Sphereberrant: Rules of War Part 3

Harawayans

Pane changed the flitter on her armour and took a drink from the armour's cool supply. They'd been marching for hours and she was beginning to get tired of it. With news of the murdered violets, the force had split, White moving onto the signal source while Gray moved along the trail they'd found at the destroyed camp sight. An hour ago there'd been an explosion ahead but by the time they got there whatever had been doing the shooting was long gone. Probably they'd run into one of Harawayan's larger and nastier animals, though there was no corpse near the site.

"Any ideas where they could be headed Sergeant?" Pane looked over at Sergeant Jan over the unit comms.

"The only thing this way is the old Route Colonial-5. It's disused by it should still usable, especially for foot traffic." The sergeant looked her over "you looking to try to get ahead of them Sir?"

Pane nodded "Yeah, we have no idea of the size of the enemy force." Pane frowned "I'd prefer to initiate contact than run into the back of them even with reinforcements waiting."

"Well, let's see." Jan consulted her minimap "There's two old abandoned Corporate stations on this stretch of RC5, one to the West, one to the East. We could flip a coin or something."

Pane smiled "Nah, bump it up to command. I'm sure we can make some yellows day with a recon request like this." She raised a fist, signally a halt, and the entire team halted and dropped to a crouch. "Tan-Xuan, you have a line with command?"

"Yes sir." The blue seemed still to be going strong, which surprised Pane.

"Tell them we need a recon sweep of RC5." She spoke to the whole platoon now "We're going to cut these fuckers off and teach them why they shouldn't have come to our world!"

Proteus

Lora looked up at the sky "Shit. Another radar sweep." She looked up "Be glad of the heavy metal in these ferns, if it wasn't for that, the airborne radar up there'd pick us up even with the RAM coating we're using." She sighed "I think we woke the giant Manual."

"And the aberrant is just walking down the road waiting to be found?" Manual looked up again. He couldn't see the hovering UAVs and aircraft but he knew they were there.

"Why not?" Lora asked "This universe might not even have aberrants. It came here deliberately right? It's likely it had at some choice as to where it arrived, maybe it even has the ability to check other timelines." She sighed "In all likelihood the people around here are either all aberrants, aberrant ruled, or have no fucking clue what one is."

Manual nodded, then "Makemba" he looked over at the teleporter "What's the possibility of bringing in more troops if this goes south? If the enemy is a whole planet and the aberrant convinces them we're the bad guys we'll need a lot of firepower to destroy it."

Makemba frowned "The proxy and five others have been briefed on the process that bought us here. They should be able to shift a substantial number of troops. I believe the process would be risky and draining though, it should only be a last resort."

Manual nodded, then looked over at Fan Jie. He knew that, if it came down to it, he was not going to trade his life for a few teleporters being inconvenienced. "Let's pick up the pace. If we can catch it before the locals do we can go home earlier."

He didn't really believe it was going to play out that way though. A moment later his fears were confirmed "Too late." Asuman sighed.

Harawayans

They'd spotted the girl on the UAV feed five minutes after Pane had called in asking for it. Radar first, then cameras zoomed in. She was short, maybe eighteen years of age, and wearing a green dress, walking steadily but obviously very tiredly down the road towards the ruined corporate station ahead.

"Permission to go out and get her sir?" Sergeant Jan asked as she came nearer.

"Permission not granted. We'll grab her when she gets into the settlement." Pane decided. "If we give away our position too early it could just add us to the body count."

"Who do you think she is? A survivor of the violet group that got hit?" Liya asked. She was back on the unit channel now, even though her hide was concealed far forward.

"Maybe." Pane zoomed in on her face "She doesn't really look violet though. "One-Two, grab her when she passes your position."

There was a double click in response. Pane continued to aim her payload gun into the jungle, the UAV sweeps overhead allowing her to see through the trees, somewhat. The radar scan was unreliable though, and it was too hot for thermals to pull body heat out of the background. Pane trusted her eyes, and the movement filters on her helmet.

Liya's eyes were sharper though. "One-Six, movement." She designated part of the tree line back into the woods. Pane saw it too. There was a slight flash as the sun briefly caught the glass of a scope.

"Point fire! Follow my tracer! One-Two, grab her now!" Pane made a gesture and aimed her gun, the sighting beam becoming visible to the rest of the squad as she aimed it into the woods towards the flicker she'd seen. Pane squeezed the trigger and the entire Harawayan platoon opened up on the woods.

Proteus

Asuman warning yell had Emma ducking down with an oath as the jungle around her exploded. The team's sniper had had a perfect like on the aberrant, but that plan had gone entirely to hell now. Emma raised her gun and fired back, then ducked down again, suppressed by the sudden storm of gun fire. Grabbing the earth she yanked hard, pulling up a buried rock, instantly creating a make shift fighting position, before sticking her gun over the top and firing back into the village.

Too her consternation, she realized most of the barrage was coming from maybe four guns, some kind of hypervelocity electromagnetic weapon was being fired very precisely into the area. The fire was so precise that it seemed like many more weapons were involved.

There was another noise, a metallic clang like an automatic cannon firing and part of Emma's berm exploded in a spray of earth. She ducked back, shielding herself as another round airburst over here. The Proteus team were returning fire now, coil gun rounds ripping into the settlement but the enemy fire was far more intense and destructive. Emma saw one commando pitch backwards as a round dug into him, then another was lifted upwards

"Lora! I think their rounds are guided! Get some jamming up!"

"I'm fucking trying... not radar... going optical!" The enemy fire slackened slightly as a haze of illusion flickered around the line of line of Proteus operatives.

"Where'd the Aberrant go?" Manual yelled.

"One of them grabbed her! They took her into one of the buildings!" Fan Jie cursed, blasting away with her plasma rifle.

"Fuck it! Section B Flank! Section A cover! Keep moving and firing so they don't know our numbers and stay in the illusion! Emma, soften them up!" Emma pulled out a bandoleer of grenades and lifted a hand, pulling them individually into the air. Her hand flicked and the swarm of munitions hissed into the abandoned settlement, exploding with a series of massive thunderclaps.

The Proteus team began to storm forward, firing every weapon they had.

Harawayans

One of the drones was down, hit by a bolt of lightning (a particle beam?) Pane ducked back a massive volley of explosions rocked the station, fragments bouncing off her armour. The field of jamming was advancing now, fire spearing out of it towards the Harawayan positions. One element of it eye jarring field was wrapping around her unit's left hand side, the other moving forward more cautiously, covering the first.

"One-Two, do you have her?"

"Yeah we've got her!"

"Alright! Everyone pull back to the second line. Go now!" Pane dropped a smoke bomb and began to drop backwards, pausing to fire back the way she'd come, covering those coming along behind her. "Elysium-Six this is Elysium-One-Six over!"

"One-Six send your traffic over."

"Six, we are in heavy contact. Any friends overhead?"

"Copy. On the way, danger close, over and out." Pane really, really hoped they didn't get plastered by their own airstrike. She kept moving back, other Harawayan forms visible only as AR ghosts, their armour mostly green, some amber or even red showing damage as they ran backwards towards the second line of fighting positions they'd picked out. She saw one fall and not rise, cursed and then rolled through the slit of an old militia bunker she'd picked as her next battle station, turning and hammering the area behind her, wondering where the airstrike was.

Then she realized she'd only been going about ten seconds and the area of the settlement she'd come from shattered in a series of fireballs.

Proteus

Lora just about had time to grab the incoming missiles and defeat their guidance programs before they hit, the weapons went wild and hit everywhere but the Proteus team. Unfortunately, the respite was short lived. Lora had put so much into stopping the missiles her visual jamming faded out and they were suddenly under murderously accurate fire from ahead.

Manual ducked down, altering his body shape so he could lay flatter, his toughed body already having absorbed a half dozen rounds punching through it from the insanely accurate rail guns up ahead. They seemed to be mounted on some kind of a drone, and Lora didn't have enough attention to stop those, the UAVs and the enemy rifles, which were just as bad, hurling out waves of guided explosives at the Proteus team.

The Proteus advance stopped, pinned down by the weight of fire being hurled at them. Manual ducked down and kept firing, eeling forward to get into a better position. To one side, Emma was firing her assault cannon in sustained burst, then ducking back as the enemy blasted away at her, her telekinesis deflecting the rounds.

Then Paul entered the fray, raising one hand he swung a beam of green energy at the enemy line, wooden framed buildings collapsing as the vitikinesis ate through them. Manual was just about to order Emma and the team's Snipers to go after the drones when the enemy pre-empted him.

Harawayans

"....gunships ten minutes out over."

"Roger." No good, they'd be dead in five. Blasts of lightning and now a sickly beam of green energy which ate through the wood frame corporate buildings and any living target it hit was burning across the battlefield. Already two of her shrinking force had been lost to it. The enemy jamming had lifted though, apparently concentrated on the airstrike.

There was really only one tool left in Pane's cupboard now: "One-One, Assault Column!" No time to be too anal about setting it up. In the distance Liya and the other point walkers flicked up a ready signal, turning around to hit the enemy from behind. The drones swung around and fired a concentrated burst at enemy support weapons, picking the source of the green energy out for particular attention, along with Rain, the team's other lead shooter. Whether the support gunner and their awful weapon was dead or driven to hiding didn't matter.

"Three, Two, One, Go now!" The Harawayan squad got up and charged, the big payload guns in their shoulder smart links hammering.

Proteus

Emma fired a long burst into one of the charging figures, and was amazed when she didn't drop, her armour apparently deflecting the blow. Snarling she made a fist and the woman's ammunition exploded. Another was coming from the other direction and Emma knocked her flat with a wave of telekinesis.

Paul was hit, and it looked pretty bad, his body was still regenerating but it had been savagely torn up by swarm of hypervelocity rounds that had hit it. Emma would have suffered the same fate if she hadn't torn this fighting hole in the ground.

The enemy were still coming, then as one they suddenly dropped low, and there was a thump of charges. Entrenching charges! Emma realized, and then the first grenade was hurled towards her. She knocked it away telekinetically, aware that fuel air bursts were going off all down the line as the assaulting enemy hurled a mass of grenades into the Proteus position.

Emma deflected everything she could, her shield lapsing slightly to do it, then realized her mistake as a much faster payload gun round found her position. The Legionnaire screamed as the plasma explosive drove into her armour, and then the world went white.

Proteus

Makemba could see the entire line collapsing under the enemy assault, rounds coming hurtling over from the enemy positions behind the assault force, grenades being thrown from that force directly into the Proteus unit's cover. She fired frantically, realizing she was losing it and suddenly realized what she had to do.

She had to get them out of there. Her powers snaked out and she yanked the entire Proteus team away.

Harawayans

The sky over the burning settlement was thick with gunships, medivac and troop transport helicopters and VTOLs. All told, they'd lost eight out of twenty troops participating in the engagement. A staggering causality rate for such elite forces.

Some of those could be saved... others were destined to have their neural implants taken to the great spire on Landing, to enjoy whatever immortality the posthumans offered.

Pane looked over at Tan-Xuan. She'd survived the fire fight, and fought like a professional. Pane guessed she should stop having doubts about her now, but couldn't quite disregard her own prejudice. She'd fought well though, which was all a squad leader could ask.

Finally she looked over at the girl, and hoped she'd been worth all this. She wasn't Harawayan, that was for sure. "Where are you from?" One of the medics asked her "How'd you get here?"

"I'm from another universe." The girl said "And I'm here to warn you. I'm not the only one who can travel this way."

Pane just goggled at her.

Proteus

Manual looked at Paul, who took a deep breath then looked up "She'll live, but she's going to need a new arm." He touched a green glowing hand to Emma's body "I don't have the power left to grow her one right now."

Manual nodded and looked at the rest of the force. Half the Proteus commandos had been killed in that fight, and all the psions, save Makemba were injured. She'd saved them in the nick of time there. These humans, whoever they were, weren't anything to sneeze at.

"Makemba." She looked up at him, looking wary and tired "Good job today, you saved us... get on the horn to command. When Asuman relocates the aberrant, we'll need heavy firepower to dig it out." He looked up at the sky through the canopy "We've got to save these people from themselves. Even if we have to kill a few of them in the process."