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Prologue
Largo Sea
Fairfax
Federated Suns/Draconis Combine
4 June 2152
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.
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