Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) (25 page)

“I’m sorry ...” was all Toni could say.

“Keep your head down out there, OK?” She warned, flashing a bright smile at him before she walked away.

Not to worry, dear Hannah
, he thought as defeat overtook him,
I’ll never raise it again
.

Turning away, he slipped the Suit’s access-key into its slot.

945 kilometers south-east of Lograin, 03H43, 14th of June, 2771

Enveloped in darkness, Toni awoke to a persistent beeping sound. Groggy with sleep, he decided to ignore the sound in the hope that it would eventually go away. Instead it was replaced by a compelling whoop suspiciously similar to the alert one would hear inside an armored Suit.

And then he remembered.

Opening his eyes to find yet more darkness, he ordered his unit to activate. Eyelids still sticky with sleep, Toni finally gained audio and visual, and he blinked furiously at the written warning on his virtual foreground.

ALARM MODE ACTIVATED. SIGNAL SOURCE ASC P1 S4

Feeling a chill reach into his bones, Toni inquired over the comm.

“Brother One, here Unit Seven, over.”

There was no delay in the answer.

“Shut your ass, Seven, I’ll get to you in a mike.”

A particularly loud report suddenly made itself heard, jolting him fully awake more quickly than anything else could have. Moving his helm around, he tried to lay eyeballs on the source of the explosion, finding only that the remainder of his platoon, still facing inwards into their circle, were trying to do the exact same thing.

“Here LOGIS Prime. All units about-face and hunker down where you are.” It was the lieutenant, and he sounded pissed off.

Toni hurried to comply, whirling fast around his center of gravity and putting his kneepad to the ground a full half-second before the others. He gripped his rifle firmly and strained his ears, trying to pick up any sound.

All remained silent, except for the occasional nervous chirp of birds woken by the report. He wondered if perhaps they were hearing something he could not.

He increased audio sensitivity, gradually becoming aware of far-off popping sounds, followed by a second-long roar.

Somewhere far off, a unit of the ASC was firing a 30 millimeter cannon.

Toni tried to keep his breathing slow and steady as the seconds passed by, his effort sabotaged by a particularly loud concussion from the south-east. The unit to Toni’s left flinched at the sound, the Suit producing a shudder in the act. It was Hirum, and he had probably augmented his audio sensitivity as well. Toni dragged his ocular mouse to the communications panel on his virtual display and looked at his options there, finding that the lieutenant had kept his word. He activated a private comm. link between Units Seven and Fourteen.

“Yo, Fourteen, you believe this?”

“Toni?” A disbelieving voice sounded over the comm.

“Yours truly. No worries mate, Grimm’s with the secleader now. You’re with me from now on.”

“Really?” There was an almost childish note in Hirum’s voice.

“You OK with that?”

“Hell yeah, Toni, ‘course I am. Are we on an encrypted channel?”

“Encrypted, yeah. I, uh, took a look at the communications panel and realized your unit is on it. Maybe the pairs can parley privately now.”

“Oh, that’s great. That’s more than great, ‘cause I’m freaking out here ...”

“Listen, Fourteen. Don’t do that, OK? All we need to do is what we’re told. It’ll all work out, alright?”

A monotonous voice cut off their conversation.

“LOGIS, here LOGIS Prime, standby to receive operational updates from Wild Rose. This is the only time I’ll be saying this. From now on these messages will be keeping you posted on current events.”

There was general silence for a few moments.

“Uh, Fourteen, maybe we’d better keep the comms to the minimum, before we miss something like that ...”

“Roger that.”

A few moments later the Op-update appeared before Toni’s eyes.

» ASC 1ST PLATOON, 4TH SECTION, ON PERIMETER PATROL 5 KM EAST-SOUTH-EAST OF MAIN FORCE ENCOUNTERED UNKNOWN NUMBER OF LAND VEHICLES. FOUR SUCH VEHICLES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED, REMAINDER HAVE RETREATED DUE EAST. MAIN FORCE WILL ASSEMBLE PREDETERMINED BATTLE-LINE WITH VANGUARD 500 METERS DUE EAST FOR IMINENT CONTACT PROGRESSION.

He read the message twice over before banishing it to his mission log. Then it finally began to sink in that an ASC section had contacted and wasted four enemy vehicles, and the blood in his veins began to flow faster and hotter. The silence on the comm. was broken once again.

“LOGIS, here LOGIS Prime. Form up at the treeline facing east. Sec One in the center, Secs Two and Three on left and right flank respectively, over.”

All units immediately obeyed, their drivers somewhat less hesitant than they had been previously. Toni’s augmented hearing began to pick up a multitude of APUs coming to life all around the forest. The entire ASC was prepping for locomotion, their turbines working furiously to increase the gas pressure in their pressure vessels, their drivers anxious to join the comrades who had just blooded themselves.

The Mocas moved towards their starting points, their motions those of an undersea diver walking on the seabed. The Hammerheads, however, were fast and fluid as they occupied their positions, the members of LOGIS reaching their line about twenty seconds afterwards.

That was one of the very few things Toni knew about the Hammerhead; its closed system forewent air in favor of germane, mostly because the gas was far more fluid than ordinary air, thus making PAM inflation and deflation much quicker, thus improving pseudo-muscular performance, and thus increasing Suit agility and reflexes. He put the thought out of his mind since it depressed him, thinking instead on the opposite side of that particular coin. If the Hammerhead’s exterior pressure vessel were to be breached, it would only be a matter of time before complete locomotive failure took place, since the system wasn’t designed to work with ordinary air.

The wait went on and Toni was once again forced to consider Dunn’s advice at the shuttle platform. Trying to relax, he found himself unable to do so, and began to compulsively check out his operational status instead.

Discreetly he confirmed that his main weapon was safed and checked its serviceability. The sleek rifle’s slender, fluted barrel was mostly hidden inside its ample hand-guard. The hand-guard also concealed an automatic antipersonnel shotgun, the 15 millimeter cartridges it used having been designed to release 24 flechettes upon firing. The shotgun’s two hundred round helical magazine was presently empty, that particular caliber no longer being in production.

As ordered by Main Force Ops his sentry guns were at the moment deactivated, their employment dependant on his voicing a key-word while eyeing the appropriate icon on his display. Knowing his own tendency for forgetfulness, Toni recorded the key-word on a semi-transparent sticky note and dragged it below the icon. When activated, those guns would fire upon any nearby hostile forces and even upon incoming projectiles with 20 millimeter fragmentation grenades, supposedly creating a safe-zone around his unit.

The only problem was that sometimes the Moca’s CPU got a little confused about exactly who the enemy was, hence the Main Force order.

The SABERO rocket pods were preset in the same fashion, but he set them instead to launch by rifle trigger for faster engagement. There were two rockets per pod, allowing him to engage only four targets at best. He had been surprised to discover, however, that both pods together cost about as much as his Suit’s production cost, quite the thing to boost his confidence in their effectiveness.

“LOGIS, here LOGIS Prime, increase unit spacing to forty paces and standby for lomo.” The lieutenant sounded over the comm.

Toni didn’t budge an inch. Belatedly he realized he was at the square center of the progression line. The more rational part of his mind remembered that enemy contact could take place along any part of its extension, but still he would have much preferred to be in the flanks. Everything that he had ever learned regarding conventional combat tactics made clear that it was the center that usually took the most punishment, their traditional role being to fix the enemy while the flanks became mobile to do the greater part of the actual killing.

He consoled himself with the fact that there was an armored company half a kilometer ahead shielding their movement.

He had barely begun to calm down when the the electrifying order finally came through.

“Attention to all LOGIS units. Locomotion. I repeat, locomotion.”

Toni’s footpads began to move without being having told to, his ears catching the sound of gigantic footfalls as nineteen armored Suits crossed the tree line into the forest beyond.

*****

“All units pause and observe ...” Toni heard over the comm.

He halted his progression at once, the remainder of LOGIS doing the same. Toni suspected the ASC units ahead were also pausing to listen, and to release micro-UAVs into their surroundings for a quick look-see. He had already lost count of the number of times the order had been given, although by now the procedure had gained a familiar feel, like pausing beside the living room door to judge whether his father was inside before crossing its threshold.

Every once in a while he’d receive an update on his display or a verbal order from Dunn; he no longer had access to Lieutenant Templeton’s communications. The only other sources of input he still possessed were his own sensors and the annoying comrade who was whispering into his ear.

“Do you think they saw something? Toni?” Hirum breathed fearfully over the comm, causing Toni’s tense jaw to tighten a little more.

“Lay off the comm, Fourteen ...” he replied, trying hard to keep the irritation from his voice.

Hirum had been getting on his nerves since the imminent contact progression had begun more than an hour before, his comrade having taken to speculating on everything that might be happening up ahead. At first the noise over the comm. had been merely annoying, but Hirum’s constant thought verbalization was beginning to cross the boundary from annoying into deadly distraction.

As he willed his jaw to unclench once more, Toni noticed diffuse smoke at a spot forty paces ahead. He switched his spectrum sensitivity to infrared and picking up a small, flickering heat source in the distance, partially obscured by the plantation trees. He kept his eyes on the light and wondered at what it was.

“Hey. Hey! There’s something out there, man!” Hirum suddenly cried, causing Toni’s body to tense up instinctively.

He scanned his surroundings, seeing nothing outside or on his display worthy of attention. Gritting his teeth, he willed himself to calm down again, reminding himself that it was Hirum who’d given the alarm.

“You talking about the smoke up ahead or what?” Toni asked, keeping communications strictly to their private line.

“Huh? Yeah, that’s it – Wait, you think it’s where they wasted the Unmils?”

“Uh. Yeah, that’s probably it. I guess we’ve advanced five clicks, so that’ll put us right where the shit happened. Listen mate, check your panic over the comm, alright? I nearly went into labor here ...”

He mentally kicked himself for not having thought of it first. Of course that was where the smoke was coming from. He searched the ground ahead of him, noticing how badly it had been disturbed by the maneuvering Hammerheads, and how a tree seemed to have been violently shouldered into; it’s trunk was bent at an angle, a splintered limb resting on the ground beside it.

“You think something’s gonna happen soon, Toni?”

“You do realize it’s the third time you’ve asked me that, don’t you?!” Toni finally burst out. There was merciful silence for a moment before an apologetic Hirum answered.

“Sorry, mate ... It’s just that – how long do we have to keep on doing this? We can’t keep up the pace. This doesn’t make any sense ...”

“We’ll keep going like this for as long as we want to do the job and get home safe ... or maybe you’d prefer for us to walk into an am–”

“Here LOGIS Prime, from now on there will be no chatter over the comms. All orders will be given and received over your displays.”

As the lieutenant cut off Toni quickly checked his communications panel, finding that his ability to verbalize over the comm had been deactivated. A sudden thought stabbed at him, one that suggested that the lieutenant had been monitoring their conversation. A moment later he received a flash memo from the lieutenant.

» SORRY ABOUT THAT, ANY MORE FRICTION AND YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN TEMPTED TO FRAG THE KID. NOT CONVENIENT.

The memo confirmed his suspicion. He tried to send one in return but found he was blocked from doing so, resigning himself instead to trying to remember whether he’d said anything potentially compromising over the last hour. Eventually deciding he was safe from court-martial, he basked instead in the joy of having been unplugged from his partner, although at the expense of not being able to communicate with Dunn without activating the emergency mode.

He barely had time to think about what would justify Em-mode activation before another memo appeared on his display.

» RAISE CAT PRESSURE TO FULL AND PREP FOR LOCOMOTION.

Toni activated his APU, feeling his body shake in its HINT as the turbine resting below his Interface Cavity roared noisily into life. That was the other reason why they were halting their advance every few minutes.

Progressing with activated APUs was a little like hiding in a forest with a solar flare siren strapped to one’s back. It was worse for the Hammerheads than for the Mocas; the combat units had more efficient PAMs and greater interior tank capacity, but their armor and chassis was on the bulky side, and the gas it took to make them move forced the drivers to top up more frequently. Putting it simply, his Moca could move on air pressure alone for a full ten minutes at maximum consumption, while a Hammerhead could hardly manage more than six.