Subject: Corporal Simmons

Species: Human

Description: Mammalian humanoid, no tail. 6'2" (1.87 m) avg height. 185 lbs (84 kg) avg weight. 170 year life expectancy.

Ship: N/A

Location: Sol

"Are you normally this quiet, sarnt, or do you just not like me?" I asked.

Sergeant Smith had been silent for the whole ride. He had explained our mission and hadn't said a damn thing since. He might be nervous about the mission but I don't know him well enough to help him snap out of it, so I've been quiet this whole time too. It's awkward and I hate it.

"I wouldn't say I dislike you, corporal," Smith replied. "I've just heard about your motor-mouth problem and didn't want to tempt fate."

"Oh, come on! A guy has a few slip-ups around some different species and now he's a motor-mouth? Ain't that some bullshit."

"Pretty sure you're a record holder. Most visits to SR in one lifetime."

"Hardy-har-har," I said mockingly. "I'm just not great at standing on ceremony is all. I've been workin' on it, though. Tryin' to find that fine line between blunt and pointed, like the SR lady keeps tellin' me. But it's hard to tell when somebody is gonna get offended or they're gonna laugh, you know?"

Most of the problems I've had with other species stemmed from trying to make them laugh. Hell, even the fight with the gont got started because I told a joke I thought he'd like. He didn't laugh, though, he blew up and started swinging. Most of the reason for my visit to SR that time was because I broke his arm and dislocated his jaw, and they wanted to make sure I understood proportional use of force.

"Yeah, I get it," Smith said. "People expect troops to be serious, though. Especially when we're on duty. That's probably why your jokes don't land like you expect them to."

"But we're scary motherfuckers, sarnt," I protested. "Civies get nervous around us. Somebody's gotta lighten the mood or they'll probably do somethin' dumb."

"Then stick to situational comedy. Don't make jokes about species or physical appearances, make jokes about the situation that you find yourself in. And keep the dark humor for your fellow marines. There aren't many civies who appreciate dark humor when they're stressed out."

"Sorry to interrupt, but we're landing," Omega said. "LZ is clear, but there's movement on base. We're pretty far from the movement, so I can't tell if it's an enemy or not. ROE 3 applies here."

"Roger," Smith and I said in unison.

The third rule of engagement is to verify targets in combat zones that contain a civilian presence. It usually boils down to not firing unless being fired upon, but in this case it's gonna be pretty easy to tell if the guys are OU or civies. If they're robots, we'll just blow 'em away. If they're hu... not robots, we'll have to wait to see if they shoot us first. Simple.

It didn't take long for the shuttle to settle and the hatch to open. Smith and I exited the shuttle with our weapons up. Omega said the LZ was clear, but I don't trust that the bot can spot snipers. The sergeant was of a similar mind, and we began to quickly and carefully move away from the shuttle.

"I'm going to take off and circle the base," Omega informed us. "I'll let you know if I see anything. Radio for exfil."

"Roger, out," Smith said.

The sergeant knife-handed toward the nearest structure, and I took point. We were damn near running because Omega had dropped us in a wide-open space. Good for aircraft, bad for cover. I pied the area that I was covering, making sure to double check my right. Smith was doing the same but opposite. With every step, my heartbeat seemed to increase as I imagined what sort of enemy would pop out of nowhere to take shots at us.

Even if they shot at us first, we'd likely take them down before they took us down. It takes a few rounds to penetrate normal guardian suits, and we had on the top of the line variety. On the other hand, we were sent here to find anti-tank weapons. Anti-tank weapons that would work very effectively against the armor we were currently wearing. Hell, there'd probably be nothing left but the boots.

I felt a tremor shake its way through my hand, and I squeezed to fend it off. Nothing to worry about if we see them first. If we shoot them first. Gotta have steady hands, make sure my shots land. Deep breath in, slow breath out, keep moving forward, banish the doubt. And just like that, we reached the structure. I pressed my back gently into the curved metal side, between two ridges. Smith joined me, and looked up at the structure.

"I'll be damned. A Quonset hut," he muttered.

"A what?" I asked.

"A Quonset hut. One of the older forms of prefab structures. They were introduced during one of the earlier world wars by the Empire of the United States. A good design that ended up lasting all the way up through early space colonization, though they had to modify those a bit. Keep the air in."

"What are they used for?"

"Just about damn near anything. Could be offices, barracks, or even latrines."

"So we've got to check it?"

"Yes."

I killed my comms and sighed privately as I moved toward the edge of the structure. I quickly peeked the corner, but didn't see anything to shoot at. Cautiously, I moved around the edge and found myself next to a door that looked suspiciously wooden. Weird for a steel structure. A pat on my back informed me that Smith was behind me, so I carefully tried the door.

It was unlocked, and definitely made of wood. I opened it quickly and quietly, making sure my muzzle cleared the frame before my chest did. A view of a bunch of bare mattresses on steel frames and footlockers was all I got for my effort, though. I smoothly closed the door and returned to my previous position.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"It's an empty barracks," I said.

"Understood. Let's try a more permanent building," Smith replied, gesturing to the nearest brick and mortar structure.

I keyed my green light and started walking. There's an entirely different kind of fear that can affect you when you're surrounded by buildings, but having buildings nearby is much better than having no cover at all. True, some asshole can pop out of a window and start blasting, but at least you might have a chance to get to cover. We moved quickly and carefully until we found the entrance to the structure. I tested the handle, and found that it was locked. Fuck.

I moved to the other side of the door and Smith took his position. The door was steel, and it had a deadbolt. Smith lifted his leg and donkey-kicked the door, and I swiftly moved through the wreckage with my weapon at the ready. The sergeant was right behind me, but there were no targets. Still, I grinned at what I saw.

"Gun-racks," I said. "We're on the right track."

"Probably not," Smith replied. "This building is likely the primary armory, where they keep their standard issues. It's fairly common practice to keep explosive ordo separate from your standard-issue weaponry."

"What makes you think it's the primary armory?"

"Well, the undocs have weapons that came from this base. That means whoever occupied this base left weapons behind. This door was still locked, and it doesn't look like this place was ransacked, but there aren't any weapons here," he explained. "So if there WERE weapons here, they were probably issued to soldiers who ended up taking the weapons with them."

"So we kick down every door on base, or what? With respect, sarnt, that's a lot of fuckin' doors."

The map of the base that Omega had shown us on the flight over had shown no less than forty structures. The bot had explained that Ballarat Barracks served as Austricana's primary Earth Defense Force facility. As usual with military bases, the details on which building serves which purpose were sketchy. Omega had also said there's probably underground structures as well. There's no fuckin' way we're getting this done in less than thirty minutes.

"Sergeant," Omega interrupted. "I'm able to confirm that the movement within the base is human. Spotted three so far. There is also an Omni-Union force approaching. I estimate they will arrive in about fifteen minutes."

"Icing on the fuckin' cake," I muttered.

"Omega, which buildings should we be searching here?" Smith asked. "Anything that could narrow this down would be good."

"One moment."

While Omega was doing whatever it was doing, I had a closer look around the armory that we had found ourselves in. Standard gun racks, old fashioned chain-fiber locks, and a small office on the other side. I realized that we had actually come through the rear entrance to this building, and that the front had the kind of cage you normally see in these things.

"The nearest building that appears suitable for long term explosive storage is ten buildings to your east. It will be on your left," Omega explained. "It's across the street from the building I saw the humans enter."

"Great," I muttered. "Well, hopefully they're not lookin' to pick a fight."

"Let's go, corporal," Smith said.

I sighed again as we left the armory. The street was just as eerily empty as we had left it, and the first eight buildings we passed seemed to rush past us. Our pace slowed as we approached our new objective. I kept my rifle trained on the building that Omega had said the humans had entered, pieing the windows and doors until I was standing next to the entrance to the building we needed to search. I donkey kicked the door without bothering to check if it was locked or not, and turned to clear the room.

"DROP YOUR WEAPON!" Smith shouted with his helmets loudspeakers. "PUT IT DOWN OR I PUT YOU DOWN!"

I spun around and saw two unarmored young men. One held a handgun and the other held a bolt-action rifle. I zoomed in and noticed that neither weapon was military issue. The men slowly set their weapons on the ground and then raised their hands.

"What do we do, sarnt?" I asked.

"You check the building, I'll deal with them."

Smith began approaching the men as I turned my attention to the building. It looked promising. There was a caged office and a coiling door for crates of cargo, the exact type of thing you would see in a heavy weapons depo. I approached the office and made sure there weren't any surprises, then used my gauntlet to crush the lock on the coiling door and lifted it.

I smiled at the sight of neatly arranged AT9s and crates marked with the HE symbol. I popped open one of the crates and grinned wildly at the anti-tank mines inside. There was even a handy cart for transpo. It had taken us nine minutes. Not bad.

The AT mines would probably be useful, but not nearly as useful as the AT9s. The "Anti-Tank 9" is a man-portable, guided, shoulder fired, reusable, recoilless rocket launcher. Try saying THAT five times fast. It fires a laser-guided saboted heavy armor penetrator, or "SHAP", rocket with stealth and shield-penetrative capabilities. I got to fire one in boot camp because of my good marksmanship. Only the absolutely top of the line armored vehicles stand any sort of chance against this thing.

"We've got the goods, sarnt," I reported. "Even got a cart to haul them."

"Good work, corporal. We've got five civies who've been camping out in the base, surviving on MREs and potable water tanks."

"Why here?" I asked.

"Hold one." He replied. A few moments later he said, "They're from a nearby small town whose occupants took just about everything with them and pretty much left them for dead. They started nomading it up when they were nearly out of food and lucked out with the base. At least, that's what they're saying."

"Are we leaving them?"

"No. Load up the cart, they'll push it. We'll grab what we can carry."

"What if they try something?"

"ROE 3."

"Roger that," I sighed.

I don't like it, but I wouldn't be able to sleep good for a while if we left them to the mercy of the Omni-Union. Hopefully they are smart enough to realize that it would be a dumb idea to try something. I loaded the cart with several crates of rockets for the AT9s and one crate of AT mines. I found a ratchet strap and used it to secure the load as Smith walked in with the civies. Two women and three men, appearing to be in their early to mid twenties. They looked nervous as all hell, but I didn't read too much into that. I'd probably be nervous too.

"So you're gonna get us out of here?" one of the women asked.

"Yes," Smith replied.

"To where?"

"The Adelaide city hall. It has a bunker with supplies that we can hole up in until the counter-invasion gets rid of the OU."

"Fuckin' Adelaide," one of the men said with disgust.

"Beggars and choosers, mate," another man responded.

"Let's go," Smith cut in. "We don't have time to be chatting. The OU's going to be here soon."

The racks holding the AT9s had them locked into place with steel bars down their barrels. Each of these bars were attached to the rack with their own electronic locking mechanism. Much fancier than the gun racks we'd seen earlier, but Smith and I were able to make short work of them thanks to the guardian armor.

One of the men started pushing the cart, and the rest of us grabbed as many AT9s as we could carry. The civies could only handle carrying two each, but the sergeant and I managed to grab a whole rack. We began carrying our somewhat awkward cargo back to the LZ as fast as we could. The civies barely kept up.

"Omega, we're nearly to the LZ. We're taking the civilians with us, they're helping move the ordo," Smith radioed.

The comm was silent for a few moments before Omega said, "Understood."

We made it to the LZ just as Omega was landing the shuttle. Smith and I set the rack down and began covering the civies as Omega opened the hatch. He told the civilians to load up, and I scanned the horizon, looking for any sort of movement while my heart raced. Part of me hoped that I'd at least be able to down a few of the bots as a sort of revenge for the anxiety. The other part of me realized that if the bots show up before we take off, the civies would have a damn good chance of getting hurt.

"We're loaded up!" one of the men shouted.

I slung my rifle and grabbed my half of the rack. Smith and I double timed it up the shuttle's ramp. The space in the shuttle had become pretty cramped, but we managed to find a spot for the rack. There wasn't a way for us to reach the seats, though, so we stood awkwardly by the hatch as it closed and the shuttle took off.

"That was close," Omega said. "The OU have just breached the base's perimeter."

There were some concerned glances among the civilians, but they didn't say anything. Smith leaned against the rack of weapons, and I leaned against the bulkhead. After about a minute, I keyed my comms and let out an exaggerated sigh.

"Didn't get to kill any bots," I said to Smith.

Smith chuckled and replied, "Don't worry. You'll get 'em next time."

"Damn right I will, sarnt."