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CHAPTER 14




Sergeant Corre rubbed his back against his Cataphract armor. Wearing the suit offered a number of advantages on the battlefield, but while he was nearly immune to most small arms fire and had decent heating and cooling (to protect the electronics, not the soldier), there wasn’t a Cataphract suit anywhere in the Hegemony that let a man scratch between his shoulders.

Corre raised his Gatling cannon and pushed the optics out to peek around the corner of a bullet-ridden wall. The gap across the highway was silent, but the occasional firefight still raged on the slum side of the city. Corre inched back and sent a status update to Malo, the platoon sergeant.

“Air’s clear,” Boyle said next to him. The other Cataphract had his helm partially open, a nicotine stick between his lips. “How’d they get an APC that close to us?”

“Holo screens,” Corre said. “Now we know they’ve got ’em, we know better than to let any vehicle get that close. You’d think the units on the other side of the highway would’ve sent a warning soon as they knew.”

“Nothing’s to standard out here,” Boyle said, “and our squishies are suffering for it. Besco’s a good kid.”

“They’re all good kids,” Corre said. “We’re less without him. Donan. Martin and Thomas from third squad too.”

“Your first day go like this on your last tour, Sarge?” Boyle asked. “Because old timers like you never mentioned a goat screw like this during the Colima tour.”

“Colima was different, but—‘old timers’? Don’t make me straighten you out before your combat cherry gets properly popped, punk,” Corre said. “Flankies always have higher casualty rates. We’ve got the armor to take the punch and the firepower to return the hate. And I’ve got a feeling we’ll get a chance to earn our pay soon.”

“Is the LT going to volunteer us for something brave and bold?” Boyle asked. “Not that I mind getting some licks in . . . but they’ve got drones. Lots of drones.”

“It’s almost like they’ve been fighting Cataphracts for years and learned getting in a stand-up fight with us is a losing proposition. They’re not stupid,” Corre said.

“Corre, VIPs coming in. Head on a swivel,” Lieutenant Govrien said over the radio. “Think we’ve got a mission.”

“Damn it, Sarge.” Boyle raised an arm and slid his nicotine stick into a fabric slot glued to the forearm. “Do you have to be so damn eager? Gold bars like Govrien can smell it. Gives them confidence that they know what they’re doing.”

“We can sit here as big shiny targets for the drones, or we can kick them in the dick until they realize not to mess with us. Which do you want?” Corre asked.

“‘Kick’?” Boyle snapped the mortar tube built into the back of his armor out and locked it into its firing position. “High explosives can send a better message.”

“All platoon Cataphracts prep for assault.” Govrien sent a graphic to Corre. The company was to attack across the highway and seize a two-story building several hundred meters into the slums.

“Ah . . . shit, that us on the front line?” Boyle asked.

“Yup.” Corre sent the orders to the rest of the squad. “Tallec, move to the upper floors and provide overwatch as we move. If it ain’t a Cataphract, assume it’s hostile. Herve. Leroi. Buddy team on the other side of this building. Boyle and I will bound forward first.”

“Roger.” Herve raised a thumb where he stood against the same wall and revved his Gatling cannon several times.

“Okay . . . bounding overwatch. My fire sector’s zero to ninety degrees, friendlies behind us,” Boyle mumbled. A new message beeped on their visors. “Fire mission! Fire mission. One dazzler round . . . what do I do? I’m supposed to—”

Corre whacked heavy knuckles against Boyle’s breastplate.

“You authorize the mission and clamp down. It’s friggin’ dummy proof,” Corre said.

Hydraulic spikes bit into the concrete from one of Boyle’s boots. He stepped out with the other to slightly more than shoulder-width apart and the other boot locked in place. There was a whir of hydraulics as the autoloader on his back put a round into the base of his mortar tube.

“Clear!”

The mortar round blasted into the air and arced over the highway. The rumble of heavy footfalls from approaching Cataphracts sounded in the distance.

“Bull rush?” Boyle asked.

“You’re damn right.” Corre spun up his Gatling cannon. The dazzler shell—along with a half dozen others—burst over the slums. Blinding light saturated the muddy streets and shanties with enough intensity to ignite hanging laundry and trash piles.

“Move!” Corre sidestepped out from cover and charged down the street. The Cataphract’s footfalls cracked pavement as he crossed onto the highway. The suit obeyed the haptic feedback sensors built into the inner lining, moving as fast as he could.

Small arms fire broke out from a building across the highway and was quickly overwhelmed with returned hate from the Flankers covering the assault. Corre focused on crossing the open terrain where he was most vulnerable. A pip on his visor’s map showed Boyle was a few strides behind him.

Corre hopped over a low concrete wall on the highway shoulder. He spotted the objective, a three-story building with bullet pockmarks across the façade, and kept moving. His suit’s sensors scanned for any movement or radio transmissions. While the smoke from small fires was clouding his vision and washing out his IR optics, the enemy would be having an even worse time trying to recover from the initial attack.

A scrap metal door swung open a block ahead of him. Three men with red cloths wrapped around their heads and faces stumbled out. All had crossed ammunition bandoliers over their torsos, and one carried a Flanker carbine. The others had beaten-up rifles that looked like they were for hunting, not war.

Corre skidded to a halt and swept his Gatling cannon up. Recoil from a quick burst rocked him back. The barrels’ flash stung Corre’s eyes through the visor, which belatedly darkened slightly to compensate.

The three insurgents fell to the ground in pieces, the building behind them torn apart as the round over-penetrated their bodies with ease.

“Daggers out! Daggers out!” Govrien ordered over the radio. Corre focused on an activation icon on his visor and a camera built into the helmet read his eye movement and the icon pulsed green.

“Loose!” Corre grunted, fully activating the drone.

A drone fell off his back and shot into the air. It streaked forward, seeking out targets on its own.

Corre continued toward the objective building. Recon from the Daggers lit up on his visor. Red icons of dismounted infantry in and around the shanties and clustered against the walls of the target building almost gave him pause.

Almost.

“Boyle, drop frag rounds on the troop concentrations.” Corre marked two for the other Cataphract. He didn’t wait for confirmation before spinning up his Gatling cannon and firing through a cluster of shanty huts. They collapsed under the gale of fire and the target icons flickered with superimposed skulls over them.

The crump of mortar strikes broke over the near-constant gunfire of the attacking Cataphracts and the insurgents.

“Shrike deployment. Shrike deployment,” a calm female voice said from his onboard system. His shoulder trembled as the counter-drones spat from the launcher. A rocket exploded mere yards overhead. His armor rang as fragmentation careened off the plating. He brought one arm up, shielding himself with the thick shoulder plate as more rockets impacted around him.

One shell landed in a hut next to him. The blast wave knocked him off his feet and sent him face first into a muddy puddle. Corre’s vision darkened as the visor was covered in what wasn’t all mud. He got to his knees as the visor vibrated so rapidly it made his teeth hurt. Gunk was shaken loose and he could see again.

“Armor! Incoming armor!” Govrien called out.

“They think toy cars are going to stop us?” Boyle asked. “Coming down the main route flanking the target building.”

“Got it.” Corre activated the rocket mount on his back and the housing extended away from his back. The servos squealed as it lifted back and over his shoulder . . . then froze. An error code flashed on his visor.

“My launcher jammed. Leroi, shift over to cover the road—”

A shell shrieked past him and took out a cluster of shanties where four of the platoon’s Cataphracts had congregated. Their icons went dark instantly as smoke and flame billowed into the night sky, washing out the sliver of the moon uncovered by the eclipse.

“It’s not an APC! That’s a goddamn Wolverine tank,” Boyle shouted. “Is it one of ours?”

“If it’s shootin’ at us, it ain’t friendly,” Corre said.

“—effective fire on that target now!” Captain Dalois cut in on the company net. “Target the optics before it can—”

Dalois’ transmission echoed the explosion from the tank’s next main gun round. Another volcano of smoke and flame erupted further ahead of Corre.

Corre cycled the rocket launcher mounted on his back again and got the same error. He tried to reach back for it, but the bulk of his armor wouldn’t allow him to touch it.

“Hell of a time not to have Flankies. I’m dismounting,” Corre said.

“You’re what?” Boyle was across the main road, on one knee. He raised a hand and waved frantically at Corre.

The squad leader slapped the emergency release on his armor, and the breastplate, thigh plates and helmet flew open. Straps around his shoulders, waist and knees retracted into their housings and Corre jumped out of the suit.

The air was thick with acrid smoke and stank of open sewers. He darted around to the back of the suit, his feet squishing through the bottom of the puddle and sinking slightly into the filth.

He pulled the emergency release on the rocket launcher and the weapon tipped out and into his arms. It was heavy enough to make him sink even further into the muck. He found the manual controls and glanced over the glow-in-the-dark instructions printed on the barrel.

“Down. Down!” Boyle’s voice came from the speakers in the suit and Corre’s earbud.

Corre fell backwards, pushing the rocket away from him to keep it from getting wet. He plopped into the filthy puddle and got a taste of it as it splashed over his mouth.

Gatling rounds snapped overhead. The hurried staccato of their passing and pressure from the faster-than-sound bullets pushed him deeper into the mud.

“Clear!” Boyle shouted.

Corre rolled hard to his left, the mud sucking against his body as he struggled to his feet. The smell oozed all over him and seeped through his bodysuit.

“Where is it?” Corre brought the relatively clean weapon onto his shoulder.

Another blast from the main gun round answered him. Corre hinged an optics package on top of the launcher down in front of his face and the onboard targeting suite flickered to life.

Corre sidestepped onto the road. A wire outline of the Wolverine tank, a massive beast taller than he was in his suit and with turret armor that angled toward the main gun, appeared on the target. He flicked a finger to select a high-angle attack and waited for the outline to go green with a solid lock.

The turret slewed toward him. An amber border flashed on the targeter.

“Friend or Foe error. Confirm target,” chirped from the weapon.

Corre switched to manual and pulled the trigger. The rocket screamed out of the launcher, leaving his ears deadened like they’d just been stuffed with cotton. Corre dropped the launcher and leaped back towards his armor and landed in the same puddle.

There was a crump of impact and then silence.

“Hit!” Boyle shouted. “Got ammo cooking off inside that mother—”

The Wolverine burst apart. A flaming wheel rolled between Boyle and Corre along with hot scraps of metal that dug into the dirt street. Another blast and more remnants of the tank sizzled through the air.

One struck Corre’s suit, knocking it into a wobble. Corre tried to hold it up, but it tipped back and fell into the deepest part of the puddle. Brackish water splashed up, raining down on Corre and into the inside of his suit.

“Mounting up!” Corre stuck one leg into the suit and felt something cold and slick against his shin. He grimaced and slid back into the Cataphract. He punched a button on the inside of the breastplate and it closed around him, fully functional.

He hopped back onto his feet and a vile smell filled the inside of his helmet. It percolated through the entire suit and Corre choked down bile.

“Dalois down,” Govrien called out through the company net. “Second squad. First squad, secure the objective and search for any survivors. I’ll maintain security with third and fourth squad.”

“Captain’s down?” Boyle asked. “How bad?”

“Bad enough he can’t give orders,” Corre coughed. “Move, LT’s still giving us orders.”

Corre bounded forward toward the two-story building that hadn’t suffered any fresh damage.

“You okay?” Boyle ran along the other side of the street, a few steps behind him.

“Yes. No. I’m not hurt but my ears are ringing like a son of a bitch,” Corre said. The burning remnants of the Wolverine were close to the objective building. Dead insurgents and downed Cataphracts were close by.

Only Herve appeared on Corre’s visor as they approached the building.

“Where’s Leroi?” Corre asked.

“He’s . . . down, Sarge. Got clipped by a rocket when you dismounted,” Herve said, his voice distant. “Nothing I could do.”

Corre’s jaw clenched hard.

“Keep moving. We’ll pick him up on the way out,” Corre said. The three turned a corner and found the doors to the target building torn from the hinges and lying in the dirt.

A Cataphract from third squad—Clement—backed out of the building, his weapon held low across his legs.

“Saint’s Mercy . . .” Clement said.

“What? It clear or not?” Corre swung his barrel into the building. His optics adjusted so he could see the interior clearly. There was no ceiling for the second story, only exposed rafters running from wall to wall.

Dead insurgents were strewn across the ground. Corpses hung from the rafters, their arms overhead and tied at the wrists. The hanging dead wore the remnants of Hegemony uniforms. Their stomachs were disemboweled, intestines dangled amongst their legs and pooled like loose ropes beneath their boots that swayed gently in the breeze.

“Blue six . . . no viable prisoners,” Corre’s mouth went bone dry. “I repeat, no viable prisoners.”

“Heard. Company, fall back in sequence,” Govrien ordered. “Get to the other side of the highway ASAP. If we can’t recover suits, collect tags and drop cinder grenades.”

“Herve,” Corre said, backing out of the slaughterhouse, “can we get Leroi out of here?”

The cinder grenades were small, barely the size of a larger toy marble, but the thermite inside would reduce a fallen Cataphract to slag in seconds.

“His arm’s one place. Rest of him another,” Herve said. “Don’t think we can dump him in a body bag without dismounting.”

“Then get us back to him and we’ll do the best we can,” Corre said.

“Christ almighty.” Boyle looked into the building. “That’s what they do to prisoners?”

“We’ll knock it down with mortars soon as we’re clear,” Corre said. “They won’t keep it.”

“Fall back,” Govrien said. “Everyone fall back.”

“Moving.” Corre crossed himself.





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