Published: 3 Jan 2019

Chapter 17 – Price of War – Growing Body Counts

Just as the last rays of the Brile star were starting to glow on the horizon, Joel looked over the three Ulysses 6th Armor Division vehicles, then back at Cory, “You just decided to take these without frames? What is wrong with you?”

“Long list Major,” Lawson jumped in with a grin. “Very long list and getting longer by the minute. But hey, it worked.”

“Worked very well thanks to Ensign Bennett and Sergeant Swartz.” Derek admitted.

Gabriel poked at the large bloodstain on the side of the Slasher with a stick. Finding it fully dry he cringed. “How many dead?”

“Six for sure, seven others were pretty bad and several others with some degree of shrapnel damage.” Cory responded, then quickly added. “Oh, plus the patrol we took out. No survivors there…” He shot Liam a contented smirk, “And there was one private who gave Liam some problems. Pretty sure he wishes he had died at this point.”

“And you left them stranded?” Gabriel asked with a wince at the non-verbal satisfied sneers between Liam and Cory.

Paula spoke up, shooting Liam a smirk as she did so. “It was strand or kill them. We can’t exactly keep prisoners at this point, sir. But it wasn’t like we left them in their underwear out in the wastelands, but it was tempting!

“Ensign Bennett allowed each of them to grab a spare uniform, and we gave them each a survival pack minus radios and flares. Ensign Bennett also ordered us to leave them with the big first-aid kit out of the Barracuda, along with six cases of AIM survival ration packs. We also dropped off fourteen Baca Industries light carbines and nineteen Gamma Works standard pistols, all with two full magazines, a case of filter masks, and some odds and ends we didn’t really need from the Barracuda. In addition, we left one of the solar water units for them along with a shower station, a couple of medium tents and some shovels, axes and other tools. We dropped it all at a rock formation ten point four kilometers from where we left them, but distance is as a bird flies, and the terrain is real rough. If they decided to travel overnight and could see well enough, they should almost be there by now.”

At this point Jason couldn’t help by pointing out, “Only if they were willing to travel on a moonless night through country with Hexa-lizards and abandoned the hurt… um… what is the English word again?”

“Wounded,” Saul answered.

“Yes, wounded, thank you.” Jason reached over and patted Saul on the shoulder. “But no matter, they probably moved up into the scrub trees to wait out the night and tend to wounds. They will then gather the supplies and will go for help. When they do, their command will know about these three platforms being took. We only have a… um, small time to use them before Ulysses knows they are not under their ownership. Sergeant Swartz convinced their ensign to tell us where two of the close spots cadets be held and we scout them before we came back to camp. This is why we are so late.” He looked up at the first rays of the Brile star, “Or in this case early, in coming back. We took turns driving and got a rotation of rest too.”

Joel eyed the vehicles, then glanced over to Gabriel and Chip. Seeing both shrug and glance over at Cory, Joel let out a long breath, “OK… So, Cory…”

Cory smiled knowing Joel was going to give him pretty close to free rein. However, his words showed much of the grin was superficial at best. “If I can take Paula, and rip the seats out of one of the Javelins so it can take a couple of light frames, and I get a few others including Liam, we can take the partially rebuilt Hammer Inc. diborane production facility. Just don’t ask for, or expect, a low body count.”

Joel frowned at this but Terrin quickly jumped in, “Sir, at this point we can’t worry too much about enemy casualties. It’s no different than when EC sent in the surprise assault force into New Bravaria and our warships all but slaughtered them.”

Joel let out a long sigh, “Yeah, good point, but the idea is to rescue the held cadets…”

Paula nodded, “And we will sir, at least most of them. But to do this we absolutely need Liam. We also need to do this fast. Sooner or later the patrol will be missed or find others and we will lose all surprise.”

Gabriel shrugged, “I’d say give Cory and Paula who they want, Major.”

Joel took another deep breath before nodding, “OK, Cory, pick who you want on your team, but none of those with you have had much sleep. A single four hour rest rotation isn’t enough. Because of this and since those cadets you free will go to your squad, I want Chip and Candice with you.”

Joel turned away from Cory, “Chip, you may as well keep Liam in your squad after this is over since he seems to work so well with Cory.”

Chip agreed instantly, happy to be able to not have to explain why Candice would not be available to join in the other assault. “Fine with me, as long as it is OK with Liam.”

Liam simply nodded. “Wherever you want me.”

“I’m more than good with you being with Chip and the rest of us, Liam,” Cory stated firmly.

Joel, along with several of the others, looked surprised by Cory’s clear support of the kid, but Joel quickly moved on to the matter at hand. “Settled then. Liam, you are with Chip’s squad from here on out. So, Cory this is your game; who else do you want?”

“Just Jason, but I wouldn’t mind taking Stella since she pretty good in a wheeled platform and didn’t go out with us so she is on a full night’s sleep.”

“Done. Now what will my group be facing?”

Paula answered, “It’s a strip mine. Our information shows it was owned by a company called Hard Core, but it was abandoned before Blood’s Honor was even called in, so other than do a quick check for active machines, and declared cleared; there is nothing in our computer files. We don’t even know what it was mining. But it was a pretty big complex. It has a dozen buildings inside an old walled compound on the north side and a walled ore facility, with a small landing pad, to the south. The pad is in bad shape, but they have done enough work for a single smaller spherical PLC to land on it.

“Cory, Derek, Liam, and I were able to hike up the rocky slope to the northeast and look down on the main compound. It only took us an hour and frames could do it with no problem, but no platform of any type will get up the rocks. If I were you, I’d assault from up there. I marked the path for you and one for a small group to get to the cadets and or hit the southern facility on a holographic overlay.” She tossed Joel a small memory stick. “It’s in there. Just remember to erase or destroy it after you use it. We sure don’t want it to fall into Ulysses or EC hands and let them know what kinds of weaknesses we are looking for.

“As far as the installation, most of the work prisoners are being kept in what is left of a pair of long buildings with electrified razor wire around it. It looks like they shut down mining ops during the night and button up. We’re guessing they do so because as we were backing out we saw a few Brile Hexa-lizards coming out of the rocks as the areas got shady and cooled off, which is probably the same reason the facility was walled to begin with. We caught Ulysses guards just as they were pulling the workers out of two covered trucks, one with a water trailer, guarded by Zeniths. It was pretty clear the Zeniths were more focused on the gate and keeping Hexa-lizards out of the main compound than the prisoners in. They backed in fully once the gate was shut and the electric wire powered up, both on top of the wall and around the two buildings.

“Battle armored guards forced all the workers into the razor wire area. The workers dropped off shovels, picks, hammers and other tools at a small shed just outside the wire. Once inside the secured area, they pretty much all trudged into the buildings. We didn’t get a good look at them, but most were around our age to a little older and many had cadet vests from various academies. They were all real dirty and didn’t have filter masks. We didn’t see any adult captives, but we were told by the patrol we took out, there are some.

“The prisoner buildings are patched, but are in the worst shape of all the buildings inside the walls. Both buildings had a pair of solar water collectors with full tanks on top, so at least they have water. We couldn’t see in, so have no idea of living conditions.”

“Not good…” Saul stated.

“Piss poor…” Liam added.

At this point a couple of the Blood’s Honor kids patted both boys on the shoulder even as Paula continued. “The only ground access to the complex is the road between a pair of rocky crags. It wraps all the way around the edge of the strip mine. The only easy way to get from the southern complex to the northern is the road. They could go through the strip mine and take the switchbacks up to the northern complex, but it would take way more time and the switchback is too narrow for more than one vehicle or three frames abreast.

“There are two bunkers built into the rocky hillside guarding the outer approach, both with dual auto cannons, but they face out, and cannot hit you if you come over the rocky slope we did. It’s like the only threat they are focused on is from machines.”

“We know how they treat the captives,” Saul stated with a sad shake of his head. “There is no way the work prisoners are able to do much, if anything to them.”

At this point Derek spoke up, “Yeah, but they aren’t even looking for other threats, let alone defending against them. If we could get Blood’s Honor here with drop pod ships they’d take both complexes in minutes. As it is, it wouldn’t be too hard for a good frame pilot to get up to the bunkers and toss in explosives.”

“Sounds like you just volunteered,” Gabriel snickered, “thanks!”

Derek tossed up his arms, even as Karen grinned at him, “I’ll go up there with you and take out the other one. We can then cover the road from high ground so Joel can safely get the captives out.”

At this Derek reluctantly nodded, “Yeah, and it would give us a good vantage point to see if any Ulysses reinforcements or machines try to come up the road. If we could get into the bunkers and take them, we’d have superior firepower covering the whole road, then blow them as we pull out.”

Joel looked over, “OK, you two just gave yourselves your assignments. Cory or Paula, what else can you tell us?”

Paula quickly continued with the briefing. “Well, sir, the motor pool has everything you need to pull out the captives if you can take it and if there are enough cadets certified to drive wheeled and tracked platforms. There are a trio of Javelins, four Zeniths, six of those small boxed vehicles with the dual machineguns we fought on Andar, a pair of Bulldogs and four covered cargo trucks. One was being worked on and one had a water trailer with a solar collector, but most if not everyone we saw would fit into two of those trucks.”

Cory jumped in at this point, “Joel, I’d try to take the trailer if you can. Water is going to cause us problems with so many new people. I’d also try to find the mess hall and take as much food as possible. Otherwise we’ll all have to hunt to keep us in food stores. We may have to anyway.”

“The barracks is the two story building,” Liam stated. “I’d start there since these Andar pukes kept food and portable water really well guarded at every place Saul and I were at. This way, even when someone escaped they’d have to head out without the basics.”

Joel nodded, “It only makes sense, but having food to start with will let us settle down those we rescue and give us time to organize and see where they all stand on helping us. Good thoughts Cory and thanks for the heads-up Liam. Those will be secondary objectives of my raid. See what you can get out of the facility you hit.”

“Already planning on it, sir,” Paula assured Joel before continuing. “They also have over a dozen huge mining rigs down in the pit, but most, if not all, have been down there since the Machine Wars. They are way too big to get up the switchback, and don’t appear armed. My bet is they were shipped here and assembled on site. Only three or four are operational and they have tech crews working on a couple of the others. But don’t go looking for them unless you are coming in from the northwest. They can’t be seen from the air since they have them under a large overhang. They really did a good job fixing things up while still making everything look abandoned. It takes really expecting to see repairs to roads and buildings. It’s pretty crazy and they had to have been at this for at least a year or two.”

Joel sighed, “EC likes to do this and my dad is super good at finding them, but I’ve seen people look at high-rez 3D satellite passes and miss hidden supply bases stuck in plain sight, most established in abandoned settlements, many times. Blood’s Honor’s best miss them most of the time. I’m sure they did a recon before they sent us here, especially since they got the message from at least one of the Ultras, but they didn’t notice Earth Core had established a planetary-wide base deep inside ABR, now NFC territory. Dad’s going to be so pissed when he finds out how much our Intel people missed.”

Gabriel shook his head, “Yeah, there is going to be a few demotions for sure. But we’ll let my mom and central command worry about who screwed up later. What else did you all find?”

At this point Cory picked up the briefing, “The workers were being guarded by at least five in battle armor and somewhere around a dozen infantry. We saw more battle armor in front of and on top of the hexagon-shaped building. We are guessing it is the command building. We didn’t see any frames in the main compound, but they could have some in one or more of the buildings. As Liam said, the main barracks appears to be the two story building directly across from the main entrance to the hexagon, right next to the motor pool, also guarded by battle armor. Most of the defense is the natural surroundings, since the only way in or out is the heavily guarded road or from the landing pad. The machines tried to hit it at least once since there are two wheeled and one hover machine shot to hell just off to the side of the road a kilometer out from the bunkers.

“There are frames at a smaller set of buildings on the south side of the pit, we saw three Militia, a Partisan and a pair of Buccaneer frames. There are some work prisoners there, too, but we couldn’t see anyplace they were being held, so they may be transported from the main holding area or something. It was too far away to get a clear image capture, but Sergeant Mathis got some holographic photos of all the key areas and spent some time finding and marking key weaknesses. When we get our cohort forces, Derek needs to be your tactics guy. He is really good.”

Derek glanced over, “Don’t be giving me the credit. I got the photos, but you got me to where I could take them, Cory.”

“Doesn’t matter how you got them, I’m just happy you did.” Joel scratched the top of his head as he took the holo-viewer and pulled up the first few images. He quickly focused in on a pair in armored suits much heavier and tailored to combat than the E-suits they all were used to. “Gabe, you are the only one of us here with Battle Armor Certs and know it better than most of us put together. What are we looking at?”

Gabe glanced at the display and enlarged a couple of the images by poking at the 3D photos, “Kind of grainy from this distance.”

Liam moved up, “They are Stardust Industries Guard class Battle Armor. It is the second most common battle armor in the ABR, right behind Protector class. Stardust Guard class Battle Armor come standard with a light gyro and stun pistol, but can be changed out since all weapon slots on battle armor are hard pointed. To me, it looks like the ones at the entrance to the hexagon have micro lasers instead of stunners, but hard to tell for sure.”

Seeing everyone suddenly looking at him, he forced a sheepish grin, “I’m tall, and skinny. This means I’m also lightweight and can jump into smaller adult-sized battle armor so Ratone Prime JMA stuck me in battle armor training for a full semester. I’d still be there except my team leader, along with some of the cadre on the frame side, wanted me back because of how good I could fix the crap frames they had for the cadets who were there on scholarships.”

Gabriel smiled, “Nice to know I’m not the only Battle Armor Certified pilot here!” he offered Liam a fist bump as he continued. “While way more maneuverable than frames, they are light on armor, power, and weapons. If you all had certified we’d be in battle armor instead of E-suits… You know I tried to get you all to take the Battle Armor Certification class last summer…”

“Yeah,” Joel signed, “but other than Candice, the rest of us wanted to get basic certs in IPSCs.”

Cory shrugged, “Got my certs in Galeac Battle Armor before New Bravaria happened. Too tight for my liking, but for infiltration it was great. While unlikely, if they have any in my size, grab me a suit.”

Stella’s eyes narrowed, “Galeac? How the hell did you get certified in EC Battle Armor?”

Jason and Tracy also turned to stare at Cory with some sudden misgivings.

Brandon moved over to Cory, clearly ready to defend him in needed. “Cory’s one of us, guys, how he got EC training doesn’t matter.”

“The hell it doesn’t!” Stella snarled, “My village was ripped to shreds by EC Battle Armor. Someone in Galeac Battle Armor killed my brother, cousin and my Bravarian Hound! Had I not been under rubble, they would have killed me too!”

“Guys, he’s with us,” Brandon stated firmly. “He had nothing to do with it.”

“Then how’d he get certified in EC Battle Armor?” Tracy demanded to know.

Cory let out a long breath, “OK fine, but we really don’t have time for a full explanation. I already tried to hint at me having some EC training, such as the stunning and some of the other things I’m taking you through. I have even said a couple of time I am as mean as I am because of EC…”

“We thought you were taken captive by them,” Derek stated.

“Nope, I was hatched by EC.”

Saul cocked his head to the side, “Hatched?”

Terrin started to move over to Cory only to get shoved away by the smaller boy. Cory looked upwards and rolled his eyes, “Yes hatched! We are wasting time instead of killing Ulysses jack-wads! But you all really want to know who I am, here it goes.” He pulled out the Eye of Mars necklace. “My adopted name is Cory Delta Bennett. My real designation is Delta Seven Six Three. My full designation is Spawn Seven Six Three, Omicron Hive, Brood Delta 17,229 from Mars Farm Omega. I was not born, I was farmed, what we Brood like to call hatched.”

Seeing several jaws hanging open he glanced over at Paula, “You wanted to know where this came from,” he tapped the pendant. “I took it right off the gutted body of Field Marshal Kormar. I killed the bastard as part of a deal I struck with Blood’s Honor’s High Command. It’s why I am part of BHJMA instead of Delta Brood, although there would be no more Delta Brood except for Blood’s Honor.”

Jason blinked as he stared at the Eye of Mars. “Are you seriously telling us you killed Kormar, the Butcher of Byren Uprising and taker of over a dozen worlds for EC?”

“Gutted him with his own blade,” Cory verified. “I then took his hand and head and used them to activate the base defenses. With total command override, I turned them on the EC ships in the spaceport before detonating the main core.”

“All true,” Chip spoke up. “Although I didn’t know you took his head and hand… No wonder you were covered in blood when we pulled you out of the rocket pod!”

“Had to,” Cory shrugged. “He was too heavy to lift. His Eye of Mars, plus a retinal and hand print verification was required to access the full override. I used my own body to mask the fact I was using parts of Kormar instead of a live body. But look, guys, we need to get going. If that patrol had some sort of check-in time, they may already be listed as missing…”

Jason was still stunned, but he managed to find his voice before the other two from New Bravaria did, “How… um what… um… you were EC yet struck a deal with Blood’s Honor?”

Gabriel nodded, “Some of us were the ones who took the chance and escorted him in to see our high command. It’s all true.”

“How did you get access to Blood’s Honor’s High Command?” Tracy demanded to know.

Joel snickered, “It took some doing, even with our parents, but Gabriel’s got a bit more pull than most of us.”

At this Derek snorted, “A bit my ass!”

Jason either missed the comment or was too focused on Cory for it to register. He rubbed his hand down his face, “So you say you struck a deal? What was it?”

“In return for Blood’s Honor securing my surviving Brood mates, along with remnants of two other Broods I went through the Hive with, I would bring down the space defense guns and open a hole for Blood’s Honor to land the reinforcements they had stuck up in space. Chip, Joel, Gabriel, Karen and a kid who helped take down the Fluvius Camillus agreed to lead in a bunch of other cadets on a drop pod raid led by General Scott where we were being readied to sweep a mine field. They were delayed because I took out two of the instructors and sabotaged the transports… Anyway, while they took my Brood mates, I was dropped off close enough to the EC central ops base to infiltrate on my own.

“I was the one who killed Field Marshal Kormar, and shot up the bulk of the EC reinforcements that broke the blockade of the New Bravaria system, losing more ships than I can fathom doing so. But anyway, once their ships and main base were in ruin, I detonated the primary fusion plant outside the city of Ludwig to wipe out their ability to coordinate and aim the massive space guns they set up around Ludwig. But for some reason my actions also caused a crash down of the fission power plant killing power to their space defense batteries and wiping out command and control of most of the surviving EC forces attacking your worlds.”

“That explosion took out a whole section of the city! It forced the evacuation of the rest along with everyone within like a hundred kilometers of Ludwig.” Stella managed to gasp out.

“Yeah, but most of what I ended up destroying was fully controlled by EC, including the communications hub, power grid, water, and sewage. Those still living there wouldn’t have lived much longer regardless. For one of the sets of plans I found was something Kormar had in the works. He was days, if not hours, away from having EC forces pump sewage into the main water supply. It would have killed or seriously sickened everyone left in the city and several outlying settlements. It would have also taken out the New Bravaria resistance fighters and wiped out intel flowing from resistance fighters going back to Blood’s Honor from them. By taking out what I did, the explosion and fallout also destroyed their control over the civilian cameras over most of the continent, since planetary police headquarters was within the section contaminated.

“While not part of my original plan, the crash-down allowed Blood’s Honor to drop unopposed in several spots and the fighting ended way sooner than it otherwise would have. I’m not about to apologize for what I did.”

Gabriel once again spoke up as he saw shock and revulsion in the faces of the three from New Bravaria. “Also, while it was bad, we were able to get with Brave Humanities. The cleanup of the crash-down radiation was pretty tightly confined since it was raining at the time. A meltdown would have been much worse because it would have been slow and EC controlled all the radiation detectors. They would have said nothing and as soon as they knew they were going to lose the system, they would have forced a full meltdown. From what I’ve heard, EC forces did a meltdown on a couple of old fission plants on Black Earth before they pulled out. Brave Humanities is still trying to clean it up years later.”

Brandon also spoke up, “Cory blew the fusion plant. According to my dad and Blood’s Honor science teams, the fission power station for the space defense batteries shouldn’t have crashed down the way they did. They should have been independent systems, but it did look like EC hooked up the biggest guns to the fusion plant as a back-up and what Cory did caused a weird feedback or something. We’ll never know how or why. But best guess is they put extra power into the main ion batteries, probably because those guns were the only things holding the bulk of Blood’s Honor and the rest of the ABR back. Had they fired them, they would have done serious damage to not only invading ships but your ionosphere. That is not something we could allow, and why we held back for so long. It all changed because of Cory’s actions.

“The problem is we’ll never know why the fusion reactor crashed. There is nothing left of the fission power plant to try to figure out what happened. Cory’s overload of the fusion power station was extremely efficient, so there was nothing there we could use to piece things together there either.”

Saul had a hard time believing anything he was hearing, but he couldn’t help but look over at Jason, Stella, and Tracy, “Why even have fission power? According to every science teacher I ever had, it’s super dangerous and leaves horrible toxic waste.”

“Because it’s cheap.” Jason responded with a sigh. “We have large quantities of uranium and plutonium throughout the whole system. The older starships were mostly powered by fission plants and there are hundreds, if not thousands still in service. Some say the Rim Republic still builds SFCs with fission reactors for internal power and just use the solar arrays to charge the fold coils. They use no fusion at all.

“The refit and repair gantries above New Bravaria are one of the last places in this sector where old ships can replace and dispose of spent fission fuel cheaply. Deep space is a great place to let the rods cool. Then, when ships come to the end of their lives, the fission plants are often still good, so instead of building fusion power plants, the New Bravaria system buys them as part of the ship scrapping and put them to use. Once in a while, instead of scrapping the whole ship, the insides of the ships are gutted and the hull of the ship is filled with expended fuel, fitted with thrusters, and fired into our star. Poof, there goes the waste.”

“But the fuel still has to be transported to the ships!” Lawson stated with horror. “What if a ship filled with fission fuel loses control and crashes?”

Stella glared at Lawson with disgust, “Have no idea. All we can tell you is the government certified the ships to transport the new or expended nuclear fuel. Until EC showed up, nothing bad happened. Now it sound like nothing bad happened until Cory!”

Tracy surprised everyone when she came to Cory’s defense, “Not fair, Stella. It sounds like Cory only wanted to take out the main fusion plant to kill command and control. Besides, if he is right and EC was about to dump sewage into the fresh water… Yuck!”

Jason nodded in full agreement. “While I wouldn’t recommend Cory show up in New Bravaria and announce he had been one of the causes of the crash-down, it sure wasn’t Cory who lava bombed our school, and it wasn’t Blood’s Honor or Cory who dropped petro-chem bombs on the farm fields outside of New Rothenberg! If even half of what we are finding out is true, Cory, not Blood’s Honor, is the main reason we have a world outside of EC control!”

“No, not me.” Cory shook his head.

“Not really Blood’s Honor either,” Chip added. “We just helped take out the trash.”

Cory snickered, “Pretty sure you all left a lot of space trash up there, even after salvaging the EC warships, but whatever.” He turned back to Jason, Stella and Tracy, “Look. Be mad at me or even hate me. It doesn’t matter and I sure won’t apologize. I took the only option I could find. It was a risk I had to take to save what was left of my Brood, so I did what had to be done. But Chip’s also right. The real heroes of New Bravaria are the ones who took down the flagship. The crash of the Fluvius Camillus had nothing to do with me or Blood’s Honor.

“From the day it was brought down, the control of the system was all but ripped out of the Grand Emperor’s hands. When it slammed into the planet, totally out of control, over a dozen ships were sent into the crash site to try to find and rescue Britannic, favored great nephew of the Grand Emperor. He was probably more like two or even three more generations removed, since he was so young and everyone knows the Grand Emperor uses any and all technology to stay alive… But it really doesn’t matter. Britannic was aboard the Fluvius Camillus and the Grand Emperor wanted him, or at the very least his body back.

“During the search for Britannic, several merc units banded together and hit the rescue attempt with everything they had left. This was greatly aided because they already had secured the Fluvius Camillus and had pulled tons of equipment out of its bent and twisted superstructure. The rescuers were caught unprepared. Between the destruction of the Fluvius Camillus and the annihilation of so many EC units caught flat-footed, the tide of battle for your system changed within hours. The mercs and what was left of the planetary militias suddenly had a vast quantity of supplies while EC forces found their reinforcements dead and reserve supplies in the hands of those fighting for New Bravaria.

“So important was finding this nephew, my whole Brood and five others were yanked out of training, briefed in mass on finding the bastard, and it was why we were sent in to clear the minefields those holding the Fluvius Camillus put in place after they wiped the New Bravarian soil with the first rescue attempt.”

Cory stared right at Stella as he added, “All those Socim and Hastatim frames your academy ended up with and you all still train on and with… scores of them belonged to my Brood mates, and fellow Broods. I sure don’t hold it against the defenders for killing off half of my Brood, so the least you can do is cut me a little slack.”

“Take a breath Cory.” Chip ordered. “You really can’t blame Stella for being mad at finding out she has been traveling with the person who killed several thousand people in Ludwig, even if you didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Chip’s right Cory,” Karen interjected. “But, Stella, from what I heard while traveling with Blood’s Honor’s science guys, there were more than a few problems with fission power plants in the New Bravaria system…”

Jason nodded, “There are hundreds upon hundreds of mining stations on moons and asteroids back home powered with fission plants of old starships. A few failed, but on asteroids or airless moons and none real bad. It’s really cheap long-lasting power. Until EC attacked us, no one really gave it much thought.”

Brandon shook his head, “According to my dad and Colonel Price, New Bravaria II Moon II lost a sizable operation and the ground will be radioactive for decades. Shadow Brigade checked it out, thinking it might be a hidden supply stash for EC forces, but lost a full squad of framers to intense radiation. They put radiation monitors on frames in every squad afterwards.”

Joel cleared his throat, “There will be plenty of time for more talk later. At the moment, Cory’s right. If we are going to do this we need to move. Any window we may have left is closing on using these captured platforms.”

Joel then turned, “Stella, you OK with Cory over you, or do we need to find another platform driver?”

Stella shook her head, “No, I got it. I am probably one of the most rested here. The others were doing the nasty workout thing with Cory while I got some extra rest. I can drive while they take in some nap. Just don’t expect me to hang around him for fun or nothing.”

“Take a nap,” Jennifer corrected. “But I’m fully rested too. I could take your place…”

Chip shook his head, “Thanks Jen, but I’d like to do this with members of my squad. This way if any get recaptured they won’t know about yours. We can always lie to them and tell them Paula was killed if any ask about her after we pull them out.”

Gabriel spoke up, “Then you should take the rest of…”

Cory cut him off while patting Liam on the shoulder, “You need more people than I do. If things go the way Liam, Paula, and I plan, then I am taking too many as is. Liam take Jason and go get the portable welder and whatever else you need.”

Gabriel cringed, “I almost feel sorry for the Ulysses jack-wads… Almost…” He forced a snicker, “Just do us all a favor and pay them back for what they did to Joel’s mom, the rest of her team, and Andar!”

A truly sinister look crossed Cory’s features, “With pleasure.”

At about the same time those with Joel were getting ready for two separate assaults, Candice called a meeting with everyone she managed to rescue from the Jade Lion drilling station.

Candice had a hard time looking anyone in the eyes, since she basically had to admit lying to all of them. However, the spin Xylon had come up with would, with any luck, work. But she had to make it believable. A feat she wasn’t at all sure she could pull off.

Seeing the look on her face, one of the older kids, Lyon, who many of the others seemed to look up to spoke up, “Danni, what’s wrong?”

Candice shuffled her feet, “Guys I haven’t been totally honest with you all…”

A few frowned, while others snorted. Off to the far left, Josef looked up, “Danni, most of us figured you have been holding something back since shortly after you led us up here. A few others have said you looked familiar but can’t place you, so just spill it.”

“So you all know I haven’t been fully truthful?”

“Most, yes.” Lyon admitted, “But you single-handedly took a Slasher against an entire Ulysses compound and wiped this planet with their blood. I was the cadet commander of Storm Sea II’s Platform School, have multiple AIM combat certs, am two to three years older than you, and could not have done what you accomplished.”

He paused then exhaled loudly, “And I’m not a framer, something you clearly are… So short of telling us you have surrendered us back to Ulysses forces, pretty much nothing is going to surprise any of us.”

Several heads nodded, while others looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and concern. However, there was little in the way of hostility, which helped a great deal. “OK, so here it goes. I was on Andar with you all.”

“As a cadet?” one of the younger ones shouted out.

“Uh huh.”

“Not with Ulysses I hope!” another boy spoke up while putting a hand on a pistol at his belt.

Candice quickly held up both hands, “No, no… I was with Blood’s Honor.”

Cortez slapped his forehead, “That’s where I saw you! You kicked the snot out of me and most of the others in the prelim rounds of Shoot on the Run!”

At this point Xylon spoke up, “Same place I totally bombed and was demoted on the spot.”

Winfred joined in, surprising many by showing a degree of compassion for the Ulysses cadet, “Many of us saw, Xylon. It was real shitty what they did to you and how they did it. Seeing how the cadre knocked you down from a master sergeant to a private was one of the reasons I figured you probably weren’t really one of them.”

“I’m not. Neither is Basil or Sophia. Both of them were demoted pretty much the same as I was. We were even forced to walk a gauntlet and got the crap kicked out of us. Danni found me almost unconscious at the cookout pavilion and had Blood’s Honor medics rush me to a hospital. I almost died from a lacerated spleen. She saved my life.”

“Which explains why Danni trusts you so much,” Judson spoke up with a growl. “You owe her.”

“Yeah, with my life. But she didn’t know it until right now.”

“Guys,” Lyon all but barked out, “knock it off with the hostility crap and let Danni speak. Xylon has done nothing to earn anything but our respect and I highly doubt she called this meeting to simply tell us she was with Blood’s Honor on Andar… Um, is Blood’s Honor coming to rescue us by chance?”

Candice shook her head, “Sorry, no. Not unless they got some intel on this place I don’t know about. I was almost a captive like the rest of you, but I managed to take out one of those boxed platforms with the twin machineguns and shoot down a IPSC to open a hole for several around me to get out of the compound. Once I escaped the compound I managed to get to the southern landing fields with the help of what was left of a merc unit by the name of Lomax’s Raiders and some others. Most were killed, but they took me and a few others and pulled us off world in their PLC. They even had an SFC. It’s on its last legs, but it got us here.”

“Why’d you all come here?” Judson demanded to know.

“Believe it or not, it was my idea.”

“Oh this I have to hear!” Mindy all but shouted out.

“Seriously, coming here was my idea. I told them I could get them lots of supplies, so they agreed to take me in.”

Lyon raised an eyebrow, “You knew there were supplies here?”

“Not Ulysses crap. Blood’s Honor caches…”

Josef looked up with a great deal of excitement. “Blood’s Honor has supplies hidden here?”

“Training supply caches, pretty big ones,” Candice confirmed. “I spent weeks on Brile as part of a Blood’s Honor training mission. We were here to learn survival on a semi-hostile world and kill a few machines.”

“Which explains how you know about this spot and led us here.” Lyon spoke up, clearly thinking he had it all figured out. “You knew the machines didn’t come up here and there was somewhat decent shelter, right?”

“Partially, yeah.”

“Partially?” Judson asked with a harsh demanding tone.

At this point Florence looked over, “What is your problem, Jud? Without Danni we’d still be breaking rocks and building a road or a landing pad!”

“She’s been lying to us the whole time!” Judson fired back, “Not to mention working with Ulysses cadets without telling us she knew one of them!”

“And if she had, what, Jud?” Lyon asked with a great deal of anger toward the slightly younger teen. “Would you have stayed and waited for Ulysses reinforcements to snag you back up and take you to some other God-forsaken work camp?”

As more kids turned to look at Judson with everything from confusion to outright hostility, he tossed up his arms, “NO! OK, No! I would still be here and helping out as best as I can. I just don’t like being lied to!”

Jonny rubbed his chin, “Jud, she may not have told us everything but when, exactly, did she lie to us?”

One of the almost recovered adults finally spoke up, “And even is she did, hell, even if she still is, it got you all moving to a spot where she knew we had a chance to recover and be safe for a while. We are better off regardless of what brought her, who she is with, or even what her allegiances are. Who cares at this point?”

“Because she took command…” Judson growled.

“And still is in command as far as I’m concerned,” Lyon countered. “Unless you think you can do any better, cause I don’t think I could have!”

“Um…” Candice let out with a cringe, “you’re kind of leading to where I wanted to go, but I wanted to give you all a little more information first.”

At the same time Mindy punched Judson hard in the shoulder, “For all we know we are the last members of the Battle Rippers, but if we ain’t and Captain Myles hears about this, he will kick your ass for pouting like a five-year-old, so knock it off already.”

“So you weren’t even cadets in the competition?” Marlin asked Mindy.

Mindy shook her head. “Not from an academy, but we were there as guests, given the honorary rank of senior sergeants. Several merc units who were formed in ABR space and only took contracts inside the ABR were offered a chance to let kids with combat certs compete. We were already on planet as a garrison for Magnificent Aerial Displaces, a massive fireworks manufacturing company, so MAD as they are normally called, paid for us as an incentive for the Battle Rippers to sign a contract extension. But there were dozens of other kids from at least fifteen other merc units who were part of the competition.”

Judson let out a long breath, “It was the first time the ABR Military Games were opened up to non-cadets from what we heard, and we were hoping to show you all up… Don’t worry though, we didn’t…”

Cortez smiled at this, “Jud, you made it further than I did in the swamp obstacle course, I didn’t even get past prequalification.”

Judson’s shoulders dropped, “But I only made it to the second round… I had to call for help to get pulled out of the muck when I tried a shortcut across the big fallen trees.”

“Same place I got stuck,” a boy by the name of Lenny chimed in. “I only saw two make it over those logs in the hour and a half I was left buried up to my armpits in mess that took me over eight hours to clean off and out of my frame. One was a Spider Bite cadet and the other a Black Jungle cadet… The real strong looking kid from Black Jungle waved at me when he went past, which sure as hell didn’t help my mood!”

A girl from Nagasaki XI spoke up. “Me too! Pretty sure I was right behind you Lenny.”

“Kid’s name was Derek Mathis.” Titus couldn’t help but laugh. “I heard him joking about slowing down to wave at like half a dozen frames stuck in the mud as he went past them when he came in the barracks the night after he took third in round two. Both the other top spots were also from Black Jungle and the cadre gave him crap, since had he not slowed, he would have probably ended up in first or second. Probably first because he was only a minute or so off the fastest time. He was our best JV combat ball player too.”

Candice had to fight to keep her face neutral at hearing about Derek. To cover for any facial twitches she joined in the conversation, “Pretty sure he was the same cadet who flattened one of our guys and knocked another clean off the field and into the stands during one of the combat ball scrimmage games. I heard his name and a couple of senior cadets pointed him out to me when they found out I was going to go head-to-head against him in unarmed frame combat. In some ways I’m glad I didn’t have to after hearing the senior cadets tell me about him.”

Titus smiled even wider, “He wouldn’t have held back just because you are a girl and younger, so you would have sure felt it, and probably been worse the day after.”

Lyon stood, “While it’s nice to have some time to make some small talk, we really were called in here to hear what Danni had to say.”

This quieted down most of the chatter as pretty much everyone looked back to Candice.

With knot in her gut, Candice gave the background she had worked out with Xylon’s help. Much of it was based in hard facts but laced together with twisting of events, including getting accidently separated during a sandstorm and interwoven with the outright lie of coming to Brile with the remnants of Lomax’s Raiders to get to abandoned supply caches. However, so much of it was the truth or had strong truthful elements, it allowed her to develop a background story she could easily remember and short of stumbling across one of the Blood’s Honor squads, there was no one to refute what she said.

As she finished, she took a deep breath, “So there you have it.”

Lyon was the first to speak. The fifteen-year-old senior cadet looked totally convinced, “So Danni what is in the supply drop you are so certain is on the side of this mountain?”

Since she had only a clue, she hedged her bets, “We were told each one was slightly different, and all were sent out of the supply ship unmanned and uncontrolled. From the way it sounded they were supposed to crash, or maybe they just had busted up stuff and they made it look like it crashed, but whatever. The idea was to force us to outfit our enhanced squads with what was left. In the one we got to when I was on the training mission, there were frames, some messed up so bad we had to salvage and make two into one, some ammo, spare weapons, food, repair equipment and the like. There was also some crates of spare uniforms, hygiene stuff, first-aid supplies, and personal weapons.

“The one I got to with Lomax’s Raiders had fewer frames, and some were really badly busted up. There was more food, and quite a bit of repair equipment for the APCs Blood’s Honor gave us to find the caches. It was light on personal weapons, and heavy on stuff to fully change out the APCs to a much better configuration to take out machines. It also had a few suits of battle armor, some clothing and the like. I have no idea what the one we pinpointed as hitting the side of this mountain had in it, but I know no one came after it and it’s sure to have some frames, ammo, weapons, and most importantly first-aid stuff and food.” She pulled at what she was wearing, “And I’m hoping some spare jumpsuits and electrostatic clothing. This and my spare aren’t in the greatest condition…”

“At least you have a spare and electrostatics to help make connection with your frame,” Marlin sighed. “The only spare clothing I could find in the drilling station is a shirt that looks more like a robe and some shower shoes that are like four sizes too big for me.”

“Pretty much all any of us managed to scrounge up since the ammo storage took out the side wall of where they held us, along with any spare clothing they had for us,” Judson grumbled. “But Danni, are you sure it is still up there somewhere?”

“I wouldn’t have brought us here unless I thought so.”

“Then what do we need to do to help you find it?” Judson asked with some renewed hope, and way less hostility in his voice.

“We’ll come up with a good plan to help her, Jud,” Lyon declared. “But Danni, what makes you think it is still here? It had to be worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions of credits!”

“My team was the last ones to come to Brile and we were told the next one was supposed to come here after the competition on Andar. The thirty-two senior and regular cadets with the highest combined scores out of the eight competitions we had to sign up for were going to get a one month stint here. Rumor had it those who got to go would get an open salvage ticket on any machines they took down and maybe even the some of the equipment in the caches. Even though many of us had been here once, we were told it would start out pretty much the same. Also, keep in mind, I did find one cache with what was left of Lomax’s Raiders right about where my cadet unit plotted it would be.

“I have a real good memory and I am sure there is one on this mountain, but I don’t have all the data we did when I first came here, so other than knowing the general location, I am just doing the best I can to find it for all of us.

“There is another one I have a pretty good idea to its location, but it is way too close to a couple of the installations Xylon, Basil and Sophia says have been put back into use. I’m not about to become a guest of Talborne if I can avoid it…”

“Guest?” Marlin shook his head, “Not the word I would use, Danni.”

“Me neither,” Lyon agreed instantly. “So now we know what we are really doing out here other than hiding from Ulysses forces and getting our strength back. But before you really spelled it out for us, you mentioned you wanted to talk about command or command structure?”

Candice nodded, “I sure do!”

“What about it?” A thirteen-year-old senior cadet from Bagdad IX asked with a sour voice. “You want to put Xylon in as your second or something? If so, I am not surprised. A little pissed off, but not surprised.”

“She might as well, Mikail,” Josef stated with a smirk. “We all know he’s been giving her tons of advice and she has been taking it.”

“Yeah,” Judson grumbled. “It’s not nearly as bad as before, but it’s still a Ulysses boot kicking me in the ass and telling me what to do.”

Lyon shrugged, “A good commander needs to be fed ideas and I sure didn’t see any of us jump in to fill the need, guys. Probably because we were in no shape to do so, but don’t go bad-mouthing the decisions Danni or even Xylon made. We are here and not working seven days a week from dawn to dusk because Danni pulled off something that should get her a real high combat medal!”

Josef completely agreed, “Danni took advice where she could get it. If any of you had any problems with anything she has done up to this point, you should have offered her some ideas instead of being pissed off a Ulysses cadet seemed to be calling so many of the shots. But to be honest, I haven’t seen her or Xylon do anything wrong, and now hearing why she really brought us up here, her actions make even more sense. In addition, we now know they knew each other and trusted each other before all this went down. All things considered I don’t think any of us could have done better.”

Mindy once again punched Judson in the shoulder, “Lyon and Josef are right you know.”

“OK, yeah, but…” Judson shot Xylon a quick glare only to see several of the others staring back at him. “Never mind… Danni if you want Xylon as part of a command group I’ll live with it, and while I won’t like it none, I’ll reluctantly support it.”

Several other heads nodded at this, many not looking even slightly happy about Xylon being some kind of commander of the group.

It seriously stunned Candice to hear some of the cadets had caught on to how Xylon was so key in most of her commands. She really thought she had done a better job keeping it secret. If anything, this convinced her even more she was not, and never would make a good overall commander. On the other hand, it also explained much of the hostility still being directed at Xylon, Basil and Sophia. Most, if not all, of the cadets had picked up on the fact they were really being bossed around by someone from Ulysses all over again. However, the sour mood she was seeing was pointless, so she decided to get right to the point of the meeting.

Candice held up both hands, “Actually you are all way off on what I was hoping to have happen.”

This caused several kids and even the one adult to look up and take a great deal more interest.

“First off you are all right. I have been taking a whole lot of Xylon’s suggestions. To be honest, he’s a better commander than I am. Without Xylon I wouldn’t have been able to set vehicle crews, make good guard rotations, assign frames, figure out best people to fix the fresh water problem, or even who to send out to scrounge us up some food. I was too focused on finding the cache and being some kind of stupid hero.

“He is the one who pointed out to me what needed to be done and the orders I gave helped to complete the tasks. Xylon is also the main reason we left the mining station with as much as we did. He told me what we needed to grab and even where to take most of it from. I just ran down his checklist and assigning you all tasks as he came up with them.

“I’m no commander. Even during command competitions on Andar I was starting to see I’m much better at being handed a task and using myself and others around me to get it done, not figuring out what needs to be done in the first place. And while Xylon is better at it than I am, we’re both twelve-years-old! Some of you are senior cadets with way more command experience than we have combined.

“You put me in the middle of a fight, I get a lot better at command for some reason. Maybe because my focus needs to get better when I am getting shot at and I am good at seeing weaknesses, just like I did at the drilling station. I saw the fuel tanks were in a vulnerable spot and noticed all but one of the frames was unmanned where the betting was taking place. I also knew in my heart Xylon was not one of them hurting you all. When I radioed him, he told me Basil and Sophia were with him, not those forcing you all to work. The pieces fell into place for me and I opened up on the frames, then the base. I guess I need a narrow focus, not a broad command or something.”

“And you seriously kicked ass and saved ours,” Mindy spoke up, “which is why no one has said nothing, even though many of us haven’t been thrilled with you leaning so hard on Xylon. So what do you want to do?”

“Me?” Candice shouted, “Are you not listening or something? I don’t want to be in command!”

The only fairly healthy adult stood, “OK, Danni, but shouting isn’t going to help and right now you are in charge, even of me.” The woman smiled warmly, “Just don’t look to me. I have never held a gun in my life. I’m just an assemblywoman from Nottingham VII, a member of the lowest elected planetary body. We don’t even make laws, we just recommend some rules and regulations and help run the various departments within the budgets given us by the ruling body and the Duke of Nottingham.

“You want me to help organize non-military stuff fine, and if at some point you need someone to run a budget and organize your finances, I’m your woman.” This got some snickers and some smiles out of several of the kids and even a hint of a grin out of Candice.

The woman continued, “So young lady, right now, like it or not, you are in command, and we’re all looking to you. Take a breath and tell us what you are expecting to have happen.”

Candice looked down, “I don’t really know. I just know I don’t want to be in charge.”

Xylon took a chance at speaking up even with everyone looking at him. Much like Candice, he had no idea the others had picked up on how much he was behind so many of the orders Candice gave. However, the cat was out of the bag, so he figured he at least stood a chance of being listened to. “Guys, I’m pretty sure Danni mirrors my own thoughts. We want a new command structure. We need an adult or one of you senior cadets in command, not Danni, not me.

“We want someone who can help us find the supplies Danni knows about and let her deactivate the security without anyone else touching it. Someone in this building has got to be able to do better and have a bigger picture and ability to command than Danni. Whoever it is needs to really organize us and use what Sophia, Basil and I know, without hating or mistrusting us just us because we happen to be from Ulysses Academy of Military Excellence. None of us had a clue Lord Talborne was going to assault Andar.

“Both Basil and I thought we were being sent back home in the hospital ward on a supply ship. We both turned in letters of resignation, but once we got here we were told Lord Talborne decided to decertify the letters and instead assigned us for full retraining here on Brile. His stated reason is he would not send any cadet out of his academy with such a clear lack of performance we demonstrated.

“Sophia did get back to Ulysses with the rest of the cadets, but was detained at the spaceport with several other cadets from important families who spoke out against the coup attempt. All of them were sent here to join me and Basil. All of us were demoted to private and stripped of all academy awards other than AIM registered certs. We were then put into squads with cadets who jumped in to help in the attack on the Andar IX court, but had been caught on videos of cadet frames of those who got away with Blood’s Honor committing crimes against fellow cadet competitors. They were put here and given command of us for their loyalty to Lord Talborne and for their safety. My understanding is they are already pardoned by Lord Talborne for war crimes, but AIM lists them as enemy collaborators for turning on fellow cadets. This places a bounty on each of them directly by AIM, which is something Lord Talborne or the Ulysses planetary courts cannot do a thing about. After all, we all signed a AIM agreement to come to the aid of all cadet competitors who were in genuine distress and to not to feign being in distress. Turning on other cadets who trusted them is a direct breach of what we signed.”

“Not just trusted them,” Marlin stated. “I thought I was friends with the one who stunned me.”

“Same here,” Lyon sighed.

Basil finally found his voice, “AIM wasn’t backing off on this being a contract violation as of the last time I heard. There is a bounty on over thirty Ulysses cadets and huge bounties on over a dozen Ulysses cadre members.” He held up his academy handheld, a vial of blood, and a couple of uniform tags. “It’s one of the reasons I took a photo of what was left of Calliope, then secured her rank, name plate, and a DNA sample. Danni is due a reward for taking her out and I want to make sure she gets it.”

Josef snorted, “Until right now I wasn’t sure what to make of you. You just convinced me to like you!”

Judson even managed a nod, “That’s awesome Basil, but I’d sure like to help collect a few more of those bounties.”

Sophia looked over, “If we see any, we will only be too happy to point them out and or shoot at them. Those of us still on Andar and in the cadet area got a coded message over our academy handhelds from command that Ulysses forces were taking over and to move to assist. There was some shots fired between those who were only too eager to join in and some who were having none of it. Those who actively fought back are in work camps as prisoners, right alongside cadets of other academies.”

“Why didn’t you try to help us?” One of the Javelin pilots by the name of Theo asked with a deep frown.

“I was on barracks lockdown after totally bombing on the prelims of missile and rocket targeting. Like Basil and Xylon I was knocked down to private and forced to walk a gauntlet, but I didn’t have cash on me like they did, so I couldn’t try to book passage back home. My only option was to take the barracks confinement and wait for the competition to be over and head back with the rest of the academy. When the shooting started and the message came over, I was locked in the barracks with seven others. We never had a chance to get a weapon, let alone help you all. I know three of the others I was locked down with are under Calliope’s twin brother who did turn on you all and was promoted to Cadet Senior Lieutenant just like Calliope was.

“Kornwall was also the one who locked us in the barracks where we almost burned to death after a Ulysses fighter slammed into the street right outside. We had to break apart a bed and used it to bust out the back door, but we all got some burns. So if I see him, I will shoot him.” As she finished speaking she pulled up on the right sleeve of her electrostatic shirt, showing some healed, yet still badly bubbled, skin.

As several kids cringed and an uneasy silence fell over the room, Candice took the floor again, “Look all you want, but before I even found out how she was burned I trusted her. For all I know, the fighter I shot down may have caused the burns on her arm, and I still trust her.”

Seeing some heads bob up and down and several eyebrows go up, Sophia pulled her sleeve back down and continued speaking. “Pretty much every frame cadet who turned on you are in Viper frames awarded them by Lord Talborne for their actions on Andar and will get slots in the Ulysses military where their black marks by AIM will not mean much other than they will still have a bounty on them.

“I know most of the battle armor cadets who attacked you all got Insurgent class Battle Armor and the platform cadets were given Rampage Industries Squall Hover Platforms. They were unloaded and awarded to them on the same day I arrived on this shithole world.”

“What about the infantry cadets like Vymaria who smashed me in the back of the head with something?” a twelve-year-old by the name of Berny asked.

“No idea,” Xylon responded. “We haven’t seen any Andar infantry cadets here except a few who were placed in the work prisoner camps for trying to fight with you all.”

Sophia shrugged, “I was on the transport back with most of the Andar cadets and never heard of any with a bounty placed on them. But to be honest, very few infantry cadets made it. Blood’s Honor mangled a large number of attacking ships, including a couple trying to reinforce those getting pounded by fleeing cadets. A large section of one of those ships fell on the Ulysses cadet infantry formation as we were getting pulled out of the cadet area by our cadre, so other than those already wounded or arrested for trying to beat back the assault, very few made it off Andar.”

Candice realized this had everyone’s attention so she quickly jumped back in, “Guys, I have full confidence all three of these former Ulysses cadets. If me taking them out with me hasn’t show my belief in them, I sure don’t know what would. But we are getting off track again. The fact is, I want nothing to do with command of this group. I can also tell you Xylon, Basil and Sophia aren’t trying to slide into a command role either. We want one of you senior cadets to jump in and reorganize us enough to come up with a plan to free some aerospace cadets, steal a ship, get us to a SFC and get us the hell away from Brile!”

Judson blinked and even shook his head as if trying to clear it, “Are you seriously saying you want to not only give up command, but also not be part of the upper command team?”

“Exactly what I’m saying!” Candice nodded wildly. “I don’t want it! I never did!”

“Wow…” Josef exhaled. “I sure didn’t see this coming!”

“I doubt any of us did…” Lyon stated slowly. “So, since everyone is here. I guess we need to figure out a new command structure we can all agree to. However, I don’t think I’m alone when I say we all would like Danni to be in a leadership position, even if it is a low one. Cause, and let’s be totally let’s be honest here, none of us can hold a glow stick next to the spotlight of fighting abilities she has bundled inside her.”

This got a few snickers, and lots of nods. However, Josef was quick to speak up. “Well, if we are going to create a brand new unit organizational chart, my thought is we first select an overall commander, and my vote is for Lyon.”

Lyon blinked, “I’m not even a framer Josef…”

“No,” a high ranking senior cadet from the Nagasaki system by the name of Oma responded, “but we have plenty of armored platforms. And while not a framer, you were not only the senior cadet commander of your academy’s platform school, you also are the highest ranking cadet out of all of us. So you not only hold rank on all of us, you also have the most command experience.”

One of the other older boys, a senior cadet by the name of Herth, spoke up with a raspy sounding voice, showing he had sustained some kind of throat damage at some point. “I’m a platform jock, so I may be biased, but I was my academy’s senior cadet NCO for the platform side, and Lyon, I’m sure you’d make a real good CO.

“But since we are tossing out names, I’d like a shot at supply, since I’m from probably the poorest academy in the ABR and us San Palo IV School of Arms senior cadets got good at scrounging up supplies and making things last out of desperation. If I can’t find a use for something, it ain’t usable!”

Marlin laughed, “Good speech! You get my vote!”

Mindy shot Lyon a thumb up while snickering, “Agreed! Herth, you get my vote for supply. But as far as a CO goes, Lyon kept us organized and had us looking out for each other as much as we could at the work camp.”

The second highest ranked cadet in the whole group, yet one of the younger senior cadets, a battle armor cadet from Bagdad XI by the name of Mikail jumped in. “Mindy’s right. We all pretty much looked up to you, Lyon, no matter the school, planet we came from, or rank. You are the one who made us all agree to follow our academy ranks and had us move some food around to those of us getting sick. I think you are the perfect commander. If you’re willing to take over, I say we take a quick vote.”

Lyon clenched his fist a few times, “OK, I’ll toss my name in the hat, but I’d like to see some kind of real election or something. Maybe we should all choose a Commander, XO, Operations Officer, Supply Officer and Tactical Officer. Once we have a five person command squad built, they will work out some kind of firm structure for who and what we have here.”

The assemblywoman from Nottingham VII waited for Lyon to finish before speaking up. “OK, let’s do this right, kids. An open vote may lead to peer pressure to vote one way or the other based on friendships, academy allegiance, or even not wanting to get a bigger or stronger kid on your bad side. I’d like to see each and every cadet in this room to take a piece of paper out of one of the notepads I found back in the drilling station and write down the name of the person you think should be in each of the command slots. I’ll count them up and let the results be known.

“If there is no clear-cut winner, we’ll do run-offs for each individual job. I also fully expect every kid in this room to hand me a ballot with who you think should be in each of the five slots Lyon is recommending.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Xylon stated. “But we barely know you all, so the four of us should bow out and go stand guard. Send us a low power radio message if you need our input.”

Candice nodded, “I fully agree.”

“What a surprise,” Judson softly muttered with pure sarcasm in his voice, only to get another punch in the shoulder from Mindy and smack on the back of the head from Josef.

After nearly four hours and multiple run-off votes for Operations and Tactical, a five person command team was formed with Lyon as Commander, Josef as XO, Oma in Operations, Herth being Supply, and Mikail in Tactical. The tactical position was a bit of a problem because even though Candice made it clear she didn’t want to be part of the command group, Danni came in as the top name twice. The second time caused a round of laughter and caused many to try to get her to take the spot, but she flatly refused.

Mikail was finally awarded the spot after several kids noted that although he was one of the younger senior cadets, he had the most AIM combat certs and was the highest ranking senior cadet left in the group.

While the new command group met for the first time, Lyon assigned Candice and Xylon exactly what they had been doing the last few days. First was to send out patrols to look for food. Second and just as important, keep scouts posted to keep everyone safe. Third, was to get recon patrols up on the mountain to continue the search for supplies.

In the meantime, the five kids in the new command group, with the help of the assemblywoman, hammered out a full rank structure and started on some long-term plans and goals. Everything centered on finding a way off Brile.

Stella angled the captured Javelin across the open grasslands with Paula sitting next to her. Paula continued to frown as she looked into the back of the APC with the three small Cadet frames crammed into the back with a growing frown.

Finally Paula looked into the back again and spoke up, “OK, guys, you were told to take Candice, she isn’t here, and she damned sure isn’t with Joel, or he’d be calling us on the radio demanding we come back and get her. What gives and where is she?”

Chip rubbed his hand down his face, dreading the question but fully expecting it. “She didn’t just take off her rank, she left us.”

Paula rocked back in the co-pilot chair as if she had been punched, “And you let her?!?”

Jason shook his head, “We did not know for several hours.”

“She left without telling anyone and none of you noticed?” Paula shook her head. “How?”

Chip let out a long breath, “My fault, totally my fault. We saw a Black Comet going down, almost certainly the same one Liam and Saul ejected from. As soon as I ID’ed it, I ordered us to turn into a nearby sandstorm so it wouldn’t spot us. I then kept us in the storm for a few hours.

“By the time we got out of it and broke down to clean our platforms, we found Candice was not with us. She left her dress uniform and rank on her bunk. The storm blew over the area where she bailed, so we have no way to track her and she turned off her E-suit’s transponder.”

Stella nodded even as Paula stared in disbelief. “The escape door alarm was unhook. We found it open when we pulled into wood to hide and repaint. Sand be all over, so she drop out bottom with survival pack and basic gear.”

Paula found it hard to speak for several seconds. “You sure? The force of the hover blades pushing down that much air could have killed her!”

Jason answered, “She went out in her E-suit, so I sure she made it. Time stamp in computer show she fell out seconds before we enter the wall of the sandstorm, so fall or sand could have done hurt to suit, but…” He shrugged not knowing what else to say.

Cory spoke up, “Since Joel found the one woman stunned and tied up, my bet is Candice took a plot on the lander and made it to the wreck. It had to be her who took the Slasher Liam and Saul helped to load in it. Candice is a real good tracked pilot and extremely good gunner. The Slasher is easy to operate. She also took food, water, and even the track off the repair platform, along with tools, but what she is going to do with either is the real question. She can barely switch out a hydraulic piston on a frame without help.”

Paula exhaled loudly and slammed her head back into the co-pilot chair. “Why not tell Joel?”

“We want to get her back,” Chip stated unwaveringly. “There is no record of her abandoning us yet, and I can guarantee you Joel would want to throw the entire Blood’s Honor Cadet Rules and Regulations manual at her and send a report of her actions to High Command and probably even AIM.”

Cory shrugged, “Which is what she deserves if you ask me, but she did resign during an approved time, during a semester break, and this mission and extended stay was forced on us, so I really don’t think she broke the technical side of the rules.” He gave a devious smirk, “And in case you haven’t guessed, I am an expert at finding interesting ways to not break the technical rules while bending them into some very interesting shapes. Candice has had plenty of time to learn how to do the same thing.”

“Oh, I am just shocked to hear such a thing, Cory!” Paula laughed despite the topic being discussed. “But she had to be insane to go it alone on this world!”

Chip instantly disagreed. “A Black Comet didn’t come here by itself, Paula. It had friends and no one is going to leave it abandoned with people and gear in it. My best guess, and I know Candice pretty well so I am sure I am right, is she was thinking she could hitch a ride with them.”

Paula drummed her fingers on the top of her head as she spoke in total disgust. “For them to be here, they had to be bandits or worse, though. In this case way worse, but she couldn’t have known…”

“Yes, but even a bandit or desperate merc group coming here to loot abandoned facilities, like I am sure she was thinking they were, would be willing to take in someone with AIM frame and platform certs.”

“Or do horrible things…” Jason pointed out with a sad shake of his head. “But she not think this over right. Part of the reason we got so bad a start to begin with is she not think.”

“Did not think, Jason,” Paula pointed out, but just as quickly nodded her head. “OK, so you all have to know there is almost no chance of finding her at this point, right?”

Chip gave a resigned sigh, “Yeah. But now we are kind of trapped since we have been lying to Joel and his whole squad. We have thought about ways to try to contact her, but we’ll attract machines to us or her if we do. There isn’t a good way out.”

Several kilometers of silence went under the wheels of the Javelin before Paula looked into the back again, “You know, we could use this assault to lose her.”

“Huh?” Chip and Jason asked at almost the same time.

Before Paula could speak Cory snapped his fingers, “Great idea, Paula. We could say we got separated from her during the attack. We can even put out a broadband radio signal using her BHJMA assignment in an attempt to contact her. It’s not something EC or Talborne will understand. If anything, they will think escaped cadets are trying to find others. We can put in just enough detail so Candice knows we’re covering for her. If she responds, great. We’ll go get her. If not, and she hears, she’ll at least know we didn’t throw her under the tracks of the Slasher she took.”

Paula pointed right at Cory, “Exactly. We can radio from the plant, so even if the machines come, who cares. At worst she never hears us, but we still cover up for any possible desertion charges. If Joel demands we go look for her around the installation, we point out the obvious. We can’t afford to go after one of us and risk not stopping an all-out assault on Forest Garden with the supplies Ulysses and EC has stockpiled here.”

Chip raised his eyebrows, “Candice will look like a MIA hero instead of a deserter, we explain away Candice not being with us, and Joel will just have to deal with it. Nice thinking, real nice… now all we have to do is take the stupid diborane plant… What is diborane anyway?”

Jason glanced over, “One mother of a nasty chemical, Chip. Very useful in lots of things, but real nasty in pure form.”

Seeing Chip cock his head to the side Paula snickered, “You look like a lost puppy, there Chip.”

“Gee, thanks, rub in I am the youngest looking one in this platform… So it’s a chemical, great, so is a million other things. Can you give me a little more other than it’s nasty?”

“Don’t worry about it, Chip. I saw your chemistry grades for the junior academy.” Cory responded with a very dark, yet humor-filled, undertone. “Just be ready to put tracer rounds where Jason tells tell you.”

“Tracer rounds?” Chip asked with some concern. “Those will point right back to where I am!”

“Yeah,” Paula agreed, “it sure will, so make sure you hit exactly what he tells you, in the order he tells you.”

Cory smirked, “Just be you, and hit what you are told to shoot at, Chip. And just so you know, we loaded the sniper rifle we put on your frame with a hundred rounds, all tracer.”

“Oh, so my machinegun isn’t what you want me to use! Now I get it… kind of, at least. I get to do what I do best, great! At least I’ll be useful. But there is a reason I switched from Chemistry to Geology for my primary science focus… And how did you ever see my junior cadet Chemistry…” Chip stopped and shook his head, “Oh never mind. It’ll be better off if I don’t know.”

Cory laughed, “Good call, Chip, very good call.”

Chip’s whole face scrunched up, “How come I get the feeling you are about to outdo yourself, Cory?”

Liam glanced over, “Cause if this works, sir, it could be right on par with what I heard earlier about Cory on New Bravaria.”

Chip slapped his head, “Oh, please tell me you’re joking…”

Cory stared right at Chip, “The funniest things are oft times true.”

Joel angled up the embankment in his frame noting the path plotted by Paula was a good one. They found footing was solid and there wasn’t too many rocks he had to worry about displacing and possibly alerting someone who may be keeping lookout. A glance behind him verified Gabriel and Lawson were also finding the path easy enough. With a satisfied nod, he continued to push up the slope until he got to the top. He then used hand motions to spread out those with him.

Once everyone was in a spot they would not be seen, Joel gave a downward motion for everyone to hunker down and wait for the pre-assigned time to start the attack. He sent out two short clicks and two long letting the others know the squad was in position for the assault and pulled up his HUD. He still had over three and a half hours before the scheduled time, right as the star started to descend behind the distant horizon.

After a few seconds of thought he chanced a very low powered transmission, “Lawson, take three hours of rest. Gabe and I got a full night’s sleep and we both know what you’ve been through over the past few days. We’ll keep watch and wake you if needed.”

Several hundred meters to the west, Derek and Karen slid up behind the bunkers designed to cover the only road into the strip mine. Both found themselves mirroring each other’s thoughts. The defenders were being exceedingly careless by not posting any guards to defend the blind spots behind the bunkers or even the metal doors at the back of the bunkers. It was as if the only threats they looked for was machines. There was no question in either of their minds this would change after this assault.

Both waited for guard change hoping it would come close to dusk so they wouldn’t have to worry about fresh troopers coming up to man the guns covering the road once the attack started. However, the two found it hard not to be distracted by two columns of smoke fairly close to each other to the northwest. Since both had telescopic modes installed into their frames, they were able to make out a great deal even though it was over twenty kilometers away. A Zip Tech Harvester Heavy Supply Vehicle was sandwiched between a smoking Tangiers Industries Hyena Wheeled Escort Platform in the front and a fully engulfed in flames Beta Corporation Armadillo Tracked Platform. While it was too far to make out real details, they could see a pair of frames yank what they could only assume were the crewmembers out of the Harvester and Hyena. The frames then required those they forced out of the platforms to pull equipment off the sides of the Hyena and load it on the flatbed portion of the Harvester before forcing the crewmen to move well away.

The standing frames then pulled two downed frames over to the Harvester, combined to toss them between two of the square cargo containers on the back of the truck. They then climbed onto the back of the Harvester. One frame appeared to open up and a couple of minutes later the Harvester pulled out from between the two ruined platforms. As the heavy supply truck with a pair of box cargo containers on the back angled toward a distant strand of trees, the other frame opened up on the Hyena until it too was fully enveloped in flames. The seven dots, which they guessed were vehicle crewmen, scattered as this happened.

Derek spotted Karen and did a tight beam communication over to her, “Did you see that?”

“Oh yeah. Looks like someone is going after Ulysses’ supplies. It was too far for me to get a definitive ID on the frames, but I think one was a Legionnaire.”

“Good guess, I was thinking the same. I’m almost certain the other was a Guardian frame. But all four frames are painted in Ulysses colors.”

“What do you think is going on?”

“No way to know for sure, but if what Liam and Saul told us about the 6th wanting better supplies and equipment, they may have just hit a supply run while hoping it will be seen as a machine attack. The weird thing is whoever hit them were in better equipment than those they attacked, cause it sure looked like one of the frames they tossed onto the back was a Razor.”

“A Razor? I don’t know that one.”

“They are light low tech frames made solely in the Great Outback. Razors are liked by mercs and bandits in fringe space and are used by planetary defense forces throughout the Great Outback. Parts are pretty easy to get and as far as frames go they are cheap to maintain. If you ever get to just about anywhere within a couple of jumps of Great Outback space you can go buy anything needed to fix one. They aren’t very common close to EC space,” Derek continued, “but since Black Jungle is one of the furthest out worlds in the ABR, now NFC, we see them on raids once in a great while. We are close enough to the Great Outback to where the Black Jungle AIM office even offers them for sale along with refit kits. One of my brother’s buddies’ parents bought him one for graduation, so he could join the planetary militia with his own frame, which got him an automatic percentage of salvage. He stopped by with it before he joined, so I got to really look it over. The dead giveaway is the large bump on the lower right arm. It’s a fixed light laser with extra armor around it.”

“Why would anyone put in a fixed weapon in a frame?”

Derek’s glanced back out to what was left of the platforms before responding, “Because it comes with a battery pack so it can be fired without draw from the main power. It allows for more powered weapons. Razors also got Size Adjustment Tech, but other than being super easy to work on, it’s nothing to write home about. The computer doesn’t even have a full array of expansion slots. Still, it’s right on par with a Partisan frame and like I said, it’s easy to work on and parts are pretty cheap.”

“Well whoever took it down did a number on those platforms and left survivors and smoking platforms,” Karen warned. “Smoke could attract machines or worse, alert the garrison here.”

“Only if they can see it, and these guns can’t. Also, while anyone on the backside of this ridge might notice something, it won’t be obvious as smoke, let alone burning vehicles. Whoever set this place up didn’t give a crap about security.”

“Good for us, but if they do a guard change before those burn down, they could call out an alarm. There are also survivors who may head here for safety.

“If the crews show up or a guard change happens before those vehicles are done burning, we’ll have to take them down and send the alert to push up the time table. But if we are really lucky, it will cause a grass fire and look like it’s a natural fire out there by then.”

A full kilometer to the east, Terrin led Beth, Tracy, and Saul to a secondary location Paula had marked on the overlay. The footing was harder for them than the others and the climb steeper, but once they got up to the top and looked down, they realized they were in a perfect position to prevent the trucks that brought the captive workers up from the mining pit below and into the compound from ever reaching the walls. If they took out the escorts on the last switchback, where it really widened out before heading up to the walled compound above, they could keep the trucks out of the line of fire from the walls and a single frame could keep them protected from any Hexa-lizards.

Even better, the vantage point allowed them to fire down on the road wrapping around to the southern cluster of buildings. This meant they could cut off reinforcements while staying behind good heavy rocky cover if needed. The height advantage gave them another benefit; if fighting dislodged any rocks it would fall onto the road, causing more problems for those below than above.

Terrin stayed at real low power on his radio, “Paula found us a real good location. Stay out of sight. Tracy and Saul you both probably need and want more rest, so take a couple of hours. Just stay in your frames and pull up your rest mode so you can’t accidently roll over in your sleep and give away our location. Beth and I can take watch for now.”

Jennifer pulled the Javelin up next to where Brandon parked the captured Slasher. Seeing Brandon crack the driver’s side door, she slid into the co-pilot chair and opened the door just enough to where she could talk to Brandon while staying behind the secondary controls. “What’s up?”

“We are pretty exposed from the ridge to our right, but Cory was right about this being a good spot to wait until Joel hits them. I’m guessing we are only seven minutes out from the natural break in the rocks leading to the mine.”

Jennifer scanned the steep hillside as she spoke, “As long as Cory and Paula are right about them not having any people stationed to look out for threats from above us, yeah. I just hope Derek and Karen are able to take out those guns or we will be screwed before we start.”

“Maybe not,” Brandon countered. “We are in Ulysses marked platforms with what we can only hope is current IFF. The radio chatter I am getting is light and broken, but understandable, so we still have current encryption codes. Because of this, I am guessing the IFF is still good as well. The other good thing is it doesn’t sound like anyone on patrol is near us. But did you notice the smoke plume from the north before we cut into the rocks?”

“Yeah, but there was a slope between us and whatever it was so I couldn’t tell much other than it looked like two separate fires fairly close together.”

“Same thing I’m thinking. Wonder if the machines caught some Ulysses pricks out in the open or something? If they did, I’m forced to hope the machines won.”

“Hard to side with machines over humans no matter who they are, but in this case I’m going to agree with you. Still, no matter who was shooting at whom, something fairly close by is burning so we need to stay on our toes.”

“My frame is in the back on standby. If anything more than a single Ulysses platform or machine shows up, I’m switching and taking them out. But it will take a few extra seconds cause the rear cargo area is a pain to get to on a Slasher and it isn’t meant for a frame, so mine is all hunched over back there.”

Jennifer shrugged and pointed into the back of the Javelin. “I can get mine out fast, but remember Joel is hoping for surprise, so we don’t shoot unless we have to.”

Mitch and Brice looked out the window of the Air Viper Infantry Transport VTOL as it circled the military space port just south of Ash Mountain, the southernmost city on Black Jungle. While the crew waited for clearance, the view from the portside window allowed them to clearly see their surroundings. All around them, a squadron of Griffin IPSCs escorted them and the four other Air Vipers transporting the cadets who joined the new cohort squadron put together by Colonel Price.

A look down allowed them to take in the spaceport below. There were seven PLCs on pads and two empty spots within the walls of what was in reality a fairly small spaceport. Of the seven ships, only one appeared to be free of obvious battle damage. Four had sparks flying off of them, showing repair crews were actively working on them while two others had cranes surrounding them and were being either scrapped or needed massive work to get space worthy again. All six ships had markings showing them to have recently been with the 979th ABR Combined Arms Division.

The seventh ship had supplies being loaded into the holds by both conveyer belts carrying standard-sized crates and much larger cargo being handled by cargo lifting frames. The aerodyne PLC had such a new reddish-brown paint job it kind of looked wet. Since the paint job was so new and the Black Jungle star was shining down on the ship, the details really stood out. The tail had a muted black Blood’s Honor crest on both sides while the sides had the combined arms squadron name Oliver had picked out and subsequently approved by both Colonel Price and AIM, Black Myst Banshees. The ship’s name, Rune Star, could be made out on the nose.

Mitch pointed the ship name out to those close to him and Brice, “Take a look guys, it’s our ship, the Rune Star! Just look at her!”

Newly promoted Blood’s Honor squad leader Corporal Hofsta, now a Senior Warrant Officer, smiled as he heard the excitement and awe exude out of the dozens of kids behind him, “There she is alright. She holds fifty-six frame slots with sixteen drop pod slots, four IPSCs, four heavy platforms, twelve light platforms, fifty-four infantry, and up to thirty support crew or dependents, all thirty support are filled and are there for you all, including me and my squad. Also remember, regardless of rank, support staff is over you all. Don’t forget it.

“However, you all have every right to get excited. She is a beauty and when fully stocked she can stay in space for three Standard Earth months and holds 750 tons of consumable supplies including food, ammo, and the like.

“She’s already been converted to where half the infantry slots are now for battle armor, since you have such a large battle armor side to your academy and we have enough cadets from your infantry and battle armor side to fill all those slots. They are already here and have the layout of the ship down well enough to give us good security in both space and on the ground. Our only heavy armor are two repair platforms and we only got enough crew for this group to get six light armor, but we are taking on six Zenith Hover and four Puma Wheeled APCs, plus two Barbarian Tracked Escort Platforms. The Zeniths are all captures, and is your primary support platforms for most missions, so your fellow platform members have their work cut out for them getting their equipment fully functional.

“As you can see supplies are being put aboard and we should be ready to lift-off by dusk. Once we do, there is no turning back, so we have secure communications available to talk things over with your family members and or friends one last time before you take off. This will be the last time for a very long time you will be able to have instant communications with loved ones here. So let me make this perfectly clear: I expect all of you who have family to contact them and really talk this over. There is no shame if asking for a ride home instead of jumping on the Rune Star and heading to the Nova system.

“In addition, I need you all to remember your briefing. She is a 979th capture and while in better shape than the other Prowler PLCs below us, she isn’t as new as she looks and you all have a lot of work to do as we head to the Nova system. As you look down, keep in mind there is plenty of damage caused by our assault team on the inside when we took the ship. Repairs to quarters, recreation areas, and other non-essential areas have not been completed and you will all be expected to partake in the work.”

This didn’t stop Brice from pushing his face into the window so he could get the best look possible while grinning from ear to ear, “We’ll get her into shape, Warrant Officer, but she is already amazing!”

A few seats back from Brice, one of the female squad leaders spoke up, “She’s super nice, but why the ugly paint job?”

Delta Two One Three, who had selected the name of Ares, turned, to look at her, “Senior Sergeant Naomi Bryne, did you not study the planetary briefing given us by Colonel Price?”

Naomi cocked her head to the side, “I looked it over and have started to take some notes as I replay it. Why?”

Ares frowned, “Because, Senior Sergeant Naomi Bryne, the vast majority of the planet is a red-brown rocky desert. The color of our ship will make it harder to discern from air and space.”

Brice glanced over, “Hey Ares, you do not have to use full rank and name when talking to us. You can just call her Naomi, and me Brice.”

“You are my XO, Ensign Brice Mathis. I do not wish to insult you.”

“Ares,” Mitch spoke up, “if you want to call me Lieutenant Peller and Brice Ensign Mathis, we understand. But we are equally fine calling us Mitch and Brice. We made you our Senior NCO, because you’re going to be teaching us all sorts of stuff about EC and I am sure, about handling hard combat as well. It will be much easier for all of to make friends with you and you to make friends with us if we stick to first names when not doing team duties or fighting. Then, we just use rank and last name.”

“So it really is not a dishonor to say part of your name?”

“No, Ares it isn’t,” the second unit commander spoke up. “I’m called Declan by most, and we tend to only use first names in everyday activities. How did you address other kids back on Forest Garden when you started to go out into town and stuff?”

“I never talked to other youth, Warrant Officer Declan Cochran. I always called men sir, and women ma’am and if I learned their second names I spoke it as well. It was looked with suspicion at first, but many of the merchant class accepted it with a great deal less hostility over time; and as more of us were allowed to go into the nearby settlements, all aggressive looks ceased.”

Senior Warrant Officer Hofsta smiled at Ares, “I don’t think it was hostility or aggression directed towards you and your fellow… um, I guess Brood members is the right term.”

Ares looked very ridged as he reluctantly corrected Hofsta, “Since there were others not of my Brood, the correct term would be Hive members, Senior Warrant Officer and Mentor Hofsta.”

“Thank you for the correction Ares. What I really think you were seeing and or feeling was confusion on their part,” Senior Warrant Officer Hofsta responded with a light snicker, doing his best to break through some of the boy’s icy demeanor. “They just saw it as odd or different and were not used to the way you talked to them. As they got used to being addressed the same by all of you, it became more or less normal for them, so it wasn’t a drop in hostility, it was instead a familiarity with how you talked and they realized you were showing them a great deal of respect.

“Normally you would address an adult as Mister or Missus with a last name, not Sir or Ma’am with a last name. I am surprised the instructors you were given didn’t talk you through this.”

“They tried, but it was, and still is, very hard to adjust. Not using full designation is a major insult, even if done by our mentors and training officers. Changing the way we speak, to something like Mister or Missus is dropping a level of formality and would be seen as a slight to those we were addressing on the rare times we spoke to someone outside our trainers or mentors. We have been trained since birth to fully respect all those outside the Hive as our betters unless in combat with them. If they wished to be called Mister or Missus it was up to them to tell us, not for us to assume it was alright to do so.”

Seeing pretty much everyone in the back of the transport looking at him he glanced around with a bit of nervousness, “While I am sure it sounds easy to you all, just picking names was very hard. I was going to take the Roman god of war, but when I found he was named Mars, it didn’t seem right since I was hatched there, so I went back to ancient Greek. It is not really a name I like by sound, but the meaning is a good one. The secondary, or as you call it family, name was even harder. After much talk, all three of us took the last name Omicron on our IDs after we selected a starting name because it is like being from the same lineage since we were hatched from the same spawning chamber.”

“I am sure we could get you a new first name, with brand-new identification if you want to find a name you like better,” Senior Warrant Officer Hofsta offered.

“Thank you Senior Warrant Officer and Mentor Hofsta, but I will get used to Ares and I do like the fact he was a god of war.”

Brice turned his full focus to Ares, “So what do you do for fun?”

At this Ares cocked his head to the side and raised a questioning eyebrow, “Fun is not something tolerated within the Brood unless we enjoyed parts of our training. One of the reasons I am certified in torpedo is I enjoyed learning it and really found the underwater operations challenging. Since we were taken from New Bravaria to Forest Garden, our mentors and trainer taught us competitive games of various types, but we quickly found it was frowned on quite badly when we did serious physical harm to each other, and there are even rules against doing so in what you call sport. This makes it much harder, and forces us to rely more on skill and less on brute force. In some ways this has been enjoyable, because we learn new skills to offset the physical punishment we have been bred to dish out.

“As you saw, Ensign Brice Mathis, we get satisfaction from shooting each other with stunners. It keeps us strong. We all developed a game the trainers and mentors started calling ‘stunner tag’. Once they understood it was part of our pride to be able to get stunned and still fight on, they broke us into teams and put us on different ranges such as urban, forest, and rocky hills. When allowed, we could go at each other for hours. We also partook in something you call paint weapon fighting. There was much skill to this, but when they let us use rubber rounds it was more enjoyable because here was some sting instead of just paint for a penalty of being hit. A solid shot could even crack a rib or break a smaller bone so the risk was semi-real, and much closer to our Earth Core training. We all enjoyed rubber over paint bullets much more.”

While many of the other kids on the VTOL blinked and a few started to say something, Mitch cut them off. “Guys, you can get a demonstration of what a stunner does to them, or doesn’t do to them, when we land. Just don’t think it is a low-powered stunner when you see it. If you do, I will be only too happy to let Ares shoot you with the same stunner and snicker at the after-effects.”

Ares let out a little sigh. “It will be hard to do such enjoyable things without fellow Brood members around.”

“I put a formal request to Colonel Price for more from your Brood, and he said he would see what he could do. It sounds like there are a few others who he would be OK with joining our team, but he said something about a few being from other Broods.”

“When Blood’s Honor dropped in on us and tranquilized us, we were with survivors from Zeta and Gamma Broods, both from Omicron Hive. Since we were all in the same Hive as them, we know much about them. Gamma was two months behind us and Zeta five months, so they were younger, less hardened and not as skilled, but not by much. I actually think Zeta Brood must have had much better trainers, because they did far better than Gamma Brood on the first assault. And while many from Zeta were injured fairly heavily, they grabbed rifles when the time came, while those with equal wounds or even slightly less injured from Gamma stayed down for medical. It was actually quite pathetic to see someone who was supposed to be Brood with only a broken arm, dislocated elbow, or with only minor shrapnel damage not get up and grab a rifle!

“If given a choice, Lieutenant Mitch Peller, take Zeta Brood over Gamma. However, there are a few worthy ones from Gamma, such as Gamma Seven One Seven, Gamma Two Nine Eight and Gamma Five Three Six. Actually, Gamma Five Three Six is extremely good in urban stunner tag and paint combat. He would be a good team member and even a possible squad leader. Out of any of Gamma Brood he would be a good fit for what this team is being trained for and our overall mission.”

Brice looked over to Senior Warrant Officer Hofsta, “Sir, is there any chance we could request Gamma Five Three Six?”

“I can send a request. Not sure how much good it will do, but it cannot hurt. We have a total of five slots not filled, so are there any others you would like out of your fellow Hive members?”

“Yes, Senior Warrant Officer and Mentor Hofsta. Delta Four One is the best in my Brood with scatter and flamer weapons, both of which are very good in urban fighting, and Zeta One Two Nine might be the best out of any within the three Broods in moving unseen in urban environments. While not one of the strongest or toughest Brood members, and someone who would not have lasted in Delta Brood, Gamma Five Three Six is tremendous with a frame axe. He is also a good instructor with it. A frame axe is a weapon very useful when fighting in and around buildings and in tight places like sewers.

“While Gamma Five Three Six would have never made any kind of leadership within any Brood, from what I am seeing now, he could make a good squad leader since he is both a good teacher and fast thinker. His skills within the settlements outside of our training areas is among the best in Gamma Brood, and he has all but mastered the skills needed to blend into non-Spawn civilization. He has even been seen talking and doing some activities with civilian youth of our age, something no Delta Brood has yet to do. If I may recommend, if we can get him, he may be someone you consider for one of the empty squad leader spots this team still has. Just don’t expect him to stand up to incoming fire or deal with minor injuries such as bone breakage with the zeal of someone from Delta Brood!”

Senior Warrant Officer Hofsta noted all the other kids were staring at Ares with wide-eyes, and while he found it hard not to do the same thing, he pulled off his seat harness and stood as he spoke, “Ares, while you may have been trained to fight with broken bones, none of the others have, so I hope you don’t have such lofty expectations of your new team members.”

At this Ares actually smiled and made a dismissive flip of his right hand, “Of course not, Senior Warrant Officer and Mentor Hofsta. None of you are Brood. If we get more Brood to join us, I will make sure they understand as well. For I think one of the reasons I am here and others are not, is I don’t expect non-Brood to act like, or even somewhat close to, what I am used to. Most of the others have not learned this as well. There may be times where I have to stop them from accidently looking down on those who are not Brood. If this happens, I request you let me handle it in a direct and physical way without getting involved. It will make the process of accepting you all as you are much faster.”

Senior Warrant Officer Hofsta’s eyebrows went up, “We don’t want any brawls between members of the team, Ares.”

“Oh, of course not, Senior Warrant Officer and Mentor Hofsta. It will be between the two of us in a challenge, with a set time you or other mentors over us approve, so we do not put at risk any combat operation with either of us being injured. The first time or two it would be best if you allowed it fast, but once it starts, just let it finish.

“One last request, Senior Warrant Officer and Mentor Hofsta, unless there is dire need for medical, let us deal with the aftermath without any offer for assistance. It will send the proper message of me being in command of them even if I lose, which I will not.” Ares hardened as he added, “I don’t lose.”

Senior Warrant Officer Hofsta grabbed a strap hanging down from a bar as the VTOL got clearance to land and eyed all the kids he found himself responsible for. Many still looked at Ares with befuddlement, and a few with a degree of worry, but all seemed to have an interest in getting to know him. It was interesting, because he was certain many cadets at BHJMA would have wanted nothing to do with the boy. He guessed the Black Jungle cadets had a rougher edge than he was used to. Combined with having lived in and through a war zone, and even having to fight for their world, he was dealing with a different breed of children than he was used to.

As the kids filed out past him, Hofsta held Mitch and Brice back. Once the cabin of the VTOL was cleared of everyone else he looked down on the two teens, “Boys, I have the message ready to send with the designations of the Hive members Ares thinks would be a good fit and fill out your roster, but I have not sent it yet. Do you want me to?”

Brice and Mitch exchanged glances for only an instant before both nodded and smiled. Mitch spoke for both, “Not just yes, sir, but HELL YES!”

Hofsta took a deep breath, “OK, boys.” He held up armband computer, showed them the message, waited for them to nod, and hit transmit. He then looked down, “OK, done, and I suspect Colonel Price will agree to a let a couple and maybe even all of them join your team since you both approved Ares’ recommendations. This is even more likely since we are going to link with a SFC from Forest Garden, so you can get your frames along with four IPSC pilots and their craft and added advisors from the academy. This means we can simply put them on with the supply and personnel transfer. If we do get them, you will need to work hard to keep them integrated into this team, and I suspect it will not be an easy task.”

“Understood sir,” Mitch stated. “We’ll keep them in separate squads and dispersed through the units so they will have to spend most of their time with us instead of each other. But overall, I already like Ares and I am sure he can teach us a grip!”

“Everything we will teach him about being more…” Brice sighed, “While I hate to use this term, I guess it is the best one there is… While we teach him, and any other Brood, to be more human, he will teach us how to really be combat maniacs. We’ll all have to deal with stuff we don’t want to, and I am sure there will be problems, but as I am sure my mom would tell us if she was here, we’ll all be better for it.”

“OK, then. I will send a follow-up stating the request is a good idea and you both understand what needs to happen and are ready to deal with the ramifications of having more of them in your team.

“Now get your team assembled and get over to the Rune Star. You will find the ship’s crew ready to give you a tour and maintenance will then show the two of you everything your team needs to help with to get her in better shape as we head to the Nova system. One final note, boys, You two are commander and XO, this puts you over the infantry, platforms and aerospace. Instructors are being transferred in to help you learn all aspects, but you two are in command of this team and those being brought in to support it. This means I expect you to focus on all aspects of running this urban assault group, not just the frame side.”

Mitch nodded eagerly, “I can’t wait to learn how all the different elements intertwine! But with any luck, we’ll get the other Brood and they will get us all whipped into shape to kick the shit out of Earth Core!”

“And with any luck go to Ulysses and kick Talborne in the nuts!” Brice snarled. “He almost killed my younger brother back on Andar and Mitch’s sister is still missing. We’re going to use everything you and the Brood can teach us to pay that bastard back a hundred fold!”

“Yeah,” Mitch hardened even more. “A few of the others on my team are missing brothers or sisters from here or Andar, and Brice’s parents haven’t been found yet either, so hit us as hard as you want. Just be ready for us to turn everything you teach on back on Talborne and EC!”

Hofsta waited for the two boys to secure their gear bags and head down the ramp before he looked up and spoke just to hear his own voice, “Oh, easy promotion I said… Sure, I love kids I said… This will be fun I said… What was I thinking? This is going to be the longest two years of my life!”

Cory and Paula studied the guard movements for over two hours before Paula spoke up, “OK, they just did guard change so next one will not be until well after dark. Cory and Liam you’re up. The two idiots in battle armor who are supposed to be guarding the side gate are doing the same thing we saw last time we scouted and the same as the prior two morons; shooting at lizards with their lasers and screwing around instead of guarding. I’ll go down third and cover you.”

Cory patted Chip’s frame as he spoke, “Within fifteen minutes or so, their armor will start getting hot and just like the two who just went in, they will take off their helmets. Paula, Liam and I should be in position by then. This will give us a window even if they notice us, since they will have to put their helmets back on to alert anyone. If this happens, you and Jason will have to take them out. Make sure to use energy weapons only so there is little to no sound.

“As soon as you see us enter the factory, signal to Joel to start his assault. The added confusion of hearing a facility not far away getting attacked may even help us infiltrate. Then as soon as you hear four fast clicks, twice, I need you to shoot the pipe leading to the gauge with the yellow rope still hanging off it. It is on the third level on the gantry just to the east of the four large tanks. Hit the pipe, not the gauge. Just do Paula, Liam and me a favor and shoot it with your quark rifle so it doesn’t ignite.”

Chip spotted the target and glanced over, “You have already been in there!”

Paula gave a single humor-filled grunt, “And took a few chocolate bars for each of us out of the officer’s mess.”

As the three disappeared into the rocks as they headed down the embankment, Chip frowned, “They had chocolate and they didn’t even give me part of one. I am really going to have to point out how rank has its privileges and as CO of this squad, it was their job to bring me back some!”

Jason couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, sir, once this is over you will just have to order them to sneak into some other facility and steal you some.”

Chip grinned, “Don’t tempt me.”

Down the hill, the three kids made it to the wall with Liam cradling a portable welder and breathing much harder than the other two. A couple of minutes later the pair of guards moved out toward the rocks to look at the lizards they shot while also taking off their helmets. While their backs were to the three trying to sneak in, their new vantage point gave them clear lines of sight to the three against the wall the moment they turned around.

Before Chip or Jason could put a firm bead on them, Paula and Cory pulled up laser rifles and fired. Smoke and steam could be seen pouring out of the left temple of one and above the ear on the other as they crumpled to the ground. Since their helmets weren’t on, the computer didn’t detect a problem, thus didn’t release the red emergency smoke.

Liam set the welder down and sprinted over to the two. After a few seconds he shrugged and started pulling the taller body out of the suit of battle armor while Paula and Cory moved out away from the wall and covered it with their lasers.

While Liam the donned the Rebel class Battle Armor and dragged the body into the rocks, he pointed to the smaller body and over to Cory.

With a shrug, Cory sprinted over and with the help of Liam took only a couple of minutes to get into the smaller suit of nicer Insurgent class armor. As Cory dragged the second body over to the rocks, Chip pointed, “That girl was part of the Ulysses cadet competitions on Andar with us…”

“You sure?”

“Oh yeah, I tried to ask her for a one-on-one challenge out on the range of her choosing on opening night, but she flipped me off while saying something about Blood’s Honor wasn’t going to take home a single medal… Looking back it’s almost like she knew the competition wouldn’t be allowed to finish.”

Jason looked over to Chip, “Then it is good she is dead.” He then rolled his eyes as Cory wiggled his shoulders and adjusted the size of the armor to as best as he could, walked up to Paula, grabbed her arm and made it look like he was pulling her a great deal harder than he really was. “Oh, he really is insane!”

“Not insane, but darned close,” Chip stated dryly.

Jason shook his head as a trio of guards moved out to secure Paula, only to have one end up with a blade thrust up and into the underside of his chin from Paula. A snapped neck from a power armored punch to the back of the skull from Cory instantly dropped the second. The third, a woman, didn’t even get turned before Liam grabbed her by the neck, and with the assist of the powered armor hand, crushed her throat.

As the three disappeared into the compound below, Jason glanced over to Chip, “I still say insane, on the other hand… instead of sneaking in they could just take out the outer guards, steal the armor, take out the inside gate guards while pretending to have a capture, and stroll in…”

Chip cringed as the feet of the guard with the crushed throat disappeared from view, “Uh huh, and Cory wasn’t kidding. Body count on this is gunna be high on this assault.”

“Oh, sir, if all goes as plan, you haven’t seen body count yet.” He looked down for a few seconds expecting to hear some sort of an alarm or siren. When nothing happened he shrugged, “Time to send the signal to Major Price, sir.”

Chip nodded even as he started to take aim at the pipe he was told to shoot at. “Send it so I can stay on target.”

Without further instruction Jason sent out a series of long and short bursts.

Joel heard the radio go off and looked up at the Brile Star. It was a little earlier than he expected, but the workers were already headed up the switchbacks. They were guarded front and rear by Zenith APCs which carried those who guarded and forced the captives to work. Joel waited for the two trucks to wrap around the second switchback before acting. He spoke into his radio using call signs he knew wouldn’t give away who they were even if intercepted and no longer caring if he was heard or a gave away his basic location, “OK, Black Jungle, HIT IT!”

Derek heard the call go out with a sense of relief. Keeping his frame wedged between two rocks to stay hidden and occasionally scanning the area was exceedingly boring for a young teen who craved physical activity. Without hesitation, he jumped up and sprinted at the door of the bunker he was behind. Using his frame’s shoulder, he used the frame’s forward momentum to his full advantage. He crashed into the metal door, smashing it in. He then adjusted his run as he spotted one of the three manning the gun. Using his time spent playing combat ball to his full advantage, Derek plowed into the man and shoved hard with both hands of his frame. The guy’s screams from having bones snap with the initial impact was short-lived. He slammed into the upper corner of the bunker with enough force to snap his back and shatter his skull.

One of the remaining two dove behind a control console, but the second guy froze in panic. A moment later a frame elbow smashed into his chest caving it in while causing blood to all but blast out of his mouth.

The last guard turned with a heavy pistol up, only to see the frame spin, stare at him, and wag a warning finger. At the same time Derek’s other hand clenched into a fist. With a gulp the last man dropped the pistol. The weapon discharged as it hit the floor and the round ricocheted off the back wall and sent the round into the man’s lower leg. He fell with a yelp and gripped at his leg.

Derek couldn’t help but throw up his arms, forcing the frame to mimic the movement. With a disgusted shake of his head, he glanced around, spotted a first-aid kit on the wall, ripped it off the mounting brackets, and tossed it down on the floor next to the man. As he did so, he used his frame’s foot to send the pistol into the far corner, but just couldn’t help but ask, “Didn’t your mom ever teach you never to drop a loaded weapon?”

On the opposite side of the natural break in the ridge Karen shoved the door to the other bunker open and fired her stunner into the first person she saw. A younger, filthy-looking, boy with bleeding puncture wounds on one arm and holding the tail of a dead baby Hexa-lizard in the opposite hand crumpled to the floor.

Two men and two women scattered, while a third woman standing next to an open vent yanked a girl out of the tube by her feet and held her up, using the girl as a human shield. Seeing the grimy crying girl, with a live and thrashing young Hexa-lizard in one hand, a small club in the other, and dressed in a junior cadet Blood’s Honor vest caused Karen to see red. Any thought she had of taking the bunker with as little bloodshed as possible evaporated. She stepped forward, grabbed the hand of the woman holding the girl, yanked it off the girl’s pants, ripping them worse than it already was, and squeezed with everything she had.

Predictably, the bones in the hand crushed sending bone fragments and blood exploding through the skin.

Karen didn’t even hear the scream. She was too busy spinning and slamming the woman into the nearest guy with as much power as she could muster out of her frame. The result was pretty much the same as if she had taken a pair of vases and slammed them together. Both bodies shattered on impact.

The other three in Ulysses uniforms fared no better. The woman closest to the door found herself flying through the air from a vicious backhand toss. While the resulting impact with the wall probably killed her, the back kick to the door pinning her between it and wall definitely did. Blood splattered from the door over three meters to the side wall.

The next closest, a woman, had her leg snapped from a kick, then stepped on. The mangled limb was reduced to pulp as Karen put the full weight of the frame on the pinned limb and ground her heel back and forth.

The final man didn’t even get in a full roll. For even as Karen was smearing the floor of the bunker with arterial blood spray from the destroyed leg, she grabbed a long pry bar off a table and swung it down with both hands, So vicious was the swing, it all but cut the man in half. The only thing keeping his upper torso connected to his hips, was a thin section of skin on the left side of the body.

In a fit of final rage, Karen grabbed the end of the pry bar and slammed tip down into and through the woman with the splattered leg. The degree of her fury showed as the bar made a reverberating ‘twang’ sound as it stuck deep into the concrete floor of the bunker.

Even as she scrunched the head of the Hexa-lizard, Karen secured the now terrorized girl and held her as gently as the frame would allow.

Karen surveyed the scene with anger still burning in her chest. Once she had some control back, she activated her radio. The voice coming out didn’t sound anything like her as she snarled, “West side secure and usable. If you come in, make sure you do so on an empty stomach! And Commander, screw protocol. These assholes need to die!”

Joel and Gabriel exchanged wide-eyed glances for a few seconds, but were brought back to the problem at hand as heavy fire from Terrin, Beth and Saul ripped into the southern complex. Their machinegun fire, missile explosions, and other ordnance pounded into three exposed and totally unprepared frames on guard duty below them and caused cascading echoes across the whole mine.

Tracy held back until she spotted a group exiting a small building Cory had pegged as probably being a barracks area for the southern landing pad. She cut them down as they attempted to race across the fifty meters of open ground between where they had been and the small motor pool and frame bay beyond.

When it appeared a few were going to make it, Terrin switched focus and sent a full barrage of much heavier supreme machinegun rounds ripping across the grounds. Once the grounds were cleared, the two turned on the barracks itself and shredded it from left to right, top to bottom. Of the over forty who raced out of the barracks, and the thirty who tried to seek some cover inside the barracks, none made it to the motor pool or frame bay.

Joel was fully jerked back into the growing battle as Lawson took down two in battle armor close to the area surrounded by razor wire, then turned on the barracks. Joel pulled up his micro missiles, changed to laser targeted ammo, and pointed his large laser at the main communication array on the top of the hexagonal building. All six missiles slammed into the base of the central antenna tower and brought it down. He then concentrated on the roof, firing down on it as fast as his weapons could recycle.

While it had been repaired to a decent degree, the old construction and weathering simply couldn’t withstand such a relentless barrage. Within a minute the ceiling began to collapse on those inside. What was by far the most hardened structure in the compound, folded in on itself crushing everyone inside.

Next to him, Gabriel focused on suits of battle armor manning the walls. Using lasers and his rocket gun, he dropped two and badly damaged two others who tried to flee before the last three pulled back from the walls. He then joined Lawson, concentrating his firepower on other buildings, while making sure no one got to the two surrounded by razor wire.

Below, on the road up from the strip mine, the two covered vehicles stopped their ascent from the floor of the strip mine and stopped right at the third switchback leading up to the main installation. At the same time, the lead Zenith put power into its hover fans and raced up the road, while the trailing Zenith started to back down. It didn’t get far.

With no one else coming out of the barracks area of the southern base, Tracy changed targets to the real objective of the assault, the work prisoners. She saw the dust around the trailing Zenith change as the fans switched directions. “Oh, where do you think you are going?”

Since Paula had positioned them so well, Tracy simply waited a few second until she was pretty sure she had the timing right and shoved on a particularly large boulder. The rock dislodged and crashed downwards. Tracy’s guess as to timing proved to be dead on. The massive rock connected with the cockpit of the Zenith with a sickening screech of protest as the metal cabin folded downward into the pilot and co-pilot. Moments later the whole platform tilted hard to port and slipped off the edge. It and the dislodged boulder seemed to become one as they combined to slam into the switchback directly below with a thunderous crash. The tumble down deeper into the mine, not only blocked the secondary access road, it trapped or killed all eight guards in the back.

Beth noted the second APC rapidly climbing the narrow road and turned away from the three frames in the southern complex, figuring Terrin and Saul could finish off the frames, especially since one had red smoke pouring from the back and the other two were smoking from battle damage. She ignored the occasional laser and spray of machinegun fire as it pounded the rocks around her. Her sole focus was the hover APC. She focused all her weapons on it even as she spoke into her radio, “Hey T, you know platform weaknesses better than any of us.”

“Zeniths have a weakness around the armored skirting around the back hatch for infantry to jump out,” Terrin answered while putting another laser into the Bandit frame below. “Focus on the hatch and it should blow inward before it breaches.” He then turned, “Hey Andar, I can finish these two off. We are taking more fire from their lighter defenses at this point, so take out the wall guns and those two idiots in battle armor!”

Saul didn’t even respond. Instead he turned and put a RAM grenade and a large laser shot into the chest of one of the battle armor firing up at them. The combo attack knocked it off the wall and caused the second suit of battle armor to crouch down.

The attempt to get smaller did no good. Saul sprayed the armored figure with a fully automatic stream of ultra rifle ammo, almost a dozen rounds slammed into the crouched form and the light armor breached in three locations. The battle armor fell and hit the ground outside the wall sputtering red smoke.

Tracy’s frame alerted her to several spots of light armor damage as a small turret with two light machineguns peppered her with over a score of rounds. She ignored the mounting damage for a moment as she teamed up with Beth to shoot the aft hatch of the Zenith. As soon as she saw the door fold inward, she spun and put a pair of lasers and a gyro into the manned wall gun. Something hit the ammo and caused it to cook off, destroying the mounted guns and killing both the operator and someone running up to provided more ammo.

She then started to work down the wall from closest to furthest, silencing guns with deadly efficiency.

At almost the same time, Beth put a torrent of heavy machinegun fire into the suddenly wide-open back of the APC. The infantry in the back never stood a chance. Any bullet that failed to find flesh bounced around until it stopped inside a pack or body. All eight infantry in the back were killed within seconds of each other.

Above the primary installation, Lawson focused in on anyone trying to get to the two buildings surrounded by razor wire. When there was no one left around the buildings, he turned his attention on doors and windows inside the compound. Over two dozen in Ulysses uniforms fell to the boy.

Since Karen saw no reason to stay inside the blood splattered bunker since there was no sign of anything coming down the road. This guess was made easier because the two platforms had burned down and started a grass fire, masking what was the real cause of the blaze. She kept hold of the girl with her frame’s right arm and used the left to grab the unconscious boy by the back of his pants and carried him out. From her vantage point, she saw the smoking Zenith as it tried to escape the withering fire from Beth.

Without any sign of remorse, she set both smaller kids down behind a large rocky outcropping, stamped on a particularly large Hexa-lizard that came out from between two rocks as it smelled blood, and opened up on the cockpit of the vehicle far below.

The co-pilot of the Zenith spun the turret and fired up as the front armor of the APC took heavy laser fire, taking chunks off the rocks around Karen and causing her frame’s computer to chirp out with some armor damage as a few rounds found her.

Karen knew if she moved to get behind better cover, the two kids she just put down could end up with stray rounds finding them, so she stood firm and continued to fire down while staying mostly exposed. However she had firepower and armor on her side. Well before she had anything other than moderate armor damage over any area of her frame, her laser and machinegun fire decimated the front armor and killed both the pilot and co-pilot. The uncontrolled Zenith continued up the path amazingly straight and smashed into the rock wall as it made it all the way to the next set of switchbacks. The collision with the rock face of the strip mine caused the front skirting to crumple inwards. The impact left the whole platform stuck on the rocks but it never lost lift. Instead it just tried to continue straight into the rocky face of the mine, almost like it was trying to take over for the deceased crew.

Derek stepped out of the bunker he had taken, glanced down at the installation, and over to Karen, who has switched to fire long range laser shots, killing the two crewmen in each truck, leaving those in the back safe from any hostiles. Karen’s anger was still not sated. Instead of moving to better protect the two kids behind her, she fired down into the walls.

Derek quickly realized the girl across from him was seriously pissed off about something since her lasers targeted any movement below. Even those who may have been trying to come out of buildings without weapons. With a shrug he turned just enough to point his arm mounted stunner into the bunker, shot the guy who had just managed to get a bandage around his leg, then shot him a second time just to make sure.

Satisfied the guy wouldn’t be a threat for several minutes, Derek took a few steps out and sidestepped to the left so he could have clear line of sight down on the complex and joined Karen and Lawson, picking off anyone who made any appearance, regardless of where they showed any part of themselves.

Terrin dropped the final frame with a nasty headshot into already breached armor and glanced back at the three with him. “Command Sergeant and I will take care of any remaining threats at the landing pad. Andar and Bravaria, get to the transports and protect those inside! Once all this fire stops, the Hexas are going to come out in force with this much bloodshed and I am sure they are unarmed down there!”

Tracy and Saul both took out another battle armor even as they pushed down to the road and made their way down to the wheeled transports. Saul stopped to verify everyone in the shot up Zenith was indeed dead, going so far as to send a quick burst into the cockpit and the back. When nothing moved he jogged down to catch up with Tracy.

A couple of minutes later, the hexagonal building’s two west most walls buckled and the whole structure totally collapsed.

By this time all eight frames attacking the complex were using nothing but energy weapons, and when they did fire it tended to be snap shots as they spotted movement, mostly at popping ammo as fire got to it or doors and window frames mostly ripped from their hinges and blown by the increasing evening breeze. As the gunfire tapered off, they most often found themselves killing Hexa-lizards as native Brile creatures started to move out of the rocks.

Joel surveyed the damage with a knot in the pit of his stomach. The number of dead below him was staggering. Bodies in numbers too high to count littered the grounds of both the main and southern complex. The battle plan put together by Cory and Paula, and tweaked to perfection by Derek, showed the brilliance of all three, but the aftermath was right on par with some of the things he had seen on New Bravaria and Andar.

He took a knee, pulled his hand out of his left arm and wiped some tears out of his eyes, knowing in his heart there were scores, if not hundreds, of children without a mom, dad, or both because of this single battle. He forced his voice to stay even as he spoke into his radio, “Squad one, three and four, come on in and help with mop up…” He lost his voice as he saw a laser shot from Karen slash into the back of a figure trying to run down the road leading away from the mine. Before he could say anything, he spotted another figure try to get away from the carnage only to fall to a Hexa-lizard as the wounded woman attempted hide up in the rocks. He killed his radio, leaned forward, flipped open his face shield, and puked.

Cory and Liam each killed two workers as they made their way up to the third level of the diborane manufacturing plant. They stashed the bodies in and among the plethora of rusted pipes and machinery dating all the way back to the Machine Wars. Along the way, Cory picked up a long section of pipe off supply pile and carried it as if he was doing what he had been instructed. While a few workers and a guard eyed the sight of a powered armored person carrying a large section of pipe up toward the main production gantry, no one even bothered to question him.

It was just as Cory suspected would happen, and a tactic he had used countless times. By staying in the open and not trying to hide what he was doing, no one suspected he was actually up to no good. Instead, without exception, the people who noticed figured he had been tasked to carry a heavy pipe up to the platform beyond.

As they turned to walk up the stairs to the second level of the main gantry, Liam spotted a teen about his size wearing a jumpsuit with senior private rank on the epaulets and a patch showing him to be a maintenance tech. He angled over to the teen and as he went past, punched the unsuspecting teen in the gut. The augmentation of the battle armor provided enough force to pick the kid clear off the ground as ribs cracked and air was expelled from his lungs.

Cory frowned for a few seconds, partially because Liam could have put more power into the blow and slammed his hand all the way into the private’s guts, instantly killing the kid, but quickly understood as Liam dragged the kid behind a set of valves, jumped out of the battle armor and stripped the gasping and trembling kid.

The young senior private made one attempt to fight, only to have Cory move up and point the laser on the right arm of the suit of battle armor he had captured in the teen’s face. The kid managed to hold up both empty hands before grabbing at his ribs. Liam hogtied the teen with wire he found in the kid’s toolbox, then slipped into the jumpsuit and even boots. He gave the kid a few extra seconds to pull some more air into his lungs before pulling off the kid’s socks and stuffing them in his mouth. He added a strip of electrical tape all the way around the kid’s head to prevent any chance of dislodging the gag before he stood, adjusted the uniform, grabbed the toolbox with one hand and portable welder with the other. He shot Cory a nod as he stashed the battle armor next to the teen and continued up the steps.

Cory gave Liam a fist bump before he tapped his handheld radio, sending two sets of four fast clicks and got a response from Paula of two sets of three clicks. Satisfied, he moved to stand just down from the gauge with the yellow rope hanging off it.

A couple of seconds later the pipe centimeters down from the gauge took a quark rifle hit and the electronic reading showed a pressure drop.

A series of sirens sounded within moments and a voice came over a speaker positioned around the facility, “Leak on tank three, maintenance crew, level three main gantry. All others secure and cut all open electrical and flame sources!”

All around the facility people scrambled to get inside of buildings, as the warning sirens continued to blare.

Liam took a deep breath upwind, held his breath and moved over to the valve. It took only forty-five seconds to wire in a bypass to trick the gauge into giving out continued low-pressure readings. He backed off well away from the damaged pipe and took in some more fresh air, but still ended up coughing from fumes even though he was upwind, forcing him to back further off to get some truly fresh air.

Within a couple of minutes a five-man team emerged from a low box-shaped structure wearing light E-suits. Two carried tool boxes while two others carried a large hand-cranked reel with a metallic substance in the spool. It was clear the reel and spool were very heavy since the two carrying it ended up well behind the first three.

Cory watched the three sprint up the stairs before he backed up behind some piping. Liam, on the other hand, moved back up to the pipe and put his hands around the hole, while turning his head to avoid inhaling as much of gas flowing out of the ruptured pipe as possible.

The lead man, who was not carrying anything but a small shoulder bag, moved straight up to Liam, spotted what the boy was doing and pulled a full oxygen unit with face mask off a wall and put it over Liam’s head. The man then pulled the straps tight, and gave Liam a thumb’s up for trying to contain the leak.

Since the man was totally distracted, Cory was easily able to slide up behind him. His first instinct was to kill, but seeing the way he treated Liam, told Cory it was worth his time to incapacitate instead of eliminate the guy. He ripped the back of the E-suit with his power-armored hand, stuck the mounted left arm stunner into the hole and fired up into the hood. Between the hood containing much of the stunner shot and the blaring siren, the shot was all but undetectable.

However, since the entire shot had nowhere else to go, the force of the stunner shot was amplified enough to cause some real damage. The lead technician fell with blood leaking out of the corners of his eyes and pouring out of his nose.

Below, the two with tool boxes fell within seconds of each other from quark rifle shots from Chip.

The two trailing techs looked up with confusion and concern as they watched the two with toolboxes collapse at the halfway point up to the second level of the gantry.

They didn’t have much time to dwell on it. Paula stepped out from behind the steps and plunged the tip of her Katana into the mask of the first, then spun and swung with a very precise strike. The blade, made out of the same material as frame armor, gave off an evil hiss as it sliced through the air. It decapitated the second tech cleanly.

Liam spoke with pure awe in his voice as the head bounced away from the rest of the body, “Holy shit!”

Cory managed a rare genuine smile, “Unholy is more like it, but my kind of unholy! OK, you’re up and you only have a couple of minutes before they will expect an update from their repair crew!”

Liam gave an unconcerned snort as he turned a large round hand-turned valve and pointed up behind him to another one for Cory to crank shut. “As soon as I make the welds, reopen…” he then gave a devious smile, “and run!”

With the gas shut off, even though the gauge was showing it wasn’t, Liam cut a hole into the main pipe below the gauge, and another into the pipe just below where Cory had shut the second valve. He then patched the hole put into the pipe by the quark rifle.

At the one minute mark he had Cory hold the pipe he had carried up the gantry, and made a quick measurement. He made two clean cuts, then welded the pipe in place over both holes he had cut into the larger pipes.

At the two and a half minute mark, the radio inside the ripped open hood came to life demanding an update.

Cory ripped the hood off the man, and held it up to Liam, “Make your voice as deep and concerned as you can, and keep it short.”

Cory nodded, pulled the mask off his face, and spoke into the radio, “Problem found. Expect fumes. It’s bad, close up tight. No flames, no sparks! Update in fifteen. Out!”

Seconds later the loudspeakers came to life, “Major leak from main tank! Everyone hold in place and expect some fumes in unsecured sections. No open flames, sparks and kill all non-essential electronics! Expect update in fifteen minutes. Worker guards, kill all power to the worker’s barracks and lock them down before pulling back to secure areas!”

Cory patted Liam on the back, “Well done, and it sounds like you were right. The main air filtration system for the whole facility isn’t hooked into the prisoner area!”

Liam snickered, “Pretty obvious, actually. The large windowless bunker on the east side had no new piping from the central air unit to it. All the others do. Awful nice of them to put the main pipe for filtered air for the whole place right over this section of the gantry and so close to one of the main diborane tanks.”

“Pretty kind of them to pull the guards back from the prisoner building too!” Cory smiled deviously. “Couldn’t have planned it out any better!”

“If this was a real leak, they would basically be killing the prisoners, since this stuff is heavier than air. Whoever is giving the orders really needs to die.”

“Pretty sure almost everyone here will.”

Liam nodded even as he finished the preliminary welds. He then used the extra few minutes to strengthen them before pointing to a valve close to Cory. He gave a single nod as a signal and with deep breaths, both boys cranked the handles to fully open.

Liam watched the welds for almost a minute before pumping his left fist. He placed a large explosive charge on the main pipe, just up from the welded in place shunt before donning the battle armor again, while securing the portable welder, “Send Paula the signal.”

Cory pulled off the helmet and cringed at the nasty smell in the air, but just as quickly ignored it as he pulled up his handheld radio, “It’s too dry for us Israel.”

Paula clicked a remote she had installed on the facility’s primary life support, changing the normal humidity setting from low to extremely high. She waited a few seconds before clicking a second remote, which fused the humidifier’s controls. With a sly smile, she keyed her radio, “The sauna is fired up.”

Liam started to run down the steps only to be stopped by Cory. “Take the kid you punched. I’ll take the guy who put a mask over your face. The dude risked his life thinking he was saving yours and you didn’t kill the private right out, so we can’t just leave him tied up to die.”

Liam cocked his head and shrugged. Without any complaint, he grabbed the teen while Cory put the man over his shoulders. The battle armor made it easy to carry the extra load.

By the time they got to the gate, they were met by Paula who was leaning against the outside of guard shack wearing battle armor, with her katana in one hand and the helmet in the other. She looked at the two being carried with a raised eyebrow, “I gather they are coming with us?”

“Yeah…” Cory eyed the older girl as he put the man down inside the guard shack and helped Liam to put the teen down next to the man. The teen looked at the dead bodies already inside the shack and started squealing in terror. Without even taking his eyes off Paula, Cory pointed his left arm back and shot the young private with his stunner, silencing the young man. “You never said you were certified in battle armor.”

“I’m not officially, but my master made me start off in battle armor unarmed before he allowed me to learn Frame Martial Arts.”

“Interesting. Our Brood instructors never worked with us in unarmed while inside battle armor. You’ll have to show me some tricks when we get a chance…” he paused and looked around, “So the life support doesn’t cover the guard shack, right?”

Paula pointed upwards, “Nope, it has an independent filter system with its own small power unit. I guess it is too far out to run piping to it.”

Cory glanced up. “Far enough away from the main buildings and the storage tanks… Good place to relax and enjoy the show.”

“Pretty much what I was thinking…” she paused as she saw the door to one of the buildings open and someone come stumbling out. “Which is right about now!”

Above the facility Jason saw the first door open and someone all but fall out of it, “Open door, compass reading at 126.42! Forget the person! Fire into the door!”

Chip panned his frame’s sniper rifle down, spotted the door and fired. The single tracer round streaked into the door and a split second later the whole building seemed to puff outward as every window, door, and vent burst outwards with an orange glow for the briefest of moments. The person who had come out was caught in the powerful wave, was picked up, tossed several meters and slammed into the ground like a ragdoll. This was followed by a subsequent explosion sounding much like a sonic boom.

In the guard shack, Liam leaned way back as the body slammed into the ground and the force of the blast wave rolled over all of them, “Oh, now that had to have hurt!”

“I sure hope so,” Cory responded.

Above, Chip didn’t have time to dwell on the unexpected and violent blast. Instead, he was too busy firing into other buildings Jason pointed out as doors opened and people inside tried to get out.

Within two minutes every building hooked to the shunt created by Liam had blown outward, five of which collapsed to at least some degree.

“All buildings hit!” Jason called out into his radio.

“Let’s see if the automation is as good as you think, Liam.”

Liam pulled a remote he had put in the utility storage on the hip of the battle armor and clicked it. The instant he did so, the breaching charge he installed on the pipe leading down from the main tank totally severed the pipe.

The failsafe on the tank sensed the massive breach and dropped emergency seals, cutting the flow off and preventing fire from snaking up inside it. Warning lights along the top of the huge storage tank started flashing red. All three inside the facility waited, as if expecting to have the main tank explode and take out a good portion of the facility, but the emergency seals held.

After several seconds, Liam let out a sigh of relief, “No telling how long it will hold, so we need to get moving.”

Chip surveyed the complex with a mixture of horror and astonishment, “Where are all the guards and junk?”

“Dead,” Jason answered.

“But…”

“Dead, very dead.”

“What… What just happened?”

“Diborane starts to break down in high humidity. One of the byproducts is hydrogen. Liam and Cory flooded all the buildings with it and Paula got to life support and maxed out humidity. At the same time, the smell forced those trying to hole up to get out, but they buttoned up tight beforehand, so the hydrogen was contained,” Jason explained. “The sheer amount of diborane probably took out many, the rest just got blasted into the afterworld.”

Chip stared at the compound in speechless shock.

“So, sir, like I said, they’re dead. We may find a few survivors, but very few and unless there was some area they managed to seal themselves in, and it held during the explosions, none will be able to fight.”

“But…” Chip gasped, “what about the cadets?”

“The building they are locked in wasn’t hooked to the life support. We need to get them out in case any diborane fumes got into where they are being held, but they should be fine.”

“Oh my God! I just killed hundreds!”

“You were just the tool, sir, and God had little to do with this. It was Cory, with some input from Liam and a lot of help from Paula. As for God, I don’t think many were sent see Him. I’m pretty sure we just sent most of these bastards straight to Hell and I for one, couldn’t be happier.”

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