A certain Mister Ravis trudged along the endless, sandy expanse of Planet Sprague, stepping occasionally over small shrubs and other types of assorted brush that somehow managed to thrive in this wretched desert hellscape that was forgotten by all but the most desperate of Bretonian politicians and Leeds refugees. Yet, it was a lucrative business, defending fringe settlements and refugee camps along the Sprague frontier, and naturally, like moths to a flame or stupid freelancers with death wishes to an active warzone, Tal was attracted to the place.
He wasn't alone, either, as he was accompanied on his foot patrol by about eight or nine other mercenaries who'd been brought on by the Bretonians to protect their interests on the planet from being pillaged by pirates. Despite it being under the protection of the BAF, who by this point in the war with Gallia were spread dangerously thin across Bretonian space, the occasional Corsair or independent pirate band found their way onto the planet. For the most part, they avoided the larger cities and camps, as they were often under protection by well-trained and equipped Bretonian regulars, and so it was the small fry that they picked on. That's where he came in.
In many regards, being on Sprague was just like Planet Nauru, only it was significantly less mind-garglingly awful in terms of climate. There was no trio of suns to beat down on him and his posse, no constant threat of heatstroke, and most importantly, it lacked the characteristic sulfur coating that made the whole place reek of concentrated asscheeks. Seldom could he venture outside the wire on Nauru without a gas mask or other type of breathing apparatus, but out here, his face was uncovered and in plain view, taking in the fresh, morning spring air.
It was perfect for him, then, a place where he could roam freely and do a whole lot of nothing while getting paid. The food was decent, provided by Synth Foods as per the usual with a healthy dose of overprocessed plant matter, though the housing could be a bit iffy. One day they’d post up in a settlement somewhere, and the next they’d be sleeping in their vehicles in a secluded “camping ground”, but hey. It was cozier than a little metal box, and that was all that he cared about.
But, something kinda seemed off. There was something he hated about this place, something he’d forgotten about in the last hour or so that he’d been walking around, thinking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the third time this week. Then, he heard it. A loud, deep popping sound in the distance, followed by a characteristic woosh that was accompanied by a very, very faint whistle. Then, a dull puff, and he looked to his right just as a projectile exploded in midair about 20 feet in front of him.
Oh, that was right. The rockets.
Puffs of sand and dust were kicked up all around him by jagged, hot shards of shrapnel, dotting an area in a 90-degree cone relative to where the residual smoke in the air indicated that an airburst munition had just detonated. His shield grid immediately came up, shining a bright white with web-like cracks along the bubble where incoming fragments were deflected, and his body immediately kicked into action, moving to a full sprint almost autonomously to the nearest ditch, which seemed to be some kind of former irrigation canal dug by settlers of years past. Quickly, he got down into a prone position, bringing his Ageira Technologies XV-15 carbine up and cresting the ridge just barely enough to provide the smallest target profile while being able to return fire with a hail of 6mm light armor-piercing rounds.
Skippers were what they called them, the Detroit Munitions-brand 70mm airburst rockets. Marketed towards PMCs and law enforcement on distant border worlds, the reloadable launchers fired a semi-smart projectile that bounced off the ground, or skipped, shot up into the air, and showered those below with a flurry of deadly, jagged shrapnel. More often than not, however, these ended up in the hands of nameless, faceless pirates, who used them to terrorize the countryside much like they were trying to do now. Only here, the mercenaries had light personal shielding devices on, rendering the airburst effect pretty much worthless.
The shooter was simply known as One Trick Dick since they always seemed to fire one and only one rocket at them along this patrol path on a biweekly basis, and well, they were kinda dicks for shooting rockets at them. Tal was wholly desensitized to sudden ambushes at this point in his nearly 6-month stint on Sprague, but anti-personnel rockets flying their way wasn’t cool the first time and certainly still wasn’t any cooler the thirtieth time.
After firing off a 50-round magazine of caseless ammunition at the ridgeline where the rocket logically originated from, Tal stood back up, regrouping with his team and exchanging some post-battle chatter. Truth be told, he wasn’t even really shooting at anything in particular; he just hoped a stray round would nail one of the shooters in the back of the head on their way out so that they’d stop firing these things at them. Maybe he needed to rethink the strategy.
Later that week, the man known to the PMCs only as One Trick Dick, the ubiquitous rocketeer, crawled up to that fateful ridgeline once more, a weathered, plastic tube cradled in his arms against his chest. He wore little in the way of tactical equipment: a plaid button-up, some old faded jeans, and a pair of work boots rounded out his daily attire, the same outfit he’d worn to each one of these attacks. His facial complexion was grizzled, tanned from many hours spent laboring under the sun throughout his life, and he huffed and he puffed as he pulled his way up along the jagged rock formations until he reached his little nest.
It’d become something like a home away from home for him, a small hole dug into the rocky hilltop that he used to fire rockets down onto the patrols below. When he first started these attacks, it was little more than well, rocks, but over the course of several weeks, he’d managed to bring up a shovel to help dig in a bit, an old folding lawn chair, and even a little cooler to store drinks in. Sitting in the sun all day was tiring for an older man like him, but putting up any sort of artifical shade would surely attract the fire of the irritated mercenaries, and their return fire was creeping closer and closer to his position with every passing ambush.
He wasn’t much of a warrior by trade, the man being little more than an impoverished Zoner from the local Freeport in Omega 3 who was paid by a gaggle of roving pirates to harass the local authorities. They supplied the rockets and a 1000-credit payout for every successful hit-and-run, and for a 40-some-odd-year-old man just trying to make sure his wife and kids were being fed, the offer was just too good not for him to take. A paycheck of 2000 credits every week, untaxed and up front, was more than enough for his family to live comfortably on. Of course, he didn’t like doing this or what doing this was slowly making him, but over time he had become numb to the snapping and crackling of incoming rounds whizzing overhead, and had wised up to several tactics to conceal himself and ensure that his children would not be raised without a strong, male role model.
His family didn’t know what he was doing, as his wife, a 52-year-old Kusarian woman, certainly wouldn’t approve of his actions if she knew where he was running off to twice a week. His excuse had been that he’d found employment with a commandeered industrial equipment factory on Leeds, but the Gallics were only offering him work twice a week. Life had been difficult after he was laid off from his job as a cargo technician onboard the Freeport, and so neither his wife nor his kids were questioning where the sudden influx of income was coming from, only that he was putting food on the table again.
Reaching his area of refuge, he got up to a knee, placing the rocket launcher on his thigh and pulling two tabs simultaneously on the rear end of the launch tube to cause the spring loaded rocket housing to pop out of the launcher. Now ready to fire, he shouldered the weapon and took aim, peering down the simplistic metal ladder sights. There were no dark figures on the horizon today, none that he could make out with the naked eye, at least, and he did a double take, looking up from the sight picture and squinting in the sunlight to try and discern any viable targets. Strangely enough, there was no patrol on the road, and he double-checked his watch just to make sure it was the right time. It read 15:43 standard Sirian hours, just around the time in the peak of the afternoon where the mercenaries would be walking on by. Confused, he set the launcher back down on his lap, grunting and looking around. It was silent.
Then, behind him, he heard the crumbling of rocks, as if someone had put their boot down and crushed them against each other. It was an all too-familiar sound, one he’d made many a time just getting up here, but it was weird. It was distant. It wasn’t supposed to be distant. Inhaling deeply, he turned his head around to look over his shoulder, eyes widening in awe when he saw two heavily-armed men crest the ridge, one having evidently stumbled on an outcropping on his way up.
They had found him.
His fight or flight response kicked in almost immediately, prompting him to throw the still-ready rocket launcher tube onto the ground and make a break for it, his eyes still glued to the presence of the two men. The sound made by the tube and the subsequent footsteps alerted the two men, one of whom pointed back and shouted something.
“Fuck, there he is! Shoot that motherfucker!”
He looked away from him as he made his escape, missing out on the view of one of the men raising and shouldering his rifle. Two cracks rang through the air, just as he stepped up onto the rocks around his hideout, and a sudden burning sensation filled his lower right leg, just before it went numb and totally gave way. A bullet went snapping overhead as he tumbled forwards onto the rocks, one of two discernable gunshots, but the lack of a second meant that he must’ve been hit by the other. For what seemed like an eternity, he rolled downhill, scraping himself up and smacking into every obstacle on the way down to the base of the hill. Once he finally rolled to a stop, dazed with ears ringing, he simply laid there on his back, unable to move, with his arms spread out wide as the sunlight basked over his immobile body.
“I think you tagged him, go, go!”
A certain mister Ravis lowered his carbine, looking down at the jagged terrain below and cautiously moving forwards as his squadmate, who stumbled and tripped hard on the way up here, pulled himself out of the rocks behind him. The pair quickly dashed their way across the hills, bypassing and ignoring the man’s hideout completely in their pursuit of the One Trick Dick. They finally had the slippery little bastard, despite the elusive silhouette being in Tal’s crosshairs for only a split second, and if his battle buddy was correct, he might’ve killed him and put an end to the biweekly ambushes.
“You’re gonna die, cocksucker!” Tal taunted, his voice echoing throughout the area. Cresting the ridge on the other side of the hills, Tal shouldered his rifle, quickly scanning his surroundings and the horizons for any signs of the man, but found nothing. He must’ve gotten away this time, unless...
He looked down, seeing the twitching, bleeding body of the man who’d been a nuisance to their operations in the sector for well over a month now. The 6mm armor-piercing multipurpose round fired from his XV-15, a highly specialized munition designed to defeat all types of modern body armor, had struck the man in the meat of his right calf, striking his tibia and fibula dead-on to the point where the impact had actually set the detonation train off. The explosion and incendiary effect must’ve blown his muscles apart, while the several razor-sharp steel fragments generated by the full detonation train basically severed most of what was left of his lower leg off. What remained of the limb was a grotesque, open compound fracture, smothered in dark arterial blood and bits of dirt and sand, with a significant portion of the man’s calf, well, missing. That would surely stop a man, he thought, as he lowered his weapon and began walking down the rocks to confront him.
“Who do you work for, huh?” he’d asked, loud and authoritatively, unslinging his carbine as he approached the downed man. In his current state, the man, who was very rapidly bleeding out, was unable to reply, and barely even heard the question, but Tal, in his infinite wisdom, didn’t know any better. “Who the fuck do you work for?”
The man, who was unable to do anything but slightly move his lips, did exactly that, trying to mouth the name of the pirate gang who’d hired him in the hopes that words would come out and they’d take him to be fixed up, so that he’d see his wife and kids one more time. Tal, on the other hand, through his sunglasses, thought that the man wss smiling at him, smirking, even, and didn’t find anything about the situation amusing. So, he sought to rectify the man’s plan.
Without another word, he raised his carbine, firing a shot into the man’s upper chest from a distance of maybe three feet. The force of the impact caused the body to twitch visibly, knocking the rest of the air out of the man’s lungs, and a second shot caused a similar effect. Tal wasn’t done, however, and, grimacing slightly, he moved the weapon’s muzzle upwards until the sights were trained in the man’s head. Without a second thought, he proceeded to dump rounds, the first of which struck the right forehead and blew the man’s brains and whatever life was left in him all over the rocky floor. A series of five, no, six follow-up shots turned the man’s head into a mangled, unrecognizable mess, and he finally ceased fire as his comrade stepped up behind him.
“...Jesus, man, what the hell happened to him?” the mercenary asked, looking over Tal’s shoulder at his handiwork.
“I got him in the leg while he was running,” Tal explained, blading his hand and using his thumb to set the safety back on, “Walked up and finished him off when he tried to be funny about it.”
“Well, shit, rest in peace that dude. He have any weapons or anything on him?”
“Not that I can tell,” Tal sighed, not wanting to get too close to his handiwork, “We’ll go back and nab his launcher, bring it back to the others. Ring ‘em up and tell ‘em uh, we aren’t gonna need to worry about no rockets anymore.”
“You got it, boss,” the mercenary replied, turning and moving back up the hill. Tal turned and watched him until he was about halfway up the hill, before looking back down at the body for one last time, soon turning to leave himsel. Wasn’t his problem anymore, the local scavengers would probably get him before they could get a recovery detail up here.
A certain Mister Ravis found himself riding shotgun in one of unit’s 4-wheeled uparmored trucks, his Ageira Technologies XV-15 rifle nestled muzzle-down between his legs. For the most part, he sat in silence, the only consistent noise being the muffled rumbling of the vehicle’s powerful conventional internal combustion engine, despite the truck being occupied by six PMCs, including himself. A slight bump in the road rocked him from side to side in his seat, prompting him to reach a gloved hand towards the passenger-side door to steady himself. There was that damned squeaking sound again, the telltale sign of an overworked, aging suspension system, along with a mixed rustling of gear in the back. Spare rifle magazines, boxes of ammunition, coolant cells, purified drinking water bottles, and Synth Paste all shook in their storage compartments, a combination of clunking and clanging ready to drive him insane at any moment on this damn trip.
Their road speed certainly didn’t help, either, as his truck, positioned at number two in a five-vehicle-long convoy heading towards nowhere, raced along the unpaved pathways that connected most of Sprague’s fringe settlements. Another bump, and he gently rolled from side to side, taking a deep breath as he adjusted the position of his weapon. Keeping one hand on the grip, finger off the trigger, he lifted it up a bit and tilted the muzzle down, bringing it closer to his body and leaning the exposed buffer tube against his right thigh. His off-hand, originally resting on his knee, gradually found its way over onto the 1-to-6-times magnification low-power variable optic mounted on his weapon, creeping along the cerakoted exterior until his fingers found the throw lever. Idly, he rolled it back and forth, a bit of catch and slog in the motion, as he tilted his head up to look out the windshield.
Surely enough, their target was coming into view: a fairly large settlement originally founded by Zoner colonists many years ago. This particular settlement once supported a Xenoarchaeology digsite about 20 miles away from it, but after the scientists lost funding from the University of Cambridge, it slowly began to die off, until the invasion of Leeds. Over time, especially with further escalation of the Gallic conflict with Bretonia, more and more refugees found themselves here, taking with them their families and their cultural practices, turning the settlement into something distinctly Spraguean, though it was more of an indistinguishable mish-mash of Bretonian and Zoner.
None of the town’s history concerned the private military contractors working for the Bretonian government, however, as the rounded square-shaped adobe buildings appeared over the horizon. Their intelligence suggested that this area was becoming a hotbed for illegal arms trade in the area, a code for old washed-up Zoners peddling stolen or homemade arms to local pirates and insurgent groups, and so their kill-or-capture target for the day was, unsurprisingly, a suspected arms dealer. In their everyday haste, helped by the lack of value placed on human life out in fringe areas of space, the PMCs frequently found themselves killing far more often than actually capturing, much to the dismay of their employer. Their decentralized nature, coupled with their operations being labeled as simple “internal affairs”, prevented much in the way of legal or employment-related consequences, and so they enjoyed a relatively relaxed set of rules of engagement, essentially boiling down to “shoot who or whatever you feel like needs to be shot.”
Tal lurched forwards in his seat as their vehicle braked, following in the wake of the lead vehicle as it dumped speed upon passing through the entrance to the settlement: a pair of elaborate, shining adobe arches fit with various engravings from artists who’d come and gone. The road was still an unpaved mess, though the paths in and around town were more well-used and thus “stable” in comparison to the countryside, and the narrower, twistier nature of city roads meant that they had to watch their speeds lest they barrel into the wrong house.
The right house, however, was down the road and to the left, a small gated 2-story adobe house fitted with a fancy metal gate and perimeter detection system. By most accounts, it was about as good as frontier living could get for a man, though it was likely acquired through ill-gotten gains. There was one glaring issue though, bar the gate, the front door itself was made from heavy iridium-reinforced metal alloy, making a surprise entrance almost impossible by conventional means. By the time they cut through the fencing, entered the compound, and planted a charge sufficient enough in yield to dislodge the door so that the entry team could do their job, their target could’ve watched an entire Neural Net drama, taken a shower, and eaten a 3-course meal, before dipping right out through the back door to slip out of their grasp.
That was where the trucks came into play. Heavy and large enough to kick up copious amounts of dust as the heavily-armed convoy made it’s way through the settlement, snaking through the paths in one coherent line formation with little regard for bystanders and other vehicles, they would be the entry tool. The front gate was relatively thin and impractical for keeping 14-ton vehicles out, owing to it’s ornate nature, while the house’s reasonably thin adobe and drywall construction wouldn’t stand up to the vehicle just plowing right in, depositing an angry team of PMCs straight into dinnertime. A straightaway leading up to the target building provided long enough of a path for the second vehicle to pick up speed, while the truck’s turret had been temporarily removed to prevent damage to the expensive remote weapon station.
There was only one problem, in that Tal didn’t exactly enjoy crashing violently into things, and he certainly didn’t enjoy babysitting a team that’d be first-in. After all, he was the one with the most experience in this field, with CQC-heavy training through his time in the Libertonian Marine Corps, and so he’d be most fit to lead the entry team, right?
He wished he wasn’t.
They’d reviewed the maps of the city in great detail prior to the operation, taking note of small-but-key landmarks based on footage from up-to-date remote video and satellite surveillance systems. A dusty wooden rocking chair on the porch of an aging, cracked building was their signal to begin picking up speed, and Tal rolled his 1-6’s throw lever down to 1-times magnification, moving his off-hand down to grab the charging handle. A quick pull and an authoritative click-clack racked a 6mm high-velocity caseless rifle round into the chamber, the dust cover flipping open to reveal the bolt carrier group, stained dark by carbon backwash and high temperatures after sustained periods of fire. Inhaling deeply, Tal raised his weapon so that it sat in his lap, taking care not to accidentally muzzle-check anybody, and moved his off-hand up onto the dashboard, bracing himself back against the seat.
Up ahead, the lead vehicle peeled off to their left at the white mailbox, turning and stopping to provide a defensive perimeter, while his vehicle swung out to their left and then took a hard right on the narrow dirt path, the occupants swaying with the heavy motions of their tan-colored war chariot.
“Hit it, go STRAIGHT through the gate, DON’T STOP.”
His driver thus saw fit to step as hard on the gas pedal as he possibly could, the combustion engine roaring to life as the grinding of sand beneath their wheels grew louder and crunchier. Every occupant of the vehicle was thrown backwards in their seats, the driver momentarily losing control and oversteering enough so that they chipped the outer fence when they barreled with ease through the front gate. Frantically, the mercenary would grab at the steering wheel, turning it until the wheels were almost straightened out with only seconds to act, putting them right on course to go through the living room wall.
The weak outer construction of the house proved to be its downfall, and the element of surprise had been achieved. Their truck’s distinct, tall polygonal engine block smashed straight through the walls, creating a hellish cacophony of destruction as it rammed right in, engine whirring reverberating through the room amidst the clattering and cracking of bits drywall crumbling down around the giant hole that the vehicle had left.
“Fucking Christ, you suck at driving!”
Both sets of occupants, the house and the vehicle, were shaken by the sudden impact, though the former much more than the latter. Tal had been knocked around a fair bit in the breach, though his mind was clear and he was ready to slay bodies. As according to plan, their truck was almost completely lodged into the house, the armored doors lifted high enough and unobstructed by wall or furniture allowing for total dismount, and so he moved a hand to open his door, popping the lever and pushing it out. Before he could take a step out onto the foot railing, the truck again lurched forwards, likely because the driver forgot what the pedals did.
“Fuck, fuck, put it in park!” Tal instructed, waiting for his orders to be followed before he hopped out. The grinding of the shift knob and transmission, though barely audible over the crumbling, smoky aftermath of the impact, was enough to convince him that they were good to go. “Dismount, out, out! Get out, go!”
Using the step-up railing of the lifted vehicle as a guide, he slid down the side of the truck, landing on two feet and immediately taking up his weapon in both hands. Tightly, he wrapped his off-hand on the forend of the weapon’s long free-floating handguard, rolling a thumb up over bore to rest atop the slick-button twin-pad pressure switch connected to his flashlight and IR illuminator, moving silently and quickly through what appeared to be a combination living and dining room. Bits and pieces of the ceiling crumbled down around them, a small 1-inch chunk of dried mud bouncing off of his helmet with noticeable force, though this didn’t seem to deter him nor his the team as they pressed forwards, weapons at the ready.
Sweeping the dusty room with bright white weapon lights, they found nothing of interest: just a small kitchen area, some kind of bathroom with the door open, and of course, the area they just crashed into. Tal’s pointman shuffled in front of him as they made their way towards the staircase, raising and fanning their rifles about to cover the stairwell from any potential ambushes as they crept upstairs.
In the meantime, the truck, which was noticeably dented all along the front half though without any compromises in the explosive-hardened composite armor plating, backed up and out of the hole, opening an entrance for the second team to enter. Their attention was absorbed by the first floor and any possible cellars or basement entrances, while Tal would be dealing with whatever was on the second floor. Since there were no bedrooms on the first floor...
Tal and his team made it to the second floor without any resistance, moving up against one of the walls as they formed a neat, coherent single-file line. The first and only room was signified by the door coming up on the left, the light shining through into the otherwise dark hallway meaning that it was open. Not expecting anything, Tal’s pointman turned into the room, going wide-eyed at what he saw, as Tal took up a position behind him. Instead of pressing further, the mercenary raised his rifle and rolled back and out of the room onto the other side of the doorway, much to Tal’s surprise, at least, until a hail of automatic gunfire ripped through the air. Tal kicked his right foot out to stop himself, raising his rifle muzzle-up and ducking back as the sounds of gunfire wracked through the air, a sustained volley of rounds tearing chunks out of the wall adjacent to the doorway.
“Shit! CONTACT IN THE ROOM!”
Gritting his teeth and squinting as particulate matter was kicked up all over him and his team, he took a step back, taking a deep breath to collect his thoughts. A second or two later, and he kicked himself into gear, putting his right foot back and raising his rifle, the padding of the wide-cheeked buttstock against his bicep as he tensed up, thumb-over-bore as he mean-mugged the wall.
“ENGAGING!”
Not even bothering to take aim, using instead his internal kinematic senses, he squeezed the trigger, firing off a multipurpose armor-piercing round. A puff of smoke blasted through the perforations on the 3-pronged flash hider, with a similar puff coming out of the chamber briefly before the bolt went back into battery, the diverted concussive waves generated by the round bouncing off the walls and the people around him to pummel him at his core. The bullet itself, a highly-specialized round that operated similarly to armor-piercing explosive shot fired from ancient tanks, penetrated the wall with ease, the sensitive detonation train setting off to shower the occupants of the room in hot, sharp metal fragments. Turning his weapon a few degrees to his right, he’d let off on the trigger until it reset, feeling the crisp click! with the meat of his index finger, reapplying firm pressure until it broke again, firing another round. He’d repeat this pattern, advancing his rate of fire and dumping 8 rounds through the walls in a matter of seconds, filling the hallway with smoke and the smell of burnt, compacted propellant.
The gunfire was quickly silenced by his overwhelming response, and he shifted the rifle onto his shoulder, spreading his right leg out to the side and shuffling over to lean into the doorway, thumb depressing the forward pressure switch to shed some light on the situation. Sure as shit, there was a man lying on the bed, back against the headboard, visible gray flaking and chipping all along the khaki-colored walls from the fragmenting rounds. Acquiring his target with the horseshoe reticle, placing the central “shoot-here” chevron on the man’s chest, he fired off two rounds in quick succession, turning his weapon to sweep the rest of the room in one long motion.
“CLEAR!” he declared, reaching his off-hand onto his vest-mounted push-to-talk system wired to his communications device, “Two-one, shots fired second floor, hostiles down.”
He stepped forwards into the master bedroom, using the brightly-illuminated red CQC reticle as a guide as he swept the room a second time, the rest of his team following him in. The room was unnaturally fancy, featuring a nice, ornate wooden bed, with a matching dresser and two nightstands. A Neural Net-connected holostand rounded out the amenities, while all sorts of potted plants and paintings dotted the room to give Tal an uneasy feeling in his stomach. As he passed on towards the master bathroom, allowing his team to take point, he gave the man a passing glance, finding him to be relatively young, all things considered. Blood dotted the exposed areas of skin from the razor-sharp steel fragments generated by his rifle rounds, while his shirt had noticeable perforations around the two giant holes he’d later put into the man’s chest. It was likely that he was already dead or gravely wounded from being sandblasted multiple times all over, but the follow-up response meant that well, he probably wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Not with all that stuff leaking out of him.
He turned back to his team as they cleared the entirety of the bathroom, and that was it. Whether or not this man was actually the arms dealer they were looking for was beyond them, for anyone with a sane mind probably would’ve opened fire on a group of shadowy men who’d just crashed a truck into their house, though he was sure they had the right building. Not that the man had given them any chances to capture or interrogate him, though, as the half-empty, crude machine pistol laying next to him on the bed entailed. Tal and his team, upon finishing up their cursory search, regrouped around the bed as one of the PMCs took a photo of the dead man with their Neural Net tablet, as they stood around in silence contemplating their next move.
“Anybody get hit? Kincaid?” Tal brought up, unsure if his pointman had been clipped by a stray round on his way out.
“Nah, I’m good, just a little bit shaken up.”
He took a deep breath, adjusting the sling of his rifle so that it pointed the weapon directly down, allowing him to bring his hands up and rest them on the buttstock.
“Alright, tag and bag anything you want in here, and uh, we’ll regroup downstairs in a few with team one unless they decide to come up here to check with us,” he eventually decided on ordering. There wasn’t anything of interest here, at least not that he could tell, but maybe the first team downstairs would find something. Maybe a basement workshop, something in a shed or a closet, who knew. Quietly, he reached back onto the push-to-talk, depressing the talk button and leaning his head to the side, even though he had no reason to with his mic boom up against his mouth.
“Two-one, second floor clear. Interrogative, did we hit the right fucking house? There ain’t shit here—“
A dull thump, followed by a series of muffled clacks in the closet that they’d neglected, cut Tal off mid-sentence, forcing him to drop his push-to-talk and take up his rifle. Spinning quick on his heels, he raised the weapon and fired an indiscriminate hammered pair at the center of the door, following up with a second pair of rounds with a little more dispersion. The distinct welling echo of gunfire reverberated throughout the room in the wake of the aggressive response, as the team fanned out to establish a perimeter, while Tal watched the door intently through his 1-6. When it was clear that nothing was happening, Tal gave his pointman a glance, nodding his head towards the door. Weapon raised, Kincaid slowly stepped for the door, approaching at it from the side, and quickly turned the knob and swung the door wide open, Tal activating his weapon light to reveal a pregnant woman lying atop a pile of munitions and firearms. He couldn’t tell if she was actually armed at any point in time, as there were rusted, crude firearms not unlike the one dropped on the bed by presumably her lover scattered all around the floor inside the closet, along with dozens of makeshift racks filled with old boxes of ammunition with multiple crossed out scribbles on each container.
There was no doubt about her being pregnant, either, the rotund belly with tight-fitting clothing being the most obvious indicator, though the sight of her all thoroughly perforated by 6mm rounds was gruesome to behold. Stunned, the PMCs simply stared blankly at the sight, lucky that their incendiary-explosive rounds didn’t set off the cache of munitions before them. This silent awe continued for several seconds, until the first team leader came barging onto the radio frequency..
“This is one-one, what the hell is going on up there?”
Tal slowly looked up from his rifle, turning his head to face the other mercenary while moving his off-hand to actuate the push-to-talk button.
“Two-one, we’ve secured...munitions.”
“Stand back, I’m burnin’ it!”
A PMC tossed a bright red canister onto the large pile of weaponry that had been collected in a pit dug fairly deep outside the compound, in an attempt to dispose of most of the crude metal firearms that the residents of the compound seemed to own. The plentiful amount of actual munitions would have to be destroyed in a controlled demolition by a BAF EOD team who were on their way now, but as far as the hastily slapped-together bits of pot metal rebranded as “firearms” went, they were hardly worth the incendiary device they were expending on destroying them.
Tal, mildly distraught at what he’d done, found himself sitting inside the passenger seat of his vehicle, which had set back up as part of their defensive formation around the house. Sure, hindsight was 20/20 and he didn’t exactly know any better, but he couldn’t help but think that his response was a little too hasty, and they’d gotten lax and ignored the closet. Had someone with actual hostile intent been in there and got the drop on him, he’d easily be six feet under by now. Otherwise, their raid had gone swimmingly, and the dents on their truck would easily buff out once they returned to base.
Two curt knocks on his vehicle’s door, barely audible over the idling engine, prompted Tal to pop the door open, pushing it out. It was the leader of the first team, the man in charge of the entire group of PMCs, a grizzled middle-aged man not unlike Tal himself. As a 27-year-old, Tal was already a black sheep as far as Freelancers went, with the average lifespan of an edge worlds Freelancer being roughly somewhere around 24-25 years, but somehow, this man was at least 40. It was a miracle that he’d made it this far, as the old saying went: “there were old Freelancers, and there were bold Freelancers, but there was never an old, bold Freelancer.”
“Yeah?” Tal asked, looking over at him. He’d seated himself so that his feet were just about up on the seat with him, his rifle across his lap with no risk of muzzle flagging anyone as his driver was out manning the perimeter.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?” Tal kept his responses short and to the point; he didn’t exactly feel comfortable talking to someone who was probably old enough to be his long-lost dad. Not out here in the desert, anyways.
“I just wanted to tell you good job for leading that team, you did great in there. After this, we’ve cut off a major arms supplier in the region. Ambushes oughta get a lot less likely for us, too.”
Tal replied with a simple nod, taking in a deep breath. Calling those weapons “arms” was a bit of a stretch, as they were more liable to harm the user than anything downrange, but whatever. He was getting paid to do this, after all, so he didn’t pay it too much attention.
“...What about the woman, sir? Was she actually pregnant?” Kincaid piped up from the back seat. Tal turned his head to look at him briefly before returning his attention to the PMC leader, who was resting his hands on the doorway.
“Nah, don’t worry about her, it don’t mean nothing,” he started, “Well, except mister Ravis here got two for the price of one!”
The leader’s chuckling echoed through Tal’s mind as he turned his head back towards the windshield, looking out at the distant desert expanse and furrowing his brow.
A certain Mister Ravis rocked gently from side to side in the passenger seat of his uparmored multipurpose transport vehicle as it crawled forwards across the desert sands, closely following the convoy’s lead vehicle just a few meters ahead of them. His fatigue was visible through the dim red “low light condition” lighting inside the cabin, and he periodically reached up to squeeze a line of colorless gray mass into his mouth from a tube of “Synthetic Nutrient Paste, Chicken Flavored”, pinching the trail off with his lips and setting the pastel pink toothpaste tube-esque feeding device back down at his side. Idly, he swished the mass of gray goop around his mouth with the help of his tongue, like he was some kind of child playing with his food, before swallowing the glob whole, sighing.
Him and his team had been called back out to the same town that their “infamous” gun runner target from months ago resided in, this time amid reports of increased pirate and insurgent activity in the area. This came as a surprise to no one on the PMC roster except for those stationed at the headquarters, who couldn’t seem to fathom that a man selling guns made in his garage probably wasn’t very important in the grand scheme of things. Or perhaps the ones holding the puppet strings knew this, but still chose to feed the tired mercenaries more half-baked feel-good lies in order to raise morale.
“Alright, stop right up here, we’re going to dismount and escort the trucks through the town on foot, over,” chirped his team leader through his communication headset. Sighing again, Tal set the tube of synth paste in one of the vehicle’s cupholders, reaching up to rotate the helmet rail-mounted communication headset into position over his ears before clicking the mounts downwards to lock them down and into place. The distinct suction of the ear cup’s seal was followed by muffling of the world around him, with most of his truck’s heavy-duty diesel engine’s rumbling getting drowned out under the 20-some-odd decibels of passive hearing protection now in place.
Inhaling deeply, his left hand gravitated towards the push-to-talk device bungeed to his left plate carrier strap, thumb grazing the talk button before his tired brain figured it probably wasn’t even worth the effort to try and argue his way out of this. If he got shot in the face walking through the badlands in the dead of night, it’d be that douchebag’s fault.
“Hey, you hear that shit?” Tal asked his driver, who was wholly absorbed in the road ahead through the lenses of his binocular night vision device, “Get ready to stop.”
A cursory glance over his shoulder showed the man overadjusting on the wheel, mouth slightly agape as he leaned forwards in the seat, and so Tal exhaled deeply, leaning back in his own seat and tilting his head down in defeat, his high-cut ballistic helmet sagging slightly under the shifted gravity of his NODs. Quickly, he’d reach up to tilt the helmet back up onto his head in the proper position, moving next to fiddle with the pair of binocular white phosphor night vision goggles sitting pretty above his forehead. As he did this, he’d catch the lead vehicle’s brake lights come on in his peripherals, shining relatively brightly in the nighttime, and looked up just in time to see their vehicle continuing right on course to rear-end the team leader.
“Hey hey hey, stop! Stop the fucking truck!” he shouted, moving to try and shake his driver out of their catatonic state. Luckily, he was able to brake in time to avoid a collision, lest there be even more post-operation paperwork to fill out, stopping about a meter or two right behind their team leader. Tal breathed a sigh of relief, placing a hand on the dashboard in front of him to steady himself as he pulled his rifle up from between his legs. “Fucking Christ, you suck at driving.”
Taking care to not catch any part of the weapon’s bulk on anything sticking out in the relatively cramped interior of his overladen vehicle, he’d pull the carbine back towards him, tilting the muzzle upwards and setting the front half on the dash, rolling it across until the magazine was accessible with his left hand. With much dexterity, he quickly removed the loaded magazine, taking note of the small, glossy brown rectangular blocks of compacted propellant stacked side-by-side inside, using his dominant hand to push the bolt release switch upwards while racking the ambidextrous charging handle back with authority, locking the bolt rearwards. Rolling the weapon back over and using the top of the dash as leverage, he’d conduct a quick chamber check, noting that it was, well, empty, with the ammunition counter reading blank. A third roll back across to the right allowed him to insert and smack the magazine back into place, while a flick of his right index finger tripped the bolt release and sent the bolt forwards, chambering a round with a crisp clack. The effective mass of the bolt carrier rolling back into place caused the weapon to jump forwards slightly in his hand, despite it being balanced on a relatively flat surface, though he regained control of the rifle and pulled it back towards him, making sure the safety was on.
What was the point of this exercise? To feel badass, of course. If they were going to do wild west cowboy shit like parade around some random Zoner village in the dead of night with an armed convoy of armored transport vehicles, it was only fitting to at least try and get into the mood, and not many things got him excited like a Mark 15’s manual of arms did. The adrenaline now flowing freely through his veins, he took a deep breath, watching the vehicle in front of him intently until their doors opened.
“That’s our ticket, let’s go. Kincaid, stay on the gun, everyone else with me.”
“Roger” was the response he got from his gunner, the one in charge of manning the remote weapon station hooked up wirelessly via encrypted subspace signals to the heavy 10mm machine gun mounted on the roof. It’s effectiveness was questionable in a place like this due to potential for collateral damage, but they were reassigned on a somewhat short notice and didn’t have time to replace and recalibrate their mounts. On the flip slide, the boxy, riveted, heat shield-heavy design looked menacing enough, and, assuming they didn’t come under fire and accidentally kill some random person sleeping in a house two blocks away from the engagement, the weapons would probably serve them well in the whole “intimidation keeps the peace” role.
Or not.
He’d heard from a fellow PMC during their last rotation that the local Zoners on Sprague had become wholly desensitized over time to the presence of heavy weapons, but pull out a blade or rack one into a handgun, and whoever was holding it would become the center of attention at the drop of a hat. Tal didn’t question it much at the time, giving his fellow mercenary an eyeroll and pat on the back, but part of him was mildly curious as to the validity of that claim. Maybe he’d find out tonight.
Having had enough of the mental tangents, Tal reached over to unlock the door, pulling a large heavy-duty recessed latch to break the vehicle’s full environmental seal and open the door with a hiss, letting in a serious wind chill from Sprague-at-Nite. Swinging what effectively was a composite alloy slab out wide was no easy feat, of course, and he soon found himself defaulting to using his legs to help kick it open, conveniently positioning himself perfectly to hop out onto his feet — that is, if his seatbelt wasn’t on. With a sigh, he undid the harness holding him back, and, with the grace of a mentally-deficient serpent, slid out of the truck unceremoniously. At the very least, he’d landed on both feet, having been the last one in his vehicle to dismount, and narrowly avoided coming down right on a rock that probably would’ve sprained his ankle. Collecting himself, he straightened out his posture, taking up his carbine at patrol ready as he took a look around the desert, the relative stillness of the air ruined by their little convoy.
The images came back bright through the tubes of his binocular night vision goggles, a distinct bluish hue to them due to the white phosphor isotopes in the image intensifiers. Reaching up, Tal would adjust their fit over his eyes with his offhand, making sure he had a clear field of view before they headed out. Only a short amount of time would pass before his team leader came back on over the microphone, a voice that Tal was still fairly uninterested in hearing.
“Alright, let’s head on in, eyes peeled.”
Grumbling something crude under his breath, Tal started off on his left foot, his truck’s engine coming to life just next to him as it began to roll forward right alongside him, providing some modicum of armored support. Onwards he’d trudge, sinking down an inch or two in loose sand with every step he took on this unpaved godforsaken path into town, the weight of his armor plates, rifle, and spare ammunition only serving to drag him further down into the earth as he miserably stomped along. His original thoughts were that he’d dressed perhaps too light for the occasion, and if he was going to push it through town and back, he’d have preferred a little more personal protection than a plate carrier, open-faced helmet, and a personal shield, but on second thought, he’d probably have been knee-deep in sand by now.
Inside the town wasn’t much better, as he looked up to catch a glimpse of the front gate’s underside as he passed underneath, though the road in here had the benefit of being significantly more traveled-on by the locals. Hovering relatively close to his parent vehicle, he’d continue forward, trying to keep moving along a straight line while his head swiveled around in observation. While the town had only a measly population of maybe a few hundred to a thousand or so people at best, the market district he was in seemed to be abuzz with life, floors of shops long since closed for the day repurposed into small living areas fit with entertainment in the form of Neural Net holoprojectors. Here and there, families from all walks of life congregated, enjoying drinks, food, and the company of one another, whilst completely ignoring the convoy moving through town.
It wasn’t as if the massive diesel engines of their trucks didn’t stir up quite a ruckus, and he was certain the various street lamps and stray light coming from open garage-esque doors bathed them in enough illumination to at least declare their presence: multiple men, tall, imposing, heavy weapons visible and prominent, accompanied by large armored vehicles.
No reaction.
As he passed by another empty street stall, Tal craned his neck out to peek into one of the homes, catching a glimpse of two children sitting in front of a projector, a parent or guardian sitting not too far away in an old recliner, drinking something as they chattered away faintly to someone not in view. Perhaps the nameless, faceless PMC Tal had conversed with so long ago was correct: these people had not a care in the world for them, no matter how impressive of a show of force they brought with them. For the ones at home, this was nothing special, the tribulations of a televised Bretonian football match much more important than the fate of a marauding PMC company, while Tal and crew wondered if they’d meet their ends tonight at the hand of an old, illiterate Zoner man planting small bombs by the wayside. Maybe they’d become desensitized to their presence over the last few months, or they simply chose to ignore them, but either way, some part of Tal envied them, all tucked away nice and neat in their own little corner of Sirius.
For them, it was just another Tuesday night on Sprague.