Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (36 page)

They
almost
made it to the edge of the offices, and the breaching charges went off, throwing the armor back.

No one needed to give an order, the entire line opened up on the PACs just twenty feet away.

They were stunned and shocked seeing their buddies go down in their invincible armor. The real panic and anger set in after a few seconds, when more people started going down under the red-lines of tracers.

The PA surged forward again, picking up momentum, and they were cut down in the tens. They had little to no cover and the Troopers could see them, even if they were hiding.

“Blades!” Haas called.

Jerome surged to his feet, grabbing his blade.

Seconds later, a PAC came flying through the wall he’d been hiding behind. He was swinging his metal storm rifle like it was a club. Jerome moved to the side and cut at the PAC, blood staining their armor and his blade. Jerome moved in, slashing at the downed PAC, ending it by cutting through the PAC’s helmet.

Another tried to jump on Jerome, but he turned in time, interposing his blade and letting them skewer themselves. He hit the ground, dust and debris thrown away by his weight and the weight of the PAC on top of him.

He threw them off, but his blade was stuck and a PAC’s metal storm rounds were pinging off his armor.

Jerome grabbed his Repulsor, swinging it on target to the PAC and opened fire. The rounds hammered into the PAC, cutting them down. Jerome stood over the PAC with his blade still in them, firing at the PACs as they charged.

It was a melee of weapons fire, blades; hell, people were even punching one another in their powered armor and tumbling around the ground.

Jerome didn’t see any more targets he could fire on without hitting one of his own people. He planted a boot in his old opponent’s breastplate and heaved his blade out.

A PAC smashed into his side, sending Jerome sprawling. They hammered on Jerome frantically, and Jerome had lost his sword, holding his arms up trying to stop the PAC from breaking his helmet and then his head. “Risk it for the biscuit!” He slapped the floor with his servo enhanced strength, leaving dents in the floor. The PAC bastard had their legs around Jerome’s midriff. Instead of getting clear, Jerome was now the one on top.

They hit one another frantically, both of them fighting to stay alive. Jerome felt something bang against his side.

Repulsor!

He threw himself sideways, grabbing the Repulsor. The PAC turned to face Jerome as Jerome pulled the trigger.

The person was yelling. Jerome took mercy and shot upwards. Their screams stopped and Jerome got to his feet, grabbing his sword from nearby and charging into the fray. He could see more PACs coming from the hole they’d made in the floor. Right now, his platoon, barely a section all told, were between them and the rear echelon. The cafeteria was still a hundred meters in front. The armored company of Troopers was spread from there to two hundred meters in front of the main lines.

There were no more defensive lines, the entire level was one big fray of fighting. There wasn’t any rear, meaning no fresh supplies could get in, or wounded out.

Jerome hoped that they could hold long enough for the newly armored people from the maintenance pad to form up and storm through the lines.

***

“Fuck,” Young said, looking at her screens.

“What?” Yu focused on flying the Combat Shuttle, one heavy machine gun position seemed to go down and two more took their place. As long as the gunners survived, then they had dozens of positions to pick between. It was giving Yu a headache.

“Bastards broke through the floor and are jumping up into the rear of the Troopers. There’s two sections of PA holding the PACs back, but they’re on borrowed time. I don’t see any firing solutions on the floor,” Young’s frustration was palpable.

A new heavy machine gun tired to tag Combat Shuttle Three Seven Eight. Her new paint job was being broken in nicely, with an array of blast marks and weapon dents.

The auto turrets reacted and fired on the position; Bobbie seemed to be using one to rake a floor as they went past.

“What about the floor below?” Yu asked.

“That’ll work, just dump missiles in, stop more getting in and reinforcing. Hopefully they can hold out for reinforcements,” Young said. She didn’t sound all that hopeful.

“Well, let’s do what we can to help them out. I’ll get the cannons on the office space they’re coming out of, hopefully that’ll be enough,” Yu said, throwing them sideways, then banking hard right around a tower and pushing the throttle to the max to gun it out of the city.

“You’ve got a minute,” he said, banking around and coming back at the city. He was supposed to have dropped his supplies and returned to Fearless. But everyone was well stocked for supplies and the Troopers needed a fire mission. If someone had a problem, they could court-martial him later.

“I’m good to go,” Young said.

“Loaded and ready,” Bobbie said. The turret rarely stopped firing, just switched targets, throwing tracers at the heavy machine gun’s competing lines.

“Here we go,” Yu said, pushing the engines past their limits. They were always underrated by about twenty or thirty percent of their true high speed, but it burnt out their engines in a matter of hours instead of years. Reaching those top speeds required a handy little hack that all self-respecting Combat Shuttle crews knew.

The Combat Shuttle roared into the city, cutting past towers that got ever taller in their spiral up to the central tower.

The missile racks ripple fired as Yu got a firing solution with his auto cannons. Missiles ripped into one floor, tearing the windows apart and sending plumes of fire out of the opposite side and up through the different stairwells. Auto cannon rounds ripped into the floor above. Yu didn’t see if they hit anything but he knew if they did they were nothing but mangled armor and pink mist. More missiles hit the lower floors. Yu banked and dropped, cutting his forward speed, and throwing everyone into their harnesses. Their attack run seemed to bring every heavy machine gun in the city onto their tail.

Yu’s racks read as empty and his ammunition was getting low, so he pulled out of Mining City Twenty-One low and fast, tilting his nose upwards, and turning down the power on his engines.

“Prepare for vacuum,” he warned. The adrenaline still rushing through his veins as his crew moved to make sure that the Combat Shuttle was good for vacuum.

“Sealed up tight, good run,” Bobbie said agreeing with Yu’s choice to disregard orders and fly a fire mission.

“Looking good, engines are a bit warm. Hope it was enough,” Young said.

“So do I,” Yu looked at the glass as the front of the shuttle started to turn into a white cone of water vapor and then the meteor-like appearance that came with entering and exiting atmosphere.

A few seconds later and that fell away, and the sounds of atmosphere disappeared. He followed Young’s flight plan back to Fearless.

“Ah shit,” Yu said, the adrenaline coming back as his hands danced and his legs moved, shifting the shuttle out of a debris cloud. One of those objects in the wrong engine port or intake and they would all be having a very bad day. “The hell is all of this?”

“Broken up shuttles, sensors, missile platforms, Reclaimer’s, you name it, it’s all coming down. I’m linked into sensors and tracking the worst. We’re going to have to go slow and steady so we don’t hit anything bad, the rest of the stuff will just bounce off,” she reassured Yu.

“The fuck is that?” Bobbie asked as a piece of debris hit the side of the shuttle. Without air, they didn’t hear it as much as feel it through the decking.

They continued on their path heading for Fearless. It was going to take them some time, but they would be back soon enough.

***

Mark moved through the PACs with adrenaline in his veins and hate in his heart. He was alive, this was where he belonged, killing the bastards that had taken Caroline from him. The bastards that had done that to an entire fucking planet.

He was hammered and beat on, but he didn’t care, all of them died under his rounds or by his blade.

The alarms went off everywhere as the Combat Shuttle auto cannon’s fire tore through the area between the Troopers in the cafeteria and the Troopers Mark was fighting beside.

The rounds cut down the PACs in droves, leaving fist-sized holes in their armor.

Then the missiles hit, and the glass that had survived seemed to explode through the level.

Rumbling explosions could be heard and felt through the floor on the level below.

Mark felt his stomach drop as he saw whole sections of the floor give way and then felt himself falling.

Mark let his legs take the impact. The entire level was a smoldering mess. Black smoke was pouring out of the level. The missiles had blown the windows out and tossed everything that wasn’t bolted down or part of the structure out of them or across the level in a chaotic mess.

Mark slammed his sword into the ground, turning off its vibrating function so it didn’t eat its way through.

He pulled up his Repulsor, moving under all that debris was powered armor, and he saw more of the bastards coming up the stairwells and other access points.

Mark fired on them, his stream of tracers throwing the PACs backwards. Other PA Troopers with him added their fire into the mix, stopping other PACs getting through different access points.

Troopers not wearing armor started jumping down, laying in the rubble and on the remainder of the floor, firing on the PA. Here they had the advantage. Screamers ripped into those that were now getting to their feet. The Combat Shuttle had stunned the PACs and given the Troopers what they needed: room.

Up close, the PACs’ strength could cave in a Trooper’s helmet, far away and they had to close that distance. They were bigger targets that weren’t good with their weapons and didn’t have the training to reload their weapons in their Powered Armor.

Sure, they caught some Troopers by firing at everything with their metal storm, but the tides had turned. The PACs were now at the disadvantage and weapons fire could be brought down on them with impunity.

“We hold here,” Haas said.

Mark felt more powered armor dropping from the floor above. The tactical views of above looked a damned sight better, and the rest of the powered armor Troopers were now able to push forward without worrying about their rear guard.

“Spread out and concentrate on the access points,” Haas said.

“Just don’t fall off the edge,” Dashtund added.

“Dick,” Tal said, and Tyler laughed. Mark agreed with Tal, he fucking hated heights. He wanted to keep shooting the bastards coming up the stairs but there were three Repulsors covering his stairwell already. He moved close to the edge of the level, and kept away from where the edge had cratered under the missiles’ impact. It reminded him of Sacremon and the rebels fucking launchers. There was a rough circle of broken glass all around the missile impact area.

Hell, the fucking structure’s probably right fucked, thing’s probably going to fall and we’re all going to be fucked. Stop thinking of that shit Mark. Fuck, I swore the fucking floor was moving.
He pushed his fears away, that’s what you did as a Trooper. You took your fears and you pushed them away into a tiny little box. You were the best of the best, no one was going to tell you different and you sure as hell didn’t want to show anyone else that.

Showing them that would be admitting that you weren’t a perfect warrior. Who doesn't want to be in a trench and know that the guy next to them is a killing machine, ready to lay down their life no matter what?

Though everyone knew everyone had their doubts and fears, they played on them. Not to expose them all the time, but to get them to work on them. The ability to push one’s boundaries was a good thing to have in a Trooper. So Mark got close to the edge, and laid down gingerly and slowly.

Fucking shit, that’s a long way down,
he thought, looking at the rubble he’d pushed off of the edge, and it seemed to just keep on falling. He thought about the floor tilting and him falling, or his gun going and dragging him down.

He put the Repulsor’s bipod on the ground and lined up on an open stairwell which connected offices below to the floor he was on.

A PAC peeked up, and Mark sent a burst into them. He didn’t know if he’d killed the fucker or just made them duck back. He kept up his fire, making sure no one else came up through the hole.

Someone landed a grenade in the stairwell. Mark waited a few seconds before firing again. An enemy that couldn’t shoot back was effectively useless. He just hoped that they didn’t start blowing holes in the floor again.

He fired bursts, one eye looking for movement, the other looking at Mining City Twenty-One beyond the smashed up glass front of the tower.

Combat Shuttles moved through the city, coming in to land on rooftop landing pads, their weapons ripping into the towers. Firefights were punctuated by explosions ripping out of towers. It only went to show how this was a war, not some simple rebellion.

All of the might of the EMF was pitched against these bastards, and they were pushing back and pushing back hard. This was their home city in Osdal, and it had 100,000 Troopers dedicated to just it, and they were getting swarmed.