The Thundering Orbit
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“All right, listen up!” Captain Stuart uttered.
For its thirteenth mission since Miles “Red” Villanueva joined their ranks, the Dead Bunch fell under the direct command of Captain Stuart. The two suborbital reconnaissance units would ride together over Ymir, Saturn XIX; meaning Red, Shrimp, Baron and Apache would fly alongside the two inbred twins Hue and Cry, Minsk the robot and Shujaa.
The career ship slowly swerved after a loud thump could be heard near the rear. Shujaa and Baron exchanged worried glances before Stuart, hitherto occupied with the radio handled by his mustached aide-de-camp, left his seat to face the ten pilots waiting for his briefing.
“What’s the temp’, sir?” Minsk asked from the front row. The robots’ artificial intelligence rarely allowed them to convey any feelings unless truly exacerbated. Judging by his tremulous metallic hands once molded in the CCCP-conquered belt, Minsk appeared to be terrified. “Which circle of Hell is it outside?”
On the contrary, Stuart had never been so ecstatic; although more violent explosions shook the career and the F-XIV lining in front of the jump docks. “General Bragg is struggling against the T.M.S. Africa and her escort,” he said.
“No shit!” Shujaa added.
“Hush! Space warfare ain’t our business today. We’re ground focused. The Technos have positioned counter-orbital batteries in the heart of the Black Comet plantation, preventing us from going all in,” he explained, stroking his bushy beard before taking a pipe from his pocket. The map of the plastic plantation appeared as the aide-de-camp switched on the hologram projector. Three gigantic cannons emerged, under their thick steel cupola. “We can’t let ground artillery enter the equation for Bragg’s sake.” The captain lit his tobacco thanks to a burner at the end of his prosthetic thumb. The infamous smell cut with armor wax made Miles cough from the third row. Puffing, he turned to his aide-de-camp: “Explain to them.”
The mustached NCO went on: “The 1st Cavalry and the 18th Mechanical Infantry are sent to clear the plantation as the Techno-fleet plan to draw General Bragg under the counter-orbital fire. This is a ground assault jumping from the Chickamauga. The Bunch needs to obliterate the M1 land defenses scattered alongside the city walls, allowing the joint forces to enter the plantation, and destroy the highly protected orbital cannons from beneath their giant dome.”
“What about us directly zeroing Bragg’s welcome committee?” asked New Guy—Baron’s stand-in, sitting next to Minsk who was rubbing his photoreceptors from stress. Their concern was quickly shared by the rest of the pilots. “Why send the jarheads?”
“The orbital cannons’ hardened domes are as thick as your skull,” the NCO replied. “This is groundwork, sadly. We’re air support.’’
“What about these cannons?” Shrimp asked.
“Our intel’s talking about brand new tri-barrels modified 5”/38 with nuclear-fed self-propelled shells. M-Max. WarTech designed. Mercurian made.”
“That’s a lot of fancy words for ‘cannons’…” Miles groaned, earning him a grunt from Apache next to him.
“ETA 3 minutes!” the NCO said before looking at his watch. He handed the radio microphone to the officer.
“Prepare to drop all together with the rest of the 1st, gentleman!” the captain shouted. Straddling a box of ammunition, he walked to his personal spacecraft followed by his pilots.
On the way, the NCO explained the overall tactic and listed the main targets before sending the data to each ship individually: “The plantation is also geologically secured by a gully. The objective of the ground forces is the wide bridge that leads to it. The towers—BC1 and BC2, protecting the bond with regular M1s, have to be destroyed first. Our speed of action will be decisive—otherwise, our Walkers and Armadillos—which were briefed earlier, will be crucified before entering the city.”
“Understood?” Stuart asked, grasping the first rung at the front of his F-XIV.
“Aye, aye, sir!” replied the members of the unit together before an explosion shook the ship’s hangar.
The following minutes became a blurry mess. The early dose of war-drugs reaching Miles’ spine through the suit sockets appeared to be less efficient than usual. They couldn’t drown his mind efficiently. Instinct and sugar quickly gave way to his true conscience.
“Meds off,” Pierre groaned behind.
“Back to reality.”
Both heard Shujaa swore on the comms: “Fuck! Someone swapped them again with some Sweet’n Low!”
“A-04 and A-07 out,” croaked a feminine yet soulless IA’ voice on the fleet radio. “Defaillance.”
Panicked, Minsk, the Soviet android, began singing The Yellow Rose of Caliban.
Miles’ optics were glued to the altimeter as the reconnaissance unit pierced through the thin atmosphere at sound speed. Far away, sparks ignited the stars. Bragg’s fleet tired the Technos out near the equator.
“Ground team impact in 10 seconds,” the IA went on.
Like the rest of the Bunch, Miles tilted the two-seater spacecraft once he crossed the first red clouds that made up Ymir’s artificial environment—which had been highly damaged by the overabundance of sulfur.
“Shit hurts without juice!” Pierre moaned. “My stomach went south dancing a tango with my nuts.”
The macabre surface visible through the cracked canopy appeared. Everyone held their breath as the Walkers and Armadillo violently touched down, scarring their entire crew. Black dust blew in the air, as the F-XIV flew over the bloodthirsty ground forces.
Right after, a dull roar shook Miles and Pierre’s cockpit, turning off half the telltales and the HUD.
“What’s going on, Red?” Pierre asked immediately, swiveling to check on Stuart and the others.
Green lines shone anew on the main screen. “Dust…” replied the pilot, inhaling enough oxygen through his mask to ignore the pain growing in his chest.
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“The terraforming waste has covered the satellite for a good six feet. Our ground teams seem stuck!” New Guy warned, as the first ricochets of bullets could be heard on his armor.
Miles turned to his wizzo. “Threat?”
“Rookie, does your computer have a visual on any DCA?” Pierre asked.
“Focus on the main target: the towers,” Stuart intervened. “The landing teams will take care of the meager bean-shooters while progressing.”
A huge flash of light in front of the advancing starcrafts blinded them all. According to the IA, some Armadillos of the 18th had fallen too close to the walls, and started the assault on their own. Artillery fire from the high towers defending the plantation gates had wiped half of them before they could even claim their ground. A missile set a nearby oil river ablaze.
Even more dreadful yet equally beautiful was the small budding atomic mushroom.
“Mayday! Mayday! This is A-03. This is A-03. Some of the vanguard reached the bridge while the others got shroomed!” the radio croaked, ruining the moment. It was Captain Vronsky, commander of the joint land forces.
“On our way!” Stuart yelled. “The parapet’s wide and solid enough for two vehicles abreast. Rush for the city with the remaining tanks, at once!”
With a dull roar, the Dead Bunch’s reconnaissance team crossed the burning oil fields, knocking over smoking derricks and reservoirs.
The bridge appeared in sight, but the fiercely defended plantation vanished under a veil of glittering green smog because of all the shells spitting by the M1 on top of the high towers.
Eager to meet his maker, Stuart rushed before the rest of the unit, followed by Apache. Both left the formation at the most crucial moment of the assault.
For in the middle of the miraculously still standing deck, Vronsky’s Armadillos’ mad dash came to another abrupt halt. Several explosions melted their two meters wide wheels already turned to crisp by the close nuclear blast. Less fortunate, the last vehicle of the rear guard suddenly ballooned after a lucky RPG bouncing against a block of concrete pierced its armor and hit its ammunition cache.
“Fire… will on the mortars … guns alongside the walls, gentleman!” Apache ordered through the fallouts, launching her Lundgren missiles against the left tower’s foundations.
The whole unit sprayed the city’s defenses with bullets and rockets, blowing the entire right watch into space. Blocks of steel and concrete collapsed in the surrounding deep moats. Stuart ended the tour by firing another torpedo through the left tower which crumbled.
“That’s a strike!” New Guy cheered.
Cheering, the Bunch flew over the eastern plastic workshop and the metal domes protecting the closest counter-orbital artillery. All the M-Max’s shields slowly opened, revealing the long and wide cruiser-destroyer tri-cannons. Above, the two fleets were still shooting at each other, lighting the skies beyond the crimson clouds.
“By Darwin! We woken the fuckin’ Kraken…” Shuuja muttered. “Bragg’s fucked!”
The next moment, a thundering roar shook the dust covering the roofs and walls of the burning city. A hand clutched Miles’ heart. The shockwave turned his organs upside down—as well as his F-XIV.
Alarms drown his wizzo’s gasp. The ship recovered right before crashing against another armored dome opening.
“You guys okay?” New Guy asked as he fired his last missile against one of the cupolas, aiming at the pumping hydraulics.
Alas, a flare soaring from curious chimneys dotting the rotund immediately lure the charge away, before guiding it straight back to Elias Szut’s starcraft.
“Rookie!” Shrimp shouted, witnessing the deadly ballet.
New Guy’s spaceship exploded from head to tail. Shredded, the gray wings fluttered before falling in the plantation, setting on fire huge rolls of elastomers near the destroyed astroport.
“Fuck!” Shrimp reacted, as Miles dodged an anti-air rocket shot from a petro-plant’s roof. “Les amis? Do not fire towards the giant boobs. I repeat. Do not fucking fire at the counter-orbital Marks-Max!”
“Where’s the captain?” Miles asked, glancing at the anti-missile system which earned Sergeant New Guy his Roll of Honor.
“Alongside Apache. Striking the radio tower up north!” Shujaa answered, panting. “Can’t reach them! Techno-dogs are scrambling the comms and—shit! I need help boys! I’m being locked!”
“By whom?” the WSO inquired between two French curses.
From the corner of his eye, Miles saw a cannon hidden beneath a camo cover twirling towards his friend ship. “There!” he uttered.
Hoping to scramble the target lock, Miles released a couple of barrel rolls overtaking Shujaa, causing Shrimp to swear even more. Swooping, he emptied half the remaining ammo of his two M-61 machine guns, riddling the Technos with bullets. The whole bunker silently exploded, lifting the railing hundreds of meters alongside Miles and Pierre’s looping F-XIV.
“Red, you son of a bitch!” the woman cussed, coming close to give him a thumb up once the ship stabilized over the fuming east walls. “I fuckin’ love you, man!”
“Red, you son of a bitch….” Shrimp burped, taking his oxygen mask off. “I fucking puked, man…”
“Cap—captain?” Minsk shouted on the radio. The tower burning near the northern water collector meant the jammer had been destroyed by the others.
“The cap’ crashed while we were aiding back south,” Apache warned the Bunch who tried to dodge the city’s debris hovering in the low gravity. “His fancy parachute fell near the main gate bridge a minute ago. Hue and Cry boomed too—couldn’t open theirs. They blow up like jam jars after landing on one of the Mark-Max domes.”
“Let’s get Stuart!” Shrimp ordered.
Making the engine roar, the remaining pilots quickly reached back to the southern part of Black Comet. There, among the toxic smoke, Stuart rose on Vronsky’s Armadillo and openly led the ground onslaught. Waving a sword and a Dead Bunch flag tied around his shoulders, he seemed to miraculously dodge the incoming machine gun fire shredding the combined forces of the 1st and 18th.
Witnessing the scene, Miles helped cover the retreating assault tanks by destroying the last resistance remaining where the heavy steel doors of Black Comet once stood.
“The bulldozer’s burning!” informed Shrimp, pointing to the giant immobilized vehicle at the end of the bridge.
“We fall back too?” Minsk asked, flying very low to dodge the debris.
Looking away, the android hit a floating gas reservoir which blew off his left turbine. Unable to regain control, the one-seater disappeared in the moat. Miles avoided the following deflagration.
“Eyes on the road, Miles!” Pierre warned.
An alarmed buzz before a rebar coming from the left impaled itself through the canopy, grazing Miles’ throat. Several debris cracked the armored glass and blinded the sensors.
“Fucking FOD! Miles? My stomach’s empty! Pull out some crazy pilot shit! Get us outta here!”
The airman winced. Running short on oxygen, the growing pain in his chest made him gasp for air. “I—I can’t! J—Jump!”
Swearing even more, Shrimp ejected, seconds before Miles could. Their ship later struck the part of the fortification, turning the already retreating sappers in three new automated mails of condolence.
“Red! Try to land near Stuart!” Shrimp warned Miles, in the short-distance radio linking them both.
Alas, his friend couldn’t hear much but the crackling sounds of bullets piercing his parachute.
The wizzo, bumped against the Armadillo’s charred armor and fell in the dark dust. Taking position the best he could against the wheel, he fired a gore-caked rifle he found on the ground to cover his pilot.
Miles managed to land behind the tank. Leaving his parachute, he seized a sandbag to pull himself onto the vehicle’s rear bumper. On the hood, Stuart kept waving his broken saber.
“Sir?” the pilot yelled, mask down.
As he grabbed the captain’s sleeve, a spray of warm blood coated his eyes. A hail of bullets ricocheted off the Armadillo. The counter-orbital artillery fired again. A wall of dust nailed the survivors to the hull.
Everything faded to black.