Episode 1
SNAFU
2437, 13:18 Zulu Time
Somewhere in a combat zone, on an exoplanet, in the binary star system 55 Cancri
“Ripper 2-6, this is Overwatch. How do you copy?”
...static…
“Ripper 2-6 … acknowledge.”
...static…
“Uh … Ripper 2-6, if you copy and can’t respond, be advised we are coming to retrieve you. Artillery will be first. Get under cover ASAP if you can. If you can’t, shield up now. Overwatch, out.”
I tried to remain positive about my situation, but shielding was a last-ditch survival tactic. It was notoriously ineffective, and I couldn’t recall anyone who had ever shielded and survived a concentrated artillery barrage. Not that I could deploy the shield anyway. “Shield array / failure” was included in the steady stream of fault codes scrolling across my heads-up display. Nothing but bad news.
Amongst the dozens of other damage notifications, was an ‘auto-destruct / master/ warning’. In the era of modern interstellar combat, the unofficial Marine Corps motto “no man left behind” had not only become gender neutral, but it had also taken on a less noble meaning. It became code for no military technology left behind.
They had undoubtedly tried triggering the auto-destruct system, but combat damage had caused it to malfunction. Regardless, they sure as hell weren’t coming to retrieve me. They were coming to prevent their precious weapons technology from falling into enemy hands. They couldn’t simply call in an artillery strike. That wouldn’t guarantee destruction of the tech. Marine Corps policy was to autodestruct, or recover intact, any soldier that became incapacitated on the battlefield.
With all my sensors still functional, I was able to enjoy the shriek of incoming artillery shells, as they rained down on the enemy positions. The concussions that followed were amplified by the thick atmosphere of this sad little planet. Thankfully, only a couple of rounds fell worryingly close to me, as I lay face down in the mud.
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I could only see a sliver of the surrounding terrain through the unobstructed portion of my face shield. A burnt-out enemy bot lay a few meters from me. Although I couldn’t recall the details, the evidence strongly suggested that we had opened up on each other simultaneously. I had arguably won the gunfight, but just barely.
It was clear that I had taken a lot of enemy rounds, but the reactive armor had mostly done its job. There was extensive damage to my armor and drive system. With three of my six limbs missing, I wasn’t going anywhere under my own power.
As I lay immobilized, monitoring the platoons’ communications, I heard Overwatch order the counterattack. They were sending 7th squad up to try and retrieve me. The radio fell silent as my rescuers moved stealthily towards my position. They would be communicating visually at this point.
I could hear the faint whir of servo motors as someone worked their way up to my position. Not a shot had been fired yet. It was a good sign. Maybe the artillery had done its job, for once.
I caught a glimpse of a robotic hand clutching an AUX connector and cable. The hand holding the connector hovered briefly in my peripheral vision before disappearing. A data link icon appeared in my heads-up display as a connection was made.
“You’re a fuckin’ mess man.”
“Curtis! Goddamn it! Great to hear your voice.” Curtis was the squad leader and a solid Marine.
He said “Listen, we’re about to get out of this shit. Just stay down and don’t move while I hook you up, got it?”
“Roger that.” Apparently, Curtis didn’t realize that I had been totally immobilized by battle damage. “Hey, can you clean off my visor so I can see a little better?”
“What? I’m the fucking maid now?” I had never been so glad to hear someone complain in my life.
Curtis turned me over and began wiping off my muddy visor with the back of his gloved hand. However, he only succeeded in smearing my visor, obscuring my vision even more. That’s when I heard the first return fire from the enemy. The muzzle blasts from their weapons were deceptively quiet but the impact detonations were extraordinarily loud. Explosive rounds.
The first few hits knocked Curtis off his feet. His reactive armor exploded, absorbing the incoming enemy rounds, but it was soon overwhelmed by the sheer volume of enemy fire. As he tried to stand and return fire, more rounds impacted, putting him down hard. Curtis was one of the toughest guys in the corps but even he couldn’t survive such punishment.
Where the hell was the rest of 7th squad?! Before that thought had fully formed in my mind, there was a massive explosion, as Curtis’s autodestruct device detonated. Shit! The counterattack to retrieve me had failed. At least Curtis would be spared my fate.
I lay on my back, watching the fault codes stream past on my HUD and cursing my luck. The enemy would be here shortly, to collect a goldmine of human military technology. If they were capable of reverse engineering even a portion of it, they could turn the tide of a war that they were losing, badly.
Waxing philosophical for a moment, I realized that I wasn’t necessarily saddened at the prospect of humanity being defeated by these scrappy little aliens. After all, we were the ones who had initiated the conflict. Human interstellar expansionist policy dictated that the first contact must always be a preemptive military strike. This was ostensibly, to prevent another space faring species from threatening humanity’s existence. But it was a policy that demanded the subjugation, or annihilation, of every species we encountered. Now that I thought about it, maybe we deserved to get our asses kicked.
This revelation cast a new light on my current misfortune. All I knew about the chain of events that had led me here was what I had been told, or through my so called “memories”. I wondered how much of my life story was really just … bullshit.