- Pronouns
- She/Her
It was often said there was no stealth in space. At least, not with the technology that the Alliance, or any known human power possessed. This was wrong. There was no invisibility in space, but stealth, deceptions, these were not tricks of sight but of mind.
I have no face, no name. no fear. I am Delta33Red1. I am no-one.
The sky above Churchill Colony was not empty. Power, communication, navigation and weather satellites, orbital industrial units and automated cargo units went about their business, ignoring the events on the ground. And if one of those automated cargo units were to be filled with troops rather than bulk cargo some place out system who would know?
3Red1 felt her hearts beat under her armour. Her name would have been clumsy in Tempesti or English, but in battle tongue it was a syllable, its variations rendered as sharp, easy to differentiate intonations. She had repeated the setup mantra again and again, but despite training and conditioning, she could still hear her heart beats. Before a drop was always tense, but this time it was more than that.
It annoyed her that the fear still came, creeping out of the edge of her conditioning. Tempesti troops didn't need the level of brute force psychological alteration that many Earth units used, substituting a mix of intense training, therapy and better process psychology built in from childhood. As a member of First Division, Ten Thousand, and of the division's path finder detachment she was the elite of the elite. In her three years in the military she'd seen action dozens of times. To drop from an craft in small, flimsy landers, to go down and fight for an isolated outpost, that was the historic mission of airborne units like the Ten Thousand. They'd done it since there had been a Tempest, first from sub-orbitals, then from spacecraft. Yet still she was scared.
They'd simulated the operation a dozen times already, ceasing only minutes ago for final gear checks and the agonizing moments before the drop itself. Not that there was much to simulate. They had no idea of the enemy's capabilities. They were clad in the distinctive white armour of the Ten Thousand, their blank faced helms topped with horns and antenna that rendered them more demon than human.
Be good or the faceless will come for you. Her mother had told her that. The old terror of the Corporate towns on the continents. She was one of the monsters now.
Am I going to die today?
Over the last few weeks there had been a dozen attacks in this region. Small space craft went missing, isolated outposts and garrisons slaughtered. No one knew what was doing it, but it was enough for Command to lay plans against the attacker.
They'd got the call a little over fifteen minutes ago, sims over, doing it for real now, when an isolated squad outpost on the True British colony of Churchill had been attacked. The garrison had been mostly slaughtered, but continued reports indicated that there were a few survivors, and those survivors were sure the enemy remained.
Given the thoroughness of the attackers in other cases this had immediately been seen as a trap, either to draw other TBA units in, or to entrap response forces. Rather than make a predictable response the TBA had called in the Ten Thousand for assistance. Ten minutes later they'd been on their way in aboard a high speed robot freighter, wincing under the Gs as they approached orbit.
"Prepare for drop. Prepare for drop. All personnel prepare for drop."
There was a clank, a brief weightlessness and then a jolt as the drop pod hit atmosphere. 3Red1 held hard onto her seat's handles, more for reassurance than anything, imagining the re-entry shell heat, cool, and then! the shell burst open and their aircraft burst free, engines churning the air as they pulled sharply away from the remains of the bus.
Up until the last seconds the trajectory would have been the same as the automated cargo delivery to the robotic mining complex set up on Churchill's eastern continent, a full thousand kilometres from the attack. Last second course corrections and some fast low level flying would bring them in much faster than the attacker could predict.
That was the plan anyway. 3Red1. My name is Isis! took a deep breath and began to say the mantra again.
* * *
3Red1 aimed her smart gun ahead. The weapon was a bit larger than a pistol, its stabilizer built into her suit's arm guards. It felt inadequate somehow. Sometimes she wished that less firepower had moved to drones. To fight like the Imprevites, with heavy payload guns on shoulder mounts, to kill with your hands, would have been psychologically more satisfying. The drone beside her followed her eyes, the lens of its laser adding its weight to her own optics, layering hyper reality atop her composite. There was something, feeling. What was out there?
Churchill was a lovely world. Goldilocks, just about .999G, lush and temperate. The only downside was a high carbon monoxide level in the atmosphere that meant specialist filter longs or masks for the colonists for the foreseeable future. The local plant life was a mass of greens and blues, thick and untamed.
The company, formed in platoon columns amid a shell of small drones was moving in on the garrison from the West. As the weapon platoon, Three was looping around to the south to provide a base of fire on the compound. It left them potentially isolated, but who knew what lay in wait for those entering the compound directly.
Right now they were moving up a low wooded ridge, drones interspersed with humans, walking or crawling to avoid shaking the bushes.
3Red1 was leading the scouting element, almost to the top. Ahead the forest had been opened by a large tree fall. 3Red1 intended to cover across it with her drones while the rest of her fire team, 3Red, crossed, but something had stopped her.
What was out there? She looked around, trying to figure out what was wrong.
Whatever it was, she didn't want to go out into the glade. She slid back a few paces and gave a series of sharp hand signals, relayed down the line of infantry. They'd crawl around the left of the open area. She marked the glade as a possible danger area on the map and began to crawl forward, just behind the squad's point trooper.
She saw 3Red3 tense, her gun came up, hyper reflexive, and then an arrow struck through the front of her helmet. "Contact! Contact!"
The fire support drone's barrels spun up and the turret traversed, trying to tag the fleeting humanoid shape with gunfire. 3Red1 found her worried had dropped away, even with the death of her friend. She took aim, fired the smart gun, trying to box the fast moving shape in. At the same time she triggered a spread of grenades.
The forest ahead tore apart and heat and flame belched out as the grenades detonated. Had she killed it? No! Another arrow whipped past and one of the drones died. 3Red1 fired another grenade after it.
There was fighting everywhere. A dozen attackers, no! four! fast and stealthy! Watch out! Left, right! Another shape, the forest melting around it as it whipped through, leaving viral miasma in its wake. Troops and drones melted.
There was a screaming in her mind. Her thoughts tearing, fragmenting, only the battle language and conditioning keeping her together.
Another target appeared, firing some kind of rifle. It raised hands as bullets and beams sliced back of it, a glowing nimbus forming around it, then exploding out to flatten more forest.
And one with a sword, seeming to teleport from place to place, slicing through drones and women in its path.
And coming for 3Red1. She poured fire at it, smart gun rounds missing wide or hitting without effect. And then from the side a grenade slammed into it full on and it spun around. 3Red1 pushed her gun steady in the blast and emptied the cassette into it at less than twenty meters.
The thing collapsed, body smoking. 3Red1 panted in her helmet, aware she'd been screaming and shamed by it. She changed the empty cassette and moved slowly forward to the body. Around her, the noise of combat had died away.
"Cease fire!"
"Medic!"
"Cease Fire!"
"I got one!" 3Red1 knelt by the body. "Need recovery my location."
She moved to the body, knelt down and slowly turned it over. It seemed still and unmoving, skin grey like a sharkwhale. It looked.
One of the things hands shot up and 3Red1 felt pain through her stomach. She choked, collapsing around the sword. The creature kicked her off its blade and leaped away. The last thing 3Red1 heard was the screaming of her suits medical alarms. . .
I have no face, no name. no fear. I am Delta33Red1. I am no-one.
The sky above Churchill Colony was not empty. Power, communication, navigation and weather satellites, orbital industrial units and automated cargo units went about their business, ignoring the events on the ground. And if one of those automated cargo units were to be filled with troops rather than bulk cargo some place out system who would know?
3Red1 felt her hearts beat under her armour. Her name would have been clumsy in Tempesti or English, but in battle tongue it was a syllable, its variations rendered as sharp, easy to differentiate intonations. She had repeated the setup mantra again and again, but despite training and conditioning, she could still hear her heart beats. Before a drop was always tense, but this time it was more than that.
It annoyed her that the fear still came, creeping out of the edge of her conditioning. Tempesti troops didn't need the level of brute force psychological alteration that many Earth units used, substituting a mix of intense training, therapy and better process psychology built in from childhood. As a member of First Division, Ten Thousand, and of the division's path finder detachment she was the elite of the elite. In her three years in the military she'd seen action dozens of times. To drop from an craft in small, flimsy landers, to go down and fight for an isolated outpost, that was the historic mission of airborne units like the Ten Thousand. They'd done it since there had been a Tempest, first from sub-orbitals, then from spacecraft. Yet still she was scared.
They'd simulated the operation a dozen times already, ceasing only minutes ago for final gear checks and the agonizing moments before the drop itself. Not that there was much to simulate. They had no idea of the enemy's capabilities. They were clad in the distinctive white armour of the Ten Thousand, their blank faced helms topped with horns and antenna that rendered them more demon than human.
Be good or the faceless will come for you. Her mother had told her that. The old terror of the Corporate towns on the continents. She was one of the monsters now.
Am I going to die today?
Over the last few weeks there had been a dozen attacks in this region. Small space craft went missing, isolated outposts and garrisons slaughtered. No one knew what was doing it, but it was enough for Command to lay plans against the attacker.
They'd got the call a little over fifteen minutes ago, sims over, doing it for real now, when an isolated squad outpost on the True British colony of Churchill had been attacked. The garrison had been mostly slaughtered, but continued reports indicated that there were a few survivors, and those survivors were sure the enemy remained.
Given the thoroughness of the attackers in other cases this had immediately been seen as a trap, either to draw other TBA units in, or to entrap response forces. Rather than make a predictable response the TBA had called in the Ten Thousand for assistance. Ten minutes later they'd been on their way in aboard a high speed robot freighter, wincing under the Gs as they approached orbit.
"Prepare for drop. Prepare for drop. All personnel prepare for drop."
There was a clank, a brief weightlessness and then a jolt as the drop pod hit atmosphere. 3Red1 held hard onto her seat's handles, more for reassurance than anything, imagining the re-entry shell heat, cool, and then! the shell burst open and their aircraft burst free, engines churning the air as they pulled sharply away from the remains of the bus.
Up until the last seconds the trajectory would have been the same as the automated cargo delivery to the robotic mining complex set up on Churchill's eastern continent, a full thousand kilometres from the attack. Last second course corrections and some fast low level flying would bring them in much faster than the attacker could predict.
That was the plan anyway. 3Red1. My name is Isis! took a deep breath and began to say the mantra again.
* * *
3Red1 aimed her smart gun ahead. The weapon was a bit larger than a pistol, its stabilizer built into her suit's arm guards. It felt inadequate somehow. Sometimes she wished that less firepower had moved to drones. To fight like the Imprevites, with heavy payload guns on shoulder mounts, to kill with your hands, would have been psychologically more satisfying. The drone beside her followed her eyes, the lens of its laser adding its weight to her own optics, layering hyper reality atop her composite. There was something, feeling. What was out there?
Churchill was a lovely world. Goldilocks, just about .999G, lush and temperate. The only downside was a high carbon monoxide level in the atmosphere that meant specialist filter longs or masks for the colonists for the foreseeable future. The local plant life was a mass of greens and blues, thick and untamed.
The company, formed in platoon columns amid a shell of small drones was moving in on the garrison from the West. As the weapon platoon, Three was looping around to the south to provide a base of fire on the compound. It left them potentially isolated, but who knew what lay in wait for those entering the compound directly.
Right now they were moving up a low wooded ridge, drones interspersed with humans, walking or crawling to avoid shaking the bushes.
3Red1 was leading the scouting element, almost to the top. Ahead the forest had been opened by a large tree fall. 3Red1 intended to cover across it with her drones while the rest of her fire team, 3Red, crossed, but something had stopped her.
What was out there? She looked around, trying to figure out what was wrong.
Whatever it was, she didn't want to go out into the glade. She slid back a few paces and gave a series of sharp hand signals, relayed down the line of infantry. They'd crawl around the left of the open area. She marked the glade as a possible danger area on the map and began to crawl forward, just behind the squad's point trooper.
She saw 3Red3 tense, her gun came up, hyper reflexive, and then an arrow struck through the front of her helmet. "Contact! Contact!"
The fire support drone's barrels spun up and the turret traversed, trying to tag the fleeting humanoid shape with gunfire. 3Red1 found her worried had dropped away, even with the death of her friend. She took aim, fired the smart gun, trying to box the fast moving shape in. At the same time she triggered a spread of grenades.
The forest ahead tore apart and heat and flame belched out as the grenades detonated. Had she killed it? No! Another arrow whipped past and one of the drones died. 3Red1 fired another grenade after it.
There was fighting everywhere. A dozen attackers, no! four! fast and stealthy! Watch out! Left, right! Another shape, the forest melting around it as it whipped through, leaving viral miasma in its wake. Troops and drones melted.
There was a screaming in her mind. Her thoughts tearing, fragmenting, only the battle language and conditioning keeping her together.
Another target appeared, firing some kind of rifle. It raised hands as bullets and beams sliced back of it, a glowing nimbus forming around it, then exploding out to flatten more forest.
And one with a sword, seeming to teleport from place to place, slicing through drones and women in its path.
And coming for 3Red1. She poured fire at it, smart gun rounds missing wide or hitting without effect. And then from the side a grenade slammed into it full on and it spun around. 3Red1 pushed her gun steady in the blast and emptied the cassette into it at less than twenty meters.
The thing collapsed, body smoking. 3Red1 panted in her helmet, aware she'd been screaming and shamed by it. She changed the empty cassette and moved slowly forward to the body. Around her, the noise of combat had died away.
"Cease fire!"
"Medic!"
"Cease Fire!"
"I got one!" 3Red1 knelt by the body. "Need recovery my location."
She moved to the body, knelt down and slowly turned it over. It seemed still and unmoving, skin grey like a sharkwhale. It looked.
One of the things hands shot up and 3Red1 felt pain through her stomach. She choked, collapsing around the sword. The creature kicked her off its blade and leaped away. The last thing 3Red1 heard was the screaming of her suits medical alarms. . .
