The Dogs of War

[Shroom Man 777]

Minor notes:
Bragulans are a bunch of short (they generally don't reach anywhere higher than 5'9), thick, humanoid-bear creatures. A bear version of the Kilrathi from the Wing Commander games.

Saquati are tall (can reach beyond 7 feet in height) Yeti/Sasquach creatures. The name is a combination of Sasquach and Yeti.

Agta are tall (around basketball player tall, not as tall as Saquati though), humanoid aliens. Their heads are small, bodies are rather muscled. No ears, beady dark eyes, no noses. Dark grey skin. What a hybrid of a traditional Grey alien and Shaquille O'Neil would be.


Soldiers of the Sovereignty:
The Dogs of War


ONE

April 16, 2567
2000 hours

Lieutenant John Baylor, squad leader of Marine squad Baylor, depressed the trigger of his combat auto-shotgun as an armored Bragulan Gamma-Sigma soldier in front of him fell down. He switched to his phased plasma assault rifle as his suit’s heads up display, or HUD, indicated that the fallen body was already loosing heat, confirming the kill. John smirked. Eat monomolecular edged flechettes, fucker.

Behind him, the rest of the squad was firing at the Gamma-Sigma soldiers (Sigma or Sigs, as the slang went) who were in turn returning fire from various positions down the road. Bright blue plasma bolts streaked through the dark night and, in return, were traded with emerald K-bolts as the streets were beginning to be littered with the mostly Bragulan corpses of the Gamma-Sigma. The Marines were winning this battle.

The air reeked with the stench of ozone and the acrid smell of K-bolt acid residue, but John was oblivious to that thanks to his suit’s respirators. He pointed his rifle at a charging Sig, aimed for the center mass (thankfully, the target was rather large, more than six feet in height, and therefore was probably an Agta or Saquati mercenary rather than your average Bragulan foot soldier) and fired before the HUD managed to get a lock on. The rifle sent a bolt of plasma towards the target at speeds so fast that it bore more resemblance to a beam than a bolt and the impact sent the large body spinning and careening to the ground. The superheated gas sizzled through the armor, combusting the flesh and organs underneath it, and then proceeded to melt a hole through the rear armoring. Bloody steam began billowing from the corpse’s hand-sized holes as the embers died down.

Straight down the road, more than twenty meters away, in front of some hastily dug-out fortifications and troop concentrations, a large flatbed truck loaded with soldiers and fixed armaments rolled into the view and immediately unleashed a torrent of fire upon the Marines. Lasers lanced through the air alongside high velocity plasma bolts and were followed by a cascade of slower K-bolts, .50 caliber incendiary rounds and rocket-propelled grenades.

“Down!” John yelled as he threw himself to the uneven and pocked sidewalk, fifty caliber rounds just narrowly missing his head, making deafening hissing noises as they passed right by and exploded on the wall beside him, causing eruptions that sprayed shattered concrete everywhere. To John’s left, a laser beam struck a Marine who got too slow and he dropped to the ground, unmoving. Shit. Then, to John’s relief, the Marine screamed an inhumane wail, and his hand moved to clutch his smoking shoulder. Whether it was just a wound or the arm was totally gone, John couldn’t tell, all he knew was that it wasn’t good and that the situation wasn’t getting any better. “Medic! Get your ass here!”

A rocket, two of them actually, screamed through the air and detonated on the ground ahead of John, momentary blinding him with the incandescent blast of binary plasma warheads. Must’ve been some sort of anti-armor round, John thought The night vision sensors quickly compensated for the bright flash and John was able to see again. “We’re gonna get pinned down!” he screamed frantically as red-hot shrapnel impotently peppered his visor. He got up to a crouch just as the medic arrived to tend to his wounded companion and to drag the stricken marine somewhere safer. John noted that his HUD indicated that his plasma gun’s power cell had 30 rounds left and took aim. The suit’s sensors saw through the dust and darkness and zoomed onto a far away Sigma trooper and the magnified night vision/thermal image revealed that it was carrying what looked like an RPG tube. There was a thermal bloom as the rocket-propelled grenade was launched, and reflexively, John fired his own weapon. The Sig fell down with two on the chest and one in the head (which was now a cauterized stump) and John dropped to the ground, just as the rocket swooshed overhead and detonated, showering everyone with fist sized chunks of concrete and shrapnel. John got back up and fired another burst, however, this time he wasn’t so accurate, as his shots hit precisely zilch. The rest of his troops were better shots though, because even in their pinned down position, John was able to count at least half a dozen Sigmas who were either killed or brutally maimed by their plasma fire.

“We need a LAW!” John hollered through the comm.-link as a nearby lamppost that came crashing down just a meter away from him after being cut into two by a laser. A LAW was the United Sovereignty Marine Corps’ (and the Army’s) answer to the inexpensive rocket-propelled grenades sported by damned near everyone else. It stood for Light Anti-Armor Weapon, a weapon that was basically a tube with a rocket in it. It had a rudimentary targeting system linked to the user’s HUD and helmet sensors, though nothing as fancy as a Tube-launched Homing or Radio-guided (THOR) missile with its binary plasma warheads. And it packed enough of a punch to knock down or severely damage a lightly armored vehicle, like scout vehicles and light tanks or in their case, a jury-rigged battle truck armed to the teeth with machineguns, K-bolters, lasers and plasma cannons.

Then, all of a sudden, what John judged to be a Bragulan from its short height and wide girth, jumped out of the corner of the sidewalk and brought itself directly in front of the squad, and John in particular, catching him in surprise. “Shit!” John hissed as he got over the surprise and suspense of the moment and used his rifle to vaporize the contents of the Brag’s chest cavity before it could riddle him with K-bolts. The Brag’s K-bolter carbine cluttered to his feet, and he automatically took its magazine, unconscious that the clip’s content, which were solid slugs coated in a compound that would turn into a glowing highly caustic semi-liquid substance upon exiting the weapon, was incompatible with his own plasma rifle.

Despite the deafening noise of explosions, the whine of K-bolts and fifty caliber rounds and the thunderclap-like noise of plasma rifles, John could somehow hear hurried footsteps coming towards him. He glanced to his rear to see a fellow Marine crouch/running towards him while desperately trying to dodge enemy weapons fire.

“Gallagher, what is it?” John barked, but stopped himself as he saw the man pull out a large tube-shaped thing that was attached to his backpack. John felt a somewhat overwhelming sense of relief as Gallagher placed the LAW on his shoulder and stopped to take aim of the battle truck, but the relief was quickly washed away, to be replaced by frustration and annoyance as Gallagher tripped on his own shoes and fell helmet-first to the floor. How a well-trained Marine, Earth’s finest, one of the few, the proud and the capable of eating rocks and defecating nitroglycerine could trip on his own foot while attempting to aim a bazooka was completely beyond John.

The fall did not injure Gallagher in any way, as he quickly got back to his feet, only to drop face first to the floor again in order to avoid an oncoming rocket. The screaming warhead exploded right beside Gallagher, on the wall of what used to be some sort of commissary and the area was immediately blanketed by a cloud of thick grey dust.

We’re getting pinned down and killed while this little git is fooling around. Goddamnit! John thought as he combed the debris and searched for the LAW. If Gallagher was blown to smithereens, then too bad, the LAW was what was most important, the LAW was what was going to save them, not some Marine who couldn’t balance himself to save his life. “Goddamnit! Goddamnit! Where is it?!” John hissed in frustration as a round or two ricocheted off his power suit. Then he felt something. Aha. But to his disappointment, it wasn’t a rocket launcher, it was a more...round, and it was moving. What the? It was Gallagher’s head, or helmet rather.

“El-Tee,” Gallagher groaned feebly, feeling the stab of the RPG’s deliberately sharpened fragments on several of his joints. “I’m hit…”

“Don’t worry, just give me the rocket. Where’s the rocket?”

“Its over there...”

“Thanks. Medic!” John could feel his cry being drowned out by the hammering noise of K-bolts and machinegun rounds impacting concrete and decided to scream louder. “Medic! Goddamnit!” He saw the medic run towards their position, only to be tagged in the leg by emerald K-bolts. The corpsman fell to the ground, clutching his leg in pain and filling the comm.-link with a series of hoarse and agonizing screams. K-bolt acid was potent enough to burn through even their suits’ sandwich of multiple armor types, so John knew that it would burn like hell. Aside from that, he also had several personal experiences to confirm that little tidbit of knowledge. “Shit!”

Though John would never admit it to himself, he knew that the Sigs had the Marines precisely where they wanted them, pinned down in an area that provided minimal cover and was easily accessible to reinforcements. John cursed the Sky Eye reconnaissance drones. He would be damned if he let himself and his squad end up as some statistic on some casualty count on some news report on some holoscreen back home. This operation was going without a hitch, and to be one of the extremely few who would come back home in a body bag would be terribly humiliating. Sure, he’d die a hero and though being some sort of hero was very desirable, dying wasn’t. Sure, John had no relatives that he knew of and lived several hundred lightyears away from his parents and sibling/s (at the moment he could not remember any of his siblings, and neither did he give a shit) and whatever family he had, but he was not too keen on dying, even if it was with his (only) friends. He knew he had to get that LAW. Before another jury-rigged truck crewed by smelly un-bathed bears and yetis and with a pair of guns and a laser cannon duct taped to it rolled down the street to finish them all off. Then I guess I should stop thinking to myself and grab the damned rocket launcher, you douche.

And John did just that.

Then he thumbed his rifle’s fire selector to full-auto and sprayed the enemy formations and the battle truck with plasma. His HUD counted that he took down at least three Sigmas, two on the ground and one on the truck, and lavished at the thought that the suit’s CPU always chose to display the low-end kill-counts (as to not inflate the user’s ego, a dangerous thing to do). Then the rifle began to beep. Shit, out of ammo. And John dropped it to the pavement.

“Cover me! Gore, use your fucking grenade gun!” the twelve man squad had one armed with a semi-automatic grenade launcher, two armed with light plasma machineguns, one armed with a precision rifle, and the rest armed with plasma rifles, most of which had under slung grenade launchers. Whatever was left of Baylor squad, John was sure that they would make one helluva suppressive line of fire.

John extended the telescopic rear end of the LAW and armed the weapon. It came alive with a confirmatory beeping sound. “On three. One-two-three!” The Marines released a firestorm of plasma and grenades. Though most of the shots were inaccurate, they served their purpose, to panic the enemy soldiers and to force them into cover. Four Sigs, caught with their pants down in the concentrated barrage, were killed instantaneously. Their bodies charred beyond recognition by the crossfire of plasma and their remains further desecrated by grenades. The battle truck itself was subjected to abuse; although many of its occupants were cut down by plasma bolts, most of the damage to both crew and vehicle were from a direct hit with not one, but two grenades. Whereas any normal vehicle would have been transformed into burning wreckage, the battle truck remained relatively unscathed because of its jury-rigged armoring. However, the grenades did their job as no one in the vehicle’s vicinity was spared from the monomolecular edged fragments and shrapnel of the 40mm warheads.

More plasma and grenades saturated the area, thus suppressing any attempt at return fire. As the cover fire continued, John stood tall and aimed the LAW he held on his shoulders. Through the weapon’s scope and his suit’s own sensors, the rocket launcher achieved a ‘lock-on’ and the targeting reticule glowed red. John squeezed the trigger and ducked as the missile cleared the tube and went its way. The cover fire ceased and everybody watched the rocket streak through the air as straight as an arrow, leaving a thick trail of hot gas in its wake. It struck the battle truck right on the armor plate that protected the vehicle’s fuel tank and exploded. The directed eruption tore through the metal and the truck’s fuel and all the ordinance it carried detonated in a brilliant magenta fireball. The blast violently lifted the truck up into the air like some kind of cheap plastic toy and sent bits and pieces of it everywhere within a two hundred meter radius. The Marines even felt the shockwave, and though John’s night vision was temporarily blinded by the blast’s glare, he was fairly certain that a few Sigma soldiers also went flying with the truck itself. John couldn’t help but suppress a triumphant smile.

“C’mon Marines, let’s move out. Terminate whatever’s left of them. We’re going to finish our job.”


TWO

John’s Journal

April 16, 2567
1300 hours

Diary,

A few hours from now, the boys and I are going to have a little outing in the Sigma world of Nyrbosk, a former Bragulan prison colony in Wild Space, beyond the Sovereignty’s Outer Rim and near the Bragulan Star Empire. We’re supposed to capture several key Gamma-Sigma facilities that hold highly valuable materials of some kind, WMDs from the look of things. Currently, the Iron Fist is in hyperspace en route to the planet. I guess Captain Armstrong wants to go in slow; give the system a detailed scan while in hyperspace so he won’t go in half-cocked. Anyway, this is my first entry in this damned book. I was rummaging through my locker a few hours ago, looking for any spare OrGazmo (the supply ran out, even though we had enough to last us up to a year!), and guess what I found? Yes, that’s right. I found the diary that Mr. Jonesy, my councilor back in rehab, gave me the day before I shipped out all those years ago. I wonder how it got here…

Anyway, this mission is going to be the second friendly outing of Baylor squad, that’s right, my second run as a squad leader. It’s been rather nerve wracking, ever since El-Tee Chen got a nasty case of pancreatitis and I got assigned to be the squad leader. I’ve been thinking that I’m not really cut out for this, giving orders and all that. But somehow I’ve managed to end up okay the first time, none of my men got killed or hurt in any serious way, and I think I’m doing quite okay. But there’s that nagging feeling of insecurity and sometimes it just gets the better of me. See, when you’re in charge, leading your men, you’re the one they depend on, and when one of them bites the dust, you can’t help but feel responsible, even when it was entirely not your fault. That hasn’t happened to me yet, and I hope to hell that it never will, but the thought it is really unsettling. I guess this is all the norm, since I’m just new as a CO and everybody has doubts (they would be insane if they didn’t, and I wouldn’t want my CO to be some sort of sociopath), so I guess its okay. At least I hope it’ll be okay. I shouldn’t whine that much, I probably should suck it in, be a man and all that. Anyway, needless to say, I’m nervous about this upcoming mission. They say Nyrbosk is the Wild West. No matter, bears can’t shoot for shit.

-John

PS:

I keep thinking about the choices that Mr. Jonesy gave me back ‘home’. There were quite a lot of them, actually. I could have (and did) joined the Armed Forces, or become some sort of colonist fixing some sort of atmospheric processor in some sort of backwater barely habitable colony world, or be a councilor, help other people get back to their lives. In retrospect, it seems like being a councilor was the noblest choice, the choice where you actually helped people instead of just blowing things up. But it’s not like I’m not proud of the Corps; in fact, it’s the exact opposite, really.

Semper Fi


April 16, 2567
2400 hours

Nyrbosk was a scarred world. Prior to its terraforming, its surface was bombarded by meteor shower after meteor shower. Yet somehow, for some as of yet unknown reason, the Bragulans were able to convince themselves to set up shop here. They terraformed the world, changed its barely hospitable surface into something that was in fact habitable, and then hollowed out the space rocks that threatened to bombard the planet, converting them into orbital space stations. Some of these stations had an anti-asteroid defense system, the same defense system that - up to a few hours ago - would have been a nuisance for the three Vindicator-class carriers and two Assailant-class destroyers that comprised the USMC taskforce. Now, parts of this so-called defense system were raining down into Nyrbosk’s atmosphere.

Today, Nyrbosk was still a scarred world. However, the scars left by prehistoric meteor impacts were quickly put to use by the Bragulan settlers who colonized the world some centuries ago. The craters had mining facilities, cities, storage depots, and prisons, star ports, military training areas, and more built on them. Recently the Gamma-Sigma militia occupied the world, and the crater facilities were used to support their anti-Imperial operations and logistics train. And, even more recently, also for their violent operations against nations which were either neutral or even belligerent to the Bragulan Star Empire, nations such as the United Sovereignty of Earth, which happened to be one of the organization’s major backers until several decades ago.

Three crater facilities were of particular interest to the Marine force that was currently engaged with the planet’s contingent of Sigma forces. These three facilities were suspected of holding an artifact of great value. The powers-that-be knew there was something important on the planet, based on intelligence from the Central Earth Intelligence Department’s many tentacles, they narrowed it down to the three facilities, and now it was up to the troops to find which one of them actually had the artifact.

Site C had been cleared. The massive underground complex in the epicenter of a crater turned out to be a massive underground complex that was designed to be a prison. The Iron Fist, flagship of the taskforce, told the forces charged with storming Site C that it wasn’t what they were looking for, and ordered them to divide into two and reinforce the forces in Sites A and B. On the way, Baylor squad (along with all other relevant units) received word that Site A had nothing in it as well and was then ordered to go assist those either already at or en route to Site B. Then, on the way to Site B, Baylor squad received yet another order to return to Site A, to pull out a squad that somehow had gotten lost during the ‘evacuation’ and then got pinned down by several heavily armed Sigma detachments.

“How the hell does someone not receive a priority order to withdraw and redeploy, huh?” John asked in his comm.-link as he exited the confines of a dilapidated building and ran across the dark unlit road and then slid down into a ditch, where half of what remained of his squad was positioned at. Right behind him, four other Marines left the building and sneaked through the streets, confident that they were adequately covered by their teammates in the ditch and by the dark moonless night. Perfectly mimicking their lieutenant, they slid onto the ditch and leaned on the walls for cover, weapons at the ready.

“Maybe they got confused? Or they got attacked when they were withdrawing? Maybe the Sigs have some sort of jamming device?” Sergeant Joshua Cruise replied wisely, assessing all the possibilities. John sometimes wondered why he, of all people, was the one given the burden of being the squad leader instead of someone like Joshua.

“Then their CO’s a moron, and then he wouldn’t be in the Corps in the first place. And they wouldn’t have been isolated and vulnerable to attack if they followed the withdrawal in the first place!” John said after checking his rifle and pondering the questions. He then leaned on one of the ditch’s walls and exposed only a small portion of his head and the business end of his rifle to the outside as his eyes and the suit’s sensors each began scanning the area. “Besides, the Gamma-Sigma can’t afford small-scale jammers, I mean, if there was, then wouldn’t we know ‘bout it? Our sensors would have picked it up somehow. And they can’t even afford proper APCs, much less undetectable short range ECM.”

“Maybe the Operators fucked up?”

“When was the last time that happened? Those AI are smart, dammit.”

“They could’ve been pinned down before the withdrawal,” a private, Aaron Mollohan, interjected. He was new. Each squad was supposed to have twelve men, when El-tee Chen was sent home, only eleven were left. Aaron was brought in to fill the gap.

“Then they should’ve radioed for backup during the withdrawal, when there were other units near them. We came here because there was nobody else left to help them. If they waited that long before calling for backup, then that brings me to my first point!”

“Which was…?”

“That their CO is a moron.” John mumbled as his HUD showed him that the scan had turned up nothing. He ceased the conversation, signaling the squad that it was back to business, and began scanning the area around them with his eyes for the nth time. While they were talking and the sensors were scanning, he was also looking around, but he was a bit of an obsessive compulsive and had to make sure. It was foolhardy to rely on the sensor suite and the HUD alone, as they were merely meant to assist. If they were perfect, then Baylor would’ve been replaced with a battle droid of some sort. After a full minute of silence, John eased up and spoke. “Looks clear.”

“Yeah, certainly does. We never really met many Sigs after blowing up that truck,” Joshua muttered.

“They didn’t bother. Had more important things to defend,” John replied. “Alright, let’s get moving.”


Somewhere in the crater that held Site A, far from the epicenter, were several buildings and a wide road that separated them from another batch of ruined buildings. Hiding in the still-standing buildings was the trapped Marine squad, and spread out on the ruins and around the buildings was a heavily armed Gamma-Sigma unit. From the vantage point of the crater’s rim, where Baylor squad was currently surveying the situation, one could see the brilliant exchange of K-bolts and Plasma and the sudden eruptions of detonating rockets. There was a tiny flash of green. Through the HUD’s image magnification, John could see that the flash was actually a thick stream of green light.

“Nuclear Flamers,” John muttered with a hint of awe. Nuclear Flamers were weapons exclusive to the Bragulan Star Empire and were some of the deadliest things that a non-augmented person could carry. Deadly to both the target and the user, that was. Nuclear Flamers were much like flamethrowers. A massive backpack filled with volatile fuel, a hose carrying the fuel to the actual weapon, and the weapon that discharged death. The difference was that the Nuclear Flamer did not spew fire, but highly irradiated matter, substances hot enough and radioactive enough to achieve even worse effects than traditional flamethrowers, effects that were on par with even plasma weaponry. They could burn through armor and eat flesh away; the nuclear fire could even kill you without touching you. The blast of the concentrated cocktail of irradiated matter, toxic waste and acid could overwhelm the NBC-protection systems of most power suits, thus the handlers had to wear specialized lead armor, and even then, most handlers die within years due to cancer, although to the Bragulan Star Empire that was merely a slight inconvenience. However, the Flamers were short ranged weapons, incapable of firing more than twenty five meters, and that should ensure the trapped Marines some measure of protection.

“So, how are we going to break the party?” Joshua asked.

“They’re all spread out. And there’s a ditch that goes behind the closest enemy formation. We split into groups of four and go ninja on them, one enemy position per group. Three bunches of dead Sigs. Once we’re done, Eric pops the man manning the Flamer, make the thing melt down. Since the Flamer is at the opposite side of the ditch, that’ll distract the concentration of Sigmas at the middle and we frag them. Questions?”

“What’ll we use?” Aaron asked.

“Handguns. Rapiers. Piano wire. Hands.” Their service pistols were more like fifteen-inch hand cannons. The clips were loaded in a slot front of the grip, like a submachine gun, as the bullets too large for a clip that could slide into the handle. It had a limited built-in sound suppression, laser targeting system that could be linked into the HUD, and High Explosive Armor Piercing (HEAP) bullets as powerful as those used on rifles, if it weren’t for the power suits’ ability to enhance the user’s strength, it would’ve been impossible for a human to shoot the thing. The rapiers were shock sticks, staves, they could be strapped on a utility belt, but when activated, their maximum length was five feet. At the business end of the shaft was an extremely sharp spearhead, and every inch of steel beyond the handle was capable of delivering thousands of volts of electricity, enough to knock down a large animal. Although light in weight, rapiers were by no means flimsy; they could bludgeon people to death. Piano wire was the nickname of a silksteel razor wire that could be used to strangle even those wearing light battle armor. It was amazing what could be packed into a Marine’s utility belt or back pack. What were more amazing were the suits’ fiber mechanical muscles that could allow them to break necks with frightening ease. John grinned under his helmet. “They won’t stand a chance.”

[Crazedwraith]

Pretty nice. But plot is desirable as action.

[Crazedwraith]

Also where foes this relate to the hammer falls?

Prequel? Sequel? Replacement?

[Panzer Grenadier]

That pretty good. Was that it though, or is it just the first part of a story?

[Shroom Man 777]

Pretty nice. But plot is desirable as action.

We'll get to that later, though it doesn't have much of a plot. Its just a story about a 'real' mission, and since 'real life' doesn't have much of a plot...meh. Kinda like Black Hawk Down.

Its the replacement of the old SOTSfics.

@ Panzer: More coming.

[darthdavid]

'twas good, but it seemed to, i don't know, stick or something at times. But it got better as you went along so hopefully with in a chapter or two you'll have it flowing smoothly.

[Peregrin Toker]

Agta are tall (around basketball player tall, not as tall as Saquati though), humanoid aliens. Their heads are small, bodies are rather muscled. No ears, beady dark eyes, no noses. Dark grey skin. What a hybrid of a traditional Grey alien and Shaquille O'Neil would be.

I thought we agreed over the MSN that the Agta looked more like this guy:


On the main story, I think that it's more focused and less confusing than previous incarnations of the story of Lt. John Baylor. I also like it that you've fleshed out the character of Sgt. Joshua Cruise. (in previous versions he was too much in the background)

He seems a bit insecure for an officer, though, and shouldn't a lieutenant be commanding a platoon (group of 3-5 squads) rather than a single squad?

[Shroom Man 777]

'twas good, but it seemed to, i don't know, stick or something at times. But it got better as you went along so hopefully with in a chapter or two you'll have it flowing smoothly.

Hm? Stick? What do you mean?

See, like John Baylor, I'm a bit of an insecure person. And I'm slightly obsessive compulsive. So I need to know so I can work things out.

@ Peregrine:
Hrmmm...sure, the Agta does look something like that. But I never said I'd be keeping the ears

Don't ask questions or comment about things I haven't even posted yet! Shhhhhh.....

And the rankings are different five hundred years from now :p

[darthdavid]

'twas good, but it seemed to, i don't know, stick or something at times. But it got better as you went along so hopefully with in a chapter or two you'll have it flowing smoothly.

Hm? Stick? What do you mean?

It seemed to move a little slow, but I think that was just you working out bugs in your writing style as you warmed up...

[Shroom Man 777]

New chapter! Editted the first post!

[Crazedwraith]

Nice, I liked the diary entry. Though shouldn't a dairy he was given years ago be out of date?

Liked the orgasmo reference and shocked we didn't get one in Chapt One (or did i just miss it?)

[Shroom Man 777]

Its just all blank pages. Has a fancy cover, a lock, nice looking lines, even purposefully 'ancient' looking pages, but without dates. Or it could be a digital diary.

Hmmm...yeah, no OrGazmo reference in ONE. But it'd be kooky to have everyone talking about OrGazmo in every chapter. But rest assured, whatever world man treads, he will have his trusty OrGazmo by his side.

[darthdavid]

You seem to have got your pacing right now. Good reading.

[Shroom Man 777]

The third chapter is coming.

[Shroom Man 777]

THREE

April 16, 2567
2420 hours

Sergeant Mike Palmer fell to the ground as a laser beam burned a red-hot hole through the wall. Outside the building where he was in, were more than two dozen Sigma troopers armed with everything from handguns to anti-material laser cannons. They were rag-tag, not very professional, but still as dangerous as hell. The fact that six marines belonging to Force Recon - an elite branch of the Corps - were taking refuge inside a decayed building was a testament to that.

“Buddha!” cried Mike, his eyes went from the molten hole on the wall to the puddle of melted concrete to the hole the laser burned on the other wall; the one he was now leaning on. The marines were on their way out of the heart of Sigma territory after successfully marking fifteen high priority targets for air and orbital strikes when, somehow, they were intercepted by the Gamma-Sigma. It was twenty-four against six, not very good odds even for the best, especially when they weren’t prepared for a heavy engagement. It was moments like these that made Mike wish that he had accepted the offer to join 2nd Force, Force Recon’s spec-ops outfit that genetically enhanced recruits into superhuman soldiers, instead of staying in the 1st, which was specialized in deep recon (although also spec-ops capable) and comprised of un-augmented humans. “DeVasher, where’s backup?”

“Operators say they’re coming, but they haven’t radioed us yet!” DeVasher yelled, conveying his agitation for their would-be rescuers despite having his voice nearly drowned out by the cocktail of gunshot noise and explosions. He returned fire, though Mike couldn’t actually see him through the dust and smoke, the thunderclap of a discharging plasma rifle and the bright beam-like bolts of plasma were unmistakable.

Mike scrambled through the rubble, going as far away from the laser-hole as possible, wary of the inevitable counterattack. Just in time, as a swarm of RPGs entered through the hole and detonated in the corridor, saturating the area with multiple explosions. “Shit!” unfazed, he slammed the butt of his rifle against a miraculously undamaged window. The unarmored glass shattered and Mike stuck his rifle out, aimed, and fired off a grenade. He ducked in, not caring to see whether the resulting explosion would take anyone out, more concerned with getting out of the way of the K-bolts and laser rifles that perforated the building’s walls, making them look like Swiss cheese.

“We’re not gonna last any longer!” DeVasher hollered as another salvo of RPGs detonated within the corridor.

“Tell that to Arius and Tobias!” Mike snapped back as he broke another window and fired at the Sigmas surrounding their position. This time, he had ditched his exhausted plasma rifle and was using a precision rifle, taken from Arius, one of their two incapacitated teammates. He took careful aim and popped a Sigma’s head off with a High-Explosive Armor-Piercing railgun round; he moved to a second target and planted two gaping holes on his chest. A third one had his arm blown off. Then there was a fourth and a fifth, but then Mike’s position was eventually found out and he was forced to scramble to the ground for the nth time as laser cannons pulverized the wall.

“Dev, I need more ammo!” someone shouted to his far right, near DeVasher’s position. It was Dieter.

“Here, it’s my last one!” DeVasher tossed a magazine at Dieter’s general location. The dense plasma fuel cell made a loud noise upon hitting the ground.

“Thanks-” Dieter was interrupted as a K-bolt went into chest plate. The recoil sent him falling backwards to the floor like a rag doll.

“Holy shit! Dieter!” DeVasher screamed. He dropped his rifle and ran towards the fallen marine. “Mike, Dieter’s been hit!”

“Is he alright?!”

“I don’t know, the armor might’ve stopped it. Oh god, there’s blood!”

“No!”




Baylor Squad was halfway across the ditch, just a few more hundred meters away from the nearest Gamma-Sigma soldier. While the highest Sigma troop concentration was located furthest away from B-squad; the nearest ones only had a handful of troops. John Baylor thought it was extremely convenient, since the highly volatile Nuclear Flamer was found at the other side of the Sigma formation. The plan was that they, Baylor squad, would split into three groups of around four men each and take out the nearest groups of Sigs. The squad’s sniper would then take out the Nuclear Flamer from far away; causing a pyrotechnic meltdown that would take out many, if not most, of the Sigs and distract the remaining ones. Then the squad would take out the survivors in a crossfire of plasmatic hell. It was perfect. Maybe I was right for the job, John thought. Then something hit him.

“Oh shit!”

“What is it, John?” Joshua asked, cocking his helmeted head and perhaps raising an eyebrow. John wasn’t sure with the last part, visors and respirators made it hard to notice such things.

“I forgot to radio the squad! The guys we’re supposed to rescue.”

“I’ll get right to it, then,”

“Yeah…go,” John was feeling like an idiot. There were lives at stake and he knew he could not afford to screw up, but that was just what he did. Contemplatively, he gazed around himself as he leaned on the ditch’s three-meter high walls. On the concrete ground was an assorted mixture of miscellaneous items, things ranging from the skeletons of Bragulan cars (which his men were using as cover) to carts of some sort to garbage. The ground was bone dry, dusty, even though the ditch was supposed to be a canal. He checked his chronometer, it was nearly half past midnight, and pressed a button on his wrist computer, inhaling deeply as performance-enhancing drugs entered his system. Just as his dulling senses sharpened once more, he heard the telltale sounds of RPGs detonating from a distance. Silent night indeed. John decided to ignore the sounds as his hand moved to his utility belt, where his rapier was clipped. He held onto its cylindrical form and recalled his days back in Boot Camp, where they were trained in martial arts. Sure, many saw it as unnecessary, but it taught them some nifty skills, such as using a rapier. While the rapiers were also viewed as unnecessary and were not standard Marine equipment in the field, many chose to carry them, even though they were almost always never used. Most marines who carried rapiers with them thought that the bladed staff-baton-stun prod hybrids were cool, and decided that their added weight really didn’t matter, especially when one was wearing strength-augmenting powered armor-

“I’ve got them on the horn. What’ll I tell them?” Joshua said, breaking the silence that came after John’s outbreak, which broke the previous silence that came with the squad’s entry into the area surrounding Site A.

“Patch me to them,” John was the one who forgot to radio them, so he decided that he should be the one talking to them instead of his second in command. The HUD indicated that he was now talking to the commanding officer of the squad, Sergeant Mike Palmer. “Sergeant Palmer, Lieutenant Baylor here, are you guys-”

“We’ve got two men injured, one KIA, what the fuck is taking you guys so long?!” the man on the other side was blunt and clearly irritated. John couldn’t blame him. “We’re surrounded, we’re outnumbered. There’s only two of us still able to stand, and your squad is taking its sweet time getting here! Of course we aren’t okay!”

“Look, firstly, you were the ones who didn’t follow clear orders to withdraw from the area or got pinned down before the withdrawal and didn’t bother to call for reinforcements after like two hours after it!” the guy was understandably pissed, but John didn’t take kindly to verbal abuse. “So don’t you tell me anything about taking my sweet time. It’s your own fucking fault that you didn’t follow orders, or took your sweet fuckin’ time to call for backup!”

“What the hell are you talking about? What withdrawal?! We’re Force Recon, we went marking targets for airstrikes the entire day, we got no fucking order to withdraw. We were just leaving when we got ambushed. Get a clue, prick. Now are you going to help us get out of here or not?”

John couldn’t help but utter a clearly audible ‘oh’. He thought that it didn’t excuse the guy’s rude introduction, but that didn’t matter now, neither did arguing, especially when lives were at stake and any more screw-ups were unaffordable. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do.”




“Good plan. Okay. And hurry up, Baylor. Yeah. Over and out,” Mike killed the comm.-link and took his precision rifle. The ammo-counter indicated that he had some fifty rounds left in the rifle’s drum magazine. Although the railgun’s batteries were still good for another day (not considering that every magazine had a tiny battery that would recharge the rifle), they would still be useless once the damn thing ran out of bullets. Then he would have to choose between his pistol and a combat auto-shotgun, both best used for close quarters combat, something this firefight was most definitely not.

Without warning, a bright white light fell on his position, which was behind a wall that was blown open ten minutes ago. He yelped as the multi-spectrum light blinded his eyes and his suit’s sensors. Then a large armored body tackled him to the battered floor, just in time to save him from a high explosive shell coming from a recoilless gun. The shell exploded, covering both Mike and his savior in dust and shrapnel.

“Alright Mike?” DeVasher inquired.

“Uh…” Mike grunted. He wanted some headache pills.

“Here’s your gun,” Devasher handed him his precision rifle, then he crawled back to his position, a few meters right of Mike’s own spot.

Mike got up to a crouch and began inspected his rifle, then he tossed it away. “Useless,” a shard of sharpened steel had imbedded itself in one of the railgun’s magnetic rails, rendering it useless. “Buddha,” he groaned as he pulled out his pistol, the Corps’ standard P-113 ‘Enforcer’ hand cannon, momentarily forgetting his auto-shotgun. “Where are those guys?”




Boran shouldered a disposable rocket tube and fired. The RPG streaked through the night air like a rocket powered comet and detonated within the mauled building what was being used as a refuge by several of the hated Sovereignty’s finest soldiers. The jury-rigged thermite explosive illuminated the structure’s interior, probably blinding its soon-to-be-evicted occupants.

“Hiding like rodents,” Boran mumbled. “How the mighty have fallen.” He dropped the rocket tube and took up his K-bolter carbine. He checked the ammo counter to find his rifle’s drum magazine full, he gripped the weapon’s handle and foregrip and resumed his job, which was to guard his fire team’s position. There were five of them. Two were manning dual interlinked .50 caliber machine guns, the other three, which included Boran, were guards who were tasked with protecting the gunners. Standard protocol.

Things were getting dull, sure, the humans were raiding the planet, but as far as his mission went, Boran was too bored to care. His only reprieve was firing one of their innumerable rockets at the humans. Sure, picking up heavy weaponry and firing it at nobody’s command was undisciplined, but the Gamma-Sigma was never really a tightly run ship, that and Boran was just a few months short of his fourteenth birthday, he was only a boy. A momma’s boy at that. “What am I doing he-”

There was a sound.

Coming from near the ditch behind him.

“I should see what it is. Much better than staying here and boring myself to death,” Boran mumbled to himself. He made an about face and headed to the ditch. Upon seeing nothing in the area, he decided to go to the ledge and check what was down there, expecting to find nothing. Instead, he found the business end of a P-113 ‘Enforcer’ pointed at his face. Before he could react, the weapon fired. There was a microsecond of pain, and then blackness.




John holstered his pistol as the lifeless, faceless body of the Sigma soldier fell down into the ditch with a loud thud. It was a ten foot drop, approximately, but no matter, the machinegun that was firing nearby would muffle any noise that a handgun or a falling corpse would make.

“He’s down and out,” he mumbled into his comm.-link. “Are we boned yet?”

“No. The other two didn’t even notice him go away. The gunners are still busy shooting at Palmer’s position,” Eric Ryan, the squad’s sniper, replied with perfect calm. He was in a vantage point, somewhere that wasn’t a ditch, which give him a bird’s eye view on everything. He was the squad’s eyes. “You best get going now, I still have to check on the others and find the Flamer.”

“Okay. Out,” John cut the link and detached his rapier. “Alright, Aaron, you take out the two manning the fifties. But only after Jed and I kill the other two, got that?” In contrast with the larger group of Sigs they were facing, there were only three of them in the fire team; this was due to some needing medevacs and Eric giving sniper cover.

“Yeah,” the newbie replied, eagerly gripping his Enforcer.

“Great, let’s move.”

The team moved like a well-oiled machine, emerging from the deep dark ditch and creeping up behind the Sigs soundlessly. John sneaked up to the nearest one and struck from behind, savagely putting his left hand over the squat Bragulan’s mouth, dislocating the jaw in the process, and placing the other hand with the rapier against its back. He then pressed a button and the half-meter long shaft extended to its full length of five feet. There was a grunt of pain and the sickening sound of bone giving way to cold steel as the staff’s pointed edge went through the spine and punched straight through the sternum, with broken ribs - which were now also protruding from the flesh - accompanying it. The corpse began convulsing mildly as electricity flowed from the rapier and into it. As he dumped the dead Bragulan, John saw his men make short work of the others. The other Sig tasked with guarding the gunners fell to the ground after having his throat sliced open by Jed. Immediately following this, the couple operating the fifty caliber guns had the back of their heads blown wide open courtesy of Aaron and his pistol.

“Are we all okay?” someone asked through the comm.-link. It was Joshua. His fire team had most of the men, so it was no wonder that he finished first.

John looked around, surveying the corpses that surrounded his fire team. “Peachy.”

[Crazedwraith]

sweet. Nice conversation between the two squads.

[Shroom Man 777]

http://www.winter-wish.com/omniversezer ... =1108#1108 <--- information on the Gamma-Sigma.

[Shroom Man 777]

More coming soon.

[Shroom Man 777]

FOUR

April 16, 2567
2426 hours

“We’re in position,” John reported. “See the Flamer yet?”

“Uh, not yet,” Eric muttered in reply. Although he was far away from the rest of the squad, looking out with his sniper rifle from one of the few still standing multi-storey buildings, their comm.-links ensured optimal communication no matter the range. “Don’t worry, just give me a few more sec-“

There.

From a distance of more than a three hundred meters, behind the transparent tactical readouts of his HUD and his sniper rifle’s scope, he could see that in the middle of the rag-tag but heavily armed formation was a hulking figure, a huge hydraulically powered suit of lead-lined armor. In its hands was a large tube-like weapon that emitted an eerie green glow. The weapon had fuel lines connected to multiple barely-portable fuel tanks; a couple of them attached to the thing’s back, the rest lying on the floor. The soldier raised his weapon and discharged it, sending out a long stream of green nuclear fire towards the location of the Force Recon squad.

“Found it?”

“Yes sir. Hmm…that’s a lot of fuel tanks, I think I can set off a chain reaction and take out a lot of Sigs.”

“Really? Then do it.”

“Yeah, I copy that.”

The suit’s in-built computer, which was connected wirelessly to his sniper rifle’s scope, began processing information. It calculated the distance, factored in wind speed, computed the trajectory, among many other things. After a microsecond of processing, the resulting information was displayed in the HUD’s tactical readout, giving Eric the optimal amount of information he needed. At his command, the scope zoomed in on the target, showed multiple weaknesses that could be exploited with the proper application of force and selected the best one. All within microseconds.

The target was unmoving, seemingly glued to the ground. This would be easy. The suit’s micro-fiber musculature system contracted in a way that could subtly promote optimal firing position and breathing and then Eric began squeezing the trigger, delicately and gently, like a surgeon with a scalpel making an incision. The rifle recoiled as the magnetic rails of the weapon hurled the slug straight towards the target at supersonic speed. The slug, a solid 4.7mm kinetic penetrator, sailed through the air for a microsecond before punching deep into the hydraulic power suit. Right through the fuel tank.

It ruptured and the tremendous pressure exploded outwards engulfing the power suit in a shroud of nuclear fire. The second fuel tank followed suit, erupting in a second, much larger explosion that swallowed the entire suit and several other bystanders around it in a massive emerald fireball of inflamed irradiated gas. Before the radioactive inferno could recede even in the slightest, the other tanks laid on the ground also detonated, causing the entire area to be engulfed in a wall of atomic fire, triggering a chain reaction of secondary and tertiary explosions as ammunition sizzled and combusted and as men were melted and charred. Those a hundred feet away from the miniature firebombing were lucky enough not to be vaporized, but that was all as they were either bathed in the superheated toxic residue spewed from the multiple meltdowns or just spontaneously combusted. The result was the same, however, as around the cindered corpses and the slagged power suit were soldiers running, screaming, rolling, trying to stop their skin from burning, either from melting due to the acid or from just catching fire. Those unscathed, the luckiest handful, immediately stopped firing at the Force Recon squad and left their post to tend to the wounded, the ones running and roasting with residue smeared all over their bodies. They were helped by those who had already been scorched and disfigured, but were no longer in the process of becoming so.




“Alright B-squad!” John hollered. The emerald lightshow had just receded and he was already pumping his grenade launcher. “Let’s go kick some ass!”

Plasma began streaking through the air as the men of Baylor squad got off their positions and advanced forward, converging upon the Sigma gunmen from three different locations. Where just seconds ago, the Gamma-Sigma had surrounded the Force Recon squad, now they were the ones cornered in a crossfire of phased plasma hell.

A bolt of plasma, as fast as lightning, zipped past John’s head as he aimed his rifle and discharged a grenade. The explosive round detonated right above the several Sigs who were treating a screaming burn victim, showering them with sharpened fragments. Again, John pumped his grenade launcher, and again he fired it. This time, the grenade did not airburst; instead, it struck dead center of a Sigma, a particularly tall one, and detonated, transforming the gunman into a rain of burnt flesh.

It was a slaughter.

John discharged the last of his grenades and proceeded forward, firing controlled bursts of plasma as he did so. An unarmored Bragulan who was trying to get up and trying feebly to fight back was violently cut-down and flash-burned in the fusillade of superheated gas. Around John, his fire team followed suit, walking forward with impunity, not bothering with cover, just striding forward dauntlessly and shooting at anything that moved, the trapped Sigmas not knowing what to do or what was hitting them.

B-squad now converged into the former position of the Sigma formation, having faced minimal resistance. The only danger to them now came not in the form of lasers or K-bolts, but of a radioactive dust cloud that had formed after the miniature nuclear incident, and their suits’ NBC protection took care of that. Within the cloud, two armored figures tried to stand up, one fired with a K-bolter, he missed and they were immolated by two well-placed shots, courtesy of Lieutenant John Baylor.

It was over, just a minute after the nuclear firebombing.

“Is the area clear?” he asked via his comm.-link. The men were spread out, forming a perimeter.

“Yes sir. Although thermal readings are sketchy, the place is too hot from the nuking,” came the reply, it was Sgt. Cruise.

“Thanks Josh,” John then tapped his wrist-computer and called the now-liberated Force Recon squad. “Sergeant Palmer the area is sec-”

A huge Saquati rose up from irradiated dirt like a mountain of burnt fur and steaming flesh, it roared in both pain and anger and charged at the nearest marine. At John Baylor.

Instantly, several Marines opened fire, semi-automatic fire, sending a handful of bolts towards the direction of the charging, bellowing Saquati. The shots had to be carefully aimed though, as the target was in close proximity of their squadron leader.

A bolt grazed the Saquati’s head, carving a deep smoking line through the side of its skull. While this would be a brain-damaging and crippling ordeal for a normal human, the fact that a significant percentage of the Saquati’s brain-matter was located in its thick spinal column ensured a fair chance of survival even for headshots.

While the beast staggered for a millisecond at the sudden influx of heat and pain, John took careful aim at the furry mountain’s center mass. He squeezed the trigger, just as the Saquati resumed his charge, and let out a burst of three plasma bolts. One bolt struck the beast’s solar plexus, causing it to bellow an inhumane wail, another went clean through the shoulder and the last one passed right by its steaming head, nonetheless, it continued its charge and was already less than three meters away.

“The hell with this,” John shouted and flipped his fire-selector to full automatic. He squeezed the trigger and waited for the microsecond it would take the relativistic superheated gas to vaporize the charging monster-like Saquati. The rifle didn’t fire. Instead, it emitted a continuous stream of beeps, signaling an empty magazine. John screamed, but they were inaudible screams that were drowned out by the deafening roar of the charging Saquati. It was now just a handful of feet away from him. “Shit!”

Doing what some would consider insane, John jumped towards the Saquati, putting himself directly in front of it, too close for it to use its outstretched arms. In one swift power suit-assisted move, John slammed his rifle’s butt against its chin, stunning it and perhaps breaking a few teeth. Before the beast could recover, he slammed the rifle butt against the thing’s smoking chest. Hardened plasteel met with immolated flesh and charred bone and the seven-foot tall Saquati yelped in pain, no longer roaring in anger or defiance. John then flipped his rifle, repositioning his hands from the butt and the grenade launcher’s pump to the thing’s barrel, then, like a baseball bat, John swung the thing right to the side of the beast’s head. Again, hardened plasteel met with immolated flesh and charred bone, and again the monster roared in pain. Another swing, this time to the side of the beast’s neck, and the thing decided it was tired playing piñata and thought ripping its assailant, a puny human half its size, was a wiser choice. Sensing this, John jumped backwards and threw the rifle towards the Saquati’s head. The beast swatted it away with its log-sized arms and reached for John with its monstrous hands. With the beast’s clawed hands just inches away from his helmeted head, John pulled out his sidearm and emptied every single round at the beast’s face, all of the fifteen .50 caliber High Explosive Armor Piercing bullets.

The recoil sent the beast falling backwards like a chopped down tree and its fall sent dust flying all over, as if an artillery round had blown a bunker to smithereens.

“Timber…” John muttered, he was out of breath and his arm was numbed from the pistol’s recoil. Despite the suit’s artificial ‘muscles’, the hand cannon still got the best of him.

“Holy shit!” Aaron, the newbie, exclaimed as he rushed towards his El-tee. “Are you okay? Where the fuck did you learn to do that?”

“Rehab,” John said feebly, unable to say something witty and clever.

“Lieutenant, what’s happening? Did you secure the area?” Sergeant Palmer asked through the comm.-link. John could see him poking his head out of the building the Force Recon squad was using for cover.

“…yeah, we just did,” pausing for a second, he looked at Aaron and several of his other men. “You guys, you three, go climb up to the second floor and check those guys out. See if their okay. Take the medic.”

As the four marines used grappling hooks to winch themselves into the building’s second floor, John sat on a block of concrete that was blasted off from somewhere. He began pulling off his mask.

“Uhh…sir...I don’t think that’s wise. The place is filled with irradiated gas…” Joshua said, slowly approaching his friend. In his hands was John’s assault rifle.

“You know what?”

“What?” Joshua asked, cocking his head sideways.

“Call for a gunship and a medevac,” John snapped as he snatched his rifle out of Josh’s hands.

[Kartr_Kana]

More please!!!!

[Shroom Man 777]

All in due time. Maybe by next week. Maybe.

[Kartr_Kana]

I am planing on joining the marine corps with hopes to get into recon so this fic really has me hooked. It could be me a few hundred years from now.

[Shroom Man 777]

No kidding? You're really going to try and be a Marine? Coool!

It's nice to have fans, especially those who're setting off to be real soldiers, real dogs of war. It's just a shape that you can't get yourself a phased plasma rifle.

[Crazedwraith]

Gery nice. I dont see why John went ith the beating the crap out of the squatisi if he could have just pulled the pistol at the start..

[Shroom Man 777]

It was one of those 'at the moment' things, y'know? Besides, he takes OrGazmo on a daily logic. And stop trying to instil logic!