Markov's Prize

by Mark Barber

  Clythe remained silent, dabbing at his lip from time to time.

  “You okay?” Rhona asked after a long silence.

  “Yeah, I’m good, big sis,” Clythe stood up slowly. “Thanks. I mean it. I’m not going to fix anything now, so I might as well just face what’s ahead of me. I’ll come up with a plan when we get back, I guess.”

  Rhona stood up and forced a smile for him, despite the fear and hollowness inside. There was so much left unresolved in her mind and at best, the next few days would force her to leave it all remaining unresolved. At worst, she would be killed. Rhona opened the door back to the communal area and gestured for Clythe to go out first.

  “Get out of here, you bonehead,” she sighed, clipping him around the back of his head as he walked past, before she then pointed to Sessetti.

  “C’mon, you idiot, get in here. You’re next.”

  Before Sessetti could move, Van Noor’s voice came through the shard.

  “Beta Company, assemble in the embarkation area.”

  “Guess it’ll have to wait,” Rhona said, slinging her carbine over her shoulder and taking her helmet from the shelf next to her cubicle. “Let’s go do this.”

  ***

  Pariton City Center

  Capital City

  Markov’s Prize

  L-Day plus 67

  The entrance to the enemy complex lay only a few dozen yan ahead, partially hidden amid the rubble. A subterranean transport tube – a clear favorite method of travel for the MAA – emerged from the ground, half-buried in grey bricks and twisted metal support rods from felled buildings. The entrance had been detected by a spotter drone which had stealthily followed an MAA patrol in the early evening; the soldiers were tired from days of continuous fighting, no doubt, which explained their lax approach to security. Owenne had already planned on waiting until nightfall to advance, so as to take advantage of the enemy’s inferior night vision devices; however, the discovery of a way into an MAA defensive complex was now an opportunity which could not be missed.

  The four Dukes – all that was required to transport what was left of Beta Company – moved rapidly over the uneven ground, flanked by a pair of escorting C3M4 combat drones. The big M4s swept their searchlights across the ground ahead to search for any enemy troops who remained undetected by scanners, the drones’ searchlights set to a visual spectrum which could only be detected by Concord forces who were tuned into it so they remained invisible to the enemy.

  “Ten seconds,” Tahl said, unstrapping from his seat and moving to stand by the door.

  Even with his facemask down, Tahl could tell that Van Noor was frowning at him. The procedure was to remain safely and securely seated until the vehicle came to a stop, as the final few yan was when an enemy attack was most likely to occur. Tahl ignored the procedure – he wanted to be first out of the door. The seven troopers of Strike Leader Rall’s Squad Jai were ready behind him. Tahl connected to the Duke’s external sensors and checked around the vehicles as they covered the final few yan – still no sign of the enemy. The lead transport drone came to a stop by the tunnel entrance, quickly sank down to the ground with a jolt and opened its doors.

  “On me,” Tahl commanded, jumping down to the ground and dashing through the tunnel entrance with his carbine raised, Van Noor and Squad Jai following behind. Tahl sent a mental command to Squad Jai’s spotter drone and ordered the machine to scout ahead through the tunnel as he set up waypoints for his other three squads. Within seconds, the spotter drone was reporting enemy activity ahead. Tahl relayed the information to his strike leaders and began a jog down the tunnel at the head of Squad Jai. Around a bend was another of the transport stations, similar to the one he had confronted the MAA patrol in during Owenne’s last nocturnal jaunt. Tahl stopped at a gentle corner in the tunnel. The spotter drone had detected a squad of ten enemy soldiers taking cover in the ruined station ahead. There was no need to speak to his soldiers – a simple string of mental commands via the shard gave them all the instructions they required.

  Tahl and Van Noor sprinted around the corner and broke off to the left as Rall and half of his squad dashed off to the right, his remaining troopers dropping to the ground where the tunnel opened out into the station. The boom and hiss of mag gun fire met the Concord troopers as they moved, echoing around the cavernous station. Immediately, the strike troopers still in the tunnel returned fire, sending lines of boiling blue plasma back at the MAA soldiers who hid in piles of rubble or behind the square, brick buildings on top of the station’s platforms.

  Tahl took cover behind the burnt out remains of an archaic monorail train which sat in a twisted heap in the corner of the station. Van Noor was close behind him, jumping for cover as projectiles slammed into the metal around them. The spotter drone reported another force of MAA soldiers moving to bolster the defending squad – another twenty men, signifying the rest of their unit.

  “Command, Squad Denne,” Vias transmitted from where Tahl had positioned his squad by the transport drones. “We’ve got a unit of soldiers heading toward us from the northeast, about thirty guys.”

  “Got it,” Tahl replied. “Squad Wen, double back and dig in next to Denne to defend the disembarkation site.”

  “Copied, Boss,” Rhona replied.

  Tahl brought his attention back to the firefight in the station. Rall had advanced with three of his troopers along the right hand side, gunning down two of the MAA soldiers as they tried to fall back. Tahl would normally be content to exploit his force’s superior armor and firepower by digging in for a prolonged exchange of fire, but the MAA reinforcements were only moments away; and now that they had been equipped with far more potent mag guns by their Freeborn allies, he needed to execute a rapid and aggressive attack to wipe out the first enemy squad before the next arrived. With Rall on the right and supporting fire from the tunnel entrance, he set two new waypoints for flanking attacks.

  “Let’s go, mate,” he breathed to Van Noor, jumping back to his feet and sprinting along the left of the station as a torrent of plasma fire swept through the air from behind him in an attempt to suppress the MAA defenders.

  The spotter drone had highlighted three enemy soldiers taking cover inside one of the platform waiting rooms up ahead; plasma fire from the tunnel entrance smashed through the building, punching holes in the brick walls and creating a cloud of dust from the shattered masonry. With clinical precision, the supporting fire ceased as soon as Tahl and Van Noor were within a few paces of the building. Tahl was first through the doorway; he found one man dead at his feet and the remaining two staggering up to face him in the cloud of dust. With his carbine still set to single fire, Tahl raised the weapon and shot both men in the chest. With the room clear and some cover secured for his men, Tahl sent another waypoint through the shard to order Squad Teal to catch up with him and take up a firing position in the small building.

  “Get down!” Van Noor snapped.

  Tahl dived to the floor as Van Noor took cover by the doorway, leaning against it and firing a steady stream of plasma into the far end of the station as a squad of MAA reinforcements swept out of another tunnel, firing at the Concord troopers as they advanced. Projectiles buzzed through the air above Tahl’s head, and he saw Van Noor’s hyperlight shields flash in response to accurate fire, forcing the senior strike leader to fall back from the doorway and take cover. Moments later, Yavn and his six troopers from Squad Teal arrived next to them, taking up positions by the doorway and windows to return fire.

  Tahl quickly patched in to the shards of Squad Wen and Denne. They were aggressively exchanging fire with the second MAA unit which was approaching the disembarkation point, but the combined fire of the Duke drones and the two squads had already accounted for over ten enemy soldiers. It was not a completely one sided exchange – both Vias and Rhona had each lost one of their troopers to enemy fire. A burst of mag fire caught one of the strike troopers by the doorway, puncturing his armor in the legs and gut and sending him cl
attering to the ground with a scream of pain. Tahl ran across and dragged the bleeding soldier away from the doorway before quickly setting about administering first aid.

  “I’ve got him sorted, Boss!” Van Noor shouted as he knelt down next to Tahl and the wounded man. “You lead the company, I’ll sort Weyne out!”

  Tahl patched back into Jai’s spotter drone to update his tactical picture. Twenty MAA soldiers had pushed through the tunnel, and one squad had taken position in the station whilst the second was providing covering fire from behind. Tahl assigned the spotter drone back to Squad Jai and sent a targeting feed to Rall’s plasma lance gunner, ordering him to fire at the tunnel entrance whilst Squad Teal’s lance did the same. Both weapons fired a continuous beam of superheated plasma at the tunnel, cutting into the roof and ripping the structure apart. Rocks ploughed down from the already unstable tunnel, crushing several of the MAA soldiers and cutting off the remainder of the squad, leaving only the ten in the station to deal with.

  “Squad Teal,” Tahl commanded the surrounding soldiers, “enemy soldiers at my marker! Rapid fire!”

  Tahl took position by one of the shattered windows and fired short but rapid bursts from his carbine into the concentration of MAA soldiers which had taken cover by the next platform along. Plasma fire and mag fire were exchanged between the two squads as Rall continued his charge up the right hand side of the station, outflanking the last MAA soldiers and setting up to catch them in a withering crossfire. Caught between the two squads of strike troopers, half a dozen of the enemy soldiers were killed before the handful of survivors broke and fled down another of the transport tunnels.

  The subterranean battlefield fell silent. Tahl quickly patched back into Wen and Denne, and thankfully found that the firefight outside the tunnels had been a similar success. Tahl slowly stood and dragged off his helmet to take in a lungful of air. Behind him, Van Noor had stabilized the wounded trooper.

  “Tahl, you’ve stopped,” Owenne’s voice spoke through the shard. “Have you taken the station?”

  “Affirm, we’ve beaten back two groups of MAA infantry. Estimate we eliminated about half of each unit before they ran. Station is secure, we’ve punched a hole through their lines.”

  “Good,” Owenne said. “Good. How many casualties have you taken?”

  Tahl quickly checked his soldiers’ readouts via the company shard.

  “Four dead, five wounded. Two seriously.”

  “Good,” Owenne said again, “that won’t slow you down at all. Keep going, Killer. I need you to punch a hole straight through to the archive building.”

  “And the Ghar?” Tahl countered, expending more than a little effort to ignore Owenne’s disregard for the impact of his dead soldiers. “We’ve done the easy bit, smashing through the MAA line. What about when the Ghar move in from the east?”

  “I’ve got five companies from the 61st Strike Formation already engaged with the Ghar,” Owenne responded. “I’m keeping them off you. You’ve got the soft underbelly of the city so you can clear a path to that building. You let me worry about the rest.”

  “Copied.”

  “Boss!” a trooper from Squad Teal called. “One of these guys is still alive! Just about!”

  “Go sort him out,” Tahl nodded to Rall, who turned to jog quickly over to the wounded enemy soldier.

  “By ‘sort him out’, I mean that you are to provide medical aid and stabilize him for evacuation,” Tahl called after Rall to dispel any potential for confusion.

  “I know, Boss!” Rall replied. “What did you think I was going to do?”

  Tahl turned to look across at his other strike leaders. Van Noor and Yavn stood waiting for his orders.

  “Get the dead and wounded into the Dukes as quickly as you can. We’re moving again the instant the wounded are on their way out of here.”

  ***

  Jumping involuntarily with every blast from the x-howitzer battery behind him, Owenne clasped his hands at the small of his back and stared out to the east. The horizon was broken with the skeletal remains of buildings, terrain which his strike troopers were fighting their way through even as he waited. He was so close to his prize now, he felt as if he could practically walk right up to the building and peruse the archives as if inside an old fashioned library. The guns spoke again, sending another salvo of shells toward the Ghar reinforcements which were moving up to attack the 48th Strike Formation on the right flank of the Concord advance.

  “Mandarin Owenne,” Mandarin Luffe’s voice chimed in his head, “news from the second of the Ghar reinforcement battlefleets. The Ghar invasion force at Banaab was annihilated by naval bombardment. Banaab is now secure. There was a naval encounter of significant size in high orbit and we sustained some losses. Mandarin Narik was amongst them.”

  “Good,” Owenne replied. “Good that Bannab is secure and good that Narik has finally got his hands dirty. One assumes they recovered his body and he will successfully regen?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Then assuming the surgical procedure is a success, I shall look forward to ridiculing him for not taking better care of himself,” Owenne smiled. “And the other Ghar battlefleet? What news?”

  “It will be entering the Zolus System imminently, I estimate it will be at Markov’s Prize in three days.”

  “Three days? Why the devil are you wasting time and resources in Banaab when I need help here! I’m practically within walking distance of the best lead I have ever found for Embryo, and you’re telling me that even if I am successful in punching through the Ghar, MAA, and sodding Freeborn lines, there’s another entire army of little monster bastards in tin cans on their way here? Send me a couple of dreadnaughts and a carrier or two! Stop arseing around in backwater systems and come and help here!”

  “Your lack of emotional control does you no credit, you must…”

  “Are you sending reinforcements, woman? Yes or no?” Owenne demanded.

  “Negative.”

  “Then sod off and stop wasting my time!”

  Owenne severed the connection and swore in his rage. He needed Tahl and Van Noor to open up a path to the archives. And he was running out of time.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Pariton City Center

  Capital City

  Markov’s Prize

  L-Day plus 68

  Rechter hunkered down lower behind the narrow lip of rubble as the mag light support weapon chattered into life again, a stream of invisible projectiles sweeping over his head as he lay motionless between Sessetti and Meibal. The advance had faltered in front of an enemy position dug in beneath an enormous, collapsed road bridge which had once spanned a valley leading to the city’s old industrial region. The spotter drones were slowly filtering information back from the enemy positions ahead; hastily dug trenches snaked their way through the rubble underneath the massive bridge, punctuated by six weapons dugouts protected by kinetic barriers. Mag light supports and kinetic barriers – further evidence of the Freeborn’s assistance to the MAA defenders.

  “Orders are through,” Rhona announced from the end of the line of prone soldiers. “We’re to advance and take marker delta. That’s that gun position up ahead. Once we’ve punched through the line, the other boys and girls will overtake us and clear out the trenches.”

  Rechter shivered. He thought of his wife. He thought of Strike Trooper Losse, a man he had only known for a few days, who had been shot through the head in their first firefight. Rila, back home, deserved better than that. He could not allow himself to go home to her in a box.

  “Varl; take Meibal to the right and draw their fire,” Rhona ordered, sending a series of waypoints to her troopers’ visual displays. “Lian, you go with Rechter to the left. Bo, you’re with me. Wait for my go, I’ll get us some covering fire.”

  Rechter glanced across at Sessetti. Despite what Meibal said, Rechter saw Sessetti as an experienced soldier – practically a veteran in his eyes – and was a little more comfortabl
e to be following him in. From somewhere behind them, a series of dull thunks announced x-launcher fire, and the arc of their projectiles was highlighted on Rechter’s visual display. Scoot shells – cruel, specialist munitions which transmitted a sub-harmonic pulse which incapacitated the nervous system – erupted in quick succession just in front of the gunpit, the angle of the bombardment only just being able to reach the target due to the overhang of the battered bridge above the gun.

  “That’s us!” Rhona called. “Go!”

  Sessetti was up and dashing across the rubble to the left, his armored feet slipping on the broken bricks and stones as he ran. Rechter was close on his heels, his carbine swinging in his arms as he struggled to keep pace. After only a few seconds, the mag light support in the gun pit burst into life again – the scoot bombardment had not been close enough. Rechter looked over his shoulder and saw the ground around Varlton and Meibal obliterated in a hail of fire, dust kicking up around the two troopers as purple hyperlight shields flared up to try to ward off the torrent of fire.

  “Don’t stop!” Sessetti warned. “Keep going!”