Ch: 117 New platoon, old name

Edited

New chapter of Sage of Humanity should be out tonight.

Chapter 117

New Platoon, old name.

Chapter 117

The high Freya felt from respawning stayed with her for about ten minutes. In that time she made her way towards the building that Kruz told them to meet her at before she disappeared to meet with Captain Thompson. The building was a repair facility for ground vehicles, but it had a fairly large empty room with a bunch of chairs. She and Monkeyman sat side by side waiting for Kruz to come back.

While Monkeyman mostly spent the time reading a book that only he could see, Freya turned on her music and sat back, trying to relax. With pre-Terran Empire music in her ears, she sat back and tried to lose herself in the deeply emotional music. For a while it worked until the door behind her opened and a few marines walked in.

She turned her head as the door banged open and they marched in. Frowning at the four heavily armored marines, she turned up her music and tried to recapture the feeling that the music put her in, but the stupid door banged again as two more marines in heavy armor walked in. This time even Monkeyman turned around to look.

The door banged open a bunch more times as more and more marines entered the room in small groups and sat down. Monkeyman went back to his book after a while, and Freya turned her music up so loud she was sure people around her could hear it outside her armor. She ignored the people around her, even though she knew they had to be her platoon-mates. She just wanted a bit of time to herself.

“Attention on deck!” Someone called out and Freya jumped to her feet, coming to attention before she even knew what she was doing.

“Sit down.” Kruz’s voice came back, sounding annoyed.

Freya did as she was told, yet looked back as she watched Kruz and two other people walk towards the front of the room. She saw Kruz give her a sad look for a half a second before her boss’s expression turned back into a scowl. The woman walked angrily to the front then stopped. One of the people with her, a male sergeant, walked around her and stood to her right while the other male sergeant stopped and stood to her left. It left Kruz surrounded by the two.

“I’m Sergeant Kruz, the platoon leader of the Honey Badgers.” Kruz said with her hands on her hips. “If you are here then that means you experienced an out-of-body event courtesy of the enemy. That gives you a rare gift to see the enemy before they attack. That will give us an advantage in our mission going forward.”

“This next statement is classified for now, but yesterday at 16:43 planet time the surviving members of the Honey Badgers hunted down and killed a Ketica.” Kruz told them.

Freya looked around as the people in the room started talking. Some cheered, but some sounded like they didn’t believe what Kruz had told them. As she looked around she noted she was the only light-armored person in the room. It was filled with mostly heavy-armored marines with a few scattered medium armor.

“We are turning into an assault group.” She thought to herself as Kruz let the people in the room talk for a few seconds. “Wait, are we still a Spec Ops platoon?”

“Stow that noise!” The sergeant on Kruz’s left shouted out.

“Thank you, Sergeant Collins.” Sergeant Kruz said to the man who spoke, before she turned back to look at the rest of the platoon. “Beside me is Sergeant Collins. He is my assistant platoon leader. This is Sergeant James. He is my third and squad leader for Third Squad.”

Kruz’s eyes flickered to Freya’s. To Freya, her boss looked sad, and apologetic. She knew why as she felt a flicker of anger at her comment. Kruz had promised her that she would be third in command right before they respawned, yet here she was introducing a sergeant as her third. It made sense to promote a sergeant into that position, but it still stung.

“Corporal O’Malley…” Sergeant Kruz said pointing at Freya with an open palm “...is my hunter. She’s in charge of First Squad. And before you all get pissy about rank, Magic here is the one who hunted down and killed that Ketica. She did it while keeping most of her team alive. At the end of the hunt, the team she led was the only one to make it out alive. Remember that when we are in the tunnels with constructs at our back and a real live Ketica in front of us.”

“The goal of this Platoon, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is to hunt down and kill Ketica. Not the constructs, but the ones who build them. We will be called in after the action is done. We will enter the tunnels where the Ketica are hiding out and hunt them down. We are a hunter-killer platoon. That is our only job. The October picked you people because you are the best of the best of those who survived getting our souls ripped out of our bodies.”

“This is a volunteer platoon, so you may opt to leave at any time except when we are on a mission. But before you do, understand that if you leave you are letting a less qualified person go in your place.” Sergeant Kruz told them. “Odds are, your replacement will die because of your decision.”

“The Honey Badgers are assigned, for the duration, to Intelligence Services. At times we will have a Telepathic PsyOps agent who specializes in aliens with us, but for the most part we will be alone. We report directly to Captain Thompson, who is the officer in charge of all intelligence operations on Karma. While we will be the only platoon, for now, who is hunting down the Ketica, there are two other platoons in our company who will be doing Intelligence Services missions. They may or may not be joining us on our hunts.”

“I wish we had time to do some sim missions, but we don’t. We are going to be very busy in the coming months. Yes, I said months. The big guys above us think that it will be months before we are going to be able to pacify this planet. In that time expect to run at least three to four missions a week. This is the only SpecOps platoon that is qualified to hunt Ketica. You will be in more missions than anyone else on the planet. If you last and stay with us, expect to get a ton of E-points out of this. I have been told that there is a bounty on every Ketica that is killed.That bounty is platoon-wide, people. All you have to do to get the bounty is be in the platoon while on the mission when it’s killed.”

“This platoon will be at the forefront of any hunter-killer missions in the future. Our tactics will be studied by the war college and training implemented to all future hunter-killer platoons.” Kruz told them.

“What we know about the make-up and tactics of the Ketica so far is that the one we encountered was a pink ball with tentacles. Those tentacles acted as both a weapon and it’s means of propulsion. Don’t get hit by them as they will tear your soul out of your body. While it will bypass your armor it is vulnerable to our weapons. Shooting it will hurt it.” Kruz told them with a small smile.

She paused a few seconds to let the light laughter die down, then continued. “It also has a psychic scream that is very debilitating. According to our PsyOps people, while it’s very effective, it is also very crude. Apparently they have come across something like this before and have loaned us out some of their equipment. It should, and I mean should, blunt the attack. According to them all it will do is cause a mild headache as opposed to the massive debilitating pain we felt before.”

“The bad news is when it screams it alerts every construct in the area and sends them running to help it. So we need to find and kill it fast then get out. The October will be dropping an orbital strike on top of it to kill all the constructs that come running.” Kruz explained. “We will have twelve minutes to get on our transport and get clear. Not one second more. There is no stopping or delaying the orbital strike. So don’t get bogged down in fighting.”

“It’s a maze down there, and drones only work so far before we lose them. Our tactics will be to send a squad down into the maze. We will split up into teams and follow the tunnels, hunting our prey. Another squad will drop and remain at the entrance of the tunnel to protect our exit and to reinforce the squad that is out hunting.” Kruz told them.

“For the squad that is hunting, as soon as you find the Ketica, you will stop and send one of your team members back to inform the second squad. Communication in the tunnels sucks, and will be limited so we will do this the old fashioned way and use runners. The squad that is on protection detail will send their runners out and make sure everyone retreats except the team that is guarding the Ketica. Once everyone is back, we will send the rest of the hunting squad down to where the Ketica’s hiding and kill it.” Kruz explained.

“The guarding squad will remain at the entrance and make sure the exit is secure for the hunting squad. Once they are safe the guarding squad will retreat as well. The last squad will be outside protecting the exit route to the evac shuttle. We will have a dedicated assault shuttle to get us there and back. Once the Ketica is dead and the retreat is called, don’t waste any time. Get to that shuttle in an orderly retreat. The hunting squad loads first, then guarding squad, and finally the outside squad. Questions?” Kruz asked, looking at them.

“Will we be rotating the hunting squad or will it always be First Squad?” Someone asked.

“For now, it’s First Squad who will be my hunting squad. Second Squad will be the guarding squad and Third Squad will be out protecting our exit.” Kruz told him. “That will change once we get into a rhythm, but for now it's fixed. Next.”

There were a few more questions, mostly about who would be in what squad. Kruz told them that she would message them their positions on the teams as soon as the meeting was done. She did say that there would be a meeting with her command staff right afterwards. Freya made a mental note to remember to go as she was now a part of the command staff.

“Sergeant Collins? You have anything to add?” Kruz asked, looking at him.

“Permission to tell them about our debriefing?” The tough-looking sergeant asked.

“Sure, but keep it to the confidential stuff.” She replied.

“Yes, ma’am.” He said, nodding to her before he turned towards the rest of the platoon. “Okay, this bit is not confidential, but I think we all need to know it.

“Karma may be a halfway-terraformed planet in the ass-end of the Rim, but it is vital to the rest of the Rim. The confidential part is that there are six other planets that the Ketica could access from here. We don’t have the ships or the men to protect every planet in what we think is their range. If we are lucky, and if this planet falls, then they will only go for one planet. If not, then the whole Rim may be in danger. If the Rim falls, then the outer systems will be next and, after that, the inner system.” He told them.

“We don’t know much, but what we do know comes from what Sergeant Kruz and her platoon discovered. They were first on this planet and got us the vital intel. They discovered that the Terran Empire fucked us. They made some kind of deal with the Ketica and didn’t hold their side of the deal when it came time to pay up. Because of that, the entire Ketica race holds us as untrustworthy.” He explained.

“According to the intel that Sergeant Kruz and her people were able to uncover, being untrustworthy is the worst crime in their book. They have deemed the human race a threat to their existence. That means they will not stop until the last human is put down like the rabid dogs they think we are.” He told them.

“We know that the Ketica looks like a big version of the denial sphere that we trained on. We know that they have the ability to hide their tunnels, themselves and their constructs while underground. But... But, we now have the means to hunt down and fight the Ketica because of Sergeant Kruz and her people.” He said, holding his hand out like he was telling them to stop.

“For Tom’s sake, do not think this will be easy. The Ketica have shown the ability to adapt at a frightening rate. You only have to look at how they are constantly changing their constructs daily, making them deadiler, to see what I mean. Expect the Ketica to change tactics once they figure out what we are doing. Expect the worst, and be ready for when it happens.” He told the platoon, while pointing at them with his finger.

“Sergeant Kruz lost nearly her entire platoon to get us that information. We will not let her efforts or the efforts of those who are still living or dead go to waste. Their sacrifice will not be shit on by you people. I will see to that myself. The legend of the Honey Badgers has already started, but where it goes from here is up to you.” Sergeant Collins told them, his face red and his entire demeanor demanding that they not fail what he demanded of them. “When this is over, by Tom, they will talk about the Honey Badgers from the October and what we have done. We. Will. Be. Legends!”

“He’s better at giving speeches than Kruz is.” Freya thought to herself, clapping as the platoon went wild around her.

Freya was not sure if he was done, but from what she saw on Kruz’s face she knew she was. A few seconds later a message popped up on her HUD from Kruz. Opening it up, she saw that it was the platoon roster. Right off the bat she spotted that Monkeyman was not on her team. He was leading his own team in Second Squad. She frowned as she looked at the unfamiliar names that she was supposed to lead in her team. It felt weird not seeing her friends listed below her name.

She quickly went down the list of the rest of the teams that were in her squad. It was, she realized, a very different make-up from the original Honey Badger platoon. For one thing, squad leaders were by themselves. Each of them was leading a squad. That was very different from how Mother ran her platoon.

“Maybe it’s ‘cause we don’t have enough people?” She asked herself, as she went over the platoon roster. She was still not sure when she was done because, while they were down three people from the original makeup of the platoon, that could be because Kruz or whoever made the decision to have the squad leaders each be a part of a fire team.

She also noted that most of the platoon was made up of heavy assault with each of her teams getting a drone operator. A quick check at Second Squad’s roster told her that they had demo people added to their teams while she did not. It was, she told herself, something to think about. She dismissed it from her mind as she realized that the other squad leaders were already grouping up near Kruz. Dismissing her message, she quickly jogged up to the group.

Kruz nodded to her as she came to a stop. “Bad news, everyone.” Kruz said, looking at the rest of the squad leaders one by one. “We got a mission that we need to be ready for in an hour.”

“No way!” A male sergeant who stood next to Freya exclaimed. “I have no idea who my people are. I don’t know what their strengths and weaknesses are. Hell, as far as I know, none of them have worked together before. We aren't ready.”

“We are Marines.” Sergeant Collins reprimanded the squad leader. “We ….”

“Enough with the rah, rah, rah crap.” Kruz said, interrupting him. “We have multiple sites from yesterday that Command wants us at. If it was up to them, we would already be in the air on our way to our first target. As it stands, I got us an hour. That was as far as I could push it. When we are done here, go over your squads and make sure they know each other. Make basic plans on how you want your part of the mission to go. Understood?”

After she got everyone to agree, she continued. “We only have one target today, thank Tom. They think it’s a factory, but from the description I doubt it. I’ve been to one of their factories, and this doesn’t sound like one. Not that it matters.”

“The Ketica have repurposed a warehouse inside a human city, Delta 584.” Kruz told them, as she pulled off her backpack and yanked a holo tablet out of it. She fiddled with it for a second before it lit up with a small, uniform-looking city. “Our goal is simple, we land at this airfield and then we catch a ride to the warehouse and do our thing.”

“Magic is in charge of the hunt. House, you got guardian duty. I’ll be down by the tunnel’s exit with you. James, you got our exit route. On this one, I want you to detail some of your people by the shuttle and the rest outside the warehouse. Make sure to leave enough people to protect our ride to the airfield. There will be a company that is tasked to guard the road to the airfield. They won’t be hard to spot as they’ll be the ones in the hardback, armored scout vehicles along our route. If things go the way I expect them to, they’ll delay the constructs that come for us long enough for us to make it to the shuttle.”

“Is twelve minutes long enough for us to get to the shuttle in time?” Freya asked, as soon as Kruz was done talking.

“According to what I was told, the orbital strike will be focused on the side of the city where the warehouse is located. Some idiot thinks that will be enough.” Kruz replied.

“So we should expect a second strike a few minutes later?” Freya said, rolling her eyes.

That made Kruz laugh. “I wouldn’t bet against you on that.” She told Freya. As Kruz spoke, Freya spotted Sergeant Collins, standing slightly behind Kruz, giving her a look. He didn’t look pleased. In fact the look he gave her told her that she should shut up.

“What kind of vehicle are we getting to go to and from the shuttle?” The sergeant that Kruz had called House asked.

“Simple APC with a three person crew.” Kruz replied. “Their orders are to get us to and from the landing pad. While we are on site, they will help James with site protection, but they are in charge of getting us there and back. They’re our ride so don’t piss them off.”

“What kind of setup do you want at the exit site?” House asked as soon as Kruz was done talking.

“Shields and auto turrets.” Kruz told him. “Forget about active camo, they can see right through that crap. I want a switchback maze on all tunnels for at least fifty feet. It will slow our people down when they come back, but it should slow the constructs, who we will be pissing off, more. If we have the time, I want mines placed out past the shields for another fifty feet.”

“Understood.” House replied, as he tapped away on a console that was attached to his arm.

“Anything else?” Kruz asked, looking around at them.

“I noticed that I’m the only scout we have.” Freya said, speaking up. “Why is that? I thought that having a scout in each team would work out much better than having full assault teams with drone support.”

“Above my paygrade.” Kruz said, shrugging. “I didn’t pick this platoon. I was handed it.”

Freya was not the only one who found this statement discomforting. Even Sergeant Collins looked like he was not happy with the throw-together way the platoon had been made. Kruz, on the other hand, looked apathetic, like she didn’t care. Freya knew that wasn’t the case, but if she hadn’t known Kruz before this meeting she would never have guessed.

“What do you want to do if there are more than three tunnels?” Freya asked after Kruz dropped her bombshell.

“Like we did before. Send out a drone and see if we can’t find the pink squid. After a thousand feet or if the drone fails, send a team down it. Have them keep in contact with their drone at all times. I don’t want the drone to alert the squid. Once they reach two thousand feet with no contact, have them return. Rise and repeat. You can do two tunnels that way, but I want one squad to hold back in case something goes wrong. If you do have contact, I want you personally on site before the kill order is given.” Kruz told her.

“Understood.” Freya replied, nodding.

“We should have one demo with them to collapse the tunnels that come up empty.” Sergeant Collins said, speaking to Kruz.

“I don’t want them getting trapped because we collapse the wrong tunnel if they have to take an alternative route. We have no idea how far those tunnels go. On top of that, we may need to extend our search beyond the two-thousand-foot mark if we come up empty before then. I need my demo guys at the exit site. I want our exit protected as fast as possible. What we can do, though, is have them give Magic’s squad some mines they can place behind them as they go. No, that won’t work. Unless they’re remote-triggered mines. Only activate them once the squad is past them as they exfil. Yeah, that’ll work.” Kruz rambled, mostly sounding like she was talking to herself.

“Make it happen.” Kruz said, turning to House.

“Will do.” House replied.

“Okay, message me any other questions you have. We have…” Kruz said, pausing for a second before she continued. “... fifty-two minutes before we need to be on the shuttle. Get familiar with your squads and go over the tactics. I know we are going to make mistakes. They’ll be unavoidable with how fast Command wants us out there. Do your best to minimize them. That’s all.”

The meeting broke up after that. Freya left to go meet her new squad. She had three fire teams that each had four people. The biggest difference between these fire teams and the fire teams that Freya was used to was that they were all made up of three heavy assault marines and one drone operator, besides her team. On her team, the only difference was her being a scout. She had two heavy assault marines instead of three.

She introduced herself and had the team leaders introduce themselves next. It was only then that she realized that both her other team leaders were sergeants. They didn’t seem to be put off by her being a corporal, but she knew it was a possibility. Aside from the two team leaders, she had three more sergeants in non-command roles in her squad. The rest were corporals.

As they were talking she realized that she had another problem. She didn’t have a holo table to give them an idea of what the city looked like. Mentally cursing, she sent a message to Kruz asking if she could send her squad a map of the city. Kruz came back by sending the map only to her and told her to send it to her people. It would, she told Freya, look better. She did what Kruz asked and sent it as soon as she got it.

Once everyone was introduced to each other, Freya went over what she knew of hunting the Ketica. She explained what she had seen when she hunted the Ketica the day before. She told them how it hid and how communications were cut off as well as how the drone feeds could be cut off. She even explained how the thing fought and the psychic scream that brought what was left of her platoon to their knees.

Once she was done giving them the details of what she learned, she went over Kruz’s plan. She explained what each platoon was going to do, and what their responsibilities were. She stressed that they were only to go one thousand feet until all of the tunnels had been examined and only then would they go further.

Looking at all the sergeants in her squad, Freya felt like a fraud. She was just a corporal who had less than ten years in. In fact, counting the time on her ship on her last real world mission, she only had eight years in. She knew they knew she was new, but they were nice enough not to call her on it. The only thing that she had that they didn’t was some experience with hunting Ketica. Even still, Freya didn’t know if her experience was enough to lead the more experienced people on a mission like this. Worried that she might fail them and get them killed, she had them do worst case scenarios and how to get out of them over and over again until Kruz told them it was time to board the shuttle. Trying not to feel like a kid pretending to be a leader, she led her team towards the fort's landing zone.