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Mirrorsmoke Company
- Chapter 3 -[]
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Somewhere in continent of Nordmarka
New Oslo, Draconis Combine
August, 3018
It was a barebones plan, one that had a lot of holes that Logan could–and would–easily poke through if he was here. It however, was the only plan. His war games had always been stressful affairs.
The bursts of rapid gunfire got me to flinch, and the simulated dust and fragments of a peppered wall stuck to my hardsuit like gray snow. I didn't dare peek behind my cover again.
'Combat subalterns are dumb; the most I can do is point them in a general direction and shoot. They are a hammer, and boy, do I see a lot of nails.' I remembered exactly what Logan said. Complete bullshit. The subalterns were a league of their own compared to the regular Combine soldier. They were stronger, faster, and unshackled by human limits like stamina and fear. For them, there was no morale to break. They were, in essence, the perfect infantry.
From the numerous war games up against them, they were also an annoyingly tough nut to crack. Put them in an area to hold out in, an objective to protect and they could keep that place with minimal resources.
Due to the conservative behavioral programming put into them, and barring overriding commands, these toy soldiers were cautious; highly preferring defensive action as opposed to more assaultive maneuvers. Hell, if we gave them time, a shovel and anti-mech ordnance, I wouldn't be surprised if it took a damn artillery barrage to break the defenses they would have cooked up. And I was damn glad that they were made that way, too.
Because if Logan were any less cautious in the way he does things, he could easily choke the planet with these metal bastards.
Our objective was the ever classic Capture the Flag; smash open the encampment to raid these subalterns with nothing but the gear we could 'lift' with us, and the tricks we had learned so far. No support whatsoever.
They were holed up in what seemed to have been a city park, now reinforced with lines and lines of sacks filled with compacted earth. Between the gaps were trigger happy rifles, all too eager to shoot anything that moves.
A dangerous endeavor if you were going for a direct assault, but not insurmountable if you had 'mechs, the men or even just a single tank. But we didn't need any of those. A funny quirk we noticed from their programming; they wouldn't pursue, wouldn't spend the bodies on you unless they had an overwhelming advantage. Like say, a hundred to one.
Exactly what I was doing. A lone soldier going up to a base as if I was poking a beehive? A strategically suicidal move in any other scenario.
So I raised my rifle, and sprayed blindly while still behind my cover. As the last bullet fired and I heard the telltale click of an empty magazine, I ran away, knowing there was going to be a horde of them coming out of the walls. Phase One had started.
Being bait fucking sucked.
Within moments I could hear the sound of several bootsteps sprinting behind me like a tide of drums echoing through the streets. I was faster, speed augmented by my hardsuit to near superhuman levels. I had to push my hands against the walls as I rounded corners, and my lungs were on fire as each step was one closer to winning Logan's game.
"Snitch, this is Anvil-1," I huffed through the comms, "OpFor is in pursuit, leading them to Site Alpha."
"Copy, Anvil-1," Kristin–our current 'Mission Control'–responded, "Anvil-2 is now proceeding to bait a second group, Hammer-1 is in position and ready to strike."
I was nearing the ambush point. My fireteam decided on a construction site as our spot–open space, plenty of cover for us and an easy escape just in case something went awry.
That, and a couple of well placed explosive charges courtesy of Anvil-2.
I turned into an alley, just a few blocks away from reaching the place but then I caught something jumping down in the corner of my eye, and I ducked hard into a roll as a hand nearly had me by the throat. I faced it, and the enemy in front of me didn't even give me time to recover when a knee came straight towards my head.
My hand caught the knee, and I wrenched as hard as I could to the side–just barely managing to redirect the hit, grazing the cheek of my helmet. I rose, and I responded with a solid hook that would have broken a grown man's jaw with ease.
It merely spun, exploiting the momentum I gave it to pivot a backhanded strike to my side, sending me to the wall with a dizzying crack even as I blocked the hit with my rifle, bending it. I dropped the rifle and I wheezed, immediately feeling numb, my arms buckling from the blow despite being reinforced by my hardsuit's exoskeleton limbs.
I ducked–a long serrated knife came towards me with enough force to put a hole in the concrete wall. I held onto his arm as he swung upwards, near splitting the wall with the raucous action. In desperation I kicked it, managing to push it away from the knife while it was still lodged inside the concrete. That didn't stop it; it still had hands.
Subalterns didn't feel anger–at least I hoped they didn't–but somehow the force of its blows said otherwise. I dodged a fist, and parried the other. Each hit just a little closer to the target, each hit a tighter noose around my neck. Up-armored as I was, taking a direct hit would have been the end of me.
It missed a punch, cratering the already weak wall behind me, and the sound of it ran up to my spine like a jolt, turning my legs near jelly-like. But I pushed through my footing, through the scare, and I roared! I tackled it–my arms clasping together like a coiled snake around as I lifted it up, and smashed it head first onto the floor. If it was any normal human being, that should have been the conclusion to this fight.
Hurriedly, my hand reached for my sidearm and aimed it straight at its head.
I squeezed the trigger, and it finally plunked down with a dull thud like a puppet with its strings cut.
I almost felt elated, even near euphoric at the small victory, but I pushed it down. Pushed the small curl of my face into a frown as I heard more boots in the distance. I took too goddamn long!
"Hit a snag, Snitch," I grunted on comms, "I need immediate support, killbox has changed!"
"Acknowledged, Anvil-1," she said. Then there was a pause as she relayed the info. "Hammer-1 is on the move. ETA seven mikes."
"Great." I told her, gulping down air as if I was about to plunge into deep water, before I rammed my shoulder to the crumbling wall like a sledgehammer, shattering it completely as I rolled into the room inside. A split second later came a volley of gunfire where I had just been.
That might not have been the best idea, but I survived. Everything became a blur, and there was a violent choir of bells ringing in my ears. But I kept moving; simulated bullets still hurt like a bitch. In these short moments of my instincts steering the ship, I had picked up something glimmering–the knife–among the rubble just as I ran.
I found myself in the lobby of an office tower. The first floor was a wide open space, what little cover there was around, wouldn't be able to withstand a hail of concentrated fire. Luckily, up a large staircase was a giant column that made for a perfect shield. I ducked from furniture to furniture, emptying a magazine at the hole, so that I could keep them suppressed before they could get themselves in like a flood of bodies ready to overwhelm me.
Wouldn't work all that well, not with subalterns. They'd already be trying to box me in, squeezing into any opening they could find. It was a miracle the first floor didn't have any windows and the only other point of entry was the main entrance. I got behind the column, and I noticed a set of elevator doors that I could use to retreat higher into the building when it gets too hot.
Inhale. Exhale. A few blocks. Just a few blocks. I dug myself in, ready as I was ever going to be for a firefight. The gun on my hand felt lighter, feather light like an extension of my hands as I aimed.
I squeezed the trigger, the thunder of my pistol echoing across the walls as I shot the first to pop out of the hole. Before it even dropped to the ground I shot again, killing the second, then the third, and on and on. Sixteen shots to their sixteen heads. Our minders would have uttered a single 'well done' to me, before urging me to do it again with bruised hands. They were innumerable; an infinite chance to prove to myself I was capable of doing just that. The sound of my gun's discharge, safely muffled by my helmet, somehow still intensified in my ears with every shot spent, as if the pistol screamed at me for more bullets and it took the click of a fresh magazine locking into it to satiate its hunger.
The comms were buzzing in activity, somebody somewhere needed help like I was. I couldn't understand them, their words rattling in my ears like a foreign tongue, my head too focused on the escalating firefight in front of me.
A ping, and then what felt like a hard blow right to my collarbone rattled my aim. My armor still held thankfully, and I responded to the counterfire without hesitation. They had started pulling out heavier munitions–grenade launchers; all in an effort to flush me out. Those I prioritized. As more of them died, more took their place in heavier numbers. They were even stacking their dead ones like sandbags. Slowly, with every subaltern I removed from the board, made it harder and harder on myself to return fire as they turned the lower floor into a trench of bodies.
All the while the cover that I hid behind was almost stripped bare from all the bullets it had taken for me.
Just a little bit more. By now, Phase Two should be well underway. With two fireteams distracting a large amount of the OpFor, Scalpel would have plenty of holes to sneak into to steal the flag.
Then all of a sudden I heard the sound of metal being bent. Something in me bid me to move, and the knife I held to my hand was readied as I pressed my fingers on its blade. I spun behind, and the knife practically whistled as it flew through a subaltern's head so hard it bent in a way no human could survive from.
I stilled, fight or flight urging me to abandon my position if more of them came out of the elevator, but nobody came. Before I could dwell on the ambush, that single momentary distraction was all the rest of them needed, and my retinas burned as scathing whiteness took over my eyes. The instantaneous heat felt so real and so close to my skin despite the simulation, and instinct urged me to terminate the neural bridge connection just from the fear alone.
I found myself thrown on my back from the explosion. Air forced itself out of my lungs, and I struggled to breathe. I pulled myself up against a wall with all that I could, the world was spinning around me and my vision was a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes that made me want to empty this morning's breakfast.
The shapes became firmer–more solid–forming subalterns. One of them had its rifle raised up to my face for the kill shot.
But I was faster.
I yanked the rifle aside, put my gun up to its jaw and I pulled the trigger. The first collapsed on top of me, and using their playbook against them, tried to use its body as a shield. It was heavy, as if I was lifting a van from under it, but it might as well have been a nice shade to the scorching rain of bullets about to go my way. Behind what little cover it gave me I shot again, killing another two.
Disoriented I might have been, I still got up, and used the motion to piston myself forward. My mea–metal shield was like a battering ram barreling towards the last one, and pinned it to the wall, its shots going wide before putting my gun up to its head and blowing its circuits out. I let out a breath I didn't know I held as I dropped the bodies on the floor. I was ready for more, ready to take as many as I could before going down. Two more showed themselves, and I raised my pistol–
Only to hear the shrieks of a jet engine boosting.
Heh. About damn time.
There was a blast, one powerful enough that it shook the floor, threatening to collapse the platform I was on. What sounded like an ASF's afterburners got closer and closer before slamming itself onto the enemy.
It was Mack, landing on her quarry like a bird of prey; vibro-katana in hand, she had gored a subaltern, the blade oscillating at such high speeds that it went through metal with alarming ease. Then she swung, didn't even bother pulling the katana out as she bisected the second without the slightest bit of strain, turning it into chunks of limbs and scrap metal.
Due to Kristin being put as Mission Control, Fireteam Speartip was missing a person. Without our little marksman, some of us elected to be a little bit more mobile for this training session. Mack's favored hardsuit had an integrated flight system that practically turned her into a human sized comet, boasting unparalleled mobility at the cost of having to wear something as durable as a regular infantry flak jacket.
"Took you long enough," I said, checking myself for any simulated injuries. "You're a sight for sore eyes, Mack."
On her, I noticed what looked to be small messenger bags, but they were in fact satchel charges, strapped around her midsection and legs tightly probably so that she couldn't lose them mid-flight. So that was what made that explosion. Emil was insane, I decided, for bringing only a pistol and a full rucksack's worth of those on him.
"What the fuck happened?" she said, sheathing her sword before putting herself behind cover. Her turbines whistled, the engines powering down and the wings of her jetpack folding into itself.
"Got ambushed." was all I could say.
She sighed, picking up a rifle off the floor, courtesy from the many subalterns I'd killed, and checked its ammo by pulling its magazine out. "You should have been better."
"You should have been bait." I shot back. I joined her behind the pillar. Or what was left of it. "Where's the rest of Hammer-1?"
"We split. Ed and Lisbeth went to back Hammer-2's play."
"What, Anvil-2 couldn't take them all out with his magic bag of dynamites?" I said, snarkily. Emil always had an eager predilection of solving problems with explosives, one that we would have made use of extensively this session. If not for how derailed this bait had gone, we could have easily moved on to Phase Three.
She peeked around the corner of the pillar, tapping the trigger of her rifle. One shot, one kill. "You didn't hear the comms? Something was setting off his bombs too early, and he didn't trick as many as he should have, screwing over Scalpel, so that's Phase Two down the drain."
"Shit," I said. Well that changed things. I let my head rest against the wall, digesting the bad news… and welcoming the breather I was given. "Arrowhead's gone?"
"All of them," she said, in between firings. "They've got to be pissed right now, being taken out that early."
"None of them managed to retreat? Not what I would have expected from Arrowhead, they're usually slipperier than that."
Unfortunate. Phase Two hinged entirely on Arrowhead being the one to sneak the flag out. Had the plan gone well, the base would have been bereft of much of its occupants, making a precise infiltration viable. Once Phase Three started, they could have easily made a hole out with the surviving enemy units too busy trying to handle us outside.
But no plan survives contact with the enemy, I suppose.
"All right," I finally said, "we regroup with Hammer-2. Scalpel would not have gone down without a fight; there might be a chance to salvage this with an assault."
"Direct action, good," she gleefully said, "My kind of plan."
I huffed. "Direct action is always your plan."
"Heh. We wouldn't be Speartip otherwise."
First, we needed to get out of here, so I peeked again behind the cover. That explosive opening that Mack did obliterated the walls, opening the building to the sun's rays… being completely blotted out by another contingent of subalterns shuffling into the room.
"Mack, give me some of those satchels." I said. This was as good a time as any to take out as many of them as possible.
"Of course," she said, unbuckling the clips of her straps. "You have a plan?"
I nodded. "Let's drop the ceiling on them, and get out through the elevator."
She tossed them to me, along with the detonator, and they felt abnormally light for something that was more powerful than a grenade being tossed. On all its sides were thin films of paper that I pulled, revealing the adhesive strips that would easily stick to any surface. I lobbed two of them on the pillar, before I realized that just breaking the support structure probably wouldn't be enough to collapse the floor above us. Mack came to the same conclusion that I did.
"Give me covering fire, and I'll stick them to the ceiling," she said. I could tell even through her helmet that she was grinning ear to ear, relishing the chance to fly.
I handed her the remaining five charges of what she gave me, and she gave me the rifle in turn. "I thank you for your service."
She mockingly saluted, before quickly giving me a mean jab on the shoulder. "Now I'm bait. Better not fuck up."
I winced, rubbing my shoulder. "You brat. Now I just might, out of spite."
She turned around, activating her jetpack. The hiss of its engines revving up was immediate and the wings unfurled like a deadly weapons platform. She took a momentary stance, leapt up in the air, hovering just for a brief instant before launching herself against a wall–
And simultaneously boosting.
The result was a cannonball speed of flight that made me flinch, the flash of the afterburners leaving red streaks in my vision that lingered for a few seconds. The race was on, I nearly leapt out of my cover, exposing as much of myself and firing my rifle as aggressively as I could, hoping to draw as much attention from her as possible.
In my periphery I saw her bouncing off the walls with incredible momentum, darting around the ceiling end to end like a giant winged insect, even redirecting in sharp and confusing angles.
All the while planting explosives at specific locations.
Way too many explosives. It was then that I noticed she was unstrapping more of the satchels off her and planting them without care, all just to prolong her joy ride. Damn it, Mack!
As the final charge was set, she turned a full one eighty degrees near instantly. She landed with a loud thump, skidding on the floor and almost hitting the wall. I tossed her the rifle, letting her eliminate anything that got close.
"These aren't door breachers, Mack, you're going to level the building!" I told her.
There was a momentary pause, and then she looked at me. "...They can't be that bad, can they?"
"These are Emil's explosives. What do you think?"
"I–well," she stuttered, "I didn't like holding on to them okay?! Besides, it's a fucking simulation, Dav. You really think the sim-space can handle the computational load of a collapsing skyscraper?"
There was another pause, and the silence between the both of us was damning. I sighed, moving to the elevator, wrenching the doors open. I stepped over the dead subaltern with the knife in its head, and I saw above it was the opening that it used to sneak inside.
It still bugged me that it was the only unit that tried to sneak behind me, and my gut told me that something was off. But the imminent earth shattering crater we were about to create killed any shred of hesitation I had, and I began to pull myself up above the elevator car.
"Hurry up, Mack!" I shouted.
With the final shots of the rifle, I could hear Mack dropping it to the floor before she hastily jumped up as well.
Pulling her up, it took no time at all before she positioned herself behind me, and with the numerous belts on her hardsuit, strapped me to her by my thighs and arms. I could hear her jetpack whining, its turbines whistling and tuning to minute angles to compensate for the additional weight. She tapped something on her wrist pad, and with a brief jolt, quickly magnetized the rig of my exoskeleton to the metal top of her hardsuit just for extra assurance.
I glanced upwards, and noticing that the shaft was a tight fit, I wondered if she could even accurately maneuver us out of here.
I was just about to ask her, but it was too late. My stomach sank down like a boulder as we flew past three floors in an instant. I grit my teeth. My head felt like it weighed ten times as much and I struggled to keep it facing upwards from the sudden launch.
The flight thankfully didn't last long; her flight systems expended more fuel with our combined weight. Our momentum eventually stabilized, hovering in the air before I frantically grabbed the cable wires in the shaft, thinking we were running out of power.
"Relax," she said, "My suit still has plenty of juice before it needs to recharge. This much is nothing."
I briefly looked down, an act I immediately regretted. I didn't know how high we were now. To the bottom was the elevator car, so tiny that we could barely make out the subalterns trying to follow us by climbing the shaft.
"Help me open one of these doors." I said to her, "Then we can blow them all sky high."
We yanked a door open, leading to a floor of nothing but rows and rows of cubicles. Mack quickly hovered over to the windows, giant panes of glass twice as tall as any man.
I reached for the gun, unceremoniously shooting the window. It took a few bullets, webs of the cracking glass forming with each shot before it finally gave out, shattering into uncountable pieces.
Mack instantly dove out.
I was already screaming before I could even process the sensation of free falling, my arms flailing before I managed to get a grip on myself. My eyes were wide open, unable to tear myself off the horizon of buildings becoming larger and larger. All the while Mack was having the time of her life, making us sway in the air as if flying was second nature to her.
For what seemed like an agonizing eternity later, we eventually managed to land safely on the flat roof of a building. I was desperately trying to unclasp myself from the straps, practically kissing solid ground as I got on my knees.
I looked at her. "Mackenzie," I said, trying my best to sound stern in between huffs of breath. "Warn me. Next time."
All she did was laugh. She pressed the side of her helmet, her visor depolarizing to reveal a wolfish sneer on her face. With her thin nose and dark-hazel eyes, I would have called her pretty if it weren't for the large diagonal scar across her face and this overwhelming urge to put her in a headlock for her stunt.
"Hey, we got out in one piece, didn't we?" she said, putting her hands on her hips. "You should be thanking me."
I ignored her, and I eventually stood up. With the excitement wearing off, and with my heart stopped threatening to punch its way out of my chest, I pulled the detonator out of a pouch. I pointed it towards the tower, and despite some distance away, still managed to tune the thing into the frequency of the explosives, whistling a solid tone once it connected. I took off its safety pin, and I realized offhandedly, that the detonator was just a giant trigger. With my whole hand, I squeezed, and it took some effort to push the mechanism down fully.
The result was immediate.
The blast wave reached us–even at five blocks away–the pressure felt like a harsh push to my torso.
Gone was the entire first floor of the tower, and from the blast all the high rise windows of the surrounding buildings completely disintegrated into shards that scattered in the wind. Like lumber being felled, the skyscraper tilted to the side, the last vestiges of its supports moaning as if in pain, before finally crashing against the other buildings instead of collapsing in on itself.
We both just stood there, eyeing the wanton destruction that Mack had done.
"Well, you got your answer, Mack." I said, if only to start a conversation.
"Oh yeah, and remind me later to tell Emil he's fucking insane for letting me strap those on to me."
Performance Dossier: Hundsen, David
NAME: HUNDSEN, DAVID BIRTHPLACE: ALBANY CITY, NEW OSLO I BIRTH DATE: 02/02/3001 EYE COLOR: BLUE HAIR: BLONDE ACQUISITION: Taken from the hands of an insurgent at age nine (9). PERFORMANCE: Obedient. Laserlike focus on the objective, but can be flexible given the right amount of automation. Excellent leadership skills. Marked talent for social situations. Recommend immediate training for officer roles once harvested. COMMENTS: A noteworthy linchpin on the morale of the other recruits. Discipline can go through him first, if necessary. As the oldest of the current batch, and a long stay in the domicile, he is made of sterner stuff than the younger refuse. Smart enough to know where he's going to end up, but sufficiently molded that it stays his feet. An unrefined blade, this one. Bend, not break. We have more uses for those blessed with wider vision.
Performance Dossier: Lindberg, Emil
NAME: LINDBERG, EMIL BIRTHPLACE: N/A BIRTH DATE: 10/07/3002 EYE COLOR: GREEN HAIR: AUBURN–POLIOSIS PATCH ACQUISITION: Offspring of eliminated pirate forces during the attack of XXXX. Found at age eleven (11) in a hidden compartment of the crashed remains of the dropship. PERFORMANCE: A bit of a loner. Rock solid under pressure, and believe me, that has been tested. Loud in his actions, not words. When put to the task, will perform to the letter of the task given, and only to the letter. Not much else to take note of. A blunt but effective blade to be used and discarded once expended. COMMENTS: He is a mine waiting for someone to step on him. Whatever was done to him, happened long before we got our hands on this one. Perhaps it is simply in the nature of vermin to be so infuriatingly durable. Keep him yoked and front toward the enemy once he is fully matured. The boy will learn in time that this is the fate of his kind.