The wind whipped past Taylor as the vehicle approached the city. The encroaching buildings of stone and steel were like a barrier that drew ever closer. He could hear the tanks sent to spearhead the assault launching salvos into the front lines as panic slowly creeped up in Taylor’s spine. He could not see where they were going and for all he knew they would run into one of the buildings. If that happened the collision would likely kill him instantly or worse, painfully slowly. In the blink of an eye buildings were rushing past him now within dangerous proximity leaving him praying that the driver was competent.
As far as he could guess the truck made it several blocks into the city before coming to a grinding halt. The momentum shift from the stop threw him backwards off the bumper landing on his back where he could see a pair of legs standing in front of the truck. Shouts of panic from inside reached his ears as the lightly plated double doors on the back of the truck flew open. Unfortunately for the marines who rode inside the transport, it was too late. Following the sound of shattering glass, a torrent of flames ripped through the interior of the truck as well as brushing along the exterior threatening to consume Taylor’s feet. Luckily, he had scrambled back in an effort to not get trampled by the once deploying marines, now he sat back and watched them all burn to death as some of them collapsed out of the truck in flaming heaps. Knowing this to be the work of a combat mage, Taylor would take no chances in his situation. Grabbing the machine gun that lay lazily on top of him, he aimed underneath the burning truck and let loose a steady burst of gunfire. The bullets tore apart the mages shins as the young man collapsed in front of the truck, falling in perfect view of Taylor’s sights. There was a split second decision to be made once he saw that the mage was no older than he was. It was rather impressive the amount of control over the young man had over his powers and Taylor silently begged for the mage to surrender, to live and grow in both age and wisdom however, the mage forfeit that idea as flames began to envelope the mage’s outstretched hand. A quick burst cut the life from the young man as bullets ripped through his unarmored body. Taylor could not help but feel shame for his latest victim. Not because he was forced to kill him, but because it was a waste of young life. With a shake of his head he got to his feet and stared into the burning wreckage. He noted that not a single building nor blade of desert grass in the surrounding area was on fire or even singed. It amazed him how thorough mages could be when it came to destruction and made him thankful he was lucky enough to get knocked off the truck otherwise he would have been a human marshmallow.
It dawned on him now that he had no idea where he was. He had been so worried about getting across to the city that he had never asked the driver where they were inserting. His hand instinctively reached behind to grab his data slate only to find his fingers touching the fabric of its holster. He hung his head low in disappoint it to find it missing, “shit. Bet it fell out during the attack at base.” He needed to get to high ground and discern his location, thankfully he had a vague idea of the city from looking over the map during his briefing. Hearing the Federation tanks so clearly meant that he was not very deep into enemy territory.
“War-Wolf 42 to War-Wolf 42 actual.” His transponder burst in his ear which made him jump. Looked and found a building that had outer stair that led to the roof and made his way that direction before responding.
“This is War-Wolf 42, I read you.”
“Briggs, I hope you are near your targets.”
Taylor scowled, there was no sense in lying. “I’m trying to figure out where the hell I am,” he stated firmly as he carefully made his way up the stairs.
“How the hell do you not know where you are?”
“Not like I had time to stop and ask. The unit I hitched a ride with got torched by a mage, so now I’m making my way up a building to figure out where the targets are,” Taylor said with a hint of annoyance. He truly hated Arden with every fiber of his being. He was the epitome of the Federation’s snobbish upper class. No doubt he ever worked at gaining his title and most likely joined the Marines as a sergeant due to what ever pedigree he had.
“Well hurry it up Briggs. We lost War-Wolf 25. Apparently they have a mech-suit guarding the munitions depot so don't get your ass torn apart by it like 25 did.” Taylor could only shake his head at that. The sergeant had absolutely no care that a squad of Federation Terrans just died. Of course Taylor had no idea who was in War-Wolf 25, but he at least still respected the lives that were lost.
He shook the thoughts from his mind. He could spend days going over the lack of respect and care of the upper brass. He looked to his right as he crouched low and looked towards the south. Easily he could see the giant radar dish on top of a three story building merely two blocks away. Which meant the munitions depot was significantly farther roughly five blocks away. He was supposed to hit the depot first per his briefing but it did not make sense for him to not take out communications first. Strategically, communications were more important than munitions to a degree; you can have all the ammo in the world but if you can not coordinate it, then it does not do you much good.
Taylor made his was down the building and finding an alleyway that led south towards his target. He could have easily jumped the rooftops but he had no idea what the sniper situation was like within the city. It was a sad sight to see garbage riddling the alleyways between buildings. Sure dirty alleys were common in major cities however, the things he noticed spoke of the poor state the city was in. Between dirty, damaged clothes, broken children’s toys, and even wrecked furniture littering the paths he came across between buildings. Some areas were so dense with garbage that it nearly seemed strategically placed. It made Taylor curious whether the military’s presence contributed to the poverty or if it had always been so bad. Taylor remembered the lower wards of Denver. The gov-subs were horridly maintained, filled with decaying buildings and dirty streets. There were no real businesses other than trade shops run by ordinary folks or Eskarii trying to survive. Bartering was the way of surviving in the gov-subs if one did not have the heart or skill for stealing. He was lucky his family was not in the lower wards despite being on the outskirts. The Briggs family were considered lower class despite living in a better area since their monetary value was on the low end of middle class. The only thing that kept themselves afloat and able to afford minor luxuries was the fact that they owned a relatively prominent machine shop. His parents afforded their modest house, were able to procure him his own truck and they ate rather well. Paying for his high school education stretched them thin especially since they had bought him his own lift for the shop. College he would have had to save up for himself which he was okay with. It saddened him that their efforts to give him his own independence went to waste temporarily while he served in the military though he sent back all his pay to make up the difference. By the end of his requirement he should have paid off the construction for the additional bay and the extra lift by the time he went home. He was proud and excited for that.
It was hard living the military life as a civilian. When he was not worrying about Morrigan, he spent his time day dreaming of devised plans for the future. How he would work his way through college to become an engineer and land a job that would allow his parents to retire and enjoy life for a change. He would also help Morrigan through her own life, supporting what ever decision she made for a career and even help pay for it. He hoped she would accept the idea of getting her own bay at the shop. He found that she thought less of the Federation and all of its injustices when she had something constructive to distract her.
He did not blame her for having such a hatred for the Federation. To be fair, he was no patriot, he was also no anarchist either. Truth of the matter was Taylor did not care one way or the other. He tried to see the good in everyone but left room for disappointment. As long as the Federation did nothing to cause issue with him and his, he could care less about the Federation.
Taylor weaved his way between buildings keeping off any of the main thoroughfares. Being on his own made it significantly more dangerous for him to get into a fire fight. Taylor crouched low next to a discarded dishwasher in the alley when he heard the fevered shouts for the front line. A few seconds later two squad’s worth of CoU soldiers came rushing down the adjacent path. He tuned in to the general communications and listened to hear that the Federation was making a deeper push into the territory which explained why the enemy seemed so frantic to get to the frontline. The armored division began bulldozing through buildings and slowly making their way to support the ground troops.
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Once the soldiers passed, he moved up to the corner and watched them jog towards the frontline. His responsibility as a Federation marine would mean he should turn his weapon on their backs and cut down every soldier. However, Taylor could not justify killing so needlessly. Between his goal and his need for stealth, it was not worth drawing attention to himself. Besides, he hoped deep down that more of those lives would survive without his interference.
Seeing that the alleyways were clear, Taylor continued on past the next few buildings. The giant communications dish loomed over head like a massive bird of prey. Taylor figured his best bet at getting to the target was to get on a roof and throwing the transmitter. It was the best plan he had after all, since he was only allowed two minutes to escape the blast radius, not being in the building itself seemed like a pretty good idea. He had yet to see what kind of devastation these Shatter rounds could bring, though he could hear the thunderous trio of explosions and tremors in the ground occasionally as the other squads marked their targets, he had to guess they had a fairly large radius.
Taylor found the building he wanted to scale except this building had no exterior way of getting to the roof. He did find an access door in the alley though. He gave a gentle knock on the door with his knuckles, the door was made of steel but thankfully was hollow core. The other notable thing about it was that it had no exterior handle. Taylor pulled out a small breaching device and set it roughly where the lock should be. The small discus stuck to the door magnetically. Pushing the two smaller buttons on the device to prime it and thumbed the single large button on it to set the ten second timer. Taylor quickly backed up and looked away, closing his eyes tightly. At the ten second mark there was a gentle hiss before a blinding light threatened to pierce through his eyelids. Despite how small the device was, which was about the size of an orange, it let off an unholy amount of heat for the two seconds it was active before Taylor heard it fall to the ground and the smell of molten metal assaulted his nostrils.
Taylor looked at the molten hole about the size of his fist in the door that was rapidly cooling. He always wondered how the devices worked however, their design was highly classified. Regardless, once the metal on the door cooled enough he used the barrel of his machine gun to pry the door open softly. Taylor checked the hall through the doorway and found it empty. He gave a small thanks to what ever gods existed and slowly made his way into the building, keeping his ears open for any sounds of movement.
The silence in the building was eerie to him. He was thankful that the CoU evacuated citizens from their areas of operations in regions of conflict, it meant no civilians were in their homes as he made his way up each flight of stairs in the apartment building but it was surprising that the CoU had not posted defenses in the building since it was so close to the communication center. Up the four stories of stairs, Taylor found a door at the top that led to the roof. It was another small blessing since that meant he did not have to blow a hole into the ceiling and give away his position. To a greater surprise, as Taylor grabbed of the knob of the door, he found that it spun freely, fully unlocked. He supposed the main entrance to the building was constantly watched and they did not suspect someone to stealthily break into the building, or make it this far into the city.
Cracking the door, Taylor kept the barrel of his machine gun aimed ahead of him while he stepped out in a crouch. He was not certain about how they surveyed the surrounding area and did not want to take any chances. The exit of the stair way faced the same direction as the access door did, which gave Taylor more options for movement and also allowed him to take a peek at his target. The communications center was a fairly large building about three stories tall, with a massive satellite dish on top of it. Each level had surrounding windows for ease of visibility as well as three mobile anti aircraft tanks stationed along the three faces he could see. There was no doubt that there were more behind the building so he had to give the lieutenant credit when he stated that they had concentrated anti-air around key buildings. The trickiness to his mission was that the surrounding area around the building was the widest he had seen thus far. If he was to complete his mission, he would need to throw the transmitter over 100 feet. There was also the issue of the 12 CoU soldiers he saw patrolling and guarding the front of the building. If someone happened to spot him, his day would get significantly harder.
Taking the transmitter from his pack, Taylor stood four feet from the edge of the roof. There was very little wind, so his calculation from his position was mainly distance and elevation. He could feel his nerves getting to him as he set his machine gun off to the side, he had to make sure his throw was as precise as possible, if he failed to miss his mark and for any reason the artillery rounds missed, he was shit out of luck and would probably get killed in the enemy pursuit. Taylor twisted the capsule and extended it into its ready position, staring at the device in his hand as he heard the gentle soft squelch of the adhesive releasing on the dual rings. There was something odd though, he could not find any button or switch that activated the transmitter other than the dual sided twist tops that extended the capsule. Taylor’s eyes widened in panic, it was already activated. Wasting no more time, he wound his arm back, shifted forward towards the edge of the roof and chucked the device in an upward arc.
Taylor tried to trace its flight except his exposure drew the unwanted attention of assault rifles that began peppering the knee high wall along the edge of the building he was on. Taylor dove backwards as he scrambled to get away. The issue was the low whistling sound the resonated from over head. That is when Taylor realized he had no chance of escaping and tucked himself into a ball as the first Shatter round tore through the satellite dish and building. There was a concussive explosion that resonated through his bones and shook the building he was on. What struck Taylor was not the payload of the Shatter round, but the muffled screams that followed the first artillery shell.
Taylor heard the screams of dying men before, except this was not just that familiar sound. It was the sound of screaming women and children that drown out the sound he was used to. The second impact tore through a supporting section of the building, destroying the integrity as the screams of those inside were enveloped by the sound of a collapsing building. The third was a simple devastating explosion that sent debris in every direction and reverberated a massive radius that made Taylor question his mortality on top of the apartment building as the walls shook violently and every window in the city block shattered.
After a moment of waiting to see if fate would claim his life, the deafening echo fell on him. It was not the ringing from an explosion but the screams of children he heard in the recess of his mind. Taylor dragged himself to the edge and lifted himself up to see the horror he had caused. The communications center was demolished and the bodies of civilians and soldiers alike were scattered, bodies in pieces or crushed by debris. A tear streaked down his cheek as he saw the mangled, tiny arm of a child that could not be older than eight was sticking out from underneath some of the rubble. His stomach tried to heave but nothing would come up as he took in the scene with a mix of horror and anger. Questions filled his mind as to why civilians were in the building as well as whether or not his superiors knew they were in the area. If he had known, he would have risked his life to take out the soldiers, infiltrate the building and evacuate the civilians. If only he had known.
“Good work Briggs. Head to objective one.” The radio static crackled in Taylor’s ear. He could not respond with words, clicking his transponder twice in confirmation as he let out a harrowed breath. He took one last look at the carnage he created before shoving the remorse deep down inside him. He could not allow himself to shut down; soldiers would swarm the area soon and he had to stay alive for her. Reinforcing his spirit, Taylor collected his machine gun and started making his way towards the munitions depot from the rooftops. From down the road Taylor could see CoU soldiers converge on the area like a hive of angry hornets and all he could feel was the pain of guilt in his chest.
It did not take him long to maneuver through the city via rooftop. Aside from the main roads, which Taylor avoided, the city was so jam packed with buildings that the largest gap he had to leap was roughly five feet. Naturally he came across skirmishes between CoU and Federation forces however, with the dreadful revelation from his first objective, he refused to assist his fellow marines no matter how good of a vantage point he had. They could all rot for all he cared.
Taylor spent the entirety of his journey across the city focusing on what he needed to do. His thoughts were not of his current mission, but how to get home. He wanted nothing more than to get away from the Federation and back to his old life; his parents, his job and most of all the love of his life.