A New Assignment
Tanaka turned to Dylan. "The arrival of your friends changes the dynamics of the situation. I have a different task for you now and I am afraid that in some ways it is going to be even more difficult then the one below us."
"What task is that Admiral"?
"Arzawa II. With the news, and rumors, of what has been going on here, the planet has slipped into total anarchy. We estimate that planet wide; so far over a million people have died in the chaos. Water, power and food distribution have all been completely disrupted and significant portions of most major cities have been burnt to the ground. If order isn't restored soon we will have a second Brandenburg-Tor on our hands. The drop ship carriers Victory's Crucible and Indomitable will be arranging on station in a few hours. I will direct each of them to release a company along with their integrated drop ships and light armored vehicles to your command. You will use these assets along with the Andromeda's Lancer unit to restore order on the planet. I'm sorry I can't give you more but the troops are needed more urgently on Arzawa III "
Dylan did a quick calculation in his head. "Sir you're asking me to take approximately 400 troops and some armor and occupy an entire planet. It can't be done."
"I'm not asking you to conquer the planet Dylan. Just to keep them from continuing to kill each other and restore enough basic services to keep starvation and disease at bay. I doubt that you and your troops will even see much fighting. The reports we have received indicate that what little resistance you may encounter will be from the criminal gangs that are taking advantage of the situation. If a single Lancer can't defeat a dozen criminals he or she shouldn't be in the Lancers. As soon as we defeat the Replicators, we can send more troops and humanitarian assistance but until then you're it."
The talk became a discussion of tactics and equipment needed to carry out the assignment.
A radio crackled to life.
"This is Staff Sergeant Samuda on the surface of Arzawa III. If anyone can receive this message, there are three High Guard troops needing urgent transport off the planet's surface. We are being pursued by alien mechanical constructs and request immediate evacuation."
Tanaka looked at Thor's projected image. "Can you help?" he asked.
"Help is on the way," responded Thor.
Interlude Three
Samuda blew on his hands trying to bring some warmth to them. Somewhere along the line during the fight with the bugs he had lost his gloves and it was now a constant effort to keep his fingers from becoming frostbitten. He made a promise to himself that if he somehow got out of this mess alive his next posting was going to be somewhere were the temperature never dropped below 30 C. However right now his immediate goal was to get the remnants of Dragon Company to what the company used to call Fire Base Intoxication. If his memory was correct and he wasn't lost they should be less than an hour's walk from it. He silently prayed that he wasn't lost. They had been traveling for ten days now and were exhausted. If they were lost they would probably die out here before they found the Lodge.
By the time the Argo courier had lifted off Dragon Company was down to three members, Dow, Sergeant Haulder and him. As soon as the courier's antigrav drive had engaged and the ship was airborne they all went running for the relative safety of the hills north of the encampment. Fortunately the bugs had not perused them aggressively since only Haulder was unwounded. Dow had been sprayed in the face with bug juice, the jet of acid had hit her helmets cheek guard and by sheer bad luck some of the resultant spray had gone under her visor and into her right eye blinding it. Another bug had taken a chunk out of his lower leg, a big chunk.
Once they had broken free of the bugs, Samuda had made the decision to head for the Company's hunting lodge affectionately named Fire Base Intoxication. The company had built it using their recreation funds and their sweat. It was a place where a Lancer on leave could go to drink till he puked, fornicate like a dog in heat and of course hunt the game that roamed the wilds of Arzawa III. At he moment though the important thing about the lodge was that it had a high power radio. Unfortunately the lodge was over 180 kilometers from their present location. One hundred eighty kilometers for a trio of healthy Lancers would have been a strenuous five or six day hike but when two of the trio were half crippled and they had to avoid prowling bugs it promised to be a long trip.
The first night out nearly killed them all. It wasn't the bugs that became their enemy it was the cold. Arzawa III was in the outer edge of its suns habitability zone, which meant the planet had two types of weather cold and colder. Temperatures near the equator while chilly were reasonable. Dragon Company however had been stationed well north of the equator. A balmy summer day in Dragon Land, as the company called it, was about 5 C, at night the temperature dropped to below zero. If the planet had enough water for glaciers the entire world would probably be under ice but as it was water was a rare commodity on Arzawa III. Samuda had never though of deserts as being cold but cold desert was an excellent description of the planet. When the bugs arrived Samuda and the others had been too busy putting on battle armor and trying to survive to worry about acquiring cold weather gear and while Lancer winter utilities were reasonably warm they were not designed for extended wear in sub zero temperatures. As close as they were to the bugs they didn't dare light a fire for fear it would attract them. All they could do was huddle together for warmth. The irony of the situation didn't fail to escape him. Both Haulder and Dow were attractive women; a few days ago the idea of having them both pressing their bodies up against his would have sounded like an erotic fantasy, now that they were, the only interest he had in their bodies was the amount of heat they generated.
By the end of the second day Samuda was feeling optimistic that they might live to make it to the lodge. The bugs didn't seem to be perusing and they now had food and clothing of sorts. Earlier that morning they had stumbled on a herd of the large deer like animals known as killdeer grazing on the some of the ubiquitous lichen that formed the base of the planetary food chain and had managed to kill two of them using their gauss rifles. Killdeer weren't really deer; for one thing they had claws and fangs, there were very few true herbivores or carnivores on the planet; food was scarce enough that most animals had evolved as omnivores, but they were nourishment and they had nice warm furry pelts.
An F-lance is a versatile device; it can be used as a weapon, a light source and as a cutting tool. None of them knew anything about butchering animals but necessity can be a very inspiring teacher. The job was messy all three of them were quickly covered in blood and gore and the animals' entrails smelled bad enough to make a person nauseous but eventually they had meat and fur ponchos. They even had managed to cobble together a couple of crude backpacks they could use to carry extra food. For a change the cold was working to their advantage it would help preserve both the meat and the hides until they made it to the lodge.
The lodge was where Samuda had remembered it to be and it was bug free. He sent Dow to see about getting the power system up and running, the fuel cells that provided power to the lodge were virtually inexhaustible but did require maintenance and were secured when the lodge was not in use, and sent Haulder to scout the area. While they were doing that he checked out the radio. It wasn't designed for planet-to-planet communications but it was powerful enough to reach just about anywhere on the planet which he hoped would be enough. If the Argo ship had made had made good its escape Arzawa III would be now be ringed with High Guard ships that would be monitoring communications channels. He had no way of knowing if the bugs were still jamming or if they were if the radio could punch through but he did know that if this didn't work they were all going to die. If the bugs didn't get them starvation would. With a hum and a click the lights came on and the heaters started up. Dow had gotten the power system started; at least if they were going to die they could die warm.
It was time to call for help. If the radio could penetrate the jamming life would be good, if it couldn't penetrate things would be grim and if the bugs had monitoring equipment things would get very grim. He took the first stint on the radio sending out the call, waiting two minutes for a reply then repeating the call. An hour later he learned two new things about the bugs, they could monitor radio communication and that they took the term flying squad to an entire new level. The incoming bugs were flying.
Samuda ordered Dow to switch places with him. Dow was right handed and with her right eye blinded, her chances of hitting anything with her gauss rifle were slim. He slipped his poncho on and ordered the others to do the same. The fur and hide might give a little more protection against the bugs' acid.
"Keep calling until I give the order to bag it"
There was a slight chance that the Guard had heard their messages and had sent help but was not replying for fear the message might be intercepted. He began to pick of incoming bugs. Holes began to appear in the walls of the lodge as the bugs began to burn their way in. More holes began to appear in the roof and the first bug entered and scuttled towards Dow. Haulder took it out with a single shot but by then two more bugs had gotten in. Samuda opened his mouth to tell the others it was time to go when…..they were standing on the deck of an Argosy warship. Immediately before them was a Fleet Admiral.
Tired, smelly, covered in gore and wearing rotting hides for armor, they were nonetheless Lancers and automatically came to attention. Samuda had no idea how he had been rescued but there was an Admiral in front of him and that he could deal with. As he came to attention he snapped off a salute and reported "Dragon Company reporting for duty SIR!
