Fiction Week

By Daniel Lee

The following takes place between the hours of 1000-1100 SMT on the surface of the planet Jyrmfür. Dominion forces occupy a heavily-fortified research complex under a large mesa, designated Tango 419.

Union forces are directed to capture it intact at all costs.

THE ANT

A shell impacted not more than five meters from Line Private Michal “Stef” Stefanovich’s head as he lay face down in the mud. Luckily, a shallow berm shielded him from most of the shockwave, but it was still close enough to bounce his grey matter around. He shielded his head with his arms as bits of fragmentation, rain, and mud rained down on him.

“FUCK!” he heard someone yell. “Stef, ya good?!”

Stef coughed out a ball of mud before rasping out, “Yeah, bell’s just rung.” He did a quick check for blood—arms, legs, pits, and most importantly, groin—and once he was reasonably satisfied, grabbed for his rifle. It was a simple weapon: the R21A2 Trecoran Union Marine Corps standard issue rifle, designed to fire ultramax caseless 85 grain 6.5x30mm chemically-propelled rounds at 1,200 meters per second. It had fancy recoil-dampening pods and holographic sighting systems, sure, but it was basically the same rifle his grandpappy used. The unrelenting rain made the grip slick in his hand, so he quickly used his sleeve to wipe down the weapon before scrambling up the last few meters of hill to rejoin his squad.

Once at the top, he quickly slid into the crater where his squad was taking cover, his S-LINK lighting them up with green outlines on his helmet HUD. He landed close to where Line Private “Yip” Buckley and squad newbie Private Oskar Ramirez were going cyclic with their R60 machine guns. Unlike the R21, R60s were designed for cased rounds to aid heat dissipation. This was not lost on Stef as he received a face-full of hot thermalloy. He swiftly rolled away and got to his feet as the senior gunner yelled at the junior to watch his fire rate. “You’ll burn out the fucking barrel, dumbass!” Yip yipped.

Stef shoved himself past the Doc, who was busy applying biofoam to the stump of Private Pete Nakahara’s right arm, and took a firing position next to the squad leader, Corporal Jenn “Hick” Tennyson. She was attempting communication with the platoon commander in her thick Yolloran countryside accent: “Nah, WRAHNG, I nee’ to talk to Lew-tenan’ Helman! No, naht— god-DAMN this weather, man! Comms’ shot to shit!”

“Need a runner, Hick?” Stef offered.

Hick waved him down. “Nah, Doms an’ tinskins pushin’ us. Kill somethin’!”

Stef poked his head out of cover just in time for a flash of lightning to illuminate the battlefield. Tango-419 stood tall, menacingly, off to the north. The base of the mesa had to be at least a kilometer away, but it was hard to tell through the downpour. Opposing forces were dug in tight, artillery and laser emplacements all along the sheer face of the mesa. The guns were firing at such intensity that the entire mesa appeared as one, long, continuous firework. Angry storm clouds swirled into dark peaks above, disgorging a constant barrage of sparks and moisture. A loud shriek overhead and a brief green flicker indicated the passage of a pair of friendly Albatross gunboats. They unleashed a torrent of 25 mike-mike on the mesa and swooped away. Even if the squids in orbit had their thumbs up their ass, at least they sent the flyboys to help out.

Stef looked down at the plain descending from the mesa. An angry mess of red outlines popped in and out of focus as S-LINK fought through hostile jamming and weather. Dominion forces had deployed drone combatants, humanoid in form but almost spider-like in movement, to flush them from cover and provide a buffer for the mesa. These served to augment the human combatants who also acted as local drone controllers. Stef spotted a few of these controllers scrambling through the mud behind their metal puppets.

He sent rounds downrange as quick as his finger would let him. He took down a few clankers as they scrambled down a muddy slope barely 100 meters away. The drones’ controller fell out of cover behind them—having maybe slipped on the mud—and Stef put three rounds in him, center mass. He emptied the rest of his mag at vague red outlines farther away, hunkered down to reload with the practiced hands of a Marine infantryman, and resumed fire.

Stef and his squad laid down the hate, taking out bot after controller after bot. However, the mass of red outlines only seemed to get larger and his ammo count smaller. As he felt his bolt lock back once again on last round fired, he reached down for another mag and found only empty pouches. “Need a spare mag!” he yelled. Before anyone could answer, he felt something slap him in the face, throwing him back into the mud.

On instinct, he immediately crawled back as far as he could in the crater. He put a hand up to his face and felt something warm trickle down. Hopefully just a graze. He started feeling around for his rifle, and through the gunfire he could hear Hick yelling into her helmet comm, “We’re bein’ overrun! Are there any available assets tha’ can provide assistance…”

Before she could finish her sentence, an ear-splitting crack far louder than any lightning bolt resonated through the air. Stef then saw multiple fireballs emerge from the clouds above, followed by a cloud of small dark objects that acquired a green S-LINK outline on approach. One of these objects cohered into the shape of a man as it descended, slowing on final approach until he landed before Stef like some sort of heaven-sent angel. The man was clad head-to-toe in armor, torso and limbs encompassed in a sinewy exoskeleton, and he carried a rifle Stef had only seen on the net.

Stef stared. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed. “They sent HERA.”

THE BEETLE

Staff Sergeant Vitas “Vee” Lundy grunted as the Disposable Reentry Vehicle was thrust out of the launch bay, forcing his stomach into his throat. Once the DRV was free of UNS NEW PRINCETON and began its plummet towards the planet below, weightlessness overtook him.

He took a moment to survey 2^nd platoon, his people, through the dim red interior lights. They were harnessed into their shock seats around the outer perimeter of the drop pod, 36 in total. They were all clad head-to-toe in pressurized armored suits capable of handling both bullets and vacuum. On their backs were displacement packs, or d-packs: essentially miniaturized reactionless warship thrusters that enabled them high mobility in both zero-g and on the surface of a planet. A sinewy exoskeleton extended from their chest rig to all four limbs, giving them enhanced strength and endurance. While older models might have used clumsy pistons and hydraulics, these newer ones utilized artificial muscle for maximum range of motion and fidelity of movement. On each of their shoulders was a patch: a sword thrust vertically into a star, backed by spread eagle wings, encircled by their moniker – Hazardous Environment Reconnaissance and Assault.

Vee thought back to the day he made it through six months of hellish training at the Special Operations Training Course, two months of special tactics and demolitions school, and four months of the hazardous environment assault course to finally stand in front of Marshall Angelopoulos to receive his HERA star. He was proud. Proud to be the only force trained to fight in every environment, from sulfuric acid rain-soaked moons to the cold of deep vacuum. Sure, the Navy SPALS claimed to do that too, but they were only visiting. Marine HERAs lived in it.

And now they were plummeting at celestial speeds into a thunderstorm.

“Alright boys,” 1^st Lieutenant Ben Milas yelled from beside him, attempting to maintain his equilibrium through the increasing turbulence. “Attention to brief! As always, the regs down below need our help. Dominion forces are pushing out from Tango 419 and stalling the assault. Our company will be reinforcing weak points along the line. We have no armor support, but we do have a few Trosses providing close air support. Comms are shot to shit from the storm, so we’ll be relying on IR poppers to call in airstrikes. We also won’t be able to talk to each other past shouting distance, so once you land, regroup on my IR beacon, and then we kill everything in between the LZ and Tango 419. Oorah?”

“Rah, sir,” Vee responded. The platoon also erupted into a chorus of “Rah!” and “Kill!” in acknowledgement. Only moments later, the red interior lights snapped to green.

“To hell!” Vee roared as his seat was abruptly yanked backwards and into the atmosphere. The seat harness blew loose and soon he was freefalling towards the surface below. All around him he could see the rest of his HERAs scattering from the pod almost like dandelion fluff. The DRV had done its job shielding them on reentry, and now each individual HERA would maneuver themselves the rest of the way. Pods were easy to track and shoot down; individual humans flitting around with d-packs, not so much.

To aid them in their landing, the DRV ejected its three supply pods—each jetting towards pre-determined landing sites—then rapidly deconstructed into a cloud of metallic chaff and fireballs to confuse anti-air targeting systems. The decoys continued to bloom in intervals as the remains of the DRV fell, leaving a trail of cover for the drop. It continued into the sea of dark clouds, and the HERAs followed.

The upper cloud layer hit Vee like a brick wall. He couldn’t see much at all as the howling wind buffeted him and the moisture saturated his visor. He breathed slowly and deeply, calming his nerves and keeping an eye on his altimeter. At a bit less than a kilometer above the ground, he broke through the last layer of clouds and tried to survey the battlefield below. Unfortunately, an Albatross gunboat abruptly screeched past him, sending him tumbling. He used his d-pack to steady himself, cursing. Goddamn flyboys.

The ground came up quickly; he maneuvered his feet downwards and rapidly decelerated. With a loud squelch, he landed inside a crater next to a squad of Marine regs. One of them was on the ground with a bloody cheek, looking straight up at him. “Holy shit,” the reg exclaimed. “They sent HERA.”

“Glad to be of service,” Vee grunted through his helmet’s voicebox, and helped the Marine to his feet. “Supply pod landed 200 meters east. Move!”

The Marines followed him without question. Alternating covering fire, they pushed towards the supply pod. Vee managed to tag at least a half dozen clankers with his XR-5 coil carbine; 25 grain ferro-tungsten projectiles magnetically accelerated to 3,400 m/s had enough oomph to put them down with a single shot each. Thankfully, the carbine’s displacement compensators reduced the recoil to a polite suggestion.

Once at the supply pod, he left the regs behind to rearm while he looked for his platoon commander. Using the mobility and strength his kit afforded him, he sprinted through the rain and leapt over entire hills until his HUD obtained a visual on Milas’ IR beacon. On final approach to his platoon commander, he landed next to a Dominion controller fumbling with his rifle. Without hesitation, he slammed his armored fist into his chin, snapping his neck instantly. One more leap and he was by Milas’ side. At least half the platoon was already gathered.

“Lundy, glad to see ya. Take the left flank. We’re pushing!” Milas ordered. The lieutenant then leapt away, his men following. They circled and weaved around the battlefield, providing staggered covering fire, dodging the hardened defenses and poking into small weaknesses in the enemy line. As they advanced, they came across a pocket of regs encircled by drones. Coordinating with wordless fluidity, Vee took a squad to the left while Milas took the rest to the right to flank the assaulting bots. They were quickly decommissioned, and their controllers were rooted out and similarly dispatched.

“Hell yeah, absolute badasses!” one of the Marine regs yelled.

Vee wasted no time. Rallying the regs, he formed a line for the final 200-meter push to the foot of the mesa. Once they had collected to some semblance of a battle line, he turned to Lieutenant Milas—who was crouching by the crest of a nearby berm—and gave him a thumbs up. Milas responded in kind, stood up to lead the charge, and immediately evaporated into red mist.

“Fuck!” The curse escaped Vee’s lips reflexively as he hit the deck. The other Marines did the same. Just in time, too, as a barrage of cannon fire tore across the top of the berm where Milas used to be. A reg next to him split in two. The upper half had enough air in her lungs to let out one last excruciating scream before exsanguinating and going quiet.

A HERA close to the top of the berm, Corporal Blanchard, slid down next to Vee. “ADP, between us and Tango-419,” she reported. “Must’ve just climbed down the mesa. It’s got the whole area locked down.”

Vee grimaced. Area Denial Platforms were nasty work. Basically, an armored disk on four legs covered in MGs, cannons, and mortars, they couldn’t move fast but anything short of a Breacher tank wasn’t getting past it.

Time for some heavier ordnance.

“Corporal, get a popper on that sumbitch. Full ordnance, whatever’s available.” Blanchard nodded, pulled a small cylindrical object from a pouch, typed something into it, and leapt to the top of the berm. Once at the top, she threw it with all her might towards the ADP; her powered suit let it fly much farther than any ordinary human could throw, and the IR beacon landed directly underneath the four-legged behemoth.

THE SPARROW

Lieutenant Commander Raella “Beans” Adebayo adjusted her craft’s HUD brightness for what seemed to be the hundredth time today. The rain streaking across the canopy and cameras coupled with the occasional lightning flash made it a less-than-ideal environment for sight. Her G/A-17D Albatross gunboat was equipped with top-of-the-line sensors, radars, and lidars, but vision was still a nice thing to have. Not to mention the fact that she had almost splattered a deploying HERA not twenty minutes beforehand.

She and her wingman, Lieutenant Robert “Tin Man” Fumbernickel, had been on station and dropping ordnance for the last forty minutes. Beans did a quick status check: battery and heat sinks were good, but she only had a few hundred rounds left on the 25 mike-mike. Nothing on the bomb racks.

“Nimble 2-2, this is Nimble 2-1, ammo check, over,” she queried.

“Nimble 2-1, Nimble 2-2,” Tin Man responded, full of static, “I’ve got two MK33’s and about…uh… 17 rounds of 25. Over.”

So two 500kg bombs and essentially winchester on the gun. Beans started considering pulling back to orbit to rearm when her HUD caught something near the surface. The gunboat’s sensors had picked up a friendly IR beacon, holographically displayed as a pillar of red light emanating from near the foot of the mesa. The computers decoded its message: URG-AAO.

An urgent request for all available ordnance on the beacon.

“Nimble 2-2, we’ve got a fire request. Fall in behind. I’ll lead with a gun burst then you drop the MK33’s.”

“Nimble 2-1, wilco.”

Beans nudged the vector stick to the left and pushed up slightly on the scalar stick, banking to port and gaining airspeed. She lined up her craft with the beacon to get a good targeting solution. Not that she needed it; the target was readily apparent by the presence of the 20-meter tall 4-legged behemoth spitting hot death.

On the approach she switched to gun mode. The computer made its calculations and, once in range, changed her HUD’s gun pip to red while nagging into her helmet: “GUN. FIRE. GUN. FIRE.” She squeezed the trigger on the vector stick, causing her entire airframe to vibrate with the violence of magnetically accelerating 276 25mm cannon shells downrange in less than three seconds. A line of impacts erupted on the ADP’s armor.

She pulled up as soon as she was dry and witnessed Tin Man do the same, sans two Mk33 bombs. A moment later, two bright flashes. Another moment later, a shockwave.

Beans pulled around to do a quick BDA. The remains of the ADP lay motionless on the ground, and she could already see HERAs leaping over the wreckage towards the mesa. Their job was done.

“All wings, this is Nimble. We’re RTB to rearm and recharge.” With that, the two gunboats disappeared up into the storm clouds.

THE EAGLE

Aboard the amphibious assault ship UNS NEW PRINCETON, in the dim blue light of CIC, Captain Ronald Bailey stood with his hands clasped firmly behind his back. He stared intently at the large tactical viewscreen dominating the center of the room. On it, he saw…nothing. Static. Error codes. A camera view of the source of all his frustrations: a freak electromagnetic storm that none of the xeno-METOCs had predicted.

Flank Admiral Isaiah Varnum, the Commander of the Amphibious Task Force, approached him. “Captain. Status report.”

Captain Bailey suppressed a sigh. “Nothing yet, sir. We deployed HERAs about thirty minutes ago. We’ll debrief any pilots that return.”

“Hmph. Well, find me in my ready room when you decide to be useful,” the Admiral harumphed, and departed.

The Captain released his sigh and continued to observe the screen.

Daniel Lee commissioned as a surface warfare officer, nuclear (SWO(N)) in 2016. He served on USS ASHLAND (LSD-48) out of Sasebo, Japan as first deck division officer. After qualifying in nuclear power school, he spent two years on USS GERALD R. FORD (CVN-78) in Norfolk, VA. He has previously worked in the International Surface Warfare Officers school in Newport.  He has honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy and is now working as an engineer at Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Covert, Michigan to assist in its historic restart effort. He is the author of SWOES, a weekly comic based on life as a junior SWO.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI.