Ch: 108 Down but not out. (Patreon)

Edited by the great and powerful Aldous. 

Chapter 108

Down but not out

Freya glanced out of the corner of her eye at Monkeyman. He was sitting in the copilot’s seat. Behind him, sitting in the navigator's seat, was Lurch. When they had first walked in she expected them to say something about her hesitating during the ambush, but they hadn’t said anything. They just sat down and didn’t say anything. Even now, thirty minutes later, they still hadn’t said or done anything to make Freya feel bad about freezing. She was too much of a coward to bring it up.

She was worried about the active camo generators. The console lights were blinking yellow. The generators were not connected to the damage control console, so she had no idea if they were even working right anymore. The only thing she could verify was that they were getting power, and they were doing something. Lurch had inspected the generators earlier before he had come up into the cockpit. He found that the glue had partially come off around them, and they were vibrating pretty hard. Monkeyman had come up with the idea of stuffing unused straps in the holes. It reduced the vibration of the generators, but didn’t eliminate it. Freya just hoped that they lasted until they landed.

BT had remained in the cargo hold to watch over everyone who had survived. No one was hurt, at least those who made it to the plane. She had no idea if that was the same on the dropship. The constructs had been incredibly lethal, more so than any of the sims they had fought while on the October. Fred had kept radio silence since his last transmission. It was worrying though, as she had no idea who was now in command. She had seen Mother’s after-image trying to get back into the ship, but the memory of it fading was very vivid in her mind. She knew without a shadow of a doubt the Mother was dead. She just didn’t know if Captain Thompson or the Major survived.

“Fifteen minutes out.” Freya said, breaking the silence.

Monkeyman nodded beside her, but kept lounging in his chair.

“How're the generators?” Lurch asked from behind her.

“Same as before.” Freya returned.

“Want me to check them again?” He asked her.

“If you would.” Freya replied, nodding her head. “I’m going to have to come down on just my maneuvering engines from a steep angle. The lady who calls herself an engineer said that the generators can’t block out all the noise this thing creates.”

“By Tom’s balls, that was what happened.” Monkeyman said suddenly. He sat up and looked at her. “We brought them to the staging area. They heard us coming.”

“No, that’s…” Freya started to say, then really thought about it, and realized he might have a point. She had really slowed down while traveling through the ocean. If the constructs had been listening then he might be right. She cursed, and felt a wave of depression as she realized she might have been the one who got so many of her fellow marines killed.

“It was my fault.” Freya said, feeling odd. “I should have thought about that. I got them killed.”

“Ma shiv, that ain’t right.” Monkeyman said, shaking his head. “They knew we were going under the water. They should have corrected the problem back at the mine. Hell, we gave them three days, far more time than we planned on. They should have known that, once under water, the generators would be strained and the noise level would increase. They sent us to our deaths. We were lucky to get out alive.”

“He’s right.” Lurch said from halfway out of his chair. “I was thinking about it on the way to the staging site. Why didn’t they insulate the generators better? They had three days, and the best they came up with was glue? This is on them.”

“It was all they had.” Freya said, shaking her head and thinking back on what the engineer had told her. She really wanted to believe her teammates, but she had been warned.

“It took Monkeyboy, here, two minutes to think of using straps around the edges. They had days. Why couldn’t they think of that, or maybe something better?”Lurch said, sitting back down in his chair.

“It’s Monkeyman, and what's done is done.” Monkeyman said, shaking his head. “We need to look forward. Ma shiv, forget about it, and start thinking about what we are going to do. Drake is not back there, nor are any of the other squad leaders. As far as we know, there is only Fred and Cannon left, and Cannon is off at the mine, training the militia there. That means that as far as we know, Fred’s in charge. What is he going to do, and how can we help him?”

“Anyone know if that PsyOps guy, Smith or whatever name he is going by now, is still alive?” Lurch asked. “If he’s dead then it’s mission failure.”

“He's not in the back.” Monkeyman told them. “If he’s dead, can you do whatever you do and find out what we need?” He asked, looking at Freya.

“I have no idea.” Freya said, shrugging. “I’m not a telepath like him, but my visions got weird when we landed on this planet.”

“So Fred’s options are hunker down and accept the mission failure or go find an easier target. Somewhere we can fight effectively.” Monkeyman told them as he looked out the window.

“If we do have another target, do we have the manpower for another assault?” Lurch asked.

“We might have to recruit more militia, but it might be possible.” Monkeyman said, tilting his head back and forth. “We had forty-one in the platoon. There were about sixty or seventy people that made it down from the other ship. We have thirty-eight, total, fighters in the back, and we don’t know how many made it to the dropship. Even if only ten made it to the dropship, we can mount an effective attack on a small target. Magic, is there any way to tap into October’s surveillance network?”

“I need access to the command and control console, but yes.” Freya said, feeling better.

“Can Fred?” Monkeyman asked.

“If he’s had the training, sure.” Freya replied.

“Then I say we talk Fred into attacking another target.” Monkeyman told them.

“We only have thirty-one hours until the mission timer ends.” Lurch reminded them.

“The October was holding back on the outer edges of the system. We have no idea if they are sticking to the schedule anymore. They could ignore it and stay where they are until they figure out a better plan than what they had before.” Freya said, thinking about what she was told after she spawned on her ship.

“That only means we have at least thirty-one hours to do our job.” Monkeyman said, sounding excited.

“We can’t do our job if the PsyOps guy is dead, and if Magic can’t do her thing.” Lurch reminded them.

“We won’t know until we try.” Monkeyman said, turning away from the window and giving them a grin.

“Okay, we go with Monkey’s plan.” Freya said, feeling the excitement. “So, we talk Fred into attacking another target. I’ve never failed a mission before, and I’m not failing this one.”

“As long as we have an actual chance, then I say we go for it.” Lurch said, nodding. “That underwater plan was stupid. I know that command knows more than we do, but come on, they had to know that fighting underwater against an enemy that can create biological weapons was a bad idea from the start.”

“It was us who gave our position away.” Freya reminded them, feeling a dull pain in her chest as she was reminded about her failure.

“Stop blaming yourself.” Monkeyman said, sounding angry. “It was faulty equipment. Move on.”

“It’s true, Monkey. We, no I, should have realized what was going to happen.” She told him. “But, you’re right about moving on. They can kick me out when this is all done. If this mission has any chance of success then we need to keep going. Lurch, do me a favor and check the generators. I really don’t want to lead the enemy back to the waystation.”

“On it.” Lurch replied, standing up.

As soon as he left the cockpit, Freya saw Monkeyman open his mouth. She quickly started speaking not wanting to hear his excuses on why she was not at fault. No matter what he thought, she knew she was. There was nothing she could do about it now. She just had to keep going, like he said.

“I know what you’re going to say, but we need to focus on going forward. And I know it’s Monkeyman. Sorry, I’m a bit stressed. Please, let me think.” She told him, as she focused on her screens.

She saw him nod from the corner of her eye, but ignored him. She really didn’t need time to think, but she didn’t want to hear him try to rationalize away her mistake. She screwed up and people died a real, permanent death. She couldn’t make that mistake again. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if any of her team members died.

“No, they’re not just my teammates. They’re the gang. Monkeyman’s gang.” She thought to herself with a smile.

That still didn’t stop her thinking about what had happened. She told herself it wasn’t her fault, but why didn’t she get a feeling that something was going to go wrong? She had experienced a bad feeling before, like when she was on her last mission on the Monarch. Why didn’t her talent warn her about the ambush? Was there something that prevented it from triggering? Was it the Ketica’s fault? Did the Ketica have some kind of tech that could prevent her talent from working, or was it something else? Something about her talent that didn’t trigger because of something else? Was it targeted only on her? Like it only triggered when she was in danger? She had been in danger, but her teammates had saved her life. Was that why it didn’t trigger? She wondered.

Also why did she see the after-images, or the souls of the dead? Why did she know, not just guess, but know, that what saw was the souls of the dead? That made her wonder if that was something new she developed with her talent or was it something to do with how the Ketica were able to corrupt the data for respawns. How were they, the Ketica, able to corrupt data as far away as the data farms in far away star systems?

She knew very little about respawn technology. Was she missing something about it because she knew so little? Did the digital process capture the souls of people and download them into new bodies of the clones? Was that why it was illegal to download their information into more than one clone at a time? The digital process was old empire tech. Was there something that they were hiding in the respawn process?

She kept thinking about it until Lurch came back five minutes later saying he put more straps in the gaps. She nodded, but didn’t say anything. She forced herself to think about the mission and what needed to be done. She thought about breaking radio silence to ask Fred to scan her ship to see if the active camo was working. She needed to know she wasn’t about to repeat her mistake. In the end her fears won over operational protocols.

“Fred, this is Magic.” She said into her mic. “We think we were the cause of the ambush. Our active camo is faulty. It’s not silencing our ship very well. Can you scan the ship? I really don’t want to lead the enemy back to the waystation.”

“Magic, this is Thompson.” Came the reply. “Stop blaming yourself. We lost contact with a scout team from the diplomatic marine company thirty minutes before you arrived. They knew we were there, somewhere. Shit happens. My scans are showing an unacceptable amount of noise coming from your ship. Fred’s going to fly over to you and keep you in our active camo bubble. Stay within thirty feet of our ship.”

“Copy that, Captain.” Freya said, extremely glad that her old Gunny was still alive.

Flying a plane that close was very dangerous. A bit of turbulence could send the plane into the dropship. The dropship had far too many maneuvering engines to be affected by turbulence, at this altitude, but the plane she was flying could be, if it was strong enough. She had her sensors to tell her if that was going to happen, but it only gave her roughly ten seconds warning. She also didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver.

She spotted the dropship, which she had been following, drop back a bit. She let her ship drop about ten feet while she increased her speed. Unconsciously licking her lips, she slowly gained on the much smaller ship. She wouldn’t exactly fit length wise, but she was not really worried about that. If she could keep the engines inside the dropship’s active camo bubble then it would kill enough of the noise to matter. Horizontally, she had about five feet of clearance, but she only needed to keep her engines inside the bubble. That gave her roughly fifteen feet of clearance to work with.

She came in slowly just under the dropship. She was moving roughly ten miles an hour or so faster than the dropship. She let her speed drop a bit just to be safe. The last thing she wanted was to overfly the dropship. She had to increase her height though. The engines were just outside the bubble. She could hear Monkeyman shift in his seat, but she ignored it as she watched her sensors so they wouldn’t accidentally crash into the ship above them.

Her communication light flickered on. A quick glance told her that she was being hit by a communication laser. Normally, no one used it as it was easily intercepted, but this close to the dropship and inside an active camo bubble there was no chance that would happen. She ignored it for now as she slowed her ship further and slid into the shadow of the dropship perfectly.

“Magic, my scan shows you on target. Stay as close as you can to where you are.” Fred told her over the radio.

“Copy that.” Freya replied using the laser coms.

“Magic, I know you’re busy, but I need a sitrep.” Thompson said over the same channel.

Freya looked up at Monkeyman and nodded to him then at the coms before she turned back to her screens. She didn’t have the time to mess around with the radio now that she was flying so close to the dropship. In fact, as if to show her how bad an idea it was, a strong rogue headwind appeared on her screen. She increased her speed and worked her maneuvering engines to counteract its effects. The auto adjust feature on her ship wasn’t working as it should. If she had to guess it was because the engineer had cut holes in the top of the plane.

“This is Monkeyman, Captain.” She heard him say as the headwind passed them by. She had corrected the plane perfectly so there wasn’t even a bump as it passed them by. “We’ve got forty on board, with thirty-eight fighters and two medical staff. I got eight from our platoon, twelve militia, and thirteen marines from the diplomatic company.”

“Very good.” Thompson replied. “How many Mechs do you still have?”

“We only lost two, ma’am.” Monkeyman told her. “That leaves us with thirty-six Mechs. Considering the shoddy work on this ship, I suggest we go over all the Mechs, ma’am. The same people who worked on this plane did the upkeep on the Mechs. I wouldn’t trust them with an inch of my life.”

“Noted.” Came the dry reply from Thompson. “Magic, stay on this heading. We’ve got a lot to talk about when we’re on the ground. The mission is still on.”

“She copies.” Monkeyman replied for her. She stole a quick glance at him, and saw his smile. She rolled her eyes, as she looked back at her screens.

“She didn’t tell us how many survived on the dropship.” Lurch noted out loud.

“Operational security.” Monkeyman replied, putting the mic back down on the console.

“On laser coms?” Lurch asked, letting his disbelief show in his tone.

“Need to know.” Monkeyman returned. “She’s command, and we’re not. Back off.”

Freya sighed in relief as he did. She had noted that Thompson didn’t tell them as well. She also noted that she was the one making plans and not the Major. That made her wonder if he was still alive or Thompson was just talking about their platoon. They were technically in separate commands. They had their orders while the Major had his.

The Major could request their help in his missions, but their mission came first. That made her wonder who planned the underwater mission? It really didn’t sound like Mother’s nor did it sound like Thompson’s either. It felt bad, but she kind of hoped that the Major was dead. She really didn’t want to go on another risky mission like that last one.

The landing wasn’t all that hard. Fred came in low so that she could land and flew above her until she came to a stop. Then he rotated the ship and landed beside her. Unlike her, he could land without a landing strip. Not that she used a landing strip. The desert was mostly flat so it was as good as one. She just hoped that she hadn’t passed over a spy construct while she was landing.

As she was in the process of shutting the plane down she looked up through the window and saw Thompson walk down the ramp of the dropship. Her right arm was in a cast, but she was holding a pistol in her other hand. Maddog was a few steps behind her, and he came down the ramp holding his rifle. Behind them, the rest of the marines followed them down. She noted the ones who came down and the ones who didn’t.

They must have been truly packed in there. The ship was rated for twenty-four people plus two people at the command and control station and two jump seats. Freya absently counted the people who walked down the ramp. There were fifty-five people who left the ship. That was almost double the legal riders. She had thought about it in the past, and knew that you could fit people into the empty pods, which was illegal; that raised the available riders to forty people. She had no idea how they fit the extra fifteen people.

The survivors were a mixture of the diplomatic marines, militia, and her platoon. She had no idea how many had been at the staging site, but when she added the survivors in her ship she came out to ninety-two people. She also noted that, while their platoon took losses, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the diplomatic company. That wasn’t counting the militia either.

She counted thirty-one diplomatic marines. Which, when added to the thirteen who flew on her plane, added up to forty-four. She counted fourteen of her platoon members, including Fred, who was still on the ship, making a total of twenty-nine people in her platoon who survived, not including Cannon, who was still back at the mine. What was worrying though was that she only counted nine non-marines she assumed must be with the militia. Adding to the twelve she carried that made the count twenty-one survivors.

She hoped that there hadn’t been that many militia to start with, but she knew that wasn’t true. She had seen many of them roaming around the staging site. The total survivors from the ambush, including Captain and Maddog, was ninety-six. Ninety-seven if you included Cannon. The worrying part was that the PsyOps guy hadn’t left the dropship. Not that that meant he didn’t survive - he could just be staying in the ship. Freya didn’t know either way. She didn’t include him in the math as he was an unknown.

She hated to do the math. It was cold and ugly, but her mind automatically went there. She had lost twelve platoon members. One of them was her platoon leader, Mother. It frightened her, but at the same time she was relieved that she wasn’t crazy when Mother didn’t come out of the dropship. It verified what she saw was real. She did note that Sergeant Kruz survived, making her the new platoon leader - which didn’t make Freya feel happy. She felt conflicted. She was glad that the sergeant survived, but knew the woman didn’t like her. She knew it was going to be rough with the sergeant in charge.

As if she knew someone was thinking about her, Sergeant Kruz keyed up over the platoon channel. “Platoon meeting in five. I want to see all the command staff as soon as possible.”

Freya didn’t think she was part of the command staff as Fred was still the platoon pilot for now. She did have a plane to fly, but assumed that Fred would be in charge of their flight path, assuming that they were going to fight sometime soon. She did wonder if Thompson wanted to talk to her as she had said that they had a lot to talk about, but assumed the Captain would call her if she needed her.

She took her time shutting down the plane. She did it to stall for time so that she had an excuse if Sergeant Kruz really wanted her in the command staff meeting. She also wanted to really make sure there were no signals going out from the plane as all the lights were red again. She hoped it was just because she was on the ground, but feared it meant that the generators had finally given up and died.

Once she was finished with shutting the plane down she did go back and inspect the generators. The first thing she thought of when she saw the first generator was how ugly it looked. There were straps lining between the edge of the generator and the plane. The glue was still there, but the generator had sunk a bit into the plane. She also saw a scorch mark near the bottom of the generator where a vent was. She bit her lip at the sight.

Pulling off her backpack and taking out her tools she looked around for a way up to the generator. Spotting a nearby Mech she used it to climb up to the generator. A few twists later and she had the panel off. It was dark inside the compartment, but her night vision enabled her to see what was inside. It didn’t look good. She spotted a few melted wires.

She wasn’t an expert in active camo generators, but she knew enough to sabotage them. The compartment was part of the generator that dampened noise, which meant that at some point it had stopped working. She poked at it, not really knowing how to fix it. In the end, she left it alone as she went to inspect the other generators, worried about what state they were in.

She walked down the tight path between the Mechs and the plane's bulkhead to the second generator and sighed in relief as she didn’t spot any scorch marks. She did climb up the closest Mech to the generator to get a better look. She opened a few compartments in the generator, but didn’t spot anything that was out of place. She used her scanner, but it was powered off, so she didn’t get that great of a scan. Still, it looked fine. She jumped down and walked down to the next generator.

The generator looked fine, but like the last one she wanted a closer look. She was climbing up the Mech when she got a call from Sergeant Kruz.

“Magic, you going to join us anytime soon?” The sergeant asked over the command channel.

“Sorry, Sergeant.” Freya said, stopping her climb, and dropping to the deck of the plane. “I was inspecting the active camo generators on the plane. On my way.”

“What’s their status?” Sergeant Kruz asked as Freya walked out the back of the plane. She did take her time to look at the last generator as she passed it by. It looked okay on the outside, but she didn’t know what it looked like on the inside.

“I only inspected two so far, but the first one burnt out its noise canceling. The second one looks okay from what I can see, but I’m not an expert.” Freya said as she jogged up to where her platoon had gathered.

“When we're done here, I want you to finish checking them out.” The new platoon leader said as Freya came running up to her. “Also, find someone who can fix the first one. We are going to need them soon.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Freya replied.

“Okay people, we are going back to the factory in an hour. We are to rearm and …” Sergeant Kruz stopped while the entire platoon was blasted by the backwash of the dropship's engines as it took off. “Like I was saying. We are to rearm and resupply. If you didn’t get frictionless ammo rods from the dropship, then get them when it comes back.”

Frictionless ammo rods were super expensive, and almost no one carried them on a mission. The good news about the ammo rods was that, when command authorised them, they were almost always supplied for free. Freya guessed that they had already been authorised, but she and her team hadn’t been told yet. She hadn’t thought about them, because she had never used them before. She hadn’t even used them in boot camp in the very brief water exercises they had during water week. It wasn’t a week, but it was what they called it. It was only two days worth of water survival and training.

Frictionless ammo rods weren’t the be all and end all for underwater fighting, though. The gel that covered the bullets wore off pretty fast, but it did increase the distance to about a third of the normal range of most rifles. It was less with precision weapons like her ASO, but she wasn’t planning to use ballistic ammo by itself anyway. Her electromagnetic-encased rounds would go further and more accurately than the frictionless ammo rods, by themselves. The gel would be wasted on that setting.

She thought about her Irish Nester and realized she could use them with it. She decided to get some for it, but she wasn’t sure how much she would really use the Nester. It would be better if she used her Asy Minor short barrel rifle because it was an energy rifle, and she didn’t expect to use anything else aside from her ASO when fighting. The short barrel would be perfect if she had to enter the factory and fight her way to their objective. Thinking about that made her think about the PsyOps guy.

“Is he still alive?” She asked herself and looked up to where the dropship had disappeared. “He has to be, if the mission is going forward.”

As if reading her mind, Sergeant Kruz answered the unasked question. “With the PsyOps agent's death, Captain Thompson is hoping that Magic will get something off him.”

“Sergeant, I’m not a telepath.” Freya said, worried about what they were asking of her.

“The captain understands, but we have nothing else to work with.” Sergeant Kruz replied. “We need to find a way to stop this war, and you are our best hope at this point.”

“That’s a lot of pressure for something I’m not qualified to do.” Freya thought, as the sergeant kept talking. People were going to die to capture a Ketica, and there was no guarantee that she would get anything. She wondered why they weren’t taking cover and hiding until they could get a real telepath to read the alien.

“She must be desperate to risk it.” Freya thought as Sergeant Kruz talked about the new structure of the platoon. Drake and Unicorn were dead.

Cannon was being called back to take command of First Squad and Dess was promoted to Second Squad leader. Second Squad took the most casualties. Aside from losing Unicorn, their squad leader, they had lost their entire scout team. They also lost a drone operator in team two. First Squad had the least casualties, besides Drake, they only lost the First team’s team leader and a weapons guy from Second team. Third Squad lost two of their weapons guys.

Under Sergeant Kruz’s orders, Third Squad was being absorbed into the other two squads as replacements. With only twenty-nine members left there was no need for a Third Squad. Fred was going to remain the second in command, with Cannon being the third in command. Fred was also going to remain their pilot. When Sergeant Kruz told them about it, she sounded like she didn’t agree with it. Freya noted that whether she agreed with it or not, she still left him there.

“We leave as soon as the dropship comes back with reinforcements.” Sergeant Kruz told them. “Magic will be piloting the plane with all the Militia, most of the diplomatic marines and her squad. We are going to dump most of the Mechs off before we leave. I was told we only have six pilots left. The rest of the platoon will ride in on the dropship with the rest of the diplomatic marines.”

“We are going to drop right on top of the factory. We will deploy first, and lead the way with the diplomatic marines dropping in behind us. Our job is to clear the way for the Mechs.” She continued.”

“Ma’am.” Monkeyman said, sounding concerned. “The Mechs aren't military. They can’t drop. We have to pull them out one by one. That’s going to take time.”

“That’s already been thought of.” Sergeant Kruz replied. “Magic will land on the water and deploy the emergency floats. The Mechs will then tear their way out of the plane. Yes, we know this will destroy the plane, but we think this is the best option to get the Mech to the target in one piece. Those worm things tore through heavy armor like it was paper. It’s very likely that they won’t have a problem with the civilian Mechs’ armor.”

“How are we getting out, once we’re done?” Jasper, the Second Squad second team leader, asked.

To Freya’s surprise Sergeant Kruz looked uncomfortable as she responded. She looked down at the ground as she spoke. “We will fit everyone we can on the dropship and pull out. Survivors will have to ride the Mechs if any of them make it.” She said the last bit much quieter than the rest of the sentence.

“This mision just keeps getting better and better.” Nonuglas, the replacement for the first team leader's position in First Squad, replied. He was a master weapons end-template sergeant who had been the team leader in the second team of First Squad before being promoted to first team’s team leader position. Freya had no idea why he had been moved from one team to the next, but she knew he was very good at his job.

“Knock it off.” Sergeant Kruz told them in a quiet voice. It was the first time she sounded like her old self, at least to Freya. “We are Federation Marines. We have our objective, and we will get it done. Am I understood? Good. Questions on the mission.”

There were some technique questions, but for the most part the mission was set. Freya left and went back to inspect the rest of the generators. She did send Monkeyman to look for someone who could repair the broken generator, but she didn’t have that much hope that he would succeed. Lurch followed behind her to help her, while BT came so they would have some muscle if they needed it.

Freya stopped in front of the plane and looked around. “I have a bad feeling about this.” She thought to herself. Unfortunately it felt like a normal feeling and not one of her talent’s feelings.