From the inside of her Avenger battlesuit, Command Sergeant Major Repeth closed her eyes and sent up a prayer. She’d gotten out of the habit lately, but now seemed like a really good time to start again. The last assault, the one on the Io base, had gone worse than expected, and one niggling part of her mind believed it was because she had neglected these conversations with God she used to have.
Maybe talking to Him would remind Him He’s supposed to be on the side of humanity. Right?
She’d found faith long ago in the aftermath of the guilt she felt at turning a key and pushing a button, a button that sent nuclear missiles raining down on two hundred million men, women and children. Sometimes it still amazed her that she’d forgiven herself for that, no matter that she didn’t realize the warheads were targeting people and not satellites.
There are no atheists in foxholes, the saying came back to her. She couldn’t answer for others, but it was true for her. After “Amen,” she felt a whole lot better.
“One minute,” Krebs called from the cockpit. The wisecracking warrant officer was a pain in the ass, but like all Conquest’s stick jockeys he knew his shit, so she made sure he was at the controls of her sled.
Repeth brought up her HUD and looked at the topmost level of detail: battalions and companies. As brigade command sergeant major she had more to keep track of. Five thousand Marines sounded like a lot until she contemplated the numbers in a swarm.
The Meme intel had provided next to nothing on what awaited inside a mothership core. She knew there were facilities for breeding more Scourgelings, and presumably the usual sections of any advanced tech ship – spares, repair shops, training, feeding, command and control – but beyond that it was all speculation. This raid might be a walkover, a simple bug hunt, or it might be an impossible slog if the interior of the core was as dense with enemies as the swarms in space.
Repeth was glad each assault sled had been equipped with four Recluse battle drones this time rather than just one. This was possible because they were setting down on a cold, prepped LZ. No one should be shooting at them at least until they were disembarking, so the extra armor had been stripped off the sleds and they were only half-fuelled for the short trip. Two thousand spiders at least doubled the combat capacity of the brigade.
Even better, Conquest would remain close enough for the AI to run all the excess drones and to help coordinate the battle. Top cover like this was a luxury she wasn’t used to, but she applauded Absen for committing everything he had to the effort. Capturing enough information and equipment from the Scourge FTL system was worth betting all the chips. Too bad they couldn’t just take the mothership core as a prize, but a swarm of half a million small craft was due to return in four hours.
No way even Conquest could hold against that, so it was smash and grab, in hopes that the science teams could reverse engineer what they got.
Repeth felt the retros kick in. Sleds had minimal gravplating, so the passengers were not spared the bigger bumps. A few seconds later she felt a heavy shock, and then heard, “Short trip. We’re down, Reap.”
Her suit became her own again as Krebs released the safety locks. “Up and at ’em, Massimo,” she said. As usual she rode with her favorite heavy weapons team.
The forward quad clamshell opened, Krebs in his cockpit swinging up and out of the way with one petal, and Repeth jumped out first, pulse rifle at the ready. The sled was held fast within a resin bulkhead of the core like a cork in a bottle, but Krebs’ breaching missiles had done their work and given them a hole to ingress.
Behind her, Massimo got his people releasing the heavy weapons from the floor. Above her she saw the forward Recluse unfold itself from under the clamshell that protected it, and immediately begin cutting at the Scourge resin with its laser to free its three jammed comrades.
To her left and right she saw several more sleds in their holes. One had scraped all the way through and lay embedded sideways against a far wall, which allowed both the front and rear to open and its line doggies to spill out, aiming their weapons in all directions before their squad leader got them working to free the craft. From their motions, they were in zero G.
The interior of the enemy ship was dim and filled with wisps of vapor, but not for long as the tenuous atmosphere rushed out the breaches, creating a stiff breeze. “Bull,” she commed, “there’s no gravity where I am.”
“Me neither,” Bull replied. “I’ve already passed the word. Not much ferrous metal, either, so it’s zero-G protocols, thrusters and grips.” He referred to the crampons all suits could extend in order to get traction on slippery surfaces.
As she stepped off the sled, her own grips popped from their niches and her stabilization jets kicked in. “Come on, people, we’re on the clock!” Marines and Recluse battledrones were spreading out by squads. The troops looked pretty ragged in the zero G, as most of them had been ground defense troops just a month ago and had only a couple weeks of battlesuit training. At least they were infantrymen at heart, and the suit stabilization systems helped a lot.
Repeth glided over to the nearest company commander, marked as “Stinson” on her HUD. “Sir, you need to get moving.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what to do, Sergeant,” the man replied. “I’ll go when I’m good and ready.”
“Hmm.” Pulling Colonel ben Tauros onto the channel, she said, “Bull, Captain Stinson here would like to explain to you why he’s already sixty seconds behind schedule because he’d rather argue with the brigade CSM than do his damn job.” She cut herself out so that Bull could ream the man in private and then bounced over to the company’s First Platoon leader. “Lieutenant Rostov, your company commander is talking to the Colonel so it’s up to you to get your people moving. We’re already a minute and half behind, so I respectfully suggest you get your ass in gear. Ma’am.”
“Sure, Smaj,” the woman said coolly. “Smits, Dekamp, Umbeke, get your platoons moving now. Routes of advance are on your HUDs.” Then she turned to lead her own platoon at the double toward a spot on the wall where Recluse drones were using their lasers to cut.
Repeth turned back to see Captain Stinson’s suit shut down, floating frozen like a manikin. “Shit, there’s always one,” she muttered, “and I seem to get them.” She sighed. “Better me than someone else.” She punched back into Bull’s channel to hear, “...and if you ever give crap to my command sergeant major again, I will personally rip your head off and piss into your body cavity. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” the man gasped.
“Now take charge of your company and get on schedule in five minutes or I’ll have your ass. I’ve never decommissioned someone on the battlefield but there’s a first time for everything, and if I do, you’re going to be the brigade’s newest private and permanent point man on the leading element of this assault. Ben Tauros out.”
Stinson regained control of his suit and staggered. Repeth grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around and launched him toward Rostov.
Turning, she said, “Massimo –”
Repeth’s words were cut off by a confused babble on the channel and she turned back to see Scourgelings pouring through the breach in front of Stinson’s First Platoon. Clearly, the Recluses had just cut the resin wall, but the enemy had been waiting on the other side, so instead of Marines assaulting forward they now fell back, firing frantically.
Loosing a long burst into the mass of bugs pouring into the chamber, Repeth retreated to the heavy weapons team. “Get those semis locked down!” she yelled, but Massimo was already slamming the mountings into the deck with his bolt gun. As he did, Repeth saw Stinson and several line Marines rolled under by a wave of insectoids. The rest of the armored figures pulled back, some turning to run, some coolly withdrawing up and pouring fire into the mass. The Recluse spider drones held the line long enough for most Marines to get clear, losing two more as they were overwhelmed.
Repeth cursed, wishing these troops were all real Marines rather than jumped-up militia in suits, and switched to her grenade launcher. Lobbing a stick of five above the firing line, she yelled, “Come on, Massimo. We’re supposed to be attacking them.” The most vulnerable time for any amphibious assault was on the beach, and the principle held in space. Some clever Scourge bastard was trying to wipe them out before they got organized, and it just might work.
“Bull,” she commed, “we’ve got bugs counterattacking us here and ten percent casualties already. I think we can hold, but we’re not going to be making any progress for a while.”
“Roger, Reap. We’re being hit all up and down the line, but there are some gaps and we’re pushing in between to flank. Bull out.”
Just then Massimo’s heavy railgun came up. The gunner with his chest and shoulders shoved into its controls brought the gimbaled mechanism around and stroked the trigger, sending a stream of one-gram bullets into the wall breach at fifty thousand meters per second. Scourgelings exploded everywhere the projectiles impacted, and when the heavy orange beam of the semi-portable laser joined in the creatures stopped up the entrance with hundreds of bug corpses. Pressure relieved, the firing line stabilized, armored figures firing steady bursts that cut down all who approached while the Recluses zapped leakers with their turreted lasers.
Repeth was about to declare a win and tell Massimo to get ready to advance when the mass in the breach exploded, flinging bug parts and gore in all directions.
Nightmare creatures followed, two huge warbots like larger, uglier cousins of the Recluses, big as heavy tanks. Correction, Repeth thought. Not warbots: cyborgs. She could clearly see a Scourge of some kind embedded in the center of the thing, controlling its super-sized limbs with its own.
Scourge Soldiers with small arms crawled and hopped between the things’ legs, and big and small, they came through firing, not at all discomfited by zero G. The cyborgs launched plasma packets, fireballs that kept their shape until they struck and then exploded, blowing whatever they hit to bits even as the targets cooked. The Soldiers added in lasers and bullets, and several Marines fell.
“Take cover,” Repeth called to the greener troops who seemed to want to stand in the open and deliver fire. That was all well and good when rushed by Scourgelings, but now they faced enemies comparable to themselves, and the battle turned into a bloodbath.
“Krebs,” Repeth called, “put a breaching missile into that opening, now.”
“You got it, Reap,” he said. The sled pilot closed the clamshell front petals and kicked his thrusters, lining the craft up on the hole. Breaching missiles were unguided, aiming straight forward. A blast of rocket exhaust obscured the nose, then another, and the chamber shook as the heavy weapons, intended to blow holes in capital ship armor, detonated near the cyborgs. The explosions flattened everything around them and the enemy fire slackened.
At that moment Recluses skittered forward, lasers slicing the stunned Soldiers. Behind them, some of the better Marines stood up and advanced to support. “Massimo, finish off those cyborgs.” Repeth pointed, directing the crew-served laser and railgun to blast and burn what was left of the heavies.
As often happened in battle, stark screaming terror turned to eerie calm like shutting off a light. Slapping Massimo on the shoulder, Repeth leaped forward to dig for the wounded with the rest of the line doggies. So many bug parts lay strewn around and piled up that she had to use her HUD to find suit transponders. Those still alive she and others carried back to the sleds, where medics went to work on triage.
“Rostov,” Repeth commed, “Stinson’s KIA. You’re this company’s CO now. You need to reorganize, redistribute ammo, and get attacking.”
“Sure, Smaj.” The woman’s tone was casual but she immediately began blistering her subordinates with a stream of focused invective that pulled them rapidly out of their post-battle adrenaline fog and into get-shit-done mode. Within one minute everyone had replenished ammo and power modules by taking them from the dead or raiding sled stores, and the company, now seventy percent effective, reported ready.
“Don’t wait for me, L.T.,” Repeth said to Rostov. “I’m just a humble sergeant major, not your commanding officer. I’ll be right behind you with the heavies.”
With a quirk of her lips at Repeth, the lieutenant ordered her company to move, and up and down the line, one hundred forty Marines and a hundred Recluses pushed through the bloody hole and into the interior of the mothership core.