Markov's Prize

by Mark Barber

  Van Noor ran past his two squadmates, shooting another of the creatures twice in the head as he closed range before pivoting on the spot and killing a second Ghar with a burst of fire to the chest. The three rage-filled creatures that clubbed at the cockpit still had not noticed the approaching troopers. Van Noor peeled one of the Ghar off the canopy and lifted it high up with both hands before bringing it crashing down on a jagged edge of wreckage to impale it through its guts. The agonized Ghar shrieked and writhed, still somehow finding the rage and hatred to attempt to claw at Van Noor in its death throes. By the time he turned back to the cockpit, Cane was kneeling over one Ghar and bashing its skull in with his carbine butt, whilst Kachi had the final Outcast grabbed with both hands, smashing its face into the nose of the jet repetitively.

  Quickly searching for an emergency canopy jettison, Van Noor found a distinctive yellow and black striped handle and pulled it. The shattered canopy sprung open. A young woman sat in the pilot’s seat, blood drenching one side of her terrified face and both of her broken legs. She held a pistol in one shaking hand. Van Noor slid his visor up to reveal himself as a friendly.

  “Hold still,” he said as he leaned into the cockpit, “we’re getting you out of here.”

  Pale, her eyes struggling to focus, the woman watched him wordlessly.

  “Gotta be quick, Senior,” Kachi said, “we’ve got battlesuits closing in from both sides.”

  “Beta Company, this is Command,” Owenne’s voice transmitted across the company command shard to all squad leaders. “Our position is untenable. Withdraw to rally point alpha and await further instructions.”

  Van Noor unbuckled the pilot’s seat harness and hauled her out of the smoking cockpit, wincing in sympathy as she cried out in pain. He lowered her over one shoulder and recovered his carbine with his free hand.

  “The mandarin’s called it, lads,” he said to the other two troopers. “Let’s get out of here.”

  ***

  Main Docking Bay

  Concord Warship, Ajax

  High Orbit, Markov’s Prize

  The blast doors of the docking bay were open, giving an unprecedented view of the planet of Markov’s Prize below. All that stopped the docking bay’s occupants from being swept out into the void of space was a double layered kinetic barrier, shimmering faintly and adding a blue hue to the spectacular view. Markov’s Prize was largely a shade which sat somewhere between purple and turquoise, the planet’s warm waters making up some three quarters of its surface. Sandy yellow island chains were visible snaking in and around the larger blue and green landmasses. Cutting across the equator was Markov’s Prize’s planetary ring system, a grey line of dust and small rocks left behind from millennia before when a small moon had been knocked off its orbital trajectory by an asteroid.

  The maintenance drones finished their preparation on the transmat launchers in the docking bay. The small machines hovered away to give room to the panhuman naval technicians who jogged forward to carry out their final visual safety checks. The fifty drop troopers of Alpha Company, 3rd Drop Formation watched the naval technicians carry out the work which would be the difference between a successful and fatal launch.

  Drop Captain Abbi Mosse paced across to her troopers from the doors at the far end of the hangar. The captain of the Ajax had just issued her with a command update which changed the stakes for the task at hand. She opened a communication channel to the entire company.

  “Alpha Company, we’re five minutes to launch,” she began. “Command update is that the Ghar have overrun Concord positions at Settlement Urban 127. The strike troopers down there have taken heavy losses and are retreating. They’re our people, and they’re taking a beating. We can take away some of that pressure, right now. You know our target – a major maintenance facility near the site of the main Ghar landing. Civilians are still in the city, so no bombardment – we’re going in as a precision strike. We take this out, those battlesuits of theirs are going to start to fall to pieces around them. Remember, we’re going to be facing unarmed technicians as well as the automated defenses. Don’t let their lack of firepower fool you – they’ll try to kill us with their bare hands, and they are definitely legitimate military targets. Eliminate every last one of them. We’re Devil’s Own. We give them hell.”

  A deep, booming shout erupted as one from all of her troopers, echoing around the cavernous docking bay. Drop Leaders took charge of their troopers as the company split into squads, forming up around the transmat launchers for the assault. Her heavy, armored feet clunking on the metal deck plates below, Mosse approached Squad Teal – her junior squad.

  “You’re last in,” she briefed the six troopers. “Stay flexible, be ready to change your landing site depending on how things are going down there. You’ve got my most experienced Drop Leader to guide you, so you’ll do fine. Devil’s Own, boys. Give ‘em hell.”

  Clapping an armored hand against the bulky shoulder plate of the group’s squad leader, Mosse moved on to Squad Denne, her most experienced drop troopers. The six men and women turned to face her as she approached.

  “You’ve got lead, Denne,” Mosse nodded. “You get that roof cracked open and we’ll be right behind you. The rest of the company is relying on you to get us into that installation. You’ve never let me down before, and I know you won’t start now. Devil’s Own, people, 3rd Drop Formation. You go screw them up.”

  The troopers of Squad Denne responded with staccato shouts before walking over to the transmat launchers, igniting their antigrav chute reactors as they walked. The six troopers took position on their pads, facing out of the gaping docking bay to look down on the world of Markov’s Prize.

  “Squad Denne, launching in five, four…”

  Mosse mentally ordered the company shard to change from vocal alert to text across her viewscreen; she had always preferred visual displays to voices in her head.

  Three, two, one.

  Each transmat pad glowed dark red for a brief moment and issued a deep thrum as the trooper stood on top was propelled out of the warship, a mere speck in space within a second. The transmat beam would direct the troopers into low orbit and to P1 - the drop point - where they would then guide themselves in manually to P2 - the inversion point.

  “Command Squad, light up,” Mosse ordered as she stepped onto her pad alongside Zhen Davi and the other three troopers which made up her command team.

  Mosse sent a mental signal to her suit’s processor and fired up the small plasma reactor built into the back of the bulky armor. She felt her torso vibrate and tremor as the blue sphere of energy contained on her back rapidly wound up to operating speed, reaching self sufficient speed and reducing the charge from her battery to leave it ready for emergency power. She glanced behind her at the rest of the company, suppressing a smile as she saw some of the younger troopers had retained the old formation tradition of cramming their red berets on underneath their helmets, just visible through their raised face plates. Never be improperly dressed. Stretching her neck left and right, Mosse rolled her shoulders and gripped her carbine against her chest.

  Command Squad, launching in five…

  Mosse braced herself. Fifty-seven combat drops in twenty years service. Only two had gone wrong in the transmat beam. She did not intend to make this the third.

  …two, one.

  The warship seemed to be sucked away behind her in an instant. Shooting through space, so fast that even in the black void she could detect the motion, Mosse tilted her trajectory to achieve perfect heading, her neck craned back and her eyes staring ahead at her target, arms tucked in tightly to her sides, and her carbine magnetically locked to her right hand. She risked a glance to either side and was relieved to see her squad all tightly in formation with her.

  Markov’s Prize swam closer through space, the familiar optical illusion of an imminent collision with a colored ball in space soon replaced with visual definition of an actual planet as the squad approached the upper atmosphere.<
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  “Squad Denne, P1,” the drop leader of the squad ahead of them reported.

  Her viewscreen glowed red as her suit began to heat up in the atmosphere, the temperature control unit regulating the change enough to prevent damage, but not enough to stop her feeling the burning. Sweat forming on her brow, Mosse saw bands of thin, wispy cirrus cloud swimming toward her as she plummeted toward the ground, all views of the blackness of space now gone behind her.

  Six thousand yan to P1, the status report scrolled across her screen.

  “Squad Jai, successful launch,” the next report came through the company shard as up above her a third group of drop troopers were catapulted from the docking bay of the Ajax.

  Four thousand yan to P1.

  A layer of cloud momentarily obscured the view of the landing site below her, a flickering white crosshair on her viewscreen aimed seemingly randomly in the center of a continent near the equator. Her natural vision was now painted in a homogenous white, she saw only the projected path of the descent and the icons on her screen showing her target and the soldiers under her command.

  “Squad Denne, inverting… in contact.”

  Her troopers were in contact with the enemy. Mosse fought the urge to increase her descent speed past normal parameters.

  Two thousand yan to P1.

  The command squad plunged out beneath the cloud and saw definition beneath them – the contours of hills, wooded areas, settlements. Beads of condensation left clear streaks on her visor as she descended. The flashing white crosshair on her screen which signified P1 swam up to meet her. Her suit fell out of the transmat beam from the docking bay in orbit above, and she was in free fall. Juddering vibrations and the steadily increasing hiss of air rushing past her helmet replaced the smooth transit of the beam.

  “Command Squad, P1,” she announced.

  Years of training and experience kicked in without so much as a thought as mental commands to the small aerofoil fins on her back made minute adjustments to keep her suit in trim as she fell head first toward the ground. The decimated cityscape below rushed up toward her – acrid smoke from industrial areas blurred her vision; geometric roads cut unnatural angles through rectangular blocks of buildings. The next white crosshair designated the target building – a huge factory converted into a Ghar maintenance facility.

  One thousand yan to P2.

  Mosse looked to either side to check on the positioning of her squad.

  “Close up, C2!” she barked to one of her troopers who was drifting away from the squad.

  The target building was visual now; a broad rectangle made up of three separate production plants. She smiled grimly – gaping, jagged holes had been blown into all three roofs – Squad Denne had achieved the first objective. Mosse would be first in. P2 – the inversion point – rushed up.

  “Command squad, P2!” She ordered, shifting her weight to flip through the air and point her feet at the ground: a difficult maneuver which two decades of experience had made second nature.

  Mosse sliced through the air, falling into the building and looking down at the dozens of confused Ghar technicians who sprinted around the empty battlesuits which hung from thick chains below her. Mosse picked one of the small creatures, adjusted her flight path, and landed with one knee on the Ghar’s back, crushing it into the concrete floor in a shower of blood. Remaining on one knee, she brought her carbine up and squeezed the trigger, firing a long burst of rapid fire into a group of four Ghar who rushed toward her, brandishing heavy wrench-like tools. She had cut down two of them by the time Davi landed with a thunk next to her, firing an explosive grenade from his carbine’s underslung x-sling. The grenade slammed into an open Ghar battlesuit, plowing into the reactor and detonating it with a blinding flash of blue light.

  The remainder of her squad landed, forming a circle with weapons pointing out in all directions in the center of the factory. No orders were necessary – all troopers remained in place and mercilessly gunned down the unarmed and unarmored Ghar mechanics as they frantically dashed for cover or scrabbled for weapons. An explosion sounded in the adjacent maintenance plant as Squad Denne dropped down from the roof and began a simultaneous attack. Mosse saw a Ghar scrambling into one of the deadly battlesuits on the far side of the factory.

  “Cover!” She yelled, kicking herself away from the ground and using her suit to fly rapidly through the air at head height.

  Plasma bolts laced the air around her as her squadmates sent waves of suppressing fire into the suits around her, felling more panic stricken technicians and trashing the open and vulnerable fighting machines. Mosse reached out toward the Ghar who was lowering himself into the seat of one of the machines. She wrapped an arm around his neck, tore him out of the seat, and positioned the screaming creature under one knee before allowing herself to fall out of the air, landing with her suit’s full weight on the Ghar’s skull and flattening it.

  She span instinctively in place and saw another creature leaping off the top of a servicing platform at her, a wrench held high over its head. Mosse brought her carbine up and shot the Ghar square in the chest with a grenade. The creature exploded spectacularly, showering her with flesh and fluids. Momentarily blinded, Mosse sent a mental signal to her suit to raise her gore smeared visor up away from her eyes. Her squad had already moved up to support her, their fire destroying another trio of fighting machines which hung from chains from the alloy girders above.

  “Squad Jai, contact!” She heard over the shard. “Defensive turrets online, trooper down!”

  “Jai, Command, acknowledged,” Mosse replied. “Fall back to the central maintenance building, marker alpha, we’re clear here.”

  Mosse transmitted a safe path to Squad Jai as she checked the transmat pathway above her for her next inbound squad.

  “Troopers, set charges!” She shouted to her command squad, dashing over to one of the empty Ghar suits which had been damaged by plasma fire, and attaching an explosive charge to make sure it would never operate again. Her squad moved rapidly across the cavernous room, setting explosive charges to battlesuits, supply crates, storage containers, anything which looked to be of use to the enemy.

  Scrawny bodies of Ghar mechanics littered the floor; the sound of gunfire erupted from the factory buildings to either side of her. At the far end of the building, the main door creaked and rattled as it began to raise itself, allowing daylight to flood in. The door was barely open when a boxy, armored gun turret became visible as it swung around to line up on the drop troopers, before filling the inside of the building with streams of plasma fire. Mosse dived to the ground but saw one of her troopers react slower, a projectile catching him square in the chest and bursting out of his back.

  “Squad Chyne!” She called to the next inbound squad. “Enemy gun turrets at marker beta, take them out!”

  “Command, Chyne, copied.”

  Within seconds, five troopers fell out of the sky directly onto the turret, attaching explosive charges and then flying up out of view before the turret exploded spectacularly.

  “Chyne, taking fire from Ghar reinforcements moving in from the south,” Mosse heard the squad’s drop leader call. “Looks like four, no, five battlesuits. We’re taking heavy fire.”

  “Command, this is Jai!” A second frantic call came in. “I’ve got further Ghar units coming in from the north, three troopers down!”

  Mosse made her decision instantly. Her squad alone had destroyed ten suits already – the war of attrition was in her favor. She did not want the Ghar to change the balance.

  “Company from Command – Gemini!” Mosse transmitted the abort code.

  She ran over to her downed trooper, clipping her carbine onto her back before dragging the cumbersome body of her downed man up into her arms. Davi and her other two troopers had already obeyed the command and had shot up through the roof to intercept the transmat beam which would take them back to the Ajax.

  Mosse checked the vital signs of the trooper in her arms
. Dead. At least if she got him back, there was a chance of getting him to regen.

  With a clanking of heavy legs and a whirring of gears, a bulbous Ghar battlesuit appeared at the open doorway at the far end of the building, its sinister form silhouetted against the morning suns. Mosse knew better than to go head to head with the lumbering machine. Holding tightly to her dead trooper, she flew back up through the open roof and into the sky, wincing as enemy fire shot up around her as she fled. Below her, the charges detonated, sending plumes of thick, black smoke rising up from the factory buildings.

  Chapter Eight

  Firebase Alpha

  Equatorial Region

  Markov’s Prize

  L-Day plus 32

  The door to the communal area of the squad’s accommodation block slid open with a faintly audible hiss. Dragging her weary feet through the doorway, Rhona stumbled across the central hub to her own room, clipping her plasma carbine to its stowage on the wall, and dropping her battered helmet in the corner next to her bunk. Even though the subterranean accommodation block was designed with defense and practicality in mind, it somehow felt homely to her. Clythe’s music posters up on the walls, Qan’s pile of snacks, Jemmel’s chin up bar – it all added personality.

  Rhona hit the emergency jettison button on her battlesuit and breathed a sigh of relief as the bulky plates fell from her onto the floor, leaving her in the matte black body glove which formed the inner layer of the suit. She grabbed at the neckline and tore the self-sealing material open down to her abdomen before peeling it off her tired arms. The thought of removing it from her legs seemed like too much effort, so she settled for tying the arms around her waist. After three failed attempts at working with the thick material, she abandoned that idea, too, and sank down to sit on the edge of her bunk. She rested her face in her palms, feeling a sneeze rising as soon as she touched her bandana, and a layer of dust and sand fell from her hair. The planet’s short day cycle was still playing hell with her body clock.