Prologue
Largo Sea
Fairfax
Federated Suns/Draconis Combine
4 June 3152
The ship listed to starboard, but the figures on board, shadowy silhouettes barely glimmering in the moonless night, did not seem to notice or care. They moved between the bodies with a frightening ease, carefully picking for any useful pieces of equipment and intelligence. There were 12 of them, 12 operators of DEST Team 4 clad in Kage battle armor equipped with small lasers, and an anti-personnel weapon mount. One figure carried no weapon save for a pair of vibro-claws mounted in place of the armored gloves most variants of the suit carried, and that was the one he marked.
Master Chief Petty Officer Justin Mark Zibler eased back down the ladder, took a breath, and slowly lifted his body back up with his left had to peer over the lip again. His right fist grasped a Serrek 7875L pistol, a variant of the striker-fired standard issue Armed Forces of the Federated Suns pistol tailored for Special Operations Forces troops, and he aimed this, one-handed, down the final third of the ship. Holding for a second, he watched the DEST sentries complete their scans and then smoothly hauled himself over the lip.
Zibler took a knee and observed again. Shaking his head, he holstered his sidearm and unslung his primary weapon for the night, a Thunderstroke II Gauss Rifle equipped with a rail system mounting a VCOG scope. Aiming this down the deck one handed, he removed a rope ladder from his belt with his left and hooked it to the rail. He threw the ladder over and shifted his support hand to his weapon, taking a C-clamp grip in front of his optics. Peering down the scope, magnified to 4x power, he continued to monitor the enemy while his people scaled behind him and filtered to the sides.
Zibler served as Troop Chief of WAG’s 2 Troop, Red Squadron, which consisted of 16 operators divided into three teams, two of six operators and one of four permanently assigned Sea Fox battle armor suits. Armor team surrounded the ship, and Zibler personally led Alpha Team on the back deck assault, where the DEST Kage operators took up positions. It was potentially the most dangerous position, and he took pride on placing himself, and not his Frogmen, in the most dangerous positions. Bravo Team would breach the bridge, eliminate the 12 DEST Heavy Response Platoon operatives holding the hostages – they wore DEST infiltration suits and not battle armor, fortunately – and defuse the charges the Dracs set. That was not an easy task, either; now Zibler began to regret not leading Bravo. Still, he trusted Tom Ellis completely, and he knew his mind, effectively a case of weaponized autism, simply over-analyzed every decision.
Stop overthinking.
He shook his head. For all their overly vaunted prowess, shouted through the universe by authors and “experts” who had no knowledge of Special Operations Forces or even infantry units, Zibler found them to be barely acceptable for the Tier 2 level, let alone Tier 1 work. The Dracs recruited DEST operators from MechWarriors, not career infantry troops who upgraded to SOF Tier 2 and then Tier 1 units in sequence, and it showed in the way they moved and scanned. He was biased, of course; unlike the other members of his famous military family, Zibler was Federated Suns Navy, a Frogman of the Blue Water Marine Response Teams, specifically its Tier 1 Warfare Augmentation Group. He graduated the infamously grueling BWDS, Blue Water Demolition School, a deliberate homage to their forefathers in the United States Navy SEAL teams from the 20th and 21st centuries, 18 years ago and served in the regular teams for 10 years before attending Green Squadron for the WAG. BWDS failed 90% of applicants. Green Squadron failed another 98.4% of attendees, all veteran Frogmen with excellent combat records, creating a hyper-elite, SOCOM’s Tier 1 equivalent to the Rabid Foxes of the Department of Military Intelligence’s Section Six. DEST, recruiting MechWarriors steeped in the historically inaccurate Samurai tradition, and then subjecting them to the even more historically inaccurate shinobi tradition, simply had no base.
Justin felt a hand slip over his left shoulder and squeeze. He immediately stood and advanced up the deck, stopping when the “wall” of the ship’s cabin covered his right side. He transitioned his weapon to his support shoulder by initially flipping the safety on, choking up on the magazine well and “tossing” the weapon forward and around to reset the stock into his left shoulder. It was a move he could make in his sleep, honed by thousands of hours of repetition. Finished, he simply switched his hands, sliding his left into the pistol grip and his right hand to the grip, and flicked the safety back off.
Vibro-claw filled his sight picture. Around him, half of his team, 5 DEST operators plus him, covered approaches and scanned the water around them. Dead MIIO analysts and techs littered the deck, as did a few Davion Marines, and most of the bodies bore wounds indicating execution, gunshots to the back at close range. Some were hacked to pieces by the vibro-claws, and even the tropical sea salt could not mask the stench of blood, shit and viscera.
You ****** will pay for this.
Zibler sighted in and waited. The DEST operators scanning the sea didn’t see the four Sea Fox suits slowly rising to the surface. Like the others, he was qualified to operate the Sea Fox, Infiltrator Mk. II and other armors, and he knew how the Frogmen inside felt. He could sense their movements; even had they not rehearsed this takedown a thousand times, he could have sensed them. With that in mind, he moved his right hand to his face and pushed his “quad-NOD” google up and back on his head. He placed his right back on the gun then “flipped” his C-clamp, supporting the barrel with the wall as he aimed. He took a deep breath and exhaled, the tension in his body coiling around his core. He took another and then another, box breathing, exhaling entirely and beginning the sequence again to calm himself.
Fear is natural. Fear is useful. Fear is an illusion.
“Execute.”
The fear fled to the back of his mind.
Four bright lights activated from the water at once, blinding their opponents with enough radiance to trigger the emergency shut off systems for the Kage’s Night Optical Screens. One DEST operator yelled as they flashed, but Zibler squeezed the trigger, cutting it off with the high-pitched crack of a Gauss Rifle slug. The sound of it breaking the sound barrier blended with the impact as the silvery blur slammed into Vibro-claw’s chest at the same time the crack echoed, but Justin squeezed it again. Blood burst out of the Drac’s body as the round shattered his faceplate and tore the operator’s head from his body. The Kage fell to the deck with all the grace of a sack of potatoes dropped from a flatbed.
All hell broke loose.
Bursts of Sea Fox light machine gun fire ripped into the DEST soldiers from the water, and behind him, Alpha poured their own fire in. Rifle rounds, Gauss slugs and invisible laser beams swept across the deck, and the DEST troopers tried to return fire. They managed some shots, and Justin heard a yelp behind him, but he didn’t hear the words “Eagle down” and so kept firing. A storm of curses told him the Frogman was mostly ok anyway, but he ignored the relief. Aim, fire. Aim, fire. Banzai this, ******.
Four, now five DEST troopers were down, and he pushed forward again after feeling the squeeze on his shoulder. With barely a glance, he snapped four more shots off, dropping the final Snake in a shower of blood and bone. He pumped one more slug into each body for good measure as he advanced past and moved towards the hatch. Jenkins and Brady pied off the doorway, using the Wingman technique where Brady scanned the hatchway while Jenkins covered the front. They moved in tandem, forming an imaginary U for workspace between the two, and cleared the threshold to the other side.
Justin performed a tactical reload while they did so after transitioning his weapon back to his primary hand and shoulder. He drew a fresh magazine with his left hand, pulled the partially spent magazine from the well with the same hand, forming an L with both mags, and inserted the new one. When it clicked, he moved the partial magazine to pouch on his plate carrier, towards the back, and reversed it before inserting. They practiced emergency reloads to perfection, of course, each of them capable of firing a round, feeling bolt-lock, dropping the empty magazine and inserting a fresh one, and firing a second round in about 2.5 seconds, but they still avoided these at all costs. Emergency action drills could backfire, and 2.5 seconds was an eternity in a gunfight. It was simply the policy to tactically reload whenever one could.
He finished just in time.
The door slammed open just as Brady and Jenkins finished the maneuver. Swearing loudly, Brady opened fire as she completed her pie. The Combine SOF troopers did the same, but Brady’s maneuver took her body out of the field of fire, the “fatal funnel,” and her quick shooting pushed the Kage back a few steps, giving Justin enough space and time. He grabbed a decoy grenade, yelled “Bang out!” and tossed it in. The DEST operators did exactly what he thought they would do and reacted to a flashbang grenade, a stun weapon, but Brady stepped through the threshold to the right corner and popped her rifle out from the compressed high port. She fired and fired as Justin stepped to the left and did the same, punching out from compressed high and opening fire almost immediately. He felt the Thunderstroke kick reassuringly even as the beam from the ISF lackey’s small laser danced across his hip, and he only stopped firing on the first target when the Drac slumped against the wall, streaking gore as he or she fell sideways.
He reached the corner, turned, and fired. The round sliced through the target’s faceplate, but Justin shot him twice more anyway, making sure of the kill. Then it was suddenly over. He looked over and saw Brady, Jenkins and Aldobrandini continue to flow down the stairs, and he followed, falling into formation despite the random and sudden burning pain in his right hip and leg. Only when they reached the bottom did he glance down and note the blisters, burns and blood soaking his pants. ******!
“Clear,” Jenkins sounded. He aimed down the hallway but went no further. “I think that’s everyone.”
“Onyx-1 to all Onyx elements,” Zibler said into his radio. “SITREP, over.”
Groaning a little, he listened to the calls, his heart jumping happily. All twelve members of DEST Team 4 were dead, the vengeful Frogmen making sure of that with a few more rounds. His team lost no killed, suffered no Urgent Surgical casualties, and seized the bridge and engine room in less that six minutes. ISR came online too, the QRF had just arrived. Ellis’ team also rescued all ten living hostages from the bridge, four Marines and six intelligence agents, and killed all 12 DEST HRP soldiers.
Of course, not all things were well. Aldobrandini, a Pararescue Jumper, suddenly appeared back and pushed him against the wall. “What the ******, J? You weren’t going to say anything?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Shut the ****** up,” she retorted, her mercury-colored eyes flashing in genuine anger.
“Yes ma’am.”
Serafina Rosa Aldobrandini may have looked more like a fit swimsuit model than the lethal commando and brilliant medic she was, but her fiery spirit and abrasive language when angered quickly ended any discrepancies. She immediately cut away the cloth of his Battle Dress Uniform pants and applied a cool, sterile saline pad.
“It doesn’t hurt!”
“That’s because it’s a third-degree burn, you ****** idiot. You’re lucky it’s small. You’re still going to need debriding and antibiotics, and that’s going to be a problem on this boat. You should have said something.”
“It just happened, Sera.”
“Master Chief, shut the ****** up.”
Sighing loudly, he made his report to command while the PJ continued to rant. “Command, Onyx-1, Command, Onyx-1.”
“Go, Onyx-1.”
“Onyx-1 reports Primary and Secondary objectives complete. Two Four, I repeat, Two Zero E KIA. Primary Tango is fully eliminated. One zero, repeat One Zero, blues recovered intact.”
“I copy Two Zero E KIA including primary target, One Zero blues rescued. And blue casualties?”
“Two Whiskey India Alpha, repeat, Two Eagles WIA, non-urgent, non-surgical both.”
“Copy, two Eagles WIA, non-urgent, non-surgical. Callsign of the Eagles?”
******. “Command, Onyx-1 and Onyx-4. The Eagles’ callsigns are Onyx-1 and Onyx-4.”
A noticeable pause followed. “I copy, Onyx-1 is one of the WIA. Analyst teams are en route. Standby for evacuation, and good job out there.”
He glanced down at Aldo. “See, they think we did good job.”
She simply glared at him and continued.
I
Davenport
Verde
Federated Suns
26 June, 3152
Justin grimaced behind the sunglasses, but he inserted the magazine into his pistol and thumbed the slide release, slamming it close and chambering a round, before anyone could notice. Three weeks in the hospital had dulled his edge slightly, and he was determined to sharpen it back to operational standards as quickly as he could. That he had only been discharged from the place the day before never really factored in his mind. Injuries hadn’t stopped him at Albion, BWDS, and Green Team, and he sure as hell wouldn’t let them stop him here.
He grabbed his next weapon, his personal M42B, cleared the weapon, checked it, and inserted a magazine from the left side of his plate carrier. He pressed the bolt release and chambered a round in that, too, but he flipped the safety on. A single-point sling – he was old school – connected it to his body, which, while less comfortable than a modified two point, made transitioning from strong to support side, and vice versa, much easier.
He felt the hand grasp his shoulder. “Shooter ready?”
“Ready,” he replied.
“Standby!”
He took a breath.
The beep sounded, and Justin sprinted twenty meters to a pair of ammo cans, which he picked up. He turned and ran back to the starting line with the cans, dropped them, and ran another twenty meters to the first barricade, his rifle at high port/patrol ready, the range master behind him the whole time. He moved to the right, presented the rifle, sighted and fired twice before moving left, and transitioning the rifle to his support side. He fired twice more, and shifted back right, but lower, and fired twice more again. He repeated on the left side, backed up and sprinted forty meters to the next barricade, holding the rifle at high port again.
This time he started with his support side. Two rounds, the he went right and transitioned, but the gun didn’t fire even after he yanked the charging handle to clear the dummy round. No matter; he guided the weapon down away with a quick pull from his left hand, drew his pistol, brought his left hand to the weapon, and fired twice. He drew the pistol to his sternum, moved left, presented and fired, and repeated right, presenting and firing with practiced ease.
He took a knee, preformed a tactical reload of his pistol, and checked the rifle. He holstered the sidearm, dropped the mag and inserted a fresh one, an emergency or bolt-lock reload, and thumbed the bolt release. Satisfied, he sprinted to the next line and stepped out in front. He fired four shots and then advanced while firing, four shots at each target. Finally, he hit a red line, transitioned to his pistol again, and engaged the last targets, the ten percent targets, carefully. Each time he fired, he faintly heard the satisfying impact of rounds on metal.
“Time!”
The range master pressed the timer, which beeped, and Justin holster his Serrek. The RM approached. “Shit, that’s a record, J. Take a look.”
He did, and he grinned happily when he saw the time breakdowns for each section. He hit 26 seconds on the first section, which included the sprints to the ammo cans and back, the sprint to the first barricade, the shots, the sprint to the second barricade, and the shots and transition there. His tactical pistol reload and clearing the jam on the second rifle took 5.1 seconds. He shaved a few seconds off the third section, too. It was a good performance.
“I’ll take it. How were the groupings?”
“Excellent, as always. All A-zone strikes, all grouped MOA or better at all ranges. This was a great run, Master Chief.”
“Can I go again?”
The RM shook his head. “Commander Rollins wants you in the team room ASAP, RFN. You don’t even have to police the brass today. Just get there. Smitty will take you in the cart.”
“I can walk.”
“The ****** you can. You think I didn’t see the wincing and limping? Smitty will take you, Troop Chief. That’s final.”
Justin flushed a little but nodded his thanks. The RM was a Senior Chief, a rank and grade lower, but he was RM. That made his decision final, and Justin limped over to Smitty, who wore jeans, cowboy boots and a flannel shirt. “Nice uniform.”
Smitty laughed. “Jealous, boss?”
“Yeah, I really am. Team room.”
Smitty gunned the golf cart, and in five minutes, Justin stood in the team room. He cleared his weapons and broke them down for cleaning. He had only just grabbed the CLP – practically unchanged since the 21st century, which made sense, given that the M42B, like the Federated Long Rifle before it, was a derivative of the AR system, only featuring a short-stroke gas piston system instead of the original expanding gas system, which many shooters incorrectly labeled as a direct impingement system. CLP, formally Cleaning, Lubrication and Protection gun oil, was about as old as Eugene Stoner himself, but it worked.
Justin had just started on the bolt carrier group when Commander Rollins marched in. Zibler began to stand, but Rollins waved him off without a word and sat down across from him. Like Justin, Rollins was a career frogman, and his muscular forearms and thick biceps rivaled the Master Chief’s. The physical similarities ended – Ziblers were Bavarian by heritage, and Rollins’ ebony skin marked him as, well, not Bavarian – but the two men got along famously. Both were Roman-Rite Catholics, both shared similar backgrounds with boxing and martial arts, and both carried an academic streak. For his part, Zibler considered Rollins a phenomenal officer, one who preferred personally leading the Troop in the field.
“You needed to see me, sir?”
“Yeah, but first, how’s the leg? And no bullshit, J.”
Justin shrugged. “It hurts, but it’s not slowing me down at all. They did clear me, I smoked the fire course I ran today.”
“Yeah, I saw. So you’re fit? Aldobrandini won’t murder you?”
“Uh, I can’t guarantee that. What’s up?”
“We found something on that ship, some sort of signaling system the Combine brought. MIIO and DMI are at each other’s throats over it, and Colonel Sortek quietly wants another option to investigate it.”
He pronounced MIIO “Mee oh,” and Justin smiled briefly. Then he masked it. “Why not give it to the Foxes? They’re just as good as us. They can handle it easily.”
“They are and they can, but MIIO isn’t keen on letting them take it. It’s all hypothetical anyway; Solar Flare is over, and the Prince wants operations against the Combine to stop, but it could be something. I think we might be tasked with the DA side of it when MIIO inevitable wins and takes the op.”
Justin shrugged. “That’s what happens when you stick a college professor in a spook’s world. He wins and we lose.”
“I thought you were a fan of the Prince and his cabinet?”
“Of the First Prince and Colonel Sortek, yes sir, I am. I could live without Sandoval and Dr. Spy Kids.”
Rollins managed a straight face. “Too far, Master Chief.”
“Yes sir, sorry. That was too far.”
“How did you survive Albion?” He laughed, not waiting for an answer. “You’re not wrong, though. The Foxes should take this one. DEST is military, seconded to ISF.”
“And why us? We’re SOCOM, Navy SOCOM at that. We have nothing to do with intelligence services outside of operations, and we have even less jurisdiction than DMI within the suns. We’re a worse option.”
Rollins shrugged. “They used MIIO agents to rescue Hasek from the Taurians, and that’s another mission that should have gone to the Fox Teams. We’re not getting consistent answers on anything.”
“Turf war?”
“Turf war.”
“Any more good news, sir?”
“Yeah. You guys did a great job, and the First Prince watched the whole thing live. He also knows this Troop was responsible for some pretty spectacular work against the Capellans. He’s going to review the AAR’s personally.”
“Oh, goody.”
“He’ll ask an important question.”
“Which is, sir?”
Rollins grinned wolfishly, his white teeth clashing heavily with his dark skin. “Why are you the only member of your family who isn’t a general?”
“Begging your pardon, sir. ****** you, sir.”
The commander laughed and marched out of the team room. “You even have a tank named after you,” he called back.
“But not a very good one!”
Alone, Zibler chuckled and sat back down to clean his weapons.
———————-
She watched him leave the building and walk briskly across the street towards the gym. He limped a little still, likely a product of the laser burn would he sustained in the takedown, but he seemed to press on well enough, either ignoring the pain or battling through it. Either way, it spoke of toughness and strength of character.
She narrowed her eyes a little. One part of her brain certainly found him attractive. Even at this distance, his blue eyes practically glowed from a chiseled face, and his strongly defined abdominal, arm and leg muscles could have easily been dropped on a recruiting poster or magazine. She particularly found his biceps enjoyable, and he was technically a noble, from a famous military family that seemed to breed excellence. He was intelligent and intellectually robust, too, another thing she enjoyed.
Another part of her brain, however, hated him, saw him as the enemy. That part fixated on his other qualities and detached itself from her more base desires. She checked everything, analyzed every pattern of movement she could find, processed every single piece of information they had managed to gather. Zibler was dangerous, very dangerous; she knew he planned the operation that cost ISF so dearly. His files had gaps in them – not even she and her people could access all of them – but she knew enough. Albion, but not OCS, possibly because of an affair he had with the commandant’s daughter, to the Navy’s Bluewater Marine Response Teams, to the Tier One unit. He bounced from operational squadrons to the Combatives Master Instructor post – he had a strong background Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu before he advanced to the very highest position in AFFS Special Operations Combatives Program – and served as Troop Commander, Assaulter, Scout-Sniper and even Military Working Dog handler. He also held two Masters degrees and could easily finish a PhD. Like all Ziblers, he was a practicing Catholic, not a New Avalon Catholic but the original Church, which still had billions, possibly trillions of adherents – they were Bavarians by descent – but he tended to be stay on base for that too. He changed patterns regularly.
She glanced back. The sound made her slightly nervous. This installation was very secure, its sailors and soldiers very professional. They followed procedures to the letter, and the operators themselves were among the very best in the galaxy. They had to be more careful.
Yes, they needed to wait and watch.
Soon, we will have revenge, and we will make a statement: not even scions of famous noble families were safe.
—————
Justin returned to his room and immediately jumped in the shower. He pummeled his muscles under hot water for ten minutes, washed every millimeter of his body, rinsed and then turned the water cold, ice cold, for a few minutes. This shocked his system, gave him a burst of energy and increased his focus. He changed it to warm again after, somewhere between the two and then turned it off. He stepped out, dried off, and wrapped the towel around his waist. Collapsing into the pull out couch placed directly behind a small table, he opened his computer and scanned through some messages, hoping that the intelligence people had managed to crack whatever it was they found on the ship.
He leaned back for a moment and considered. The Dracs had attached some sort of transmitter to the ship, and intel picked up a bunch of gear from the ISF and DEST troopers his teams had killed. It was a treasure trove of equipment and information, though ISF had probably already changed the compromised access codes. They had probably taken steps to mitigate the damage as well, so Justin doubted MIIO and DMI would manage to pull considerable ahead of the Combine intelligence and terror apparatus. Even so, the analysts had picked up a code from the ship, one that didn’t match anything the AFFS or DCMS used.
On a hunch, Justin brought the schematics up for the transmitter. His computer hooked into the secured systems with a variety of passcodes and biometrics readings, and the team rooms occupied a very secure location in a heavy-guarded wing, but he still took care to engage and log everything properly. He then pulled up a series of transmitters in AFFS, DCMS, FWL, Lyran and even Clan inventories.
Nothing. It matched nothing they had, and the code it generated matched nothing. Something was off with it.
What if the Combine attacked the ship to get at this, and our people were just in the way? Do they know something we don’t know, and needed access?
He felt a surge of fear and excitement pour into his body, but he merely logged his findings and sent a series of communications to the signals intelligence people. He sent another email to Commander Rollins with his hunch, and logged out of everything. Tossing the towel off, he stood and walked to the bathroom, playfully cursing his unshakable need to drink a ton of water every day. Then he washed his hands, brushed and climbed into bed.
Tomorrow would be a long day, and his hip wasn’t helping anything at all.
II
Davenport
Verde
Federated Suns
27 June, 3152
The com rang once, only once, before Justin’s hand shot out and triggered it. “Zibler,” he said, the exhaustion already leaving his body.
“Wait, the general?”
He sighed. “No, I’m not the general.
“Are you related to the general?”
He sighed again. “Yea, I’m related to all the generals, plural. And before you ask, yes, the Field Marshal is my older sister.”
“Wow, man. You must have ****** up badly!”
“Does this have a point, whoever the hell you are?”
Sorry! They need you down at TACOPS.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
He ended the call and jumped out of bed.
