Chapter Nine
“Got something,” Gant declared as he sent an image feed from the spotter drone to the rest of the squad. “Look at this – just up around that corner ahead.”
Sessetti looked at the image which was transmitted to his screen. Three Ghar battlesuits stood in the center of the ravine; one with its weapons pointing down at the ground and no light emissions from its reactor exhausts. The second machine’s reactor blinked on and off whilst the lights from its sensor array flickered temperamentally. The last machine stood ahead of them, its weapons also pointing down the ravine.
“Looks like they’re in trouble,” Gant said. “We should go get them before they realize how close we are.”
“Don’t talk crap!” Jemmel snapped. “They know we’re here, and they’re just sat there waiting for us! Besides, we’re supposed to be ready to reinforce the line, not go leaving our positions because we feel like it!”
Sessetti switched off the image feed from the spotter drone and looked at the ravine entrance ahead. It seemed taller, all of a sudden, more threatening. He considered voicing his opinion but decided against it.
“Our guys are taking a beating, and for whatever reason, there’s three of these bastards sat there in the open, two with no power!” Gant urged. “We can get right on top of them and drop grenades in their reactors! Three of them, just waiting for it!”
“He’s right,” Clythe nodded. “C’mon, let’s go finish them off before they call in help. No power. This will be easy.”
The sound of battle to either side of the squad’s defensive position seemed to intensify.
“No power?” Jemmel shook her head. “Simultaneously? Give your brains a chance, both of you! They don’t just break down!”
“The intelligence brief said that if one reactor goes up, it can take out an entire squad of them!” Clythe said.
“That’s an explosion, not a chained power failure, you idiot!” Jemmel scowled, a gauntleted finger pointing in accusation. “Look! We’ve got our orders! We sit tight and shoot anything that gets close!”
“Grow a pair, Jem!” Gant snapped. “There’s three of them and seven of us! They’re sat there, just…”
“Shut up!” Rhona finally interjected. “All of you, shut up! I’m thinking, just give me a second!”
“We’ve got orders, Kat,” Jemmel said calmly, “we’re not supposed to just do our own thing!”
“We’re selected and trained for our flexibility!” Gant exclaimed. “So let’s be flexible! Let’s go blow these sods up before it’s too late! The mandarin said they’d start breaking down if we left it long enough.”
Rhona nodded slowly.
“Gant, Rae – get up front. Jemmel, stick with me and be ready with the lance…”
“Seriously?” Jemmel yelled.
“Just do what I tell you!” Rhona shouted back. “C’mon! Let’s go get them!”
“We telling Command?” Qan offered.
“Don’t do that,” Gant said, “they’ll just tell us to wait here and it’ll be too late.”
Sessetti looked across to Clythe as the seven strike troopers rose to their feet. Whatever was going on in his friend’s mind, it was hidden by the helmet’s face mask. The squad moved silently and rapidly into the ravine, their armor changing to a darker orange-brown to fit in with the colors of the shaded rocks. Up ahead, Gant held up a clenched fist. The squad stopped in place. Sessetti checked the feed from the spotter drone again. He could see it up at the edge of the ravine, silently looking down at the Ghar below. Nothing had changed – one was powered down, one was struggling through some sort of reboot procedure, whilst the last stood guard over its vulnerable comrades.
“We hit the live one with everything we’ve got,” Rhona ordered. “Gant – take Rae and Sessetti around the right, the rest of you follow me to the left. Wait for the guard suit to turn and check the other end of the ravine… Wait…Go!”
Sessetti followed Gant and Rae as the trio sprinted out of cover and ran into the open around the corner of the ravine. The lumbering suits were only a stone throw away, the live machine midway through a turn with its weapons pointed away. Halfway from the frantic dash to reach the enemy, the two apparently damaged Ghar effortlessly powered up. Sessetti felt bile rush into his throat. All three span around to face the approaching troopers and opened fire with the most intense barrage of destruction Sessetti had ever seen.
Bolts of plasma smashed through Gant, tearing off one of his legs at the knee and spinning him around in place as his armor was punctured by the projectiles. Two shots cleaved straight through Rae’s torso; she tensed up and toppled over to the ground without a sound. The shard’s communication frequency filled with panicked shouts, screams of pain, curses, and confusion.
Sessetti turned and ran. The cover of the ravine corner seemed to stay in place, refusing to draw closer no matter how fast he propelled his legs. A Concord trooper sprinted past him, plasma bolts chasing them down as they ran and flaring up their protective hyper-light shields. Sessetti had no memory of how or when he reached cover. He found himself collapsed on his knees, his carbine in the dust in front of him, panicked bodies crammed into cover all around him.
“Stay down!” Jemmel yelled. “Stay put!”
“Get back!” Clythe shouted. “We need to pull back before they catch us up!”
“There’re Outcasts moving up the ravine behind us!” Qan exclaimed. “We’re boxed in! Get the Duke here to get us out!”
“What about Rae?” Sessetti asked, picking up his carbine. “And Gant? We need to get them!”
“They’re gone!” Jemmel risked a look back around the corner. “We need to fall back to the Duke, shoot our way through those Outcasts!”
“No!” Rhona shouted. “I’m gonna go get our guys! In five seconds, you give me all the cover you can!”
“Kat!” Jemmel grabbed Rhona forcefully by the forearm. “You go out there, you’re dead! They’re gone! We need to fall back!”
Sessetti opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to say that he would go with Rhona. He wanted to offer to go and get Rae. No words came.
“I’m not leaving them!” Rhona growled, throwing Jemmel’s hand away. “I can get to those rocks and then drag them into cover! You ready?”
Jemmel grabbed Rhona by the neck.
“Don’t!”
Rhona pushed Jemmel off with both hands and then turned to look up the ravine.
“Cover!” Rhona yelled, sprinting away and back toward the Ghar troopers.
Sessetti flung himself to the dusty ground around the corner of the ravine and brought his weapon up to bare before spraying the nearest Ghar with plasma bolts. Clythe dropped to one knee next to him, firing his own carbine at the same target. Rhona hurtled along the ravine, enemy fire blasting the rocks around her and kicking up clouds of dust. Jemmel’s plasma lance impacted into the side of one of the Ghar war machines, pushing it forcefully back onto one bended leg but failing to damage it. By a miracle, Rhona dived to the ground and took cover behind a thick outcrop of orange rock. She was halfway.
“Keep firing!” Jemmel shouted. “Don’t let up!”
Rhona hauled herself back to her feet and ran headlong for the two prone bodies who lay broken ahead of her. As if it were another trap, as if they had been toying with her, all three Ghar battlesuits turned their guns on Rhona and cut her down with accurate fire. Plasma bolts smashing through her hip and abdomen, Rhona crumpled to the ground. She let out an agonizing cry of pain which filled Sessetti’s ears for a long moment before she fell deathly silent.
An unseen hand grabbed Sessetti and dragged him back into cover behind the ravine corner.
“Squad Wen, command override,” Jemmel breathed. “Strike leader down. I have command.”
***
“Command, Denne!” Vias shouted above the roar of gunfire. “I’ve got two dead and two cat four! We’ve taken out two Ghar troopers, but I’ve got another three pinning me down from marker omega!”
“Denne, hold position,” Tahl urged. “You’ve got multiple units from Alpha Company moving in to provide support, seconds away. Is your position defendable?”
A few seconds of silence made Tahl fear the worst. He slid his facemask back and raised his armored fingers to touch his aching forehead. Finally, a response was issued.
“Command, Denne, friendlies visual, we’re… we’re good.”
No sooner had Vias finished speaking when the next voice cut across the command shard frequency, accompanied by a flashing light on the holographic display of the battlefield which was projected in front of Tahl.
“Command, Xath,” Althern called, “I’ve got three troopers down and we’re falling back to… marker ghia.”
Ignoring the hammering pain in his head, Tahl looked at the positions of all nearby units on the map.
“Xath from Command,” he responded, “you’ve got hostiles approaching from the east; I’m re-routing three D1 drones to marker ghia to support you. Can you defend that position?”
“Xath,” Althern said breathlessly, as the marker showing his position on the map moved rapidly toward their new marker, “affirmative.”
Tahl looked up at Van Noor, Cane, and Kachi. Van Noor remained crouched next to him, providing a constant stream of corrective markers to the artillerymen who relentlessly bombarded the advancing Ghar. Cane looked across at Tahl.
“Do we need to move up, Boss?” Cane asked. “Time we go get stuck in ourselves?”
Tahl’s response was cut off by another communication across the shard.
“Command, Squad Wen!” Tahl recognised Strike Trooper Jemmel’s voice. “We’re pinned down at the ravine immediately north of marker indigo! Readouts showing… one dead, two cat four! Request immediate assistance!”
Tahl felt an immediate wave of nausea, replaced by calmness and clarity as his array warned him he was receiving external assistance to cope with what he had just heard. He reviewed Squad Wen’s situation – cut off in a narrow ravine with three Ghar troopers to the north and some twenty Outcasts advancing from the south, the four surviving strike troopers did not have long. The Ghar troopers were too close to engage with artillery; but perhaps not the Outcasts.
“Cian Battery, Beta Command, engage targets at marker zion,” Tahl ordered before sending a mental command to a pair of C3D1 drones which were attached to Squad Chyne, moving them toward the ravine from the east.
It still would not be enough.
“Command Squad, on me,” Tahl ordered, hauling himself to his feet and sprinting off toward the ravine.
***
“They’re nearly on top of us!” Qan yelled as he risked another shot, leaning around the corner of the ravine wall to fire another burst of plasma into the advancing three Ghar fighting machines. Jemmel yelled a stream of obscenities as she leaned over the top of the hole she had found in the rock face, firing another stream from her plasma lance toward the trio of immovable Ghar. Return fire from the enemy unit smashed against the rocks, chipping clunks of stone up which twirled into the air around the strike troopers amid a dense field of dust and sand.
Sessetti peered over the lip of the rock and looked at the three prone bodies of his squadmates which lay motionless where they had fallen, now behind the advancing Ghar. He attempted a suit readout from all three casualties, but at this range and with his control of the shard all but destroyed by his rising panic, he could only detect that one of his friends was already dead and a second would die within the next few minutes.
“Targets behind!” Clythe shouted, turning on the spot to fire a rapid burst back up the ravine. “Outcasts!”
Sessetti raised his carbine and fired an aimed shot at one of the small horde of hunched over creatures which scrabbled their way over the rocks toward them. His shot hit a Ghar Outcast in the center of the torso, flinging the creature’s arms out to either side before it fell back, dead. The action felt futile to Sessetti. As he fired again and again, the realization crept to the fore of his mind that this was how he would die, surrounded in a dusty ravine on a planet he had never heard of, buried up to the waist in rock as psychotic panhuman-morphs in unstoppable battlesuits closed on him. He hoped that his clone would be activated, for his parents’ sake.
With only the briefest of warnings in the form of a familiar, shrill shriek, the entire world to the south seemed to light up as artillery shells slammed down into the ravine entrance, shaking the earth and lifting clumps of blue sand and orange rock into the air. The next shells walked slowly forward, ripping into the advancing Outcasts and hurling them up into the air, slamming the creatures violently into the ravine walls and tearing them limb from limb.
Simultaneously, a pair of disc shaped C3D1 drones appeared at the edge of the ravine above and to the right of Sessetti, their plasma light support weapons firing rapid pulses of energy projectiles down into the flanks of the three battlesuits. The Ghar fighting machines stopped in place and twisted to bring their weapons to bear on the Concord drones, returning fire with even greater ferocity.
Amid the shouts, screams, explosions, and confusion of the battle, Sessetti saw three strike troopers suddenly appear on the opposite side of the ravine, firing down into the Ghar battlesuits. He watched incredulously as a fourth trooper climbed quickly down the ravine wall, threw his carbine aside and sprinted headlong out into the open toward the Ghar.
***
The first attack needed to be perfect. With fire streaming down from both sides of the ravine, Tahl had one chance to take an enemy down before he had lost the advantage of surprise. The three Ghar troopers drew closer with each step, their attention still dominated by the pair of D1 drones which fired down into them from the top of the ravine. Caught in a hail of fire, one of the Concord drones exploded spectacularly and showered the ravine with parts and debris. But it had given Tahl what he needed.
Running to engage the first battlesuit, Tahl stepped out into a long stance and brought one elbow forward, every muscle in his body concentrating on reinforcing the strength of the strike in the very tip of that elbow. Thirty years of martial arts training enhanced by the superhuman strength afforded to him by his battlesuit focused his elbow strike into the vulnerable side of one of the Ghar’s knee joints.
The strike resounded with a loud clang, and the Ghar sank to one side as the knee buckled and bent. Tahl immediately followed up with a side kick to the exact same spot, letting out a shout as he again concentrated every ounce of strength at his disposal into that one point of impact. The knee joint gave way and parted as his armored foot slammed into its target, sending the lower half of the leg skidding across the sand as the Ghar fell pathetically down into the dirt. Van Noor, Cane, and Kachi were only a moment behind, diving forward onto the crippled Ghar war machine and packing plasma grenades into every joint and vent before running away as the Ghar suit exploded spectacularly.
Stepping up to face the remaining two Ghar, Tahl stood before the wreckage of his vanquished foe as the two machines turned to face him. He ran and rolled to the right, anticipating their rapid fire and staying one step ahead of the deadly projectiles as they tracked their weapons toward him. The same principles applied to fighting multiple panhuman foes as deadly battle machines: Tahl positioned himself to face one opponent so that the second was in a line and behind his comrade, isolated and unable to attack. Tahl let out another cry and leapt up, bringing a fist straight into the chin of the Ghar suit and sending its sensor head snapping back to look up at the sky. A shower of bolts and parts fell down to the earth as he landed.
Tahl quickly dropped to the left and rolled away from the machine’s deadly claw as it darted forward and attempted to cut him in half at the waist. Tahl countered with a round kick to the knee, but he succeeded only in denting the armored metal of the fighting machine’s leg. The claw came down again and Tahl met it head on with a high block which came sweeping up from his hip to above his head. The claw smashed through his block with ease, hammering him down and sending him sprawling into the sand, his forearm plate mangled and half torn from his arm.
Diving to the right, Tahl quickly repositioned himself to keep the two Ghar in a line and unable to attack him simultaneously. He ducked beneath another deadly attack from the machine’s claw and then leapt up to stand on the Ghar suit’s knee joint. Balancing precariously on the moving surface, Tahl swept his leg up into another round kick, which smashed straight into the machine’s face and tore through the metal and shattering the sensor lenses. Seeing the opportunity, Tahl thrust his clenched fist into the jagged hole he had made and fired off a salvo of delayed fuse grenades from his wrist-mounted x-sling. He jumped down from the battered machine and stepped quickly away as the grenades detonated, sending a chain reaction of explosives ripping through the suit and leaving it smoking and burning where it fell in the sand.
The last Ghar turned to face Tahl, its sensor-head appearing to look almost frantically to the left and right as if seeking a way of escaping. Tahl stood his ground and brought his arms up to a guard position, his teeth gritted and a hatred of his foe that he had not felt in years surging back through his soul like an old, dark friend. Tahl rushed forward and avoided a claw attack, punching the elbow joint with enough force to send sparks rippling from severed cables and leaving the claw arm limp and useless at the Ghar’s side.
He rolled straight from the strike into his next attacks, a front kick into the Ghar’s head followed by a spinning kick into the side of the same target. Two powerful attacks to the head succeeded in nearly severing it; the Ghar suit staggered back, swaying on its three legs as smoke began wafting up from its neck joints. Van Noor, Kachi, and Cane appeared by Tahl’s side as he advanced to send a volley of punches into the Ghar’s leg, crippling the knee joint and seizing it up. The suit access panel sprang open and the terrified looking Ghar warrior inside frantically clawed at the cables which connected it to the machine as it desperately attempted to extricate itself from its metal coffin.
“Are we taking prisoners, Boss?” Van Noor asked.
“No,” Tahl hissed through gritted teeth.
Van Noor and Cane ran up and pointed their carbines straight into the Ghar warrior, both of them firing extended bursts of three or four seconds which tore the little creature into pieces inside the suit’s cockpit. Anger surging through him, Tahl turned his back on the three Ghar and folded his arms – the symbolic gesture of disrespect for a defeated adversary which was considered the height of disgraceful conduct in kerempai. It still seemed fitting to Tahl.
“Crack open that first suit as well,” he ordered his men, “make sure its dead.”
The thump of artillery to both the north and south continued. Orders and reports streamed across the shard command network. Tahl removed his helmet and looked down at the ground, drops of sweat immediately falling from his face and mixing in the sand at his feet. He checked Squad Wen’s shard for vital signs on his three casualties. Two were dead, one had a few minutes left.
“Get a medi-drone up here and stabilize that trooper, now,” he ordered Van Noor before turning to face the survivors of the squad.
Jemmel, Qan, Sessetti, and Clythe stared at him in silence. He did not need to check their emotions through the shard; he could see it in the way they stood and regarded him. They were more terrified of him than the enemy.
“You four,” he stared at them, “get your act together and follow me. I’m only just warming up with these bastards.”
***
The numbness and confusion was more uncomfortable than the pain and nausea as Rhona slowly opened her eyes. She lay on her back in a darkened room, with some source of light only visible as a blur to her right. She tried to sit up but felt an iron grip along the left hand side of her body which prevented her from moving. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she turned her head to the right.
A long viewscreen showed her a panoramic view of the stars. Somewhere off across the eternal blanket of space, a green planet punctuated the blackness, but with her vision still blurred, she had no idea which system she was in. Rhona lifted her left hand, surprised at the effort it required, and ran it tentatively down the left hand side of her body. An alloy glove cocooned her from left knee up to her armpit, with various cables, pipes, and tubes feeding into it from a machine to the left of her bed. Only then did she remember looking up at the colossal Ghar who stood over the broken bodies of her friends, their guns pointed down at her as she desperately tried to reach Gant and Rae.
Rhona closed her eyes again. There was no Squad Wen, the eternal presence of that shard and the familiar feeling of those she shared it with was gone, amputated from her mind. A few deep breaths, no doubt kick started by whatever drugs were being forced into her by the machine she shared the room with, gave some relief from the panic rising within her. She opened her eyes again and made out a doorway perhaps half a yan from the foot of her bed. She concentrated on the features of the door and tried to focus her vision as mentally she reached out for a shard – any shard – that she must be connected with to find some other source of life.
Ward 2, Recovery, Patients’ Communal.
Rhona was already connected. She breathed a sigh of relief as she felt the presence of other Concord soldiers in her mind, a familiar comfort akin to the knowledge of friends to either side in times of adversity. One presence leapt out at her, one she knew well.
“Gant?”
The reply through the shard was instantaneous, the familiar voice in her head as clear as if he shared the room with her.
“Kat? You’re up? You okay? How d’you feel?”
“What happened? How did I get here? Where are we?”
“We got hit pretty bad, buddy. You’ve been out for days now.”
The doors at the foot of the bed opened and a medi-drone hovered into the room at waist height, moving up to stop near Rhona’s shoulder. The small droid had two arms dangling down from a bulbous central core – one arm was fitted with manipulators similar to a small claw for physical surgery whilst the other had a bio-scanner.
“Good morning, Katya,” the droid said gently. “Are you comfortable with me calling you that?”
Rhona looked up wearily at the drone and nodded mutely. If anything, she was more uncomfortable by the amount of time and effort which went into programming medical drones with a bedside manner; whilst most drones were sentient and capable of conversation, it was only really the medical ones which attempted to mimic panhuman nuances in an attempt to put their patients at ease. It did exactly the opposite with Rhona.
“You’ll be up and running soon,” the drone said with a positive tone, “you’ll make a full recovery. You’ve been in a coma for twelve days now. We had to do that to allow your brain to recover.”
“My brain?” Rhona slurred. “I got shot… in the side. I remember… I took hits in the…”
“There’s no easy way to tell you,” the drone said, “but remember, you will make a full recovery, there’s nothing to worry…”
“Tell me what?” Rhona demanded.
“You died,” the drone replied. “By the time medical aid could get to you, you were technically already dead. Your heart had stopped for over seven minutes.”
Rhona felt panic rising up from her gut again.
“I’m dead?” She stammered. “So I’m a clone? So I’m not real? The real me is dead and I’m just a clone?”
“I died! Gant, I died! I’m not me, this isn’t me!”
“It’s alright,” the drone said soothingly, “you are not a clone. We were able to save your original body. You need to try to relax and calm yourself. We were able to repair all of the damage to your brain. You will make a full recovery, but you need to give it time.”
“Impossible, you must have the wrong end of the stick,” Gant replied. “Don’t believe what’s outside the window. We’re still on Markov’s Prize.”
“Where am I?” Rhona raised one hand to her head, trying to process the overflow of information.
“Settlement Urban 21, locally the city is called New Wryland. The hospital here has been substantially modified since the planet joined the Concord. You have the most modern medical facilities available to take care of you.”
“What can you see out of your window, Kat?” Gant asked. “They have a prod around inside your head and they project some soothing scene on the window to try to relax you. Don’t worry, we’re okay. It’s snowing where I am, and I’m only three rooms down from you. Don’t worry, we’re okay.”
Rhona looked at the viewscreen to her right again. With her vision clearing, she could now make out the falsities in the imitation of the view of the stars. Out of nowhere, a thought hit her with a panic overriding anything the medications could do for her.
“Where’s Ila?”
There was a silence before Gant replied. The drone continued to talk to her, but the words fell on deaf ears.
“She didn’t make it, Katya. We lost her.”
The machine next to Rhona began to bleep some sort of alert.
“Katya, try to calm down, I know this is a lot to…”
She remembered walking next to Rae in the sun, sweating from carrying the squad’s carbines back from the servicing depot. The talk they had about emotions, feelings, what was real and what the IMTel took away. She remembered Rae’s inability to comprehend why Rhona would ever want to feel pain and sadness. Rhona had ordered the attack in the ravine. She had ordered Rae to her death. She owed Rae that sadness.
Reaching up with her right hand, Rhona grabbed a firm hold of the tubes which fed into her left forearm and wrenched them out of her veins. A more urgent tone emitted from the machine. The medi-drone rushed over to Rhona’s side. As if a filter had suddenly been removed, the impact of Rae’s death hit Rhona full on. She was gone, her life stamped out at the age of twenty-two. Rhona remembered the T7 explosion at Prostock, when her entire squad was torn apart during the assault on some last bastion of planetary defense, of running back into the burning vehicle again and again as she tried to drag out the bloody bodies of her troopers. She remembered her father’s death, of the last desperate look the tired man gave her as he shouted for her to take her brother and run as the enforcers surrounded him. She remembered how many lives she had taken since joining C3, how many men and women she had gunned down whose only crime was defending their home, their way of life, from invasion. But above all, she remembered Ila Rae.
Rhona curled her legs up as far as the medical constraints would allow her, turning to one side and crying hysterically as Gant’s voice echoed in her head and the medi-drone desperately tried to re-attach the medication tubes into her arm.
***
Crystal Sea
Two kiloyan west of Firebase Alpha
Equatorial Region
Markov’s Prize
L-Day plus 51
The convoy of C3T7 transport drones cruised smoothly across the clear, purple tinted waters on the final approaches to the base carved out of the jungle at Firebase Alpha. Mandarin Owenne sat bolt upright in his narrow chair in the lead Duke, his eyes closed in concentration. Even after the battlefield repairs had been carried out the previous day on the drone, the magno-fan in the left wing continued to intermittently screech and squeal with each revolution of the suspensor generator. Owenne connected himself to the vehicle’s shard and ran a quick diagnostic check. Power output was at eighty quantum, so certainly sufficient to reach the proper maintenance facilities at Firebase Alpha.
Owenne glanced at the other occupants of the vehicle. Tahl sat opposite him, his one remaining eye closed either in concentration or due to weariness. He had lost his other eye in hand-to-hand combat with a Ghar assault trooper three days before. It was a minor setback – the medical facilities at Firebase Alpha had already grown a new eyeball for him based on the data held in his medical records, and it was only a minor operation of perhaps an hour or two to have it fitted.
Van Noor had approached Owenne and requested that he recommend Tahl for a medal for his valor in the previous seventeen days of continuous combat. His only justification was that Tahl had personally destroyed eleven Ghar battlesuits in hand-to-hand combat. Whilst this was impressive, Owenne had been forced to remind Van Noor that medals were awarded based on individuals overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds and exceeding C3 expectations of them. Given Tahl’s background as a martial artist of universal renown and undefeated cage fighter champion, the odds were heavily in Tahl’s favor every time he closed to within striking distance of a Ghar. Of course Owenne would not recommend him for a medal; by Tahl’s own standards, he had only achieved a touch above mediocrity.
As if guessing what Owenne was thinking about, Van Noor grimaced at him from the other side of the cramped passenger hold. Owenne flashed what he hoped was a sarcastic smile in return. Van Noor looked away. The only other occupant of the vehicle was Cane. The fourth trooper of the command squad, Kachi, had been gunned down by a Ghar bomber seven days ago.
“Mandarin Owenne,” Mandarin Luffe’s soft voice intruded his thoughts, “you are back within communications range. I have been waiting to converse with you.”
“Go on,” Owenne replied.
“I am analyzing the data of the previous seventeen days of confrontation now. I am pleased to see that your force stopped the Ghar dead in its tracks. We needed a victory.”
“I would describe it as a stalemate,” Owenne countered. “The 12th Assault Force has taken up the line and the Ghar are still there. But these men and women need rest. They were shattered when I got here, and the last seventeen days haven’t made it any better. They’ve suffered forty quantum casualties, and half of that is permanent.”
“Then get them rested, as our strategic situation is not improving. A second Ghar force has landed in the Banaab System. Our resources are stretched.”
“Aren’t they always?”
“There is more, Mandarin Owenne. Whilst you have been, how did you put it, ‘getting your hands dirty’, a shuttle landed on the far side of Markov’s Prize at these coordinates. I have traced the ship’s progress over the past few days. It has come from Freeborn space. I believe the ship originates from House Selestov.”
Owenne frowned, holding up a hand to silence whatever nonsense Van Noor was trying to tell him.
“Why are Freeborn mercenaries landing on Markov’s Prize?”
“Why indeed, Mandarin Owenne.”
“The question was rhetorical, Luffe, although I see only a few likely answers and none of them are good news. Leave it with me. I’ll find out what’s going on.”
“You fear they too believe this planet is Embryo?” Luffe queried.
“I fear nothing, Luffe. But it… concerns me.”
The drone jolted softly as it landed within a simple circle on the ground at Firebase Alpha’s transportation section.
“Oh, we’re here,” Owenne remarked, mentally unfastening his seat harness.
“That’s exactly what I told you, sir, a few seconds ago,” Van Noor grumbled.
“I was busy.”
“I thought NuHu were renowned for their mental capacity?” Van Noor shrugged.
“You’re more than welcome to go head to head with me in any intellectual comparison you care to imagine, you hulking primitive,” Owenne smiled smugly. “Now be a good fellow and open the door for me. I’m more important than you are, remember?”
The doors slid open and even Owenne found himself surprised by the sight which awaited him. Perhaps fifty soldiers, their green uniforms immaculately pressed, stood in three ranks facing the Dukes as they landed. A loud command was bellowed out by a woman who stood in front of them, and they all stood smartly to attention. Their crimson berets marked them out as elite drop troopers. Perplexed by the odd display of military ceremony, Owenne stepped down from the drone and pulled his battered peaked cap onto his head as another T7 landed further down the line.
The female drop captain marched smartly out to Owenne, a highly polished ceremonial saber held steadily in her right hand. The last Duke landed and another battered and disheveled squad of strike troopers filed out to behold the rows of shiny buttons and polished boots which stood in wait for them. As the last drone’s engines wound down to silence, the female drop captain came smartly to attention in front of Owenne and saluted smartly. He returned the salute, connecting to the drop company shard to find out who she was. Drop Captain Abbi Mosse, a rising star in the drop corps, recently singled out for potential promotion to drop commander and decorated many times for bravery and leadership.
“Drop Captain Mosse, Alpha Company, 3rd Drop Formation,” the red haired woman announced. “We heard about the 44th’s defense of the line in the Nienne Desert. We wanted to show our respect and welcome you back.”
“Err… Tahl?” Owenne shuffled uncomfortably. “Sort this one out, will you?”
Tahl limped over to Mosse, pulling his black beret over the bandages wrapped around his head and missing eye. He brought a hand up to salute her.
“Hello, Abbi.”
“Welcome back, Ryen. I’m glad you’re okay. Your boys and girls have made quite a name for themselves over the last few days.”
Owenne noticed the use of first names and quickly looked over Mosse’s service record. One reprimand, many years before. Inappropriate romantic relationship with a trooper under her command. Drop Trooper Tahl. Interesting, Owenne mused. He changed his mind almost immediately. It was not remotely interesting to him.
“This is for the 44th Strike Formation,” Mosse said, carefully handing over the gleaming ceremonial sword. “Hang it up in Formation HQ or something. We’ve spent the last few days carrying out strikes on Ghar supply bases behind their lines. Their defense was a lot weaker than we anticipated. C3 says it’s because they’ve moved so much to the frontlines due to the casualties they’ve taken. We were supposed to be supporting you, but it turns out that your lot have been supporting us.”
“Thank you,” Tahl said as he accepted the sword, “and thank you for the gesture. This is a lot of effort, especially on ops.”
“This?” Mosse smiled. “My drop troopers always have their dress uniforms immaculate and their toe caps gleaming. This was only five minutes work.”
Tahl laughed and nodded.
“Thank you.”
Mosse saluted and turned to her right before marching back to her soldiers. The assembled drop troopers gave a series of loud cheers to the returning strike troopers.