Title: On the Bounce
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: All Harry Potter Books/Movies excepting the epilogue.
Rating: MA
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Starship Troopers.
Summary: After the end of the Second Wizarding War, Harry decides that he is done with the Wizarding World, and Hermione goes with him. Welcome to the Mobile Infantry. Crossover with Starship Troopers Book. AU
A/N is at the end of the chapter.
The attack, when it came, came almost completely without warning. Privates Thomson and Zhou from the Maji were on perimeter patrol when the attack came and they both died without noticing anything, their Powered Armour penetrated like it was tissue paper. This was noticed a few seconds later in the command centre of the base, but that was not the first indication inside the base.
A full ten seconds before Thomson and Zhou died, Luna burst into the busy Armoury, eyes immediately going to Harry and Hermione.
"Attack! Now!" Luna yelled.
In the three weeks since Operation Nagle began, Captain Wildman had set up a rotation where at least one Section was in Powered Armour at any one time, with one squad patrolling the perimeter in pairs and the other three squads and the Section Sergeant on standby. The Armoury was so busy when Luna entered as Alyssa McGonagall and First Section of the Wildlings were getting into their Powered Armour, though most of them were finished. Hermione and Corporal Hans, the MI Armour Maintenance Tech from the Maji, were assisting the final two Troopers of First Section into their Armour, with Harry acting as a gopher.
"Alert! Alert! Report of Attack, perimeter patrols call in." Alyssa ordered over the radio.
First Section followed Alyssa out of the Armoury, as Harry, Hans, Hermione and Luna made for the lockers where the weapons sized for a human out of Powered Armour were stored.
Harry, Hermione, Hans and Luna emerged from the Armoury into a scene of absolute chaos. Alyssa and First Section of the Wildlings were pouring fire into the onrushing enemy even as they were moving into the defensive emplacements the Engineers had erected around the settlement. Unarmoured MI, from both the Maji and Wildlings, and three times their number in Combat Engineers under Captain Wildman were moving up behind Alyssa's squads.
"Captain, this is Corporal Potter." Harry said into the radio headset he had acquired. "I have Corporal Granger, Lance Corporal Hans of the Maji and Lieutenant Lovegood by the Armoury. Civilians are heading towards the main hall. Orders?"
A half dozen more Combat Engineers piled out of the barracks, with Neville amongst them. Neville spotted Harry, Hermione and Luna, so ran towards them, and after a second's hesitation the rest of the Engineers followed.
"Send someone to call for an evac boat and then protect the Civilians." Wildman ordered.
"Copy Captain." Harry replied. "Hans, go to the control room and call for retrieval. Everyone else, defensive perimeter around the main hall."
A few of the Engineers looked a bit confused why a Corporal was giving orders while a Lieutenant was there. Ok, sure she was an Intel Lieutenant while he was an MI Corporal, and MI generally took command on the ground, but they wondered why the Lieutenant let him, as a lot of Intel Officers still thought themselves above any NCO and some of them think themselves above MI Officers as well. For Harry, Hermione, Luna and Neville it was an old routine from the War with Voldemort. One of them, usually Harry, would just take command and the others would just follow, occasionally command shifting from one to another as the circumstances evolved.
Hans ran off for the control room while the rest moved towards the main hall, most of the Engineers only remembering to check their weapons when they saw Neville check his. Harry, Hermione and Luna had checked theirs earlier.
'Merlin, these things are ugly.' Alyssa McGonagall thought to herself for the umpteenth time as she flamed a bunch of the enemy, dropped a grenade to the ground and then bounced away. Vaguely resembling a fever nightmare of a spider on steroids, these damn things were relentless, and careless with their own lives.
While the Captain, with what remained of Second Section of the Wildlings, First Section of the Maji and most of the 32nd Combat Engineers held the defences of the settlement, Alyssa and the remaining troopers of First Section of the Wildlings and Second Section of the Maji, who were in their Powered Armour, were harassing the enemy and making runs through the mass to break them up.
None of the Captain's MI were in their Powered Armour, so even with almost an entire company of Combat Engineers, they were taking a lot of casualties and had been pushed back twice and were now in amongst the outer buildings of the settlement itself, with the depleted Combat Engineers erecting hasty barricades as opportunity presented itself.
Even with her MI in Power Armour, Alyssa's forces had taken heavy casualties. These damn bug things, the ones that fired anyway, were equipped with a simple but powerful laser that was capable of slicing right through Powered Armour. An Agis shield spell had limited usefulness against these Lasers, and even other kinds of Shielding Spells which were more designed against energy were not proving efficient. Out of what was effectively an entire MI Platoon in Powered Armour, Alyssa's force was now down to approximately one and a half squads, about a quarter strength. The rate of casualties had dropped off from the first few hectic and bloody minutes as the MI Troopers had recovered from their surprise and begun to learn how to fight the enemy, but the damage had been done and there were still casualties occurring. Unfortunately for the Maji who had been on patrol when the attack had occurred, two of the early casualties had been Lieutenant Meeker and the Section Sergeant, which had left Alyssa in charge of the Powered Armoured troopers.
The only thing that had saved the defenders had been that the Bugs had seemed to come in waves. Sure, a couple of the waves had been one to two hundred strong, but in Alyssa's estimation there had been over three thousand Bugs thrown at them since the battle had started and if they had all come at the same time the defenders would have been overwhelmed.
Alyssa and the other trooper with her, a Maji, began another run to disrupt the latest bug horde when the welcome music of three recall beacons began to sound over her radio, two a familiar and welcome tune and the third unfamiliar. That meant three minutes to retrieval. Diving into the enemy horde with heavy flamers and grenades, the four MI did as much damage as they could before bouncing out again and began a long circling course in towards the centre of the settlement.
The recall beacon is a simple metal spike fired ahead of a retrieval boat, which drills partially into the ground and then starts submitting two signals. One is a tracking signal for the retrieval boat that had fired the spike and the other is the music that signals a homeward ride to the MI Ground forces.
Harry's group was escorting the civilians into the large retrieval boat from the Helios, the large troop transport that had brough the 32nd Combat Engineers.
"Sergeant McGonagall, fall back to the boats." Captain Wildman ordered over the radio.
Harry watched the barricades as many of the Combat Engineers began to fall back to the shuttles, but Captain Wildman and most of the unarmoured MI at the barricades stood firm.
Alyssa and the remnants of her armoured force arrived, having flanked around the direct attack of the bugs to reach the retrieval boats. Alyssa landed next to where Harry and Hermione were supervising the evacuation. Over by the barricades another wave of Bugs were attacking and were starting to overwhelm the remaining defenders.
"Wildlings, Maji, to the barricade." Alyssa ordered.
"Belay that." Captain Wildman snapped. "Sergeant, get your troops on those damn retrieval boats and the hell out of here. Protect the civilians. We'll hold them here."
Alyssa hesitated for a moment and then turned towards the retrieval boats. There were one or two protests from the Combat Engineers, but not a word from the few MI by the boats. Harry, Hermione, Luna and Neville had a look in their eyes, sadness and resignation, before they too turned towards the boats. They had seen sacrifices like this before.
A minute later the three retrieval boats lifted off the surface, leaving Captain Wildman and ten MI still fighting at the barricade behind. Aboard the three retrieval boats there were only twenty-seven MI from the Wildlings and Maji. All that remained out of two the Platoons MI who landed on the planet three weeks prior.
TBC…
A/N: There have been comments on how Special Forces the MI seem and why no Magic Healing is done in this fic. The MI are very highly trained and not overly numerous. In the book it even says that if 1,000 Bug Warriors are killed to the loss of a single MI it is a net win for the Bugs. As for magical healing, yes it would be highly useful, but just like in our world when training a Surgeon, it takes a lot of specialised training, around a decade at least, to learn how to magically heal. You don't see it as a course at Hogwarts, and most, but not all, Federation recruits are 18 to 21 years old. Any M-Class trained in magical healing would be considered a specialist and would not go into the MI, why risk such a valuable ability on the front line, so as a rule the MI don't have magical healing. Also, even in the Federation, Magicals are a secret so having Marcus (the M-Class trainee who injured his shoulder) magically healed amongst so many non-magicals would violate that secret, not that there was a Magical Healer at the Camp.