Esamir – Frostfall Overlook – 0500 hours.
The sound of whistling wind and fresh snow crunching under his boots filled his mind, drowning out the ever-present sounds of war in the distance – the stacatto booms of Liberator gunships' belly cannons, the unnerving, unearthly whine of plasma particles flying every which direction, even the occasional chaingun that sounded like some god above had let rip the most lethal fart known to mankind. None of that mattered at this moment, though. Locking down the continent of Indar, half a world away, was more of a pressing matter to the generals of the Vanu Sovereignty. And because of it, the few meagerly-equipped rearguards who had been left to defend Ymir biological laboratories, also known as the Ymir Biolab, were being crushed by an onslaught of Terran Republic forces, eager to seize the sprawling dome-shaped laboratory in hopes of catching Vanu scientists unaware, perhaps even gain some of their valuable data.
And it was his job to stop them. It always was, even when he was a part of them.
He was Edward Saller, now laying in the snow on the high cliff-like snowy mountains that bordered either side of the Biolab's major northern road. He had been many things – a scientist, an engineer, a soldier. Who he had fought for didn't matter to him, so long as they funded his research. Among the wealth of designs with his name on them included the Reconstruction Tubes, an incredible advancement in human technology that effectively granted indefinite life, so long as you weren't afraid to die. It was also the design he hated the most. It was the design solely responsible for this war that had stretched on and on for fifty years, at least the way he saw it. He was one of the original Terran Republic military scientists who had travelled through the wormhole at the edge of the solar system on October 20, 2640. To think that that fateful day two hundred and fifty five years ago was part of his eclectic collection of memories.
Preoccupied with his thoughts, he had failed to notice that the distant sounds of war had died away. The sound of engines grew closer and closer as the Terran Republic, their armor likely still dripping with lukewarm blood of his Vanu brothers, marched onward to their objective. With any luck, however, they would never reach it.
He glanced down at his rifle scope one last time, dialing in the zeroing with practiced haste. It was critical that the weapon be as precise as he was for this test. He much would have preferred that one of the more skilled Vanu marksmen had taken the job, but for all the technical and scientific minds that graced the Vanu Sovereignty, few knew how to write a technical essay that didn't leave its readers wondering if the author even knew how to write. And so, here he was, conducting yet another trial on this new weapons platform. One of the few benefits of working with the more rigid, report-heavy Terran command tree, he supposed. The other, he grimly thought, was the vital knowledge of Terran vehicles and tactics drilled into him that would give him the upper edge in a minute or two.
As the trail of red-and-grey vehicles rolled into the valley below, he laid his heavy anti-materiel rifle in the snow and began hastily shoveling the white powder up onto the grey barrel, hoping to obscure the dark colored bar of metal against the glistening landscape around him. Pressing his cheek against the stock of the lengthy rifle, he peered into his scope, taking aim at his first target.
With a slow, measured squeeze of the trigger, the massive rifle roared, sending one of his custom-tooled twenty-five millimeter APHE rounds ripping through the air. Almost instantly, the round impacted the armored roof of the six-wheeled Sunderer troop transport bus, slicing clean through the plate armor like a hot knife through butter. He didn't have to imagine the horrific results it inflicted on the driver as the vehicle veered to the left of the road, picking up speed as the mangled body rested on the gas pedal. The Sunderer tried to climb the hill, only to come tumbling down as it rolled on its side, sliding to a stop in the center of the road on its side. Creating a roadblock was what he had intended, and creating a roadblock is what he had accomplished.
With the rest of the armor column now on high alert, a burst of gut-wrenching fear all too familiar to him filled his body, but he resisted the urge to run, instead watching through his rifle scope as soldiers kicked the back doors of the disabled Sunderer open and began to pile out. "They haven't seen me yet. Should have stayed behind their armor and used their radios to contact a tank gunner to spot me from safety. What a bunch of idiots…" he muttered to himself as he racked the rifle's bolt, chambering a new cartridge. He slowly shifted the rifle to the next target, a heavy double-barreled tank known by its production name, the Prowler. While most Vanu thought it took nothing short of several pounds of demolition charges or serious air support to eliminate the heavily-armored Prowler, with just the right knowledge…
Another trigger pull, another rifle report echoing across the valley. With a brief spark of impact, the heavy bullet punched through the swiveling baseplate of the remote-controlled machine gun on top of the heavy tank's turret. He could almost imagine the cartridge's effects: piercing through the relatively-unarmored turret mount, the explosive charge the round carried would have detonated just inside the turret – likely only inches from the soldier operating the machine gun via computer screen, peppering him with molten shards of metal. If for some reason he were absent, shrapnel would spread out and take its toll on the surrounding crew as the fragments ricochetted around the cramped quarters. What he hadn't expected, however, was for flames to come spewing out of the tank's large gun barrels like a serpent's tongue, followed by a percussive explosion that sent the turret flying off its chassis like debris from a volcano. "Must've hit ammo," he thought, his helmet visor automatically tinting itself in reaction to the bright light. "I thought they taught those idiots not to store loose ammo outside the storage boxes." Then again, he knew, no one listened to EVERY order handed down to them. Adaptability and thinking for yourself was a handy tool for staying alive and climbing the ranks - that is, if it didn't get you blown up in spectacular fashion.
He could hear the cries of the overturned Sunderer's soldiers as they raised their rifles, firing blindly into the hills above them in hopes of scaring the sniper into moving. It was only a matter of time, he knew, until one of them managed to spot him. He slowly began to crawl backward toward cover, praying to an unnamed god that they didn't see him. As easy as it was to have a new body built for him in the Reconstruction Tubes and have his memories downloaded as they had a million times, nothing could stop the pain of a slow death. Like any soldier, that was something he was eager to avoid.
Suddenly, a wavering hum sounded out behind him. Rolling over, he found himself face to face with a red-and-grey suited Infiltrator, a glistening knife in his hands. As the assassin dove down toward him with the knife, he quickly rolled to his right, reaching for his sidearm strapped to his leg. The NS-61 Emissary submachine gun in his hand clattered away, peppering the would-be assassin with round after round until he dropped.
By now, every TR soldier below knew exactly where he was, readily unloading every bullet they owned in his general direction. Gritting his teeth, he shoved his little auto-pistol back in its holster and snatched his rifle by the buttstock, hauling as hard as he could to pull the snow-covered rifle to safety. Warnings chirped in his helmet's headset to indicate that his armor's shield generator had just gone down from a few grazing bullet impacts, but he didn't dare let go of the rifle until he had made it behind a rock for cover. Bullets were whizzing around the small boulder, keeping him from peeking over to see whether his opponents were advancing on his position.
"These fuckers need to know when to give up!" He muttered through gritted teeth as he set the heavy rifle down, drawing his sidearm. Dropping the old magazine and slapping in a new one, he pocketed the submachine gun once more and picked up the empty magazine he had dropped. "No sense in keeping you!" He thought, jokingly lobbing it over the rock in hopes of hitting someone in the head. The cries of soldiers diving for cover spurred him into a fit of laughter, thinking that he'd just tossed a hand grenade instead. Picking up his rifle, he sprinted for the next rock, and then the next, scrambling up the hillside until he had crested the ridge. As an afterthought, he found the nearest flat-topped boulder and dusted the freshest layer of snow aside, setting down a small metal plate-like device just under a foot in diameter. Pressing a button on the top with his thumb, the device sprung into life, hastily assembling an automated turret before his very eyes. "That should do it," he thought, turning to sprint down the hill.
"Callsign Moses, status report!" A gruff voice rang out from the speaker in his helmet. "Looks like a total shitshow on the satellite cam. What the hell did you do?"
Tucking his heavy rifle under his right arm, he pressed a button on the left side of his helmet to accept the incoming call as he jogged. "Just the usual business. The tide was high, the red sea needed a little parting up the ass. Nothing new. You got a ride for me?"
"Hell, let me take a look at the script for that show you just put on and I'll be stocking the Valkyrie with a hotbox full of your favorite pizza. Ride's already on the way, ETA three minutes."
"I can live with that. See you at home," Edward replied. Taking a deep breath, he attached the heavy rifle tightly to its magnetic sling on his back and began the trek up the next ridge, praying every second that he would have just one more before the enemy crested the ridge behind him. Just as he reached the top, he could hear the digital chirp and subsequent * pop pop pop * of the auto-turret he had left behind, but he didn't dare stop to watch the device's handiwork. As soon as he had crested the next ridge, he reached into his armor-plated tool pouch and retrieved a metal cylinder no larger than a pepper mill, dropping to his knees to flick the device on and plant it deep into the snow. With another digital chirp, the device burst into life, shooting a beam of purple-illuminated nanites high into the air. It was a special little ruse of his; the device was normally a signal beacon that provided a lock-on point for orbital paratrooper drops, something that would fill even the most hardened soldiers with the worry that hundreds of infantry could be dropping out of space on their very position. This one, however, was tinkered with, its light wave frequency altered so that the orbital cameras wouldn't recognize it, but still retain its visible look. Not only would it provide a marker for the exfil pilot, but hopefully slow down a brash, unplanned assault as well. Or so he hoped.
Removing the heavy rifle from its sling on his back, Edward peeked up over the ridge and began looking for his first target. Several light infantry were scaling the hill with ease, the roar of their jetpacks growing closer and closer. He took aim at the closest target, filling the view of his mid-power scope, but not for long. With a roar, the rifle bucked hard against his shoulder, almost sending him tumbling down the hill. The massive round ripped into the approaching light infantry's stomach, nearly snapping him in half as it continued down the hill and buried itself in the snow. He quickly rechambered a fresh round and tried to acquire a new target, but it was too late.
The light assault trooper crested the hill, rifle at the ready as he dropped to the ground in front of Edward. He fired the hefty rifle from the hip, nearly dropping the rifle under the hefty recoil, but the round only clipped the young man's leg. Before the man could fire his carbine, he tossed the anti-materiel rifle at his opponent to knock him down and hastily drew his backup gun once more, dumping half of the magazine in his direction. One of the rounds managed to catch the fallen soldier in the jaw, spraying red all over the snow where he lay. He stowed his submachine gun and dashed for his rifle, scooping it up.
Just as the next jetpack-riding Terran soldier crested the hill, a stream of high-caliber tracers cut him down. By the whine of the approaching vehicle, he knew exactly who it was, not bothering to greet his favorite Valkrie operators as the flying craft approached, its gun still pointed toward the ridgeline. "Don't get too close, now, there's still half an armor column over there that's pretty damn pissed right about now," he said, holding the mic button on his helmet.
"You implyin' we aren't good enough, Ed?" The pilot replied as he pulled the vehicle to a hover just above the ground. Edward picked up his beacon and hopped up onto the dropseat, feeling the electromagnets built into the hotseat latch onto his purple-tinted armor.
"No, I'm saying I need breakfast, enough double espressos to kill a horse, and my computer before I can write this report up for Command, and you know how much my fans love my writing. So get us the hell out of here, first."
"You got it, boss. You heard what's going down over on Indar today? They just put the Lancer into action two days ago, and the fatties are eating it up!"
The "fatties", he knew, were the 82nd Heavy Infantry battalion. The king tank-busters. Mostly Ex-Terran soldiers who defected to the Vanu so they could play with the latest, greatest tech to feed their destructive appetites. Probably contained almost all of the truly combat-experienced soldiers the Sovereignty had. If anything impressed them, it became the gold standard for everyone else. More importantly, though, he was jealous that they weren't stuck in this freezing hellhole, being a superhero without the superhero recognition. "Yeah, yeah, just get us home. Brief me about it later."