Chapter One
Somewhere on Chandra - Republic of Humanity Territory
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Mud stuck to Kaya’s armor. It squished under her boots and oozed under her helmet’s neck seal. It even dripped from her rifle’s barrel—and that was a problem. A dirty gun, even the Multi-Environment-Ready Rifle Mark 3, could misfire or jam. She couldn’t rely on it, but the other option was…
After some hesitation, she punched in a code, and a pod slammed into the swamp in front of her a few seconds later. The [MG-79 Suppressor] and backpack slowed her down, and she could feel the weight pushing her deeper into the muck, but her squad was close, and the scientists were only a couple of kilometers away.
Something wasn’t right, though. And it wasn’t just the swamp smell. She snorted inside her helmet; that definitely wasn’t right. But no, the rocket crew. She hadn’t seen them with the assault wave that blown up in the mine.
That meant they were still in the swamp somewhere.
A patrol closed in, moving along the road. Kaya slumped down into the mud again, flopping her new weapon’s matte-steel barrel over her shoulder so the mechanical parts stayed clean, and watched them go.
Then, a muzzle flash lit up the woods, and a cow’s shoulder exploded, its arm tearing off and flopping into the swamp next to her. It twitched a little as blood mixed with swamp slime.
Fuck it.
She came up to one knee as half the patrol looked for the sniper, half looked at their injured comrade, and half looked toward the arm—and her. Fucking four-eyed assholes! Her finger tightened on the heavy machine gun’s trigger.
The gun’s butt slammed into her shoulder armor, shoving her back, and she leaned into the bouncing gun, wrestling it down and to the left. Heavy .55 caliber bullets ripped into the cows as they started bolting every which way. All she could do was bring the gun back and forth for a few seconds before she let up on the trigger.
[Ammo at 78%]
“What the fuck?” No wonder Strathmore had run out. She adjusted her hands, gloves slotting into the grip perfectly, and opened fire again. Her shots were even this time, spaced with a second between bursts. A few more cows turned into hamburger.
But some of the Heavies returned fire.
Kaya leaped to the side as red muzzle flashes opened up from one of the heavily armored cows in the middle of the…she couldn’t help but think of it as a herd. The lasers tore toward her. Her machine gun belted out its rapid-fire song as she flew through the air. Then she hit the mud, and a moment later, the cow’s laser cannon cut her in two.
The pain was unbelievable. She could see her guts hanging out and smoking, and her fingers wouldn’t move to put them back inside her. Then she faded to black, and a familiar—and hated—message appeared.
[Dropper Lost. You have suffered major abdominal trauma (╥﹏╥) ]
[Installing Retrograde Backup]
◄▼►
God dammit!
Kaya flew through the air, heading for the mine. By now, the first part of the battle felt automatic. She set up by the rock pile while Strathmore dug in and Rodgers set up her nest in the crane. But this time, when the fight started, she had Rodgers look for anything suspicious in the woods instead of shooting.
So, this time, the rocket attack caught Strathmore, blowing him to pieces and scattering those pieces across the mine’s supply yard.
That left Rodgers to put a round through the rocket team’s gunner’s head before the firing flash faded, then call down a reinforcement. The new Strathmore clone shrugged and picked up his machine gun. “I’ve hurt worse.”
“Damn right,” Kaya said. “Go dig in again. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the last of those udder-fuckers.”
Rodgers’s laugh carried over the radio for a split second before she cut off her mic.
“Get down here. The second Gonzales is done, we’re leaving. Whatever he’s up to, we don’t want to be here for it. Let’s try heading south.”
“You’re sure?” Strathmore asked. He was halfway to the mine’s headquarters building, jogging slowly while carrying his gun over his shoulder. “That’s where the udder-fuckers are.”
“Not as funny the second time.”
“Shut up, Rodgers. North leads to the coast. They’ll expect us to evac that way, but if we cut inland, we might find another objective, really stick it to the walking steaks.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Alright, alright.”
As Rodgers climbed down from the crane, Kaya searched the headquarters building. There, Gonzales sat, helmet off, at the mine boss’s desk. His fingers blazed across the keyboard and tapped the holographic screen; he seemed lost in the computer. No wonder he gets killed whenever he plugs in. Bet he doesn’t even know I’m here.
Kaya watched her trooper work, staring at the screen, and she realized something. She wouldn’t have to call in a strike or use Gonzales’s grenade launcher to destroy the mine—it had always been rigged to blow. That must’ve been why he’d known the timing of the explosion last time. And if it had always been rigged, that meant the North Point Vatanium Company had expected an attack.
But why not defend the mine? If it was really one of only a few sources in the Milky Way Republic, keeping it had to be just as crucial as denying it to their enemies. Something didn’t add up, but Kaya pushed it aside for now. The Republic needed it destroyed now, and she could ask General Gorsuch or the ship’s system for more information later.
For now, her goal was simple: complete her objectives, take care of the scientists the general was about to tell her to save, and maybe get on the night’s EAF Nightly News broadcast so she could start being the hero Gorsuch needed. That last one was a long shot, though. Her path to becoming a hero wouldn’t be that easy, even with a resounding win here, and even if she made it, they’d only see her helmeted head. Droppers always stayed anonymous.
“Ma’am, we need to move!” Gonzales said, pointing at the screen, where a timer was ticking down from two minutes. He shoved his helmet on, hoisted the 40-millimeter grenade launcher onto its carrying harness, and started sprinting as fast as his heavy battle armor would move. Kaya took one look at the screen, pocketed a small piece of orange crystal in a glass tube that the mine’s boss had used as a desk decoration, and followed him.
◄▼►
The pressure wave slammed Kaya into the ground even though she knew it was coming, but this time, Gonzales was right next to her. He popped back up—she could see steam jetting from his armor’s servos as it amplified his movements—and offered her a hand. Even this far away, the whole swamp was cast in an off-white glow, making the world feel like a washed-out black-and-white photo.
She grabbed it and let herself be pulled up. The less time in the mud, the better.
Even better, her squad had almost regrouped; Strathmore had found a fallen trunk to hunker down behind, and Rodgers was on her stomach in the swamp less than fifty meters from her position. She didn’t seem to mind the mud.
Kaya radioed in to General Gorsuch, already knowing he’d know she’d won. “Sir, the mine is barbecue—and I bet some cows are, too.”
“Outstanding. Better than our projections! Did you get the sample?”
“Yes, sir. Hopefully, you can make it do something besides explode.”
General Gorsuch was silent, but Kaya braced herself for a verbal artillery barrage. She wasn’t disappointed. “Why the hell would I want it to do anything besides explode? Listen up, Lieutenant Commander! When I want something that doesn’t explode, I will damn well ask for it specifically! Until then, assume everything I ask you to retrieve will blow up, including about nine scientists holed up at a lab two miles south of you, unless you get there before the udder-fuckers find them!”
“Understood, sir. Will we have support dropping?”
“No! You are the support! Once you’ve secured them, a Pericles will be down to pick their asses up. You can leave with them! Gorsuch, out!”
“Cameron, out.” She sighed as she shifted her rifle from one shoulder to another, and something popped in her shoulder. She winced. “Alright, squad. Secondary objective, three-point-two kilometers south. We’ve got scientists to rescue for Gorsuch. Let’s go. Stay off the roads.”
“Fuck,” Strathmore said, looking down at the fetid green-brown mud. “This planet’s the worst.”
Kaya pointed to Rodgers. “Take point, call out anything you see, don’t engage unless the cows see you, but kill anything that does. Top priority is the scientists. Second is the research lab. Third is keeping the slaughterhouse stocked.”
“Understood.” Rodgers moved out, and Kaya gave her thirty seconds before she started moving.
The scale-covered trees pressed in around her, and the mud only grew thicker as her squad pushed farther and farther south, but shockingly, Rodgers didn’t report on a single patrol. Kaya’s brow furrowed at that; she’d definitely run across that herd with the Heavy Laser cows last time, so it didn’t make sense that Rodgers hadn’t seen them. But after half an hour of excruciating silence broken only by the slurping, sucking sound of boots pulling free from the mud, she opened a private channel to Strathmore. “You think this is worse than Micah Prime?”
“Yeah. At least Micah was dry. This is the kind of planet that rots your under-layers and oozes into the cracks between your toes. It’ll rot your skin, too, if we stay long enough. I’d take a dry, pollen-covered world over this any day. Give it a few more drops, and you will, too.”
“How many drops have you been on?” Kaya asked. Part of her wanted to remind him that she was ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir,’ but curiosity won out. Besides, her boots were sticking in the thick goop, her legs were covered in stinking mud up to her crotch, and she didn’t have the energy to enforce discipline right now.
“Missions? Six, on four planets. Mostly recon, a little light fighting, but nothing like the last day or so. How many times have I been dropped?” Strathmore paused. “Not sure. At least fifteen. Maybe twenty.”
Kaya did the math in her head. He’d died twice per mission on easy drops. “Huh. Figured it’d be lower for recon.”
Strathmore laughed. “No. EAF policy is usually ‘recon by fire’ on anything that moves. This ‘don’t engage, complete the mission’ thing is new. Can’t say I dislike it, though. I’ve only died once, and that’s pretty nice.”
Yeah, I bet you think we’re doing real well. I’m dying a bunch, so it doesn’t feel like you all are.
She almost said it, but thankfully, Rodgers cut her off. “Lab up ahead. At least, I hope it’s the lab. If not, we’re about to rescue some swamp person from a couple dozen udder-fuckers. I count fifteen of the light ones, a couple with heavy armor and some shoulder-mounted tube-weapon, and a pair setting up on a hill nearby with a launcher of some type.”
Kaya caught up with the fire team’s scout a minute later; Rodgers nodded at her and handed her the marksman rifle. She peered through the scope. The regular infantry cows weren’t a problem; they’d started digging in around the lab’s tin-sheet-looking main building, but their height meant it’d take a while to create a reasonable trench.
The real issue was the two Heavies and the launcher team on the hill. If any of them survived the squad’s first strike, they’d give her crew hell, and the rocket team might be able to kill the scientists. Kaya was willing to bet they weren’t hooked into an MRC clone system.
After a minute to get her bearings, she gave orders, and Rodgers slithered away through the swamp, angling around the lab and toward the hill. After a few yards, the woman had faded into nothing; she’d used her stealth armor.
Strathmore was already moving left, and Gonzales had posted up behind her with the grenade launcher in a position to rack the light Bonravan trooper’s flanks. So, Kaya crept in close, letting herself sink lower into the ever-more-hated world’s mud.