Ch: 118 This is gonna suck

Edited

Chapter 118

This is gonna suck

Inside, the assault shuttle shook a little making the marines in Freya’s platoon shift in their seats uneasily. Freya had already linked up her tablet with the ship so it was simplicity itself for her to use her Personal AI to check what was going on. What she found made her snort. While the pilot was following all the regulations on flying his ship he was doing so right at the edge. His speed was right at the maximum for non-combat flying in this type of atmospheric environment, and he was prolonging his flight path by doing some aerial combat movements. A quick look at what the screens were showing made it clear that he was not under attack.

“Yo, Pin?” Freya said over the private channel with Kruz.

“Stop it.” Kruz responded. “You speak Prisoner like some rich privileged kid from a paradise world. What do you need?”

“You ask the pilot to stop screwing around?” Freya asked. “He’s doing combat maneuvers while not in combat. It’s what’s throwing us around. I don’t have the rank to say something.”

“What’s his rank?” Kruz asked.

“Warrant Officer.” Freya replied.

“Yeah, no. I’m not going to tell a Warrant to stop messing around.” Kruz told her while chuckling. “Sorry, but you’re gonna have to deal with it.”

“If I tried to do that, I would have been on report faster than you can drink a beer.” Freya replied, a little annoyed.

“Get promoted faster.” Kruz replied, sounding amused.

“We under attack?” Seth, Freya’s team drone operator asked, sounding nervous. He was a corporal, and Freya found him a bit skittish.

“No.” Freya replied, growling as she looked at the wall ahead of her.

“I hate pilots.” Sergeant Diamond said over the same channel. “Those uppity bastards always screw around in the sky while we do the fighting on the ground.”

“I’m a pilot.” Freya replied, leaning her head down a bit so that she could see the crusty sergeant.

“I rest my case.” The grumpy heavy assault sergeant replied. Freya had expected him to be annoyed at the fact that she was squad and team leader instead of him while only being a Corporal. But the man explained to her in front of the others in her squad that he didn’t care about her rank as long as she could lead worth a damn. He was just happy to be on a SpecOps platoon. His first, according to him.

JK, on the other hand, hadn’t said a word when they were introduced except to tell them what he wanted to be called. He was Freya’s other heavy assault sergeant, and he mostly tuned out the team when they spoke about themselves. He had spent the entire time staring off into the distance. She wasn’t going to do anything to him as long as he followed her orders. She wasn’t sure what exactly she could do to him if he ignored her. She had no idea how to fine someone, let alone write a person up. Oddly enough, it wasn’t covered in her training, although it had a lot to say about leading people. She knew he had to have the same training so she was not sure what to do with him other than do her job. She made a mental note to ask Kruz about it later.

“Five minutes until we land.” Kruz told them over the platoon channel, as the pilot of the assault shuttle dipped downwards. Freya frowned at the pilot's antics as she felt the sensations of her body dropping while her stomach stayed up for a few seconds. Beside her, she could see Seth grab his rifle and hold on tight. Just beyond him, she saw JK looking at him with a self-satisfied expression on his face.

Checking to make sure they still weren’t under attack, Freya put her tablet away and relaxed her body. She did it to show Seth there was nothing to worry about with her body language. She had learned the technique in the training facility. The instructor had had a lot to say about squad morale and fear.

People, her instructor had told her, fought better when they had a strong leader who was confident. Showing fear as a leader was one of the biggest ways to reduce the effectiveness of a fighting force. During her training she hadn’t given it as much attention as she now realized she should have. It was because, she now realized, up to now it had all been a game. Dying only meant that you were either unlucky or you had screwed up. Now, dying meant something very different, and what was worse was everyone here had to have experienced something very much like dying to be selected.

The pilot was an idiot all the way up to when he landed with a hard thump. Grumbling about bad pilots, Freya got up and led her squad down the ramp in the back. To her surprise it was dark out, even though it was still this planet’s daytime. Her armor instantly turned on her dark vision and she queried her computer on why it was dark as she kept on walking down the ramp. She guessed it was a solar eclipse, but it turned out that the city was built around an atmospheric plant. The plant produced so much atmospheric gasses that it was almost constantly dark for several miles around the city.

According to her research, it pumped out huge volumes of non-oxygenated gases that did all sorts of things to help with the terraforming of this side of the planet. For example, the plant produced gasses that warmed the planet up, and added chemicals to the clouds which fell to the ground after a while. Most of those chemicals that were produced in the plant were needed to grow food for the future settlers. The warehouses were there to store stuff that would be used in the plant.

“Would have been nice to know about it beforehand.” Freya thought to herself as she turned around and waited for her squad to gather around her. To her surprise, no one questioned why it was dark. She did see a few people on their systems which she guessed meant that they were looking it up themselves.

“All right everyone, over here.” Kruz called out loud from behind Freya. Turning, Freya saw Kruz standing with her back to a bunch of lightly-armed fast attack vehicles. They were sort of like the scout vehicles, with comparable speed, but had better weapons and less anti-surveillance equipment.

“Magic’s squad gets the first two vehicles. House, you get the next two, and James, you got the last two. I’ll ride with Magic. Collins will be riding with you, House. On the way back, don’t worry about which vehicle you ride in. Just find one with an empty seat and get in. I’ll keep an eye on who is where. If you have the time, try to get in the one furthest away from the warehouse. Your fellow marines who will be behind you will appreciate it.” Kruz said in a sarcastic tone of voice.

Once she was done talking, Freya turned to her squad and pointed at the first two vehicles that were sitting in the row of cars. “My team up front. Third team, you get the other one. Everyone else, find an open seat in either of the two vehicles. Leave one seat open for the boss in my truck.” Freya told them over her shoulder.

As she got closer to the vehicles she examined them. She had only seen them in the training facility. They were about twelve feet long with a driver and a gunner already waiting on them. They were low to the ground and had omnidirectional tires that were completely round like a ball. The vehicle had dual plating, with one sheet of armor connected about six inches from the body of the truck.

It was designed to reduce anti-vehicle weapons from penetrating into the truck. For an explosive round, the first layer was designed to let the explosion ignite away from the secondary armor to reduce the round's ability to punch through into the truck. The first layer of armor also protected the reflective armor of the second layer from getting dirty. A dirty reflective armor was poor protection from beam weapons. Her new dropship had the same armor except it had a substructure between the two layers to increase the strength of the first armor layer. The metal of both layers was lightweight, and stronger than they looked.

Freya left the passenger seat beside the driver open for Kruz. Instead, she walked around the other side of the truck and claimed a seat behind the driver so that Kruz could, if she wanted, turn in her seat to look at her when they spoke. The driver looked young, a lot younger than she expected a marine to look. She saw she was a Private First Class from the chevrons on her armor.

Freya waited just outside the truck, leaning on the open door, making sure everyone in the squad found a seat in the two trucks. Once she saw that everyone had found a seat in the first two trucks, she climbed in and waited for Kruz to get done talking to Collins and climb into the truck. She watched the two talk to each other for a minute or so before they split up, with Kruz headed towards their truck. A few moments later they were off.

The street that they were driving down looked much wider than normal streets. The streets were also devoid of any painted lines to indicate which side of the street they were supposed to drive on. Instead their driver drove in the middle of the road. She also drove pretty fast, so fast in fact Freya doubted that they could get out of the way in time if another vehicle came down going the opposite way.

Not that it looked like that was going to happen. The place looked deserted. There were signs of battle among the buildings. Some of the buildings had collapsed due to the fighting. Other buildings had large holes in them that looked like typical weapons’ fire from small arms rounds.

The streets were lined with dead turtle-looking constructs. Someone must have come by and cleaned them up because they were lined up like snow banks on the side of the road. Freya examined them as they drove down the road. They were about the same size as a large dog, but they didn’t look anything like a dog. They were slightly chubby with hard shells on their backs, and gray scale-like skin where it wasn’t covered by the shell. They had two arms that extended out of the shell that ended with large, black claws. The things also had a tail with a large knot-looking thing that was lined with small spikes on it.

Here and there, she spotted a few of the dog-like creatures that she had seen on her first mission on Karma at the ammonia plant. There weren't a lot of them, but she did see them every now and then. Aside from dog things, she also spotted a very thin-looking construct that looked like a praying mantis. The only difference was the head, which was flat with a long snout like a crocodile.

The drive took them down what Freya thought was the main street for a while, before they turned onto a side street. From there it was a maze of small side streets. If it wasn’t for her mini map on her HUD she would have been hopelessly lost. The side streets were packed with identical looking dome-like buildings like she remembered from her sim mission which were low-ranking corporate workers’ housing. Which, she thought, made sense, since she had seen a lot of the same logos on most of the buildings they had passed on the main road. She wondered if this whole town was owned by a single corporation.

Finally the truck she was riding in took a turn and drove to an intersection where the street they were on dead-ended onto a larger road that ran perpendicular to it. The driver slowed down but didn’t stop. In front of them, sitting on the other side of the street from where their street dead-ended, was a long, rectangular-faced building. The building didn’t have any windows on its long, grey-white wall that stretched for the entire side of the building that she could see. The emblem that Freya had seen on the buildings on their drive to the warehouse was painted on the building much bigger than any of the ones she had seen so far.

Taking up the perpendicular street was a bunch of marines taking cover behind a line of APCs. They had all of their weapons facing the building, but most of them turned when the Honey Badgers’ convoy came up towards them. The driver of Freya’s truck pulled a U-turn on the road that they had been driving down and drove back down the street the way they had come. The female driver stopped about a hundred feet up the street from the warehouse, facing the way back to where the assault ship with the crappy pilot had landed.

Kruz, who seemed to be preoccupied the whole trip on her wrist computer, called to disembark as soon as the truck stopped. Freya pulled her Asy Minor short barrel rifle off her back. She pointed the barrel of the gun up, as there were too many marines getting out of the vehicles in front of her to drop it into the ready position. She had exited the truck on the street side so she stayed on the street as she jogged towards the warehouse that took up the entire block behind her.

Kruz stepped out into the street and waved at a gunnery sergeant who looked like he was waiting for them. Freya stayed with her platoon as Collins followed Kruz to speak with the gunny. Freya took the time to look over at the marines who were guarding the warehouse. To Freya they looked rough. More than a few of them were sporting armor that was damaged in some way. She also saw a few walking-wounded marines with splints on at least one of their limbs.

She knew from her medical training, and the medical protocols for fighting the Ketica, that the splints they were wearing were the ones a medic was supposed to use on minor wounds. They could only wear them if they had less than forty percent calculated on the medical aspect of their HUD. Anyone with greater than forty percent should have been already evaced back to a medical aid station. There, they would either get treatment to get them back on their feet or be transferred to a dropship to be respawned like she had been for her PTSD.

As she was waiting, there was a loud crack that didn’t sound like a weapon going off. Her HUD pointed upwards, warning her that it was coming from above her. She thought that it sounded like thunder. Not wanting to chance it in case she was wrong, she looked up. She didn’t spot anything other than the dark clouds for a few seconds before there was a flash of lightning followed by thunder. A few seconds later fat raindrops began to fall. They soon started to fall faster and harder until it was hard to see anything beyond ten feet from her.

“Just what a mission like this needs.” Monkeyman said over the talk-around channel.

“Keep the comms clear unless you have something important to say.” House said in reply.

They waited there in the rain for Kruz and Collins to get done talking to the gunny. The rain seemed loud to Freya as she listened to it hit her armor. It reminded her of the times she had gone camping with her grandfather when they hunted meat for the winter. She felt herself relax as she looked up at the falling rain. The rain drops hit her face shield, but rolled off in large beads of water letting her see without too much trouble. She was brought out of her pleasant thoughts as the group in front of her broke up.

She watched as Kruz took her time coming towards them, while the marines behind them quickly gathered together and started marching away. They left the APCs behind. Freya made room as the first platoon ran by her on their way out of the city. She turned her attention back to Kruz, who had stopped about five feet from them.

“James, get your people set up. Once you’re in position, we head in.” Kruz told them, before turning to watch the retreating marines go by her.

Watching her mini map, she saw James had split his squad up and put one team on the front of the building. The other two took up positions on the short sides of the building, making a defensive triangle. He didn’t have enough people to cover the rear, but with the two squads on the sides of the building he could cover it without too many problems. She thought about suggesting the demo people from the second squad set up some auto cannons along the back side of the building. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like it was a good idea.

“Hey, Pin. What do you think about setting up auto cannons on the rear of the building?” She asked Kruz over her private channel.

“I think it’s an awesome idea.” Kruz replied less than a second later. She then gave the order over the platoon channel. This delayed them for a few minutes, as Second Squad split up and set up the turrets, but it didn’t take that much time before they returned to the main group.

“Second Squad, you’re a go.” Kruz said, as soon as the last bit of stragglers from Second Squad came running up to the group.

Freya watched as Monkeyman’s team led the way into the building. She didn’t know anyone from his squad, but she did know him. She felt weird going into battle without him and Lurch at her side. She found herself worrying for his safety. She had already lost Lurch, she couldn’t lose her Monkeyman. Not now. Maybe not ever. He was her brother. The thought of him dying was an almost physical pain that radiated from her chest outwards. Then the time for thinking and worrying was over.

“Magic, the building is secure. Time to go hunting.” Kruz told her, standing near the single blue door to the warehouse.

“On it.” Freya replied and waved her hand for her squad to follow her.

It was pitch black inside the warehouse, but her dark vision cut right through the darkness. She found herself in a room full of thin, metal pallets of boxes that were double and sometimes triple stacked on top of each other. The pallets were stacked in a way that they created a pathway of sorts. The good news was her HUD had a pathway towards the waypoint, where she assumed the hole where the Ketica was hiding was located.

She spotted a female demo setting up some mines along the pathway they were jogging down. She recognized the mines as the same ones she had used in the sim mission with Monkeyman and Lurch before they joined Mother’s platoon. She ignored the woman and kept jogging towards where Kruz had set up a waypoint on her mini map. Whoever ran this warehouse kept it orderly, as there was a large path down the middle of the warehouse with small paths branching off of it at regular intervals.

The hole, when she found it, was in the middle of the warehouse just off the main path of pallets in the warehouse. The hole was surrounded by pushed-over pallets that looked like a bomb had gone off near the hole, with how the pallets had been pushed back and knocked over. Freya saw Monkeyman by the hole setting up an auto turret. He looked up at her as she slowed down to a walk. He nodded to her, but she noticed he wasn’t smiling. She nodded back, not sure why he looked worried.

“Send out the drones.” Freya told her squad over their radio channel. “I want a good picture of what we’re looking at before we drop in.”

As soon as she got done talking, she got three pop-up windows with three different drone feeds. They were all showing mostly the same thing as they lifted off from her drone operators and flew upwards. They flew towards the ceiling, and as they did they pointed their cameras at the hole, or at least where the hole should be. It wasn’t showing up on their feeds.

“Magic, I’m not sure what’s going on, but ...do you see this?” Seth, her team’s drone operator, asked.

“Yeah.” Freya responded, frowning under her face shield. “I’ve seen that before. Remember when we talked about the Ketica’s active camo tech? Well, this is what it looks like.”

“Damn, that's some serious tech.” JK said, sounding impressed.

“On their spy constructs you can bypass their tech if you have an unaltered biological eye on it, but stop looking at it and the thing you’re looking at disappears.” Freya told them as she slowly walked past Monkeyman and dropped to her belly. She low-crawled up to the hole, which was about ten feet from where Monkeyman was setting up his turret. She edged right up to the hole and popped her head ove the hole for a second before pulling it back.

“Damn.” She muttered, forgetting that she had an open mic which meant that her entire squad heard her curse.

“What’s wrong, boss?” Seth asked, sounding worried.

“It’s a much smaller hole than the last one.” Freya replied, but this time over the platoon channel.

“How small?” Kruz asked a second later.

“Too small for our people in heavy armor.” Freya replied slowly, backing away from the hole.

“You serious?” Kruz asked, sounding both surprised and angry at the same time.

“Yeah.” Freya said standing up by where her team was waiting for her. “This is going to suck.”