First in, Last out
The Siege of Combat base Gloria
A/N: Time for some military nomenclature, in marine unit radio transmissions (using the USMC as an example) 6 denotes the leader of a unit, so Alpha 6, would be the leader of Alpha Company, Alpha 6 Actual would be the commander of Alpha Company, Alpha 2-6 would denote Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon etc. Battalion commanders and above would have a codename, for example Gunslinger 6, the codename of our protagonist. Also the corpsman during the second dream sequence is based on a real person who was a Navy Corpsman during the Vietnam war.
The dreams came in a familiar pattern, like a holovid slideshow. They started off with a few simple memories, his mother and father, school, child hood friends. Then all at once, he was reliving his memories.
He was lying on his stomach in the middle of a café; bullets thudded into the ground all around him with incredible violence. His radioman lay next to him, slumped over at an odd angle, half his head torn away. Picking up the hand mike on the still functioning radio he screamed into it "THIS IS ALPHA 2-6 ACTUAL, WE ARE IN HEAVY…" bullets smashed tables and chairs into splinters raining chips all over him. He hugged the ground as much as his CMC armor allowed. "…HEAVY CONTACT, I NEED IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE." His company commander came back over the radio "Roger you, Alpha 2-6, get your platoon together and take those heavy machineguns." Jesus Christ, is he fucking nuts? Thought Taggart. "SIR WE AR-" he started to say, but was cut off "Just do it lieutenant." In a rage he threw the mike away and lay there as bullets tore the outdoor café to shreds.
His platoon had been ambushed as it moved down a supposedly clear street. At least three heavy machine guns had opened fire on the point squad of the platoon cutting most of them down. Taggart, his radioman and his platoon sergeant had been walking behind the squad when the firing started. Taggart dived to the right into the café with his radioman; his platoon sergeant went left into the rubble of a destroyed building.
Taggart had dived under a table and turned to watch his radioman come jumping into the café just in time to have a stray 20mm shell take the top of his head off in a spray of red mist. It was the first man Taggart had seen killed. He remembered the body suddenly go limp and crumpled as it landed. Blood poured out of the shattered cranium and began forming a small lake. As Taggart watched on, bullets walked through the pool of blood, splattering Taggart and everything else. A few more stray rounds buried themselves in the corpse with dull thunks.
While Taggart lay huddled in café the platoon sergeant, who's name was Tyler Brown, organized a base of fire with the surviving two squads in the platoon and knocked out the machineguns. When the firing subsided Taggart stuck his head up. Seven bodies lay sprawled in the street. Their blood mixing together on the ferrocrete.
Another time, another planet. Taggart was a 1st Lieutenant now, his platoon had survived countless scrapes but was slowly being ground down by the guerrilla action on Medusa, a desert planet which only redeeming feature was the abundance of natural resources. To the marines fighting it was another war buying resources with the blood of marines. Taggart watched the 40 men in his platoon slowly clomp up a large sand dune like a blue armored snake.
There was a sudden explosion at the front of the column and Taggart watched as everyone threw themselves flat. The air was filled with the dudududududu of return fire as marines opened up with their C-12's. Several dull thumps sounded from far behind the sand dune. "MORTARS!" Taggart yelled and threw himself flat among some rocks. His radioman was already reporting the contact to the new company commander. As the first mortar rounds streaked in Taggart noticed that he was taking cover besides the Navy Corpsman assigned to the platoon. He stuck out like a sore thumb among the marines in with his different type of suit. As each mortar round streaked in and exploded the man would flinch. To add to the symphony of battle already going, small arms fire was echoing from the front of the column. Talking over the platoon net Taggart got the 1st and 2nd squad online and had the 3rd squad form a perimeter.
As stray rounds snapped past from the running firefight taking place up front the corpsman started to make a little uhn sound every time a round snapped past. "Hey, man relax, they aren't even aiming at us." Taggart said, trying to calm the man down. With nothing better to do he aimed his own C-12 at the dust enshrouded dune and tried to find a target. A muzzle flash blinked out of the dust, Taggart sighted in on it and squeezed the trigger. The C-12 kicked his shoulder and shell casing spewed out onto the rock outcropping. The gunner shifted his fire toward Taggart and he ducked down as a long burst slammed into the rock. Now the medic really lost it and he looked as if he were trying to tuck himself into his armor.
Taggart sat calmly, waiting for the gunner to cease fire. Rounds were still hammering the rock when suddenly there was a scream of pain and someone called out for a "Corpsman!" Taggart looked down at the medic, ready to drag him from behind cover, but he was already dashing through the machine gun fire towards the wounded man. Rounds slapped the sand all around him and a near miss chipped some armor off his suit. Taggart shook his head as the man disappeared into the dust.
They were all around, dark shapes darting in and out of the darkness like phantoms. Birdlike calls and hisses filled the jungle. They circled as sharks would a bloody swimmer. They tested the perimeter every few minutes, denying rest, looking for weaknesses. The wounded screamed horribly, the sound echoing through the intercoms of the CMC suits. Taggart, his brand new company down to thirty men and low on ammo, waited to die. Huddling with the radio from his long dead radioman he spoke in a whisper. "This is Alpha 6, I need artillery fire now, danger close, please respond." Taggart knew he wouldn't get an answer, three hours ago the firebase had reported a heavy attack from an unknown foe streaming out of the jungle. They had gone off the air completely 30 minutes later when the signal power from their transmitter, usually constant, dropped to zero, like the EKG of a dying man.
As far as Taggart was concerned the battle was over, he had tried everything he could think of. When he had come into contact with these, he still didn't know what to call them, monsters seemed appropriate. It had been a short, vicious firefight, the jungle brought the fighting down to point blank range, the report of rifle fire deafening in the closed quarters of the quadruple canopy jungle. Men screamed agonizingly as they where dragged off then ceased .He had immediately requested extraction but there was no LZ for several kilometers for several directions. He had tried to fight his way out but in the battle third platoon had lost contact and apparently died in the jungle. Taggart then ordered Alpha company to ground, hoping they could make it till daylight.
Now it looked like that was impossible. The night seemed to last forever, in the hot, dark jungle men fought and died in the inky blackness. The only light was the strobing of weapons fire or the occasional artificial day of a flare. Captain James Taggart and Gunnery Sergeant Tyler Brown lay back to back. During the night the two friends had fought harder than anyone to keep the company alive. They had repaired the perimeter during lulls, plugged holes and shifted machine guns constantly. Now the surviving men lay huddled in a small circle, shoulder to shoulder weapons facing outwards, grenades were long ago exhausted and each man was down to only a few magazines.
There was an increased rustling and shaking in the bushes surrounding the small perimeter, a small human circle in a sea of alien blackness. Standing up the Captain and the Gunny began walking the perimeter. Passing each man they whispered something. Words of encouragement, advice, anything to keep their mind off what was about to happen then they found a place, piled up their magazines and waited to die.
A relief column found them two hours after dawn. A long line of marines had suddenly stumbled into the last stand perimeter. What they found was beyond description. Blood was everywhere, on the ground, on the trees, even on overhanging branches and leaves. The jungle was pitted with small arms fire and blast marks. Some trees had actually been sawn through by the furious firing of weapons. Not a single round of ammunition was found, it had all been expended, bent and battered weapons attested to their use as clubs. There was only one survivor. A young captain had been found among a heap of bodies, or more accurately, body parts. There was not a whole body to be found in the entire sea of carnage. The Zerg, the marines now knew what they were, had dismembered the bodies. Taggart hadn't received a scratch.
No Zerg bodies had been found…
The dreams paraded on, death, destruction, war. Taggarts entire life on instant, uneditable replay.
Taggart was eventually given a company again. He had excelled against the Zerg, with his unit often killing more than all the other units in his battalion combined. He was quickly promoted to Major after only two years as a Captain, his thirst for vengeance driving him to become a better, smarter marine. He was given command of 1/9 CAB a year after making Major which he had spent with the Special Forces, doing work that was often suicidal. Five years in the CAB's. Fighting impossible odds, every mission, every operation, every campaign. Watching faces rotate on a regular basis due to death or injury. Taggart wasn't exactly sure what kept him fighting. He could easily retire, he had more than enough points to, his desire for revenge was gone, it had disappeared like smoke in the wind the first time he had seen a battalion sized pile of body bags and realized that those were his men.
The Siege of Combat base Gloria
A/N: Time for some military nomenclature, in marine unit radio transmissions (using the USMC as an example) 6 denotes the leader of a unit, so Alpha 6, would be the leader of Alpha Company, Alpha 6 Actual would be the commander of Alpha Company, Alpha 2-6 would denote Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon etc. Battalion commanders and above would have a codename, for example Gunslinger 6, the codename of our protagonist. Also the corpsman during the second dream sequence is based on a real person who was a Navy Corpsman during the Vietnam war.
The dreams came in a familiar pattern, like a holovid slideshow. They started off with a few simple memories, his mother and father, school, child hood friends. Then all at once, he was reliving his memories.
He was lying on his stomach in the middle of a café; bullets thudded into the ground all around him with incredible violence. His radioman lay next to him, slumped over at an odd angle, half his head torn away. Picking up the hand mike on the still functioning radio he screamed into it "THIS IS ALPHA 2-6 ACTUAL, WE ARE IN HEAVY…" bullets smashed tables and chairs into splinters raining chips all over him. He hugged the ground as much as his CMC armor allowed. "…HEAVY CONTACT, I NEED IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE." His company commander came back over the radio "Roger you, Alpha 2-6, get your platoon together and take those heavy machineguns." Jesus Christ, is he fucking nuts? Thought Taggart. "SIR WE AR-" he started to say, but was cut off "Just do it lieutenant." In a rage he threw the mike away and lay there as bullets tore the outdoor café to shreds.
His platoon had been ambushed as it moved down a supposedly clear street. At least three heavy machine guns had opened fire on the point squad of the platoon cutting most of them down. Taggart, his radioman and his platoon sergeant had been walking behind the squad when the firing started. Taggart dived to the right into the café with his radioman; his platoon sergeant went left into the rubble of a destroyed building.
Taggart had dived under a table and turned to watch his radioman come jumping into the café just in time to have a stray 20mm shell take the top of his head off in a spray of red mist. It was the first man Taggart had seen killed. He remembered the body suddenly go limp and crumpled as it landed. Blood poured out of the shattered cranium and began forming a small lake. As Taggart watched on, bullets walked through the pool of blood, splattering Taggart and everything else. A few more stray rounds buried themselves in the corpse with dull thunks.
While Taggart lay huddled in café the platoon sergeant, who's name was Tyler Brown, organized a base of fire with the surviving two squads in the platoon and knocked out the machineguns. When the firing subsided Taggart stuck his head up. Seven bodies lay sprawled in the street. Their blood mixing together on the ferrocrete.
Another time, another planet. Taggart was a 1st Lieutenant now, his platoon had survived countless scrapes but was slowly being ground down by the guerrilla action on Medusa, a desert planet which only redeeming feature was the abundance of natural resources. To the marines fighting it was another war buying resources with the blood of marines. Taggart watched the 40 men in his platoon slowly clomp up a large sand dune like a blue armored snake.
There was a sudden explosion at the front of the column and Taggart watched as everyone threw themselves flat. The air was filled with the dudududududu of return fire as marines opened up with their C-12's. Several dull thumps sounded from far behind the sand dune. "MORTARS!" Taggart yelled and threw himself flat among some rocks. His radioman was already reporting the contact to the new company commander. As the first mortar rounds streaked in Taggart noticed that he was taking cover besides the Navy Corpsman assigned to the platoon. He stuck out like a sore thumb among the marines in with his different type of suit. As each mortar round streaked in and exploded the man would flinch. To add to the symphony of battle already going, small arms fire was echoing from the front of the column. Talking over the platoon net Taggart got the 1st and 2nd squad online and had the 3rd squad form a perimeter.
As stray rounds snapped past from the running firefight taking place up front the corpsman started to make a little uhn sound every time a round snapped past. "Hey, man relax, they aren't even aiming at us." Taggart said, trying to calm the man down. With nothing better to do he aimed his own C-12 at the dust enshrouded dune and tried to find a target. A muzzle flash blinked out of the dust, Taggart sighted in on it and squeezed the trigger. The C-12 kicked his shoulder and shell casing spewed out onto the rock outcropping. The gunner shifted his fire toward Taggart and he ducked down as a long burst slammed into the rock. Now the medic really lost it and he looked as if he were trying to tuck himself into his armor.
Taggart sat calmly, waiting for the gunner to cease fire. Rounds were still hammering the rock when suddenly there was a scream of pain and someone called out for a "Corpsman!" Taggart looked down at the medic, ready to drag him from behind cover, but he was already dashing through the machine gun fire towards the wounded man. Rounds slapped the sand all around him and a near miss chipped some armor off his suit. Taggart shook his head as the man disappeared into the dust.
They were all around, dark shapes darting in and out of the darkness like phantoms. Birdlike calls and hisses filled the jungle. They circled as sharks would a bloody swimmer. They tested the perimeter every few minutes, denying rest, looking for weaknesses. The wounded screamed horribly, the sound echoing through the intercoms of the CMC suits. Taggart, his brand new company down to thirty men and low on ammo, waited to die. Huddling with the radio from his long dead radioman he spoke in a whisper. "This is Alpha 6, I need artillery fire now, danger close, please respond." Taggart knew he wouldn't get an answer, three hours ago the firebase had reported a heavy attack from an unknown foe streaming out of the jungle. They had gone off the air completely 30 minutes later when the signal power from their transmitter, usually constant, dropped to zero, like the EKG of a dying man.
As far as Taggart was concerned the battle was over, he had tried everything he could think of. When he had come into contact with these, he still didn't know what to call them, monsters seemed appropriate. It had been a short, vicious firefight, the jungle brought the fighting down to point blank range, the report of rifle fire deafening in the closed quarters of the quadruple canopy jungle. Men screamed agonizingly as they where dragged off then ceased .He had immediately requested extraction but there was no LZ for several kilometers for several directions. He had tried to fight his way out but in the battle third platoon had lost contact and apparently died in the jungle. Taggart then ordered Alpha company to ground, hoping they could make it till daylight.
Now it looked like that was impossible. The night seemed to last forever, in the hot, dark jungle men fought and died in the inky blackness. The only light was the strobing of weapons fire or the occasional artificial day of a flare. Captain James Taggart and Gunnery Sergeant Tyler Brown lay back to back. During the night the two friends had fought harder than anyone to keep the company alive. They had repaired the perimeter during lulls, plugged holes and shifted machine guns constantly. Now the surviving men lay huddled in a small circle, shoulder to shoulder weapons facing outwards, grenades were long ago exhausted and each man was down to only a few magazines.
There was an increased rustling and shaking in the bushes surrounding the small perimeter, a small human circle in a sea of alien blackness. Standing up the Captain and the Gunny began walking the perimeter. Passing each man they whispered something. Words of encouragement, advice, anything to keep their mind off what was about to happen then they found a place, piled up their magazines and waited to die.
A relief column found them two hours after dawn. A long line of marines had suddenly stumbled into the last stand perimeter. What they found was beyond description. Blood was everywhere, on the ground, on the trees, even on overhanging branches and leaves. The jungle was pitted with small arms fire and blast marks. Some trees had actually been sawn through by the furious firing of weapons. Not a single round of ammunition was found, it had all been expended, bent and battered weapons attested to their use as clubs. There was only one survivor. A young captain had been found among a heap of bodies, or more accurately, body parts. There was not a whole body to be found in the entire sea of carnage. The Zerg, the marines now knew what they were, had dismembered the bodies. Taggart hadn't received a scratch.
No Zerg bodies had been found…
The dreams paraded on, death, destruction, war. Taggarts entire life on instant, uneditable replay.
Taggart was eventually given a company again. He had excelled against the Zerg, with his unit often killing more than all the other units in his battalion combined. He was quickly promoted to Major after only two years as a Captain, his thirst for vengeance driving him to become a better, smarter marine. He was given command of 1/9 CAB a year after making Major which he had spent with the Special Forces, doing work that was often suicidal. Five years in the CAB's. Fighting impossible odds, every mission, every operation, every campaign. Watching faces rotate on a regular basis due to death or injury. Taggart wasn't exactly sure what kept him fighting. He could easily retire, he had more than enough points to, his desire for revenge was gone, it had disappeared like smoke in the wind the first time he had seen a battalion sized pile of body bags and realized that those were his men.