Venusian Uprising Read online

  Five…four…three…two…one…mark!

  A blinding flash lit the night sky, and a cloud of fire-filled smoke rose into the air on the far side of the fuel depot, mushrooming as it hit a denser layer of air above. Then everything was silent for a moment as Fourth Platoon waited for the enemy to respond.

  A klaxon broke the stillness, and a minute later, a group of personnel carriers drove out the fuel depot’s front gate.

  Commander Lauren asked on the company command net.

  Williams replied.

 

  Williams asked.

 

  Williams knew where this was going.

 

  Williams nodded as he watched a pair of hoverjets take off from the north end of the fuel depot. One moved toward the fuel line, but the other turned toward his current position. He upped his estimation of whoever was in charge on the other side.

  Williams asked.

  Lauren snorted.

  Williams replied.

  the company CO replied.

  Grenwald reported on the platoon’s combat net.

  Williams didn’t even have to pass Chang any orders, the corporal’s team already had their railgun tracking the inbound hoverjet. At the LT’s command, a stream of rail-fired pellets shot out into the night, blazing toward the aircraft.

  The enemy jet slewed to the side, narrowly avoiding the opening salvo. Strafing around the corner of the facility, it fired a pair of missiles at Chang’s position. PFC Walker leant around the rock and lobbed a chaff bomb into the air. The projectile arced high over the team and exploded. Once the chaff was deployed, his weapon fired a striker into the cloud of metallic particulates. Just as the missiles passed through the haze, the striker discharged a gigawatt of electricity into the chaff.

  The two missiles exploded, raining shrapnel all around.

  Marines from third squad were now firing on the hoverjet, and it pulled further back over the fuel tanks, firing a second salvo of missiles as it retreated.

  Then something clipped its right wing, and the jet spun to the side, tilted, and swung down into one of the fuel tanks. The tank ruptured, spraying hydrogen into the air with a whistling shriek. For a moment, Williams wondered if it would ignite, but then his question was answered as the fumes turned into a tower of flame, lit by the heat from the hoverjet’s engine wash.

  The enemy craft disappeared in a ball of fire.

  Chang said over the combat net.

  Sergeant Li replied.

  Williams shook his head. The stupid pilot got what he deserved for backing over the tanks while taking fire. He should have moved to the north where friendly ground forces held the terrain.

  Williams said.

  The fireteams along the south and east sides of the fuel depot wasted no time breaching the perimeter fence and taking out what few guards had rushed toward that corner of the compound. An armored personnel carrier tried to reinforce the scattered separatists, but Chang’s railgun made short work of the vehicle, tearing a rear corner off the truck before it retreated north.

  Gonna be a cakewalk, Williams thought to himself.

  He was about to order an advance into the compound when a starship swung overhead, its torch cutting through the space between the fuel depot and the warehouses beyond.

  he asked over the combat net.

  He checked the command net and saw it was the ship the AA towers had been firing on. The starship had slipped past their defenses.

  Williams called out to the fireteam leader on the depot’s south side.

  Corporal Weber said, sending his intended route along with the response.

  Williams replied.

  Perez added.

  Williams considered their options and turned to Chang.

 

 

  No enemies were in evidence to the south of the fuel tanks, but on the northwestern side, he could see that squad three was now engaged with an entire enemy platoon.

  He wasn’t worried about it. The Diskers didn’t stand a chance against TSF Marines; they stood an even worse one if it was the separatist militia.

  He rose from cover and sprinted to the south, deploying his own set of drones to provide a direct feed of the surrounding terrain. Ahead, he could make out the forms of Weber’s fireteam as they moved along the southern edge of the fuel tanks. Williams looked beyond the fuel depot, toward the low warehouses that stretched away toward Tarja on the far side of the depot.

  The starship would have set down at the edge of the tanks, possibly even in one of the warehouse lots. How they thought they could extract fuel while the Marines were present was beyond him. Perhaps they were desperate.

  A flash of light to Williams’ right caught his attention, and he saw beamfire lance out between a pair of towering fuel tanks. Weber drew his fireteam up short just in the nick of time.

  Williams called out.

  Salas called back.

  Williams said.

  Salas replied.

  Williams stayed low as he moved through the tall grass south of the fence line, moving as quickly as he dared toward the warehouses. As he got closer, he could see the bulk of the starship peeking out over the tanks.

  Just dropped down right on a parking lot, he thought. Torches must have made a mess of the ground.

  Williams slipped over a low concrete berm and into a lot filled with spools of sheet steel. He threaded through them until he could see the ship, a gantry lowered from its starboard side, and several figures clustered at its foot.

  His probes spread out, giving him a view of the lot where the ship stood. An enemy APC rested between the ship and the fuel depot, and a large warehouse was on the far side. A few cargo pods sat on the southwestern edge of the lot, and he could see two enemy soldiers taking up positions behind their cover.

  he reported on the command net.

  Commander Lauren replied.

  Williams replied.

  He pu
lled up his view of the fuel depot and the Marines in and around the area.

  he said to Fourth Platoon’s Lieutenant.

  Grenwald replied.

 

  Weber replied.

  Williams snorted in response before looked up at the troops making the exchange with whoever was on that ship. Nearby, a pair of soldiers hauled a refueling line from the tanks to the ship and began attaching it to a line coming off the vessel.

  Ballsy, he thought. Thinking they can gas up and take off again.

  He moved past several more of the spools and took up a position behind a stone block that marked the end of a row. He took aim with his weapon and picked his target—one of the soldiers at the base of the ramp—and fired.

  The shot hit the enemy and pinged off his armor. Williams shifted his aim toward one of the figures standing on the ramp and fired again. This target was unarmored and fell as the bullet tore through the silhouetted person’s knee. One of the people on the ramp dropped low and dragged the fallen enemy up into the ship, while the other two raced down, one yelling and waving his arms.

  Williams fired another shot and hit the arm-waver in the back of the helmet. The man dropped, but popped up a moment later, shaking his head.

  Better gear than the last batch we fought.

  By then, the enemy clustered around the base of the ship had determined the origin of the weapons fire, and shots struck the stone Williams crouched behind. He didn’t waste any time dropping to the ground and crawling to a new position.

  Weber reported, and the sound of Marine rifles filled the night air.

  Williams pulled himself up and looked around a spool of steel. He could see the first man who had been hit, still holding the package. He was crouched low, moving away from the ship, already halfway to the warehouse. Checking the combat net, the sergeant could see that Olsen’s team wasn’t anywhere close.

  Gonna be mano-a-mano, then, Williams thought.

  Without considering the consequences, Williams raced around the spool of steel and vaulted the wire fence separating the two lots. Shots rang out, and projectiles whistled around him, some striking his armor, but he didn’t slow as he sprinted toward his target.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the figures reemerge from the ship. She had long, red hair pulled back in a ponytail, though a wisp was free, blowing past her face. She raised a rocket launcher and aimed it right at him.

  “Fuck!” Williams swore.

  He waited until the woman fired before diving to the ground. His luck held for one more day; the rocket flew overhead before hitting one of the warehouses and exploded in a brilliant display.

  Williams’ prey had dropped as well, but the gunnery sergeant was up, and he closed the distance in moments, reaching the enemy soldier a moment later. It was then that he realized what the man held: an NSAI node. One that bore TSF emblems.

  Williams held his gun to the man’s chest. “Toss it aside; weapons, too.”

  The man glared at him from behind a semi-opaque visor. He seemed to consider putting up a fight, but Williams fired a shot next to his head.

  “Now!” he ordered.

  Weber reported.

  Williams said, glowering at the man and gesturing with his rifle.

  The soldier finally made up his mind and tossed the NSAI node aside, followed by a rifle and two sidearms.

  Williams carefully walked to the NSAI node and picked it up, the barrel of his rifle never wavering from the man’s head.

  “Thanks for the present,” he said through his armor’s speakers.

  The Disker—he was wearing Disker armor, at least—didn’t respond. Then a smile lit up the enemy’s face, and a warning on Williams’ HUD flashed, telling him why.

  Behind him, a pair of autoturrets had lowered from the ship’s hull.

  Perez warned, and Williams hit the dirt, holding the NSAI between himself and the ship. There was no way they’d shoot at the thing they worked so hard to get planetside.

  The ship’s turrets tracked him, but didn’t open fire. However, the distraction gave the enemy soldier an opportunity, and a moment later, he was on top of Williams.

  The man slammed an armored fist into the side of Williams’ head, the blow dropping the gunnery sergeant to the ground. Williams rolled onto his back and kicked at his attacker, catching him in the side and sending him sprawling. He grabbed the NSAI node once more, and raced toward Salas’s position, keeping the node between himself and the ship.

  The autoturrets spun up, and rounds struck the ground around his feet, but shots from Weber’s team struck the weapons, taking one out and jamming the other. A moment later, Williams ducked behind the APC next to fireteam one/two.

  Perez asked.

  Williams grunted. He was about to add something else, when the ship’s engines flared to life, and the craft began to lift off.

  Williams shouted.

  Flames poured across the lot, licking at the Marines’ heels as the vessel pulled into the air. The fueling line stretched and then snapped, whipping down onto the APC and crushing the roof. They made it to the dubious protection of the fuel tanks, and Williams turned and looked up at the vessel, which was still retracting its ramp.

  There, silhouetted in the ship’s airlock, was the redheaded woman. He pulled up his rifle and sighted on her, his armor’s cameras zooming in on her face.

  For a moment, he thought she looked familiar—then his HUD flashed a name: ‘Katelyn Evans’.

  Evans? Williams thought, and his HUD highlighted the connection, denoting her brother. Joseph Evans.

  He lowered his weapon and shot her a two-fingered salute as he held out his hand for the Marines at his side to hold their fire.

  Williams owed Joseph Evans his life. The man’s sister would get a bye this time….

  The ship shifted vector and sped across the city to the south; the roar of its engines and a sonic boom thundered in its wake.

  “Katelyn Evans…” Williams whispered as he shook his head. He looked down at the NSAI node he held in his left hand. “What the fuck are you mixed up in?”

  RETREAT

  STELLAR DATE: 3227474 / 06.04.4124 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Outskirts of Tarja, Teka Continent

  REGION: Venus, InnerSol, Sol Space Federation

  “Shit!” Katelyn exclaimed as rounds pinged off the armor of the SWSF soldier standing next to Rory.

  She saw her sister flinch and step back from the man while the one who’d taken possession of Aaron’s cube raced down the ramp.

  “C’mon!” Katelyn yelled at Rory, racing back to the hatch.

  Her head whipped around as a shot’s report reached her. She saw the spray of blood and bone at the same moment her sister cried out. Her eyes widened in horror as Rory fell, her bloodstained hand gripping her shattered knee.

  “Fucking bastards!” Katelyn raced to her sister, snagging her under her arms and dragging her back into the relative safety of the Damus.

  As she did, she saw Major Suat waving the soldiers back with a shouted, “Take cover, take cover!”

  Another shot rang out, and Katelyn saw the major’s helmeted head plow face-first into the tarmac. Her gaze snapped to the left, following the trajectory of the return fire.

  Her anger blazed, focusing with white-hot intent on the source of her sister’s agony. That Marine was going down if she had anything to say about it.

  She squeezed Rory’s s
houlder, reaching for the ship’s emergency medkit stashed just inside the hatch. She held the autoinjector packet in her teeth, stripping it open with one hand, while she pulled the jumpseat down with her other.

  She slammed the injector filled with mednano into her sister’s thigh, just above her ruined knee, then sprayed quik-seal over the injury to stop the blood loss.

  Rory was panting, her eyes wide with pain. She groaned as Katelyn levered her into the jumpseat and snapped the restraints around her.

  Katelyn bent to eye level and shot Rory a fierce look. “Hang on, sis. I’m getting us out of here.”

  The agony in the other woman’s expression caused her to clench her jaw. She stood, biting back the rage, channeling it instead into a murderous resolve.

  That Marine is so fucking dead.

  Katelyn spared a quick glance out the hatch, her eyes seeking the hulking Marine. She spied him peering out from behind a spool of steel cable.

  Sprinting across the exposed opening, she ran aft, slamming open the crate that held the cache of weapons that would have been offloaded, if the damn TSF Marines hadn’t shown up. She grabbed a case helpfully labeled ‘ABRDS (Rocket Launcher)’ and wrenched it free. Pivoting, she raced back to the hatch, feet pounding on the sole of the deck, though she could barely hear her own footsteps over the sound of weapons fire outside.

  Katelyn knelt, fingers flying as she released the latches on the case. Grabbing the rocket launcher, she placed her thumb on the weapon’s stock, her own nano triggering the unit’s biolock to accept her as its wielder.

  She rose, shouldering the launcher, and stepped back out onto the ramp. An icon hovered on her HUD, and she triggered it to active. Instantly, her overlay transformed into a tracking reticle, heat signatures flaring, indicating potential targets.

  Katelyn lowered the weapon, blinking the overlay away long enough for her to get a clear view of the battleground. Her eyes scanned the fuel depot, looking for her target.

  There!

  The Marine she sought had vaulted a wire fence separating two warehouse sections and was racing toward the SWSF soldier hauling Aaron and the node to safety.