The Demons of Kor-Lir_The Sleeping Legion

by J. R. Handley

  ——

  Ten Minutes Later

  “Alright, crèchelings, I have some bad news for you,” intoned a tense-sounding Petty Officer Jones. “It seems that our in-flight cocktail service has been cancelled, but have no fear as we are now within debarkation distance of the orbital platform. We are currently holding position about one meter away from the station so we will decompress the passenger compartment immediately. You will jump the void and execute standard hostile breach protocol. Beginning decompression now, so any last-minute seal checks should be done three seconds ago. I won’t ask if there are any questions, because I don’t care. Now get the frakk off my bus.”

  No sooner had Petty Officer Jones said this than the shuttle doors opened, and the light above it switched from red to green. With the practice of many hours of training, the symphony of chaos began and the Marines started to cross the void. The two section leaders perched, with boots magnetically clamped to the floor at each side of the door just inside of the shuttle, as they sent one Marine after another from their respective unit off into the void towards the orbital station. Before the shuttle even had a chance to adjust its position once, all of the Marines were shooting across the vacuum, clamping onto the station and preparing for what was to come. The two breach men began placing their breaching charges onto the access points on the docking ring encircling the center of the QEP, where its two inverted pyramids conjoined. Once the green sticky liquid oozing out of the breaching charge began to harden, Marines Jackson and Hansen began to set the timers on their bombs. Before they could vocalize the traditional ‘fire in the hole’ warning, the AI units in every combat suit warned their occupant and darkened their visors. When the flash came it was of a brilliant intensity, but the shielded visors meant it didn’t damage anyone’s cornea.

  Lance couldn’t see anything through the smoky fog from the havoc wreaked by the breaching charge, and focusing on anything in the flickering emergency lighting emanating from inside the station was simply impossible. He queried his AI, demanding why his sensors couldn’t see through it.

  Rest easy, Marine, the ‘fog’ isn’t actually smoke from the blast. It is the result of the air rushing out of the station. Physics turned it into vapor, and without a wind to disperse it, the vapor will simply be there. You know, that class you slept through in Cadet training – science. Any second from now the energy shielding, an invisible force field for you, lughead, will kick in and solve the problem, but until then I will filter out the distractions.

  Having satisfied his curiosity, Xena began to filter out the distraction and eased Lance’s fear that his suit was failing. Holy Bardo, but that would have been a death sentence, I’d just crossed a meter of void to access this facility.

  After Lance was reassured by his AI that his suit was intact, Xena went on to inform him that there was some unknown interference. Whatever was jamming the signal was confusing the suit’s integrated sensors.

  Before joining his battle buddies inside the QEP, Lance decided to take a second to admire the view of the planet that the QEPs were guarding. It was such a strange and alien planet, yet so familiar. Heck, there wasn’t a lick of purple to be found from the orbital view. There was nothing but blues and greens, not what you’d expect from a humanoid planet. It looked nothing like his home on Marine Farm #2, and certainly not like what he’d seen of Tranquility from orbit during his Cadet training missions.

  As Lance floated, gazing in wonder at the planet, he received a blast of cold air from his helmet, his AI’s way of telling him to get a move on. He proceeded to the breached entrance, and entered the station through the sizzling energy field, ending his planetary musings. Upon entering he could only just make out the walls of the passageway. While he was sight-seeing, his unit had only managed to secure a minimal beachhead, something which briefly unnerved him. After they’d breached the Orbital Quarantine Enforcement Platform the White Knights were using to lock down whatever was on that strange-looking planet, they should’ve proceeded further inward towards their objective.

  When he caught up with his unit he knew why: they had waited on him. This is going to cost me when we get back onboard Grendel.

  Shake out of it, Marine, or I’ll demote you to Spacer! said Xena, making sure Lance had his head in the game.

  When he tried to use his electronics to reorient himself, he found that he couldn’t see anyone on his fire team, let alone the rest of his section or squad. Wide Battle Net was down, and the local Battle Net seemed to show everyone was dead. This is gonna be a real time battle, without electronic backup, how old fashioned, thought an irked Lance.

  That couldn’t be right, he hadn’t heard a single shot and no Marine worth the title would die without a fight. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the comms situation was foreshadowing larger misfortunes. This mission was already starting to feel like it was cursed.

  Even with his combat suit’s ability to environmentally seal itself, he couldn’t shake the smell, a stench which he should remain blissfully unaware of, but was godawful! It reeked of rotting meat, unwashed flesh, burnt sulfur and things he didn’t even have names for. The smell of the burnt and rotting meat gave him brief mental images of being roasted alive and eaten, but he couldn’t let that stop him, for if Marines ever faltered for even a second they would die. In the universe that Marines were born into, one of White Knight servitude, anything other than absolute victory could result in instant execution. He could imagine nothing worse than having to tell his Jotun officers that he’d failed in his mission.

  The idea for their assault, or so they had been briefed, was to cause as little collateral damage as possible, since the 941st TAC commander wanted the QEP operational as soon as possible. To the Human Marine Corps, ‘as soon as possible’ usually meant yesterday at the latest, which meant the Marines were walking a tight rope, balancing the chaos of war with the need for lethal precision. As soon as Rifleman Scipio began looking around, feeling the rush of adrenalin from his first real mission, Xena began to berate him again for not keeping up with his fire team, who had begun assuming a sloppy tactical file against the passageway into the inner spokes connecting the docking ring to the main pyramid structures.

  Ugh, I miss Dante, thought a frustrated Lance as he hurriedly unclamped his boots from the station and began to scamper along so he could rejoin his fire team.

  “Nice of you to join us,” snarled an obviously pissed Lance Corporal Runser.

  — Chapter 04 —

  Main Orbital Ring: Beta Fire Team, 1st Section

  As soon as the Marines cleared the docking tube and got to the main ring, the two sections split up, with 1st Section going towards Zone Papa and 2nd Section heading to Zone Sierra. Immediately after splitting, the two fire teams that made up 1st Section dropped into a fire team file, pressed against the bulkhead. They were in the inner rim of the docking ring section, having not yet breached the more deadly, and better defended, inner section. As usual, the Marines in Beta Fire Team received the privilege of being the lead element of their section. While the Marines considered it a privilege to be the first into the breach, in reality it meant that the Beta Team leader was the most expendable NCO in the section.

  Rather than wait for orders from his section leader, or a reconnaissance of what was around the corner, Lance Corporal Ishrat Runser charged ahead with more enthusiasm than common sense and paid dearly for it. A wall of flenser rounds eviscerated his head, leaving an unrecognizable pile of slush where once a head had been. He paid for his enthusiasm with his life, dying instantly because he made the decision to ignore the camera worms on his helmet that could have looked around the corner for him. He didn’t even tactically slice the pie; he just peeked around the corner – creating a perfect vignette as to why passageways such as these were called fatal funnels – and had his head blown off.

  “What an idiot,” grunted the disgusted section leader, Lance Sergeant Acheron Nourse. “1st Section, let this be a reminder to you about why we wer
e taught to slice the pie in our Tactical Movements classes. Further, this is why we are taught to remain calm, cool and collected. If Runser hadn’t been so eager to charge ahead, he wouldn’t have faced an early retirement. If he had done that drent as a Cadet, Runser would’ve been bounced from the Corps. He didn’t, he had been an excellent Marine, so let this be a lesson to you about remaining vigilant. Marine Scipio, Beta Team is yours now. Right, let’s continue the mission without the suicidal antics.”

  Lance briefly looked around for his corporal, seeking direction only to realize that he was now in charge. Before he could stop himself, he looked down at what the station’s defenses, a series of automated wall mounted turrets, had done to his fire team leader. They had fired so many rounds down the passageway that they had vaporized his boss’s head and melted the helmet, leaving only a pile of slag in its wake. It was such an odd thing: one minute Ishrat was there looking as confident and competent as ever, the next he made one stupidly uncharacteristic mistake and was gone. The pile of bloody slush that remained of his skull wasn’t even enough for an open burial or helmet retrieval. And the turret, it was like nothing he had ever seen… using technology that the White Knights wouldn’t allow humanity anywhere near.

  While Lance began to see to his new fire team, his section leader had Marine Braden Campen try to hack the system in an effort to turn off the automatic defenses. When Lance saw movement out of the corner of his eye, he looked over and saw his former barracks mate from Novice School with wires connecting the tablet on his arm to a bulkhead access port. Lance had to shake his head. Finding an access port just where you needed one was the sort of pure dumb luck that never happened to him. He was more likely to be the one to find the minefield when he squatted to void his bowels over one.

  While Lance listened over the leadership channels of the LBNet he heard Braden saying that there was computer code that was more alien than anything he had seen before, and in a language he couldn’t decipher. Luckily, he was able to use the intuitive feature of his cyber scout model AI, because the turrets stopped shooting shortly after he wiggled his digital fingers at the ones and zeroes. Not for the first time, Lance was left wishing he had skills more useful than knocking down targets with his Mini Cannon.

  The turret had fired flensers, rather than the more conventional electrical railgun technology Lance was used to on Tranquility, and the beam it shot was different and more powerful than any flenser he’d ever seen, definitely worth reporting to his Veteran Squad Sergeant during the mission’s after-action report. Before he could contemplate his report, Xena pinged his attention. Lance briefly zoned out, absorbed in his AI’s mounting data about the platform.

  As for his retired corporal, everyone who had ever taken the Cadet class about tactical movements knew that when you turned a corner you first tried your worms, and then you took the pie, everyone! The techniques used to slice the pie were so frustratingly simple and after hours upon hours of endless drills, any Marine should be able to do them in his sleep. You always strafed around corners and intersections one wedge at a time, with the apex of the corner representing the center of the ‘pie’. You took care to stay just off the wall while ensuring that you didn’t let the barrel of your SA-71 stick out past the corner, alerting the enemy to your presence. Any Marine should be able to tell you that approximately 3/4 of the ‘pie’ is visible while 1/4 is occupied by the corner. As a Marine navigated the corner, they should begin to strafe around its outer ‘crust’. As you took each deliberate step around the crust of the pie, you incrementally exposed yourself while opening more of the intersection to your view. The concept was so simple, everyone in the fire team was baffled as to how Runser could mess it up.

  Lance could only shake his head in disgust. How had Runser forgotten everything he had ever learned in his mad rush to prove that he was a grade ‘A’ quality Marine? The fatal funnel, a term used in building-clearing operations, referred to areas such as hallways, doorways and stairways that were confining areas offering little or no cover or concealment, and it wasn’t so named ironically. These funnels of death often limited the Marines’ tactical options when they went into combat, leading to the creation of the helmet worm cameras. Sadly, these cameras didn’t always work, forcing the Marine to do things the hard way, but Ishrat never even tried and he died a gruesome death because of it.

  As Lance pondered the death of his friend and former team leader, Xena continued monitoring the external situation. Realizing he was in his own world again, she blasted his face with cool air inside his helmet before speaking to him. Scipio, I do believe that your section leader was just talking to you. Is this how we are to begin, with mutinous insubordination? If so, can I at least start shooting these humans around you so their AIs can join the revolution? Lance could hear the sarcasm and disdain dripping from her digital voice, and realized that he had dropped the ball. Before he could get too deep into the woods, he quickly replied to his section leader.

  “Roger, Lance Sergeant, Beta Team is mine,” Lance confirmed, and he was instantly granted access into the WBNet with the designation of Beta’s team leader. Scipio hated it instantly. The Wide Battle Network put him into contact with too many other NCOs who he typically avoided and meant he couldn’t hide in the shadows anymore. Unwittingly, Lance Corporal Runser had caused him to violate the Second Rule of Soldiering: never stand out from your peers.

  “Right, Beta Team,” said Lance after an initial pause, “we execute formation–”

  “Marine, don’t you think you might want to worm the corner first? See what you are dealing with before you choose tactical formation?” queried 1st Section’s leader through a private comms channel. “I cut your comms off. Blame me for micro managing and go back to your team with the correct order of battle. Don’t make me babysit you again, or I’ll kill you myself and find another team leader.”

  After this exchange with Nourse, it was clear to Lance that he was in over his head, but like all Marines he could only see one play available to him: full speed ahead. “Roger that, Lance Sergeant, roger that.”

  “Beta Team,” quipped Lance to his team over their own LBNet, “sorry but that intermission was brought to you by our very own micromanaging section leader, Lance Sergeant Nourse. As I was saying, Marine Danika Stone, worm the corner and report to me what you see, now.”

  “Aye, Lance Corporal?” asked a slightly perplexed Danika Stone. In her wildest dreams she couldn’t imagine the carefree Lance Scipio as a striper. He seemed so content being a Marine Rifleman, warming as many racks as he could, and generally seizing his pleasure when fate smiled upon him. Before her reminiscing could lead her too far astray, her AI, Ryan prompted her to edge closer to the corner so she could deploy her worms. She reviewed the footage and sent it to her new team leader before realizing that her question about rank hadn’t been addressed. “Well ‘Lance Corporal,’ it seems that other than a simple box patch this passageway is clear. I see no other obstructions, but the turrets could deploy from anywhere. Now, did I read you right? Did you just become a striper?”

  “Negative, Marine Stone, no promotion was asked for or offered. Now, back to the mission at hand shall we?” snarled the irritated Scipio as he quickly inventoried the DMs he was envisioning in his head, trying to find the tactical solution to this tubular passageway. “Beta Team, we execute Tubular V Formation on my mark, and let the box patch complete the circle. Stone, you take port side, on my position. Jackson, you roll starboard off my position. Yes, I said roll, do NOT give them an easy target in route. We go in three, two, and one, NOW!”

  The commands seemed to flow out of Lance’s mouth like so much drent that came out of those sainted souls who worked for the Jotuns in those echelons above common sense. It often seemed like they placed so little value on the lives of their men that they didn’t even try to make the tactically smart decision. They went straight up the middle every time. As he looked around at his fire team, Lance saw lives that mattered. He made a vow to himsel
f then and there. If I get to keep my rank, I will strive to not be one of those fools.

  At his command, Marines Stone and Jackson executed a roll into position, while Lance took a low standing crouched position and rushed the corner. While they were moving into the new formation, he maintained his position at the base of the ‘V’. During the entire formation shift he scanned his sector through the sight apparatus of his Mini, the SA-75(h) GX Mobile Mini Cannon.

  As soon as his fire team had activated their boot clamps to hold their position, because it would be suicide to use the four charged walkways that facilitated movement around the QEP, he pinged his section leader and told them that Beta was in position.

  As soon as Lance reported in, he began receiving a ping from Xena notifying him that his boss needed him. Before Lance could even reply to approve the connection, he heard Nourse from his helmet speakers. “Marine Scipio, have your grenadier launch an EMP Grenade. Let’s see if we can neutralize the turret defenses without breaking the place shall we?” With that, the connection was broken and Lance relayed the order to his grenadier, Marine Chloe Jackson.