Chapter Three
0600 Hours, June 25, 2555 (Military Calendar)
Ruins of civilian settlement Camp Murphy
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
Operation RED BARON kicked off at exactly 0600 hours with Cobb and his Marines jumping down from the troop bay of the Pelican they had taken from Tranquillity, landing in what had been the first attempt at establishing a foothold on the planet.
Cobb was first off the Pelican with his DMR drawn and held at the ready, sweeping for targets. All he saw were the ruins of Camp Murphy, a mixture of prefabricated structures and tents designed to be erected quickly, after suffering though a month of rains. Most of the canvas was lying in tatters and whatever windows Cobb could see were smashed, with puddles lining the lanes between everything.
He frowned inside his helmet as the Marines filed past him and went about their tasks, namely the collection of the dead for burial. Whoever had overrun this place should have left some kind of occupying force behind, if not to be waiting in ambush then to be learning what they could from the equipment and supplies left behind.
'Stay alert,' Cobb said over the SQUADCOM. 'First Squad, you're pulling security.'
A green light flashed on Cobb's HUD as he moved towards the tallest structure in the camp, a communication's array, climbing it to give himself a bird's eye view of the surrounding terrain. To the south was a continuation of the rolling plans Camp Murphy sat in, disappearing somewhere beyond the horizon. To the west, the plains eventually gave way to a series of hills that gently rolled to an inland sea Cobb could just about make out if he squinted. North, mountains rose up out of the ground and reached high into the sky, the tallest of which was a good four kilometres high and capped with snow.
East, though, the plains stopped about five-hundred metres away in a thick, lush forest. A few kilometres into that was the next nearest human settlement, a small looking hamlet built on the bend of a river, with dozens more beyond it. Waypoints started appearing on Cobb's HUD to mark each place the population had made their home, ranging from small hamlets all the way up to a castle with a city wrapped around it.
According to the waypoint it was a hundred kilometres away, sitting roughly in the centre of everything Primo Victoria and Tranquillity had spotted. If Cobb had to guess, that would be where the bulk of the captured civilians were. If not, then somebody who knew their locations would live there.
His eyes drifted from the waypoint as it vanished back towards the forest just half a klick from his current position. It was also the only available cover in any direction where a force could hide from casual observations.
'I need a thermal scan of the woods east of our location,' Cobb said.
He was on a private channel between him and Primo Victoria, holding a geostationary position above him and the Marines, and the lieutenant commander in charge of the corvette acknowledged the order. Moments later a top-down view of the forests appeared on Cobb's HUD, shaded a cool blue with indistinct features. Then, a cluster of orange blobs came into view as the feed drifted further eastward.
Cobb counted thirty blobs that could have been human sized, plus half a dozen smaller but hotter spots that he took to be fires for cooking and providing illumination. The sun had barely risen and long shadows were draped all across the land, and it would be little better beneath a thick canopy of trees.
'Lieutenant Chavez,' Cobb said, switching back to the platoon's frequency. 'I'm going to check out the woods to our eastern flank. You're in charge until I come back.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' Chavez said. 'Give 'em hell.'
0623 Hours, June 25, 2555 (Military Calendar)
Near suspected enemy encampment
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
The thirty troops camped out in the forest east of Camp Murphy were all veterans of their trade, having fought in countless battles and wars on behalf of their emperor, and it showed in how they conducted themselves. Each moved quickly but quietly, eyes darting around in search of their foe, ears cocked for any sounds that didn't fit.
They knew their task, though boring, was vitally important. Whoever had established the encampment on the nearby plain had to come back at some point, and they were to be ready for such a time. If not to engage and capture them, then to study and learn what they could from these strange, new people.
It hadn't gone unnoticed that though the captives looked almost exactly like them they spoke in a tongue that none could understand, wore clothing unlike anything anyone had seen before, and that their camp was filled with items none of them could even begin to fathom the functions of. In truth it should have scared them to find people so starkly different from their own, but the lack of a fighting spirit amongst them bolstered the troops, as did the woeful performance of those that had tried to tail and free the new slaves.
A force of fifty had captured almost four times their number without suffering a single casualty, a record if there ever was one, and it was this thought that kept morale high even as Cobb closed in.
He moved silently from tree to tree despite wearing nearly several hundred kilos of MJOLNIR armour, plus his extra ammo and equipment clamped into place, following a cool blue waypoint Primo Victoria was painting for him on the exact location of the camp. He stopped and cocked his head as indistinct murmurs of conversation drifted his way.
It sounded completely alien and his onboard translation software came up with nothing, though he could still tell from the intonation that the men he was approaching were at ease, seemingly oblivious that a Pelican had touched down just over twenty minutes ago. Maybe they had dismissed the sound of its jet engines as the moaning of the wind or the rustling of leaves, a result of being unfamiliar with the sound.
Whatever the reason, they were going to pay for their lapse in awareness.
As Cobb moved off again he got his first real glimpse of the camp. It was built around a slight dip in the ground with six tents made of rough canvas lining the outside, a single campfire built in the middle of everything. Half a dozen soldiers dressed in their leather tunics were clustered around it, stoking the flames back up and readying a breakfast of animal meats and a stew of some kind. At their hips were shortswords made of a dull metal, and close by were thick shields.
They looked exactly like they had come from some historical documentary from Earth's past or a fantasy film, serving only to reinforce the notion that they weren't descendants from any factions associated with the UNSC, the UEG, the CAA, or even the Insurrection. Even after two whole days of thinking and speculating, nobody had any idea as to how they had come to be.
But this was the back of Cobb's mind as he continued creeping forward. Soon the rest of the camp emerged from their tents and joined the rest in readying their morning meal around the fire, tearing into chunks of meat dripping fat and grease as they knocked back tankards of something, booze probably, talking idly amongst themselves.
They remained in their tent groups, making for five or so closely packed clusters of bodies, which also made ideal targets for grenades. Cobb plucked three such items from his belt and eyed the distances involved, noting each of his three targets were well within reach for a Spartan.
He thumbed the primers on each grenade and tossed them overarm in rapid succession, and all three landed exactly where he had wanted them to be. The troops, obviously not familiar with what grenades were, reacted with confusion and shock rather than alarm and panic and almost half their number were shredded in the blink of an eye.
The other half were caught up in the concussive blast of the grenades and minor to moderate injuries caused by shrapnel, stumbling to their feet when they weren't falling backwards in shock, and Cobb stood with his DMR shouldered. His crosshairs were resting on the nearest target, a man who couldn't have been more than twenty, and one measured squeeze of the trigger later his target was flopping down dead, a new hole in the side of their head.
He moved onto the next target and repeated the process, and then again and then again until everyone in the encampment was dead, or at the very least dying from grievous wounds like a torn off limb or a gut full of close-range grenade shrapnel.
Cobb ejected the spent magazine and inserted a fresh one, moving into the camp proper to assess what remained. Two men were still alive but the blood coming out of them told Cobb that was soon to change, and even if they weren't close to dying they seemed to paralysed by fear to do anything. Their eyes were wide as they watched Cobb come walking in from the treeline, either by the silence he did it with or his utterly alien appearance.
Either way, they expired soon after.
0715 Hours, June 25, 2555 (Military Calendar)
Ruins of civilian settlement Camp Murphy
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
'You're alive,' Staff Sergeant Connor called out as Cobb made his way back towards the Marines, a rough sack in one hand that contained anything with the local script on it that he could find. 'Almost had me worried.'
'I'll bet,' Cobb said. 'Thirty of them were camped out two-hundred metres into the trees. I guess they were supposed to be ready for whoever came back to the camp.'
'How did they strike you?' Connor said.
'Confident,' Cobb said. 'And experienced, just not when it comes to us. None of them recognised what a grenade was.'
'Further casting doubt in the Innie angle,' Connor said.
Cobb nodded. 'Whoever they are, they're not associated with us Earthlings in any way.'
The earliest a human colony could have been established on this planet was 2291, when the first Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engines came into being, which meant the oldest this civilisation could be was 264 years at best. Enough time to build up their city with its castle, but that begged the question of why those first colonists would abandon their advanced technology for swords and shields.
It was Connor's turn to nod before he said, 'Phase One is going ahead as planned. All twenty-two bodies are accounted for and prepped for burial.'
'Good,' Cobb said. 'And the rest of it?'
'Going well on that front, too,' Connor said. 'We've recovered enough food to sustain us for a further two weeks, three if we're frugal. Equipment wise, though, not so much. What these guys didn't smash or take with them got soaked during the storms. Nothing works as intended, if it works at all. We've got ourselves a lovely pile of scrap.'
'Great,' Cobb said, sounding less then enthused by that news.
But then, the equipment here had purely been useful for civilian colonisation efforts. He had no need for mass spectrometers or microscopes or seismometers in a guerrilla campaign. He might have liked to press the generators into service but his Marines had their own set, and what they might have lacked in finesse next to Tranquillity's complement they made up for in ruggedness and portability.
'Any rationale behind what they took?' Cobb said as he headed towards the Pelican.
'None that we can see,' Connor said, falling into step. 'Whatever was closest to the entrances, I guess, or they felt they could haul it with them. The people who escaped here don't remember seeing pack animals.'
'They missed a big city with a castle in it, too,' Cobb said. 'Don't put too much faith in their powers of observation. That being said, I didn't see any animals back at the camp. Either they were dropped off by someone or they're light infantry.'
They arrived at the centre of Camp Murphy where their sole Pelican was sitting on the same landing pad it had taken off from in a hurry six weeks ago, the flight crew looking around nervously as though expecting a second attack any time now. In the rear troop compartment was Garza. He had volunteered to stay behind with the Marines to help them decipher the local language, something he was dubbing Lekian, knowing that they would be bringing in plenty of samples for him to work with.
Next to him was Tranquillity's doctor, a pale faced specimen of a man that favoured anachronistic waistcoats called Maher. The Marines had shipped out without a corpsman and Primo Victoria was similarly understaffed in that department, an oversight more than anything else, so Maher had volunteered to fill the role should something happen.
'Got some more stuff for you, Garza,' Cobb said, placing the sack by Garza's feet.
He looked at it for a moment then opened the sack up, reaching inside to pluck one of the many scrolls contained within. It was a thick, heavy thing that had been rolled up and sealed at some point with wax, and then opened by one of the men Cobb had just killed. His eyes flickered across the page with laser like focus, no doubt determining which of the symbols belonged to which ancient language.
'I take it the men who were given this are no longer with us?' Maher said as his eyes drifted to a fleck of blood staining the sack.
'Not in one piece, Doc, no,' Cobb said.
Maher gave a conflicted grimace at that bit of news. Civilian medical personnel tended to avoid killing others as much as possible, a requirement of their oaths to do no harm, which was in stark contrast to their military counterparts who quite often carried weapons alongside their equipment, and often had a burning desire to put them to use if the situation called for it.
His conflict likely came about because though a fellow living creature, a human, had died they were also party to the attacking, kidnapping, enslaving and murder of some of his close friends. Stuff like that rarely endeared a person to others.
'Have you recovered any medical equipment from the remains?' Maher said to Connor who shrugged.
'Not much,' he said. 'Some basic supplies, bandages and a few cannisters of biofoam, but actual equipment? No such luck, Doc.'
'I'll have to make do,' Maher said, more to himself than anyone else. His initial assessment of the facilities aboard Primo Victoria had been a faint clucking of his tongue in disapproval at how basic he found it, doubly so upon seeing what the Marines were bringing to the planet with them.
Cobb and Connor shared a glance between themselves at his comment but said nothing, each of them privately wondering if Maher would be able to adapt from the thorough standards of a medical suite to the quick and dirty standards of combat medicine, where the emphasis was on getting the wounded back into fighting shape as rapidly as possible so they could earn yet another wound.
Assuming it came to that, of course. RED BARON called for them to operate from the shadows as much as possible, engaging the enemy in much the same style as the Insurrectionists they had left behind to come to Leka. The irony was not lost on either of them, or the rest of the NCOs, though they took solace in knowing that at least they were fighting for a more just cause than Innies who, after more than sixty years, were simply fighting because they had forgotten how to do anything else.
'We'll finish burying the bodies then give the camp one final sweep,' Cobb said to Connor, gesturing for the Marine to follow him away from the Pelican and the civilians. 'In case we missed anything. Then we load up and move onto Phase Two.'
A dark grin crept onto Connor's face when he heard this.
'Oorah to that, sir.'