Chapter 5
It was the day after three units had been assigned and deployed. Mary woke them, they showered, dressed, and made their way to the parade ground, the morning ritual which they had grown so used to they could do it half asleep.
Bri stared up at the sky and watched the clouds slip across the pre-dawn sky. The base felt empty, desolate without the other hundred or so soldiers they were used to seeing out there. But there was something else too, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Suddenly, orders flashed across each of their overlays. They were to forgo the parade grounds and report to the administrative building, commander’s offices.
The unit fell into a line and started to march off under Arles’ lead. “What do you think it is?” Biloxi asked.
“No idea,” Kat whispered.
When they got to the administrative building, they knew something was wrong. The assistant that usually occupied the desk in front of Sedris’ office was gone and they could hear voices from inside.
“We can’t just stand by while they take Kilter Field!” It was Andrews. He was upset, shouting. “We can reach it and we’re the only ones out here.”
“You want to throw a bunch of kids up against an Earther frigate?” Commander Sedris shouted. “They’re not ready. You know they’re not ready.”
“If we don’t save those people, they’re gone.” Andrews’ voice softened and they couldn’t hear what he said next.
There was a long pause. Everyone looked at Pauly but he didn’t notice. He was already hacking into the base’s database. “An Earther Frigate is cruising toward a small planet,” he touched his wristcall. “NT4, Kilter Field is a harvester town, population twenty five thousand.”
Bri stared at her boots and thought of the attack Sedris had shown her their first week on base. It had been wholesale slaughter and she had no doubt the Earthers were queuing up to do it again.
“We have to do something!” Anderson shouted and the door opened.
As both officers watched, Unit 37 snapped to attention. “Pick 3 or 4 units,” Sedris gave in. “Your best. Take the Helios.”
Andrews stepped out and faced them. His cheeks looked flushed. He had been arguing in there for a little while. “You’re one.” He touched his communicator. “Units 23, 18, and 62,” he looked over at Pauly for a second, like he knew that Pauly already knew what was going on. “This is Major Andrews. Report to Captain Davies on board the Helios in fifteen minutes. Excursion gear. Full compliment.”
Without a word, 37 moved past Andrews and off to get their gear. Bri glanced around at the other members of the unit but everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts.
It was strange, everyone knew that at some point they would be deployed to fight the enemy, that’s why they were at Chenfel in the first place, but now it was happening. This is what the dogged, relentless training was for. Now, they were suiting up to go to war. You could see the weight of it, the reality hitting everyone all at once.
Cooper was just sitting on the edge of his bunk staring down at his boots, frozen, lost in a hurricane of thought. Kat was checking through her gear. You could see that she was kind of looking at it, but really not there at all. Big, fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Everyone could hear Pauly on the far side of the room. It was his usual mumbling a habit he had when he was hacking. First his lips would start to move, and then he would actually start to mumble. If you let him go on too long, he would sit there and read it all out loud.
But no one stopped him this time.
Two hours away, a little planet with a New Terran harvester facility and town was imminent danger. Bri wondered what was happening, what it looked like to see a ship that size swing into low orbit. She wondered how many marines a frigate carried, and almost asked, but decided not to. It didn’t matter anyway; Earther marines were slow and heavy.
She thought back to the way the suit made her move, the way it accentuated everything. Unit 37 wasn’t a horde of clumsy soldiers with massive guns, they were surgical instruments designed to carve through infantry like a hot knife through butter.
“Holy shit,” Pauly looked at Biloxi and then over at Arles. “I jacked into the feed the Commander was talking about.” His eyes were as wide as dinner plates. The rest of the room stopped and listened. “There’s so many.”
“Put it up,” Arles said.
Pauly touched his wristcall and projected the holograph. “An Earther frigate can carry sixteen hundred marines.”
The light frigate moved across the black backdrop of space and Bri immediately thought of the feed she had watched with the Commander, the Dreadnaught coming out of light speed and launching its fighters. A frigate was smaller but essentially the same, it didn’t carry Stryker’s, it launched crates, heavily-reinforced pods that held twelve armored Earther marines each.
A frigate was classified a littoral ship, able to fight in deep space via the massive plasma cannons perched along it’s sides, and the compliment of marines it could rain down on a planet in hours. It dropped them like bombs. They had been studying Earther tactics during class time; they had watched feeds of the crates being launched. She imagined Kilter Field, the sky raining crates. The vapor trails, the explosions of whatever they pounded into when they landed - the orderly chaos of delivering fighting force to the surface of the planet.
“It’s why we’re here,” Bri whispered. “This is what we do.” She looked around at the rest of the unit suddenly realizing that there was a good chance not all of them would survive. The thought left her cold.
Everyone stared back at her, each face at a different stage of acceptance and understanding.
“This is what Andrews trained us for.” Kat stood up and threw a few punches into the air, shadowboxing, bouncing around on her toes despite the heavy excursion gear. “We’re the best.” She raised both arms like there was a coliseum of applause around her. “The Earthers want a fight?” She gave Biloxi a quick jab to the shoulder. “We’re going to give them one.”
“Hells yeah!” Biloxi grinned.
The Helios was the only combat ship assigned to Chenfel. She was a light cruiser with a crew of a hundred and room for five. Built of by one of the belter companies far out past Marcus Prime, she was black, long and thin. Her conn sat nestled between a prow that was the ship’s shield diffuser and a long, sharp sensor array for a bow.
She looked like a jagged spike of black stone as the sun glinted off her starboard side. As soon as the shuttle cleared atmo and the Helios came into view, everyone on board crowded around the viewport. Most just wanted to see what they were in for, but Bri stared at the silhouette, the curves of the ship.
Bri had fallen in love with varied designs of Assemblage ships. Ever since Anderson had made them learn the type and class of each ship, she had been dying to get on one. She ran her eyes across the hull and recalled everything she knew.
Engines were internal. She was outfitted with torpedoes and two, stream plasma cannons. Her main strength was speed. She could put up a fight if she needed to, but there wasn’t much to her. Against something like Dreadnaught or a Destroyer, a cruiser was no match, but she was what they had.
“I can’t wait to get inside of her,” Pauly looked like he had just been given the biggest surprise gift ever. “The twins!” he shrieked with glee, “the entire system is based on their design.”
No one had the faintest idea who the twins were or what the hell he was talking about, but it happened so often (Pauly knew the name of the programmer who had created the targeting tech for the first plasma autocannons. Simmons.) Everyone just sort of smiled and nodded.
Once they were on board and underway, Andrews walked to the front of the mess hall and everyone instantly went quiet. “There are no feeds coming from the surface. We have no idea what we are going to run into when we get there.” He looked over the group of a hundred or so; each in the full excursion gear and the gravity of the situation began to sink in.
“That frigate is going to see us in less than ten minutes and when she does, she’s going to tear the Helios apart.” He glanced down at his shoes, took a deep breath, and continued. “You’re taking lifeboats to the surface.”
Bri heard the distinct you’re taking… and felt her stomach roll. Andrews wasn’t coming with them. She wanted to say something, argue with him, but she could see it in his eyes. He had decided. He was going to buy them time to escape, make sure that the Helios was a big enough distraction to get a hundred cadets onto the surface.
“The closest ship is still six hours away.” He cleared his throat. “18,” he looked to his left at a woman named Jhia, fierce with jet black hair and an angry scar across her forehead. “You’ll secure an extraction point.”
Jhia nodded.
Andrews pointed to a large, dark-skinned man with the word beast scrawled across his chest armor in a sickly green. He was team lead on 23. As of the day before, his unit had been the most senior unit on Chenfel.
Set for deployment in a week or so, 23 had put 37 through its paces since exo scrums. 23 was a heavy squad, almost every member carried a BB or a sweeper in addition to their role weapons. They weren’t as surgical was 37, Beast and his crew had a talent for ambushes. They would wait until they had two or three targets before springing their trap, leaping out of what seemed like thin air, and pulverizing the enemy before dashing off to another hidey hole somewhere. They had brought 37 to one or two before the end of a contest more than once.
“We’re putting you down on the north side of the town.” A holographic display appeared beside the Major and he pointed to a shaded area. “You’ll start here and work back toward the facility. Clear the Earthers and get the people out.”
Beast nodded and looked around at the rest of 23. They all looked angry, strong, and ready to unleash hell.
The atmosphere on the ship was tense. Reality was upon them. 23 broke off along with 18 and started for the lifeboats. Bri watched the units grab their gear and move off. She wondered how many of them she would see again.
She took a breath. The air felt heavy. It was difficult to breathe. She met Kat’s eyes and noticed the same look, was it fear? She stared at the holograph and tried to imagine what Kilter Field would look like. She tried to imagine was 25,000 people looked like. Did they really have a chance down there? 4 units didn’t feel like enough.
Andrews waited until it was just 37 and 62. There were less than 50 soldiers, two very different units and neither graduated. He looked at Arles and then at 62’s lead a round-faced, young man by the name of Scoops. “The bulk of the marine’s assault forces are landing in the dry lake bed outside of the facility. The main gates are located at the north end of the lakebed. That is your ingress.” He looked over the small group in front of him. “You’ll take the heaviest losses.” His voice softened. “Look out for each other. Save as many of those people as you can.” The weight of reality settled onto the room like a shadow.
“Load up.” Andrews’ voice cracked as he barked the order and walked away.
“Sir!” Both units responded simultaneously.
“You ready?” Kat’s dangerous side showed through the fear and she gave Bri a wicked, little grin.
“As I’ll ever be,” Bri grabbed her helmet and dropped her gloves inside.
Their lifeboats were on the port side of the Helios. Each vessel was made for four people, but with all of their gear, each boat only held three soldiers.
“Pauly, you got anything for us before we get gone?” Arles shouted over the heads of everyone around her.
“Marine crates are in transit,” Pauly looked horrified, “there’s so fucking many of them,” he whispered.