by Mark Barber
Rechter looked ahead and tried to pick up his pace again to catch up. A second gun pit, off to the left and on the fringe of the defensive position, turned to face them and fired. Rechter dove to the ground and clamped his hands over his head. Blind panic seized him for a moment before an automatically administered cocktail of drugs coarsed through his veins, taking the edge off the terror. Sessetti was above him, hauling him up to his feet.
“Pick up your weapon and follow me! That fire isn’t even effective yet! Keep moving before they zero in on us!”
Rechter followed Sessetti as they closed with the enemy defenses. Sparkles of fire from the trench line announced small arms now adding to the line of weapons trying to gun them down. Behind them, Squads Denne and Teal were already catching up to puncture a hole in the line.
Opaque patches of purple flared out in front of Rechter. It took him a second to realize that he was being hit by enemy fire, but the clouds of dust which spat up from the ground as the mag light support blasted away at them soon galvanized him into diving back to the ground for cover. Up ahead, highlighted as blue diamonds on his visual display, Rechter saw Rhona and Clythe advance to within only a couple of yan of the target marker. The gun was still firing away at Vartlon and Meibal, who valiantly dashed from cover to cover, somehow still alive and running.
“Blasting, heads down!” Clythe’s voice came through the shard.
A succession of staccato crumps announced the eruption of grenades, and the first gun pit fell silent. Still pinned in place, Rechter could only watch as Varlton and Meibal caught up with Rhona and Clythe, and the four troopers stormed into the smoking gun pit. Squad Teal, meanwhile, sent streams of suppressing fire into the gun on the left, diverting its attention away from Sessetti and Rechter.
“Come on, now’s our chance!” Sessetti said as he leapt to his feet.
The two soldiers covered the distance to the gun pit quickly, their hyperlight armor still flaring from isolated shots from the trench line. Arriving at the gunpit, they found the four strike troopers stood over five bodies, all of them dressed in long coats woven out of camo-reactive material. Freeborn.
One of the men, still alive, moved a hand for a pistol holster at his side.
“Don’t be a prick!” Rhona yelled, stepping over to point her carbine down at him. “Don’t do it! Don’t you…”
The mercenary unholstered his pistol and Rhona shot him twice in the chest.
“Dammit!” She yelled, sinking to one knee and tearing off her helmet to issue a string of harsh expletives.
“C’mon, Lead,” Varlton rested a hand on her shoulder. “Vias’s boys are in the trench. We’ve got to help them clear it out.”
Rhona pulled her helmet back on and hauled herself back up to her feet. Rechter still had not killed anybody. He did not relish the thought, but given Rhona’s background, he imagined it was even harder to kill one of her own, close enough to look them in the eye.
“Lian, get on point,” she commanded, “follow my marker. Let’s go.”
***
Owenne watched with a fascination he found uncharacteristically morbid as a trio of strike troopers dragged three Freeborn mercenaries out of the trench to dump them unceremoniously in a shell crater a few paces away. He also noted with interest that, whilst there was no time for ceremony, some effort had been put into disposing of the bodies of the MAA defenders, who had been laid neatly in rows with their helmets placed over their faces. Why the strike troopers had chosen to deal with the bodies of their enemies differently, Owenne had no idea. He did not care, either.
“Where’s your strike captain?” Owenne asked one of the troopers as he levitated gently down into the trench.
“Straight down the trench, first bunker you get to, sir,” the trooper replied.
His hands clasped at the small of his back, Owenne opted to levitate along the ground, utilizing his superior connection with his field of nanobots to support his own body weight rather than trudge through the mud and dust. He arrived at the bunker and found Tahl and Van Noor briefing their four remaining strike leaders. Old-fashioned paper maps had been pinned to the walls of the bunker by the previous occupants. The assembled troopers formed a circle around a simple wooden table, their helmets removed and their carbines slung on their backs.
“Morning, all,” Owenne greeted. “Good job, advance is going well so far. I see you’ve only lost four troopers this morning. Good, good. Keep that up, we’ll need every man and woman we’ve got to face the Ghar again.”
Tahl exchanged a look with Van Noor. Owenne had never been good at interpreting panhuman non-verbal communication, but it was apparent that he had said something offensive. It irked him how easy panhumans were to offend.
“Four dead, six wounded,” Tahl said. “We’ve also lost half a dozen drones, including an M4. I’ve got less than thirty soldiers left who are fit to fight.”
“It’s enough,” Owenne said, glancing around at Tahl’s strike leaders.
He connected to the company shard and quickly re-familiarised himself with their names and career histories. Yavn – the most experienced soldier in the company after Van Noor, overdue for promotion to senior strike leader. Vias – dependable, but morale was flagging. Rall – impestuos, hot headed, had just applied to transfer to the drop corps for the third time. Rhona – the least experienced, least battle hardened, showing the worst symptoms of fatigue. Better suited to Intelligence.
“With the 48th moving up on the left flank, we’re in a good position to sweep south and cut off the rest of the MAA from the city center,” Van Noor proposed. “That way we’ll…”
“You’re going straight to the city center,” Owenne said, “you know the objective. I want Beta Company, 44th Strike Formation, front and center. I’ll give you all the support you need, all of the drones and artillery you could ever wish for. But it’s down to you to smash through the Ghar line and get me to the objective.”
“What’s the objective, sir?” Rall asked.
“Your strike captain and senior strike leader know the objective. You just follow their orders and we’ll have this planet under Concord care by this time tomorrow.”
Silence greeted Owenne’s words. He assumed that meant his instructions were clear, no questions required.
“Understood,” Tahl nodded slowly, exchanging a glance with Van Noor, “we’ll hold position here and wait for instructions from Strike Commander Orless. He’s currently briefing Delta Company.”
“You don’t need to wait for him,” Owenne said.
“So when do you want us to move, sir?” Van Noor asked.
“No time like the present,” Owenne replied. “Off you go. Forward march, and all that.”
***
“Targets visual, twenty yan left of marker beta!” Sesssetti called from his position by the window on what was left of the first floor above.
“Squad Wen, single shots, pick your targets and open fire,” Rhona ordered.
The squad had taken cover behind a line of hastily positioned kinectic barricades in the ruins of a decimated industrial building, half a day’s advance to the east of the breakthrough at the bridge. Beta Company were part of a small, thinly spread defensive line along with the rest of the 44th, save Alpha Company who had sent three squads ahead to scout the Ghar positions.
Rechter mentally chastised himself as he peered through the sights of his carbine and saw a fuzzy, ill-focused mess. He had changed his visor to night vision as the darkness of early evening crept in, but had forgotten to do the same with his weapon. He jumped slightly as Meibal fired her carbine next to him, sending a bolt of blue energy flying off across the near flat sea of desolation which lay between them and the government buildings ahead. Rechter changed his sight setting and raised his weapon again.
Zooming in, he saw four strike troopers frantically running back across the dead ground, one of them limping and struggling to keep up with the others as all of them slipped and stumbled across the treacherous rubble beneath thei
r feet. Then, behind them, Rechter saw a Ghar for the first time in his life; a monstrous machine of dull, metallic silver, its reactor exhaust glowing a feint green atop if bulbous back. The three-legged war machine tottered after the fleeing strike troopers, its squat legs struggling even more on the uneven surface than the soldiers it was chasing down. Rechter fired a shot from his carbine but saw the bolt of blue fly well wide of the mark. He corrected and fired again, a little closer this time.
“Alpha Squad Cian, this is Beta Wen,” Rhona called across the formation shard. “You got three Ghar right behind you and transports inbound to pick you up. You boys are better hitting the deck and getting out of their arcs of fire, the Duke’ll have you outta there in a few seconds.”
Rechter glanced across and saw a Duke transport drone escorted by a C3M4 hopping over hill-shaped mounds created by felled buildings. One of the three pursuing Ghar, the one Rechter had been shooting at, held its position and fired the brutal, multi-barrelled weapon on its left arm. Plasma fire spat out in a terrifying display of green energy, blasting through the back of the wounded strike trooper and decapitating a second soldier who had turned to help his comrade. Sessetti swore angrily and increased his rate of fire, sending off two or three hastily aimed shots per second.
“Aimed shots, Lian!” Varlton snapped. “Aim ‘em!”
The now familiar screeching hiss of Clythe’s plasma lance sounded from the right and a continuous line of blue plasma energy shot out and smashed into the building behind the right-most Ghar. Clythe brought his weapon left, bringing the line of destructive energy with it. Rechter saw the plasma lance tear a ragged line through the building before it connected with the battlesuit; the Ghar jolted with the impact and fell back a step, its crude armor dented by the blast but otherwise unharmed as the lance’s safety valve fired off and the shot was extinguished.
The Ghar held position now, tucked in amid the dull, grey buildings - no doubt in an attempt to hide themselves from the rapidly advancing M4 combat drone and its lethal plasma cannon, one of the few weapons which was capable of blasting through a battlesuit with relative ease. The two Concord drones accelerated, sweeping in from the left in a desperate attempt to reach the last two strike troopers fleeing from the Ghar. It was in vain. The Ghar machines on the left and right opened fire simultaneously, sending a cascade of green bolts down to converge on the two troopers. The ground kicked up in a storm of dust and splinters of rubble around them, both men crumpled and fell down, dead as the carbine fire from Squad Wen continued to ping ineffectually off their killers.
“Command from Squad Wen,” Rhona reported in. “Alpha Squad Cian’s gone. We couldn’t help them. They’re all dead.”
Before a reply came, another line of energy swept out from Clythe’s plasma lance with a high-pitched screech. It connected directly with the Ghar in the center, and the suit was torn apart in a spectacular display which lit up the evening sky. Limbs shot off in every direction as the main torso was replaced with a rapidly expanding ball of green plasma. The plasma cloud expanded outward and washed over the two remaining Ghar. Rechter’s jaw dropped as both suits exploded simultaneously, their own putrid clouds adding to the original results of the reactor explosion. A line of green hung errily in place where the three ferocious fighting machines had been only seconds before.
Clythe let out a whoop of victory.
“I’ve seen their reactors go up before, but never like that!” Varlton exclaimed.
“Chain reactor explosions,” Rhona said, “it’s detailed in the intelligence reports. Very rare, even rarer for multiple occurences, but it happens.”
“Damn right it does!” Clythe leapt to his feet and held his plasma lance over his head. “In the hands of a skilled operator…”
“Luck,” Rhona corrected, “don’t get cocky. Your shot was skillful, the results were pure luck. The chances of three reactors going up like that? ‘Bout one in a thousand. Enjoy the moment, because I doubt we’ll ever see that again.”
Rechter looked out at the four dead bodies which lay motionless in between him and the already dissipating green cloud.
“Command from Squad Wen,” Rhona transmitted, “we got a hit on a Ghar and just saw a chain reaction explosion…”
“Ultra-skilled operator, requesting a medal,” Clythe cut in before Rhona held up a hand to silence him.
“Lucky shot, but we’ve got an opening,” Rhona continued. “No other enemy units in sight, and we’ve already got a Duke and an M4 with us for support. If we’re looking for a crack in their defensive perimeter to exploit, this might be it.”
“The bodies,” Sessetti said, “we need to recover our dead.”
Rhona glanced across at him and nodded as she listened to a reply over the command shard which the rest of the squad could not hear.
“Wen copied,” she said before turning to face the squad.
“Varl, on point, advance to my marker. We’re at the tip of the push into the government sector. The rest of the boys and girls are moving in behind us. We need to get up to that grey building and hold our position until the rest of the gang’s here. We’ve got that M4 lookin’ out for us, so we’ll be cool. I’ve marked the postion of those guys who didn’t make it; Command has assured me that there are measures in place to get them home. C’mon, let’s make a move.”
***
Van Noor paused at the entrance to the alleyway, warily eyeing the visual feed from the spotter drone which hovered at head height in the street ahead of him. The din of battle intensified as shells fell with a riotous crash to the left, and a pair of C3M4 combat drones burst through a brick building to the right, advancing through the ruined city center with some twenty strike troopers from Cian Company close behind. The two Ghar troopers at the end of the street, collapsed in a pile of rubble, were only detectable on standard visual spectrums: no energy, no heat; no sign of life. But that was no guarantee.
“Wait here, Boss,” Van Noor nodded to Tahl. “I’ll go take a look.”
Not giving Tahl a chance to object, Van Noor sprinted across the wide street toward the adjacent alleyway on the other side. His breath labored, his eyes half shut, and his shoulders hunched, Van Noor waited for the flurry of shots from the Ghar troopers. Nothing came. He clattered into the cover of the alleyway on the other side of the street and turned to face Tahl. On the rooftops above the company commander, the six surviving troopers of Squad Jai kept their weapons trained on the seemingly destroyed Ghar battlesuits. Perhaps they really were dead. Van Noor peered around the corner of the alleyway and gave a nod to Tahl.
As soon as Tahl was in the open, both suits powered up and opened fire. A barrage of plasma fire swept down the street, blasting into the walls to either side, and kicking up rocks and rubble from the ground. Tahl’s shields flared purple as his hyperlight shields defelcted the relentless storm of plasma, Squad Jai’s own fire impacting harmlessly into the Ghar duo as Tahl continued to sprint for cover. Van Noor watched helplessly as their spotter drone was gunned out of the sky from the hail of fire. Just two or three paces from the relative safety of the alleyway, Tahl was span around and blasted to the ground as the torrent of fire finally penetrated his shields. Van Noor did not hesitate for a second – he leapt out and grabbed Tahl by the wrist before dragging him back into cover.
Van Noor looked down at the battered and smoking armor of his friend. Tahl immediately sat up, his body convulsing. Van Noor realized after a few moments that it was from laughter.
“What’s so bloody funny?” He demanded.
“That!” Tahl managed. “That’s the most scared I’ve been in a long time! It’s one of those laugh or cry moments, and with the amount of chemical crap this suit is pumping into my veins to stop me from crying, I guess we’re laughing!”
Another wave of fire swept up from the far end of the street, blasting into the rooftop where Rall and his troopers were attempting to gun down the first pair of Ghar troopers. Caught in a deadly crossfire, Rall’s squad dived
to cower beneath the edge of the roof. Van Noor risked a glance around the corner of the alleyway: another three Ghar troopers had burst through the walls of one of the government buildings further down the street. One of the battlesuits was armed with a long and ominous disruptor bomber.
“Dammit!” Van Noor gasped as he ducked back into cover. “Another three of the bastards, and we’re caught in the middle!”
“Beta Battery from Beta Command,” Tahl called, his momentarily explosion of humor now cut short. “Immediate fire support on my marker.”
No answer came.
Van Noor swore again. “Comms are either interrupted or dead. Let’s get Squad Teal up behind those three and keep them busy so we can fall back.”
“No time,” Tahl shook his head, “we need to push on to that archive building. We’ll double back along the adjoining alley and take down those two at the other end. Then we can keep the advance going.”
“With what?” Van Noor demanded.
“You and Rall’s lot will shoot them, I’m going to punch them.”
Tahl sprinted off down the alleyway and took a left turn to move parallel to the main road, Van Noor close behind him. The ground shook as another barrage of shells fell close by; whether they came from Concord, MAA, Freeborn, or Ghar guns was impossible to tell. Up in the skies above them, Van Noor saw three full squads of drop troopers leap purposefully through the smoke stained skies, lines of fire sweeping up after them and cutting one of the airborne troopers down before they disappeared from view.
Van Noor saw a series of orders relayed to the company appear on the map in the bottom corner of his visual display as Tahl ordered the remnents of the company to new positions. Denne and Teal moved up on the left flank; Wen took the right whilst Rall’s squad Jai on the nearby rooftop were ordered to shift left to concentrate their fire on the pair of Ghar troopers which Tahl and Van Noor advanced toward. The company’s x-launchers were ordered to target the three Ghar on the right flank, keeping them as occupied as possible with their specialist ammunition, although Van Noor had his doubts how much of it would land within effective range within the tight confines of the battered streets.
