<It fits their ‘lording over’ modus operandi,> Niki replied.
Leslie pinged her location as Rika landed on the last steepled roof in the older section of the city, and Rika moved close to the scout so they could communicate on a tightbeam.
<We’re going to have to approach the Niets’ tower at ground level,> Leslie said. <We could do a-grav, but they’ll probably be watching for stealthed attackers, and a-grav would light us up.>
Rika looked over the route they’d need to take. Seven blocks north, then three west. Each and every one of them patrolled by the enemy.
<No one ever said this gig would be easy, did they,> Rika commented. <I almost want to call in for a pair of Skyscreams, and just blast our way in.>
Leslie sent a ‘negative’ flag over the Link. <You’d need to call in a few dozen; they’d shoot us down before we got halfway.>
<There’s the sewers,> Niki suggested.
<They’ll have the sewers monitored, and if we get trapped down there, we’re done,> Rika replied.
<Plus it’ll ruin the stealth we’ll need to get into the tower,> Leslie added. <There’s nothing for it but to work our way through the streets.>
Rika nodded and eased toward the edge of the rooftop. <Streets it is.>
She was about to jump down, when the distant thuds of artillery came from the east.
<Niki, we don’t have anyone deployed to the east, do we?> Rika asked while checking the deployments again.
<No…no one—oh, shit. Listen to this.> She passed a feed to Rika and Leslie that was flagged as originating from the Nietzschean HQ.
“All Marauder forces, this is Admiral Gideon of the Nietzschean Military Service. We have just fired an artillery barrage on a residential area in East Memphis. You will stand down and cease all aggression, or we will continue shelling civilian targets. You have five minutes to comply.”
<Short and to the point,> Leslie commented when the transmission had ended. <I assume we’re not complying?>
<No. We didn’t come this far only to fall back when Nietzscheans behave like Nietzscheans,> Rika said before calling up to Heather. <Smalls, do—>
<We’re already on it,> Captain Heather interrupted, rage evident in her voice. <They’ve deployed counter surveillance that is messing with our satellites, but we’re working around it. We’ll find that new artillery and wipe it out.>
<Good,> Rika replied. <While you’re at it, relay this message planetwide: ‘To all Nietzschean motherfuckers occupying the Genevian world of Kansas. Know this: you’re facing a force consisting entirely of Genevian mechs. We will rip the spines out of anyone found to have been shelling civilian targets. If that’s you, go ahead and suicide now—or just stay with your artillery and wait for us to rain starfire on your heads. Either way, you will die.>
Heather snorted. <One hell of a missive. Consider it sent. Now, go gut their commanders.>
<With pleasure.>
BERSERKER
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: 2km South of Bridge Street, 44th Ave, Memphis, Kansas
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
<Form up!> Chase ordered. <Delta 9 pattern, I want those approaches covered.>
Corporal Ben signaled his acknowledgment, and Chase saw Whispers, Kim, and Harris move to their assigned positions.
With the Nietzscheans closing on all sides, his options had become more and more limited, which was why he was two kilometers from the front line with four other mechs, getting ready to take on the remainder of the enemy battalion that had left the spaceport half an hour earlier.
<Smalls, can you task a satellite to get me a better picture? How many are out there—just the company’s worth I can see, or more?>
<We’ll try to get one closer, but it’s tough. The Niets have a few positions in the hills, and they’re using them to fire beams at the satellites. Not enough to take them out, but they’re causing ionization, and making it hard to get a clear picture.>
<Noted,> Chase replied. <Whatever you can get me would be great.>
He surveyed the city to the south of his position, noting that most of the area consisted of warehouses and commercial buildings. It would make covering the area easier than if it were residential terrain, but from what meager intel he had, it was apparent that the enemy was advancing in a line over two kilometers across.
Stars, there’s just no way we can secure that much ground.
<Captain?> Whispers ventured. <May I offer a suggestion?>
<I’m all ears,> Chase replied, hoping the private would have a brilliant idea that would save the day.
<You’re a great company commander, Captain—a thousand times better than the ones we had in the war. But you’re still thinking like a squishie.>
<I am?> he asked, wondering if the mechs didn’t see him as a full member of the battalion because he used to be fully organic.
<I don’t mean any offense by it,> Whispers said, his mental tone hushed. <But you’re establishing lines, working out how to hold the enemy back from a position; those are squishie tactics.>
<I’ll admit, it’s what I was taught,> Chase allowed. <What am I missing?>
<Fear. Not only do the Niets fear mechs, but we have stealth tech. Have us spread out more, two hundred meters apart. Then, when the Niets are all around us, give the signal, and we go berserk on them.>
Berserk, Chase tasted the word. <You mean we just wade in and shoot anything that moves?>
<Well, we do a lot of jumping. While we do that, call in the second platoon’s Skyscreams to strafe the northern edges of the enemy force. It’ll ruin them. Trust me.>
Chase looked south at the approaching enemy, still four hundred strong.
<I do.> He switched to address the entire fireteam. <Whispers has suggested we go berserk on these Niets, and after careful consideration, I think he’s on to something. I’ve assigned new positions. When they reach the markers I've set, we go hog wild on their asses.>
<Now you’re talkin’, Captain!> Harris cried out.
Ben gave a more formal acknowledgement. <On it, sir.>
Chase moved out of the cover he’d selected and into the middle of a wide intersection.
The Niets were moving cautiously along the perimeters of buildings, but from what the overhead drones relayed, a platoon would have to cross this street. Chances are they’d split their forces on either side, giving him his perfect berserker moment.
He didn’t have long to wait before the enemy began to appear around a corner a block to the south. Two fireteams moved up the sides of the street, crossed the intersection, and then continued north. The rest of the platoon came behind—four squads, between thirteen and fifteen Niets in each. A man with lieutenant’s bars on his armor was in the middle of the formation, and Chase tagged him for one of the first shots.
A minute later, half the Niets were at the intersection, the first squads moving across the open space.
Chase sent out a five-count to his team, and when the counter on his HUD hit zero, he opened fire.
Chaingun in his right hand, and PR-109 in his left, Chase sprayed rounds at both squads while unloading half his remaining Mini-Bop missiles at the Niets further back, one homing in on the lieutenant.
The barrage spent the last of the ammunition for his chaingun, and he discarded the weapon. In the few seconds since he’d launched his assault, several of the Niets had tracked his shots and begun firing at where he stood.
Their counterattack was not to be simple, though. His position in their midst meant that the Niets were far more likely to shoot their comrades than their target, and Chase compounded that by moving backward, keeping enemies on both sides while continuing to fire with his PR-109.
The Nietzscheans he was shadowing reached the northern side of the intersection, taking cover behind benches and several of the trees that lined the street.
Chase lobbed two grenades at each side, and then leapt into the air, triggering a stea
lth system flush, and landing invisibly on the southern side of the intersection. Once there, he fired another barrage of Mini-Bops, taking out an entire squad in seconds.
Twenty-five seconds had passed since Chase had first opened fire, and nearly half the Nietzscheans were injured or dead.
An entire squad on the south side of the intersection broke and ran, leaving just a smattering of enemies remaining on that side of the road. They bravely fired on Chase, but with his stealth systems and speed, they only tagged him twice before he was upon them, firing into their midst at point-blank range.
When that group was down, he turned back to the remaining Niets on the north side of the road, only to see them fleeing east and west.
<How you guys faring?> Chase asked the other mechs.
<Just dandy!> Kim announced, while Harris chimed in with, <Peachy keen.>
<You two need to update your vernacular,> Whispers intoned.
Chase was about to reply, when movement to the south caught his attention, and he turned to see two Goon-Mechs lumbering into view.
A laugh that was half elation and half raw fury escaped his throat as he charged toward the new enemy, knowing that he was being driven by adrenaline and the taste of victory rather than logic.
Finally, a challenge!
* * * * *
“Got them! Finally!” Chief Ona cried out from her station. “Last one of those counterscan disruptors is toast.”
Heather watched the satellite view clear up, and zoomed in on Chase’s position, knowing that if he got smashed, Rika would be very displeased.
Instead of seeing his group retreating from the approaching battalion, Heather let out a gasp of surprise to see the five mechs—each a few hundred meters from one another—chasing the fleeing remnants of the Nietzschean battalion south, back toward the spaceport.
“Well I’ll be,” Heather muttered. “Chase finally figured out how to be a mech.”
“Ma’am?” Ona asked.
“Nevermind. Hit those final artillery emplacements that are targeting civilians. I’ll get Second Platoon’s Skyscreams to mop up the remains of that battalion. “
While she did that, Heather put the overhead view of Chase’s fight with the pair of Goon-Mechs on the central holo, a grin forming on her lips as she watched him leap atop one and drive his lightwand through the central housing, exposing the Nietzschean pilot within.
The enemy attempted to knock him down with its kinetic slugthrower, firing the thing wildly as it flailed against the mech on its back, but Chase was well anchored, and grabbed the barrel, aiming it at the other ‘mech’ and tearing one of its limbs free with friendly fire.
Garth was cheering, and Ona was grinning, even while she keyed in the final commands to strike the last of the Nietzschean surface artillery.
“Good day to be a Marauder, isn’t it?” Heather asked her bridge crew.
“The best, ma’am,” Ona replied as she let loose another barrage from the Fury Lance’s railguns.
BRING IT HOME
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: The MacWood Building, Memphis, Kansas
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
It had taken Rika and Leslie over twenty minutes to make it to the high-rise that Nietzschean Command was holed up in. The edifice stood over two kilometers high, housing over five hundred levels, any of which could hold their quarry.
The exterior appeared to be windowless; just the smooth, shifting, marble-like sheath. The only apparent entrance was the main doors at the front, but Rika and Leslie both knew that there would be a back entrance, as well as the underground maglev tunnel that ran to the tower.
The pair had discussed using the maglev at one point, but had decided that those tunnels were only a step up from the sewers. Neither wanted to be trapped underground with hundreds of Niets overhead.
Colonel Borden and his ISF Helljumpers were a kilometer further north, stalling another battalion of reinforcements, and the two women decided to use the distraction and approach the building at ground level.
Following Leslie’s location pings, Rika slipped around the side of the MacWood Building, carefully avoiding a squad of Niets who were setting up a crew-served railgun and grav shields on the street. Once at the back of the structure, the two Marauders found a set of large bay doors for the building’s loading dock. Though they were open, they were guarded by a platoon of the enemy who were well entrenched.
However, their preparedness didn’t involve high-energy active scan, and the two stealthed women carefully edged past the guards at the loading bay entrance, and into a broad space filled with cargo trucks, four empty heavy Goon-Mech frames, and two heavy rail batteries, both aimed at the opened doors.
<Drop breach kits on those mech-frames. I’ll breach their controls, and we’ll use them for a diversion later,> Niki instructed Rika and Leslie.
<What makes you think we’ll need a diversion?> Leslie laughed over the tightbeam that Niki had established once they were inside.
The question was rhetorical, and no one responded.
Rika selected her two mechs, then crept through the bay until she reached them, and deployed the breach nano. <Using the ISF’s tech feels like cheating sometimes,> she said to Niki.
<Weren’t you just telling me how keeping heads on shoulders was the goal?>
The AI’s mental tone carried a note of humor, and Rika laughed in response. <I didn’t say I’m above cheating.>
Once the GM’s internal NSAIs were breached, the two infiltrators moved to a service elevator in the back of the bay.
<Think we should just go to the top?> Leslie asked as they pressed the call button and waited for the car to descend.
As she spoke, the lift arrived and the doors opened. Rika and Leslie were partially obscured by the mech frames and haulers in the bay; with any luck, no one would look too carefully at the service elevator, and wonder why it had come down and opened its doors.
<So, what you mean is that we should start with the top floor,> Leslie inferred as she keyed in the command.
<You got it.>
The elevator car’s doors began to close, then a voice called out. “Hey! Hold that lift!”
Rika froze and pressed herself against the wall, knowing Leslie would do the same. She was tempted to reach over and mash the ‘door close’ button, but a figure burst into the elevator before she could.
“Huh…” the uniformed man said as he glanced about the empty car. “Stupid Genevian tech. Always fritzing.”
He turned to the control panel, and entered his desired floor as the doors closed. Once his floor, ‘239’, lit up on the display, the man—a corporal, by his insignia—turned to face the door. He’d just let out a long breath and widened his stance, when he turned his head back to the display.
“Floor five-oh-one, too?” he muttered, approaching the panel. “Shouldn’t be able to go right up—oh, good. It’s going to stop at four-ninety for inspection.”
<Well, shit,> Leslie muttered. <I did think it was a bit odd that we could just ride on up. I was taking it as a sign that fate was on our side.>
Rika sent an affirmation. <As soon as this guy gets off, we need to select a stop a few floors down from four-ninety. I don’t favor a bunch of Nietzschean goons announcing our visit.>
<You know who you’re talking to, right? I live for stealth.>
A snort almost escaped Rika’s lips. <Yeah, but you’re into Barne, so…>
<Took you long enough to bring that up again,> Leslie said as the elevator car slowed and stopped at floor two-thirty-nine.
<None of my business who gets horizontal with who.>
<Wh
o says we get horizontal?> Leslie shot back with mirth in her tone. <Way more fun to do it against the wall.>
<Les!> Rika groaned. <I just meant that since Jerry…>
<Yeah, I knew where you were going with that…I was trying to crassly head it off. I still miss Jerry. A lot. But he’s not coming back, and Barne…well…he’s changed lately.>
The Nietzschean corporal walked off the lift, and once the doors closed, Leslie quickly keyed in a stop at floor four-eighty-five.
<It’s the tail,> Rika said with an audible laugh. <He’s totally into the tail.>
Leslie sent her an image of rolling eyes…just the eyes.
<Leslie, yuck, why are those so bloodshot? What’s gotten into you today?>
<You deserve that. Barne may be into the tail—I mean, it’s pretty damn awesome—but in reality, it’s you, Rika.>
<He’s into me?>
<Shit, silly tin-head. No. You’ve changed him.>
Rika estimated where Leslie was standing and gave her a light punch in the shoulder for ‘tin-head’. <I guess he is a lot less of an asshole than he used to be. But a lot of that change has come from the ISF; they’ve given us real hope for the first time. We’re not just scratching out a living, dreaming of taking the fight back to the Niets. We’re actually doing it.>
<OK, first, ow! And second, sure, that’s a part of it. But it was really what you did at the Politica. You were willing to sacrifice everything to save those people. You could have killed Stavros a dozen times over, but you wouldn’t sacrifice all those mechs and even his stupid-ass goons. A lot of commanders would have written them off as collateral damage. But not you.>
Rika stood in silence for a moment as the lift began to rise. Finally, she said, <’What you do to the least of these, you do to me’.>
<That sounds deep,> Leslie said. <What’s it mean?>
<Something my father used to say,> Rika replied with a shrug. She tried not to think of her parents, of how her life used to be. Though it didn’t hurt as much as it used to, it still highlighted a hole inside herself that she knew would never close. <It means that you’re only as good a person as the way you treat the most vulnerable people…or creatures. People do what they can get away with; they’re either policed by their own ethics, or by society. Watch how they treat a child that annoys them, or a homeless person, or a wounded animal—when they think no one is watching. That’s the real person.>