lateral thrust from his jumpjets. Now free of the protective shield, the Combat Assault System, Personal, or CASPer, could paint his environment in better detail. The bulbous canopy in front of him, where the chest of the roughly Human shaped suit sat, became a Tri-V holographic projection of wherever he looked. The computer also fed him live visual feeds to his pinplants, allowing 360-degree vision. You couldn’t sneak up on an alert pinplanted CASPer driver.
The suit fired its jets randomly again, making it look like one of the deployed shield parts, and Jim’s back thumped painfully against the pads. He wasn’t a small guy, tipping the scales at just over 310lbs, but he was down a good 40lbs from the first time he’d strapped into a CASPer. He wasn’t used to getting bumped around like this, though. The problem was, he still had a lot to lose if he wanted to wedge his fat ass into a MK 8 CASPer, like most of his squad were using. For now, he stayed in the bigger, roomier MK 7, just like Buddha.
“How you doing, little Jimmy?” Buddha asked. The computer flashed the Tri-V image of the other MK 7 with his top sergeant in it. Buddha might look like a fat guy, but he was really 250lbs of badass muscle, with about 30lbs of baby fat around his waist. At least that’s what he said his mother told him.
“AOK,” Jim said. He’d have given Buddha a thumbs up with the suit, except the arms were still locked at his side. Air speed indicated they were falling at more than 500 miles per hour and descending below 15 miles. The only remaining part of his shield was a cone-shaped segment his feet were embedded in, helping his aerodynamics, and the flight pack on his back. “How you doing down there?” Jim said towards his thigh.
“Splunk good,
“Sergeant Ortega reports Second Squad is all accounted for,” Buddha said. Jim nodded and changed to the command channel.
“All good, Hargrave?”
“One slight damage, kid,” the gravelly voice of his second in command, who had A Company, 2nd Platoon, for this drop. B Company was still on the cruiser, with 1st platoon in its drop tubes and 2nd platoon in Phoenix dropships. Just in case. “How are your troops?”
“We’re all good,” Jim replied and consulted his drop computer through his pinplants, “three minutes to touchdown. No change to target plan.”
“Be safe, commander.”
“And you as well,” Jim said, and he switched back to the squadnet and consulted his altimeter. “Ten seconds,” he told the men in his direct command. “Hang on, Splunk.”
“Kick ass,
“Yep,” he said, triggering his play list. “Radioactive” by a long-dead band called Imagine Dragons began to blare in the suit. “Kick ass time.” The nose shield blew away, and he was in complete control.
Unlike the mothballed and salvaged CASPer he’d used in the previous months since taking command, the MK 7 he piloted now was both brand new and customized. Made for orbital drops, it had lighter armor and a powerful flight pack, although its weapons were less impressive. The suit excelled at quick deployments and lighting strikes, just like this mission called for.
“Okay,” he said over the squadnet, “let’s do this by the numbers. Watch for collateral damage, pick your targets, and everybody goes home.”
“All up!” Buddha called.
“Lead the charge!” all nine of his squad replied as one. Jim smiled in pride. Many of the men were new to the Cavaliers, but all were proud to be with one of the Four Horsemen.
He checked his radar and saw he was under a mile above ground. There were a pair of APCs visible, just beginning to move, dozens of huge insect shapes, and a long line of little round shapes. He thought about them and his face turned from a smile to a snarl.
“Buddha, heavy weapons, take out those APCs.”
“On it,” his Top said. A second later two rockets shot out from the CASPers, and the APCs were no more. He nodded as a second later he oriented and fired the suit’s jumpjets long and hard, feeling almost 4 gravities crush against him. The proximity alarm pinged in his mind through the pinplants, he bent his knees, and the suit grounded with a boom.
“Cartwright’s actual, I’m down,” he transmitted on the command channel and cut the music. “Bucephalus, status update.”
“Commander,” the voice of Captain Kim Su, the commanding officer of the Bucephalus, replied from orbit, “we have retreated to a somewhat higher orbit to present less of a target. There was no damage from the attack. The first ship was eliminated on the Peacemaker’s instructions; we cannot engage the second ship as it holds hostages.”
“Understood,” Jim said as he released the now expended orbital drop thrusters and pulled the CASPer-sized laser rifle from its retainer on the suit’s thigh. “Have 2nd Platoon, B Company prepare to deploy. Tell Major Alvarado we might have a remote listening post, based on the accurate orbital fire.”
“Understood,” the captain said, only a hint of her native Mandarin accent evident. “Stay safe, commander. Your mechanic sends her regards.”
Jim felt his cheeks getting hot. The company’s chief CASPer mechanical engineer, Adayn Christopher, was quite a bit more than his friend.
“Call ‘em out, Buddha!” Jim barked after verifying there were no immediate threats.
“All down and operational,” the big Samoan said.
“Very good.” He consulted his battlespace, a Tri-V generated view of the area around his troopers and himself. Fed from live datalinks with all the CASPers within range, it gave an amalgamated view from 20 different suits scattered over a square mile. It was a very detailed map. His CASPer was a bit lighter because of the extra sensors and computing power needed to run the battalion, although he only had one company to wrangle now. “I mark 10 bogies in our immediate area,” he said, and flashed them in red to the entire platoon. Two glowing points showed APC wreckage. “Scouts out, move east,” he ordered. The radiation was so bad, there really was no discernable magnetic north. Courses were based on preset gyro readings from their suits. “And watch your rad counts.”
The platoon formed a skirmish line and moved east as he’d directed. Two MK 8-equipped troopers ranged out front, one from each squad, moving much faster and with better point sensors. Private Stodden from First Squad and Private Howell from Second Squad, the two scouts, worked well together. A little too well, truth be told. Jim had separated them only a month ago, because they caused too much trouble off-duty. While too green as mercs to earn a handle, Jim thought of them as Rick and Morty.
“Skirmish only, Stodden and Howell,” Jim ordered. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes sir,” Stodden said.
“You can trust us,” Howell added, but there was a hint of mischief in his voice. Jim sighed.
He watched on his sensors as the two smaller MK 8 CASPers ran/bounded forward in the planet’s relatively light gravity. They moved with surprising grace, never jumping more than twice their height, and never in exactly the same direction twice. It was as close to random as you could get.
The planet’s strange, radiation resistant vegetation didn’t grow more than 10 feet tall, an aberration for most low G worlds where you might find 200-foot-tall trees or other megaflora. T
he radiation seemed to favor short, wide-leafed plants that reminded Jim of a cross between a palm tree and a broad leaf maple. Using visual, he could see the two CASPers bound over them intermittently as they raced away. It was both a way to get good forward views, and to draw fire. Scout and skirmish. It didn’t take long.
A laser pulsed across the sky, then another. Jim’s computer logged the beams of coherent light, invisible to the naked eye but perfectly visible to his suit’s sensors.
“Contact!” Private Stodden said. “Medium laser rifles.”
“Can you ident the race?” Jim asked.
“Looks like wasps,” Private Hartman said.
“We could tell that much from the air,” Hartman’s squad leader, Sgt. Ester “Buckshot” Martin said. “Give the commander a positive ID.”
“Should I walk up and get a better look?” Stodden asked, the sound of his suit’s jumpjets audible over the radio.
“Stow that shit,” his sergeant barked. More and more lasers crisscrossed the sky, evidence the two skirmishers were stirring up the slavers.
“Knock it off,” Buddha said, his deep Samoan voice booming out. “We need to know if they’re SleSha or KzSha. SleSha don’t have wings. Can you see wings?”
They were at the edge of Jim’s effective battlespace, and there was a lot of clutter, but two of the bogies suddenly jumped into the sky and flew at Hartman.
“KzSha,” Jim said. He cursed. The SleSha were a handful because they had a hivemind; the queens could control the warriors with a sort of telepathy, and the warriors fought to the last breath and were tough. The KzSha, though, were really hard to kill, as they were individually sentient and 10 times as tough. More massive than a Human, they wore top-notch, unenhanced combat armor, could fly in low gravity (like here), and had two bladed middle arms tough enough to cut steel or punch through carbon-ceramic armor.
The Peacemaker who’d contracted them to bring down these slavers had been tracing them for a decade, but he’d never gotten close enough to verify what race they were or to track them to their base. He’d thought they were likely SleSha, who were already a disgraced merc race known for piracy. The KzSha were active in the guild, though, both powerful fighters and shrewd at playing the political game. That they’d picked the planet Soo-Aku spoke of the latter. The Aku, native to the planet, weren’t members of the Union, which afforded them little protection. However, enslaving an entire race was one of those basic protections even the naïve enjoyed.
“Break off,” Jim ordered, “bring them to us.” The pair bounded a couple more times, fired a few magnetic accelerator cannon, or MAC, rounds, then retreated. “First Squad on me. Buddha, Second Squad around to the north and envelope.”
“You got it, boss,” Buddha said, and the other eight members of his squad, minus its skirmisher, quickly cut away, moving low and fast.
“They’re coming hot,” Hartman called out. “Looks like we kicked over a hornet’s nest.”
“So original,” Stodden said. A missile shot up over the low vegetation and instantly angled towards Hartman, who was in the air. Stodden took it out with a flurry of laser shots from the counterfire system on his suit.
“Much appreciated,” Hartman said as he grounded and covered his partner. Their skirmish/scout model MK 8s only had a shoulder-mounted MAC and defensive laser counterfire systems for weapons, as well as a dozen CASPer-sized grenades called K bombs. Hartman pitched a K bomb in the general direction of their pursuers before heading off again, this time staying on the ground and using the foliage as cover.
Jim saw the detonation and ground his teeth, hoping it wouldn’t deter the enemy pursuit. From what he’d heard about the KzSha, though, he didn’t think it would. As he started to move, he felt Splunk stir against his thigh. She’d probably been asleep.
“Wake up buddy,” he said down his suit’s interior, “trouble’s coming.”
“Fight now,
“Yep,” he said and removed the safeties on his heavy weapon. “First Squad, here they come,” he broadcast on the squadnet.
“Second Squad is coming around,” Buddha told him.
As his top sergeant, Buddha had only coordinated the troop movements while staying alongside Jim; he suspected Hargrave had something to do with that. Less than a minute later, Stodden and Hartman bounded past Jim’s line, and he prepared to fire.
His suit sensors showed radar reports of the onrushing KzSha, yet he waited for more direct targeting. The reputation of hard to kill was a formidable motivation. He felt Splunk move upwards a bit, into a better position if he needed her technical expertise. A second later the first group of four KzSha burst through the underbrush.
Jim blanched at the sight of them. He’d faced down waves of huge spiders known as Tortantulas and had even taken on a massive fusion-powered tank single-handedly once, but the sight of the four-foot-tall, armored wasps was sobering. When the aliens saw the line of CASPers, they didn’t hesitate for even a second. They leaped into the air like grasshoppers, wings a blur, and fired at the Humans as they came.
“Engage!” Jim barked, and all 10 of First Squad’s troopers opened up with a combination of laser, chain gun, and MAC rounds.
Two of the KzSha were blown apart in sprays of greenish blood, the result of multiple weapons impacts. Another took at least two hits, one of which severed a pair of legs and a wing, sending the insect crashing to the ground. Enemy fire fell among the Cavaliers but was deflected or absorbed by the formidable Human armor. The final enemy was also hit, but the single laser that found it splashed off its armor without effect.
The trooper just to Jim’s right, Private Rick Partlow, swung his CASPer-sized laser rifle from right to left like a huge baseball bat. The MK 7’s mechanical muscles drove the weapon with armor-cracking force into the hurtling KzSha, which had just angled its abdomen forward, intending to impale Partlow with its huge gleaming stinger. The laser rifle was designed for CASPer melee use, the KzSha wasn’t. Partlow cracked its armor and broke its leg, but it rebounded away toward Jim, still ready to fight.
Jim just had time to deploy his left arm shield and partly turn before several hundred pounds of armored wasp slammed into his suit. A razor-sharp forearm aimed at his cockpit glanced off the shield as they crashed together. The inertia took him off his feet, and the two went down in a tangle of arms, legs, and weapons.
“Damn it, Partlow!” Buddha yelled. “Check your down range!”
“I…got…this…” Jim grunted as he gave a well-timed thrust with his legs, rolling over on top of the wildly-flailing alien. One of the alien’s arms flashed and sparks flew off Jim’s armor. “Oh, you want to play it that way?” he yelled, using his pinplants to release the right arm’s three-foot-long, molecularly-hardened, chromium steel blade. It flicked out and locked into place, and Jim pistoned it down with all his machine-enhanced strength, pinning the KzSha trooper to the ground with a sickening Crrruch! of shattered armor and a splash of green blood.
He gave his jumpjets a bump and bunny-hopped backward, jerking the blade free, just as the alien’s stinger shot up. It only scraped against his boot as he cleared the threat. Corporal Ramsey fired three thudding MAC rounds into the alien, blowing it to pieces.
“I’m sorry, Commander!” Private Partlow said, sounding chagrined.
“No damage done, Private,” Jim said, “just listen to Top and watch your follow through.”
“Yes sir!”
“Those were the skirmishers,” Buddha warned, “here comes the main force.” Jim checked his battlespace and saw at least two dozen more KzSha troopers racing at them, flying just a few feet off the ground.
“Volley fire!” Jim barked. All ten CASPers fired in a line, each along a corridor directly towards the enemy. There wasn’t as much overlap this time and almost all the weapons hit, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Jim noted that all the laser shots were nearly ineffective, except against the difficult to target wings.
“Switch to
ballistics only!” he ordered. “Any trooper without ballistic weapons, hold for hand-to-hand.” Weapons were magnetically secured and blades snapped into place. It was Corporal Nick Sharps, while stowing his weapon, who spotted the new threat.
“Heavy weapons!” he called an instant before a medium MAC round exploded through his cockpit, pulverizing his entire upper torso. Jim didn’t see him take the hit, but the First Squad corporal’s icon went red all the same.
“Damn it,” he said. Jim was one of only two troopers with both energy and ballistic weapons. He pivoted the MAC down over his shoulder, setting the crosshairs on one of the two huge wasps with its own MAC, and blew it to hell. The round punched through its head and out its rear in a spectacular fountain of gore. Buddha hit the second one, but just as it fired.
The round caught Jim’s CASPer in the upper left, spinning him around from the inertia of the hit. He threw himself forward, feeling a dizzying lag in the suit’s response, but managed to take a knee.
“Cartwright actual,” he called, “I’m hit, but not hurt.” He shut the mic down and spoke. “Splunk, I’ve got motive damage.”
“Splunk fix
“Well how do you think I feel about it?” he asked, a little peeved. Outside his troopers were blazing away at the advancing KzSha troopers. They’d dropped five of the aliens, including the two Buddha and he had killed. The rest grounded and raced at them in an erratic zigzag pattern.
“K bombs,” Buddha yelled a half second before Jim could give the same order. Unfortunately, his arm gave a stuttering jolt when he reached toward his own bombs, and he only managed to dig a handful of dirt from the ground next to him.
For a Few Credits More: More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 7) Page 21
