June 7, 7624
Rebel Planet, Mesmion
When I step out of the airlock I am blinded from a plasma shell that explodes nearby, I quickly recover and make an observation of the terrain. The sky is a blood red color with black clouds swirling. The ground is jagged and distorted burned black with glowing red spots peppering it, evidence of a recent bombardment.
Our destination is still two kilometers ahead of us. I attempt to issue commands to my team over the massive explosions of the aerial battle taking place above. “O-0014 take point P-1137 and E-2649 cover the flanks I’ll take our six!”
My team quickly enters a loose formation and sprints for an outcrop of rocks. I crouch with my shoulder leaning against a particularly large rock, my team taking defensive positions around me.
Switching to Evaluation Mode on my visor I peer over my shoulder to view what we are up against. My visor highlights all enemy targets red, I can clearly see six tight formation ten-man units and two bipedal walkers armed with disintegration arrays. Behind them on a plateau is the bunker we need to reach, defended by an anti-air particle cannon.
I turn back to my team and relay the information, they all nod their heads and prime their Accelerator rifles. I look to P-1137 on my right, “There is a path leading to higher ground 58 meters ahead of us. I need you to disable the disintegration arrays on those walkers or they are going to tear us apart. We can deal with the particle cannon shortly” P-1137 nods his head in response and sprints to the path.
“H-1793 I would like to make a suggestion in regards to our plan” O-0014 asks from behind me. I turn around giving him confirmation to continue. “I believe the best course of action would be for E-2649 and me to flank on the far left to pull the main units, allowing you a window to punch through from behind and deal with the walkers.”
“Are you positive that you can handle a force that size? There is minimal cover in that location” I reply confused to the direction of his plan.
O-0014 nods his head and pulls out a sphere with glowing blue lines pointing to the enemy formation and continues his plan. “Affirmative, we can disrupt their sensors with a Disruption grenade, they won’t be able to locate us.”
I look again at the enemy force having minimal doubts but it solves our problem. Now it all depends on if P-1137 can take out the walkers array systems. I hear a small and light beeping sound through my comm. system. The transmission is from P-1137, it seems he got into place without any issues. I lift my finger to the back of my helm and connect to the transmission.
“P-1137 reporting in, sir I have reached the location with no issues and have visual of the walkers” P-1137 sounds off with a confident and steady tone.
“Wait for my signal before engaging” I reply. P-1137 confirms the order, I then turn to E-2649 and O-0014 who seem ready for the complex fight ahead of them. “Are you both ready P-1137 is in position and has a clear view of the walkers” I question turning to both of them?
They both nod to me and activate their cloaking systems disappearing from sight, moving quickly and efficiently to their location. I re-engage the transmission to P-1137, “We are ready to fire when you have a clear shot.”
I do a quick sweep of my gear, my goal is to disable the walkers to do so I need to access the glass window or hatch on top of both walkers, killing the pilots to take them down. I have my rifle, an energy blade, and two Magnetic Implosion grenades. This is a difficult situation with no margin for error.
I hear two rapid and loud sonic explosions from a Matter-Implosion rifle from P-1137s location. The two walkers stumble forward from the impact, with smoking blue holes gaping from the capacitor near the lower back.
The enemy units are startled from the sudden explosion and look to the ridge where the sound came from, a few of them fire and energy beams destroy the rock face where P-1137 was sniping from. I quickly check his status and his icon is still green, his condition seems to be well luckily.
Just as I finish inspecting P-1137s status I look up to find the enemy unit organized and moving to the cliff. Most likely expecting a large force engagement unfortunately for them, O-0014 and E-2649 are already in position and enact their part of the plan.
I see two small glowing blue spheres flung over a small grouping of rocks heading directly for the enemy units. Each grenade splits into three separate seekers heading for an enemy unit of their own. The grenades explode directly over each formation heads causing a disruption pulse to enter every display and communication system. To them, it seems like there are enemies surrounding them and none of their communication systems work, allowing no way to organize the mass. Most of the soldiers start to fire energy rounds all around them, the result of confusion and disarray. Truly a marvelous grenade, perfect for small team operations giving us the upper hand of the situation.
O-0014 and E-2649 proceed to fire wide orange energy beams into each formation, incinerating every individual they touch. Some aren’t completely vaporized and have parts of their bodies fall to the ground, their wounds are instantly cauterized and no blood falls. Only the smell of charred flesh and burnt metal coupled with the screams of the dying fills the air. The units are in disarray and this is the perfect window for me to move in and disable the drones.
I make a high jump over the rock I was leaning against, sprinting for the walkers. I need to act quickly the walkers will only be stunned awhile longer until the capacitors can stabilize themselves. Sliding my rifle on my back, I flip over the heads of several enemy individuals twisting my body through beams of energy barely avoiding serious injury. Simultaneously I disengage the two grenades on my thighs and priming them. Making an improvised landing I charge to the drones with the grenades in hand.
The walkers have nearly recovered and are showing signs of movement and weapons activation. I throw one of the grenades at the leg of the walker directly in front of me, then throw the other grenade at the last walkers damaged capacitor. Two high-pitched and fast-paced beeping sounds go off and both grenades detonate. The first walker stumbles sideways crashing to the ground. The last one falls forward with the entire back blown open.
I unclip and activate my energy blade nimbly jumping on the glass window of the first walker giving me a full view of the pilot. Looking through the glass I can see the pilot frantically attempting to regain control of the drone. When he sees me land on the glass he stops what he's doing and makes eye contact with me. I hesitate for a moment as I look into his eyes, I see fear and despair staring back at me.
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I shake it off and stab my energy blade into the glass and slice it open, the pilot yelps and stumbles for a sidearm near his feet. I lunge forward and plunge the sword into his chest with a searing sound being released. The pilot stops and gasps from the pain, he looks into my eyes with anger and longing before the light of sentience fades from his eyes, leaving them dull and empty.
An energy beam whizzes past my helmet slightly lowering my shields, I yank out my sword sideways leaving a sizzling wound in the first pilots chest cavity. Spinning around I look for the person who fired at me and I see the second pilot out of his walker, he is breathing heavily and has a serious plasma burn on his back disabling him greatly. He screams at me in rage and continues to fire blue energy beams at me, I sidestep every shot and close the distance between us rapidly. I appear in front of him in moments and pierce him with my sword, the gun falls from his hands but he makes no sounds of pain; what is a stab wound compared to your entire back being charred and exposed after all. I hold him upright and search his face looking for the same emotions, his is different it is pure rage and contempt. Death comes in many forms and takes on many faces in my opinion.
He opens his cracked and chapped lips to whisper some words that I almost miss. “Your entire race *cough* will burn for the pain you cause” his eyes still contain the same rage but it dissipates like the first. I slide my sword out of him and his body collapses to the ground, I contemplate his words with mild unease.
Turning around I behold the battlefield before me. Bodies litter the ground and the smell of seared flesh fills the air. I look at the faces of a few corpses whose expression are twisted from the pain they experienced before they passed. I see a male and a female holding each other with a gaping hole still sizzling between both of them, it disturbs me how they look at peace but at the same time in so much pain.
I step over the bodies and head towards my team's radar pings when I feel something grab onto my foot. I look down curious as to how someone could still be alive. I see a male looking up at me gritting his teeth from the pain, distorting his blood caked face. His entire lower half is missing, I'm amazed at his determination to survive.
“I won’t let you harm them..” he spits out a mouthful of blood and grits his teeth swallowing down the agony. “I’LL KILL YOU! YOU BASTARD” He screams!
Before I can say anything I hear an Accelerator rifle discharge, the male disappears in a flash leaving behind only a shadow burned into the ground. I look up to see my three teammates running towards me and O-0014 rifle still smoking from the recent discharge.
O-0014 and company stop in front of me and make a quick salute. “Sir, all enemy units have been eliminated we are clear to proceed with the mission.” O-0014 reports in.
“At ease, everyone scale the rock face when we get to the top fire on the particle cannon's energy flux. We need it down ASAP or else we can forget about getting out of here” I look to each of them as I say this.
They all nod understanding the seriousness of this matter. I turn around looking to the top of the plateau, I can’t see anything at the top but I know the particle cannon is situated on top of the bunker. I lower my body into a sprinting position and engage overdrive on my armor. I feel my muscles bulge and my sense sharpen, my combat skin expands and takes on a more domineering look. I can’t stay in overdrive for long it takes a massive toll on the body, at maximum I can hold this for 5 minutes.
The rest of the team does the same, feeling ready I sprint for the rock face leaving a small crater in my wake as I cover tens of meters with each bound. I near the plateau in seconds making a massive leap I soar into the air, latching onto the wall I dig my fingers into the rock shattering some parts of the wall with the impact. I nimbly climb up the wall my team avoiding the falling rocks caused in my wake.
We acrobatically flip over the top and ready our rifles firing on the energy flux floating in a magnetic field at the center of the cannon. The field gives away to our relentless assault and the flux explodes, the cannon gives off hot plasma gas and multiple coolant cells explode. A blinding flash ensues and the main gun of the cannon falls to the base with a loud groaning sound.
A few more minor explosions occur but we proceed to the bunker door regardless. The bunker door is a large crystalline metal door capable of withstanding immense heat and is sturdy on the molecular level. Faint green lines of energy pulse in a geometrical pattern throughout the door signifying that the lock is still holding strong, and results in a major pain for us.
Our gear can’t cut through this door at all, nothing short of an Anti-Matter warhead could rip through the shields and plating on this. Brute force definitely won’t apply in this situation, I look at the door searching for a terminal and find one to the left of the door. I walk over to the terminal and look it over, not finding any opening that I can bypass. The door operates on an eye scanner not any eye will do I need to use one of the leading personnel eyes.
I turn to my team frustrated with this ludicrous obstacle “Search this area and bring me the lead personnel corpse.”
They all fan out and search for any corpses in the immediate vicinity. I sit idly for a few minutes and stare at the large red sun in the distance. “It really must have been beautiful..." I say to myself. The sun now only adds to the morbid atmosphere of the planet. I can see some of our destroyer class ships bringing themselves to a low orbit and start to blast away the cities peppering the land in the distance. I wonder how many lives were lost in these few seconds…
My thoughts are interrupted by the return of my team, E-2649 has the corpse of what seems to be the lead personnel with access to the door. He throws the corpse to my feet, I walk to it and grab the corpse by its neck. The back of the head is exposed blood and brain matter falls out when I lift it slightly. Dragging the corpse over to the door I pluck off his eyelids and push his head into the eye scanner.
The terminal beeps and is followed by a hissing sound from the door, as the green lines dim and fade the door melts into a liquid and falls away. We proceed down the dark hallway, water drips from condensation formed on the ceiling. As the lights on our combat skins fade into the dark a thought occurs to me. The male who grabbed my foot. What did he mean by “I won’t let you harm them” we killed all the defenders already, didn’t we?