We'd been driving for hours now. The treacherous terrain's endless competition with the Armadillo's wheels and suspension did nothing for my nerves, and when there was a resounding bang as something hit the external plating, it jolted us all up quickly, the rook in particular.
"What the hell was that? One of their RPGs?" Matthews asked, audibly exasperated and frightened, judging by the speed at which he spoke and the high pitch of his voice.
"Ya mean one of their "boom-shot" things or whatever they call 'em?" Darcy chimed in. Darcy was our techie, pretty damn attentive kid if you ask me. Only guy I know to call their grenade launcher thingie what they call it, even if it does sound like it was named by a five year old. Still, the guy knew his guns, both ours and theirs. He was also the only person in my squad who had the sense to take off his helmet.
"Nah. Small arms." Kleiner corrected Matthews, completely ignoring Darcy. Kleiner was the one kid I wasn't particularly fond of in this squad. Sure, he was collected, level-headed and followed orders well, but that was exactly what I didn't like about him. He was only fresh out of training and he acted like he knew everything about warfare. His sole redeeming quality was his skill with a Longshot.
"Why are they shooting at us anyway?" Matthews asked, his usual whiny tone a welcome relief from the sound of that gruff military hard-ass voice people tried too hard to put on these days. I had to admit, I've never been so glad to hear a man gripe than I have when listening to Matthews. Lets you know you're still among humans when somebody cannot stop bitching and moaning about something.
"Because they're the enemy, genius," Kleiner told him in a tone that just dripped with "I'm better than you." Scuttlebutt back at base indicated that Kleiner himself was of rich, wealthy background before E-Day and his conscription, raised as a real momma's boy who didn't quite know how to deal with the outside world. You could tell, I thought. He was either a jackass or a would-be smooth criminal who recited exactly what his DI had told him during training.
"No, I mean, why are we getting shot at on the way there? I thought this was our territory!" Matthews continued, punctuating his speech with a rather emotive hand gesture that I didn't quite recognise.
"Because our territory in this area is about to become compromised, Private," I spoke up, drawing their attention. Up until that point I'd sat there in silence, deep in thought about various things; mainly whatever the hell they were talking about, though. Outside, I could hear somebody - definitely a human, his voice was too high-pitched to be Locust - yelling something I couldn't quite discern before I heard the distinctive thudding of a Troika turret pumping out high-calibre rounds, presumably blowing the source of the yell to little pieces before it decided to swivel round to rattle our cage for a little bit. It stopped after a moment; after we'd turned a corner sharply and presumably left its LOS, I noted as I shot forwards in my seat.
Darcy seemed to be choking for a moment after that and Matthews broke out into a momentary coughing fit, such was the way they'd been flung into their seatbelts. After a moment, Matthews continued; "Couldn't we have taken a King Raven or something? I think it'd be a little less jumpy, sir!"
"Ya think, Matthews? I doubt it. I hear you emptied out your breakfast onto your CO on your first ride on one of them things. Really think it's less jumpy?" Darcy said, grinning slightly as he reached over to give Matthews a friendly dig on the arm. Matthews seemed to be disheartened, offended or embaressed, not that I could tell through that helmet - but regardless, he was silent for a moment, so I answered his question.
"A Raven couldn't take off in this sort of hotzone, let alone deploy a squad. Seeders are shitting out Nemacyst like no tomorrow. Skies are full of them, rook. Were you even listening during the briefing?" I asked him, my tone becoming caustic towards the end of my question. The Private shrugged haplessly and I couldn't help but smile faintly at the kid's naivity.
Another projectile hit us abruptly, which struck with a distinctive thud and then a bang on its own as it detonated, which could have easily ripped the APC open had luck not been with us. "Sweet mother of God!" Damask, our driver, shouted, eliciting a brief, somewhat nervous laugh from Matthews until she turned around in her seat to glare at the man, silencing him quickly enough.
"…Now that was one of their RPGs," Kleiner continued, almost lecturing Matthews. I could almost imagine the little shit's smug smarmy grin beneath the two-eyed helmet of his. Matthews swallowed and nodded awkwardly. I couldn't quite tell what had scared him more; the Boomshot shell or Damask. Hellcat, she was. Mighty fine hellcat at that.
She was the only officer among us, at the rank of Second Lieutenant. At thirty-two (you'd never guess by looking at her, though) that was quite impressive. That thought, in turn, led me to remembering that I was the second oldest of the group (the oldest person who would be deployed on foot) at twenty-nine. Darcy and Kleiner were both in their early twenties and hell, Matthews was only nineteen. All of them had negligible levels of prior experience, whereas I had experience from the closing years of the Pendulum Wars and the past year or so fighting these monstrosities. That was slightly unnerving, and although the effective training regime was part of the reason I was proud to be a Gear, I knew that no amount of training could replace or surpass field experience. Still, though, they could do their job. Hopefully. I pushed such thoughts from my mind, regardless.
Damask herself was sitting at the back of the vehicle. Due to the placement of the door, which itself was there to facilitate quick deployment and extraction of soldiers, the driver of an Armadillo sat at the far end of the APC near the back, with a control panel, a steering wheel, pedals and a monitor, which provided several feeds from small, external cameras to give them visual of the outside. She consulted the APC's integrated Tac-Com's navigational system, which calculated the speed the vehicle was travelling against distance to our destination to produce a time. "ETA five, Gunny," She said. I nodded and cleared my throat before addressing the guys.
"Alright, listen up, fellas, and listen good because I seriously cannot be assed to say this again. Y'all who listened to the briefing should be fine, but in case none of you dipshits did, here's the score."
"This city, Dariah, has recently came under assault by Locust. They've moved quickly, quicker than we could handle and they've already entrenched themselves. Gear check while I'm speakin'! Go!" I trailed off at that and started looking over my gear, as did the rest of the squad in synchrony. I started easy, checking my Bolos first. As far as they weighed, they seemed to have the right amount of explosive in the casing, and the swinging chains all extended to their full length.
I then checked my Snub Pistol. Standard-issue sidearm, been in service since about half-way through the Pendulum Wars. Of course, they released a new variant shortly after the Locust popped up, upping the calibre to .50 for extra stopping power and weighing down the grip for recoil compensation and, presumably, pistol whips in CQB. Mine was devoid of modifications, completely normal.
"Around the city are several Seeders, as I mentioned, which are filling the skies with Nemacyst, making proper air support impossible. We've got a lot of boys on the ground trying to clear a path towards the Seeders' positions."
I looked over my Lancer next, checking the load and giving the chainsaw a test-rev. Whoever decided to put a chainsaw on a gun, I gotta try what he was on when he came up with that idea. A lot of Gears, myself included, reported difficulty in balancing the weapon after the new bayonet was mounted, so I'd taken the liberty to add an extended, weighted stock to mine. Made it a bit heavier, but I could handle it, and on the plus side it was easy to aim and fire. The extra weight behind it put more force behind bayonet lunges as well, and the almost negligible recoil was dampened even further now, too. I think I'm a genius sometimes, you know?
"Kilo Squad - that's us - are being inserted via armoured personnel carrier, in case you missed that--" I paused to rap my knuckles against the side of the vehicle I was sitting against, "--to a position closest to one of the Seeders, designated B, as we can get to on wheels before the road becomes to rough and heavy with resistance. Whiskey and November Squads are going after Seeders A and C." I slung my Lancer over my shoulder after finishing speaking, pausing for breath.
"Now satellite recon suggests that there's a path to cut through this district of the city that should lead us right to the Seeder. What we do is we go down Harson Street, which is a long, relatively intact stretch of road that's packed with Grubs."
Lastly, I took my Gnasher shotgun from my back and looked over it lovingly. This was no normal Gnasher - first of all I'd extended and weighted the weapon's stock, even though most variants nowadays had none to speak of. The most notable non-standard modification on the thing was the large, razor sharp blade protruding from the end of the stock, for pinioning and hamstringing opponents. In the hands of somebody who wasn't the man who designed it, you'd cut into your shoulder or your side if you fired it wrong. Even I had to be careful with it. But still, combined with the reinforced barrel that made clubbing and bludgeoning all the more possible and the bayonet lug just in front of the shotgun's slide, I'd turned a terror in close quarters combat into a nightmare. The thing had served me well since the Pendulum Wars, and I was still reluctant to let any techs get their hands on the thing, let alone anyone else.
I call her Sue, after my ex-wife. Fierce and resilient, just like her. 'course, she was a real bitch, so sometimes I like to imagine I'm swinging her head first into a Grub's jaw when I'm makin' PEZ dispensers out of them, which, call me crazy, I find to be absolutely hilarious. No matter what sort of indicator that might have been towards how my sanity was holding up, it did give me a boost in morale. I rolled it over and over in my hands before running a finger across the rear blade.
I then noticed that the rest of the squad were looking at me expectantly, and I'd been silent for the better part of thirty seconds in my thoughtful examination of the weapon. I caught Damask smirking coyly and mouthing something about men and their guns. I shushed her with a gesture and a smirk of my own before I continued.
"We're gonna split into teams of two and take opposite sides of the street. One team's gonna go through the ground-level buildings on the right side, and the other's gonna go through the second floor of a long-ass apartment block on the left. That way we should be able to flank the bastards, with the team on the left getting a nice vantage point to pick them off while me and someone else draw their attention from the right." I said, securing my combat knife in place on the underslung lug of my Gnasher before clipping it to my back.
"Two minutes," Damask said, consulting the Tac-Com once again. I nodded at her and we locked eyes for a moment. Again, there was a silence, so when Kleiner coughed loudly and pointedly (jackass) I pulled my eyes away from the lady and back to the squad.
"Uh, Gunnery Sergeant Dawson? How are we gonna kill the Seeder?" Matthews asked, addressing me by my full rank which irked me to no end. "Yeah," Kleiner continued for him, "you usually need a Hammer of Dawn to take them down, but none of us seem to have one. What are we gonna use, harsh language?" Smug. Little. Fucker.
"Kleiner, can the attitude." I hissed at him. I couldn't see his face but I could tell he wasn't having any of it, but still he'd shut up for a moment. "That's where our friend Jackie-boy comes in." I gestured through the roof of the APC to where I suspected was the JACK storage module, on the back of the vehicle.
"Our unit has been modified with a specialised laser designator in the place of some of his ancillary systems, namely weapons maintenance and field surgery equipment. Shit we won't need if we do our jobs right. The designator is basically a miniaturised Hammer of Dawn, and once the laser's got some co-ordinates, the JACK beams 'em up to the satellite. Anyway, once we've cleared Harson, we could either be scot-free or in shit creek without a paddle, 'cause satellite recon became useless shortly after that point. Proximity to the Seeder is fucking up their readings. Regardless, we are to proceed from that point onwards. Estimation places the Seeder about a quarter-klick northeast from that position. We escort the JACK there, cover it while it lines up a few orbital blasts and poof, no more Seeder, job done."
"We should be able to triangulate the Seeder's position by looking at where the Nemacyst are rising from. Apart from that, we don't know the condition of the buildings or the streets so it's really hit or miss as to how long it takes for us to reach the thing. But we will get there," I said, gesturing with my hands held flat-down out in front of me to emphasise the point, "and we will kick its mortar-shitting ass back to whatever subterranean hell it crawled out of." I brought a closed fist into my palm at that, and there was a few approving nods from the boys. Darcy gave a little "whoop" and pumped his fist while Matthews muttered, "for the Coalition.". So morale was good, I noted.
"Assuming November and Whiskey are as successful as we are, the skies will be clear of Nemacyst, which deprives the Locust of their sole advantage against us in this area. Then the flyboys," I held up my hand, pointing it flat forwards, as though imitating a bird's (specifically a Raven's in this case) beak, as I spoke, "can swoop in," I brought my hand smoothly downwards at an angle as to imitate a bird of prey's dive, "and carpet bomb the fuckers to kingdom come. As a footnote, there is believed to be a small Stranded population living among the ruins, but we probably won't encounter them. Still, if we do, try not to breathe the same air as them."
"Thirty seconds," Damask informed me. I nodded.
"You fellas ready?" I asked them. A rhetorical question if there ever was one - they were all ready and I knew it. They all nodded and gave me a "yes, sir" regardless. "Alright. Remember your training," I said, forcing a reassuring smile upon myself, "and you will make it back alive."
"For the Coalition." I stated, going over the old oath in my mind as I did. It was my - our - duty to humanity to complete this mission.
"For the Coalition," the squad responded in unison, as mantra.
"Ten seconds to insertion point," Damask commentated, "I won't bother counting down for you boys, you can do it yourself." So I did. The time went quickly and the APC slowly came to a halt in this time.
"Here we are. Perimeter… seems to be clear," Damask said, pursing her lips as she reclined in her driver's seat, tapping a few buttons and nodding before sitting forwards once again. "Dismount at will, Kilo Squad. Good luck." All our eyes were on the door, situated at the front of the Armadillo.
Eventually, Darcy reached over and pulled back the lever. The door of the APC receded into the roof, exposing us to the first glimpse of natural light I'd seen in a few hours. Matthews, who was sitting opposite him and next to me, went out first. He seemed uneasy and hurried into a position of cover as he went outside.
Darcy himself went next, him having sat opposite Matthews. He did a quick look around the area before assuming position next to Matthews. Kliener, who'd been sitting opposite me, gave me a knowing, probably mocking sort of nod before he himself clambered out of the vehicle, disappearing to its side next to the building we'd parked up near.
I standing up and halfway out the door when Damask called out to me.
"Eric?" She was probably the only person who still called me by my given name rather than surname, rank, or "asshole". I turned to face her, moving a few paces back up the APC towards her before she spoke again.
"Come back in one piece, would you?" She said with a playful smirk, culminating her rhetorical question with a wink. Almost immediately I could feel blood rushing to my cheeks, but I thought nothing of it as I leaned forwards, taking her hand and giving it a quick squeeze.
"Hah. Don't wait up for me, Vera," I replied in a slow, almost sing-song tone of voice, accompanied with a cocky grin, before we both nodded at each other and I released her hand. With that over and done with, I turned around and climbed out of the APC. Blinding sunlight hit my eyes as my feet hit the ruined pavement, and the vehicle's frontal door closed shortly afterwards.
Fraternization? Why, what fraternization are you talking about?
Still with an absent smile on my face, I quickly surveyed the surrounding area before seeing a two-way junction down the road from us. I assumed that that was Harson Street. "Alright, Kilo. Haul ass." I ordered, and the four of us began to move with the JACK trailing at our flank, leaving Damask and the Armadillo behind us.