I
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
-"Company Commander, we just received confirmation that 3rd Platoon has moved into position, along with the rest of the company."
-"You know what to do," he exhaled with cigar smoke. "Commence the operation. Send the order to engage at will."
-"Aye, Sir."
Labored breathing.
Racing heartbeat.
Shuffled footsteps.
Crackling speaker.
"Get your asses down! Are you trying to buy it!"
Heavy thump followed by the sensation of crunching gravel.
Labored breathing.
Crackling speaker.
-"OK, you apes, this is what we've trained for! We just got the green-light from command," came in the lieutenant. "Just like we scripted: Section A, flank south-west over the burm straight ahead; Section B, flank diagonally ahead of burm along its base; Sections C and D, full rush point! Make 'em scatter right and push 'em into the canyon."
We were getting anxious and excited. You always hear those war vets talking about how you're a trained killing machine. But I'd never seen a machine so happy to do its job as when I saw the refracted expressions of my comrades through their visors. We could smell blood, and it was appetizing.
"1st and 2nd platoons will be doing the same from two other directions. So marauders watch your crossfire; I want you guys on our asses in case these guys get smart and flank us. B'sides, there's no need in wasting ammo if we got an air raid coming in." his even tone was reassuring. "Remember fellas, this ain't no war-game. I want this done on the bounce! I wanna get back to retrieval in time for mess. Keep cool; I'll see you at extraction."
-"Wait, Lieutenant!"
-"What is it, Jame?"
-"Sir, what are our targets? We haven't been give specific targets. Who is it we're fighting?" I'd asked a stupid question.
-"Finally, an intelligent question. I'm surprised no one has had the balls to ask it yet." Well maybe not so stupid. "…But a simple one to answer. You've all been kept in the dark about our enemy for security reasons. But if you can't tell the difference between a six-legged insectoid and a Mobile Infantry Unit on the battlefield," he was cocking his rifle now, "You'd better go straight back to Zim, hit him over the head with your rifle, and ask him why he did such a shotty job in training your happy ass."
a six-legged insectoid? what the hell are we fighting? these things aren't even human? not even terrestrial? why weren't we told?
-"What are you ladies gawking at? Move!"
Through my visor I could see the jet black armor of three MI's in front of me, both from D. They fired up their jump jets and shot off at a quick pace along with the rest of their section. I headed for the base of the burm.
We moved. My section, B, came up on the huge rock burm with its wall on the right. Section A was above us on it. Section Leader Gomez squeezed off the first shot. A few seconds later, everyone else was following suit. Pulse volleys breaking their lines back, six or seven of the animals at a time. We pushed these, for lack of a better term, animals, back over the ridge of the burm into the basin directly behind it. With the marauders, it was a cinch. Cliffton and Hampt shelled them at long range for us with the marauders, and we mopped up the stragglers sandwiched in between. There were easily four hundred of them all over the place, but they followed each other and were relatively easy to bring down.
We pushed up to the canyon and held position for about three minutes , making sure we had our objective contained. Within those three minutes, 1st and 2nd platoon pushed in another four to six hundred animals into the basin with the rest. I cracked a few of them pretty good. The shock of the rifle shots on their legs was pretty spectacular. With the air (And I use this term loosely because it's nor "our air) pushing through their exoskeletons, it was a headshot to the knees, blowing out the joints, and rendering them virtually immobile. They were still pretty dangerous: if you got close enough, they could still thrash around pretty good. A few guys were hit low, and lost pressure in their suits. They practically exploded in their armor.
The battle itself was pretty textbook.We strafed with our jump jets in skirmish lines around the perimeter of the canyon, and 'naded anything that came within 30m of us. Several engineers rigged up the light mortars and had a field day. At one point, I tongued my visor into heat display and watched the light-show.
Even with this apparent advantage, this was nothing like exercises. The intensity of the world around me was unreal. Every light-bomb seemed to rattle me senseless. Even in the armored suit, the vibration from the pulse rifles and artillery action cascaded through me. I had my visor on at three-filter, but it still wasn't enough to black out the intense light from the TAN rounds. It seemed like a massacre. MI training for this? It felt almost… wrong. At the start of the assault, everyone was murmuring on the channels trying to get a peek at the new enemy. By the end of those first few minutes, everyone had tagged a few of them pretty good, and had gotten a good look at their insides.
1st Platoon Leader, Histed, radioed in:
-"3rd platoon, we have confirmation on your position. 2nd platoon is also green."
-"Copy that," hissed L.T. between breaths.
Histed came back in over the radio a few seconds later,
-"I've called in the air-strike. ETA: 6 minutes."
-"We gotta keep these shits from boiling over for 6 more minutes?" came Bett's voice on the headset. He was a little bored with that, seeing as he used all of his flamethrower fuel. "It was hard enough getting 'em in here! It's like trying to bend water!"
-"Shove it, private," snapped the L.T. "What did you think you signed up for? We have a job to do. Do it."
I could just see Bett mouthing obscenities through his helmet.