Hugh's first shot catches the Imperial in the chest, punctures the carapace, and fails to exit. The second round flies high as the Turai sags to his knees. His beamer fires harmlessly into the ceiling, raining down hot pebbles of half-foam, half-stone. A handful of staccato barks from the Rangers' guns follow Hugh's example. The Turai twitches under multiple hits before settling to the floor.
A second Turai's still pumped up on victory and that indestructible feeling you get when you know your friends have kaukas. He sees his comrade go down and spins the corner from the sitting area into the hallway, rushing the Americans with bloodied sword in one hand and screaming stinger in the other. Somewhere behind Semo a Ranger wails and is cut off. Another shouts out "I'm hit!"
What must be the third Turai of the Trin doesn't fancy his chances of charging into what has turned out to be almost a dozen Homeworlders. He hangs his beamer out from the far corner opposite the rest area and uses the gun-cam. The energy blows a cloud of choking, burning debris into the doorway but doesn't lay anyone low.
It almost looks like the charging Turai's going to make it. Two bursts spray more debris into the corridor, hastily fired by surprised Rangers. A third burst crumples the Turai, however, and he slides to a literally dead stop at Semo's feet.
"Narsai'i!" the gun-cam Turai shouts. "A Sept, maybe more!"
Hugh and Semo glance back - one Ranger is dead, his shoulder, neck, and face chewed apart by the stinger fire. A second is holding his left forearm up where bloody sliver-wounds have flayed meat from bone. The pain in his eyes is real, but so is the grit to continue. A few Rangers fire short bursts and single shots down the hallway, careful to aim high lest they hit any wounded Bravos. The Ranger medic, armed now with a frisbee, tends to the wounded soldier's arm. They retreat down the walkway to the rear-middle of the squad.
Top cuts down the wounded Turai, and Semo immediately forgets the former opponent. Another spins into the intersection ahead and charges, firing wildly. A cry of pain from behind goads Semo to continue forward. In moments, this Turai goes down in a hail of gunfire near the Samoan's feet and is forgotten.
The third Turai is more reluctant to show himself. Instead, he fires around the corner using his gun-cam. Fortunately, the camera system - or perhaps the operator - isn't very accurate.
A glance back makes it clear that they lost one Ranger to the trio of Turai. Semo has no intention of losing any more. As the others look for cover, he charges forward, drawing his alien sword. Once within range, he intends to sever the hand holding the beamer from the arm it's attached to.
Semo does what he says and says what he does. The Turai behind the corner smirks as the large Homeworlder charges him. It's an easy shot. The Imperial lines up Semo's silhouette through his gun cam HUD and plugs Putupu center mass.
Semo charges through the cloud of burning, choking embers and ablative armor flakes. His newly-replaced breastplate is holed and glowing red-hot, the shock and heat has rattled him something fierce, but it takes more than that to stop Semo. He swings his sword through the Turai's forearm and into the wall corner, gouging out a small explosion of foamcrete and sticking the blade fast for a second. Semo pulls the blade free as the Turai's severed hand hits the ground, but is prevented from finishing the job by a fusillade of beamer and stinger fire from the corridor to the south. With the stalemate broken by the sneaky Turai, the Spire's command crew has advanced. Semo spots at least a half-dozen more Turai in various tattered states, all sporting the telltales of recent frisbee work. Looks like the initial ambush (judging from the amount of bullet holes) came from the ventilation shafts in a neighboring control room. These new Imperials are coming up from the main Spire research archives, the area overlooked by Bravo's little cafeteria.
Semo ducks around the corner and slides back a few paces as the incoming fire does a variety of horrible things to the scenery.
"Form up on me!" Hugh shouts, rising from his crouch. He leads the Rangers forward to reinforce Semo and hopefully get the prone soldiers out of harm's way. As long as the casualties aren't recovered, their hands are tied - but as soon as that problem is taken care of, they'll have a clean shot at the remaining turai.
Racing toward the gunman, a cloud of flechettes blooms in front of Semo. Oh well, he's committed now, so he just blows through the stinging death, trusting his armor to keep him intact.
One chop and the hand falls away. Unfortunately, a flurry of fire from down the hallway to the left prevents Semo from finishing the job. However, it alerts him to the squad of leftovers down there. They look like sausage - already tenderized.
As the Cap and the rest of the Rangers move up, Semo unlimbers the X-25. The crowd of Turai down the way seem to be just begging for some fireworks...
The Rangers form up on Hugh and the fireteam advances. Meanwhile, Semo didn't spot any Bravos down near the Turai's position. He also didn't spot any obviously fragile equipment or valuable machinery - the corridor's just a plain old hallway, albeit one pockmarked with battle damage. The suppression from beamer and stinger is too much for Semo to take an aimed shot, so the sergeant holds his XM-25 around the corner and blindly dumps a magazine downrange. The airburst warheads drown out the Imperial firepower, giving Hugh and the Rangers the chance they need to reach the handful of wounded comrades and drag them painfully back behind the cover afforded by the bend in the corridor.
Hugh's the first one in the potential line of fire - the Delta captain goes for the farthest wounded Bravo, a writhing man with a score of stinger wounds through his vest leaking blood. As he pulls on the Ranger's straps, Hugh spots at least two Turai down in the south corridor. They're in enough pieces that a frisbee won't help them. The rest are pulling back, retreating down a short staircase. The surviving Turai are dragging two of their own wounded, presumably to be frisbeed just like Hugh is doing with his own wounded.
Semo reloads to the intermittent crack of rifles and whap of beamers. It's hasty opportunity fire, no hits on either side.
Hugh figures he's come out on the winning side of the exchange, but throwing his men into gunfire until one side runs out of people to frisbee doesn't sit well with him. He's in the same spot Bravo was, and they were apparently in a stalemate for a long time until the Imperials clambered their way into their ventilation system. He could assault the withdrawing Turai now - it'd be risky but it would force an end to the back-and-forth. Besides, Bravo didn't have Semo Putupu. The next few levels above aren't hardened like these archive levels - if Hugh could force the Turai up, he could call in fire support. Alternately, his team's got near-peak ammo and are fresh. The Turai wouldn't have risked a push like they did unless they were desperate. Surrender might not be out of the question for them, but Hugh figures he'd have to kick 'em a few more times before they would entertain that.
"We're ending this bullshit right here," Hugh says, and cocks his head to Semo. "Everyone, I want HE on target until they cry uncle or that hallway is melted, prepare to execute on my mark..."
"You guys hearing this?" he shouts in Imperial. "The next words out of your mouths had better be 'We surrender' or we'll pour hellfire over you until the meat boils off your bones!"
"Surrender? You mistake us for common fodder! We are Turai of the Imperium, Boranai's first of thirteen! Throw everything you have at us, we will remain long after you are but dust! We will never surrender! We will never surr-"
There's a sharp wet whap and the faint sound of sizzling from down the corridor.
"WE surrender." The three surviving Turai, one still heavily injured from Semo's 25mm shells, clamber and stumble up into view. Their helmets are off and they're carring their beamers up over their heads.
The surrender is a pleasant tune to Semo's ear. He's happy to not have to turn these three men into charred hamburger. The sargeant is an efficient killer, but he doesn't get any sick pleasure from it.
"Yessir." Sgt. Putupu begins barking orders, assigning Rangers to various tasks as per the captain's orders. Once the prisoners have been searched and relieved of weapons and armor, two healthy Rangers are assigned to escort the wounded and the prisoners downstairs. Everyone else forms up for the next push.
The captured Turai prove no trouble as they're led down the Spire to join the other captives and refugees. Hugh leads Semo and the Rangers through the war-torn research levels. Combing through the data and artifacts is not a job either Hugh or Semo want, not with the state the Spire's in. There's so much blood, more than one would think, but then the Imperials had a frisbee. Regeneration is one hell of a force multiplier.
The next few levels are in much better shape. The levels below seem to have been the front edge of the Imperial resistance. The passageways they stalk through now are downright stately in comparison. The curving, ornate trappings decorate a series of administrative sections and offices. A blustery wind blasts through the levels in counterpoint to the Spire's calm, a product of a gaping hole in the Spire wall. Some sort of shell, missile, or beam perhaps. A desolate vista stretches out across the landscape. From this height, the Spire sprawl is choked with black smoke and the fog of war near the center. Boranai's criss-crossing canyons spiderweb the horizon beyond the destroyed wall. Here and there an ag-site or small town dots the drab land with silver. The distant crack of rifle fire is sporadic now, echoing up from the city below.
Hugh and Semo find the Imperial command group a few levels below the impressive top of the Spire. An old Keeper, dressed in brown official robes, ponders the floor with a mixture of shame and apprehension on his face. A uniformed but unarmored Imperial officer, all frisbee-patchwork skin and gristle, waves down his six guards when Hugh makes contact. A blank control console sits silently in the center of a once-spacious conference hall taken over by and wired up with cogitators, communications gear, and data storage units. The Keeper's adjutant drone settles into a slow orbit, but the old man powers down his two bodyguard units.
"Do not fire," the officer calls out to the Rangers. "My men are standing down." Hugh and Semo can make out a softer "Do as they say; we will see home soon enough."
"I am Captain Hubert Verrill, United States Army," Hugh says, adressing the whole room. "I accept your surrender. You are to consider yourself prisoners of war. My men will search you for weapons and escort you to a safe area. If any of you need medical treatment, make yourself heard and we will provide it. Do as you are told and no harm will come to you."
He turns to the Rangers. "You know the drill, soldiers. I want this place cleared and secured. And somebody get me brass on the line."
As the Rangers take care of business, Hugh plants himself in front of the keeper.
"To me?" the old man asks. "Surely the Odun Rishon would be more appropriate-"
Hugh's return gaze stops the Keeper in mid-sentence. The robed Imperial gets the picture that Hugh has played this game before. "Ah. Yes. Speak away, Caktp- Kahp-... Captain."
"My request is simple, Honored Keeper. Knowledge of the ancient ways has been lost on Narsai, and we find ourselves at war with an enemy we know far too little about. As you can see," Hugh says as he takes a look around the room, "we learn quickly, but it is my view that if we had knowledge of the Imperium beyond its weapons, its ships, its military - that if we knew more about your history and culture, we might find a better diplomatic angle, some common ground for effective negotiations. I have already killed too many brave turai and I do not relish victory if it comes at the price of completely breaking the Imperial military's backbone. I don't want to win by being the last man standing. And I think that if you shared what you know of the Imperium's history with us, we may yet find a way a way to end this waste of life before it consumes the whole galaxy."
While the captain handles questioning the Keeper, Semo takes care of setting up a base of operations here. However temporary it may prove to be, the sargeant will ensure that the captain has what he needs and the men are ready.
At his orders, the Rangers sweep the nearby area, noting access points and setting guards.
"Sir!" the Rangers not tasked with prisoner control fan out and start gathering the captured weapons. Two men look over the row of extremely technical-looking semi-portable cogitator units that have been crudely and quickly wired into the chamber's electronic skeleton.
"Sarge?" one calls to Semo. "This thing's doin' stuff. Actually, most of these are doin' stuff. You can read this alien shit, right, sir?" Semo comes over and sees - well, first of all it's not a self-destruct countdown, which he was fearing - but the Imperial machines appear to be running simulations based on data gathered from the battle. Data's still being gathered on a few cogitators, from the remnants of Imperial forces cut off throughout the Spire sprawl. The sims are quickly breaking down the capabilities of the US armor, aircraft, and infantry weapons. Other programs catalog squad makeup and several are trying in vain to crack radio protocols.
The crown jewel is that these programs are showing Semo exactly where the still-fighting Imperials are located.
Meanwhile, the Keeper listens to Hugh's impassioned plea for reason with a pretty good poker face.
"Quite so," he remarks. "Still, I believe the impetus behind surrendering to you just now was based on a desire to survive a hopeless battle, not throw ourselves headlong into betraying our Emperor. Boranai is one planet of many, Captain. Our rescuers are no doubt at your doorsteps."
"I've no need to convince you otherwise, in this time and place. I hope you will come around to seeing the necessity of our victory against the Imperium, but until then you will remain our prisoner."
He turns to the nearest Ranger. "Take him away to the others." He sees Semo puzzle over a console nearby and walks up to him. "What do we have, Sarge?"
Heeding the summons, Semo moves to join the pair of Rangers, a thread of dread tickling his spine. "Passably," he says in reply to their query.
It takes a few moments, but it becomes apparent what he's looking at soon enough. "Damn, I wish we had Max or Luis with us..." he murmurs, more to himself than anyone else.
Next thing he knows, Top appears at his side. "Looks like battle sims and C&C, sir. They're analyzing our forces, but also show where the remaining enemy are. Look at this map, sir. I think these blue dots here," Semo points to one spot, then shifts to another, "and here are their biggest concentrations of holdouts. Cracking those will probably be key to finishing this fracas."
Admiral Duck Sauce
