There was sufficient technology for wars to be fought with robots and long-range weapons, considering that humans possessed advanced space travel and could build things like battle mechs and grav tanks. Such a conflict, however, would be radically expensive, and so was anathema to the politics of profit. To maintain the universal Bottom Line, wars were fought with modest military tech, wielded by soldiers in the field, and much of the more sophisticated warfare technology had either been shelved, redacted, or intentionally forgotten.
In high orbit a cataclysmic void battle was taking place as the Grotto and Helion battle fleets fought to control access to the planet’s surface.
Helion had created a thin picket line of ships intended to filter out any would be scavengers, but had been somewhat unprepared for the sudden wedge of Grotto attackers. Even as the sky above was afire with burning debris from the void battle making planetfall, both sides were intent upon pressing a ground campaign despite not having established air supremacy.
The Lovat Reaper cadre had been preparing themselves to salvage the aftermath of the void battle, which had turned sharply in Grotto’s favor, when a second Helion fleet emerged from deep space and launched their counter-attack.
The Kratos and Baen Reaper cadres had been sent planetside after the House Indron battle cruisers had punched their way through the Helion picket. It was a bold stratagem to engage in a ground war when the void battle was yet to be completed, though Command had found it necessary given the anti-ship artillery batteries placed within the Helion fortifications just outside the city. While the planetside artillery did little more than harass the invading fleet, now that Grotto was up against a Helion counter-attack the harassment had begun to show its cumulative effect.
There was haphazardness to the whole affair that struck Samuel as indicative of what the trade war had done to transform the already dystopian corporations of the universe. Just as with the command structure of the Grotto military, the Reaper elements and the stormtroopers were getting caught up in the hasty grab for power and glory. So too, it seemed were certain elements of Helion.
Greed was beginning to overwhelm the traditionally reserved Grotto military bureaucracy, and now it seemed to be having its own effect on their arch-enemy.
More and more of this war, thought Samuel as he narrowly avoided tripping over the broken body of a penal legionnaire, was becoming an incoherent mess of personal agendas and private armies. What had begun a year ago as the largest single battle fleet ever assembled in Grotto Corporation’s history was now a fractured force consisting of sub-fleets whose commanders sought only to further their own gain.
Tillman theorized that it was only a matter of time before the Board of Executives would take notice of the chaos and send an elite punitive force to restore order to the Ellisian war effort. She had hoped to have her unionist movement at its peak of power before then, but with such a grand offensive in progress, that seemed to have little chance of becoming reality.
Tango Platoon sprinted across what remained of no man’s land, littered with the bodies of hundreds of penal legionnaires, and reached a natural trench that had been worn into the grey rocky ground by some ancient stream. They began to see the first real evidence of the conflict that had been raging planetside prior to Kratos and Baen marines being re-tasked from their usual scrap wagon duties.
Many dozens more legionnaires were scattered throughout the trench, with the occasional Helion trooper among the dead. There were broken gun emplacements and even the smoldering remains of two battle mechs amid the carnage. On the other side of the trench were more Helion corpses and beyond that, the hasty fighting positions of the Grotto stormtroopers overlooking another trench network.
“Looks like Helion put up one hell of a fight before they gave up the ground,” observed Hondo as he knelt down next to a dead trooper and began stripping the body of its rifle and one spare magazine. When he noticed Samuel and Ben looking at him inquisitively he slung his own rifle and brandished the Helion weapon.
“These fire the same type of bullet as our combat rifles, but there’s an internal charger that gives the projectile a super heated boost. Helion slang calls it a hot round.”
“They’ll punch right through our armor,” grumbled Jada as she joined Hondo in looting a body for its weapon and ammunition. “I wish the Grotto techs could figure out how to keep the chargers running, these things are only good for a magazine or two and then they run cold. Or at least that’s the talk of the tug.”
“Patented security measure,” stated Boss Ulanti flatly as she walked past the group of soldiers, making her way towards the current Grotto frontline. “Keeps their tech from being useful to scavengers in the long-term.”
“Cut the chatter, people,” said Boss Marsters over the com-bead, having never slowed his brisk pace. “Loot if you’re going to loot and get moving. We’re here to provide rifle support to the stormtroopers while they keep the enemy hemmed in.”
“They’re going to let the Gedra chew on ‘em for awhile before making a play,” said Ben as he and Samuel kept pace with each other while Hondo and Kade sprinted to catch up. “I saw one of the Dire Sword drop ships make a pass over the city’s skyline just as we landed. The gun spiders should be nice and angry by now.”
“No wonder you ate dirt like a rookie,” laughed Harold, keeping pace with the rest of the marines despite his heavy gun and several drums of ammunition. “Too busy taking in this luxurious view of paradise.”
The marines pounded across the former no man’s land, stepping over the bodies of more enemy troopers and moving around several burning vehicles that had been destroyed in the fighting.
The sound of the conflict was deafening as the Gedra gun spiders began to swarm out of the city to attack the Helion defenders from behind, even as the Grotto forces pressed them at the front.
Samuel quickly found himself feeling as if he were back on Tetra Prime. This was the first time that the Reapers of the Baen fleet had been deployed against Helion troopers in a ground campaign since that ill-fated mission that had claimed the lives of Boss Taggart and so many other marines.
There had been Helion troopers still defending some of the void salvage in this first year of the Ellisian trade war, though combat in the cold silence of space was its own theatre. Being on the ground, covered in dust and feeling gunfire thrumming in one’s chest even as the reports boomed in the air was the stuff of memory.
Samuel found himself emitting a low growl as he picked up the pace; one he noticed was matched by the rest of the marines. The reapers remembered Tetra Prime, and though they had won the day on that distant field, it was clear that the veterans of Tango Platoon weren’t done getting their payback.
The hereditary stormtroopers of House Indron looked, to Samuel’s eyes at least, like giant black beetles that happened to be wearing bright red capes. They were tall men and women, made more so by the bulky segmented combat armor in which they were encased. Each of them had a visored helmet that went a long way towards giving them that menacing insect look, so much so that Samuel assumed that was part of their purpose. Most of the stormtroopers carried auto-guns, which were big bore automatic assault rifles that fired high impact rounds designed to crack and shatter armor more than they were to penetrate.
As the Reapers reached the front they saw that the stormtroopers had taken the trench and the gun emplacements and were busy firing into no man’s land as a wave of Helion troopers, supported by several mechs and a few tanks, were advancing.