CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Bein’ a medic isn’t too different from bein’ a soldier. I just kill in reverse.”
THE CITY OF POLK’S PRIDE, ON THE PLANET TURAXIS II
The factory and its adjoining machine shop were set up in the spacious maintenance facility where subway cars had been repaired back before the war. Tracks led into open bays that were now occupied by goliaths. The goliaths stood with cockpits open as pilots and technicians ran final checks, a power wrench screeched, and the bitter smell of ozone laced the air.
Further back, in the brightly lit room once occupied by workbenches, row upon row of CMC-300 suits could be seen, all hanging from carefully aligned racks. It was 0214 hours, and the attack on the Kel-Morian repository was due to begin in less than two. There were plenty of jokes, and nearly nonstop banter, as the men and women of the 321st Colonial Rangers Battalion began to seal their suits.
But as Raynor stepped into his armor and went about the process of connecting the padlike interfaces to various parts of his body, he knew what the people around him were really thinking. How many of us will be badly wounded? How many of us are going to die? And most importantly, Will I survive?
Raynor’s suit smelled of someone else’s sweat, but as he examined the readouts on his HUD, all of them came up green. And that was what mattered most. Having jumped into Kel-Morian territory wearing an experimental hardskin, Raynor had a new appreciation for the tried and true.
The “experiment” could more or less have been considered a failure, as the High Command had discontinued Thunderstrike armor following several mishaps during field tests. Though he’d never admit it to Feek, who’d spent countless hours working on the armor, Raynor also had serious doubts about its usefulness in battle.
Needless to say, the project was put on the back burner, with the exception of the 230-XF, which was being converted into a non-jump “firebat” suit. Since the announcement, Harnack didn’t let a day go by without asking Feek when his new suit would be ready.
Having sealed himself in, Raynor made his way over to a freestanding rack, selected the slab-sided gauss rifle that wore the same number his suit did, and took a look at the ammo indicator. It was full up.
From the rack it was a short trip to the table where a private was distributing extra ammo. Then, having completed all of his preparations, Raynor made his way over to the assembly area next to track two. Sanchez was already there with her visor open and a rifle slung over one shoulder. “Where’s Findlay?” she asked.
Before Raynor could answer, Kydd sidled up beside him. “He’s fondling his armor. I think he’s in love with it.”
Sanchez laughed, and when Raynor looked over at his friend, he noticed something that made him smile even more broadly. Kydd was gazing at Lieutenant Sanchez with worshipful eyes. Raynor wasn’t surprised—she was a beautiful woman. Even her laugh had a musical quality. Raynor hoped he would get the chance to hear it again. Max Speer, who was wearing yellow armor with the word media stenciled across his chest plate, was present to capture the moment.
***
The battle began as most ground attacks do, with an air strike by a squadron of Avengers, followed by an artillery barrage from a dozen siege tanks. The shells rumbled ominously as they passed over south Polk’s Pride to pound enemy held territory. And as the Confederate guns opened up, their crews immediately came under counterfire from the Kel-Morian side of the river.
Then, as the early morning darkness was torn asunder by flashes of light and the roll of artificial thunder, the real bloodletting began.
The first challenge Colonel Vanderspool faced was to get his troops across the river, a task two other officers had failed to accomplish. An attempt to use boats had been a complete failure. By the time the bargelike watercraft were launched, Kel-Morian artillery batteries had their range and cut them to pieces. It was said that the Paddick ran red with blood, as a battalion of bodies floated downstream, and thousands of rot birds swooped in to feast.
A plan to launch sections of a pontoon bridge upriver, ride them down, and hook them together at the last moment had proven to be equally disastrous when one of the modules ran afoul of a sunken bridge, and rendered the rest useless. It was a colossal screw-up that left hundreds of Confed troops milling around waiting to be slaughtered by enemy air strikes and artillery fire.
So Vanderspool had come up with a third alternative. Something that had never been tried before. A strategy that was calculated to take advantage of the fact that the Paddick River was much shallower than usual.
The first person to witness Vanderspool’s genius was a lowly Kel-Morian taskmaster named Evers who, along with his squad of outriders, was on a routine patrol when the air attacks and the artillery barrage began. So there he was, inside the gutted remains of a waterfront warehouse, waiting for the ground to stop shaking under his boots when a pair of softly glowing forms materialized from the ruins on the other side of the Paddick.
Evers thought their size, as well as the amount of heat they were generating, was consistent with that produced by Confederate goliaths, and his HUD confirmed the hypothesis. Okay, the taskmaster thought to himself, all they can do is strut back and forth along the riverfront and take occasional potshots at us. What a waste. Our artillery will pound them flat in no time at all.
Had it been daylight Evers would have known better, but it wasn’t until the first goliaths entered the river that he realized the specially modified walkers were carrying something between them, and understood what the Confederates were up to. The goliaths were carrying sections of a pontoon bridge between them, and because of their height, would be able to wade across the Paddick!
Then, having created a span over which regular troops could cross, the combat walkers would switch to an offensive role and open fire on anyone who opposed them, thereby establishing a beachhead that would be very difficult to dislodge. That was important stuff, and Evers was just about to tell his superiors all about it when a Kel-Morian artillery shell fell short and landed directly on top of his position. He and his squad were decimated.
The resulting flash of light strobed the surface of the river, and two walkers could be seen, both almost fully submerged as they towed a section of bridge between them. Three minutes later they were ashore where they secured the section designated as “span one” to pre-selected anchor points. With that accomplished, they scanned the ruins for targets and began to kill everything warm enough to produce a heat signature. Meanwhile, the next pair of goliaths was hooking span two to span one.
That was when the Kel-Morian overseer in charge of north Polk’s Pride was awoken from a deep sleep and given the news: The Confederates had thrown a bridge across the Paddick and walkers were already coming ashore. He swore, wondered how such a thing was possible, and whom he could blame.
Other than the goliath pilots and Max Speer, who insisted on dashing across first in order to get a shot of their arrival, a resoc named Sergeant Trent and his squad were the first people to cross the newly created bridge. Sanchez, Raynor, Tychus, Harnack, Kydd, Ward, Zander, and Doc followed immediately behind, just ahead of a full company of resocialized marines. They were to be followed by the rest of the ranger battalion, plus various auxiliary units, including a platoon of SCVs.