Eve Berg

Location: North American Eastern Seaboard, Smokey Mountains, United Commonwealth of Colonies

“Here you go, ma’am,” the SGT finished leading Eve to a corner of the supply hub.

Even several stories below the main entrance to the now-buried bunker, she could hear the ET’s digging to reach them. They were like fucking ticks burrowing into the mountain to suck out the blood that was the human survivors.

She shook off the image. “Thanks,” she replied, but the SGT was already gone.

No one knew how much time they had left to prepare, but they were milking every last second to take as many of these fuckers with them as they could. she shivered at the memory of the mobile artillery platform blasting the Commonwealth defenders into ashes . . . and then blowing up the mountain she was standing next to.

she looked at the equipment in front of her.

It was more than a little ironic her life had come full circle. In front of her was the V2 LACS, which, in her modest opinion, was now an obsolete piece of trash. Still, it was better than facing a BAMF in her skivvies. She did not envy the soldiers moving around in scales. They might as well be wearing tissue paper.

she suited and booted.

The armor came alive around her, and by the grace of god it had undergone some updates. It was able to link to her IOR, so she was able to get the data streamed directly into her vision instead of staring at a HUD. Still, it didn’t have the sensory feedback the MOUNT did. In a MOUNT she felt everything. She was the machine. A LACS was just armor she was wearing.

She ran a few diagnostics before she started moving around. It had been a while, and while it might be like riding a bike, one wrong move, or a reaction a second too slow, and she was dead. The scales rippled across the six centimeters of protective armor over the carbon nano-tubing and ballistic gel. She checked to make sure the pockets of repair nanites were online and ready respond to the armors needs. Although, if a BAMF beamer punched through her, those nanites wouldn’t be able to patch the hole in her. Her two shoulder mountain weapons were pathetic compared to the monstrous armaments on her MOUNT. Her missile launcher held a measly eight missiles, and none of the punch of the micromissiles despite their greater size. The swatter was the same as the MOUNT but it was a useless against this enemy. They didn’t use missiles, and duro-steel bullets didn’t stop lasers. She could use it to harass the enemy, but not much more.

The big guns of the LCAS, the 125mm spine-mounted artillery tube was risky underground. The explosions could do more harm than good, so that was a bust in most scenarios. Thankfully, someone had welded an area shield to the armor, so she’d survive a glancing blow from the beamers. The biggest change of all was her primary weapon wasn’t integrated into her armor. Instead of the graviton cannon, which worked wonders against the enemy, she was stuck shooting 3mm plasma-tipped rounds. It took dozens of hits from the weapon, in the same spot, to even break through the shield. A feat the grav-cannon could do in two; and put the BAMF down with a third, final shot.

More than a little dread worked its way into her gut as the systems came back green. She had to give the grunts and HI troopers she’d fought beside props. They knew going into this fight they were outmanned and outgunned. They kept fight and dying anyway. She honored and respected that.

“This is Valkyrie,” she linked into the communications net the defenders were using. “I’m good to go. Where do you need me?”

“Good to see you back online, Warrant Officer Berg,” the base commander replied. “We need you in the main bay. That’s where the focus of their attack will be, and that’s where I need you to hold.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she put one metal boot in front of the other. “I’m on my way.”

***

Sonya Berg

Location: CWS Agincourt, Sol System, United Commonwealth of Colonies

Sonya tasted blood. She snapped back to reality, and consciousness took hold of her. It brought with it pain and suffering. her brain tried to piece it all together as she looked for something to dull the pain.

Aggie and the rest of her escort had gone toe-to-toe with the enemy fleet. Their flanking maneuver was meant to put pressure on the enemy. Make them weaken their forward shields, so the main fleet could take them down easier, and as a bonus, get some of the lighter support vessels past the enemy lines and into orbit around Earth. If they could make contact, they could start orbital bombardment of vulnerable enemy positions.

She remembered the ships closing. Even at three hundred thousand kilometers, the enemy ships seemed massive on the holo-tank. Their greater tonnage, more powerful weapons, and heavier shielding were a ship captain’s worst nightmare. Facing them in battle, even with massive force superiority sucked.

She wanted to spit, to cleanse her mouth of the iron taste but her helmet was secured. When she tried to remove it, it gave an alarming beep. The visor was cracked, but still intact. The updates looked funky as the crack broke them up, but the message was clear enough: there was no breathable oxygen.

She took her first look around the flag bridge. The first thing she noticed was the very large hole coming in from the top right, and exiting out the bottom left. Everything around those entry points was black and scarred. Somehow, an enemy beam weapon had gotten through the shields, through the hull, through the extra shields and armor plating around the flag bridge, and left an exit wound out the other side of the ship. She said a silent prayer it hadn’t hit anything more important and turned Aggie into finely dispersed matter.

She gulped, swallowed the blood despite her stomach’s protest, and pushed herself to her feet. Immediately, her body rebelled. More information scrolled across her broken HUD, and it informed she had a broken leg. Nanites had sealed her CMUs to prevent her dying a slow death in her sleep, but she needed medical nanites. She reached down from her chair to the base where a medkit was supposed to be stored. She patted around in vain for a few seconds before realizing the base was gone. Another second, and she realized she wasn’t sitting where she was before the enemy gutted them. She’d been at the tactical console on the side of the bridge. Now, she was in the rear. Whatever follow-on explosion happened; the result was tossing her like a rag doll across the bridge.

she did a mental assessment, and concluded on top of her broken leg, she was suffering from the mother-of-all whiplash. Thankfully, her CMUs stiffened as medical programming activated to stabilize her neck and spine. She’d live, it would just be painful for the moment.

“This is Admiral Berg, anyone still alive out there,” she might not be a combat commander by trade, but she knew she need to assess the situation and make a plan.

She got a lot of static in reply, and was nearly sure the local comms relay had been blown to shit before she got a response. “Sonya . . . fuck . . .” the ID said it was Ward.

“Mike,” she unbuckled herself from her chair and carefully followed the waypoint the Aggie’s AI provided her. “Thank god you’re alive.”

“Barely,” the other ADM grumbled, and she soon saw why.

The Human Fleet’s second in command had suffered a similar fate to hers. His chair had been casually tossed around the bridge by the gods of war, and he’d ended up buried under a pile of other loose equipment. Unlike her, he looked like shit. A jagged piece of something had pierced through him. It wasn’t too big or thick, thank god, but being impaled was still being impaled. It couldn’t feel good.

He did have the good fortune of his chair base coming with him, and the bottom was popped open with a used medkit sitting open beside him. The ADM had treated himself as best he could. He’d sprayed new skin around the wound and injected all the medical nanites. Those were keeping him alive, and fighting the blood loss.

He was almost certainly high as fuck, because if Sonya was awake with a piece of duro-steel sticking through her, she’d be screaming her head off. The other ADM was calm and collected.

“I can’t see the holo-tank. How do things look?” he asked when she finally reached him.

Sonya looked over, but it was offline. More than that, it looked like the alien energy beam had cut right through the communication’s device. It was charred, melted, and still smoldering wreckage. When stuff like this happened, command was supposed to automatically shift to the next in the chain of command. Since they were still alive, that had probably happened.

“Everything looks good,” she lied as she linked with his CMUs. His vitals were bad despite everything medical technology had already done.

“Sick bay, I need a medical team to the flag bridge STAT. Admiral Ward is down and his condition is critical,” she ordered. She hoped the ADM didn’t hear her.

“That was a hell of a fight,” the ADM coughed, and blood splattered the inside of his helmet. “Always nice to have a good fight. The Blockies weren’t a real challenge anymore,” he might have chuckled, but it sounded more like gasping for air.

“Hold on, Mike,” let me get another medkit. Medical nanites could work wonders if you pumped enough into someone.

She hobbled over to her chair base. It looked about like she expected it would, ripped to shit, but the medkit was still secure in its compartment. She hobbled back over and started sticking needles and the little machines around her old friends wound.

It was only when she was done, that she realized all she was getting was a flatline response. She pulled out the automatic defibrillator and let the little machine try to restart the old ADM’s heart. The medical team arrived two minutes later, and they looked like they’d been elbow deep in injured spacers. Everyone was covered in some degree of blood.

They gave the ADM the expert attention that a man of his rank deserved. They pulled out one of the few body bags that was supposed to put his body in a form of suspended animation. She’d read the reports, and knew the Hegemony-produced devices worked wonders. She hoped for the best, but in her gut, she knew it was too late. Admiral Michael Ward had already given his life for the Commonwealth.

She just hoped it was worth it.