At the Helm: A Sci-Fi Bridge Anthology (Volume 1)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “Hold your position, Hoffen,” Asinhat ordered. “We’re having trouble catching up.”

  I looked at my HUD’s tactical map in confusion. We’d made good time running through the forest, but Asinhat and his squad should be making incredible time following an enemy through the ruined forest.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” I answered. “Corben’s out of his suit. Flick’s already down.”

  “That’s an order, Hoffen,” he replied.

  “Frak!”

  I jumped in the air. Using the benefit of the arc-jets in my boots I slowed my descent enough to deposit Corben on the branch of a big tree. My plan had been to lead the Skampers away from his position, but my orders were contrary. I’d never directly disobeyed an order during combat. I didn’t believe in it, even if it meant my life. Any decent Marine in leadership had to make hard decisions even when it meant sacrificing a couple for the benefit of a bigger group. Didn’t mean I liked it.

  “On me!” I ordered Quinfan. “Coming at you, Sergeant!” If I couldn’t put more distance between what remained of my squad and the tanks, I’d at least not lead them right to Corben, who I suspected was fit to be tied.

  “Copy that, Hoffen, almost in range,” Asinhat replied.

  There’s a certain clarity of purpose derived when running into fire as opposed to away. In the latter case, there’s an expectation that eventually, you’ll outdistance or evade the fire and reach safety. In the former, there’s a certainty that every step ratchets up the tension. Both had their place and if Asinhat needed time to catch up; then by god, I was going to give it to him.

  That said, I wasn’t suicidal either. A grav-tank doesn’t have tracks like the legendary tanks from so long ago. Instead, they hover along anywhere from two to four meters above the ground. Basically, they’re a floating, heavily-armored turret with a bad attitude. The thing is, that with all the destruction they were doing, the definition of where the ground was, was starting to become a fungible topic. With all the crap they were knocking down, they were pretty well elevated.

  Now it’s not the case that anything can be done from below a tank. It’s been tried and maybe in the beginning it was a good idea, but nowadays those tanks have a layer of armor that can withstand damn near anything. You can actually explode something big enough that tosses the tank like popcorn from an uncovered pan, but it’s mostly just inconvenient.

  For Quinfan and me, however, the wreckage gave us some pretty good lanes in which to hide. Grav-tanks aren’t really designed to aim below their horizon and we were going to take advantage of that.

  “Fire, danger close!” Asinhat warned over tactical. I checked the HUD and he was right. He’d lined up on the first tank and we were directly in his line of fire. Quinfan and I jumped up from the toppled tree mess, scrabbling over the thick trunks like the lizards we’d observed so many times back at camp. We’d be open for a second, but if Asinhat was going to unleash what I would have, a few dents from the smaller tank guns was the least of our worries

  There’s a basic problem with crawling up and over a pile of logs, especially when highly explosive shells are involved. For less than a quarter of a second, my butt was in the air. That was all it took for the blast wave to catch me dead on that same ass, picking me up and tossing me through the air. It was the sort of thing the mech suit’s inertial systems were good at absorbing. It turned out we’d yet to train on how to roll into a protective ball, using the heavier plating on the back, somewhat mimicking the armadillos I’d seen once in a zoo. More importantly, it’s just not that big of an idea and I self-taught the skill in midflight.

  Don’t let anyone fool you, inertial systems are great, but the suit designers are all about survival and comfort is not high on their list. I can confirm that being thrown through a fully grown tree is painful. I know what you’re thinking, the blast wave probably softened it up for me. Tell you what, give it a try and get back to me on that.

  I checked Quinfan’s biologicals and found he was still up. My position as TL for Team Two gave me access to the first squad’s tactical displays. Asinhat had disabled the first tank, but in the process, he’d opened himself up to reprisal. I looked on in disbelief as he turned toward the second tank, its turret zeroing in on him at the same moment. If he’d simply run, he might have stood a chance, but that just wasn’t the type of man he was. They say heroes aren’t born, they’re just ordinary people who do ordinary things under extraordinary circumstances. I call bullshit. There was nothing ordinary about Sergeant Asinhat as he stared down a forty tonne grav tank and traded shots.

  There’s a general rule in combat I’ve learned to accept – bullets make a mess out of people.

  I’d have given Asinhat a zero percent chance of surviving his stand-and-deliver approach to a tank that outweighed him by thirty-nine and a half tonnes. The frakked up part is that his shot went high, just grazing the top hatch, which I’ll get back to in a minute. The second thing that didn’t go as expected was that the Sergeant wasn’t turned to paste. Instead, the tank’s round clipped his arm or shoulder, hell it could have been his pinky for all I knew, but the generally explosive round simply ripped off the right side of his suit.

  “Squad control transferred,” my AI announced and my squad display updated, showing four new Marines under my control, including Asinhat, whose bios showed critical, but alive.

  For as long as Marines have existed, we’ve lived by a simple credo – leave no man behind. For whatever reason, Asinhat had seen fit to make me TL and now with his inability to lead, squad leadership fell to me. I had two options, cut our losses or recover the sergeant. As long as Asinhat’s bios were up, there would be no running.

  “Rajish, get me a tactical scan on that tank,” I ordered. In my peripheral, I’d caught that Asinhat’s round had struck the tank, I needed to know just how much damage he’d caused.

  “Everyone else, stay low,” I said.

  Find best view of strike on tank. My AI accessed every soldier’s combat data stream and pieced together a vid-sequence. I watched as Asinhat’s round streaked toward the tank and gouged a furrow into the damn thing’s lid. Just about then, Rajish must have jumped up to gather the tac-scan, because I saw the chance I was looking for—the chance that the sergeant’s bravery bought us. It wasn’t just a furrow. He’d popped its top. That explained why the tank’s operators weren’t immediately following up.

  “Quinfan – take the team up the bluff and grab Corben,” I said. “Head back to HQ, double-time.”

  “What are you doing, TL?” Quinfan asked.

  “I got a plan, but need that tank distracted,” I answered and promoted him to TL.

  “You heard the man, we’re Oscar Mike,” Quinfan ordered.

  I stayed down for a moment as the Skamper tank absorbed the data it was receiving. Four of the original eight Popeyes were making all possible haste from ground zero and they did what any self-respecting, testosterone fueled soldier would do. They gave chase.

  Mech suits and grav tanks make good time and it wasn’t more than twenty seconds before I was on my own. My tactical display tracked a few dozen Skamper squishies working their way over to Asinhat, but the AI gave me an estimate of ninety seconds before their arrival. No matter, what I had in mind would take less than thirty.

  I jumped up from the cover I’d taken and laid heavily on my arc-jets. The extra lift allowed me to turn in mid-air and I landed atop a fallen tree trunk, my suit’s boots immediately changing the surface of the sole to allow for sure grip. For weeks, we’d practiced negotiating all manner of tricky footings and I made a mental note to never complain about training again. I took off at a run, choosing my footing carefully. The lead squad of squishies dove for cover as I jumped over Asinhat’s unconscious body protectively. I knew they’d recover, but the audacious often win in combat and well, I was going with that.

  Asinhat was a bloody mess and at the very least, missing his left arm. The damage to his torso wasn’t particularly clear, bu
t a pink mess of foam covered the pieces of him that were still attached and to my thinking, those were the important bits.

  The Skamper squad recovered sufficiently, because I was starting to take an increasing level of well-directed fire. I knew I was protected, but wasn’t certain I could take an entire platoon, which was exactly what was headed my way. No matter, I didn’t intend to be here long enough to make it a party.

  I picked Asinhat up and slung him over a shoulder. The mechanized suits add several hundred kilograms to a Marine, and they’re designed to carry a fallen comrade, even when both are fully loaded. To lighten my load, I dropped my dummy loadout. It was then my eye caught that Asinhat’s loadout had dropped to the ground. It was standard procedure, when retrieving an incapacitated Marine still in their suit.

  I felt bad as I unceremoniously dropped Asinhat back onto the jungle’s floor. I tried to be gentle, but gentle and hasty collided. Hasty won. I’d strapped on my own dummy loadout enough times that it only took moments for me to clip on the hundred fifty-kilogram pack of death. As soon as I did, new options became available on my HUD. The AI recommended the fifty-cal, full-auto to deal with the Skampers and for a moment, I considered it. I’d have taken a lot of satisfaction in laying down some hurt. The thing was, I had a squad that was being chased by a full-up grav tank, and I needed to get Asinhat out of harm’s way. I pushed down the battle monster and picked Asinhat up again and made tracks.

  The mech suit’s ammo manufacturing plant is relatively simple, at least in concept. It mixes the right amount of explosive material with the right type of payload and feeds it through barrels that slide out just past your suit’s glove. The experience for the operator is much like that of firing a pistol, only the pistol has a barrel the size of man’s arm. As I chugged up the hill, following the sweep of destruction made by a grav-tank on full chase mode, I realized that Asinhat had used most of the explosive material. I had plenty enough to manufacture fifty-cal rounds, but tank busting had been taken off the plate. No matter, I had different plans for the tank.

  “Quinfan, slow up,” I ordered. “I’m inbound and loaded for bear. That bastard has a weak lid and I’m going to bust it.” My plan was simple. I would jump onto the tank, peel back the lid and let loose a fusillade of fifty-cals. Since a fifty-cal round wouldn’t penetrate the tank’s armor, I figured they’d bounce around inside and do what needed doing.

  “Copy that, TL,” Quinfan replied.

  Three clicks later, I got my first sighting of the grav-tank. My team had indeed slowed and was weaving back and forth, keeping just ahead of the tank’s light turret range, their movement too sporadic for a lock from the main gun.

  You’ve no doubt heard that no plan survives contact with the enemy. It’s a lesson every good Marine needs to learn. Those who are able to adjust accordingly, survive, those who don’t have harder days. The problem appeared to be that someone must have warned the tank that I was coming and I’d picked up a load. Hell, maybe the tank just decided I would be easier to pick off. Whatever it was, my plan wasn’t going to work if I had its undivided attention.

  With good line of sight, the tank turned its light turret on my position and started firing away. I was at long range, but with its rate of fire, it wouldn’t take much for it to zero in on me and Asinhat.

  “Frak!” I veered off into the jungle at an oblique angle away from the Skamper’s platoon. Now I was caught between two enemies. No doubt, the Skampers would be bringing up some real hardware to deal with my suit.

  Turns out there’s one final, and ultimately important rule that applies to more than just battle. And that is that no matter how big you think you are, there’s always someone bigger. Mechs looked down on squishies and tanks look down on mechs. Turns out Hogs look down on all of us. I’d been too busy to pay attention to a command channel that had transferred to me with Asinhat’s squad leadership position. Just like I could override and view every action my squad members were taking, so too was command able to do the same.

  To say I was shocked when the Skamper tank simply exploded is something of an understatement. The blast wave caused me to stagger and my visor blanked momentarily, shielding my eyes from its brilliance.

  “This is Lieutenant Irawan,” a woman’s calm voice filled my ears. “I understand you boys are looking for a ride. We’re offering a first-class beverage service.” I smiled and shook my head, leave it to the Zoomies.

  “Copy that, Lieutenant,” I replied. “We have wounded.”

  I finally caught a view of the Warthog that had delivered the kill shot on the tank. While I wasn’t a history buff, even I knew the Warthog had been in existence far longer than dirt and today, I was certainly glad for that. Behind the stubby, little fighter craft a long rectangular transport sailed in and set down next to the tank’s burning hulk. We were in dense jungle and the only clearing available had been created by that explosion.

  A mech transport is a straightforward ship. Long rails are suspended at the top and the Marine’s suit clips in, leaving the Marine to hang, feet dangling when the floor drops. In flight, this design allows for insertion from just about any elevation—the suit’s arc-jets are more than capable of arresting the fall on up to 1.2g planets.

  With Rajish’s help, I clipped Asinhat into one of three special slots that carried emergency medical facilities and five minutes later we lifted off. I appreciated that the Lieutenant gave us a quick pass over the battlefield where we’d had our asses handed to us. The Hog pilot had made quick work of scattering the Skamper’s platoon. There was no way he or she had gotten them all, but I felt like enough blood had been spilled for that day.

  OLD FASHION DRESSING DOWN

  Once you’ve been in combat, other things become just a bit less stressful. Early on in boot, I used to feel quite a bit of stress when I was being reamed out for this or that. Turns out, after people have been shooting at you, a red-faced Captain’s ire just doesn’t compare.

  Apparently, I’d done about a million things wrong in our encounter. At the top of the list was ignoring the command channel, not fragging Corben’s suit, splitting up the team and on and on. Thing was, she was probably right, although I was concerned she might actually blow an aneurism or something; her face was outrageously red. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was healthy, as foamy bits of spittle exited her mouth and sprinkled my cheeks.

  “Are you listening to me?” She was finally finished.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I answered.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I answered.

  “And!?”

  “I appreciate you sending out that Warthog,” I said. “Saved our bacon.”

  She blinked at me, unbelieving. “Are you making a joke?” I replayed the sentence in my mind. The only joke I could imagine was bacon and Warthog.

  “No, Ma’am,” I answered.

  “Get out!” She pointed to the door.

  My steps were light as I exited. I’d expected to be disciplined or worse. The operation was pretty messed up and I was in charge at the end. The Captain had been clear that my inability to reign in Flick at the beginning was a black mark on my record and he’d paid the ultimate price, something she was hanging on me. I understood.

  My next stop was to see Asinhat.

  “Hoffen,” he acknowledged as I entered the room.

  “How are you feeling, Sergeant?” I asked.

  “Terrence,” he held up his remaining good hand. “You saved my life out there. I wanted to say thank you.”

  I shook his hand. “Pete.”

  “I know the Captain probably gave you a pretty good tongue-lashing about Flick. That’s her job, but you did a lot right out there and she knows it. Thing is you kept your head on straight and came up with a plan when it was required. It might not have been my plan, but hindsight is for brass.”

  “Any word on your arm?” I asked.

  “Turned down,” he answered. “They’re going to pa
tch me up, but the arm’s too expensive and we lost two suits. Simple economics.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Headed stateside in twenty-four,” he said. “It’s okay. I’ll get to see my family and they’re giving me a cushy desk-job.”

  “Doesn’t seem right, Sergeant,” I said.

  “It’s just how it is,” he said. “Something else. He reached under a leg and pulled out a dark plastic sleeve and handed it to me.”

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Look inside.” I pulled out a rank insignia. It was crossed rifles on a red field with a single pair of stripes, or that of a Lance Corporal.

  “Really?”

  “Congratulations, Hoffen,” he said, saluting me.

  I returned the salute. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  “You earned it.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jamie Mcfarlane is the bestselling author of the Privateer Tales and Wizard in a Witchy World.

  He is a graduate of Colorado School of Mines with a Master of Science in Mathematics. An avid reader, tinkerer, woodworker and metal sculptor, Jamie is just as likely to be seen smelting aluminum cans in his garage as he is tacking random, discarded iron objects into a small army of beasties that adorn his home’s landscaping.

  Jamie’s writing career began as something of a dare which later turned into a tribute. In his late teens, Jamie was well known as the family story-teller, spinning fanciful yarns about ordinary events, usually with the objective of escaping well-deserved trouble. One day, his mother, often the target of his mischievous tales, challenged him to commit his words to writing. Jamie promised he would but time passed, as did his beloved mother. In 2014, Jamie made good on his promise and published his first book.