Not for long, fuckers.
As projectile rounds ricocheted off her body, Rika took a running leap through the air, screaming as she flew. Her target was a large boulder behind which a Nietzschean crouched.
His rifle lifted to track her as Rika sailed through the air, but she was already firing. A stream of relativistic electrons poured from the end of her GNR, cherenkov radiation glowing around the beam and the point of impact: the man’s faceshield.
Surprisingly, his armor managed to bear the blast. Rika followed up with a trio of projectile rounds, which ended up being enough to blow the enemy’s head to smithereens.
She landed and rolled back to her feet, pressing herself behind the rock to find that there had been more than one Nietzschean taking cover behind it.
Shit! Their stealth tech has gotten way better!
The woman fired her rifle at Rika, the weapon’s full-auto rounds tracing a line up Rika’s chest.
She barely noticed her HUD alerting that her armor’s ablative systems were ‘compromised’ before she reached out and grabbed the barrel of the Niets’ rifle, ripping the weapon from the woman’s hands.
The enemy reached for a sidearm, but Rika swung a leg up and clamped her three-toed foot around the Nietzschean’s face, squeezing with the mechanical limb’s full force.
A terrible shriek came from the Nietzschean woman, and then abruptly cut off when the armor bent and then crumpled inward.
Shots were ricocheting off the rock around Rika, and she gauged the distance to the closest enemy before she heaved the dead Niet’s body through the air toward the shooters.
The weapons fire shifted from Rika to the sailing corpse, and she took advantage of the distraction to move in the opposite direction, dashing toward the next enemy position—which was behind a small hillock on the side of the ridge.
As she ran, a shot hit her thigh and tore into the flesh below her hip.
Damn…I’m taking a licking out here.
Ignoring the pain, Rika fired projectile rounds from her GNR at full auto, spraying over forty rounds into the space behind the hillock before she reached its cover.
The remains of two Niets in light armor waited for her, and Rika slid to the ground beside them while looking herself over.
Sure enough, her left thigh had lost its ablative plating at some point in the exchange. Luckily the round that had found her flesh—after penetrating her base armor layer and her ‘skin’—had done little damage.
She fished the round out while checking the rest of herself over. Roughly half the ablative plating on her body was either gone or cracked. Her stealth capabilities were ruined, and even if she were to pull off all the plates, the underlayer was scored in a dozen places and read only sixty-percent stealth capable.
After taking a moment to mentally berate herself for getting caught out in the open like that, Rika checked the combat net to see that Silva and Vi were facing heavier opposition, though were still holding their position.
No possibility of backup, there.
The platoon’s combat net didn’t give her much hope for help from the squishies, either. The Niets were hitting the airstrip from every side. The freighter that Vi had come down on earlier in the day was a smoking ruin, though a pair of GAF light assault shuttles were strafing the enemy lines, trying to slow their advance.
Nothing for it, Rika. You’re going to have to mop this up solo.
Though her original estimate had gauged there to be six enemies attacking her—and she’d killed four—she was still able to pick out four different weapons firing at her cover, slowly wearing down the mound of dirt she was hiding behind
Cursing herself for not bringing grenades for Vi to practice with, Rika brought her drones in low, trying to improve her visual of the enemies as she flipped onto her back, scanning the terrain around her.
The overhead view confirmed her amended estimation of four opponents, though they were all still stealthed.
Shit, if those chuckleheads have stealth but aren’t advancing, I’m probably being flanked.
Just then, a grenade landed at her feet, and Rika immediately flipped one of the dead Nietzscheans onto it, placing a foot on the man’s torso to keep his body from flying out at her.
The explosion came a second later, and the force shoved the body—and by extension, Rika—half a meter up the hillock. It also blasted fire, smoke, and dirt in the opposite direction.
Eddies of smoke and dust outlined two approaching figures, and Rika fired an electron beam at one while unslinging her AR97 and unloading an entire magazine on the other.
The enemies were armored enough to weather the attack, and Rika felt raw fear tear through her—something she didn’t often feel in combat—as both of them fired electron beams back at her. One beam hit her left arm in a place with no armor left and burned a hole right through her bicep.
The other blast hit her square in the chest, and she grunted as forks of lightning cascaded all around her. A reading on Rika’s HUD alerted that one of her SC batteries was compromised and she was down to half power.
Following that, her right leg started to spasm, and then fell still.
Shit…they want to capture me, like they did with those K1Rs we fought back in the Parsons System.
The women of Team Hammerfall had one agreement between them, which they had all settled on with no debate: death before capture.
Of course, the Genevian Discipline system in her head wouldn’t let her kill herself with something as simple as a battery overload.
The approaching enemies were only four meters away, and Rika was casting about for some way to end her life. Then her eyes settled on a satchel lying near the body to her left. The flap was partially open, and there at the top rested a grenade.
Not for the first time, she grudgingly thanked the Factory for making her into a machine. A squishie that had just had an electron beam burn a hole through their arm would not be able to do what she was about to.
Sitting up and groaning aloud, Rika tried to rise to her feet, but stumbled and fell forward to the laughter of the two Nietzscheans.
“Well, little robot girl, looks like you’re not so tough after all,” one of them growled as he reached down and grabbed Rika by the neck, lifting her into the air.
“We’re gonna get a hell of a bounty for catching a scout model,” the other said as he approached and looked Rika over. “You know, I’d totally fuck one of these.”
“Idiot,” the first Niet growled. “Bitch would probably rip your dick off.”
“Not going to be a problem for you,” Rika said through her armor’s audible systems, wishing she still had a mouth so she could give the man a cold grin—not that he’d be able to see it beneath her helmet. It would have given her a grim sense of satisfaction, though.
“What—?!” the man grunted and then watched as Rika shoved a thermite grenade behind an armor plate at his waist that her shots had loosened.
She pushed down with all her might, wedging it under his ablative plating. With a wordless scream, the Niet let go of her and tried to claw the grenade out, but she’d pushed it down deep, and his thickly gauntleted hands couldn’t prise it free.
She scrambled backward, laughing as the grenade detonated with a dull whump, the plating containing the blast.
The Nietzschean fell to the ground, screaming as the thermite began to burn away his midsection.
The other enemy stood staring at his comrade in dumbfounded horror, so Rika took the opportunity to fire an electron beam right under his chin where his helmet seated against the neck ring.
Bolts of energy arced around them, a few hitting Rika, further damaging her, but she didn’t care. She fired her beam again, burning a hole right through the man’s head.
Neither of her twitching legs were working anymore, but she knew there were still four more N
iets on the other side of the hillock. Any moment now, they were going to start shooting again.
She flipped open the satchel and saw that there were four more thermite grenades.
Maybe there is a god for mechs, she thought while pulling herself up into a seated position.
Ignoring the pain, Rika threw the four grenades in rapid succession, each one arcing gracefully through the air. Then, timing her shots carefully, she fired four rounds from her GNR, hitting each of the grenades, causing them to explode above their targets.
Screams echoed across the hillside, and she pulled herself to the top of the small hillock to see two Niets run out from cover, pulling their armor off as it smoked and burned.
Not caring that it would be flagged as a waste of ammunition, she fired a depleted uranium rod at each one. The shots tore holes in each of the Niets’ torsos, dropping them like flies.
Now where are those other two assholes? she wondered.
<Rika?> Silva’s voice came into her mind. <You OK? Hell of a lot of EM over there, I can barely get…shit, and your armor reads as totally hosed.>
<I noticed that, too,> Rika replied with a weary laugh. <I just have two more asshats over here. How you doing?>
<A fucking second ‘toon showed up on the other side of the valley, but I think they’re holding off ‘til your flankers reach us.>
<Not going to happen,> Rika replied, sliding back down behind the hillock while releasing another pair of drones—her prior set having been taken out in one of the EM surges from the electron beams.
<I’m going to send Vi to help you,> Silva said in response. <You’re shot to shit.>
<No, you need her for covering fire,> Rika protested. <You can’t hold a fucking platoon back on your own.>
<I’ve called in starfire, it’ll be here any moment.>
<You trust the fleet to send down starfire to save meat?> Rika scoffed.
<If I fall, the airstrip falls. They’ll send it to save the squishies at our backs.>
Rika couldn’t fault Silva’s logic, but she wasn’t going to sit still and wait for Vi to save her. More likely she’ll end up getting shot up and I’ll have to save her, she thought with a laugh.
Her drones weren’t able to pick up any movement, which she knew meant that the last two Niets—providing there weren’t even more out there—were also in stealth.
Par for the course.
A quick look around showed Rika that there were no more grenades to be had, but then her eyes settled on the electron beam rifles that the pair of heavies had held.
She scrambled over to one and picked it up, careful not to touch the grip, as that would trigger an auth check and blast her hand off.
Instead, she grabbed a breach tab from a compartment on her left arm and slotted it in next to where the weapon’s charge batteries sat. An indicator lit up on her HUD showing that the tab had successfully tapped the battery, and she repeated the process on the other weapon.
By some miracle, no enemies had approached as she sabotaged the weapons, but that just solidified the notion that they were trying to get into good firing positions while in stealth.
The stretch of hillside behind the hillock offered little cover. The two best approaches for the enemy were right behind her, or around the boulder where she’d killed the first of the Niets after they’d ambushed her.
Without further perseveration, Rika set one of the rifles to overload and tossed it into the air toward the boulder—her arm screaming in agony as she made the throw—and then lobbed the other over the hillock.
Both weapons exploded at the same time, and Rika watched for any signs of the stealthed Niets from her overhead drones, which she’d pulled up high enough not to get hit by the EM bursts.
A second later, a figure appeared just on the other side of the hillock, staggering backward as their stealth failed.
Well, well, well, Rika thought as she pushed herself up onto her knees and fired a trio of projectile shots at the enemy soldier. She knew it was a risk that the other attacker—wherever he was—would get a clear line of sight on her, but she warranted that evening out the odds was worth it.
The rounds knocked the man down, and then Rika’s drones caught motion directly across from her cover as the last Niet eased around a boulder on the far side of the space where she’d been ambushed.
He carried a shoulder-fired rocket, and was taking careful aim at her.
Rika fired another series of projectile rounds at the man—or she tried to…. Nothing happened. Glancing down, she saw that the string of rounds from the ammo box at her hip had torn free from her GNR. She was out of sabot rounds, and her batts were running perilously low, ruling out an electron beam.
In the time it took Rika to consider her non-options, the rocket leapt from the launcher.
Rika backpedaled, knowing that the already battered hillock would not be enough to protect her—especially if the rocket was firing overhead, timed to airburst above its target.
Then the rocket exploded.
For a moment, Rika thought she was dead; she had to be…. But then realization hit her. The rocket had exploded ten meters away. She stared dumbfounded at the Nietzschean as he pulled the launcher off his shoulder and looked at it, then back up at Rika.
For a moment, neither moved, just continued gazing at one another across the two-hundred-meter clearing.
Then the Nietzschean’s head exploded.
<Well, if you’re gonna make it that easy for me, buddy….>
Vi’s welcome voice came over the Link, and Rika collapsed to the ground, gasping for air as she realized she’d not drawn breath for nearly a minute.
<Vi…stars…thanks.> She saw the SMI-2 approaching through the gloom and shook her head. <You’ve got a lotta swagger for your first day, there, Newbie.>
<Check the kill counts on the combat net,> Vi replied with a laugh.
Rika pulled up the combat net and saw that Vi had bagged eight Nietzscheans.
<Not bad for your first day, girl,> she commended, checking her drone feeds to be sure there were no more surprises coming their way. <Granted, I got eleven my first time out.>
<I thought you mentioned earlier this wasn’t a competition,> Vi said as she approached. <Damn…you look like shit, Rika!>
<Feel like it too. And yeah, target practice isn’t a competition, but kill counts in the field? Totally.>
Vi cocked her head. <I feel like it should be the other way around.>
Rika extended her left arm, and the other mech clasped it, pulling her upright. <Welcome to Team Hammerfall, Vi. We do things differently here.>
<I can tell,> she replied, then slid her arm around Rika. <You’re a bit wobbly there.>
<Yeah, actuators in my legs are fried. Let me get my knees straight so the locking pins…there. Kay, now I can hobble along.>
Vi shook her head. <Shit, Rika. You’re one hardcore woman.>
Rika let out a long sigh at the thought. She used to say the same thing about Kelly.
I guess I’m the jaded veteran in the group now.
She took five sabot rounds from Vi, and hooked her ammo box’s feed back up to her weapon before they got on the move. Three long minutes later, they reached the ridge’s military crest and then crawled the rest of the way up to the top, peering over at the weapons fire pouring across the valley at Silva’s position.
The boulder the corporal was using for cover was half gone, and Rika realized that the woman was only minutes away from being destroyed by the barrage.
<Shit, Silva, is that starfire still coming?>
<Beats me,> she said, and Rika started, realizing that the woman’s signal was only coming from a hundred meters away along the ridge.
<Shit, Corporal Silva, how are you—?>
<Set up my rifle to fire on auto, though I think it’s out now,> Silva replied. <You two ready to hit those bastards in the face?>
<Hell yeah,> Vi said, while Rika only groaned.
Still, she brought her GNR around,
and got ready to fire a series of sabot rounds on the closest targets.
<Vi, get down the ridge, past Rika. We—oh, hold one mike.>
A glow illuminated the sky as ranging beams shone down from above. The lasers burned away the clouds, and then brilliant energy beams slammed into the Nietzscheans, shredding their ranks and lighting the hillside on fire.
Seconds later, more starfire hit positions behind the three mechs, striking the west side of the airstrip. Then again on the north.
<Why don’t they just do that right at the outset?> Vi asked as she rolled onto her back, out of sight of the raging fire that was spreading from the enemy’s former position
<Fucked if I know,> Rika replied. <Maybe there was a Nietzschean ship nearby, or the flyboys were all on the shitter or something.>
<It’s only been eleven minutes,> Silva reminded them. <The ship was on the far side of the planet.>
Rika laughed. <Slackers.> Then she groaned as she realized how much she hurt everywhere.
<You know, Rika…you need to be more careful,> Silva said with a laugh. <Don’t worry, though. Before the shit hit, I got an update that we’re going to get a fourth girl on Hammerfall in a day or two. Finally get back up to full strength.>
Rika groaned as she pushed herself into a sitting position. <Well, getting back to ‘full strength’ might take more than a day or two on my part. My aches have aches.>
Vi rose and offered her a hand. <Well, let’s get you back to the airstrip, old woman. I’ll help you swap out your legs.>
<Can you get me a whole new body while you’re at it?> Rika asked with a soft laugh, careful not to breathe too deeply.
<Make it snappy,> Silva said from her position. <Gunny wants us to spend the night out here scouring the hills for any strays.>
Rika stifled a groan and lifted her arm over Vi’s shoulders. <Well, Vi, let’s get a move on. Squishies need us to keep them safe.>
<Grab me some ‘nades, too, Rika. They woulda really come in handy,> Silva called after.
Rika gave the corporal a one-gun salute, and with that, the two women walked off through the darkness.
Glancing at the FNM by her side, Rika’s cheeks twitched in her approximation of a smile.