by M. D. Cooper
Chris barked a laugh.
* * * * *
“Positive confirmation on all primary targets from Potter,” Chief Ona announced. “Firing on secondary targets in fifteen seconds.”
“Good work, Ona,” Heather said, a near-giddy smile splitting her lips. “Gotta say, raining starfire down on Niets is the highlight of my week.”
“It never gets old, ma’am,” Ona agreed as her hands danced over her holodisplay, acknowledging the three NSAIs’ calculations, and approving the firing solution.
“I have the new low-orbit surveillance satellites in position,” Chief Garth announced. “Getting…what the heck!”
Heather saw it as well. There was a mass of heat signatures moving north from the spaceport to First Platoon’s position.
Garth zoomed in and overlaid optics. “Gotta be almost a thousand Niets,” he said, twisting in his seat to face Heather.
“Looks like they peeled a battalion off from the spaceport,” she said.
“Firing on secondary targets,” Ona announced, and a series of vibrations ran through the ship as the rails let fire once more.
“Ona, get the targeting NSAIs to work up solutions for that battalion. Most of the Niets are taking Terrace Avenue. Let’s slow them down.”
“With pleasure, ma’am.”
Chase chuckled before responding.
Another laugh came across the Link from Chase.
Smalls didn’t like the idea of a full-scale bombardment of the city, but they couldn’t take down Nietzschea using kid gloves. Innocent blood is going to get spilled no matter what. Then again, we were all innocent once.
ON THE WALL
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Nietzschean System Command, Memphis, Kansas
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Gideon was on the far side of the room from the windows, reviewing intel from the analysts two floors down, when General Decoteau’s loud string of curses grabbed his attention.
He was about to chastise the man, when a glowing light on the horizon caught his attention.
“What is it!?” he hollered while rushing to the window.
It was Sofia who answered first. “The enemy…they took the CIC at the spaceport, sir.”
“What does that have to do with whatever’s incoming?”
“They know where our anti-air is,” Decoteau replied. “We’re already tracking incoming rounds.”
The general tapped the window, and an image came up between them. Gideon recognized the Fury Lance.
A Nietzschean Harmon-Class Dreadnought. It still rankled that these mercenaries had such a vessel.
Those thoughts were short-lived, as the dreadnought realigned itself in its geostationary orbit, and began to fire kinetic salvos from its railguns. Ground-based tracking triangulated the incoming rounds, and placed energy estimates on the screen: one-ton slugs moving at over thirty kilometers per second. Each shot would hit with the energy of a one-hundred-ton nuclear bomb.
“Analysis shows them to be shield crackers,” Colonel Sofia commented quietly. “They’ll punch right through the grav shields around our AA emplacements.”
“We’re sure that’s what they’re firing at?” Gideon asked.
Sofia nodded. “Hard to be completely certain until they’re within a hundred klicks—but what else could it be? If they wanted to hit us here, they didn’t need to take the CIC at the spaceport. The locals would have told them our location without hesitation.”
“Why bother?” Gideon mused. “They have those shields, our starships and orbital defenses couldn’t touch them.”
Sofia gestured to the light that was growing increasingly bright on the horizon. “They’re dropping something. Probably heavy armor to reinforce their flanks.”
Gideon clenched his fists, struggling to keep his rage at bay. To be outclassed and outgunned by Genevian mercenaries was unacceptable. It will be a cold day in the core of Blue Ridge’s star before I am defeated by a rag-tag group such as this.
“Decoteau,” he turned to face the general. “You have armor, do you not?”
He grimaced. “I have two platoons with mobile heavy-gun platforms in the city; the rest of my heavy armor was pulled up for the attack on the Theban Alliance. There’s a company on the far side of Kansas with the new hover gun-skiffs, but it’ll take time to get them here.”
Gideon looked at the holodisplay to his left, which portrayed the possible armor the Marauders could be dropping with their inbound ship. At the top of the list was a pair of the Genevian Behemoth walkers.
“Yes, get them here as fast as possible. We’re going to need it.”
The admiral turned from the window, and paced across the room atop the MacWood Building. Two dozen aides were present, from master sergeants and chiefs to a bevy of captains and majors. They all stood still, watching the display of the incoming kinetic rounds, and the approaching destroyer that would be dropping off more ground pounders of some sort or another.
“Well!” he hollered at the assembled men and women. “Do you have any fucking clue what we should do? Or should I just send you out to the front lines? If I have to come up with everything myself, what do I need you for?”
Colonel Sofia turned from the windows, her expression settling into a deep scowl. “It’s time for scorched earth, Admiral. These are Genevians, attempting to liberate a Genevian city. We shell a part of Memphis, and warn them to stop their advance or we continue. There are billions of people on Kansas, and we hold them in our hands.”
Gideon’s jaw clenched, and he glared at Sofia with undisguised disgust. Scorched earth meant they’d lost, and he wasn’t prepared to concede that yet.
Behind her, streaks of light fell from the heavens, and slammed into the Nietzschean anti-air emplacements spread throughout the city. The building shook, and plumes of fire, ash, and smoke rose into the air.
Every eye in the room was on Gideon, and he felt a small pang of fear.
“OK. Do it. Take out a residential district with the guns on the north end of the city. Then send a broadcast to the entire city as well as the enemy: the Marauders halt, or we start wiping out the civilian population across the globe.”
TAKE THE FIGHT
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: 300m of Bridge Street, 46th Ave, Memphis, Kansas
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Rika and her team were approaching the front when the second salvo of kinetic rounds from the Fury Lance rained down on the city. They struck targets all around Memphis, but most notably, they hit the four cannons on the far side of Bridge Street.
As she reached the company’s forward command post—occupied by Lieutenant Karen and First Sergeant Tex—another full salvo fell, striking targets further south in the city.
“Having fun yet, Lieutenant?” Rika asked.
“Gobs, Colonel,” Karen replied, glancing at Leslie and Alice. “Brought the whole gang, eh?”
“Yup. Yig’s outside, giving Aaron and his folks a hand. How are things looking on the ground?”
“Just peachy,” Karen replied as she took aim with her GNR, firing a sabot round at a distant target. “Chase is staying on the right flank with the B’muth, and Lieutenant Chris and Staff Sergeant Kristian are on the left flank, which has been taking a pounding. The Niets really want to take down the walkers.”
“They massing in the center at all?” Rika asked as she tapped the platoon’s forward feeds and surveyed the Nietzschean formations on the far side of Bridge Street.
“Hard to say,” Karen replied. “They’re hitting the flanks harder, but not as hard as they could be, based on what we’ve seen. Granted, it could be that Smalls’ shots killed more of them than expected.”
“Like things ever go that way,” Lieutenant Colonel Alice interjected snidely. “They’ll be building up, waiting for us to pull troops to reinforce the flanks. Then they’ll hit us in the center and split our force.”
Rika nodded.
It made sense. The Niets had far greater numbers, and they were treating the mechs like a conventional enemy, expecting that they could simply overwhelm them.
The problem with the enemy’s logic was that, numbers-wise, the mechs were already overwhelmed, but still holding steady. Just under one hundred Marauders were facing off against at least five thousand Niets that were holed up in the city center, maybe more.
Being at a numerical disadvantage was where her people shone.
“Sounds like the perfect time to punch through their lines,” Rika said. “Care to scout ahead, Leslie?”
Leslie chuckled, her shoulders rising and falling twice before her body disappeared, rendered invisible by her stealth flow armor.
“We’ll follow in five,” Rika said as she looked over at the mechs and Alice. “Everyone green on stealth capability? I want to get behind their lines before we hit them.”
“I got tagged a few times,” Karen reported. “Left side is repairing—gotta love ISF tech—but I’m only seventy percent effective.”
“OK,” Rika glanced out the windows at the hundred-meter stretch of road between them and Bridge Street. “You stay here and keep up pretenses. We’ll keep to the left side of the road, so take your pot shots on the right side.”
“And Leslie?” Karen asked. “Will she be on the left side, too?”
Alice cocked an eyebrow. “She’s already off-comms. Going to have get out there to tell her to stay left, Colonel.”
A burst of air slipped past Rika’s lips. “Don’t worry about Leslie, she’ll already be on the rooftops. That woman never travels on the ground if she can help it.”
Five minutes later, Rika and Alice left Karen’s command post, joined by Tex, Kelly, Shoshin, and Keli. Gunnery Sergeant Aaron elected to stay behind with Karen.
Rika signaled Corporal Yig, instructing him to take Goob, Cole, and Fiona over the rooftops on the right side of the street, but to stay away from the edges.
When they reached the southern side of Bridge Street, Rika flashed a single pulse to her team, ordering them to halt, and considered her options.
Bridge street was a wide thoroughfare, easily seventy meters across, with a park occupying the central boulevard. Rock formations, water features, and abstract art filled the park area, and just a cursory look identified several Niets tucked into the landscape. A sweep with her IR overlay showed a total of thirty-seven, but she imagined there were more of them out there.
She sent another ping to the team, this one telling them to switch to random scramble channel A8.
Yig and Kelly sent acknowledgements, and then Rika eased out from cover and began to carefully cross the street.
It had been late the previous night when the Marauders dropped on Memphis, and few civilians had been out and about when Rika’s platoons hit the dirt—courtesy of a surprise drop that was aided by the fact that the Niets still didn’t know Rika’s stolen ships were no longer crewed by Nietzscheans.
She imagined that this would be the last time they could use that particular bit of subterfuge. The chaos caused in the Nietzschean fleets by the Battle of Albany could only last so long.
The result, however, was that most of the civilians had been at home when the fighting started—something Rika had planned on, what with Kansas having once been a Genevian world—and the streets were clear of any vehicles.
With only a short time on the ground, Rika had not been in contact with any local Genevian leaders—or resistance, if there was any. She hoped that when the dust settled, the Genevians would be in a position to take control of their world and, in short order, their star system.
Although, if they weren’t, the Marauders would still have to move on. If the people couldn’t rise up and take what was theirs, she couldn’t stay and coddle them. The attack on Kansas was primarily for intel; intel that would be in the local Nietzschean command’s databases—and possibly their commanders’ heads.
Rika breathed a sigh inside her helmet.
She checked over her new ISF-issued AC9CR rifle to make sure it was ready to do her dirty work, then and began to cross the road. Thanks to the ISF stealth tech, she had made it across the eastbound side of Bridge Street and stepped onto the curb, creeping along the sidewalk until she reached a paved pathway that ran across the grassy expanse.
She had to step more carefully on the hard surface, but it was her best option, since her feet would sink deep into the loamy soil and crush the grass—a dead giveaway to any observant Nietzschean.
She’d made it five meters along the path when a pair of Nietzscheans rose from behind a statue nearby and walked toward her.
Her first instinct was to shoot them where they stood, but she stayed her hand, knowing it would give the entire group’s advance away.
Rika shifted to stand at the very edge of the path, the two Niets passing within centimeters of her as they strode past. As they moved toward the street, Rika saw more Niets slip out of cover, and move across the park to the street.
Rika chuckled.
Karen replied with an affirmative ping, and Rika sent a double pulse to her team, informing them that the time to reach their assigned positions just cut in half.
Which meant she had three minutes to make it to her spot.
Tex and Alice’s acknowledgements put them ahead of her, on another path that ran across the center boulevard. Rika walked as quickly as she dared down her own path, avoiding another dozen Niets as she went, before crossing the northern side of Bridge Street and moving down the adjacent street to the furniture store.
That would be where the enemy was coordinating the assault from. Her group would disrupt things there, while Yig and Kelly’s fireteams would knock the Nietzschean company on its ass.
Three minutes later, Rika was at the entrance to the furniture store. Alice and Tex pinged their locations, and she marked them on her HUD.
Tex was front and center, ready to blast his way past the barricades the Niets had set up on the street. Rika considered reminding him that it wasn’t the best use of his stealth gear, but decided that it would provide one hell of a distraction, and she could use it to her advantage.
Alice was situated atop the building across the street from the furniture store. The out-of-the-way position didn’t surprise Rika overmuch—she was still shocked that Alice hadn’t put up a fight about coming along in the first place.
For her part, Rika had decided to slip into the furniture store itself, easing past the door when a Nietzschean soldier walked out. Within, she saw several low-ranking officers milling around the front. She carefully moved through their midst and into a section of the store displaying artful seating arrangements—some of which had Nietzscheans sitting in them.
