Chapter 53

Barbecue in the park

Freya closed her eyes as bullets broke through the walls of the room she was hiding in. She tried to force herself deeper into the corner she was trapped in while hugging her long-barrel rifle, but she was already squished as deeply in as she could possibly get. She opened her eyes to check on Patterson who was laying on the floor near the wall he had been firing out of a couple seconds ago. His huge gun was in the middle of the floor - broken from being struck at least twice by enemy rounds. Patterson himself, oddly enough, looked very relaxed and calm. He was laying on his side propping his head up with his hand as he waited out the counter ambush.

They had set up in a corner apartment on the second floor of a ugly brownstone building. Freya had spotted a column of trucks headed towards the front. Toast had reported it to Torres who had them set up an ambush. What they hadn’t realized was that the trucks were not supply trucks like they looked like. They had been filled with troops instead of food and ammo. It was an honest mistake, as who carried troops in unarmored trucks anymore?

As soon as Tike had set off her explosives, the whole ambush had gone to hell as enemy soldiers poured out and fired on them. Even worse was that someone on the other side had a brain. Two of the trucks had pulled onto the side street while the rest moved forwards instead of retreating - setting up an L-shaped ambush on their building. That led to Freya being trapped in the corner as bullets came through both walls on either side of her.

“Mechs incoming. You guys okay?” Toast asked over the radio.

Freya’s lips twisted into a grin as she realized there was no point anymore with radio silence. The enemy already knew where they were. She looked up and spotted Toast looking into their room from the doorway. Freya gave him a thumbs up and a grin as the enemy turned the walls on either side of her into Swiss cheese. Toast looked at her oddly for a few seconds before Patterson caught his attention as he replied to the question with a question of his own over the radio.

“Hey Toast, you really won’t play if we create a team for Chivia’s tournament after this?” Patterson asked.

Freya rolled her eyes under her face shield. Tike had brought up the idea of starting a tank team after they were done with the tournament. Freya had passed and, to her surprise, Toast did as well. He said it was ok with him if they started a team, but he was adamant that he was not going to play.

He told them that he found the game boring. He also stated that there was so much gossiping and toxic gameplay going on during the game that it ruined the game for him. Freya agreed with him. She chuckled to herself as Patterson’s question caught her off guard just as a large chunk of what the locals considered dry wall was torn out of the wall and bounced off her helmet.

Toast shook his head and disappeared from the doorway. “You two are crazy.” He replied a second later over the radio from behind the wall to their room.

Less than a minute later the sound cut out from her armor and she felt shockwaves thump her chest, overcoming the anti-shock protection in her suit.. It felt like someone with a small hammer was striking her chest rapidly over and over again. She lifted her head a bit to look out the window as she saw an antenna pass right by her window no more than a couple of feet away. It was only then she realized that the enemy had stopped firing on them.

She leaned a bit further out and looked out the window to see Done’s Mech passing by her window. The Mech’s head was just below her window as it walked by her position. She leaned a bit further out from her corner to give herself a better view as the Mech’s anti-vehicle weapons demolished the trucks one after another. Meanwhile his other gun tracked the retreating soldiers, leaving only dead bodies in the street. And just like that the battle was over.

“So, what do you call that? A counter, counter ambush?” Freya wondered, not realising that she left her mic open.

“Nope, it’s still called just an ambush even if someone else has to come and save your butt.” Dusty’s voice replied over the radio.

“Knock it off. Patterson, get your lazy butt up and let's make sure no one took cover inside our building.” Toast said, sounding annoyed over the radio.

Patterson was just getting to his feet when an explosion went off on the floor below them. “That was the back door.” Tike told them. Freya watched as Patterson pulled his smaller rifle out from behind his back and raised it as he slowly made his way to the doorway. That made her realize that she should change her weapon as well. She switched out her long-barrel rifle for her short-barrel GMZ. She followed him, keeping about five feet away from his back. They hadn’t even made it to the door to their room when a second explosion went off.

“The was the secondary explosive by the back door.” Tike said, sounding pleased.

“Patteron?” Toast asked over the radio.

“By our door now. Moving into the hallway.” Patterson said, sounding serious for once.

She tapped Patterson to tell him she was ready and he moved forward into the hallway. They slowly made their way down the stairs and took cover on the stairs. Directly in front of the stairs was the front door. To their left was a hallway that led all the way to the back door, passing the living room and a kitchen.

Freya was covering the rear as Patterson covered the forward position before he swung around and started for the back door. She quickly followed him. She walked backwards covering the front door and each room as they passed it.

“Clear.” Patterson said over the radio. Freya stopped and looked over her shoulder to the back door and shook her head. The first explosion had taken two enemies out right in the doorway. The secondary explosive took out four more enemies in the hallway about five feet from the back door. In the doorway she could see Dog’s huge figure waving at them.

“Hey, guys.” Dog said from his armour's speakers.

“Hey, Dog.” Freya said, relaxing.

“Anyone hear from the armored company yet?” Tike asked over the radio, as she walked down the stairs.

“They made planet-fall and are on their way.” Done replied from inside his Mech.

“This city will fall before they get here.” Freya muttered, darkly.

“It’s already fallen.” Toast said as he walked down the stairs. “We’re just mopping up. Speaking of mopping up, we have another objective. Let’s get to it, people.”

Ferya led the way out of the building and onto the street. She had a new waypoint on her mini map. She paused long enough to get her bearings and to wave at Done’s Mech before she started down the side street. She smiled as Done waved his Mech’s arm, the one with the anti-vehicle gun on it.

Their next objective was to help Third Platoon move forward. They were caught up in a firefight near the park with all the monuments. They were being held up by a large force. Freya doubted the large force part. This was the third time they were being sent in to help them, if she didn’t count the bridge as the first time. According to their objective briefing, Fourth Platoon was being retasked to help them. Freya and her squad’s job was to help them in any way possible. The wording of the blue screen made Freya smile. Freya had learned that Gunny was in charge of their objectives for the tournament instead of the Monarch. The way she wrote the objective briefing made Freya think the woman was tired of the Third Platoon’s crap.

Two hours later, they were on their way back to their platoon. “Why the hell didn’t they call in an artillery strike?” Tike asked, as they walked down an empty street.

“Why didn’t they do that when they were caught on the wrong side of the bridge?” Patterson asked in reply. “Instead, Magic had to come in and do it for them.”

“Enough.” Toast said shutting them down. “We are a company. They are our brothers and sisters. I won’t hear anyone talk bad about them. It’s wrong. This is a learning experience. They will get better or they’ll get demoted out of the company. It’s that simple.”

“Tanks ahead.” Freya said changing the subject as she spotted them on her mini map. “Federation tanks.” She corrected quickly, slightly embarrassed that she hadn’t clarified what she had meant.

With the help of the tanks, the mopping up only took a few more hours. The tanks bulldozed any opposition they came across. Freya and her squad were sent out ahead of the company to scout out enemy positions and call in the tanks. They never fired a shot during those patrols as they mostly snuck around and called in the enemy’s position. That night they rested inside a museum.

The museum was dedicated to the locals' religion and Freya spent some time wandering around looking at all the exhibits. It wasn’t all that interesting, with manikins silently acting out various religious scenes throughout the planet's history. What Freya came away with, after reading all the various cards and plaques, was that the people thought they were the chosen ones and that everyone else was, at best, a second class citizen. That made her think about her people's religion. She was not all that religious, but it was at least more inclusive than this planet's religion. Father Sky was space and Mother Earth was the planets people lived on. There was more to it, but that was what she told people when they asked about her religion.

Also her people didn’t care what religion a person worshiped. There were more than enough people who worshiped other religions on the rez than her people’s historic religion. The only one rule on the rez was don’t be a dick about your religion. Most of her family had been following the old ways for generations. It was what she grew up with. If someone wanted to worship someone else then no one complained. It is as it is.

The following day a couple of companies from Third Division arrived and took over for them. Freya’s squad was tasked to head back to her ship and fly to the next staging point. They weren't told what the next city they were hitting was. They were only told that they would get a day off before they moved on to the next city.

“We’ll stay here. You can pick us up when you get your ship.” Toast told her, as they got to the river. She shrugged and nodded before she dove into the water. She followed her waypoint to her ship. Remembering the last time she had parked her ship in water she swam around it doing an aquatic preflight check off. She noted some scratches on her ship. Some were superficial while others were a few millimeters deep.

“That’s not going to buff out.” Freya thought as she traced a long scratch along the left side of her ship. The scratch was roughly two feet long. It was straight for about six inches before it sharply angled downwards at close to a forty-five degree angle. It made her wonder what had made it.

Once she was mostly ok with the outside of her ship she made her way inside. She swam in from above the ship and pulled herself inside the rear from the opening in the back. She could see the ramp was buried in the mud at the bottom of the river, but she was not worried. It was more than capable of pulling itself out of the mud when she closed it.

She pulled herself inside the pod bay and nearly screamed as she nearly swam right into a naked dead body. She panicked and quickly pushed herself backwards away from the body. It took her a few seconds to calm down and she stopped swimming and let herself hang in the water. Shaking her head she swam towards the body.

“What happened to you?” She wondered to herself as she got a closer look. “Maybe a local, or maybe a Marine. Hard to tell. Definity military age.”

“Toast, I got a dead body in my ship.” Freya said, calling him over the radio.

“One of ours?” He asked her.

“No idea, but military-age male. Skin color is kinda close to the locals, but he’s naked. I can’t tell.” She told him.

“Back up about thirty feet and wait. I’m sending Tike to you. She’ll check for explosives. It might be some clueless butthead who spawned and then drowned and didn’t report it, but let’s be sure.” He told her.

“Roger that.” Freya said, pulling herself away and swimming directly away from the back of her ship.

It took a few minutes until Freya’s dark vision spotted Tike as she swam towards her. “I did a preflight check off on the outside, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. But then again, I’m not an expert like you.” She told Tike.

“If it was me, I would put the explosive on the inside. More structural damage that way.” Tike said, as she came to a stop by Freya. “Just to be thorough, I’ll check the outside first then move on to the inside. Did you see any loose wires or compartment doors?”

“Nothing aside from some scratches on the armor of my ship. It might just be some battle damage though. The port to the Bakt was scratched up earlier when I went to resupply though.” Freya told her squad mate.

“Okay, I’ll check them. Stay back here. If it goes up, don’t come in to rescue me. There might be secondary explosives for the rescuers.” Tike said looking at the ship sitting at the bottom of the lake. She turned and Freya could see her smile at her through her face shield. “Wish me luck.”

“Break a leg.” Freya said, smiling.

“Jackhole.” Tike said, sounding amused.

Freya watched as Tike swam toward the dropship. She had some kind of handheld device in her hand. Freya watched as TIke swam over the top of the dropship, using the ship to guide herself. It was slow going and to Freya it seemed to take forever before Tike was done going over on the outside of her ship.

“Outside is clear. Heading inside.” Tike told the squad.

“O’Malley? This is Gunnery Sergeant Thompson.” Freya’s company Gunnery Sergeant said, speaking over her private channel on the radio. “Just a quick question, does your surveillance drone work underwater?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Freya replied, trying to figure out what the woman was asking, then it dawned on her. “Crap, you want me to get a picture of his face and send it to Sergeant Torres to get it identified.”

“Yes. Your feed was too blurry to get a good look.” Gunny told her.

“It’ll take five minutes to get it built, Ma’am.” Freya said as she started her forge working.

“That’s fine.” Gunny replied. “Send it to me and Torres only. You can send it to yourself as well, but you will not talk about it with anyone. Is that understood, Private?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Freya replied. She was really glad that Gunny had given her that order. She would have forgotten to take herself out of the feed channel otherwise. She would have disobeyed orders unintentionally.

Freya sent the drone in as soon as it was done. She was also glad that Gunny had talked to her on her private channel otherwise she would have to call Sergeant Torres to get her address to send her the video feed. She watched as the drone went right to the dead body. Since the body was face down the drone had to come up from beneath it. She stopped the drone as the face came into focus.

She clipped the video feed and sent it off as a message before she had the drone slowly move over the body. She had it stop twice as she spotted scars. One was just above the left eye and one was on the man’s right thigh. She got a close up on the man's fingers just for fingerprints. She was going over the man’s bottom left foot trying to get a nice view of the print on his skin when Gunny came back.

“You can stop now.” Gunny told her. She sounded amused. “He’s not a Marine. Torres already sent Tike a message. He’s definitely a saboteur. Keep up the good work.”

Freya smiled as Gunny closed their channel. With nothing else to do she sent the drone to hover over Tike shoulder. “Tike, I have my surveillance drone up.” She told her squadmate. “Sending the feed to you. Where do you want it?”

“Not anywhere close to me.” Tike replied immediately. “Some bombs are sensitive to drones. Good idea, but kill it.”

“Sorry.” Freya replied, as she killed her drone.

“No worries. Just, ask before you do something next time.” Tike replied.

“Okay. Sorry again.” Freya said, feeling bad.

It took a little less than half an hour for Tike to find the bomb. It was in the bulkhead of the ship near the generator. She had to pull the bulkhead off before she could get at the bomb. She gave frequent updates so Freya knew exactly when the bomb was defused.

“Detonator is removed. It’s dead. Give me another five minutes to remove the bomb and we're good.” Tike told the squad.

“Good work, Tike.” Toast replied.

“Damn, I forgot how fun this is.” Tike told them, as she finished removing the explosive. Freya watched as Tike swam out of the dropship holding a small metal device in her hands.

“This is your bomb.” Tike said as she swam up to Freya.

“It’s tiny.” Freya said, staring at the battery-sized bomb.

“It’s big enough to vaporise your ship.” Tike said, slowly spinning the bomb in her hand. “The guy knew what he was doing though. It was a bitch to find. Not sure why he drowned, but I have to say he knew what he was doing. He was a pro.”

“Magic, command doesn’t need the body, so dump it and get us out of here.” Toast ordered her over the radio.

“On my way.” Freya said, still looking at the bomb. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride.” She told Tike as she gave the other woman a wave. She swam inside her ship and stopped by the dead body. She noted he had long black hair. She started to doubt he was military, as every enemy soldier she had seen so far had short hair with the normal, military haircut. She mentally shrugged her shoulders before she and Tike pulled the dead body out of the ship. As she swam to the pod in the back of her ship she saw where the bomb had been planted. It was behind the pod he normally used to despawn. The bulkhead was still exposed.

“Tike, can you put the bulkhead back? I can’t have it exposed like this in flight.” She asked her.

“I’m bomb disposal, not maintenance.” Tike said, sounding outraged. Then she laughed. “Just kidding. Give me two minutes - I dropped a screw.”

Freya shook her head as she closed the pod doors and then despawned. As soon as she was in the cockpit, she sat down, pulled out a security console and did a sweep of her ship. It came back negative, but it did spot the area where the bomb had been placed. When she asked for more information it gave her the type of explosive that had been placed inside her bulkhead. She shuddered as she realized from her bomb-making skill just how powerful the small battery-sized bomb really was.

Once she was done with the security sweep she checked her security feed. Freya frowned as she realized it was disabled. She checked the memory banks but found it was corrupted. Someone had hacked her ship. She sent off her findings to Sergeant Torres. She almost sent it to Gunny, but realized that it might upset her boss if she jumped the chain of command like that.

She spent a couple of minutes getting the video to the back of her ship working. The first thing she saw when it started working was Tike putting the bulkhead back on.The camera was pointed right at Tike. That made her think that the security video had spotted the intruder before it had been wiped. She added that to a message and sent it off to Sergeant Torres. She closed the ramp and smiled as it pulled itself out of the muck and closed.

Once Tike was done, she lifted off. She pulled her ship out of the river and landed again once she was near enough to the squad. Tapping the button to drop the ramp she watched as Patterson and Toast ran towards her ship. She waited until they were aboard, then sealed the ship. It took about twenty minutes on fifty-percent power to reach the staging area.

The staging area was a wood with several clearings around it. She was guided towards one clearing that was near the middle of the staging area. As she flew over, she noted that there were a lot of people gathering around in large groups. It was way too many people for it to just be her company. She guessed that it might be large enough to be the entire Second Division in the area.

She didn’t see any other dropships, but that just could be that command was being super paranoid and was keeping them well apart in case of a raid or shelling from artillery strike. She informed her squad of what she was seeing as she slowly lowered her ship into the clearing. Parking her ship, she dropped the ramp. She spotted Sergeant Leni walking up to them and told Toast right before she despawned. Seconds later she respawned and opened the pod door. Quickly equipping her armor and weapons, she ran out the ramp making sure to close and lock it.

“Glad you guys didn’t get blown up.” Sergeant Leni said with a smile. “Come on, let’s get you settled in. We already got our orders. We leave at zero three hundred.”

“Where are we going?” Toast asked, as he fell in beside Leni.

“You’ll find out in the staff meeting tonight. All I can say is that we won’t be the only company to be going. Magic, make sure to be there. There is a lot to go over.” Leni said, as she led them deeper into the staging area. They passed several areas where groups the size of platoons were gathered close together. Some of the groups were sitting or laying down while others were playing games. Some even had tents set up already.

They passed by a bunch of parked Mechs. Freya spotted One and Done standing around a small group of people. One was standing with her arms crossed while she was listening to one of them speaking. Spotting their group as they passed, One gave them a smile and a small wave before she turned back to her group. Done was so engrossed with whatever the other guy was saying he didn’t seem to notice them as they passed not ten feet from him.

Freya took a deep breath and smiled. Someone was having a cookout. It smelled really good. She was still smiling when Leni cursed.

“Mon, what the hell are you thinking?” Leni yelled and started walking faster. Freya looked forward and smiled. Mon was standing beside a metal box that had been cut in half. He was using it as a grill to cook up a barbeque. There were a bunch of people around him, who scattered when they saw Leni come storming up.

“This is not a picnic!” Leni shouted as she marched right up to him. Freya smiled at Mon’s stunned expression.

“That will be in the tournament stream.” Toast said quietly beside Freya. When she looked at him, he smiled and winked at her.