COMMANDER

Ronin and I, along with Spear, Dog, and Stitch went first. We transported to a small copse of short trees and bushes which used to be a centerpiece in the main courtyard. There was a simple maze of concrete walls decorated with painted murals between the small central garden and the larger courtyard. The maze just difficult enough to present a challenge to small children who probably delighted in figuring out how to get to the garden. At the same time, the walls provided privacy as visual and sound barriers to the noise and traffic of the courtyard. It was a sweet-smelling haven of nature in the midst of the city.

At least, it used to be. As we fanned out to provide perimeter cover fire for those following, we could see glimpses of what used to be the city center through the cracks of view between the concrete maze walls. It was late in the afternoon and shadows were long. After the other team members transported in we dispersed them carefully and quietly. With full stealth enabled, troopers in ABS crept or streaked to their assigned places. Our selected watch points around the perimeter of the large central square were designed to cover as much observable territory as possible. I contacted Tam after an hour of waiting and watching.

The trucks were nearly to the Defense Force group, she shouted to me over the noise of the engines and the bouncing and wind noise. Of course, over subspace I couldn’t hear any of that but it was a common reaction for the trooper speaking as the local noise was near deafening to them. Their counterattack would begin within minutes.

Lt. Harris also reported readiness. The bulk of his wedge had trekked up the river bottom from the bay and were waiting now for our go signal. The AVs would rise out of the bay and maneuver over the city center to provide air cover and support fire from their heavy weapons.

“How did you get them all here, Harris?” I asked, curious and impressed.

“I had the Troops who wouldn’t fit in or on the AVs run the 7K to the river, then we attached long tow straps to the back of the AVs and they just lined up and hung on for the ride, sir,” Harris answered.

“Great work, trooper! Stay frosty. Wolf out.”

On the group channel, I said, “Lieutenants! Flynn will coordinate and lead the counterattack with the Defense Force within minutes. Shaquaree reaction should define the on-planet officer caste, and teams Zulu and Yankee will attack those on my command. Harris will attack on my command, as well, from the river and into the city center. Minimize collateral damage if possible but do your jobs as trained. Ready on the lines!”

Silence reigned in our group as we waited for Flynn’s signal from the west, two klicks away. The sounds of weapons fire and explosions came from all around us, and a building three blocks away collapsed. Three stories crashed down loudly under their own weight as supports were blown out by Shaquaree soldiers.

They were using beam weapons, probably lasers and/or masers, and projectile weapons primarily. There was also a sort of mobile cannon riding on what looked like grav sleds and firing a projectile which detonated on target with a visible ripple effect in the air, a distortion of some kind congruent with what appeared to be an implosion of the target. A pinpoint gravity well implosion was the best description I could manage.

Flynn’s signal came, and with it a series of crumping sounds marking explosions as the counterattack began to move forward. The SOG teams watched their assigned areas looking for the characteristic officer activity. They would be the ones not running to combat but directing the response. Less than a minute passed before Iceman of Yankee called out over the transceivers and pinned the location to our HUDs.

The officer group was 280 meters from us and around the corner of what used to be a building. There must be a small pavilion there. The arrogant bastards did not even have a perimeter guard for the command center. They assumed they were impervious and superior!

I pinged the “Go” command to Harris and the SOG teams and we charged, shields on full and all weapons powered. It took us only seconds to cover the distance and I rounded the corner of building rubble to see well over a hundred Shaquaree in uniforms milling about in front of numerous floating machines I figured must be sensor, mapping, and comm devices.

I was no more than twenty meters from the nearest of them when I swept the pavilion with both lasers, starting at opposite sides and crossing in the center. Milliseconds after I opened fire, twenty or more other team lasers were burning into Shaquaree troops and machines like blades of raw power and we were still moving toward them at full speed from multiple directions.

As I passed the ten meters mark they began firing back. I cut my lasers and pulled the power lance free as I hit the sole repulsors and made a mighty leap up and over the leading edge of smoking bodies and burning machines and landed squarely in the middle of the pavilion. I was swinging and banging with both ends of the lance as I landed, cutting machines with the power blade and clubbing bodies as I moved.

Trooper suits were everywhere among the Shaquaree, all using the power lance rather than taking a chance of hitting one another with deadly weapons fire. Projectiles and beam weapons from the Shaquaree were hitting us and other Shaquaree indiscriminately. It was complete melee. I was hammered by a huge blast of something hitting my lance and driving it back into my chest and thrown to my knees, my lance destroyed and in two pieces.

I dropped the pieces and rolled, pulling my katana as I came up. Then I was moving again, spinning, slashing, cutting, and kicking, using my palm repulsors to smash machines to pieces and pound bodies to pulp. My hatred and rage for these aliens coalesced into a cold fire of precision death, served up by the power blade of the magnificent katana and the wicked strength and quickness of the suit.

I found myself on the outskirts of the wild, clamoring battle and suddenly facing one of the floating cannon making ready to fire directly into the center of the pavilion where my troopers danced in combat. My troopers! Strength and speed of rage exploded through me and I surged forward, swinging the katana upward and forward in an arc from my knee level at the cannon as I raced by its side. The blade cut completely through the grav sled, the cannon, and the operator sitting behind the controls in a single stroke swung with all my strength.

Sparks flew in a mighty splash and the grav sled halves spun wildly, throwing the cannon pieces like plastic toys while the operator fell in half at the chest with blood spraying in gouts. A piece of the cannon struck me, too heavy for the shields to stop, and a sharp edge from where the katana had sliced through it smacked me at thigh level to knock me several meters back and down.

I clambered to my feet quickly as the suit AI informed me of the damage.

“Shields down fifty percent but regenerating with full shields anticipated in twenty seconds. Thigh pod rifle and handgun damaged and inoperable. No physical trauma to your body, sir.”

Oh, excellent news! I was on the periphery with the main battle to my left and behind. To my right and forward, about thirty meters away, numerous enemy had appeared from a Shaquaree fighter or shuttle which had just landed. Twenty-eight of them, according to the HUD, and here I was with only a katana in my hands!

I called up mini-missiles as I noticed Ronin’s icon and two others heading away from the main battle at a tangent and going fast. They appeared to be chasing several of the officer Shaquaree who were fleeing.

“Missile launcher damaged and inoperable, sir. Plasma cannon and left laser only,” reported the AI.

The plasma cannon rotated into position as I was leaping toward this new threat. The bastards were flanking my people! They were big bastards, too. They stood at least half-again taller than the normal Shaquaree, somewhere around three meters each and looking much heavier, bulkier, as well.

These were new! No one had ever seen or reported such beings prior to this! Obviously, the Shaquaree had been genetically altering some of their soldiers, which meant these were either elite troops or fresh experimental models. Which would it be? What weaponry did they have mounted into their oversize suits? I was about to find out.

The thirty meters between me and them shrunk to nothing in just a second as I leapt and they charged forward. My plasma cannon burst several shots and my left laser swept through the group while I was still in the air. Bodies blew apart in gouts of gore and flying suit debris as I landed among them. No way, no way in hell were these bastards going to flank my troopers! Not while I was still breathing!

I shut the laser down. I would be spinning and firing in all directions and didn’t want to risk my own personnel. Which meant I was down to my katana only. No problem. It was a mighty damn fine weapon and I would make Flynn proud of its service.

Fourteen of them still moving, according to the HUD. I slashed and spun, whirled, stabbed, and leapt in a blur of battle-rage fed fury. I kicked and hammered with boots and fist, and slammed repulsor blasts when I could.

Down to ten! Blood and gore partially blinded me, coating my HUD cameras. Something hit me in the right side and I went down hard, skidding along broken concrete.

“Gunfire of sabot penetration through shields then explosive warhead,” explained the AI. “You have two broken ribs and massive bruising of the liver. Administering trauma drugs.”

I pushed myself back to my feet as pain lanced like a lightning bolt through my right side. Fuck ’em! Fuck ’em all! No way were they stopping me with such petty bullshit!

“Pain meds!” I muttered to the AI as I set myself to face the nine monstrous aliens who towered above me and were rushing at me.

“Suit reserves depleted, Commander,” the AI reported.

Well, shit, ain’t that just grand! I sucked in a deep breath and used the pain to motivate me, to build my anger and adrenalin, and charged with silvery katana flashes surrounding me. I slashed at one and it went down as I spun to face another.

Part of my mind seemed to separate itself as my body went into SBT. Goddamn this is fun, that part thought. Flynn would be jealous as hell!

More of their rounds were banging into me and I could feel the suit taking damage as the shields drained. I dropped another one in halves and I felt penetrating wounds as their gunfire got through the weakened shields. My body was jerking with these multiple hits . . . pain was mounting . . . but I would not give in to it. I would not!

Even as I gritted my teeth and struck out, I noticed a movement at my side then stumbled as a downed Shaquaree managed to reach out and grab at my ankle. Clank! The creature had attached something to my leg! A bright explosion stunned me and threw me several meters to my left. Some sort of mine . . . groggy, I was trying to get up again . . . more enemy were coming at me.

“Severe trauma,” reported the AI. “Tranquilizing protocols engaged.”

“Belay! Command override!” I yelled.

“Sir, your right femur is shattered and the femoral artery is cut. You cannot stand.”

“The fuck I can’t! Pump gel-skin to close the wound and stop bleeding, and use suit servos in place of my own muscles!”

“On it, sir. Proceed.”

Fuckin’ A rights, proceed! By now, the last three of the Shaquaree were almost on me. The mine attached to my leg by the downed enemy had been a suicide move. It hoped to take me out despite any damage or losses to its own personnel! They must have been frantic with desperation to resort to such a maneuver. Likewise, the pain of my multiple wounds was on me, in me, clouding my mind and my senses. By sheer will, I struggled to my feet, awkward as the damaged suit servos responded to my mental commands in place of my muscles in the ruined right leg. No way would I allow the suit AI to trank me out in an attempt to save my life by removing me from active battle. Not when my teams were in danger of being blindsided by these genetic freaks.

“Emergency electro-thermic cauterization in operation,” reported the AI as I bent under a rifle butt-stroke from an alien and brought up the katana between its legs to slice deeply upward into the torso.

Off balance and with an only partially answering right leg, I fell awkwardly and had to roll twice to avoid one remaining Shaquaree and then take the legs, literally, off of the other. The damn thing fell right on me, pinning me to the concrete until I blasted its body off with a repulsor charge.

The last alien, the one who appeared to be the biggest and the leader of the group, was on me, and grappling with me. I could not see its face through the opaque face shield of its suit, nor could it see mine, but we grappled and wrestled as if we could see the fury and rage and determination on the face of the other. We pounded at each other with armored fists and knees and boots. My suit shields must be gone because its blows were smashing home effectively, though mostly absorbed by the armor. We could not kill each other within the armor without a weapon of some kind.

In my exhaustion and wounding, I felt myself slipping from battle-zen to survival rage. Not a good place to be. But if it meant taking this fucker with me it would be worth it. My senses were slipping somehow. Blackness and haze were working in from the edges of my vision. I couldn’t break away from the big alien bastard to scrounge a weapon somewhere without leaving him free to do the same. Which of us would win that speed contest?

It managed to get its lesser arms on my helmet, keeping its primary arms engaged with my own, and it was turning my head, twisting it savagely, trying to break my neck or tear off my helmet.

With my head to the left and parallel with the ground, I saw a Gen6 suit not ten meters away, torn and twisted from some massive weapons strike and blood and blackened edges of torn armor flared out. I knew the Marine inside the suit was dead. Dead and gone. One of my team of elite SOG soldiers gone! An odd feeling of loneliness and overpowering fatigue struck me. I felt suddenly far away from my Marines, from humanity. I was going to die here on this planet so far from my home, my head twisted from my body by this monstrosity sitting on my chest. Neither my dead comrade nor I had any family to mourn us. They had been destroyed by the Shaquaree many centuries past, by this piece of shit straddling me and probably sending comms for support even now.

Cold anger welled as I stared at the dead Marine and blinked sweat from my eyes. Or maybe tears. I could not tell. But as the wetness moved, so did my emotions, and then my hands. Cold anger built to a new rage, and I fed it with the acknowledgement that I would go out a true Marine and a true human. I would take this piece of crap alien monster with me if I had to die here, and be proud of doing so.

I let the new fury well up in me, fed it, nurtured it, and released my namesake, the Wolf. A roaring growl accompanied my sudden move to jerk my hands free from its grasp, first one, then the other. Take my helmet off? No way, fucker, but I will take yours! I grabbed, jamming my thumbs into what had to be the collar seams trying to find latches or some kind of opening device. My own helmet cracked and screeched, and came free just as I tore the helmet from its head.

A breath of air! I hadn’t realized I was running out of oxygen in the suit! Fresh Hanosian air, tainted heavily with smoke and smells, yet with more oxygen than I had before blasted fresh life into my aching, lightning bolt pained lungs. I absorbed the pain and the oxygen, letting both feed me.

The blue-skinned Shaquaree face above me had its mouth open to show the rows of fish-like spikey teeth, and its eyes were bugging out in . . . what? Fury? Pain? Whatever. My fingers closed on its throat as its secondary hands raked at my face in panic and its primaries tried to grab at my wrists to move them. I would not be moved.

The Wolf howled in glorious fury, its voice ringing with all the mighty strength of its will . . . indomitable, unbeatable, unyielding. I twisted my hips and flung my left leg to upset its balance and rolled to my right, pushing hard with my left shoulder. I managed to unseat it from my chest and it fell sideways while still scrabbling at me. I felt slashes and tears in my face, my cheeks. My left eye blazed in sudden sensation, though I couldn’t call it pain. There was already way too much pain everywhere in my body, though it all seemed far away at this moment.

I kept the pressure on its throat as I scrambled, lunging, and gained the upper position. Then, my lips peeled back and a grimly delighted smile on my face, I put everything I had, every joule of strength remaining into my arms and hands and fingers.

A mighty sound came to my ears as I wrenched and pulled and squeezed. I felt some of my fingers break under the immense pressure and forced yet even more power into my shoulders. I was shaking with the effort, and still twisting, squeezing, tearing with the immense additional strength of the ABS magnifying my own. I felt its neck snap, the vertebrae separate, and watched the life drain swiftly from its eyes.

Still, I was not done. More! More! I twisted, feeling the broken finger bones grating under my skin. I threw my left leg over its shoulder and twisted again as the same roar I heard before bellowed out . . . and its head tore away from its huge body, ligaments and blood vessels stretching and snapping, its blood flinging in spatters.

Staggering, I somehow managed to gain my feet. With its head in one hand, I bent my back until my face turned to the sky and whatever warrior gods existed there and roared my victory, daring them to take me to their bosom.

I was done. In exhaustion, in agony, I fell. It was all I could do to take another shuddering breath. Red and black haze obscured whatever vision I might yet have.

Wait! Carla! The teams! I had to move. Somehow, I had to get up and move to them.

Suddenly, Arrow was now bent over my leg and pushing me back to lie down. I wouldn’t budge. Then I saw Dog and Wheels moving in to take up guard duty over me.

“Lie still, sir!” Arrow was saying over her external speakers.

She took her own helmet off to look at me, and said, “You have two options, sir. Either cooperate or I will have to put you out! I am trying to save your life here! Five seconds to decide!”

I could barely see her or the others. I don’t know how I could tell who they were but somehow I knew.

“My hairy ass! I have to get in touch with Ronin, and with the ship!” I yelled, but the words came out weakly, out of breath. “I just realized . . . Hey! Wait! Don’t trank . . .”

“Commander Rawlings, sir, for your safety and survival, you are relieved by my medical authority.”

“Damn it, Arrow, there are critical . . . um . . . crit . . . ah, um . . . something seemed important . . . what . . .”

As Arrow worked over me, and before everything faded completely, I heard and saw several things. My perceptions rose, as if my spirit was rising above my body. I could see clearly again, and hear. It didn’t seem strange at all, at the time.

Dog, big man Dog, and Wheels continued to stand over me and Arrow, their weapons at ready and scanning for any threat. Hondo, Spear, and Banshee from Team Yankee came up to stand nearby, as well as CanMan, Star, Bang, and Buzz from Team Zulu. All of them were covered in blood, both red and the alien yellow and amber.

“Did you see that shit?” Hondo asked looking at Banshee. “He ripped the bastard’s head off its fucking body with his hands!”

“Yeah . . . yeah, man, I saw it,” Banshee said shaking her head in disbelief. “Did you hear him? I’ve never in my life heard a human being sound like that.”

“Wait . . . that roar was the commander?” Hondo asked in shock.

“Yeah, man . . . as we were all running up. I guess I was the closest. I didn’t know what it was until it stopped.”

“Did he do this by himself?” Bang asked.

“Do what?”

“DO WHAT? Take a fucking look around you!” Bang exclaimed.

“Holy shit! Where did all of these things come from?” Banshee burst out, taking a good look for the first time at the twenty-eight alien dead, the scattered limbs, torsos cleaved open, and crushed helmets lay all around.

“Gods and Stars Above! Did you ever see so much blood!” she breathed.

“They look like some sort of genetically altered special reaction team of Shaquaree,” stated CanMan.

“Yeah,” added Star, “maybe like a rescue or reinforcement effort for the officer’s caste. Looks like they were trying to flank us in the main battle and Wolf jumped among them.”

“Alright. SOG, lock it up!” Spear commanded. “Eyes open and on security. We can discuss this later. And somebody find his katana!” Her voice was raw with emotion, but left no room to doubt she was in control.

Then it all went black.