Chapter Thirteen

1127 Hours, July 24, 2555 (Military Calendar)

Marine Camp Rory

Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System

When the Pelican finally touched down, Cobb's first act on disembarking was to inspect the damage done by its crash landing. It hadn't escaped his or anyone else's notice the abnormal noises coming from the Pelican, and they had definitely taken note when the starboard thruster unit began cutting out intermittently, even if for seconds at a time.

A tense air had pervaded the dropship's interior which gave way to relief when they finally touched down on the ground, the crew chief following Cobb out to perform his own inspection. They found that the starboard thruster bore the most damage with a majority of its outer plating dented when it hadn't cracked or been torn away entirely, and beneath it the more delicate components bore their own signs of damage.

The juddering noise, and loss of power issue, was traced back to a fuel pipe that had come free of its mountings and was starting to uncouple itself. It looked like a single hard impact would have wrenched it from the housing entirely, spraying fuel everywhere inside the thruster unit where it would have come into contact with no end of hot components, triggering an explosion.

Cobb stood behind the crew chief as he worked to fix the damage, saying nothing, before moving to join Chavez, Connor and Garza as they waited near the camp's medical post where Maher was starting in on his examinations of the trio. Garza in particular looked worried, a given seeing as how they were people he had lived with for countless months aboard Tranquillity.

'Where did you find them?' he asked.

'In a brothel,' Cobb said. 'It was just luck I did. Sophie managed to break free and fled into the forests where I had an observation point.'

'What if you hadn't been there?' Garza said.

Cobb just shook his head by way of an answer to that, turning instead to the Marines to say, 'I think the locals will be agitated by this turn of events.'

'No doubt,' Chavez said. 'What's the plan?'

'We lock it down until reinforcements arrive,' Cobb said. 'There's a decent chance they saw where the Pelican flew, and if they're smart that'll narrow down their search area. I don't want to give them any further clues we're here.

'That means no deployments beyond the perimeter unless absolutely necessary.'

'Understood, Spartan,' Chavez said.

'I can see what we can do to further hide our presence,' Connor said. 'But we're already pretty well hidden. It'd take several long days to even find a hint of us, anyway, and with Primo Victoria above us, we'll see them long before they see us.'

'Do it,' Cobb said.

As he spoke, Maher came up after completing his examinations and treatments, a smile on his face that was tempered by the knowledge of what his friends had gone through, saying, 'Physically, they're fine aside from the blisters and generally being exhausted. I've started them on an IV treatment and course of antibiotics, though George's leg will need further treatment.'

'Anything else?' Garza said.

'Well, they'll need counselling,' Maher said. 'You don't need to be a doctor to figure that out. I can't even begin to imagine what they've gone through.'

Cobb's mind flashed back to how he had found George not twelve hours ago, tied up and being whipped by a woman with a sadistic glint in her eye, but kept silent on the matter, nodding instead.

'When can we talk to them?' Garza said. 'They're the only ones with firsthand experience of the people here, maybe even the language. I could make some serious progress with my work.'

'Not for a day,' Maher said sharply, glaring at Garza. 'At the very least. They've been through a traumatic ordeal and they need to rest properly before we can even think of bombarding them with questions. I'll tell you when they're ready.'

The only other civilian present nodded his head sheepishly as he conceded to Maher's admonishment, though Cobb could understand his urgency. They had been on Leka for just over a month now and Garza had no idea if all the work he had put in was worth it, to say nothing of the fact it only worked on the written aspect of Lekian. They had yet to make any progress with the spoken component.

Maher span about on his heel and returned to the medical post to see to his patients, and Garza slinked off to his little section of camp where he worked on the translation software, leaving Cobb and the two Marines alone again.

'I've confirmed there are Brutes and Elites on the planet,' Cobb said, describing the scene he had seen inside the tavern. 'And judging by the state of things up north, one of them shares a border with the locals there.'

'We kind of already knew they were here,' Connor said. 'Does it change our missions much?'

'Not right now,' Cobb said, shrugging. 'Maybe in the future. The higher ups will make use of it somehow.'

The two Marines nodded in agreement before Cobb dismissed them, freeing them up to carry on with their assigned tasks which, for now, was the shoring up of their defences and working to further refine and improve their camouflage. A single path led into Camp Rory and it was covered by a trio of machineguns, ensuring anyone foolish enough to assault them would be shredded before they got close, and the platoon's mortars were positioned to be able to strike any targets within five kilometres of their position.

Anything further out would be the domain of Primo Victoria and her five Archer pods, totalling 150 missiles, but Cobb wanted to save them for major formations or to strike out at important bridges, so as to delay troop movements. They needed to hold out for another month or so and anything they could do to delay the enemy from discovering them was a boon.

His main concern should the locals send a recon unit this were the four Mongooses, tucked away in a cave lower down the mountain. The safer option would have been to keep them inside Camp Rory until they were needed, using the Pelican to ferry them between the base and their area of operations, but that would have used up their valuable fuel reserves.

Primo Victoria hadn't been designed to support Pelican dropships, only Falcons, and as a result didn't carry the necessary stores for them. The only fuel they had was located in temporary bladders siphoned off from Tranquillity before she slipped back to the battlegroup, and more than half of that had already been used up moving the Marines about Leka.

There was also the maintenance requirements to consider. Pelicans could only fly for so long before they needed servicing or overhauling, and the dropship attached to Tranquillity had been approaching her overhaul threshold. It could be overlooked during times of dire need but Cobb wasn't one for taking too many chances when he had so few resources to begin with.

It wouldn't do for the Pelican to develop a fault at a critical time because he overworked it, so it was better to restrict its use for when it was really needed. Of course, the pilots had done a number on it themselves with their rescue effort so it might well be out of commission regardless.

Theoretically, he could use the two Falcons for repositioning the Mongooses but the only cable they had strong enough to handle their weight had already been overstressed by Cobb during his dam assault, and they had no guarantee it could handle lifting four Mongooses one after the other.

All they could do was keep an eye on the caves the Mongooses were stored in and hope the locals didn't find them, if or when they came looking, or that it took them a long while to stumble across the caves.

By Cobb's estimate, they only needed to hold out until sometime around August 20, which was also around the time when their food supplies were set to run out. He gritted his teeth at how close it would be then forced himself to relax, knowing it wouldn't do him any good to stress over it. If the worst came to pass, he would send a team into the nearby towns to acquire foodstuffs to tide them over until reinforcements arrived on scene.

Sophie, George and Molly had proved that they could subsist on the local foodstuffs for an extended period, so Cobb didn't have too many worries on that front. The real issue would be finding enough food to sustain almost forty mouths for as long as it took for reinforcements to arrive. Most of the places Cobb had seen had populations barely twice that, so they'd notice their stores becoming depleted quicker than expected.

Then there was the issue of transporting said food around once it was acquired. The Falcons had a limited cargo space and takeoff weight, and with their sole Pelican both in need of an overhaul and repairs they couldn't always rely on that.

Speaking of which, Cobb turned his eyes to the dropship as it sat perched on the crude landing pad the Marines had built for it, and where the crew were making their more thorough inspection of the damage.

1230 Hours, July 24, 2555 (Military Calendar)

Marine Camp Rory

Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System

'I'm not gonna lie, Spartan. She took a pounding.'

The crew chief was wiping his oily hands on an equally oily rag as he stood in front of the pilots, sheepish looks on their faces, as he went on to describe the extent of the damage they had found since landing.

Several pipes had been shaken loose and were leaking, the avionics linkages were suspect, cracks had been found in the airframe, much of the underside plating was torn off or splintered, and this was on top of the parts that needed overhauling like the engine turbine blades, the air, fuel and oil filters, and the various different fluids that were in need of flushing and replacing.

The latter stuff was affecting overall performance, while the former issues could spell disaster at any point whilst the dropship was in motion.

'Can it be fixed?' Cobb said.

'Sure,' the crew chief. 'Given enough time, and parts, and the right facility.'

'So that's a no,' Cobb said, knowing they didn't have any of those things.

The crew chief nodded absently but said, 'I'll fix what I can, mainly the piping and linkages. Maybe the cracks if there's welding equipment on Victoria. And a spare suit.'

The corvette was too small to accommodate a Pelican in her hangars so all the loading had been done via EVAs, a strange experience for some, and any repairs done to the dropship would have to be carried out in the same manner.

'Will she make it up there?' Cobb asked. 'Maher will want to take the civilians up to the ship for treatment.'

'Oh, she'll get up there,' the crew chief said. 'Eventually, but I'm not certain about the return journey. We lost a lot of plating.'

He motioned to the Pelican's underside, a normally smooth surface made of heat ablative panels that could deal with the excessively high temperatures of re-entry. Only, there were jagged patches where rocks had torn into them during the Pelican's spectacular landing. Apparently the old riverbed had unseen dangers hidden beneath its surface.

Without the plates the Pelican wouldn't be able to handle the heat, and wouldn't be able to reunite with the ground crew to extract or resupply them if necessary. It might have been possible for Primo Victoria to loan some of her own plating to the cause but cutting them out would take time and possibly restrict her from landfall herself.

She had done so once already, to offload the Falcons and Mongooses and other bulk equipment to Camp Rory, but it had required dense cloud cover and a very shallow de-orbital path to avoid drawing any attention. In a serious pinch they could have her come down more quickly, but not if her own plating was compromised.

Cobb suppressed a sigh and shook his head, saying, 'Do what you can. At the very least, I'll want to get Sophie and the others off the planet to Victoria's medical suite.'

'We could just abandon this place,' the crew chief said. 'Load up everyone and whatever foodstuffs we have and hightail it back to the ship. We've done enough, haven't we?'

It was a decent proposal, Cobb knew, but there were issues with it. The Pelican's troop bay could hold all the Marines present, but there'd be little space for all the food they had brought down with them. Cobb guessed they could fit at least half of what they had left, two week's worth, but reinforcements were supposed to be a month away at best. Lacking cryo systems, those final two weeks would become an ordeal to overcome.

They could always de-orbit the corvette again and reload her using the Falcons alongside the Pelican, but that took time and required a heavy cloud cover to conceal the ship. Of course, the mere sight of Primo Victoria might be enough to convince the locals that they were severely outclassed in this fight and convince them to release the rest of the captured civilians.

On the other hand, their more primitive and backwards mindsets might label it as a omen, a work of witchcraft and heresy, and all those associated with it needed to be put to death. Images of burning pyres flashed into Cobb's mind and try as he might, he couldn't quite put it aside.

Besides, heading back to the ship felt a little bit like retreating and Cobb didn't like doing that for anything other than the direst of circumstances. The possibility of becoming the focus point for an entire nation's army, which likely numbered in the tens of thousands at least, didn't quite meet his criteria.

'No,' he said after a moment's pause to think. 'We'll keep the bulk of us down here and evacuate the rescued civilians. Camp Rory has a strong defensive posture, and with orbital support we should be able to hold them off for a while.'

'If you're sure,' the crew chief said.

2258 Hours, July 29, 2555 (Military Calendar)

Marine Camp Rory

Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System

'You know what this place reminds me of?' Mercer said to his team as they sat around a dimly lit lantern, passing around one of their few remaining bottles of liquor. 'A fantasy world.'

Cobb had just stopped by to check on the Marines, having little else to do following his suspension of heading out beyond the camp's perimeter, and decided to extend his visit to this little cadre of them after spying the bottle in Mercer's hands. It also meant he got to listen in on their current topic of conversation.

'A fantasy world?' O'Brien said with an incredulous tone and expression. 'Really? How do you figure?'

'A couple things,' Mercer said. 'First off, the locals are using swords and bows and spears and things. Every good fantasy world has those, and the technological level to match. Second, it's a feudal looking place, which is another staple of fantasy worlds. They all have kings and queens.'

'They also have monsters and magic,' a third Marine, Percy, said quietly as he swallowed a mouthful of the drink, grimacing. 'God, this is strong.'

He passed it along and added, 'Where's the magic?'

'Not every place has to have magic,' Mercer said. 'But we do have the three main fantasy races, though.'

He held up a hand and began counting off fingers on it as he spoke, starting with, 'There's the Jackals. They fill out the whole goblin race thing, being cave dwellers who steal from others. Then you have the Elites. Either they're the elves, in harmony with nature, or the draconic humanoids that are warriors through and through.'

'And the Brutes?' O'Brien said. 'Let me guess. The orcs?'

'Right in one,' Mercer said with a clap of his hands. 'What else would they be?'

'Dwarves, maybe,' Percy said. 'No, actually. They're a little too tall for that role, aren't they? Uh, what other races are common in fantasy worlds?'

The three of them discussed that for a few minutes, dredging through their limited knowledge of fantasy world tropes and races to only add humans with animal-like physical traits such as ears or tails. As they did, Cobb looked to the fourth member of Mercer's fireteam, Bailey, as she slumped against the cave's wall, seemingly asleep.

'Can you imagine meeting a real cat girl?' Mercer asked a little while later.

'If they're anything like my sister's cats, they'll be snooty things that can't decide if they want attention or not,' O'Brien said as he rolled up his sleeves to show several small nicks and scars on his arms. 'These ain't from being a Marine, I can tell you.'

'Maybe that's just you,' Percy said. 'Plenty of the cats I've encountered a charming little things, and they display quite the amount of affection if you know what to look for.'

'Pee on everything, too,' O'Brien muttered under his breath as he rolled his sleeves back again, missing his teammate's comment.

'I think it'd be the tongue that would put me off,' Mercer said. 'Cats have rough ones, you know? Would that carry over?'

'I think that depends entirely on how much they have in common with a real cat,' Percy said. 'But if they have the ears, tails and fangs of one, why wouldn't they have the tongue as well?'

'Or the claws,' O'Brien said, pointing at his arms again. 'They're bad enough on a small animal. Imagine what they'll be like on a fully grown adult.'

'Some people like pain,' Percy said.

'Yeah, well, I'm not one of them,' O'Brien said.

Cobb took a swig from the bottle when it reached him, savouring the fiery texture, then donned his helmet and made to leave the cave. As interesting as the fireteam's topic of conversation was, and it was definitely one of the more intriguing discussions going around camp at the moment, he wasn't a particular fan of fantasy works of fiction.

Too many of the, admittedly few, fantasy stories he had read had seemingly relied quite heavily on having magic being the reason why something did or didn't work, to say nothing of the fact that magic went against the basic laws of reality by, in many instances, literally making something from nothing.

He preferred more grounded and realistic works because it added to the tension, rather than having the main characters be able to escape plummeting to their doom because somebody in a pointy hat waved a piece of wood around, or recited some nonsensical sounding incantation, and teleported them all out of harm's way.

There were stories that featured aversions to this, Cobb reasoned, but he lacked the motivation to seek them out.

He made his goodbyes to the Marines and slipped past the canvas sheeting hanging at the cave's entrance, emerging into the darkened scenery that was Camp Rory. The local moon was out in full force tonight and there were no clouds, allowing the many thousands of distant stars to twinkle and shine in the night sky.

Hidden amongst them was Primo Victoria as she maintained a geostationary orbit, and their sole Pelican as it underwent crude repairs. The crew chief had managed to repair everything as best he could ahead of coaxing the dropship up to escape velocity, rendezvousing with the corvette to offload the rescued civilians and Maher, and had spent the past few days effecting more proper repairs.

It hadn't been without its own share of mishaps, none of the crew aboard Primo Victoria all that experienced in conducting zero-G repairs in EVA environments. More than a few scavenged hull plates from the corvette had found themselves hurtling towards the planet after accidentally getting caught in the wash from a thruster pack, necessitating the removal of even more plates.

The captain of Primo Victoria had sent his concerns that she wouldn't be able to safely make landfall with so much of her underside removed and Cobb, not wanting to risk losing their eyes in the sky, had told the captain to remain where he was unless called for.

'Pegasus is about to make her final descent,' Chavez said as he lingered to one side, holding a pair of powerful binoculars in his hands. 'Maybe five more minutes.'

Cobb nodded and joined the Marine in looking upwards. The position of Primo Victoria made a direct descent from her akin to a meteorite landing, requiring a shallower de-orbital path following one full revolution of the planet. It took a lot longer to do, but the Pelican's compromised underside plating made it mandatory.

Even then, part of Cobb worried it would be too much. No end of spacecraft found themselves breaking up on re-entry because their thermal protection systems had developed faults, even miniscule ones.

'Mercer's disappointed there are no cat girls on Leka,' Cobb said. 'O'Brien isn't.'

'Yeah, I can understand that,' Chavez said. 'Have you seen his arms?'

'I have,' Cobb said.

'Now imagine those on a full grown adult,' Chavez said.

He squinted as he looked up then brought the binoculars to his eyes, focusing them, then said, 'I can see the Pelican.'

A faint orange glow had appeared in the sky and was rapidly moving towards them as the Pelican began encountering the rapidly thickening atmosphere of Leka, the air seemingly igniting as it struggled to get out of the way of the hypersonic object.

Cobb's COM crackled to life a few seconds later as Primo Victoria began relaying the signal from the Pelican, if for no other reason than to keep him appraised of how things were going in the cockpit. Forewarned was forearmed, after all.

'Temperature readings seem to be holding,' the pilot said. 'Some slight shimmy from the controls.'

'Still on course for insertion at Rory,' the co-pilot said. 'We'll know more once we slow down some.'

'Airspeed is Mach 21 and dropping,' the pilot said. 'ETA to insertion is twelve minutes, thirty-four seconds. I- Wait, I'm getting a temperature spike-'

The rest cut off without warning and high above, the fireball that was the Pelican seemed to split into three different chunks and begin veering off course, in one instance quite wildly. Without even being told, Cobb knew that Pegasus had just broken up midflight, likely as a result of her grafted thermal plating giving way to allow superheated gases to assault the more delicate interior components.

More pressingly, it meant he and the Marines were now stranded on Leka.