I hope you all enjoy this one, because it's been a cast-iron bitch to write...
The Most Dangerous Game
Most people think that the Jihad ended in 3081, when Stone's forces took Terra. But the sad truth is, all these years later, there are still Blakist holdouts spread out across known space, and still people hunting them down.
I was part of one such unit; the 106th Reconnaissance Battalion, aka the Stray Dogs. We were a small, close knit team, all veterans of the Jihad, 100% battle hardened life takers and heart breakers. We'd been through hell and come out the other side, having stolen the Devil's lunch money on the way. We thought that we were invincible, that there was nothing that the universe could throw at us that we couldn't handle.
How wrong we were.
We were sent to New Dallas, which is about as close as you can get to hell as you can get. Between the damage done during the Fall of the Star League, then the early Succession Wars and the subsequent breakdown of the atmospheric processors, it's a hot, choking radioactive mess of ruined cities being slowly reclaimed by the native wildlife. A few species descendent from plants and animals brought in from off-world can still be found, but they've adapted to survive, and aren't the same any more. Especially the ****** house cats.
Someone up in Intel had apparently uncovered evidence that the Blakists had been using New Dallas as a plant-sized training ground for some of their Manei Domini units, and as such it was decided to send in our unit to have a look around and report back anything interesting. We'd gone up against the Dommies more than once, so we went in locked, clocked and loaded for something a damn sight nastier than bear. Only problem was that they pulled our C/O at the last minute and lumbered us with Leutnant Colfia. Now, there are two kinds of officers in this 'verse; killin' officers and murderin' officers. Killin' officers are poor old buggers that get you killed by mistake. Murderin' officers are mad, bad, old buggers that get you killed on purpose - for a country, for a religion, maybe even for a flag. And it was well known that Leutnant Colfia wanted to be Hauptmann Colfia as soon as possible, regardless of how many poor sods she had to get killed to get there. As such, she took risks, only never with her own life, but she also go missions done, which is why the brass loved her and put up with the disproportionately high number of losses units under her command tended to take.
She was, in short, a completely self-serving bitch, and no one who survived serving under her was likely to shed a tear if she stepped on a landmine and was turned into human confetti.
Good thing about a unit like the 106th is they let you choose your own kit, meaning that we were decked out in the most eclectic assortment of battle armour you're ever likely to see. I'd long ago settled on the G13 variant of the
Tornado power-amour, preferably the smaller silhouette and the stopping power of the 'David' Light Gauss Rifle. I wasn't a sniper, but I had achieved the Designated Marksman award back in the FWLM before everything went to shit. And as back up, I had a little something Tai-i Shirogane had given me when we got word he was being replaced with Leutnent Colfia. And no, I have no idea how someone who started out in the DCMS got their hands on an experimental Lyran weapon like an
Adjudicator.
Now, not many of you are likely to have even heard of an
Adjudicator, let alone seen one, so let me explain just what makes it so special.
You see, back before the Clan Invasion, nobody outside of ComStar had seen combat Battle Armour for centuries, so the appearance of Elementals... well, let's just say that a lot of people needed a lot of clean underwear afterwards. The concept of highly mobile, jump-capable infantry that could shug-off hits from 'Mech grade weapons was a complete Out Of Context Problem for a while, and R&D teams were throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. And the
Adjudicator is the end result of one such project that was ultimately scrapped in favour of GyroJet pistols and the like. If you want to imagine what an
Adjudicator looks like, take the biggest,
'I'm overcompensating for something' hand-cannon you can think of, then make it about half as big again. Only rather than bullets better suited for demolishing a wall, it's loaded with these little metal containers of chemicals, and the firing pin is actually a tiny little laser. So, when you pull the trigger, that little laser fires into the rear of the chemicals, which in turn give you a much more powerful chemical laser out a barrel that's really just there to help you aim. And belive me, you want to be sure of what you're shooting at when you fire a weapon I've personally seen burn a hole through a 'Mechs cockpit visor.
Downside is that it generates a lot of heat, so you need something with a fair bit of bulk to act as a rudimentary heatsink, and each pull of the trigger is worth about 1,000 C-Bills a go, so it's not the cheapest weapon on the market. On the upside, it's damn near silent, has no recoil, and looks intimidating enough to make a lot of people back down when they see it hanging on your hip. Shirogane said I might need something on hand for any unexpected happen. And given our line of work involved actively seeking out the unexpected, it was a reassuring friend to have at my side.
Standard operating procedure would have seen us get dropped off in a heavy APC or IFV a few kilometers from the primary target and then advance as we saw fit, but Leutnant Colfia vetoed that in favour of a nighttime HALO drop into the ruins of a nearby city, just so she could log another combat drop. HALO jumps can be difficult at the best of times, but trying to coordinate one while wearing heavily modified battle armour and jumping into an inhospitable atmosphere... we were only lucky we didn't lose anyone right off the bat. I was lucky enough to come down in a wide street, but a couple of the others had to make their way down from the tops of buildings that hadn't been maintained in centuries.
We were scattered across half the city, and it took us hours to join back up together, by which point is was starting to get light, so we had no choice but to call it quits for the day and find somewhere to hold up. Fortunately, they sent along a couple of Broncos, little walking drones that can carry all sorts of equipment that you can't really strap to a suit of battle armour, including a small inflatable habitat module just big enough for half of us to sleep in outside of our armour. It's a bitch of a job to set up right, especially as you need to make sure that the decontamination unit is working properly, but at least you can get a few hours shut-eye and a bit of hot food down your neck. Those on watch had to make do with hooking their suits up to the other Bronco, letting it supply them with power, air and water so as not to drain their suits systems.
Soon as darkness fell, we set out towards the Blakist base: a massive domed structure our recon satellites had picked up about ten kilometers outside the city. It wasn't easy going, as with between the fighting, lack of maintenance and exposure to a worsening environment, the roads were at times impassable, and we often had to take long detours around fallen buildings. I was walking scout, so I had the misfortune of being the first to fine evidence of what the Blakists had been up to. Biological material doesn't last long after death: bacteria, carrion eaters and the elements quickly break down everything, even bones given time, but what I found was fresh enough to still be identified as having been human.
But only just.
There's an unspoken rule that you're respectful of any remains you find, because you never know when you're going to be the one someone else finds. It's an age-old tradition amongst soldiers, something that takes a lot to override. So you can probably imagine, even if you'd rather not, that there wasn't much left to find. But even then, it was clear that they hadn't died quickly or cleanly, with some of them having been strung up on the rubble and left to suffocate when their air supply ran out. One had been in what looked like Elemental armour, and a quick checking of their Codex bracelet indicated that its late wearer had once been a Point Commander of Clan Smoke Jaguar, which was crazy because they'd been destroyed almost twenty years before. Other bodies were in uniforms that indicated a ragtag collection of Mercenary units and even a couple of ComsGuards, with no indication of how they'd ended up on New Dallas. People started accusing Leutnant Colfia of withholding information about previous missions to the planet, accusations she strongly denied, and I found myself believing her, much to my own surprise. So we cut them down, buried them as best we could, and moved on.
Despite the hell New Dallas had been through in the bast, we started to find evidence of more recent combat: scorching not warn clean by the passage of time, places where exposed metal had been damaged, leaving patches not yet fully tarnished by rust and corrosion. But we'd been expecting as much, given we were looking for a recently active trading base, so we didn't think much of it until we came across the burnout husk of a
Bolla Stealth Tank by the side of the road. Two of its wheels had been blown off, while someone had taken the time to arrange the severed heads of all three crewmembers on top of the turret. All evidence indicated that the vehicle had been travailing away from the Blakist base at high speed when it had been disabled, causing it to crash into the remains of what had once been a tenament building of some kind.
Soon we found more vehicles, military and civilian, scattered along the road, each and every one rendered inoperative, their passengers killed, bodies strewn around. Most had simply been left where they lay, others... we found some kind of bus or similar transport, each seat filled by a decapitated body, their heads arranged in a geometric pattern in the middle of the road.
Now, we'd all seen enough horrors during the Jihad to earn a Section-8 discharge if we'd asked for one, but I tell you, New Dallas was something else.
Eventually, we reached a low rise that looked out over the base we'd been sent to investigate: it had been built as a giant dome, separated into four equal quadrants with a central control tower rising out of the middle, making it look to all the world like a kids spinning top. Something had evidently exploded inside one of the quadrants, the structure bent and twisted outwards like burst seed pod, and our passive sensors were picking up no signs of heat or power from within. Normally, we'd have dug in and observed the base for a day or two, but the truth was, we were all getting a little bit jumpy, so when Leutnant Colfia suggested that we head straight in, we all agreed.
We moved in, standard two-by-two cover formation, the heavier suits keeping watch over the perimeter while our electronics expert hooked up a power-cell to one of the air-locks and ran a remote bypass. Fortunately, even the Blakists aren't stupid enough to forego standard safety protocols, so the default S&R code had the lock cycle, allowing us entry.
We soon wished that it hadn't.
I don't know if any of you have ever seen the aftermath of close-quarters combat, but it isn't pretty: few buildings are designed to withstand military grade weapons being fired inside them, and the Blakist base was no exception. The floor, walls and ceiling were pitted and scorched by laser and projectile fire, while some sections had obviously been ground-zero for explosions, given the way the metal was all torn and twisted. Someone had thrown a hell of a party, and hadn't hung around to clean up afterwards, that's for sure.
You probably have this mental image of us advising down a long, corridor with some hand-help scanner out front. Well, I hate to tell you this, but that only happens in the TriVids. Sure, motion trackers like that exist, but they're too easily spoofed to be of any real use in an active combat situation, so we were reliant on Mk.1 eyeballs. We made our way into the base, taking advantage of what cover there was, checking rooms and side corridors as we went, eyes on a swivel, always checking the corners.
Always check the corners when you first enter a room, or it'll eat you alive.
The place had been trashed: desks flipped over, paperwork and broken data-slates scattered on the floor, signs that several fires had raged without anyone trying to stop them. It certainly didn't look like we'd be finding much useful information unless the main control room was in better shape, so we made our way deeper into the dome. There wasn't enough of us to do a proper sweep, but we'd never been intended to be more than the proverbial canary down the mine, checking to see if it was safe to send in the REMF's. The damage only seemed to get worse the deeper we went, but the crazy thing was, we didn't find any bodies, not so much as a severed finger or missing ear. Place looked like a ****** carnel house, but not so much as a speck of blood to be seen. That was enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and even through their suits, I could tell the others felt the same.
Reaching the core we were surprised to discover that it still had a breathable atmosphere: the entire structure was compartmentalised in case of a breach, but with no power and all the damage we'd seen, we'd kind of assumed that the entire place was open to the elements, but we quickly set up an ad-hoc airlock and decontamination unit using the parts from the inflatable habitat. Lot of us weren't happy with that, but Leutnant Colfia pulled rank, and she wasn't in the mood to pole opinions.
Inside the core was in better shape: there was damage, but there were also signs that someone had done their best to patch up the worst of it and generally clean house. It was piss-poor in comparison to what a proper damage control party would do, but it was our first indication that someone had survived whatever had happened. Even though all the tests we could run indicated that the air was good, no one opted to pop the seal on their suits and take a deep breath: Blakists have a history of cooking up all kind of nasty surprises that standard tests can't detect, and we'd all seen the results first hand. But the closer we got to where we assumed that the control room was, the more... homely the pace seemed to be. Someone had, badly, painted the walls a soft shade of pastel green, and had evidently converted some of the offices into living space.
Now you can't exactly be light footed in military grade battle armour: even the most advanced suits still sound like a charging elephant on metal flooring, and even Leutnant Colfia wasn't crazy enough to try and order us to dismount and proceed on foot, so there was no point in playing coy.
"Hello?" amplified by her suits external speakers, the Leutnants voice echoed down the long, dark corridors.
We all stood, weapons at the ready but doing our best not to look too much like a team of highly trained and experienced commandos sent to make sure that the base was out of commission, one way or the other. A couple of us had been issued less-lethal weapons during the latter stages of the Jihad and never quite got around to handing them back, so we had them out rather than our regular extremely-lethal loads. I had a military grade tazer that I'd once used to stop a charging Elemental dead in their tracks.
"Hello?" the Leutnant called again.
There was the sound of something hitting the floor in the distance, and everyone got their game faces on as a faint glow appeared in a side corridor about twenty meters ahead of where I was standing. I tapped the transmit button on my radio, letting the Leutnant know that we had contact without having to actually speak, and she turned to look where I was pointing with my tazer. The light grew, then a pale face with unkempt mousey brown hair appeared around the corner, an emergency lamp held in a shaking hand.
What she saw was a dozen suits of heavily armed battle armour, and quite understandable took off like a frightened jackalope.
I was moving even before the Leutnant gave the order, but even under ideal circumstances, I was nowhere near as fast as someone not wearing 400kg of armour and electronics. Add to that I had no idea of the layout of the base, and I was effectively running blind. The only advantage I had was the inferred view my HUD gave me let me easily track the lamp she was carrying as she bounced off walls and round corners until she slipped through a half-closed door into what looked to be some kind of storeroom. The door mechanism had been jammed to the point where even the enhanced strength of my power armour couldn't budge it. I didn't know if I had the time to cut through or wait for one of the others to catch up with a more powerful rig, so I powered down my armour and hit the quick release latch, offering up a silent prayer that the air was as safe as our sensors insisted. Stripped down to the light fatigues I wore under the armour, I eyed the
Adjudicator for a moment, then clipped it to back of my belt before grabbing the tazer, being sure to make sure that it was on one of the lower settings. I had to squeeze to get through the door, and was surprised at what I saw on the other side.
Someone had obviously spent a lot of time turning it into a refuge of sorts: the heavy shelving had been pushed to one side, making room for a small bed and an assortment of boxes that looked like they contained emergency rations. A small folding table had been set up in one corner, a scattering of personal effects laid out on top, including what looked like a family photo in a cheap frame. The sound of movement made me turn slowly, the flashlight in my hand settling over the woman as she huddled in the far corner, holding what looked like a scalpel out towards me defensively. Judging by the way her arm was shaking, she was more of a danger to herself than me.
"Hi." I did my best to sound nonthreatening as I switched the light from a sharp beam to a softly glowing orb, "My name's Billi. I'm not here to hurt you."
Her only response was to try and make herself look as small as possible, her eyes wide with terror.
"Can I sit?" I crouched down, trying to get a better look at her: she looked to be in her early to mid twenties, dressed in what looked like they had once been surgical scrubs that hung loosely on her slender frame, making her look like a kid playing dress-up in her parents clothing. There was a bandage on her left arm that looked reasonably fresh and professionally applied, and she looked and smelled surprisingly clean for someone who'd been living like a rat for god only knew how long. That said, I could practically smell the adrenaline pumping through her system.
She shifted, and I spotted a thin silver necklace round her neck, a tiny silver sword with a sapphire in the hilt hanging from it.
You'd run into them occasionally: true believers so indoctrinated to the cause that they simply can't accept that they were wrong, yet still good people. They tended to come from the Sol system or other worlds that had been under Blakist control long enough for kids to spend their entire lives growing up under it and reaching enlistment age. They'd fight like the devil himself, but not because of any malicious intent, but because they honestly think they're doing you a favour. Only good thing is that they tend to be less of a problem once captured, less prone to trying something stupid that just gets people killed, even as they assure you, with all the sincerity in the galaxy, that the Word of Blake will surely triumph over the forces of evil. I'm honestly not sure if that makes them any better to deal with than the foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics, truth be told.
I sat myself down across from her, far enough away to be out of easy slashing range.
"Ok, so I'm not going to lie to you or talk down to you like you're a kid or something." I took a deep breath, "Your side lost the war: we've taken Terra and the fighting is all but over now. There's only a few mop-up operations on planet like this left."
She looked at me, and I could tell she was trying to work out if I was telling the truth or not.
"Now, the good news is that we're not here to hurt you, like I said before." I did my best to sound reassuring, "Truth is, after we saw the state of this place, we thought everyone was dead..."
"They are dead." her voice was soft but hollow, with what sounded like a Rasalhaguian accent, "Everyone."
"OK." I nodded, finding no reason to disbelieve her after everything we'd seen outside, "What happened?"
She hesitated, the memory obviously not a pleasant one, but was about to answer when a massive, armoured hand grabbed the door and started to bend it open.
The woman bolted towards an open air vent quick as you like, but I'd been ready, and dived towards her, wrapping my arms around hers, pinning hers to her side even as she struggled to get free. She kicked and screamed and struggled, trying desperately to get away, but I'd been well trained in unarmed combat, and knew how best to restrain her without doing any permanent damage.
The door fully opened at last, the imposing bulk of a suit of Elemental armour appeared in the opening, and I recognised it as belonging to Órla Kabrinski, a Ghost Bear on detached duty to the 106th. She gave me an apologetic look, before stepping back to make room for Leutnant Colfia's IS Standard suit, the faceplate still closed.
"Report, Trooper." She ordered briskly.
"Making friends and influencing people, Sir." I managed a smile even as the survivor snapped her head back, earning me what I immediately knew was going to be a black-eye.
The Leutnant stepped aside, allowing Hudson, our medic, to step through the doorway. Like me, he'd taken off his power armour and had an inoculation gun in hand. Grabbing my new friend, he pressed the gun against her arm and pulled the trigger, flooding her system with a powerful tranquilliser. The young woman struggled against it, but it was designed to calm down combat troops high on adrenaline and combat stimulates, and it wasn't long before her struggling lessened and she eventually stopped fighting. I helped Hudson mover over to the bed and give her a quick medical check-up: aside from minor malnutrition and vitamin-D deficiency, no doubt from living in a metal box on a dust shrouded world, eating nothing but emergency rations for who knows how long. The bandage on her arm covered a nasty gash that was starting to heal, and showed signs of having been treated with standard broad-spectrum antibiotics.
We also found a laminated ID badge with her photo on.
"Carla Hentschel, nurse from the base medical staff." I handed the badge to the Leutnant, who quickly and quietly checked it against our records of wanted Blakists.
Lot of bad people did some very bad things before and during the Jihad, and all too many of them had slipped through the net when the tide turned against them. One of our jobs was to keep an eye out for anyone trying to lay low and avoid their due date with the hangman. But evidently Hentschel wasn't one of them, as the Leutnant simply nodded and pocketed the ID. Grabbing a bag I found discarded on the floor, I gathered up the handful of personal effects I could see: Blakist or not, they might be the only links to her old life left, and there was no way of knowing if we'd be able to swing back that way before we left.
TBC
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