Dodger’s old first and second lines were spent. They were firing their M19s but they were reacting rather than acting.
Mark added his firepower into the mix, slowing them down but not stopping them completely. It had happened too many times before and Dodger saw it happening before his eyes. The Maraukians soaked up the casualties, running through the fire and gaining ground for every one lost. Mark had only been able to kill them so easily before because their commanders had been confused and scared as they had attacks from multiple sides. Now there was just one and they could throw their herd at it while they fired from a distance.
Now they would advance because of the lack of Dodger’s firepower and overrun them, losing all they’d gained.
His NIAI brought up a map as fifteen more people entered the room, their names unknown.
“Who the hell is that?” Dodger asked.
“Dodger, you don’t remember me? I’m hurt.” Captain Serouti of the Crisidium royal guard said back as he and those under his command slotted into a third line and raised their rifles.
Something looked odd and familiar about them. “You damn idiot, get back!”
“Just be quiet,” Serouti chastised as they opened up with M19As.
It still took a few rounds to put a Maraukian down, but it was a lot less than it took an M19.
It might just be what we need.
“Now let’s see if this works.” Mark braced himself as nanites attached him to the floor.
Their advance was gaining momentum once again. Then Mark unleashed hell. Discarding shells filled with hundreds of razor-sharp flechettes hit the Maraukians, killing the first few lines and the rest burying in the remainder’s skin. The Maraukians kept advancing as Dodger gave up on the new rounds just as anti-matter buried inside the flechettes erupted.
They were no more than the head of a needle big, but hundreds of them buried inside the Maraukians stopped them in their tracks. The air thundered with hundreds of thousands of the flechettes with adjusted timers as the first row of Maraukians exploded in gore. Another wave of anti-matter-filled flechettes crashed into the line behind them. It was pure destruction.
Where do we get these people?
The Maraukians couldn’t do anything being so close together. Now their strength in putting numbers through the breach turned to a disadvantage and a bloodbath.
“Ready, move. Halt.” Dodger, Mark, and the royal guard now made a moon defensive line with Mark at the center, already braced as he continued firing.
“Damn idiots were just standing there enjoying the view,” Serouti said, still not used to the stupidity of Maraukian normals.
“What the hell now?” Dodger asked wearily as he felt the ground shake.
“Bellona incoming.” Mark’s voice rolled through Dodger’s mind, pulling him out of his zone as he relayed it to the remaining legionnaires and royal guard.
Shields shifted and settled as they moved into position. Shrapnel rained against them as Crisidium’s and the legion’s accelerator tubes cleared the area around Crisidium. As soon as the reinforcements arrived, Dodger had them switch with his people before the next rush and sent the information to their leader.
Dodger was formally relieved, the fresh Crisidium auxiliaries and Roma legionnaires taking over.
He pulled back with Serouti; Mark had been adamant staying on the line, waiting.
Dodger watched as the reinforcements rushed forward. As soon as the bombing stopped, engineers with the newly made processors were already feeding anything on hand into them as they erected a new wall. The reinforcements peeled off to the weapons Mark fixed; silver tendrils running everywhere connected to him.
“All right, get some hot grub in you and check your suit charge.” Mark focused the Ape Killers’ minds as some looked numbly around, still not understanding what had happened.
Dodger numbly took a meal, taking off his helmet and eating by reflex, still watching as Mark changed to helping the engineers. The wall came together as fast as they could get the plating from the processors, using plasma welds to hold them in place.
Dodger looked away and to the men and women around him. Pride rang through him as he looked at the men and women he’d walked into and out of hell with. Sadness tinged his emotions as he looked for those who had not made it out of hell.
The reserve for the reinforcements connected power uplinks and replaced spent ammunition as the Ape Killers ate and caught some much needed rest, the reserve refusing to let them help.
***
Mark looked over the Ape Killers and the 195th’s reserve rushing around in organized chaos.
Mark finally came back from the line as Ava came over with the reserve unit’s medicos.
“Any medical problems?”
“No. All being looked to, thanks. Umm, what the heck’s this?” He pointed to the royal guards, who were now looking at the people they’d been fighting alongside suspiciously.
“Stupidity, that’s what it is,” she growled, moving on to check others.
“Bow when you’re in the presence of the high king of Crisidium!” a man wearing an official-looking garb yelled as he tried to not step on the body parts, his face quite pale from the sight and the smell.
Legionnaires continued doing as they had been before, ignoring the man.
“Bow! You damned peasants.”
“I’d mind my tongue if I was you,” Mark growled. Subsonics entered his voice as he took a seat next to Dodger; he took his helmet off and they nodded to each other as they ate.
The look the two of them shared was one of veterans, the nod the confirmation of a brotherhood forged in fire as they numbly ate food together, not needing words to express their feelings.
The official man, incensed and now with a target, pointed his finger in Mark’s face. “I will not have some low born like you insulting me and my king.”
“You keep pointing that at me and I’ll blow it off.” Mark noticed in his peripherals as the Ape Killers put down their meals, baring their teeth as their hands hovered near their M19s.
“I place you under arrest of the Crisidium police force. You will step out of your armor, which looks to be illegally modified. I will not have any more legionnaire scum talking to my king this way!” The man’s face was so close, he was spitting on Mark, who was altogether just not in the mood to deal with some political shit.
“That’s enough...”
Before the unknown speaker could finish, Mark looked at the man and simply raised his hand, initiating the assemble sequence on his M20.
He heard the man’s jaw shatter as he was lifted into the air by the momentum; his face sprayed blood as he hit the floor, clearly knocked out. Mark watched as the man hit the floor; his M20 dissembled as fast as it had assembled.
“Had it coming.” Dodger shrugged and ate some warm nutrient paste.
“Got an issue with pompous dicks.” Mark poured nutrient paste into his mouth. “That’s fucking awful.”
“Welcome to the legion.” Dodger held up his packet, cheering Mark.
The man on the ground started to make noises.
“Ava, I broke someone. Got some biogel?” Mark yelled across the room.
“No, I’m clean out.” Her tone made it sound as if she wasn’t in any rush to help the man on the floor as she used biogel on a legionnaire’s cut from a Maraukian claw.
Mark grinned, an edge to it, as he sat back with the Ape Killers. The royal guard backed away slightly.
“Well, this is definitely a different introduction than what I’d hoped,” a man with salt-and-pepper hair said.
There was something familiar about him. Mark studied the man.
“Sorry about that. Some people are still stuck in the old ages,” the man said over a personal net.
“Your daughter…Ava?”
“Yes,” he said, a little shocked, scratching his head awkwardly.
“Ava, you’re a freaking princess.” Mark cut her into the net, the man and the tensions of a
second earlier already forgotten, as well as the king.
“Well, yeah.”
“And I said all of that stuff... I am so sorry. Is there something I, uh...”
“Mark, shut up.”
“Yes, Your Princessness.” Mark mock bowed repeatedly from his seat in her direction.
“Jackass,” she said, barely hiding her chuckling as she worked on her patients.
“Whatever you say, Princess!”
Ava flipped the bird in reply, seemingly the only thing that was able to move completely on the Jupiter.
Interesting, Mark thought, thinking he might have some questions for Charles later on why that but not the pinky or the one between the pinky and middle finger—he couldn’t remember what it was called—couldn’t move as well.
The Ape Killers and Dodger seemed to be amused.
“Sorry about that, Ava’s dad king.” Mark turned back to the man. “Kinda.”
“You’re not one for titles, are you? There are some in Crisidium who are stuck in the old ways, shall we say, and they don’t like the aid that the legion has provided. He was the head of the Crisidium police force, but I think a change in position is needed for him. Please, my name is Hael.” The man sighed in a way that made it sound as though he’d made altogether too many important decisions in his lifetime.
“Well, for the titles, I’ve had my share of them and I don’t much care for them. Hael is much better,” Mark agreed.
“Interesting. How did you know she was my daughter?”
“I thought you looked similar, ran a facial recognition and poof—Ava. So what do you want?”
“Direct. I wanted the chance to talk to you.”
“Why? I’m just a soldier or legionnaire, whatever.”
“Well, first because my daughter owes you a life debt and I doubt you’re ‘just a soldier.’”
Mark shrugged as much as his suit would let him.
The king’s eyes seemed to notice the suit for the first time as he studied it. “She said it took you the equivalent of four months to build that suit. Why?”
“Why what? Build it?”
“Yes.”
“Complicated. I had something happen to me that made me unable to use the Jupiter. So, I made this Pluto-powered armor with a lot of help, which included your daughter.”
“But why create a suit that does the exact same as a Jupiter?”
“’Cause this suit isn’t supposed to fill the role of a Jupiter. We built the Pluto powered armor to bring the fight to the Maraukians, not have to wait back until they attack us in dug-in positions. It has armors to deflect all but their heaviest coilgun rounds. A temperature system able to take glancing plasma bolt hits. A command net no one can really understand and all the damned firepower we could think of and a big ass mono-blade for when things get close.”
“Sounds very good but do you have any real result?”
“I’m the only one capable of merging and combat qualified with the Pluto-powered armor.”
Mark shrugged, he noticed how the others in the room were listening in.
They’d seen the capabilities that Mark had, and many of them were interested as much as Hael as they ate their food and listened in.
“Why aren’t there more?”
“There will be a testing group of Elves. The senate of Roma has decided to test out merging and all that comes with it before developing tactics. I know the damn thing works but I don’t have the people to develop the tactics with. If I had a contubernium, then I could make tactics. But with these suits, everyone will be different as the suits are made to accentuate the user’s strengths.”
“Even then, you legionnaires are all on defensive operations and never offensive,” the king counteracted.
“Very true, but I only became a legionnaire a couple of months ago. Less than two years ago was my last offensive operation.”
“Offensive operations against Maraukians in Jupiter armor?”
“No, offensive operations against other humans in a self-contained body armor five generations prior to that tech of the Jupiter.” Mark’s voice was as cold and blunt as his eyes, which stared off into some unseen past.
“That seems unfair—fighting in technology five generations ahead.”
“I was in the same armor. As I said, I wasn’t originally in the legion. I came from the Earth Military Force and have fought against humans in offensive operations for twenty years of my life.”
“Twenty years of constant fighting?”
“Yes, fighting offensive operations.”
“I’m sorry for my presumptions.”
“It’s understandable. Honestly, though, your men are better suited for Pluto-powered armor suits over most of the members of the Ninth. For too long, the Ninth have dulled their aggression down. They’re used to being on the defensive. They’ve dulled their want to run into battle, to push back the enemy, to charge their lines. It goes against everything they’ve been taught.”
“But the first problem is getting people who are ready for the suits and then building the suits for them,” Hael finished for Mark.
“Bingo.”
“Interesting. Well, I believe my guard would prefer me to get out of here, so look after yourself and my daughter,” he said, his voice and eyes serious as the reaper.
“Sir.” Mark nodded to the king’s suit.
A guard chucked the still unconscious man on his back none too gently as they all left.
“What were you two lovebirds talking about?” Dodger put down his empty plate. He’d moved away as the king was having his conversation, checking on his people, making sure they were reporting any injuries or suit failures.
“Suits and merging.” Mark finished his nutrient paste and stood. “Well, I’m going back to my contubernium. Look after yourself.” They clasped arms. Dodger pulled Mark in and slapped his back, which Mark did to the other man.
“Thanks, Mark, for pulling my balls out of the fire.”
“No problem.” Mark grinned as they released each other and he put his helmet on.
“Have a nice chat with my dad, did you?” Ava caught up to him as he left the section behind, moving a lot slower away from the place than he had when he’d tried to get to it.
“Yeah, he had a lot of questions about the suit. Once I told him the capabilities, I told him his men wouldn’t be able to use it because of the lack of training with even the Jupiter.”
“Mark, you know you only spent a day inside of the Jupiter yourself. Well, two days.”
“Yeah, but I can merge.” He pointed to his own chest. “And we built this damned suit from the ground up.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Hey, if we have a merging capable unit, would there be a medico?”
“No, probably not. The suit can deal with nearly everything and with heavy damage, the person would be taken back to be fixed in a nanite tank.”
“Yes! Well, not the part about getting taken back if you’re that wounded but no more medico positions.”
“Uh, what?”
“You think I wanted to become a medico, Mark?” Ava said.
Mark wished he could see her expression underneath her helmet. “I’m guessing not?”
“I wanted to be a damn legionnaire but my dad wouldn’t have it, so I had to become a medico.” There was hidden anger there. “Mark, if you make a merging group, I want in.”
“I won’t take you just because I know you.”
“Look at my scores if you’re unsure.”
“Why do you think there’s going to be a merging group?”
“Because I know my dad. Hope you didn’t want any free time after this.”
“Free time? Where is this mystical universe of free time?”
“Smartass.”
Chapter 19
Crisidium
Tricticus, Emarl system
7/3351
“Took five days, more ammo than I wish to count, and too many didn’t make it back,” Pullo said over the net to Mark,
whose helmet was still on—unlike Pullo’s.
Call him paranoid but they were in the only observation bubble that extruded from the armorite shielding placed over Crisidium. The view was a sea of Maraukian bodies for fifteen kilometers. Bellona tanks and protection details with drop-ships in support moved through the mass, checking nothing was living. Drones swarmed through Crisidium, cleaning away the rubble and feeding them into processing vats, which would break down everything into their most basic components and feed it into forges to be made into something useful.
“We just have to make the most of their sacrifices.”
“I just wish we never had to lose a single person,” Pullo said harshly, not turning away from the bubble. His ice-like veneer returned quickly.
“So do I, so do I.” Mark placed a gauntleted hand on his friend’s shoulder briefly before removing it. “The king’s coming now,” Mark said as Sarah moved the viewer back so he was watching the entrance to the observatory.
Chyna sat at one table, cleaning his mono-blade. Dodger stood to Mark’s right, a newly made M19A held limply but ready as he was left to his own devices. Somehow, Dodger and the remaining contubernium of Ape Killers had always been nearby. Any murmurs of annoyance of Mark’s seemingly special treatment was quickly stopped mysteriously and instead people stopped talking to Mark, who hadn’t removed his helmet since helping Dodger and his contubernium out. Some found it weird but he’d saved a contubernium against all odds; he could be a little strange if he wanted to be.
Captain Serouti of the royal guard stood ready beside the doorway. High King Hael Desialias, Ava, and a man grinding his teeth—Sarah informed him the man was General Orbel of the Crisidium Army—stared at Mark and his companions.
“So mind telling me what’s so urgent?” Pullo came to sit at the table in the middle of the room. The armorite shielding closed around the observation bubble as a source-less light began being emitted through the room.
Mark moved and stood behind Pullo’s right; Dodger fell to the left, clearing their arcs. Dodger was also fully sealed up and ready for anything.
“Well, after having a talk with my daughter and one with your man Mark Victor here, it has come to my attention you have a new technology with which to let us hunt down these damned Maraukians.”
The Tenth Awakens (Maraukian War Book 1) Page 15
