Planetfall

“I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.”

                                                                               -Arthur Wellesly, First Duke of Wellington

        The balloon had gone up at 0500 that morning.  It had promptly caught fire, careened into the rearguard, and proceeded to set off the reserve munitions.  It was a bad morning.  Despite the rapid pace of the advancing chaos, Marie noted, with relief, the orderly manner in which the crew of the Righteous was handling their sudden and unexpected evacuation.

        Back in the Combat Information Center, Marcus had ordered her to stop filming the second the abandon ship order had left his speak hole.  She thought it was funny how quickly he remembered he was being filmed the second his abject failure had become apparent.  Fortunately for her, he wasn’t her commanding officer.  Her father would enjoy seeing him fail, and despite it all, what she had recorded might end up saving Marcus’ career when he faced the inevitable court martial.  Yes, the most expensive, newest, and most powerful ship in the Conglomeration fleet had been lost, but no one could argue that Marcus was responsible.  Sure, no one could say what had even happened, but at least the investigation could skip over human error and right into the nutmeat of why she was currently tumbling arm in arm down a gravityless corridor with Zed and Marcus from either a fiery or vacuous death.  This day was all about surprises.  Hooray, she thought. 

She had been surprised with how Marcus had handled the turd/fan development.  Once the ship was lost she could hear his brain shift gears.  No grinding, no stutter, just a smooth side from killing to saving.  Apparently he had changed a bit since the academy.  The usual noise in his head, the constant self-obsession, the ego, the. . . whatever she heard when he thought of her, gone.  In that sudden moment, the cold calculus of how many men he could get off the ship before the missiles hit, it was utter silence.  Saving lives took concentration.  She didn’t know he had it in him.  She was glad she was wrong.  He had coordinated the evacuation with the section heads he could reach and followed their progress as long as he could before allowing the CiC officers to abandon their posts.  That’s where they were now.  Running from the clock.

“Okay, this is it”.  Marcus said, jolting her back to the here and now.  The blaring alarms and flashing lights reentered her consciousness as she realized she had been editorializing the last few minutes of their adventure.  “Armory is right through here, the gash, right after.”

“Wait, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention, why aren’t we going to the hangar again, or the escape pods?”  Marie interjected.  Zed stopped to look frustrated while Marcus worked on overriding the hatch lock. 

“Escape pods are for the crew,” Zed explained, “The shuttles are all either disembarked or about to, laden with Marines.  No time to do this the easy way, so we’re going down like the ship”.  The hatch slid open and they rushed inside, Marcus was already opening lockers, throwing O.I. armor segments at them

“You know how to put one of these on, right?”  Marie had never heard Marcus talk so fast.  She responded off the cuff

“No, I majored in journalism, remember?” Marcus muttered something she thought was ‘Fuckinggoddamnit’, as he dropped to her feet and began slapping armored bits to her nethers.  “Hey!  What the fuck!”  Marcus stood up and practically shoved his face inside of hers.

“You wanna die?  NO?  Then let me slap some steel on your fucking slit!”  He dropped right back to work, she decided to let it happen.  She turned her attention to Zed.

“Don’t you have it wrong?  I think you mean ‘Down with the ship” YOW!” She yelped as Marcus took her .45 off of her and into her assembled armor pants, directly up her ass.

“Sorry, you don’t want it to melt”.  Marcus said, going back to work, attaching her torso segment. 

“Melt?”  She continued.  “I have no intention of going down with the ship.”  They slapped the helmet over her head completing the job.  Somehow, she noticed, both Zed and Marcus were suited up and had begun herding her towards the door facing the hull breach. 

“You misunderstand Marie,” Zed told her with an amused look on his face.  “Not with, like.”  There was a deep thud as her suit collided with Marcus’.  He gave a sharp wiggle that dragged her with, they had suddenly become attached. 

“I’m slaving your armor’s systems to mine, I’m going to control the reentry and landing procedures for you, okay?”  Marcus asked.

“Huh?”  Was all she could get out.  She noticed the Heads Up Display in her helmet announced her systems had just been overridden.  A quick glance around showed her that her comslip had also been detected by the suits internal communications and was now slaving to her external cameras.  “Well isn’t that nice” She thought.  Marcus looked her in the eye.

“Marie, you ever read Ender’s Game?”  He asked.

“Yes”. She replied. 

“The gate is down”.  He smiled and blew the door into space.

They shot into the dark fast enough that she felt pressure at the back of her suit.  As they tumbled, she saw the extent of the damage.  The aft, they had just left, was rolling slowly, away from Antaria, much of her was dark, but the hangar bays were still launching landers and S-F/A-1 Z class fighters were pouring out of her and running head long into the advancing missile barrage, hoping to catch a few before they sealed the Righteous fate.  The Bow was tumbling wildly, chunks sloughing off as fell planetside.  To her horror she saw the O.I. launchers still spewing their human payload wildly in her erratic orbit.  The computer must not have shut off the procedure when the accident happened, so hundreds or Orbital Infantry Marines would die in space without a hope, or knowledge of their predicament.  Marcus hit their thrusters as the first Missiles impacted on the Righteous and they screamed towards the planet.

*               *               *

The fall had been hot.  The stats on the current Mark VI O.I. armor made them capable of unassisted re-entry, just not good at it.  She had managed not to hurl or go blind, but she was somewhat unhappy about coming into a warzone with the most severe case of swamp ass she had ever experienced. 

Marcus cut her loose a few hundred feet before planetfall and had ignited her thrusters, shunting her forward into something that passed as a controlled gliding descent.  Instead of a violent thunk, she hit with a modestly unpleasant hugrunk that turned into a grinding scrape as she slowed and spun out to a stop.  Marcus and Zed had opted for a more dramatic ballistic landing and they hit simultaneously a few meters apart, both in their best approximation of a Superman tripod landing.  “Pose for style” She said to herself.  Even after all these years, these idiots still have to show off.  They recovered quickly and rushed toward her.  A hard smack to he back of her head took her by surprise as she wheeled around to see a line of muzzle flashes and man shaped silhouettes oriented in their direction.

“Get the fuck down!” Marcus shouted at her over the com, throwing her to the ground.  He operated her armor and opened her backside.

“Hey weirdo!”  She exclaimed!  He promptly shut her butt flap and she turned around to see him checking the load and action of her, Karl’s old .45. 

“You don’t need this yet, I do!”  He said to her, racking the slide and turning to Zed, who was checking the action on the magnetically sheathed forearm sword attached to his right arm.  It moved into a forward extension with a thrust, and rearward with an elbow jab.  “You ready?”  He asked.  Zed nodded.  They both looked forward towards the enemy.

“Hard pounding, gentlemen.”  Marcus said.

“Let’s see who pounds the longest.”  Zed replied.

Their thrusters engaged and within moments they were at the adversary.  Marie had never before seen Orbital Infantry fight.  She had been nearby, in cities close to the fighting, or in the lines as the O.I. were far afield.  What she saw was something more wrathful than the Furies and swifter than the Valkyries as one by one, the flashes winked out.  Marcus had only fired one shot from the .45 before he ripped a heavy machine gun from its emplacement and turned it down the line, slaughtering men in their places with its large caliber projectiles.  Zed brought up the opposite flank, refusing to arm himself from amongst the bodies as he cleaved man after man in twain, severed screaming heads from their owner’s shoulders, and leaving more arms scattered about than a Star Wars film.  A Mk. VI O.I. suit could make a man move three times faster than an unaided man.  She could swear they were moving faster.  The scariest part of it all was how quiet their coms had been.  Not a word needed to pass between them before the guns fell silent and they had begun to rocket hop their way back to her.  “Hot damn”, she thought.  “They never should have been promoted.”  They reached her as a flight of Z’s came in overhead, making a brilliant composition shot for her report.

“That, was. . . That, is going to make a great broadcast for tomorrow.” Was all she could say.

“Wait, when did you start recording again?”  Marcus asked.  She smiled her best “Fuck you kindly” as the coms lit up with the incoming and increasing chatter of the Conglomeration survivors waking up to the battlefield.