Terran Marines Ch 02A

Terran Marines (Ch 02a)

While not completely necessary to read Ch 01, it introduces the characters, provides a little background and explains some of the acronyms.

As they will, this story got away from me and stopped being the quick, short story that I had envisioned and was taking longer than I wanted to write. So I broke it up. No big after-mission party, no long sex scene. There's a small passage where things could be considered steamy, but if you are looking for a long sex scene, you won't find one in this chapter. The next part will make up for it.

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"'Ten-hut!" Thirty five Marines rocketed to their feet and stood at attention, their backs ramrod straight. There were half a dozen Navy Sailors present as well. They too sprang to attention, but perhaps not as quickly or as sharp as the Marines.

A rich alto voice called out immediately, "At ease. Take your seats, Marines." All the Marines sat and relaxed a bit, waiting for what the next drop entailed. Rumors were sailing through the platoon, ranging from a training exercise, a cakewalk, stomping out raiders or even a bug hunt. Nobody liked bug hunts, the damn bugs were good at hiding, didn't show up well on scanners and their claws could open up a suit of armor like a tin can.

The LT walked to the front of the briefing room and turned to face the assembled Marines of her platoon. She was above average height at around 1.6m (5'6") tall. While the utility uniform tended to be baggy and hid a woman's curves, Corporal Stephen knew that she rocked a tight, hard body with full, perky breasts. Like her profession, her face was angular, without the soft curves that many preferred. Despite her unconventional looks, Stephen thought her beautiful.

"We're going on a bug hunt."

There was a spot of murmuring from the Marines at the LT's announcement, but SSgt Kerwalski, the Platoon Sergeant, shut it down with a quick, "At ease."

The LT continued, "Situation: Tau Omega 6 reported an anomalous meteorite entering their atmosphere ten Standard days ago. BuCol (Bureau of Colonization) lost contact with them three days later." She paused and let her eyes sweep the room. She tapped a button on her wrist comp and the wall behind came alive, displaying a satellite shot.

"Here's the colony. Note the residential areas here." She pointed to a spot to the bottom of the image.

"Work centers here, here and here. Aquaponics center here. The main colony administration building is the largest complex with three basement sub-levels and three above ground levels." She tapped her wrist again and the image zoomed out. "And here is the colony fusion plant, about 10 klicks (kilometers, or about 6.2 miles) outside the colony main. It's a 100 Terawatt facility, so try not to damage it. If that thing were to go Red and detonate, the colony is well within the blast radius and that means we are too."

She paused to let that sink in. "As we are hunting bugs, everyone will be suited up in powered armor. The heavies will not be packing rockets or micro-nukes due to the proximity of the fusion plant. Everyone will go heavy with autocannon and mortar ammo." There were a few murmurs.

"Yes, I know that will cut into your endurance in the suits. But our drop boat pilots," she nodded to the two pilots standing in the back of the room. "Will each have an extra charger that they can drop upon need. There should also be heavy equipment areas where we can charge if necessary."

"For our noobs," she tapped her wrist again and three creatures out of humanity's worst nightmares popped up onto the screen. "These are three main types of bugs that we typically encounter. They all resemble spiders, but have more of a hive mentality. They are roughly 2 meters (6') in height and 2.4m (8') around. The big visual difference between terrestrial spiders and bugs is that they have four tentacles that sprout from the base of their head. One pair is used for grasping items while the second pair have four digits at the end that are analogous to fingers. Each of their eight legs is tipped with a claw that can open a suit like a tin can." This wasn't too much of an exaggeration.

She pointed to the biggest bug, "This ugly guy here is a soldier. They are strong, fast and very mean. They typically carry laser rifles or grenade launchers in their hands and their aim is ok. They do not appear to use any AI aiming. Weak spots are the eyes or the junction between the thorax and abdomen. A hit there will usually either disable or kill the bug.

"This next one is slower and clumsier than the soldiers. We think that they are workers, but they often have heavy weapons strapped to their abdomen which makes them a threat and important target to hit first.

"And finally, these smaller guys are the scary ones. They're much smaller and much quicker than the soldiers and they rarely carry rifles. Their preferred weapon appears to be a long dagger, but it has a monomolecular edge on the blade and it'll carve right through armor. Their nickname is 'Ninja' and they are bad news. Thankfully they're pretty rare."

She tapped her wrist yet again, "These are eggs. The bugs put them next to hosts and when the larva hatch, they burrow inside the host and begin eating. When the host has been devoured, the larva molt and out comes a bug. It takes roughly 24 hours for the bug to mature. While undersized at this point, they are still dangerous. We do not know how long it takes for them to grow to full size. No one has ever bothered, or been able to, watch them long enough in the field and they do not survive capture."

"Our mission is go in, see if there are any colonists alive, rescue them and then exterminate the bug infestation. If the infestation proves to be too big for the platoon to handle safely, we will extract and wait for reinforcements. If no reinforcements can be spared, we will nuke the site from orbit.

"Questions? Ok, prep starts at 1000, armor draw starts at 1300 and drop boat boarding begins at 1400. We launch at 1430." She paused to look around. "Ok, let's get moving people."

Corporal Stephen wrangled the other three members of his fireteam, Lance Corporals Berts and Cron and Private First Class Johnson.

"You have 30 minutes for personal time to prep. No tri-V porn Berts! After that, Sergeant Kronkit will want to do a face to face with the entire squad before 1000, so be ready by 0930."

"Aye Corporal," replied Berts.

"Corporal, I gotta question."

"Shoot, Cron."

"Why does this set-up sound like that old 2D movie from the Twenty First Century?"

Johnson interrupted, "Dumbass, it was from the end of the Twentieth Century, the sequels from the 21st Century sucked. But yeah, there's some similarities."

Stephen looked at Johnson, "I vaguely remember that movie. So what are the similarities? Are we fucked?"

Johnson laughed, "Yep. A bunch of Space Marines drop on a colony world after the homeworld loses communication. The colonists have disappeared, but their beacons are found in the fusion plant near the colony. The Marines go in and are taken apart by the bugs. The bugs have eaten the colonists to produce more bugs. All but one Marine dies gloriously. The lone survivor gets off-planet with the gritty civvie consultant and the android helping them. Then there's the climactic final battle on their transport."

"We're on an express elevator to hell, goin' down!"

"Game over, man! Game over!"

Stephen rolled his eyes as the Marines traded quotes from the old movie. He watched them for a few minutes, then interrupted, "Alright sweethearts, you heard the man you know the drill! Assholes and elbows! Now get fucking moving and get ready to drop!"

The three junior Marines laughed, gave him a mock salute and headed off to get ready.

Once their personal prep was complete, the Marines turned to getting their armor ready. Final Built-In Tests had to be run, ammo loaded and power cells checked. Once the suit was ready, the Marines had to actually put the armor on. Each suit was individually fitted to their wearer prior to boarding the ship so it was a matter of stepping into it backwards and then having the carapace and helmet close up. There was one intermediate step that was tough on the noobs, but the experienced Marines had been through it before and took it in stride. The fact was, the Marines could be in the suits for days. The suits stored enough gel rations to sustain a Marine for three days. Water was recycled from sweat and urine. However, a human body must get rid of waste products and one could not simply unzip a suit at the crotch and let go. So certain hook-ups had to be made to collect the waste. For male Marines to make the front connection, it was a simple thing to insert one tube into another (and then strap it in, which wasn't necessarily pleasant.) For the rear connection, a tube had to be inserted in one's ass. Thankfully the rear connection was somewhat soft, but all the Marines lubed it up prior to insertion.

For the female Marines, their front connection was a bit more complicated...

Stephen entered the Third Herd armor lockers with the rest of the squad, dressed in the skin-tight uni garments that were worn under the suits. He made sure the three Marines he was in charge of were working diligently on their armor before turning to his own suit.

Once the pre-checks were complete, the ammo and energy cells topped off, they all doffed the PT shorts they were wearing over the unis, which had been worn to provide a bit of modesty. The unis were crotchless to allow for the plumbing connections to be made and due to normal variations in size, the opening tended to be wider than necessary, much wider. This left little to the imagination, but Stephen was used to the sight and it didn't phase him.

There was one noob in the squad and her face was bright red as she shucked her shorts. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she backed into her suit and fumbled with the plumbing. While they had all been through hours of training in suits, this was her first time donning the armor with the rest of the squad present and she was obviously nervous. He caught Johnson's eye and nodded to the noob. She nodded back and went over to help the new Private. He was about to back into his armor when Sgt Kronkit, their squad leader, walked by and slapped him on the shoulder in wordless thanks.

Sgt Kronkit then walked over to Cpl Trainor, the fire team leader for the noob, and jerked him outside of the locker, probably to impart a leadership lesson.

Soon enough, the entire squad was suited up and they filed out of the large door at the end of the armor locker, which led directly into the

Basilone's

boat bay. The

Basilone

was a fast transport, just big enough to carry a platoon of Marines, their weapons and armor, some support personnel and two drop boats. The two drop boats filled the

Basilone's

boat bay. Each boat could hold twenty Marines in power armor or thirty in unpowered armor. The Marines slotted into their assigned drop seats and waited. As they moved into place, their drop chair strapped in around them, cocooning them in a protective embrace.

Cpl Stephen viewed the drop boat external camera feeds through his helmet. The Heads Up Display (HUD) had the video, but off to the side were status indicators for every Marine in the squad. If he had wanted to, he could have shunted the video feed from any suit to his display to see what they were seeing, but with everyone locked in their drop seats, there was no reason to do this at the moment. He idly watched the feed, more feeling than hearing the boat umbilicals falling away and the boat itself lifting off and moving out of the boat bay. As the boat spun around its axis to orient on the planet, he reviewed the capabilities of his suit.

The suits were large, standing about 8' tall and weighing around a metric ton (2204 pounds). It was covered in a layer of depleted duertonium, a very dense metal that provided protection against physical impacts. It in turn was covered by another thin, silver-ish anti-laser ablative layer. Servo-mechanical 'muscles' gave the suit its strength. The helmet had a solid face to avoid weak spots, but multiple optical and infrared cameras provided a visual view. The suit had various other sensors, lidar, etc to view and snoop the world around it. The boots and back had jump jets to allow the suit to bound quickly or even provide up to 30 seconds of flight before fuel exhaustion.

The on-board combat computer was located high on the back of the suit and it provided the smarts to run the suit. Various leads were placed on Stephen's body to provide medical vitals, but two on his head let him control the suit directly. He just had to think about displaying the drop boat's video feed and it appeared. Arm a weapon? Think about it. However, this required significant training and a certain level of intelligence, otherwise a stray thought could be deadly to the Marine and those around them. The combat computer, or battle comp as it was known, was also smart enough to interpret the mental commands and filter out any stray impulses. They also networked with their neighbor to share sensor data and coordinate fires.

Stephen considered his weapons load-out. The type and even number of weapons on the suit could be changed, depending on the mission and threat. Today, a heavier version of the Mk56 Needle Rifle was on his shoulder. The Mk18A Shoulder Cannon fired a heavier needle and imbued it with a plasma charge. While the heavier needle would go through a bug lengthwise and into the next one, the plasma charge would blow it apart. A 15mm grenade launcher was mounted on the other shoulder and it normally fired high explosive rounds. While each round was not very big, the advanced explosives still packed a lethal punch. A gauntlet mounted flamethrower rounded out the suit mounted weapons that were equipped for this mission. The flamethrower was useful in close, tight quarters. While not standard, almost every Marine had strapped their personal Mk56 rifle to the back of their armor.

His ruminations complete, he again focused his attention on the drop boat's video feed. They were entering the atmosphere and the ride began to get bumpy. Over the boat's comm channel,

Highway to Hell

by the older 20th Century band AC/DC began to play. Over the last few years, nostalgia for the decade known as the 1980's had taken hold of the Terran Empire. Music and movies from that ancient era were once again popular, thus the Marines from the squad knew the plot to the Aliens movie.

"Two minutes to drop!" announced the boat pilot. Stephen glanced at his HUD and absently noted that they were 10km up, a perfect height for a lightly defended or uncontested drop.

"Sound off!" called Sgt Kronkit.

The squad each rattled their name off in turn. As they were completing the roll call, the video feed switched to a zoom view of their drop zone. Active scanners flayed the drop zone for any sign of life, but none were found. Another set of scanners searched the nearby colony site, but no signs of the colonists or bugs were detected.

"Thirty seconds!"

Cpl Stephen braced himself for the shock of the drop.

"Stand bye...drop NOW NOW NOW!" sounded off the pilot. In sequence, the Marines automatically fired off in pairs, still cocooned in their drop chairs. Even in the chairs, the shock of the firing was intense and his vision blurred and narrowed into a tight tunnel as the g-shock load increased. The g-forces eased as the shock chair steadied and fell towards the planet. Stephen monitored his HUD, searching for any signs of defensive fire, but none was forthcoming. A bare 200m above the ground the first chute popped and was immediately lost, but the chute dramatically reduced his speed. The chair anti-grav kicked in and 50m above the ground, Stephen blew the chair away and fell the remaining distance, his suit jump jets settling him into a relatively soft landing. Once down, he took a moment to orient himself on the drop zone, then immediately began to trot to his fireteam's assigned position on the perimeter, just inside the treeline. He gathered Johnson, Cron and Berts, slotting them into the best spots to defend their area. He found a place between them and sank to the ground.

Stephen surveyed the area in front of him, using his visual feed and active lidar sensors to sweep the area. Nothing moved. The ground was green with growth, but the 'trees' were unusual, resembling nothing more than huge, overgrown tomato vines like his grandmother used to grow back at home.

Within two minutes of settling in, Sgt Kronkit came over the squad push.

"Stephen, your team has point. Move out at heading 012 degrees. Standard patrol formation. Stop when you get to the edge of the treeline near the colony."

"Roger, copy."

Stephen switched to his team's internal channel. "You heard the man. Johnson, you're up. Wedge formation."

Stephen watched with a critical eye as Johnson rose to her feet and began to move out at a slow, but steady pace. Berts took his normal spot, 10m (~30 feet) behind Johnson and roughly the same to her left side. Cron took the equivalent spot to her right. Stephen trailed all three where he could watch and support them. As they stepped off on the assigned heading, he called up the area map. They had about a klick to go before they reached the edge of the 'woods' nearest the colony.

Behind him, he knew the rest of the squad was falling into formation. It took the squad about 45 minutes of cautious patrolling to make their way to the edge of the forest. They took up a defensive position 100m inside the forest, enough to make seeing even their armor difficult for the somewhat short-sighted bugs. They waited for the rest of the platoon to take their positions. First squad was to their left and was the platoon reserve and SSgt Kerwalski knelt down alongside their squad leader. Second squad was to their right. LT Hunter took a position between 2nd and 3rd squad.

"Five minutes." Over the platoon push, the LT let the Marines know that they had a few minutes to conduct any final preparations. Stephen eyed the sun as only a sliver remained over the horizon.

Stephen radioed his team, "How's everyone? Any issues with your armor?"

Various 'Good' and 'negative' replies came to him. He settled in to wait.

"Up and at them," came the command from the LT. 2nd and 3rd obediently rose and stepped off towards the colony. Above them, the two drop boats flew patterns over the colony, both boats staying at around 10 km up.

As the two squads rose to their feet, the sun completely set as they stepped off towards the colony. The platoon had timed their approach to the colony to coincide with the setting sun. The bugs did not function as well in colder conditions. Even a slight drop in temperature could mean the difference between life and death for the Marines as the bug's reactions and speed slowed.

"Stay frosty, people," intoned Stephen. "This is about the worst place the bugs could hit us, exposed and in the open."

His team double clicked their mikes, almost silently acknowledging his words.

The tension built as the two squads neared the closest houses. Each was a small, single story structure with numerous windows, a back entrance and a front door facing the street. Many of the houses had simple ground cars or 'cycles out front.

Stephen breathed a sigh of relief as the squad reached the first house without incident.

"Cpl Stephen, check out the interior."

"Roger, Sergeant."

Stephen went to his team push. "Johnson, you're first through the back door. Berts, Cron, follow per our practice. Try to keep the racket down as you go in. "

"Really?" was Johnson's sarcastic reply.

Stephen remembered that they were all in suits. One did not do anything quietly in a suit.