Sweet Chariot
by: Kountrklchr
*** WARNING ***
The following story may contain language and/or violent content that some readers may find disturbing. Please use your own judgment and proceed with caution.
The op was [censored]. I saw the signs everywhere. The hints piled on as we briefed and loaded out.
“Target: designation Romeo-Alpha-Quebec-Uniform 1-4-1. Expected enemy: light resistance.”
The Lt.’s voice buzzes on and on, sounding more and more like the mechanical ceiling fans of the briefing room. Light resistance? I call [censored]. I’ve been on eight drops here. On every one of ‘em; landing zone hot, target hot, extraction point hot. This whole dirtball of a world is hot with Bane. When my sister platoon got wiped taking down a power station, I was on the extraction team that responded to the emergency scramble call. Lt. told them “light resistance” too. We never even recovered what was left of the bodies. That was another bad day in a bad week. Damnit, whole year’s been bad so far.
“Target is an AFS structure captured by the enemy in the summer campaign three years ago. Intel says it was a hospital and biotech complex. We have agent and satellite imagery that shows the Bane are using the site processing captured sentients into these “machina” we’ve been having reports of.”
Poor ****s. I’ve seen ‘em firsthand. Not really human anymore, but sometimes you recognize a face. Someone you knew. Well, the house is still there, but new folks have moved in, you know? The eyes all vacant like someone closed the blinds. [censored] this war. They can kill us all they want, but when they start taking our souls…
“Sgt. Rajcek, your squad will drop on this ridge, take positions and prepare the landing zone for the rest of the units coming in. You will hold positions for six hours before the rest of the raid kicks off. As usual, no visibility. If you are detected, we will scrap the entire operation.”
I direct my eyes down when he looks me over. His vision lingers on my rank insignia. Sonovabitch. He’s thinking of promoting me. This is [censored]. I need rank on my collar like I need a bullet in the grey matter.
“Sir! Yes, Sir! No visibility! 75th Ranger Regiment Leads the Way, SIR!”
There is a grimace when I mention the 75th. He returns my salute, and I about face and walk to the door. 75th was officially disbanded when we linked up with the AFS on old Earth. But, a Ranger is a Ranger, and you can’t change that, No way no how.
Load-out didn’t go much better. My squad all knew the deal, and downloaded the mission into their grunt-comps. We talked over extraction, emergent and planned. I set rally points for contingencies. I lingered on what to do if [censored] “Went Wrong”, or if we “Broke Up”. My corporals, Wolf and Juno, stared me down. They got the hints I was dropping. This was probably another suicide mission in this increasingly desperate war. The privates were nervous. They were always nervous, but when your squad and team leaders look a little off, it gets worse. It’s best to put on a strong face, act like it’ll all be fine. Hell, maybe it will be. I’ve worked before with the engineer and commando units coming in after we secure their drop zone. They were competent. Not Ranger, but pretty good. We might make it.
Both of my team leaders had been with me in the regiment. We were career soldiers. It was something that carried in the way we never sat with our backs to the door, in the quick eyes around the room, sizing you up. I didn’t start out as a lawyer or a doctor or a mechanic or a grocery clerk. I was different than these new recruits, rag-tag survivors of planet earth, with no discipline, no instinct and no respect for orders. When it came down to it, I knew I would do what I had to. I couldn’t be sure of the same from anyone else but my corporals.
She dropped us in a mile off the objective, smooth as a baby’s ass. The dragonfly barely even touched ground as we piled out. Nanya is the best pilot I have worked with on this planet. She moves that bucket of bolts with all the grace of a fencer and the force of a linebacker.
We move out into the jungle in a silent half run, predators on the trail and hungry for blood. This is my playground. I get down on my knees and smell the dirt, then smear it across my combat armor. The pretenses of civilization are passing away. We have become beasts again, throwbacks to an ancient age. Wolf climbs a tree to get a better view, ambling easily up the branches.
Words are a liability here. Everything is done in hand signals, body language, and intuition. We move forward, a single animal. The pack on its feet is a thing to behold, each one cutting through the twilight with all the fury of a thunderstorm. They shift their weight from one step to the next making no noise, coming up on OP-POINT56RAQU114 as the grunt-comps beep in our ears for attention. The war is on now. And it is ours.
The first lone Thrax is about a hundred feet to my ten o’ clock. The teams all get down, and I keep moving. It becomes a ballet. The universe slows down as it gets ready for someone to die. This one is close enough.. yes. The knife. Quick and quiet.
He’s a big muther****er. I can smell it from here, like engine grease and bad onion dip. My longblade flicks out at the press of a button. The action is smooth, and it feels suddenly heavy in my hand. I like the weight. I can’t stand those new plasma knives they issue now, the things just don’t feel serious to me.
At ten steps I begin to tense slightly. My jaw gets tight and I bite down almost hard enough to crack a filling. The steps are slowing even more. It’s the adrenaline, I’m sure. I jump, and some sort of animal growl escapes my lips. Can’t help it. The Thrax are bigger than us, a lot bigger. I wrap halfway around his back and grab the [censored]’s head, and with the knife in my other hand pull nine inches of serrated carbon steel across his voicebox and circulatory system. This weapon was forged on earth. So was his knife. I hope this dead [censored] appreciates that as I slam the blade home, up through the lower jaw and into the brain with a sticky sounding crack.
I can barely lower him to the ground as his bio-enhanced body fails and goes limp. Juno appears at my side now. Damn, girl. You got real quiet since I first met you. I didn’t even hear you moving in behind me. The first fear that flashes by is that I’m losing my hearing. No. I think she’s just getting better. Or maybe I knew she would be here, right when I needed her, and I tuned out the sound of her movements. I sometimes worry if I depend on them too much. I hope I’m not getting weak out here on Foreas.
I try not to think too much while I disable the hulk’s electronics. Nothing that they can use to detect him in a sensor sweep can stay on. Juno and I each take a shoulder and drag him back. Someone from Juno’s team runs up and covers up the area of the hit and the tracks we leave. His name is Lawrence. He requested the transfer into this unit. I wouldn’t have taken him in, but the Lt. leaned on me and I was short a slot anyway. Seems I might have been wrong about him. He’s learned that if he does his job quiet and clean he’ll have no trouble, and if he [censored] it up the [censored] that comes from me is nothing compared to what Juno will give his sorry ass.
**A few hours pass…***
We are go for drop. Mission RAQU114 is prepped and hot. The birds are in the air. I set Wolf down next to the path the Bane have been using for resupply and patrol, with our complement of claymore mines. Juno’s team is sitting pretty on the top of a nearby knoll, rigged out to give us fire support if the Big Nasties come running. I set the beacon down to call in the operation force. It’ll start to broadcast on all channels in about five minutes, at which point all hell will break loose on the Bane net. I’ve loaded this little bitch up with a few hundred responsive jammer routines that will have their radio system screaming nothing but static for an hour. Now it is down to the wait, the teeth grinding, every-shadow-is-the-enemy wait.
I can see them now, skimming the ground, pulling more than five hundred miles an hour. With all the fire and thunder of heaven, the dropships are coming down. That is not my concern. There are sounds in the forest that should not be there.
Wait. There they are, behind the rocks. They call them lightbenders, some sort of light infantry unit used for scouting by the Bane. I don’t know what sort of species would willingly cooperate with the World-Eaters. But I don’t need to know them. I just need to kill them. The first dropship hits the ground hard behind me, and then the world explodes into light. Flares and counter measures fill the air as our ships pull in to land. Damnit. I saw them too late. The benders are getting some sort of platform set up, just within range of our main force. The dropships are sitting ducks to any heavy weapons fire. Time to play hero. There are only a few seconds of time for me now. I hear Wolf scream into his headset.
“SARGE! We got incoming! I’m taking fire. There are too [censored] many for me to hold here.”
“[censored]. Juno? Move your team. Back up Wolf. Keep your head down. Don’t blow the mines yet, Wolf. Wait for me”
Now it is really time to move. If this anti-aircraft gun or whatever these guys have set up gets online, it’s going to make crispy critters of a few platoons of commandos. Wolf and Juno will just have to make it on their own. The pin of my stunner grenade comes out nice and smooth. I cook off for one second.. two seconds… go! The ‘nade hits a few feet from the benders. One sees it and jumps, his scaly arms grabbing branches and flinging himself away. The other two are not so lucky. Better get the smart one. He’s up in the tree. Weapon malfunction, I guess, if it were me I’d be shooting back by now. I save the bullets I have. Better one clear shot than a dozen misses. There. [censored] ugly. My torque pistol spurts a burst of hot propellant and steam, a sharp little projectile that catches my new best friend in the shoulder. He falls to the ground screaming, and I am waiting for him there. No time to waste. I blow the weapon platform with a ten second timed incendiary grenade, and start sprinting for where I left Wolf.
There is laser fire all around me. Bane skirmish units, I think. The dropships are getting pretty roughed up, but the commandos are all piling out and taking positions. Damn. A sound like nails on a chalkboard grates my eardrums as a half dozen predators fly in. Must have just responded from orbit, all of ‘em still glowing red from reentry. Their turrets open up on a Dragonfly as it pulls in to land. The poor [censored] breaks up all over the LZ. There are way too many Bane here for “Light Resistance”. We need to move off this killing field.
There’s my squad. Holy [censored]. I thought Wolf was just being a [censored]. ****all. A pair of Bane Vindicators, sort of a light battle tank, are pulling up the approach. Wolf looks okay, but one of his team is down.
“Wolf, bound back. I’ve got scope on the Vindicators, just keep their fire off my back. Juno, stay on those guns. Don’t let them forget who the [censored] we are.”
Juno responds with a rat-a-tat-tat. When you’ve done this long enough, you can identify someone by the sound a machinegun makes when they pull the trigger.
Wolf gets up, and throws his team member over his shoulder. He starts walking backwards, firing with his free hand, then breaks into a run. [censored]. He better get clear. The other private on his team gets up and runs behind, stopping now and again to keep some fire on the advancing Bane column.
The claymore mines fire off in a thunderous boom that shakes the leaves off the trees. The first vindicator has it’s armor peeled back like a sardine can, and the [censored] driving is reduced to sticky green and black cinders. The second was back farther and seems to have made it out ok, until an anti tank rocket streaks past me from behind and slams into the point where the turret and the chassis meet. It burrows deep inside the vehicle before exploding and turning another Bane vehicle inside out on the hillside.
I link with the commandos forming behind us as Wolf loads his teammate back onto a dragonfly. The predators have passed by, so the drop pilots think now is the time to leave.
“Commander Donnelly, So good of you to drop in, sir!”
“Roger that, ground team, thanks for leaving the light on. You’ll be tagging along, I trust?”
“Tagging along? Sir, I’m leading the way!”
The six of my squad still fighting pile into the back of a personnel carrier for the ride to the objective. Rubbing shoulders with the rough and tumble grunts from the commando and assault units reminds me of days back on earth, hitting dirt with a hundred men on each side of you and opening up the gates of hell. This time, our ride to hell doesn’t seem to be so triumphant. Looking at the troopers to my right and left, I wonder who, if any, will make it past this blood ritual of ours. They know I see their fear, and are uncomfortable. The extra gear we Rangers mount does disturb some folks. I hear whispers that “their eyes can see your thoughts”. “Hardly”, I say as I turn my head to let my electric green and biosteel filled orbit twinkle at them. “We just watch your heart beat”. The grunts shut up, and watch us warily for the bumpy ride. Juno lets a slight smile crack her lips. She always laughs when I show off.
Damn. I wish I was being crowded and jostled in a dropship, headed home right now, instead of in the back of some truck probably headed into the nastiest firefight yet on Foreas. I know all about the cause and the reasons I am here, fighting for the AFS on some jungle world across the universe from my home. I just can’t shake the feeling that I should be fighting were I belong. On Earth. Hide where you can, I guess, but I’d rather be taking back my planet from those ****s than rescuing the Foreans.
The gate of the complex looms high above us, a monument of rust and bioreinforcement. The lead vehicle, a grungy old tanker, starts accelerating towards the gate, and I see the driver jump out and roll away. As his truck tin cans into the sturdy metal doors, the charges go off, leveling the fortified gate in a mushroom shaped cloud of dust and flames. More than one way to pick a lock, I suppose. I look at my squad as the pressure wave hits and our faces contort with pain. The windows on our truck shatter inwards and the driver swerves. We dump hard on our side. The grunts are visibly shaken. One, hanging by his straps, vomits onto the men on the other side of the truck. Once again, it is time for my rangers to prove their mettle. We unbuckle and roll out of the overturned truck bed.
My troops follow me. They know that close to me is where the most death will be happening, and that means the best chance of making it home. We get in a close stack, and prepare to enter the building, weapons high and at the ready.
The complex is swarming with an assortment of the most dangerous and frightening men and women the AFS can muster up. Commandos and engineers of all flavors are running about, throwing grenades in open windows and setting charges on doors.
It is a bad day to be Bane, I catch myself thinking. But there are a few disturbing clues. The first is that the razor wire on all the fences faces inwards. The second is that the stationary gun emplacements likewise all face inwards. There are huge claw marks on some of the doors. Something evil lives here. Something the Bane is making. Something even they are afraid of.
Our prime objective is the nuclear core of the facility, a hundred feet below ground. Blow that and this disgusting pustule on the face of Foreas will explode outwards and hit the mirror with a resounding splat. This upcoming entryway seems as good as any.
I look at my squad. Each of them nod, and I raise my hand, kick open the door, and rush inside, a grenade launcher I ripped off the grunts in one hand and my torque pistol in the other. I am ready for anything.
“Oh. [censored].”
*****TO BE CONTINUED******
YES, I KNOW I’M AN [censored].
