Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) (15 page)

“Five seconds until burst, four, three, two, one! Engaging counter burst.”

Sahib’s entire body jerked, as the reverse thrusters and dampener field worked to counteract the incredible speed they were falling at. And then the pod hit the ground, and Sahib felt as if he was hit by a truck, thankfully the pod itself and his suit took on the brunt of the impact.

“Report.” Sahib managed to drawl out on the comm for his squad. A few seconds later, six people called in, and a few seconds after that the other squad leaders reported that their squads too landed safely. Sahib readied his weapon, the pod’s front panel exploded outward and he stepped onto the ground of Trivax. The other six pods landed around him, and they too had been opened, his squad mates already out.

All were in their battle-suits, although his squad had three different types of suits. The one he wore was a medium assault suit, meaning that it had hard plates over his vital areas, while joints were made out of carbon nano fiber mesh. It was powered by a small battery protected by the plate on the back, with features like two small tanks of nanites, one filled with repair nanites that could be sent anywhere through the suit to repair it, and others filled with medical nanites that could treat any wound. In order for it, and any other of the Empire’s suits to be used, the wearer had to possess a secondary implant with an access point at the back of the neck. This allowed the user to move in the suit as efficiently as if they were only in their own body. Sahib along with Red, Bella, and Garth were the ones in his squad equipped with the medium class battle-suit.

The next type was the heavy class battle-suit. It was bulky, covered in ri-steel plates and coated in heat resisting sheet of ceramics. These battle-suits had three extra batteries, gave the user much greater strength and speed at the expense of maneuverability. It was worn by heavy infantry, in his team those being Loca and Lucky.

The final type, was the very different than the rest. It was the only suit that wasn’t a hybrid between the Empire’s and the Earth technology. It was the latest generation of the old Olympus battle-suits. The light class assault battle-suit rated for stealth. It had an amazing stealth system that let the light “pass” right through it, of course it was more complicated than that but Sahib didn’t really need to understand it, just know how to use it. It too was powered, and while it did enhance the user’s strength and speed it wasn’t as powerful as the other battle-suits. The last member of his team - Eagle eye - wore a light assault battle-suit.

Sahib checked the battle map on his HUD, the Fleet Commander had acquired the plans to the city from few comm stations that were still operational on the planet. He looked at their objective, they were supposed to secure the courtyard of the Trivaxian Space Exploration Center. “Alright squad, you know the plan, let’s move.”

The seven of them started towards the huge complex, passing through narrow city streets. The Trivaxian architecture reminded him a lot of European architecture, a clash of cultures and ideas all mashed up together. The streets were empty, most of the population had evacuated even before the alien invaders reached Trivax, getting out of the cities. Only those in key positions remained, at least according to the people that they could get in contact with.

Then they arrived close enough to their destination that they could see the aliens preparing to enter the SEC building. His implant immediately counted all the aliens in his view, there were twenty three of them. The alien themselves wore a kind of battle-suit. It was dark red in color and appeared clunky. The general shape of the aliens was bipedal, with two arms, two legs, a head and a torso just like humans had, although they did appear taller than humans. And the shape of their helmets was more triangular, whether that was because of the shape of their head or a design Sahib couldn’t tell.

“It looks like they are trying to enter the building.” Eagle eye commented.

“The survivors must have blocked the entrances, see those containers over there?” Sahib asked gesturing, “Those must be heavy or breaching weapons, they are in a hurry to get them assembled.”

“They are probably worried about some guys with big guns falling down on their heads.” Loca said in a cheerful tone. Sahib nodded his head, they must know by now that their fleet was destroyed, and since they still didn’t respond to the constant calls for surrender, the aliens most likely wanted hostages. “Alright, Bella, Garth you are going around these buildings and will come at them from the right side. Red and Lucky, the two of you are going here, coming at them from the left. Loca and I are attacking them from the front. Eagle eye, you see that tall building over there?” Sahib asked, while highlighting, buildings, areas and routes on his HUD map. Eagle eye nodded her head. “Yes PL.”

“Good, you get there and provide cover and support. Alright squad, let’s do this quickly, efficiently, and bloody.” Sahib said.

“Let’s go wolfpack!” Loca said, and the rest joined in with their own cheer.

***

Five minutes later Bella and Garth were in position overlooking the aliens from the side building. All in all the aliens had a decent enough perimeter set up. They guarded their backs efficiently, Bella thought. But it was nothing special. They had no heavy weapons set up in the SEC building’s courtyard except the one they were assembling to break into the building.

“What do you think they look like?” Bella asked in an excited tone.

“I don’t really care, they are the bad guys.” Garth answered with disinterest.

“I hope that they look like beautiful faeries.” Bella added.

Garth turned to her and gave her a droll look of disbelief that was wasted on her as neither of them could see each other’s face. “We are about to fight yet another alien race, and this is what you think about moments before battle.”

“Imagine it,” She said mesmerized, “faeries Garthy. Up until now we have never found another pretty race. Well, I’m not counting the Nel, since they are basically just us. But these are completely new aliens. They could look like anything, the possibilities are endless!” Bella exclaimed.

“Someone save me! Why am I always stuck with the princess?” Garth wallowed.

“Just because I like pretty things doesn’t make me a princess! I’m a woman, I am entitled to looking feminine and liking nice things.” She responded sullenly.

“I swear to all that is dear to me, you might be the as good of a soldier as any of us, but if have to watch you prance around the Monarch’s decks in your frilly little dress on my off duty one more time, I’m going to kill myself.” Garth retorted.

“Oh Garthy, I love you too!” Bella said smilingly.

Garth grumbled and cursed to himself, he tried to busy himself checking his assault rifle while Belle kept talking about alien faeries.

***

At the same time Red and Lucky were huddled behind a wall overlooking the SEC building from the other side. It seemed to a bit poorly planned on the side of Trivaxian’s to have the headquarters of their space institute in the middle of a city, at least Red thought so. But then again, they aren’t human. They didn’t think alike, even though there were similarities between the two.

Red glanced at Lucky who was priming the charges in his rocket launcher. The RX-02 was the latest in infantry carried rocket launchers, carrying four small rockets with enough power to destroy a tank, too bad that the enemy didn’t have any of those. Red’s own main weapon was a standard NR-14 assault rifle filled with conventional cased metal slugs as ammo. The technology might be ancient by now, but it was still extremely effective. NR-14 worked similarly to a rail gun, combining magnetic fields and compressed gas in order to propel the slug at the enemy.

“You remember when we fought Sowir on Nuva, thirty years ago?” Lucky asked in his slow deliberate drawl.

“Yup.” Red answered.

“They weren’t much of a challenge.” He added slowly.

“Mhm…” Red retorted.

“I hope these guys are better.” Lucky concluded nodding as he finished priming the last charge.

Red gave a noncommittal grunt as an answer. It mattered little to him, he was here to do a job, nothing more, nothing less.

***

Sahib waited in silence and watched the progress of his people on his battle-map. All save for Eagle eye were in positions. But according to her movements she would reach her spot soon. Sahib checked his weapons power source, then ammo canister, and lastly the casing canister, making sure that all were placed properly inside his NP-04 plasma rifle.

The rifle he was holding in his hands was an improvement on the Earth’s design - the SH-07 plasma rifle. The main improvements that the Empire made were in range, bolt heat and firing speed. The weapon was still a bit of a bother to maintain, as one had three different things to worry about. The rifle obviously needed a power source, whose main problem was overheating as the rifle was used, but it could hold out for a respectable amount of time before needing to change or cool off. The second was the gas canister, basically the rifle’s ammo. Highly compressed gas that was superheated with powerful magnetic fields in order to get plasma. And the last part, the casing of the plasma. In of itself the plasma was relatively hard to control, if it was fired without any kind of containment it would spread, disperse, and lose its effectiveness relatively quickly.

The Earth version of the gun used a kind of magnetic field to contain the bolt long enough for it to reach its target, but it didn’t have a very good range, the field couldn’t survive long enough for targets farther away, making it a devastating short range weapon. The Empire went through another route. They had developed a highly heat resistant plastic sheet in which the plasma would be coated and fired. The plasma would of course burn the plastic away eventually, or it will break upon impact, but it increased the weapon’s effectiveness to mid-range. As the bolt of plasma was fired it would impact the sheet of plasma just outside of the heating chamber. As it traveled down the barrel the sheet would wrap around the bolt and provide containment as it exits the rifle. All in all it was a good weapon, if a bit high maintenance.

When he finished with his weapon, Sahib glanced at Maria Luisa “Loca”, and saw her staring at her own weapon, the CFG-02 heavy rifle, perhaps the most unique of his squad’s weapons. The CFG-02 was a rifle that used centrifugal force as a way of firing bullets. It allowed for high speed, no recoil, and no muzzle flash firing of bullets at the enemy. The rifle had a “fat” middle, where a large magnetic wheel with bullets was placed. The wheel was capable of turning at amazing speeds, which meant that when the field released bullets they flew out at speeds that could rival any other conventional rifle. The other thing that made it a great weapon, was the rate of fire. It could fire a bullet every 0.15 seconds, for 400 bullets fired every minute. With its ammo supply of 2000 bullets it made for a formidable weapon.

Raising his head from Loca’s weapon, Sahib noticed that her head was pointed in his direction. She then glanced at the aliens and back again.

“Hey, boss. Do you think that I could take all those bastards on by myself?” Loca said, living up to her nickname – Crazy.

“Probably, but you know that in this squad we share.” Sahib answered.

“Hm… Yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to the others. You’re right.” She said and then grew quiet. Sahib sighed, his team was full of insane and weird. At least he had Misty, she was the only one among them who was normal.

***

Misty “Eagle eye” Ryss climbed through the Trivaxian building with her suits full stealth turned on. The suits stealth was near perfect, and even if someone looked straight at her it was doubtful that they would see her. On the other hand, her suit did nothing to mask sound, even though there existed suits that were capable of limited sound muffling back home. It didn’t really matter anyway, Eagle eye walked quickly with carefully placed steps that made almost no sound.

She was a soft breeze, passing through unseen leaving only a whisper of her existence. The empty stairs of the Trivaxian building finally led her to the roof of the building. She stepped out of into the light that bent around her. She approached the edge and saw the aliens still working furiously on getting their heavy weapon operational. She concluded that it wasn’t supposed to be used in such manner, it was most likely designated as a defense weapon for after they took the building. They underestimated the Trivaxian’s, and now needed to repurpose the weapon in order to get inside the building.

She knelt at the edge and reached behind her, she moved her hand below the thin material that camouflaged her weapon. She retrieved her Mag-35 sniper rifle and placed its bipod on the edge. The rifle had no scope, instead it had a small camera at the top that feed directly through her suit to her HUD. On her helmet she saw a small window that zoomed in and looked at the alien positions at her thought. Using her military implant, she marked the enemies highlighting them with a soft blue outline, while also taking in every detail of the area beneath her. After she cataloged all points of interest in her mind, while adding cute names to her alien targets.

“You are Snuggles, and you will be Mr. Tickles, and you there look like a Piggy.” She whispered to herself, “And the two of you will be Dorothy and Kenny.” She continued until she named them all, then reported that she was ready and settled in to wait for her Platoon Leaders orders.

***

Lucky raised his head from his weapon as he heard his leader speak over the squad comms.

“Alright, everybody is in positions. Lucky you are up first, we need a distraction. Bella, Garth, the two of you hit them from the side while they are distracted, Eagle eye picks off targets of opportunity and provide assistance if necessary. Loca and I will hit them from the front. Clear?” Sahib asked.

Affirmatives rang out through the channel, and Sahib gave Lucky the go ahead.

Lucky mounted his weapon on his shoulder took a deep breath and then stepped out of cover. With his implant he chose two targets for his missiles. The alien heavy weapon and the wall behind which a few of the aliens were. With a thought he triggered the weapon, and two missiles rushed out of his launcher.