Somewhere on Chandra - Republic of Humanity Territory
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A grenade's sharp crack was the first thing that alerted Kaya to the approaching Bonravan force.
The second was the system excitedly screaming its head off.
[Contact contact contact! Call in the airstrikes! ※\(^o^)/※ ]
“No, we’re not calling the airstrikes yet,” Kaya muttered. She sighted up her marksman rifle, putting a panicked-looking Bonravan in her sights. “Alright, udder-fuckers, let’s see how much you like the road after this.”
[What about an orbital? Just one little wittle Eighty-Millimeter Orbital Strike? Pwease?]
“Fine.” Kaya pulled the trigger, then gave Rogers access to the corvette’s cannons. “Rogers, see what you can hit with this.”
“You got it, ma’am.”
[╭∩╮( •̀_•́ )╭∩╮]
[FEEL THE HATE!]
[Sorry, LC o7]
The beacon landed in the middle of the Bonravans, who were now picking their way slowly forward. It looked like a couple of their scouts had started pointing out Rogers’s traps, and the slow advance hadn’t moved close enough for anything but Kaya’s long rifle to reach out. Strathmore didn’t have an angle yet, and the grenade launcher didn’t have the range.
The [Eighty-Millimeter Orbital Strike] didn’t wipe them out, but Kaya hadn’t expected it to. It did hurry them along, though—straight into a few more of Rogers’s traps. Kaya grinned from behind her scope, firing at the massed group of cows. Then they broke off the road almost as one, stampeding toward the base. “Rogers, you going to start shooting?”
“When they’re halfway. Not until then. I’ll wait for Strathmore to open up.”
“Just waiting on a target,” the machine gunner said. His machine gun started barking out short, controlled bursts a moment later. “Ah, there you are.”
The ambush lasted less than two minutes from there. Kaya called in the Kingfisher gunship, Rogers threw another [Eighty-Millimeter Orbital Strike], and before Gonzales could fire his grenade launcher’s first full clip, the surviving cows broke and ran.
“Good job, team. Tech, how’s that going?” Kaya asked, coughing to clear the mulched cow and gunpowder taste from her throat.
“It’s going just great. Just fucking peachy,” the launch specialist said. “The thing’s fighting me at every turn. It’s almost like it doesn’t want the missile to launch.”
[That’s really weird! No idea why that’d be happening! Uwu]
[All I did was start a diagnostic!]
The launch specialist swore again. “Aaaand the current step failed. That one took ten fucking minutes. I’m going as fast as I can, ma’am.”
“Take your time. No accidents.” Kaya climbed down from her perch. Strathmore was still dug in, running a cloth through the machine gun’s firing mechanism, so she and Gonzales joined him at the gate. As she walked, she ran through the time. Ten minutes to take the base. Forty-five to get set up, repel the first attack, and set the traps. Fifteen more to wait for the ambush. And maybe five to ambush the Bonravans. That gave her…another 105 minutes. Not quite two hours.
Who knew what’d happen if she ran over her time? Would the loop reset, or would she lose the modified MRC’s protection? And if that happened, would she still have her clones? There were a lot of questions, and she couldn’t answer any of them.
Rogers was weaving her way down the road, either drunk or trying to avoid her own traps. Since the squad didn’t have any alcohol, Kaya was willing to bet it was the second.
Suddenly, the woman turned, raised her rifle, and then started dialing in a code. “LC! APC incoming! APC—“
A burst of laser fire cut her in half; the beacon fell beside her, lighting up the ground, and a moment later, the [Eighty-Millimeter Orbital Strike] slammed into the ground, spreading Rogers all over the swamp.
A moment later, the Armored Personnel Carrier came around the corner.
It was wide; the EAF built APCs for their troops, but they fit on the road easily, and only the regulars got them. This one overlapped the dirt road, crushing its medians and sending cascades of swamp up behind it. A laser swept across the battlefield, scouring the launch facility’s concrete walls with heat, then ripped across Gonzales.
Kaya was already dialing up reinforcements as Strathmore unloaded into the oncoming APC. Even as she finished the code and threw the beacon, she knew it was too late. The second to last thing that went through her head was, we’re going to need to save the orbital strike.
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The last thing was 5,000 degrees of high-heat energy.
[Dropper Lost. You have suffered brain melting (╥﹏╥) ]
[Running Retrograde Backup]
◄▼►
Kaya thundered down toward Chandra’s surface, the Champ’s system screaming in her ear and across her vision. She screamed against the crash pad in her mouth.
[The drop is in a nucle—very big missile—facility. Your team has to retake the nu—missile—silos and then make sure the EAF Nu—er, Missile Launch Specialist—stays alive until the launch sequence is finished and the nuclear—shit—]
“Can we run a short diagnostic? Not a full one, but something fast? Thirty minutes or so?”
[Uh…]
[No?]
“No?” Kaya bit down on the drop pad. “No, as in ‘there’s not a shorter one,’ or no, as in ‘I’m not going to check and see?”
[No! There’s only one nuclear missile diagnostic routine, and that’s the full nuclear missile diagnostic routine. You can launch it early if you want, but then it might blow up mid-air. Or you can wait the two hours it’ll take to finish, and it won’t! But I promise it’s not because I’m trying to slow it down!]
“I believe you,” Kaya said unnecessarily. Of course the system wouldn’t be screwing with her. It wasn’t part of the loop, was it? That’d be weird, but then again, the whole loop was weird.
[So, should I run a diagnostic? I can do it pretty easily, uwu]
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
When the pod landed, Kaya summoned her team again. They got their weapons and took the base, making ground beef as they went with the Kingfisher and orbital strikes. They defended the base from the first attack, tightening up a few things so it went faster, and Kaya quickly sent Rogers to lay traps and prep for the ambush.
Then, there was nothing to do but wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
The double-platoon-sized group of cows started moving, and a grenade went off. Then another. The second they did, the ship’s system started losing its mind.
[Contact contact contact! Call in the airstrikes! ※\(^o^)/※ ]
“No, we’re not calling an airstrike,” Kaya muttered. She sighted up her marksman rifle and fired, missing an udder-fucker. It panicked, started running, and slammed into a spiked tree that catapulted toward it out of the forest. Kaya laughed grimly and worked the rifle’s bolt. A grenade exploded somewhere on the road, but she couldn’t see it.
[What about an orbital? Just one little wittle Eighty-Millimeter Orbital Strike? Pwease?]
“Absolutely not.”
Without the explosion, though, the cows seemed much more content to pick their way up the road, and Kaya’s shots couldn’t convince them otherwise. After she’d dropped four, they shifted their ranks, presenting an armored wall for her to shoot at. The range was too great; her rounds ricocheted off them, and she couldn’t break through. She was about to call for Rogers to start shooting when she thought she heard it in the distance.
The APC was coming.
It was still pretty far away; if the herd started moving, they’d hit Strathmore’s machine gun surprise before it reached them. But Kaya didn’t want to let that happen. Twenty or thirty cows they could handle. Twenty or thirty with armor support? Not so much. “Rogers, I’m hearing something. How about you?”
“Yep. Vehicle. Big one. Aurochs APC, maybe?”
“Can you kill it?” Kaya asked, already knowing the answer.
“Not without artillery or something we don’t have. Gimme the orbital strike, and I’ll work on it.”
She sighed, glaring out at the swamp and woods. “You’ve got it. We’ll handle the herd. You kill that armor. LC out.”
“Rogers out.”
Kaya returned to the grim task of running her nuclear launch base slaughterhouse. Her bolt slid back, opened, and slid forward. She pulled the trigger, and the gun barked out again. Now, the APC problem was in Rogers’s hands.
◄▼►
Gonzales lobbed a grenade into the advancing herd. The explosion rippled across the swamp, echoing even though there wasn’t anything out there to echo against. Most of the udder-fuckers had charged the gate, and their corpses lay shredded on top of the first attack wave’s, but a few had tried to be clever. Tried to sneak around the base’s back side. Tried to flank LC Cameron and Strathmore.
He’d been waiting for them, him and his [GL-67 Puncher]. Now, most of them were beef and swamp stew, but two wouldn’t stay still, and he’d fired his last grenade. He dropped the launcher; it was worthless without ammo.
His rifle came up, and he shot one of the advancing cows.
He hated this. But it was either be a Dropper or let his sister join up. Kalson Prime had been drafted: one soldier from each family. She’d been chosen, but the rule was if someone else volunteered to be a Dropper, their family wouldn’t get conscripted, so he’d signed up. If he had it to do over, he wouldn’t have. The regulars were better than this for a million reasons. Food, danger, and sanity, for sure. But only one that mattered.
He hadn’t had any control over his life since then.
Boot, then drop school—not the fancy-pants officer school LC Cameron had gone to, but the hard one—and then drops. So many drops, all the worse because he wasn’t good at this. Death after death after death, and he didn’t know if his sister was happy on Kalson Prime, if she’d found a spouse and had the Republic-mandated 1.78 children, or if she hated him for trapping her in some manufacturing job. He didn’t know, but he’d gladly trade with her.
The other cow looked back, and Gonzales shot it with a five-round burst. It spun, hooves flailing, and kicked at the swamp it’d been running across.
As it did, the APC swung into view, turret turning and wheels spinning as it bore down on the missile base. Gonzales emptied his magazine into the armored vehicle, trying and failing to get a lucky shot. The grenade launcher was a good choice for him—he couldn’t hit the broad side of an Aurochs.
He was reloading when the laser turret swung around to fire at him, and he threw his rifle one way and his body the other. The beam sliced into the base’s wall, and he watched it heat up momentarily. The concrete looked like…no, it was melting.
Then something blew up outside. First, the familiar explosion of an [Eighty-Millimeter Orbital Strike]. Then something louder…more electrical. Angrier than the orbital shell. And finally, a purple flash that lit up the entire swamp for a mile in either direction and knocked Gonzales off his feet.
As he picked himself up, Rogers’s voice came in over his helmet. “Wooooie! I stuck that fucker perfectly! Direct hit, APC down!”
[╭∩╮( •̀_•́ )╭∩╮]
[FEEL THE HATE!]
Gonzales blinked after-images from his eyes and looked around for his rifle. It hadn’t fallen far, and its magazine had even popped loose, letting him reload it as he picked it up. Republic, I can’t wait ‘till my six years is up.