Major Thorne collected his dropped pistol and bounced over to the rest of the unit. They’d successfully contained the advance of the bugs from the canyon but the mound was constantly increasing.
“Good of you to join us Sir. Orders?” Oakham said, a strange level of joy to his voice with the carnage in front of him.
“Conserve Ammo. We have a long journey. Marauders, blow them into the canyon!” Thorne said; his confidence in orders doubled since their last engagement.
“Yes Sir!” came over the comm. in unison from Morrigan and Medb. The two marauders changed their stance slight bracing to for ordnance; Morrigan’s M-9 launched three missiles and four grenades towards the oncoming swarm while continuing to fire rounds in burst from the Electric eight rotary cannon, Medb’s M-8 added to the salvo with another two rockets and two more grenades. The concentrated fire and explosive force erupted within the ranks of the swarm, arachnid mandibles’, legs and thorax’s burst into the air, the green fluid sprayed the sky in a mist. Shouts and laughter came over the comm. from Medb and Morrigan as they watch the explosives fireball engulfed more of the bugs, the fireball stretching upwards ignited the wings of hoppers and ripplers, their speed crushing them into the ground into a pile of chitin and gore.
A deep rumble sounded; the troopers footing slipped and then a crack appeared swallowing the pile of bugs, the land continued to crumble it to an ever widening hole as it joined the canyon.
“Move it troopers! Head to target!” Thorne ordered, the troopers all turned and engaged their jump jets bounding into the air to cover as much distance as possible. Morrigan turned her Chickenhawk and with the manipulators grabbed the epaulets of the co-pilots flight suit.
“Hold on, and close your mouth!” She shouted over the speaker to him as she engaged the marauder’s own jump jets to follow the unit. Medb, went to engage her jump jets and nothing happened. She moved it forward as fast as it could, the heavy impacts of its feet causing the ground to slip away after it at an increased rate.
“Come on!” Medb shouted, hit the button again. One of the feet slipped as the ground it was on shuddered under it. Pushing the controls harder the Ape M-8 Marauder lurched forward and continues its lumbering run ahead of the collapse.
Luk glanced back to see what was causing the issue and watched Medb’s marauder disappear with the falling rock.
“Major! Medb down, I repeat Medb down!” Luk screamed over the Comm. Thorne and Oakham spun in the air and watched the ground slow its drop, and the expanse of canyon halted its growth.
“Medb come in! Medb Come in!” Thorne stated to the comm. There was no response over the Comm.
“Troopers halt. Back to the canyon, prep lizard lines.” Thorne said. The troopers one by one landed and began running back.
“Morrigan, keep that marauder back we don’t know how unstable it is, Aasith keep an eye out as well” Oakham added over the comm. Thorne looked over to him and nodded his appreciation.
*
As the unit of troopers approached the edge slowly, they measured their paces so not to start another collapse. Morrigan dropped the co-pilot and then open the marauder’s hatch to speak.
“What’s your name?” She asked
“Lieutenant Simmons, Private. Use your eyes next time to see the rank of the person you are talking to” The co-pilot spat.
“I highly recommend Sir, that the single fleet officer on this highly hostile world. Respects the Mobile Infantry Troopers whose job it is to keep him alive, Sir. Actually, that’s not our orders.” Morrigan said with a grin as she climbed back into the marauder. Simmons watched as she moved one of the manipulator arms to be pointed straight at him.
“Don’t” Was the single word from Aasith, and it stopped her plan in its tracks.
“He’s dead weight; I can cut him loose as if I slipped on the controls during landing.” Morrigan moved the arm again this time a little further forward, the blades of the pincers forced Simmons to take a step back, his resolve melting away.
“We can also use him as bait later on” Aasith said over the comm.
“I doubt that” she replied, moving the manipulator back away from the fleet officer.
*
Looking over the crevice the unit saw the Ape dangling by its lizard lines attached to the canyon side, stepping closer to the edge, testing their footing all the time, they could see that the lizard lines were nowhere near the top of the canyon, Medb was still not responding over the comm.
“I need two volunteers to go down and see what’s happened” Thorne said. Without speaking a work Thoth and Eastre fired their lizard lines into the ground next to themselves and began walking towards the edge ready to abseil down.
“Good Luck and keep in contact” Oakham said as they walked by. They stepped off the edge casually as if it was a normal day and then began running face first down the wall heading towards the stranded marauder.
Clipping their lizard lines to their armour they began to crawl over the marauder both setting to work without a word to each other. Eastre went directly towards Medb, opening the front to get into the marauder to see to Medb. Thoth began to inspect the marauder itself looking for structural damage or why it hadn’t used the jump jets. Eastre registered that Medb was fine just been knocked out from the sudden impact. Eastre inserted the stimulants to the suit regulator; the needle inserted itself automatically into her arm pumping the drugs in. Eastre watch the bio-readout on the suit and watched as the stimulants did their work on her heart rate and brain activity. Thoth had scampered round the back of the marauder and found the problem for the jump jets, the heavy landing from the evacuation of the ship had caused dust and debris to enter the intake vents for the jump jets, without the air to keep them working there would be no strong ignition and flight for the ten tonne marauder.
“What the fuck?” They all heard whispered over the comm.
*
Aasith was scanning the area through her scope looking at the path ahead, it seemed empty of threats. She increased the magnification and began to trace the up their mountainous objective. What she saw she didn’t understand. Hundreds of plasma bugs slowly moving into the mountain range. She watched as two bug ships lifted off and headed towards an asteroid drifting overhead. The crack in the mountain began to be filled, increasing magnification once more she saw that ripplers and hoppers where latching onto each other to cover the gap. Smaller chariot bugs were being herded in by warriors for some purpose but no bugs were headed their way. Just as she was dialling back the magnification, something caught her attention, she focused on it, one of the chariot bugs were speared by something, it was draining the chariot of something and the warriors were staying back, they moved a few paces away and the shadow they were casting disappeared and the spike that was attached to the chariot bug shone brightly for a moment then crumble away.
“What the fuck?” Aasith muttered to herself
“Report” Came Thorne’s voice over the comm.
“Apologies Sir, but you should come and look at this.” Aasith said watching the mountain for another interaction. The thud next to her told her that Thorne had arrived. She quickly explained what she’d seen and where, then handing over her rifle she watched as Thorne scanned the area.
“I can’t see what you’ve described but I think we need to get moving as soon as possible. I think that asteroid is the next one to make a jump. That is something I want to see up close and if possible stop.” He said to her. “How’s the Ape?” he asked over the Comm. while handing back her rifle.
*
Thoth was hanging upside down by his lizard line working in the small space between the marauder and the canyon wall, he was removing the last of the jammed in rubble to the second intake when he received the question.
“Will be operational shortly” Thoth replied then something caught his eye moving at the edge of his vision. The last rock came out but instead of dropping it he held on for a moment. “Eastre! Engage the retraction for the marauder, we’ve got mites!”
Eastre spun on the controls as Medb was slowly coming round, glancing down she tried to remember her basic marauder training. She hit a button and hoped for the best. Thoth swung round to the side of the marauder and smashed the rock into the mandibled face of the cliff mite. The rock shattered and the mite lost grip to the canyon from the shock. The marauder jerk and began rising up the canyon wall, leaving Thoth hanging on his own cable, facing the scrabbling mass of cliff mites coming up the wall. He righted himself while bringing his rifle to bear. He sprayed the area with rounds from his Mortia rifle, dislodging more mites than he killed.
As the Marauder jerked Eastre began to fall back out of the cockpit, Medb lunged forward to grab her but her harness held her tight, Medb’s armoured hand skimmed by not quite getting a hold. Eastre fell back into the air and the marauders passage made her spin on her lizard line, swinging towards the canyon face, she braced herself for the worst. The impact jarred her body and left her slightly dazed.
“Medb your jump jets are fixed, get out of here!” Thoth shouted over the comm.
“Move that Ape trooper we need a clean shot” Came Thorne’s controlling voice.
Thoth used the rifle’s rate of fire to carve a small gouge our of the rock face, he then jammed a grenade in the hole. Looking up he saw the marauder fall briefly before the jump jets took it up into the air and back over the edge. He saw that Eastre was dangling; moving slowly and that another set of mites were on route. He sprayed more rounds below and armed the grenade. Engaging his own lizard line he began to ascend. Rounds began to pour down from the canyon edge try to hit the incoming mites while missing the two troopers. Eastre was still moving slowly her hand missing the retraction button on the lizard line, Thoth began to swing towards Eastre hoping his trajectory would make connection, the grenade exploded, he began to spin on his line, crashing his shoulder into Eastre he grabbed on and began to lift her up as the lizard line retracted.
Eastre was brought out of hr daze by the impact and snatched her hand at the retract switch. As he cable began to retract she looked down a saw the cracks appearing, the grenade had removed a large junk of the canyon wall and now it had started another collapse. A slab of rock shifted and began to fall.
“Hold on Thoth” She said over the comm. the rock fell away pushing them out, debris and dust enveloped them as they slung their rifles and held onto each other’s armour. They were still moving up as rocks scraped against armour and dirt covered their face plate. There cables shuddered and they tried to peer upwards to see what was happening but all they could see was dust.
*
As the rock began to slide away once more the unit retreated back towards Aasith and Morrigan, the landslide was not as vast as it was previously but there could be no risk to the rest of the unit. Thorne locked his visor in place and he noted other’s doing the same. He watched the attachment points of the lizard lines and how the cables shook as the landslide continued. It stopped moving towards Eastre’s but continue to edge away slowly towards Thoth’s, the ground slipping away inch by slow inch to continue to pour debris onto the two troopers below. They watched on anxiously as the ground slowly slid away and finally the Thoth’s hook went with it.
*
Thoth felt his line go slack and their ascent suddenly slowed. His cable retracted faster and whipped round as is lodged back into its home.
“I’ve got you” Eastre Said
“Glad to hear it” Thoth Replied
“You two hold firm, glad to hear both your voices. Collapse seems to have stabilised” Thorne said over the comm. They were scraping up against the side of the canyon and suddenly the cable went taught and stopped.
“Thoth hold on, I’m going to reach up” Eastre said removing one hand from Thoth’s armour reached up to grab the side, suddenly her arm was yanked and the two of them were hurtling through the air from the strength of the pull up and the retraction of the lizard line.
“Got bored waiting, now stop cuddling” Luk said his deep gravel voice laughing over the comm.
“Luk’s right, that’s enough cuddling, time to move out” Sergeant Oakham said
“Aasith and Olwen you’re on point, Medb you follow. Morrigan you’re rear guard. Get ready to bounce troopers we’ve got a long journey ahead and not much time to complete it in” Thorne said finally checking his recovered pistol. The barrel was dented but the action worked fine. He emptied it of ammunition and throw it away. There was no point taking the risk of a back fire.
“Sir! I am not in a powersuit. I will not be able to keep up.” Lieutenant Simmons ran over.
“That’s fine Lieutenant, Morrigan use your manipulators and carry the Fleet officer” Thorne said over the comm. he missed Morrigan’s smile and the snip-snip action she made with her marauder.
“Sir, I believe she wishes me harm” Simmons said
“And why would that be?” Thorne turned and glared at him making sure his Military intelligence and psychic insignias were in clear sight. “Don’t lie, I will know” he finished
“I insulted her” Simmons said
“Then apologise” Thorne replied simply
“An officer doesn’t apologise to a trooper” Simmons spat back without thinking.
“Sergeant your sidearm” Thorne said holding out his hand, Oakham placed the pistol but first into the outstretched hand without a second thought. “You have two options, apologise and hope Morrigan accepts it and doesn’t drop you or...” he spun the pistol to hand it to Simmons “you can wait here for the retrieval ship. Use the bullets wisely; it’s all we can spare”
“I...I...”Simmons looked at the outstretched pistol and towards a smiling Morrigan “You can’t do this you would be signing my death certificate if you left me here!” outrage began to boil.
“Someone tell the Fleet Officer, when you first met me, what order had I given Sergeant Oakham?” Thorne said looking round the troop.
“To execute Lieutenant Wesley” Nabu said as if it was nothing
“He died in battle leading with his unit...” Simmons stopped mid-sentence remembering something
“And the call signs of his unit?” Thorne asked. Simmons didn’t say a word and walked over to Morrigan.
“I’m sorry for my rash behaviour earlier, would please aid in my transit with you?” Simmons asked as politely as he could to Morrigan. She sat in the cockpit smiling.
“Accept the apology and don’t drop him” Thorne said in her mind “toy with him but don’t drop him”
“Apology accepted.” She said sweetly smiling, she gave a quick glance and nod towards Thorne.
“On the bounce people!” Thorne shouted, Aasith and Olwen took to the sky in a large bounding jump followed by Medb, using jump jets the unit began to travel quickly, with each jump taking them at least fifteen meters in each bound. There was a scream from the back as Morrigan took to the air and Simmons was not happy about it. After the first five bounces Thorne saw how quick the jump jets fuel was dropping and the amount of distance was not enough.
“Run fifty jump!” Thorne ordered through the comm. it was an older method of extending the jump jets fuel and making distance up quickly. Using a powersuit’s increased strength the unit would run fifty meters and then jump at full strength, the jump jets and strength of jump would make the bound close to thirty meters, while the unit was in the air they could rest for the next bout of running. As the unit landed they began to run using the visor to count down distance between jumps.
The mountain loomed ahead; they were pushing the extent of the power packs of their suits and marauders to make it to the mountain before they lost power and would be stranded. Thorne looked again at the readout, at this rate they’ll have to strip off their suits within six hours and in this atmosphere and location it would be deadly.