KA-BOOM!
The Thunderfury announced her presence with a roar of her guns, blasting away the base’s primary and secondary communication’s arrays. The Marines timed their own assault perfectly, dropping down to the primary docking bay and using their drop ships’ weapons to blast open the doors. Then they were in, their ships landing in the bay before the defenders (such as they were) could get in place to deny them.
The point defense turrets on the dropships opened up, targeting the two automated turrets by the main entrance to the underground facility that had begun firing at them, quickly silencing the opposition before it could do more than tickle the shields. The marines charged down the ramps of the dropships in their armor, glad for the fact that the Marine version of the FLMS was designed with vacuum operations in mind, so they didn’t need to worry about sealing the bay doors before continuing their assault.
Moving into the base, they began getting some actual opposition. There was only supposed to be a single platoon of actual soldiers here, since the base’s primary defense was stealth, but Major Khan had insisted on bringing the entire company, and Mollen had agreed. No sense in fighting fair, especially when the enemy may have prepared defenses and other force multipliers designed to force a battle of attrition. The security here was primarily to delay until reinforcements arrived, according to the intel Mollen had scrounged up. With communications out, those reinforcements weren’t coming until far too late for it to matter.
Over the command channel, Khan called out, “Report by platoons.”
“Second Platoon reporting in. We’ve found the guards. One squad of hostiles, dug in along the primary access corridor approaching the command center. Engaging.”
“Third Platoon reporting in. We’re encountering heavy resistance getting to the labs. No guards, but plenty of droids and automated defenses. It will take time to clear our way through.”
“Fourth Platoon reporting in. We have secured the computer core, and are copying data now. One squad of hostiles engaging, trying to take this position.”
“Fourth Platoon, hold and fortify until the hackers are done with their work. Second and Third platoons, carry on. First Platoon will take the secondary corridor to attempt to flank Second’s bad guys and secure the command center. Squad leaders, remind your men that the first one to die in each squad buys his team the first round when we get back.”
There was a flurry of acknowledgement, which Khan mostly tuned out as he led First Platoon along a secondary corridor between the launch bay and where the intel said main control was. Their blueprints for the base were sketchy, at best, but they did locate three main target areas, once the launch bays were secured.
The command center was the obvious choice, if only because it would allow them to turn off any security, or use it to neutralize any remaining threats remotely. There was also the idea that most of the people with actionable intelligence would be in or around the command center in the event of an attack. The labs were the second primary objective, since this was a R&D facility for nasty shit, the sooner they could secure those, the less likely someone would decide that unleashing something horrible was better than surrender. And finally, the computer core was their secondary objective, since even if the labs were lost, the hope was that most of the research data would be stored there (which seemed more likely given that they had managed to intercept the squad that would have tried to wipe or blow the core before they were overrun).
The automated defenses were getting to be a problem. Most, at least along this secondary corridor, were in the form of sealed bulkheads (which were annoying to override or cut through), gas attacks (which their suits stopped cold), or sonic/light attacks (which their suits filtered out after the first time). But in the main corridor, and in the tunnel heading for the labs, there were lethal traps, even to men in marine armor. Third Platoon was already down four men due to high-power rounds fired from an automated turret at a choke point. Private Adams was the first lucky man who’d be buying the rest of his squad drinks tonight, after he respawned.
They could hear fighting up ahead. Second Platoon and the guards were going at it all right. As they turned the corner, Kahn’s First Platoon came face to face with what appeared to be two heavy assault drones that were moving into position to support the base’s guards. The drones paused for a moment as this new threat entered their detection radius and was run through their decision trees to select an appropriate response. The marines needed no decision trees, as ‘kill it a lot’ was their primary selection for any hostiles they found.
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Armor piercing rounds flew through the air, reducing one of the drones to 50% capacity before the two drones opened fire on the Marines. The fighting was as one might expect of a real firefight. Brief, intense, and deadly. Sure, it seemed like it lasted minutes to Kahn, but he knew from experience that it was only seconds. The two assault drones were quickly brought down, but Kahn’s HUD showed that he’d lost four and had five more wounded. Second Platoon would have been wiped out if they’d come up against this on their own, while facing the supporting troopers, without the momentary surprise they’d ‘enjoyed’.
Once again, Kahn was thankful that he had a boss who knew that war was no place for fair fights. If they’d only sent a couple platoons, this would have been a nightmare. It still had potential to turn into a nightmare, but they’d made sure to bring as much firepower as they could to the party, just in case. And with psyshot weapons and bracers that could hold all sorts of goodies without adding to combat weight, his marines could bring a LOT of firepower with them. Kahn conservatively estimated that they had enough explosives between the surviving members of the company to put a small crater in this moon if they placed them right. What he wouldn’t have given to have had some of this stuff when he was in the Corps!
With the assault drones defeated, first platoon swept up behind the four remaining guards of the guard squad. The guards had set up behind a security barricade that gave them good protection from Second Platoon’s rifles, and there was a portable shield unit with them. While the main purpose was to stop bullets (or at least slow them enough to make them less lethal), it also had the effect of keeping grenades from being thrown at them, to clear them out the easy way, bouncing the grenade back into the hall. Unfortunately for them, all that protection was facing front, and did them little good when first platoon opened up on them from behind.
When Second Platoon rolled up to join them, and then passed them on their way to secure the command center, Kahn reached out to see how his other teams were doing. “Third and Fourth platoons, report!”
“Fourth Platoon here. Data acquisition at 75%. Hostile squad dealt with. Six dead, one captured. Our casualties were one dead and seven wounded.”
“Good work, Fourth Platoon. Secure the data and the prisoner, and fall back to the drop ships. Keep the way open for us in case this goes south.”
“Wilco, Major.”
“Third Platoon, report!”
There were sounds of gunfire coming over the line. “Major, we’ve got a major problem on our hands here! Someone went and let loose the lab rats. Except these bastards are bugs the size of Dobermans!”
Goddamnit, that was not what Kahn wanted to hear. He may be a retired marine, and might not have been much for gaming before the whole VR thing came around, but he wasn’t blind to popular culture. “Confirm, Two. Are you saying you have Zerg?”
There was the staccato of gunfire again. “That is a major affirmative, Major. Might not be called Zerg, but they’re definitely the creepy crawly, kill you in an instant kind of bugs.”
“Understood. Status?”
“Holding for now, Sir. We’ve taken over a defense position that looks like it was made to cover any escapees, and are holding here. Fortunately, the automated defenses are just as interested in them as they are in us.”
“Don’t let yourself get overrun. You can fall back as far as the main corridor if you need to. Fourth is almost done with the data grab, and Second is about to grab the command center, so when that happens I’m writing off the labs as a lost cause.”
“Understood.”
And now they were facing the situation he was worried about when he said he wanted the entire company along. The dangers of going into an unknown facility were too large to underestimate. If this was the real world, he’d already have over a dozen ‘We Regret to Inform You That’ letters to write. The fact that people could respawn in this world didn’t make it better. Not in the least.
“Major, this is Second. We’ve captured the Command Center. Three VIPs taken prisoner. No casualties. All automated defenses have been switched over to recognize us as friendlies.”
“Fourth Platoon reporting in. We’ve secured the data and wiped the core. We have our prisoner, and are exfiltrating to the rendezvous point.”
“Second Platoon, activate all internal defenses, and have them targeting the bugs coming out of Lab wing. If they have a self-destruct, set that too, but give us enough time to get out of here, first.”
“Understood, Major. I’ve got a self-destruct setting here, all right. Looks like it will blow the base pretty nicely, but it also sends a black box of what happened to the Empire.”
“Fine. We’ve already erased the experiment data from the core, so there’s no point in them not knowing someone was here. Set the self-destruct for twenty minutes, I want to be well clear before this thing blows. Then destroy the console so no one can override without physical rewiring.”
“Setting the self-destruct now. Charges will blow the console once we’re done.”
ALERT! ALERT! SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED. T Minus 20 minutes until reactor breach. Please evacuate the facility.
As the message began playing over the speakers throughout the base, Kahn ordered, “Third Platoon, door’s closing. Automated defenses have you marked as friendlies. De-ass your current position and regroup at the dropships.”
“Gladly, Major. Things were getting way too hot over here!”
With that said, Kahn led his own First Platoon back to the dropships, where Fourth was already waiting, having taken up defensive positions around the hatch, just in case. He was pleased to see that they had already taken the time to place enough explosives lining the hallway to drop the ceiling on any pursuers, and block the tunnel. Second joined them not long after, moving at a brisk jog. Then his armor’s external pickups caught the sound of armored men, running fast, along with rifle fire.
“Third Platoon coming in hot! Prepare for immediate evac!”
“All crews saddle up! Fourth, as soon as Third is through, drop that tunnel!”
The Marines loaded up as quickly as they could, which was pretty damn fast with the augments and armor they’d received. A fire team stayed at the ramp of each of the dropships except Third platoon’s, to provide covering fire if any baddies got in before Fourth could drop the tunnel. Third Platoon came tearing into the launch bay, breaking right and left at the door to clear the kill zone. Which was fortunate, since a whole bunch of those bugs were following fast on their heels, and several met their end thanks to the company’s rifles before the explosives shut off the flow.
Once Third Platoon was loaded up and all ships reported ready, Major Kahn said, “Get us the hell out of here!”
Five minutes later, a miniature sun formed briefly on the surface of Balpheron’s Moon, where no military research site had ever been. The light was consistent with the reactor that wasn’t there in the center of the base that had never existed going critical and deliberately losing containment, with the resulting explosion like a tactical nuke. If not for the small probe that launched just before the blast, no one would be able to say a base had ever been there.