Too many officers and senior NCO's act like every mission should go as smooth as planning, with no casualties. That their plan can't fail, it can only be failed.

Zero casualties isn't the baseline, it's the goal.

We learned in the Atrekna Conflict Zone that acceptable losses was one thing, but that missions had to take into account casualties that were statistically likely to happen.

But at the end of the mission, no matter how tough it was, when I was sitting on the steps of the barracks drinking a bottle of Ol' Smokey No, I always thought the same thing I had thought during the mission briefing: "Sucks to be those guys." - Bit.nek, Telkan Marine Corps (ret), 3rd Division Member, during a speech to the graduating class of the Telkan Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer's Course.

Bit.nek slapped his hand against the grenades on his waist, giving the variable mission adaptable munition core its orders even as he pulled a flare out of his equipment belt's gear loops. He cracked the flare off and tossed it into the opening.

The hallway had tile walls, dead light strips, and the floor was covered with sparkling dust.

Another screech sounded out, this one behind them.

"Move out, maintain radio silence," Bit.nek ordered.

--me too-- 299 asked.

"Use the internal hard-com text only," Bit.nek said. "Keep an eye out on our motion detector gear. It might be the only split second warning we have."

--roger roger-- 299 said.

Bit.nek could feel the little green mantid's anxiety even through the text link.

"SPC Ilvrekit, take drag, count them off, move into the tunnel with last man," Bit.nek ordered. "Pass it forward when you get back in," he looked at everyone else. "Two meter intervals. Keep it tight."

"Roger," the SPC said. Part of him felt a little irritated that a PFC was snapping out orders like he was the Sergeant Major of Dangerous Shit, the rest of him was relieved that at least the PFC had a plan and experience to go with it.

He took a right, jogging forward. He pulled the SMG off of his waist, thumb moving automatically to pull it off safe even though he kept his firing finger along the magazine well instead of putting it on the trigger. He checked his rear and saw that six were following him.

The SPC and PV2 Verbaski followed.

A hundred meters down and he held up his hand, pulling a grenade off his harness.

Everyone slowed down.

He used his thumb to pop off the safety cap, thumbed the trigger, and tossed the grenade into the side passage. It flashed several times before going off in midair, filling the corridor with mist that suddenly contracted into thin reddish-silver lines.

"Salt?" the LT asked.

"No. Particularly nasty Terran weapon. Adhesive strands with a mono-molecular protein chain wire. Degrades over about six hours, but anything that hits it gets sliced into kibble," Bit.nek said. He took a dozen steps and tossed another into the corridor to his right. He tagged the 318 gunner with a whisker laser. "Use your secondary nanoforge to forge me up more web grenades."

The gunner's icon just blinked.

Two more grenades and a corner. Bit.nek stopped ten paces from the corner, motioning at the 318 gunner to pass him up more grenades. Once he had them, he attached them to his belt, checked his SMG through the smartlink, then motioned up the next in line.

"What?" SGT Kremaknik asked.

"Corners are dangerous," Bit.nek said. "Two men, every time."

The SGT nodded.

"You need to know this in case I get dropped or separated," Bit.nek said. He waved. "Come on. You take left."

Bit.nek turned the corner, squinting through his faceplate.

Three deaders were at a door, pounding on it.

As soon as the duo came around the corner, all three stopped pounding on the door and the wall next to it and slowly turned.

Bit.nek snapped the SMG into position, his smartwire tingling, tapping the trigger three times. The only sound was the scraping of the bolt carrier and the working of the mechanisms.

All three went down from headshots before the SGT got his rifle into play.

Bit.nek held up a fist to warn the SGT to stay still and stay quiet.

He ramped up the sensitivity on the external mics, listening closely.

A few screams off in the distance. Slow moaning from other locations. Two banging noises.

"Clear," Bit.nek said over the close range infrasonic. "Move out."

"The door?" the SGT asked.

"Leave it. Whatever was in there is either dead or long gone," Bit.nek said.

The squad moved further down, Bit.nek chucking the grenades down the hallways. After several long minutes and another corner a heavy set of steel double doors blocked the way.

"Dammit," Bit.nek said, testing the doors and finding them locked.

"What?" the LT asked.

"Wasn't on the seismic. We'll have to cut through," Bit.nek said. He waved his hand. "Send one up with a cutter."

"PFC Zwerktik, post," the LT said.

The PFC moved up, pulling their fusion cutter off their equipment harness.

A screech sounded out from back down the hallway.

"Tag the decibel rating on that one," Bit.nek said. "When it screeches again, check it against that one, see if they're getting closer, buddy."

--ok-- 299 said.

The PFC started cutting at the top, moving slowly down, the fusion cutter tearing a quarter-inch gap, the edges bubbling and edging.

"When the door opens, don't rush through," Bit.nek warned. He turned around and looked at everyone. "You're bunching up, spread out," he waved. "Get up here with Madame."

PFC GwertNak nodded, moving up.

"You might only have a split second to fire," Bit.nek said. "No reflex trigger, we're depending on your reactions."

The PFC M318 gunner nodded.

Another screech sounded.

--closer--

"Keep me posted," Bit.nek said. He tagged two of the people toward the back. "You two, down on one knee. Keep a watch out," he paused for a second. "They're coming."

"We're going to get pinned between two groups," SGT Kremaknik said.

"That's why the Corps gave us guns," Bit.nek said.

"Almoooost," the PFC said.

Another screech.

--much closer-- 299 said. "Almost at the corner."

"Rear guard, get ready," Bit.nek said.

"Almooost," the PFC said again, dropping down to one knee. "There's bottom locks."

"Just kick it open," someone said, their voice full of stress.

"We can close it if we cut through," Bit.nek said. He slapped the coil on 2020 cord on his hip. "Five loops of this magtac'd to the door and nobody will get through. If I kick it open, I'll blow it off the hinges."

Someone mumbled something that Bit.nek didn't catch. Bit.nek ignored it, reaching out and putting his hand over the door trigger. It blinked a few times then lit up with a steady pale pearly glow.

"Almoooost," the PFC said.

"CONTACT! ENEMY CONTACT!" rang out from the back.

Bit.nek just glanced at the top of his HUD, looking at the compressed bar of his rearview.

Four deaders, coming around the corner at a dead run.

The bullets hit the chests, but the deaders kept coming.

Bit.nek turned at the waist, leveling the SMG.

The deaders were ten meters from the squad. The bullets were hitting them center mass, but not even slowing them.

Bit.nek fired three times, his smartwire tingling.

All three went down in a sprawl.

"Headshots only," Bit.nek said, turning his attention back to the door.

"GOT IT!" the PFC stood up and Bit.nek swept him back with one arm.

Another screech sounded from behind them.

"Seismic says this is a small room. Figure two per five foot squares, max of two hundred of them," Bit.nek said. He clapped the gunner on the shoulder. "Waist high. We'll take out the ones that don't fall headfirst into your fire."

PFC GwertNak nodded, shifting his grip on the firing lever.

"Ready," Bit.nek said, putting his hand on the button to open the door. He paused a heartbeat. "Steady..."

PFC GwertNak tensed.

"GO!" Bit.nek slapped the button. The doors groaned as they opened into the room.

PFC GwertNak clenched the fire lever, the Madame Three-Eighteen roaring as he fired off fifty rounds in five seconds, panning it right to left. The bullets howled off the pillars, the ceiling, the floor, the walls, tracers throwing sparks as the coating abraded on the ferrocrete.

Gasping, PFC GwertNak let off the firing grip. "Sorry."

"Don't be. They weren't here this time, but next time we might not be so lucky," Bit.nek said.

The LT filed away the interaction, closing his mouth instead of yelling at PFC GwertNak.

Bit.nek moved out into the room, looking around carefully, letting the armor's ultrasonic mapping system ping the room.

Four exits, according to his internal map, one led deeper into the city, two others leading out, and one heading toward the court houses.

"Move up to the upper right door," he said. "Zwerktik, cover me."

The private moved up next to him as he moved to the first door, on the left. It was a heavy steel door. Bit.nek checked and it was unlocked. He didn't unlock it, just pulled the loop of cord off his waist. He put one end up and told Zwerktik to put one finger on it. He then ran arcs back and forth across the door, running his finger along the cord. The cord steamed, then seemed to half-melt into the door.

"OK, good," Bit.nek said.

"What is that?" Zwerktik asked.

"2020 cord goes from flexible cord to battlesteel hardness and is self-adhering," Bit.nek said. "We used to close doors or put part of a coil on a door and then yank it down," he shrugged. "I always keep a hundred meter coil on my hip."

Zwerktik just nodded as they walked across the room to the door on the other side. Unlocked, no locking mechanism, so Bit.nek ran the loops. After that they moved across to the door, sealed that one despite the lock, then moved back to where everyone was grouped up.

"You're too clustered up, spread out," Bit.nek said, waving his hand. They had half of the eight men on one knee, pointing their weapons down the hallway. "We need to get moving."

Bit.nek pushed his way through, motioning at Zwerktik to stick with him. Once the group was in the hall, he started jogging, internally wincing at how everyone else's gear rattled and clinked against their armor.

He moved toward an open doorway, reaching down for another web grenade when the wall on his suddenly moved. Two hands grabbed out at him, the eyes opening, the mouth suddenly gaping wide full of black blood and drool.

Bit.nek reacted without thinking, swiping the arms out of the way even as he drove his fist up and into the Terran's face. The skull shattered under the blow, the body dropping.

"Fucking Cammie's," he swore.

"Cammie?" SGT Kremaknik asked.

"Chameleon, a Terran lizard that changes how its skin looks to conceal itself," Bit.nek said. "Guy named Casey told me about them over beers one night."

"Oh."

Bit.nek tossed the grenade down the corridor, watching as the mist puffed out then solidified into a mass of silvery webbing.

"Why didn't my acoustical mapping pick it up?" the LT asked.

Bit.nek shrugged. "Dunno. Heard some weird gibberish from a mechanic about it, but he lost me with phasic counter-acoustical subsonic clicking instinct," he said.

The next door was unlocked and Bit.nek motioned for everyone to stay silent.

This one would lead to the parking garage under the courthouse.

He pushed it open carefully, PFC GwertNak stepping up next to him. The PFC was consciously willing his hand to relax, telling himself not to tighten his grip on the firing grip. He made sure it was on safe just in case.

He'd gotten into the habit, in peacetime training, of clenching and unclenching his hand on the firing grip and now that the weapon was live, that was proving to be a really bad habit.

The garage was full of vehicles, the only light was from a handful of vehicles where the emergency lights kept up a slow rhythm of flashes. Bit.nek looked around carefully, not spotting anything dangerous, but taking into account that the entire garage was packed with vehicles. In the middle right the ceiling had collapsed, the ferrocrete peeling away so the ceiling section was facing Bit.nek.

He knew that the hole was on the other side and there was probably some rubble. He marked it as a possible threat on his HUD.

"Go to passive night vision, use IR lamps, wide lens, low power," he ordered.

The icons slowly flashed and the inside lit up a little more.

"Lots of ambush spots. Stay tight, two meter intervals," Bit.nek said. He pulled the SMG off his belt. "Get ready for CQC."

More blinks.

He waved and moved forward, weaving between the cars. The explosion had shifted some, or maybe they'd just been parked sloppily. Everything was glittering, the dead nanites forming a thin layer of micro-dust.

He checked around the fallen slab and saw that the debris that had fallen in made a perfect ramp to an open section above.

"Dammit," he mumbled.

--what-- 299 asked.

"We've got car alarms that went off, access into here from above," he said. He clicked open the commo. "We aren't alone down here."

"Are you sure?" The LT asked.

"Eighty percent," Bit.nek answered. He motioned and moved out slowly, looking around carefully. They were moving between heavy vehicles, large box cargo vans that barely missed scraping the ceiling.

Off to the left a set of vehicle elevators had the middle on moving up, stopping about five feet up, then coming down, stopping two feet too high, bumping down two or three times, then raising back up. The two on the right were open, the cages in the parking garage. The other two were closed, no cage to be seen.

"Why's it doing that?" someone asked.

"Bodies or debris blocking it from locking into the bottom of the shaft," Bit.nek said. He looked around a box van and grimaced.

Two vehicles just past the box vans were flashing their lights silently, their batteries low.

"I think there's nothing in here," some dipshit helpfully offered up.

Shapes suddenly lurched out from between the box vehicles.

Bit.nek's reflexes were wrong as he swung a fist at the movement, his fist passing over the deader's head. It was short, with fox ears and a big fluffy tail, wide eyes, and a muzzle full of sharp teeth. Paws reached for him, grabbing his belt as it hissed.

shit...