The New Threat 28 (Patreon)

Chapter 28

Subject: Corporal Johnson

Species: Human

Description: Mammalian humanoid, no tail. 6'2" (1.87 m) avg height. 185 lbs (84 kg) avg weight. 170 year life expectancy.

Ship: N/A

Location: Sol

"Johnson, you finished with the first aid?" Staff Sergeant Power asked over comms.

"Just wrapped things up, staffsarnt," I replied. "No pun intended."

"Good. Drop what you're doing and come to the front entrance."

"Aye staffsarnt."

I sealed the first aid kit and looked at my work. Willow was out cold from a mixture of pain and drugs. She had received a fourth degree burn, which is one hell of a way to say 'burned to the bone and then some'. The damage had been intense, but thankfully the wound was mostly cauterized. All I really had to do was run some antiseptic over it and pack it with sealant cream. She'll probably lose the leg, but maybe she'll get lucky and...

I didn't bother finishing that thought. There's no point. She's an Earthling undoc, and clone-a-limb is free for military personnel, but for almost everyone else it's prohibitively expensive. She'll be getting a prosthetic, and all I can hope is that it's a good one. Something like the one Power has is a bit too high grade, but hopefully something similar. I looked at Sergeant Hanson.

"She'll be okay," I said.

"I know," he said. "Get goin'."

It was almost hard to tell due to the helmet, but his tone made it obvious that he was taking this hard. He and Willow had found kinship pretty quickly. She had begun flirting with him the moment they met, and he had been flirting back. He obviously couldn't and wouldn't do anything about it while we were here, but the thought had probably provided some sort of escapism from how grim our situation is.

He might even blame himself. He had been the first out the door to start fighting the main host of OU, and Willow had followed right behind him. If he hadn't taken point, maybe she would have stayed behind just a bit more and not been hit by the laser. Or, if he had shot the OU bot faster she wouldn't have the hole in her shin. No reasonable person would put the blame on him, but attachments are known to destroy reason. I don't envy the guilt he's gotta be feeling over this.

Our makeshift infirmary used to be an office, and it was toward the back of the building. I stood, nodded at Hanson, and jogged my way through the hallway until I reached the entrance. Staff Sergeant Power was standing with an undoc who looked like he hadn't even seen his sixteenth birthday. The boy looked nervous as I approached.

"We need to adjust the front cameras," Power told me. "This is Noah. He has the rope, so he's going to be rappelling down to the cameras to adjust them. He will be exposed and without armor, so your job is to eliminate any threat that may try interfere with his mission. A couple of undocs will be joining you to help cover him. Get moving."

I looked at the boy and back to Power. Why not just post sentries up top instead of risking this kid's life by bothering with the cameras? This situation struck me as stupid, but I knew better than to point that out. When higher ups are questioned, they either evade the questions or make you feel stupid with their explanations. Either way, you'll be getting an earful.

"Aye aye, staffsarnt," I replied.

As the staff sergeant walked away, I followed the young man as he grabbed his pack and led the way to the roof. His demeaner, stride, and general nervousness told me that he had never served, which makes sense. Undocs don't remain undocumented if they join up. Hell, some planets actually don't let undocs join unless they pay for documentation first.

"So... uh... how long have you been in?" He asked, awkwardly trying to make conversation.

"A few years, now," I answered evasively. "Can't talk about myself much. If you wanna chat, it's gotta be about you."

"Oh, sure. What do you wanna know?"

"Why are you undocumented?

The question seemed to catch him off-guard. He thought about how to answer for a moment.

"My ma and pa were anti-globalist protestors who decided to live off-grid," he answered, and I tactfully noticed the use of past-tense. "Grew up hearin' about how they'll put tracking chips in you and all the other conspiracy theories. Wanted to try to get my documentation, but it's expensive if you don't join the military."

"That's not a conspiracy theory," I told him.

"What?"

"The tracking chips. I don't know about Earth's practices specifically, but in most places the chips are voluntary unless you commit a serious crime or run for political office. It's a preventative measure against kidnapping and corruption," I explained. "So why didn't you join up with a military?"

"Oh... uh... I didn't want to leave home. Got friends here, ya know? Austricana doesn't let undocs join up, so it would have had to be with the EPG or the United Systems. Even if I had joined the reserves, neither would have let me stay here."

"Got it. So where's home?"

"A pretty small township outside the Melbourne Exclusion Zone called New Greendale. Don't think it's even on a map cuz it only has... had about two hundred people. Most of 'em were working on the radiation clean-up, so they weren't permanent residents or anything," he explained as we found the entrance to the roof. "Most of 'em... Most of them didn't even give us undocs a backwards glance when they evacuated."

I put my hand on his shoulder as he reached to open the door, and he jumped.

"I'll go first," I said.

He nodded and stepped aside, allowing me to open the door and check for threats. Nothing there, so I stepped out rapidly and pied the surrounding area, then walked to each of the building's corners and checked over the side.

"It's clear," I called to Noah.

He jogged up to me, knelt down, opened his pack, and started digging around inside of it. After rummaging through it for a bit, he pulled out a wound-up rope and a pair of gloves. Each corner of the roof had a drainage slit, and Noah began tying his rope to one of them. I looked on curiously, wondering what he had in mind. Most rappels I'm familiar with start with the rope folded around an anchoring point. He noticed me staring at him.

"I'm going to use my leg to anchor my weight while I work on the camera, then climb back up and do the same thing on the other end," he explained. "I figure it'll save us a bit of time since I won't have to go all the way down."

I nodded as two more men stepped out onto the roof with us. Only one of them was wearing a guardian suit. They nodded at Noah and pointed their rifles over the roof to cover the road without even looking at me. Noah looked at me, measured some rope, wrapped it around his thigh, then threw the rest over the roof. He climbed onto the edge and looped the lower end of the rope under his boot, then started lowering himself down to the camera.

I turned my attention to the horizon. There were too many buildings to be certain that the OU weren't on their way, but nothing was immediately visible. After a few moments I took a look down at Noah, who was already messing with the camera's mount. The way he was leaning over made my stomach lurch a bit. I'm not afraid of heights, but god I hate rappelling.

"Tell him that's good," Omega said in my helmet, making me jump a little.

"That's good, Noah," I said.

"Okay," he called out and began to climb back up.

I watched him climb for a moment when I thought I saw something moving in my peripheral vision. My eyes darted toward the movement, but there was nothing there. I scoped in, my finger instinctively tightening on the trigger, and scanned the area a little better. All I saw were buildings. I sighed to myself as Noah reached up over the edge. I offered my hand and helped him up.

"Thanks," Noah said, breathing heavily.

"Need a break?" I asked.

"Just long enough to untie it from here and tie it over there."

He knelt and began untying the rope as I returned to my role as sentry. I tried to keep a wide view, but I couldn't keep from focusing on the spot that I thought I'd seen the movement. The buildings were close enough together that I couldn't even see the street past them. A knot formed in my gut as Noah finished with the rope and started moving to the other corner. I followed him and took my position as he went over the edge.

I started scanning the horizon once again when I heard the soft sound of a shuttle approaching. I looked to the sky and managed to spot it, and breathed a sigh of relief. They were a ways out, but Simmons and Smith would be back soon. I glanced at the other two undocs, and almost cracked a smile watching them try to spot the shuttle.

"Incoming!" Omega said as a laser sizzled my shields.

Shit. I scoped in and saw the bots. A small group had been obscured by the buildings, and were now approaching head-on. I immediately started shooting, and a moment later the undocs followed suit. The bots started dropping, but more stepped out from the corner of the building they'd been behind. Lasers started hitting all around us, but we kept firing.

"The camera's good," Omega informed me.

"NOAH! IT'S GOOD! CLIMB UP!" I shouted.

I couldn't hear his reply over the gunfire. One of the undocs screamed, but it cut out. I glanced over and immediately wished I hadn't. It had been the unarmored one, and had lost his arm and the top of his head above his mouth. The other undoc bent to check on him as I continued shooting.

The robots started closing in and I heard more gunfire coming from below us. I got closer to the edge to get a better vantage point, keeping an eye on my shield indicator. Ninety percent, damn these suits are nice. My ammo counter ran down to zero, and I ejected my magazine.

As I reached for a new one, a laser hit the rope. It seemed to happen in slow motion, and without thinking I grabbed it with my free hand as it started to fall. If I hadn't been reaching for a mag, Noah would have fallen to his death. I threw my rifle behind me and grabbed onto the rope with both hands. Noah's face peered up at me, pale as a ghost and with eyes as wide as saucers.

"CLIMB!" I commanded.

The other undoc must have realized his friend was a lost cause because he started shooting again. Noah began to climb like his life depended on it, which was good because it definitely did. I thought about pulling up the rope, but the added movement might make the boy slip. My shield indicator dropped to eighty percent as another laser hit me.

Lasers hit the building around Noah as he climbed. I grit my teeth and waited patiently as my shield dropped to seventy percent, then sixty. Finally, he climbed within my reach and I grabbed him, pulling him up and over the edge of the roof. The rope fell down the side of the building as I let go. I scrambled up, grabbed my rifle, and slammed a magazine into the well. Noah was breathing heavily again, and looked at the dead undoc. The relief on his face turned to shock as I sent my bolt forward.

"GET INSIDE!" I shouted.

He looked at me, then scrambled toward the door. I watched him for a moment and then returned to the edge of the roof. I shifted from burst to single shot and started sniping. The robots weren't taking cover so they were easy to pick off, but more kept coming.

I counted the front row and the number of columns and came up with about two hundred of them. I let my shield drop to forty before I took cover to let it recharge. I looked the undoc, and noticed he had taken his friend's ammo belt. Two magazines lay at his feet. My shield had just started recharging when he hit the deck in the blink of an eye.

"TANK!" he yelled at me.

The sound of lasers and gunfire disappeared as an overwhelming boom rocked through the air. The building seemed to shudder from the impact, but not in the same way that it would have from a high explosive round. I shook my head to clear the disorientation and peeked over the edge again.

The tank had balls instead of treads, and was obviously built with its cannon in mind. The tip of the cannon was glowing bright red. I looked down, taking a laser for my trouble, and saw that a chunk of the building had been turned into slag. Directed energy? Plasma? I turned my weapon back to automatic and fired my magazine into the crowd of robots before once again taking cover.

"What do we do?" the undoc asked loudly.

"Unless you've got an anti-tank rifle hidden up your ass, I suggest we spray and pray," I answered while reloading.

He nodded and got to work sending rounds down range. I racked my bolt forward and followed suit. I focused my fire on the robots closest to us, and my visor darkened as the tank fired again. I barely managed to dive back before the plasma struck the building. I glanced at the undoc, who hadn't been as fast as me. What was left of him crumpled to the ground.

Guardian suits do well against kinetic and directed-energy weapons, but plasma shorts out shields and burns through the metal with ruthless efficiency. Fortunately for those of us who wear these suits, nobody had figured out how to make a man-portable plasma cannon quite yet. At least, not one that can do any real damage.

What the hell do I do here? If I had been slower, I'd have ended up like that undoc. Fuck, I didn't even catch his name. That's fucked up. No. Now's not the time for guilt, gotta get to work. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling it through my nose. I opened my eyes and got into a kneeling position, then checked my ammo. I only had three rounds in my rifle, and one mag in my belt. Not that this would do any good against that tank.

"MINE!" Simmons' voice shouted over comms.

I glanced to where I had last seen the shuttle, and realized that they had landed it on the roof of the parking building. Simmons and Smith were at the edge of the roof, and one of them was holding what looked like an AT9. There were a few unarmored civilians hiding within the shuttle.

"Backblast area all clear!"

I watched a cloud of fire and smoke burst from both ends of the AT9. Then the sky turned purple for a moment and a plume of purple-tinted hell-fire peeked up from the edge of the roof. I stood up, and my eyes widened at the devastation that had occurred. The tank had exploded and thrown plasma all over its surroundings, resulting in a pretty big crater and the destruction of a few buildings. The robots that had been caught in the explosion were nothing more than slag now.

"Oorah! Finally got some action," Simmons said.

"What the hell was that?" Staff Sergeant Power demanded.

"Special delivery, staffsarnt. You ain't even gotta sign for it."