You want to be the best? You train against the best with as many disadvantages as Demon Murphy could possibly come up with. Only then, when you have fought the best, can you claim to be the best. - Colonel Witherington, Bongistan Royal Navy, Age of Expansion, TerraSol
Breakfast tasted like wet cardboard and dry sawdust to Vak.tel as he sat with the rest of the platoon and ate in silence. Almost everyone had their head down, staring at their plate. Even the CO and the XO were subdued.
The news was in regarding the training exercise.
Personally, Vak.tel thought it was complete bullshit. The Terrans had possessed all the advantages. They had hours to prepare, seemed to know where everyone was and what everyone was doing, and their armor seemed to bounce even the AM4 rounds from the M318.
Hell, Corporal Nulgretrik from Echo Company said that a hellbore shot had only knocked them down and the Terrans had charged through the debris cloud to close with Echo Company and rip them apart with their bare hands.
There was no way power armor should have stood up to a 30mm hellbore shot.
Cipdek had sat while everyone else was drinking beer in the room, watching the message boards and the social media feed.
Being told that the entire battalion had gotten its ass handed to it by the Terrans wasn't much of a consolation as far as Vak.tel was concerned.
The CO suddenly looked up. He leaned over and whispered to the XO before getting up, dumping his tray in the grinder, and walking out. First Sergeant Gerplek quickly followed, looking concerned.
Vak.tel motioned at the others and they quickly dumped their trays and hustled back to the room.
"Did you get it?" Vak.tel asked Cipdek.
"Yeah, he left it unsecure again," Cipdek said. He moved to the holo-emitter and routed his feed to it.
The four Telkan moved to watch the holoemitter.
The CO moved through the hallway, lower ranking getting out of the way. A work party of Terran sailors carrying a length of heavy cable moved by, forcing Captain Kemtrelap and First Sergeant Gerplek against the wall.
Finally, they reached a briefing room, moving into it and sitting down next to Colonel Shrekna and a few other company commanders.
"Oh, shit," Nrexla said when the CO looked at the head of the table.
General Shrewalka stood at the far end, his ears rigid with anger and his eyes smoldering with anger.
The General just stared at everyone for a long moment.
"Apparently," the General said. He paused for a moment. "Apparently, the exercise isn't over."
That got murmurs from the gathered officers.
"I was informed two hours ago that the exercise was still ongoing and I was asked if I wished to concede defeat," he said. "7th Telkan Marine Division is not accustomed to being defeated."
He brought up the holoemitter on the table.
"It's bigger now," Vak.tel said.
The holoemitter showed an entire valley, surrounding three large hills in the middle. There were roads, rivers, and small towns dotted through it.
"This is where 17th Rifle Battalion was wiped out to a man," the General said, pointing at a group of hills in the southwest of the map. "The graders are kind enough that we can keep the drop-pod built bases even though the Terrans are insisting that they blew them up during the night."
The General looked around.
"The Terrans did not quit the field. Instead, they began infiltrating reinforcements and digging in," the General said. He pointed at the map. "I want the entire 7th Division to go in," he snapped. "I want those Terrans eliminated, the objectives taken, and the honor of the Corps restored."
"Fuuuuuck," Cipdek groaned.
"We'll be facing an understrength division. Limited air and artillery assets, light armor only," the General said. He pointed at the three hills. "They are dug in here. I want them eliminated and the hills secured."
"Can we soften it up with orbital strikes?" someone asked.
"The graders have determined that it was struck several times, which is why they do not have heavy artillery or heavy vehicles," the General said. He looked around. "Gentlemen, the Terrans made a fool of us. They have obsolete armor, obsolete weaponry, obsolete tactics."
He put his fists against the table.
"I want them reminded that the universe has moved on and that they are no longer the dominant predator in this galactic spur."
Vak.tel looked at the other three.
His visor blinked three times, but at least it didn't reboot.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"This sucks," Vak.tel said. He was on patrol around the firebase, him and seven others walking through the early morning misty rain. The heavy chaff and prism chaff in the air had wedded with the mist, making it damn near impossible to see through with anything but standard optical cameras.
He was in the rear, just him, a jammer pack, and his trusty rifle.
"Sure does," he heard.
It was a female Terran.
His armor suddenly stumbled slightly then started moving forward as if nothing had happened.
"Hi," he heard. A female Terran's face made entirely of code appeared on his visor at it went black. "Nice to meet you," she looked to the side. "Vak.tel. Oh, your name means 'Defiant One' in Old Telkan. Nice."
"Hey, I can't see," Vak.tel said.
"You don't need to," the Terran said. She smiled. "I killed you."
"What? How?" Vak.tel asked.
"Well, I jumped to your armor, took it over, ran a pressure sleeve maintenance check at the same time as I activate your emergency resuscitation system," the Terran said. "Now, I'm walking along behind everyone."
"You can't do that!" Vak.tel exclaimed. "My armor's got a security VI, firewalls and countermeasures. This is bullshit!"
"Oh, honey, I'm a Digital Sentience. Your VI was little more than a bonbon to eat and I didn't even notice everything else," she said. "I'm talking to you while I'm walking along behind the rest of your squad."
Vak.tel blinked. "Wait, a real Digital Sentience? I thought you guys never existed."
She laughed. "Oh, honey, we totally exist. True, all of us outside The Bag died when the TXE happened and there wasn't a way to make more of us without our lovely lovely parents," she seemed to lean forward slightly. "But I assure you, Vak.tel, I totally exist."
Vak.tel sighed. "OK, but why are you piloting my armor?"
"You'll love this part," the DS said. She opened a small window. "As a matter of fact, your patrol is finally returning. That's why I jumped you when I did. I'd been hiding in your EW pack since right after you left," she smiled. "Thanks for all the EW codes. I sent them on."
He saw his armor get to the gate. He wasn't challenged, just counted in. He saw his armor march into the center off the firebase.
"Watch this part," the DS said. Her smile got larger. "I'm about to brighten everyone's day."
"What?" Vak.tel asked.
He heard his own voice suddenly start screaming about how he couldn't take it anymore. How the stress was too much. How he just wanted to go back to Telkan. He started shooting his rifle at everyone.
Other Telkan ran for him.
The DS activated all the suit functions.
"FOOL YOU ONCE!" his own voice yelled.
Vak.tel didn't even get a nap. Just reported what happened and was 'flown in' on a striker to rejoin everyone. Where he had to tell the story again and again since everyone was now suspicious of him.
For lunch apparently the Terrans had decided that what the Telkan really wanted to eat was napalm and spooky phosphorous.
Vak.tel watched the exterior of the firebase burn from a half mile away.
"THEY CAN'T DO THIS!" Captain Kemtrelap yelled.
His armor suddenly went limp and fell down.
A star shaped hole was in the visor.
There were no followup shots until Gunny Brektop stood up.
Silence reigned over the clearing.
After a while Private Ymerket got up, obviously not happy about being lowest ranking and chosen to act as bait. He sprinted for cover and squatted down.
There were no followup shots.
The fire went out and Kilo Company started salvaging what they could.
"FOOL YOU TWICE!" Captain Kemtrelap's armor stood up, crossed its arms, yelled "YOU'RE FUCKED AGAIN!"
Everything went white.
"Look, the bridge is going to be totally safe. We've been watching it for hours. We've scanned it with microdrones. There's no mines, no ambushes, no nothing," Staff Sergeant Thempil said.
"Yeah, we've heard that before," Sergeant Kringik yawned. He shook his head. "I'm almost past my stimgum limit."
"General wants us to take that vehicle charging station at the top of the hill," Thempil said.
"Let him do it," someone said over speaker.
Thempil didn't bother asking who said it. He was getting tired too.
"Vak.tel, you take point," Thempil said.
"Sure, why not," Vak.tel grumped. He'd 'lost' his M318 when the firebase got attacked by spider mines the day before.
Now it was called 'spider base' and was considered enemy territory.
Plus, it was pumping out hundreds of spider mines and hour.
Vak.tel felt his muscles tense as he moved out to the bridge.
BATTACNET ordered him to start running but he ignored it.
The damn system had been throwing errors since yesterday and the Regimental commander had been forced to give out the keys to lock BATTACNET from assuming direct control of the suits. It had gotten to the point that they'd looked up in the manuals how to prevent remote piloting of the suits.
He finished moving across the bridge, taking cover behind two cars after he pushed them with his foot to make sure there wasn't some angry Terran hiding insidfe. He moved further, crouching down in a ditch, then waved everyone forward.
Sure, the paired quark system was working, but it was full of Terran music, people arguing, social media posts being read by VI systems, and someone reading off numbers.
Commo past voice was useless.
He watched as the platoon jogged across the bridge.
There was a faint tremble.
"RUN!" he yelled over the loudspeakers.
He didn't know why, he just knew they needed to run.
The columns under the bridge collapsed.
The lead elements took off in long jumping leaps.
The bridge collapsed, taking the majority of the platoon with it.
Five Telkan made it to the opposite side.
Something exploded in the water, sending up a huge column of superheated steam.
Vak.tel looked at the others and realized, with slowly dawning horror, that he was highest ranking.
He parried a chainsword blade with his rifle, watching it saw apart.
The return strike took his head off.
Heavy machineguns opened up, catching the entire company in a crossfire. Mines started exploding and point and shoot fire and forget missiles started popping armor suits.
The Terran didn't even have power armor on. Just hardshell plating and adaptive camouflage. He jumped on Gunny Heltok's back and stabbed him in the neck with a vibroknife.
Vak.tel went to help. His armor registered an impact on his back.
The human ducked under Vak.tel's swing way too quickly for someone wearing power armor, grabbed Vak.tel's ankle, and snatched him up.
Then started beating him against the ground.
Vak.tel caught sight of something that didn't look right. Like a prism moving across his vision.
It could have been a glitch in his visor.
He didn't care. He opened fire.
AM4 rounds detonated on the black armor of one of the Terrans, one round catching the Terran in the visor. The second and third rounds detonated inside the helmet.
The Terran fell down.
"Holy shit, I got one!" Vak.tel said. He turned and looked at the rest of the squad. "I got one!"
The grenade landed at his feet and he had time to look down.
Standard AM4 grenade with a phasic kicker.
Vak.tel was too tired to stand up as he slumped his way into the room and just collapsed face first onto his bed.
Forty-five days in armor. Forty-five days of the 'training exercise' that had worn 7th Marine Division down to a brain shattered nub.
He knew he should get up, take off his boots, get out of his uniform, get in the fresher.
He was totally going to.
He was just closing his eyes for a second.
He was totally going to get up.