Desolation - Sci-fi action.

[Danielthelash]

I've been working on this on my page for a while, but decided to totally redo it (for the better!) and throw it up on the new forum. What a way to celebrate. I'd LOVE criticism.

Locked in the claustrophobic confines of a ET-A-V3 lander, deep within the launch bay of a spacecraft which was moving at several times the speed of light, folding space itself, a group of armored Marines rested pauldron to pauldron. The squad bay had been eerily silent for the better part of the hour. Individuals within the squad were linked into a comm-feed, mentally receiving updates from commanders on the bridge, the op was a quick hit and run, so to speak. Except if everything went according to plan, there would be no need to run. The MIEF was closing in on a hostile planet at something of three times the speed of light, as the MIEF came within effective firing range of the planet (.2 AUs), the destroyers would suddenly decelerate and launch a quick attack at the hostile planet, deemed objective Havana, and accelerate back out before a defense could be fully organized. The main battle fleet would then enter a hostile battlespace and launch several Marine units towards the Neo-Communist capital under what was being called "static cover fire," in other words-- ineffective cover fire.

The Marines aboard the ET-A-V3 knew that no plan truly held up to combat, otherwise there would have been far fewer casualties in every war mankind had fought. The plan would be constantly evolving based on certain situations. Staff Sergeant Veiko Galler had 19 other Marines in the squad bay. As the information was passed down to the squad leaders from their superiors, Galler provided his squad members with a count down to launch, plus or minus several seconds depending on the exact amount of time it took for the other pods to be launched. There was only four minutes and thirty-some seconds remaining on the countdown, which meant the destroyers were already decelerating and doing their part.

All of the Marines, for the most part, knew what to expect. Not only had they handled similar situations many times before, but had run through hundreds of simulations for this exact encounter in the days and weeks leading up to the op. Nomenal technology allowed for better-than-real simulations to occur all within the participants mind, linking together entire squads, platoons and companies through the nom-net so they could share the experience together. It was common practice to cut off or severely limit nom-net access for several hours before a launch to prevent, or in most cases drastically slow, the spread of jitters. With four minutes left the nom-net access was fully restored and suddenly overwhelmed as the squad commanders ran diagnostics checks on the squad.

They had several duties to perform, most operated by personal AI secretaries, or the squad and platoon AIs, which included checking oxygen levels, weapons checks and the relatively sketchy emotions check. The emotions check was a bit of a paradox. A Marine who was happy or overly excited was flagged as 'temporarily insane' and later evaluated post-op, and a Marine who was depressed was flagged a 'combat liability' and marked with a small blue arrow on the rest of the squad's nomenal combat map.

With three minutes left and time slowly burning down, Galler ran a last second calculation through his AI's mind. The expected casualty rate of the whole up was 15%, nearly 300 Marines. Broken down to a company level, about 17 men. In his platoon, only 4, and amazingly his AI reported he would only be at risk of losing one and a half men in his squad. One and a half? How do you lose half a man, he wondered. He knew HOW you lose half a man, in fact a few years back Galler himself had lose an arm and a leg fighting on Respoes, which were in turn grown back by nano-machines. But half a man? And of course, he knew, that casualty predictions could seldom be trusted and that some squads, platoons or companies might be wholly wiped out, while others might take no casualties at all. It was part of what made war, war. Nothing was certain.

Now with under a minute left before boost, he gave a quick speech to his squad over the nom-net.

"The fact that you have even volunteered for this op already, in Marine Corps' opinion, makes you heroes. If the commonwealth doesn't agree, so be it. They won't be the only ones to disagree, we've got a whole planet that is jumping to get at our throats. By the touch down, the time for heroics will have been expended. The most vital part of this op is the op itself, if we fail here, there may not be a next time. If we succeed here, there will be another time for citations on heroics. Do your part, don't go wild,"

and as if it was waiting for his cue, the rapid acceleration as the pod was being throw out pressed the Marines violently against their inertia seats. For the first few seconds, until the inertial dampeners kicked in, vision was limited and movement prohibited by the laws of gravity. The squad quickly scrambled to uplink with the lander's video feed. Most of the action going on outside was laser fire, and thus invisible, except for the exceedingly brief points where the beams crossed through debris in battlespace. The ship's AI could not be bothered to paint the streaks as it was already working at capacity controlling inertia as well as editing minute thrusts to avoid incoming fire and secure a landing spot along the LZ.

Another pocket of inertia hit as the ship passed into the atmosphere, this time rapid deceleration and it again took several seconds for the inertial dampeners to adjust. The Marines felt little of it between their seats and their armored suits. Weighing something over two tons, the NNA-IV battle suit was a wonder in armor technology. Able to be fitted with plasma drivers, lasers, D-nano-D launchers, miniature rail guns (which were becoming largely outdated) and high powered plasma flame throwers, on either arm made the NNA-IV an offensive force to be reckoned with. But not to be outdone, the suit's defensive properties are just as impressive, built in inertial dampening gels, fully autonomic movement (connected to a Marines nomenal implants to allow a full range of movement at thought) and the ability to shrug off high powered lasers through dispersion and refraction technologies made the suit a tank on the modern battlefield. As if that wasn't enough, it had medi-nano packets throughout to quickly isolate wounds and pump the body full of fast acting medi-nano.

The armor was truly amazing, and cutting edge.

As the sudden shock of final impact rippled through the hull, Galler stood and grabbed onto a rail overhead. With a thought, his AI triggered a door release and the squad bay doors slammed into their open positions. A small ramp descending to the ground with a short protective tunnel to cover the ramp. Galler ordered his men up and was the first to step off into the chaos of a modern battle field.

His ET-A-V3 had landed next to three others, two with their bays opened north to the city, one with the bay opened west, and his with the bay opened to the west-south-west. His men filed out and took cover behind one of the landers opened north. He opened a link to that commander's nomenal.

"Bad landing?," Galler's voice spoke into the commander's mind.
"Tell me about it, took three casualties disembarking. The pod next to mine wasn't so lucky, only five made if off," a foreign voice confirmed in Galler's mind. Galler pulled up the man's tag, Second Lieutenant Rob Drang

For the first time, Galler began paying attention to the chaos exploding around him. Drang's pod was glowing from repeated laser fire, while bits of the ground were exploding into white-hot foam as lasers plowed into the ground. Chunks of radiating blue plasma was flying around at sub-c, but still fast enough to rip through NNA-IV suits, as a bolt had just demonstrated on a member from Galler's squad.

[Danielthelash]

As Galler moved across the small battle field, not more than 20 meters to Drang's pod, another in his squad had been claimed by a still unseen enemy. Most of Galler and Drang's men had covered up along with stragglers from the other two pods.

"At best we just hope for some orbital support," Galler said to Drang as a new voice chipped in to the command feed.
"And just how long do you think we can last? They're reporting higher casualties on the west side of the capitol," the voice identified itself as Staff Sergeant Howard Milsner.
"We can't just sit here. See if you can raise Omega-Orbit," Drang chipped in.

Omega-Orbit was the code name for long-range snipers. Very long range. They sat in orbiting pods with a high velocity rifle, capable of accelerating small anti-matter warheads up to 7 times the speed of light. When Omega-Orbit coordinated, they could level an area the size of a city block in seconds. Galler clicked open his map and found the coordinates of the fire as his AI colored the trails.

"Relay these coordinates," Galler said with an odd calm as he opened the coordinates in the command feed.
"Relayed. Sit back and watch the star show," Drang commented.

Within seconds the area where the fire came from exploded into brilliant blue-white light, blasting away any trace of an enemy they may have been there. The radiance of the light was powerful enough to spike the Marine's suit sensors and temporarily blind the Marines looking at the show. After several more seconds, a second barrage dusted the surrounding area, not to a foam of blue heat as they had the main target, but still well enough to make the point clear. The op didn't call for much close fire support however, as they were trying to keep several targets alive, as well as severalkey buildings intact.

With the most immediate threat dealt with, the commanders and their men allowed for a brief introduction. The commanders agreed to stick together and they quickly found a route into the capitol square and mobilized. Speed was a necessity in a modern battle field.

The small, impromptu platoon came under fire shortly after entering the capital. The platoon rushed for cover around corners and behind lowered debris. The fire was sparse and unorganized, posing a small threat, but a threat none-the-less. Drang isolated the target's position, and in the same instant he flipped the corner pumped out three heavy rounds of plasma, melting the room the target would have been in. A corporal from Galler's squad popped up from cover at the same moment and shot a D-nano-D round into the adjacent window where fire was also suspected.

Before the corporal could get back to cover a flash of pink mist exploded as his forearm vanished, the corporal collapsed to the ground in a heap, passed out from the intense burst of pain. His suit sealed off the wound as best it could and filled his body with medi-nano to help contain the injury. Had it been plasma, the corporal would have been much worse off. A high powered laser had caught him along a joint in the armor, where the refraction technologies were not so strong. The result was an explosive amount of energy quickly tearing through and flaring on the way out, severing the corporal's arm and damaging the area around where the explosive transfer of energy had occurred.

There was little the platoon could do for him, save take him with them and hopefully secure him at a larger clearing where more Marines were present. The beachhead was going well in the South and a small field hospital had been established.

"Raise the hospital," Galler said over the command net "See if they can't catch up with us and take him. Send them our course as well, they can intercept us along the way."

"Already done," the platoon's communications sergeant reported. He was tagged Whitling.