North Point Vatanium Company Mine, Chandra - Republic of Humanity Territory
- - - - -
Gonzales was already halfway to the mine’s headquarters, so Kaya waved him on. “You go. See if you can find a vatanium sample for me. I’m on my way.” She turned. The rifle came up in its harness, resting at a ready position with one hand on its grip, and Kaya started sprinting.
A rough dirt road led down into the mine’s gigantic pit, weaving around its edge. She caught it at the top where the roads made a Y intersection and ran for the gate, looking at the thin chain-link fences and security lighting. Those won’t last long. Can’t let them get around us. There were a few good piles of vatanium for cover or to post up on, and, sure enough, Strathmore had dug out a pit at the top of one and set up his HMG there.
She ducked behind an abandoned dump truck, using its massive tire as cover. As she did, another shot rang out overhead. “I’ll hang out here as long as I can, LC,” Rogers said over comms. “Should be able to carve them up pretty well.”
“Got it.” From her position behind the tire, Kaya watched the first Bonravan appear through the swampy, fog-covered forest.
It looked nothing like a cow.
It walked on four legs, with a torso like a centaur’s. But instead of a human head, it had one that…vaguely resembled something bovine, at least in its jaw structure. Its four eyes blinked one after another—two facing forward and two on the sides. But what really threw Kaya was the alien’s color.
It was a deep shade of blue—at least, the parts she could see under its mud-colored armor. She couldn’t tell if it was skin or a suit like hers. Did she look jet-black instead of the walnut-wood color her skin really was?
Then the Bonravan’s head exploded.
“Got another one. Hope we’re not keeping score because I’m winn—here they come!” Rogers yelled.
The forest suddenly lit up with muzzle flashes. Kaya crouched down behind her tire, but when nothing clanged off the dump truck’s steel body, she poked her head out and started firing. One dropped, then another, but before she and Rogers could thin them out enough, they reached a low concrete barrier.
Unfortunately for them, Strathmore opened up with the heavy machine gun. Instead of the wall of bullets that had melted his barrel, he used small, controlled bursts. Concrete flew, and Bonravans went down. The ones that broke cover got picked off by Rogers and Kaya. Within a few seconds, the attackers had been routed.
Then something exploded, and the dump truck rocked. It tilted over Kaya, and as she watched, it crashed down on her.
[Dropper Lost. You have suffered massive crushing trauma and multiple spine fractures (╥﹏╥) ]
[Running Retrograde Backup]
◄▼►
Okay. That fucking sucked.
Kaya catapulted toward the mine. When she hit the ground, she quickly moved Rogers and Gonzales toward their objectives, then ensured Strathmore took a position on the same hill. The markswoman’s shots started raining down as Kaya dug in, this time piling sand in front of her as she wormed her way under the dump truck.
Then she stopped. No, the dump truck wasn’t the right idea. She took up a position next to a pile of chewed-up mine tailings. They’d turn to shrapnel in a heartbeat, but she didn’t plan on giving whatever had shot the truck time to fire.
This time, she’d strike first.
The first Bonravan poked its head out of the forest; the moment it did, she dialed in the [Strafing Run] code and threw a beacon. A moment later, the Kingfisher swooped down, vomiting 30-millimeter death across the attacking cows. She pumped her fist and then opened fire herself, moving forward as the dust and smoke from the Kingfisher’s strike faded.
Chunks of ground beef and steak covered the ground. She grinned at the stench, rifle firing into a few survivors. They shot back, and a round plinked off her helmet inches from her visor. Then she was on the ground, still firing. Both cows hit the dirt. Her rifle’s muzzle flashed again and again. Their hooves kicked in the air as they died.
However, she still hadn’t seen anything that could take out a dump truck. “Rogers, keep an eye out. There’s no way all they sent were…” She trailed off, trying to figure out how many Bonravan attackers there’d been. No use. Didn’t matter, either, since they were all beef cutlets now. “…a dozen or so cows.”
“Got it, ma’am,” Rogers’s voice was cold. Kaya looked up; the marksman rife poked out only the tiniest bit from her hiding place.
“How’s it going, Gonzales?” She waited a few moments. “Gonzales?”
[I’m sorry, Lieutenant Commander, but Gonzales is busy busy busy !]
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Too busy to answer a hands-free radio call? What’s he up to? Before she could ask, something tore through the forest, howling over her head as she threw herself to the ground. The impact drove a grunt from her lungs.
The rocket hit the top of the mine crane; a massive fireball erupted a second later. It engulfed the tower crane’s control room in fire, and Rogers’s icon went red. The crane screeched as it twisted and fell, crashing into the pit and setting off a half-dozen small explosions that burned white.
Kaya spun, peering off into the distance. A flash lit up the fog-covered forest, and a moment later, another rocket roared over her head and exploded against a pile of mine tailings. “Rocket team! Get down!” She shouted over the comm system. The next rocket had to be aimed at Strathmore.
Or did it? Did they even know he was there? “Strathmore, have you fired?”
“Negative.”
“Great. Keep it that way. Get Rogers back in the fight.”
“What are you up to?”
Kaya grinned, already moving into the forest. “Striking back.”
◄▼►
Close Chandra Orbit - Republic of Humanity Territory
- - - - -
[Dropper Lost. You have suffered major burns and head and torso trauma (╥﹏╥) ]
[Preparing Drop-Ready Clone: 7/8 Clones Available]
High above the battlefield, in the shadow below the leviathan worldship, machinery hummed and beeped.
A woman’s body hung mid-air, medical tubes surrounding her. Mechanical arms wrestled her into a jet-black undersuit, then clamped light armor around her chest and legs. Boots with thick, noise-suppressing pads tightened around her feet, and a few more pieces of light armor attached themselves at her knees and elbows.
The machinery holding her upright swung to the left, carrying her into a pod as new arms positioned a rifle next to her hand. Clamps tightened around the woman’s body, but she didn’t move a muscle until the mask pulled free and the IV ripped out of her arm. Even then, it was only a reflex, her body’s reaction to pain.
The pod filled with impact foam as her sapphire blue eyes finally opened to the inside of a helmet. Her lungs sucked in a pained breath, then another that felt like the time she’d been stabbed on shore leave. She was already sobbing as the ship’s system sent another message. She told herself she wouldn’t every time. And then the next time, there she was, crying away.
[Clone Prepared. Memories Installed. Good luck, Specialist. O7]
An explosion. She’d died in an explosion. They couldn’t even fight me fair. I’m too good. But she’d get that bastard, whoever it was, who’d hit her with a rocket and ruined the best sniper’s perch she’d seen in months. Like her momma had said when they’d evacuated Eden VII, you couldn’t keep a good woman down.
The pod rumbled toward its launcher. Then the world fell out from under Specialist Erica Rogers’s feet, and the comforting roar of the jets filled her ears. The team had called, and she was on her way.
◄▼►
North Point Vatanium Company Mine, Chandra - Republic of Humanity Territory
- - - - -
Kaya rolled off the road and started crawling into the swamp. The rocket team—and it had to be a team—had to go. Otherwise, they’d hit something in the mine and set off a chain reaction. That’d be a win, but not one she’d survive.
The mud squished under her as she dragged herself through the marshy ground. This close, she changed her mind again; the rotting tree smell wasn’t pleasant in the least. Every planet stinks for the first couple of hours. Pull yourself together, Kaya. Quiet, low, and slow. The team’s okay for now, and they’ll radio if they’re not.
Rogers’s icon popped blue again, and a moment later, her voice came through comms. “Okay, no more tower crane. Got it! Message fucking received, udder-heads!”
“Glad you’re back,” Kaya muttered. “Find somewhere to hole up, give updates, and keep them out of the mine while Gonzales does his thing.”
“What are you doing?” Rogers asked.
“There’s a rocket team out here somewhere. They’re probably on the move, and I’m hunting them down.” Kaya’s lips barely moved, and her breath fogged her visor as she crawled through the fetid swamp.
Rogers went silent. Then she spoke again. “Got it. On my way.”
“Good hunting, then,” Kaya said, then resumed her crawl.
She hadn’t gone twenty yards when movement on the road caught her eye. Another group of cows were on their way. She counted quickly and stopped at twenty. Then she waited until they’d passed her mud-covered form. “Rogers, Strathmore, got at least twenty coming up the road toward the mine.”
“I can’t handle that many,” Strathmore said. “Not safely.”
“Got an idea.” Rogers paused, but when Kaya didn’t respond, she kept talking. “Follow ‘em in, post up on their side, and take them down with flanking fire. We can take twenty of them.”
“Twenty of what?” Gonzales asked.
“Where were you?” Rogers hissed. “I died!”
“Twenty udders, moving your way. Good to have you back, Gonzales. Get to the gate.” Kaya rose into a crouch to get her bearings.
“Negative. We need to evacuate. Demolition’s commencing.” Gonzales sounded out of breath, like Strathmore had been while running in heavy armor.
“What?! No, never mind. Everyone, get out! Stay off the road, regroup on my position when you can, and keep your heads down.”
“No time for that. Thirty seconds!” Gonzales shouted. “Just fucking run!”
Kaya threw herself back down into the mud. She couldn’t do anything now except hold position and hope her team got out okay. Her breaths counted down from thirty, one breath every two seconds, as the tension in her shoulders grew and grew. Then, at twenty-eight seconds, Strathmore said, “Hey, the cows are head—“
His voice cut off. Instead, a massive cracking sound thundered into Kaya’s ears. Two seconds later, the shockwave ripped across her, flipping her through the mud. Her ears popped as the pressure wave passed. A second sun had erupted behind her, and she cursed in the suddenly bright light. “What the hell did you do, Gonzales?”
He didn’t answer again, and when she checked her team’s status, Strathmore’s icon blinked red. Cursing again, she punched in the reinforcement code and tossed a beacon toward the road.
It took until Strathmore hit the ground for Gonzales to speak up. “Hello? Something’s up with my mic, but I think I got it? Did I get it? You can hear me, right?”
“Ha! You got it, the mine, and everything within a hundred yards of it,” Rodgers said, snorting into comms. “I think you got that whole patrol, too!”
Kaya’s comms popped, and General Gorsuch’s voice filled her ears. “I saw that barbecue from here! Nice work, even if you don’t have my sample. I’ve got a new secondary for you. There’s a bunch of damn cowardly scientists holed up two miles south of the mine. Pick them up, and I’ll make sure a Pericles is waiting for you at these coordinates.”
Her armor was stuck in the mud, and it took fifteen seconds to struggle free from its shockingly sticky grip. When she finally rolled back onto her chest and pushed herself up, she was the same disgusting vomit color as the clouds overhead, mud-caked from head to foot. “Sir, yes, sir!”