"Your captain's lost it, man," one of the Rangers says to Semo. It's less of a jab and more sympathetic than it could have sounded.
"Knock it off, Sathoff," the soldier with the aid kit bags and a stolen Turai frisbee says. "Um... all right, Sergeant... sit down here, sir, and let me take a look at these wounds."
Hugh drifts a while on his drug cocktail, guilt and memory conspiring against him. He's carried around a lot of ghosts. Cooper bandages Semo as best he can; as always seems the case, the help hurts more than when the hurt happened. In the background, Murphy and Bernstein look over the Spire's Gateway. Far too heavy to move, the artifact sits flat on the debris-strewn deck. The reactor appears to still be feeding power to the Gate.
Every few minutes, the thumps of explosions trickle dust down from above. The fighting seems pretty localized to the upper Spire at this point. It must be the Imperium's Alamo up there right now.
It's a hot day in Baghdad as 2nd Lieutenant Hugh Verrill "takes a walk" with his new commanding officer. Captain Sirocco is an easy-going kind of man, casually sweating a commanding aura that tells the soldiers under his command that he doesn't care how things are done as long as things get done. Daddy to the Privates, lets the NCOs handle their affairs, always where he's needed and never where he might see things he'd have to report. In short, the Hollywood ideal of the sympathetic officer.
Hugh doesn't know exactly why, but he already hates him.
"How long have you been in the shit, LT?" he asks Hugh as they stroll down the bazaar with the rest of the patrol. They've already got their hands full with gear and guns, but the Iraqis would gladly see them leave with a few shopping bags.
"12 on the first tour, 9 on this, Sir."
"Already?" Sirocco asks. "They cycled you quick."
"Don't have family, didn't see a reason to sit around twiddling my thumbs," Hugh says. "Besides, I knew I was going back anyway, why delay?"
"Are you hungry for action, then?"
"Not exactly, Sir," Hugh answers.
"Smart answer," Sirocco replies. "There's two kinda guys the Army needs, LT: It needs a lot of heroes, but it also needs a couple survivors. And speaking of heroes, I wanted to talk to you about Specialist Coffin."
"So you've met him, Sir?"
The two of them move around a large fountain, the spearhead of the patrol. Hugh asks himself why they're up front. Sirocco doesn't seem to be thinking about this too much, and Hugh realizes why he doesn't like the man. He's paying too much attention to his men and not enough to the city.
"Met him?" Sirocco says with a laugh. "I was down in the bar when he tried to drink a half dozen Rangers under the table. Damn near managed it, too."
"He's a character," Hugh admits, his eyes scanning the windows above. 21 months and he hasn't had one shot fired against him. 21 months and he's still waiting for that bullet.
That day, the bullet comes.
---
"Sarge," Hugh spits out. The painkillers are starting to work for real, and the first rush of intoxication quickly passes. There's only so many times your heart can beat with a sucking leg wound before the feeling of pressure on your calf drags you back into the real world.
Semo steps close to Hugh and bows down to listen to the Captain. Hugh opens his eyes, grins, and fixes his look on Semo's face.
"Where the hell do you get off calling me Hugh, Sarge? I'm not even dead yet and you're already talking like you're fucking my sister."
"Man, that's some fucked up shit..." Semo says, remembering what he saw of Greene.
As directed, Semo plants himself and lets the medic treat his wounds. The man's poking and prodding forces Semo to grit his teeth and breathe in a hiss.
As he looks around, he sees that the gate is receiving power. "Sgt. Bernstein, shouldn't we be shutting down that gate? Last thing we need is Turai flooding in here."
After a few moments, Hugh seems to regain his lucidity and barks at Sgt. Putupu. "Oh! Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!" Semo snaps a salute from his position seated among the rubble as the medic continues binding his injuries.
"I know, Putupu," Bernstein replies, "But command said dial Atea, so if we can dial out before they figure out they've got a clear gate..."
Murphy presses what should be the final glyph for the rebel worldship. The ancient reactor hums with power, feeding a cascade of energy into the toppled Gateway. The glyphs glow amber, indicating a blocked Gateway.
"Kilo 20 to Death Star, we have secured objective Sierra One. Requesting resupply and medical." Bernstein repeats his transmission over radio as well as vox.
*Copy resupply and medical, transmit authorization and stand by for inbound portal.* Bernstein keys his radio code and steps back to join Hugh and Semo.
Lumai chances speaking. "My family's up there, and you said... I have to make sure they're all right," he says. He pulls a little at the zip cuffs, but Naves points his rifle at the old Imperial. Lumai gives Hugh a pleading look but quiets down.
I'm getting to that. Give me a moment, Hugh says to Lumai. Painfully, he rises from the ground.
"Bernstein," he croaks, "I need a kauka and a few good men with flashbangs to clear out the upper levels. There's a lot of civilians up there and I'll be damned if I just sit here and let them be harmed."
"If that's what command says, that's what we do." This answer is entirely sufficient for Semo. Once he's patched up, he intends to do his best to make sure the wrong people don't come through. Fortunately, it looks like they're pretty close to having the gate open for resupply to come through.
The captain doesn't seem to want to wait, so Semo will begin loading up his gear. He wants to be ready for whatever orders the Top might give. Scrounging ammo from whatever supplies these guys have seems like a good starting place...
"Yes sir," Bernstein answers. Semo does a quick inventory of what remains of his gear, but the Gateflash from Atea interrupts the Americans. Two squads of US troops hustle through. Most spread out to reinforce Berstein's perimeter, while the ones most affected by the transport stagger to one side to vomit or sit until their insides stop moving. About a dozen rebels come through next carrying large footlockers.
Finally, a familiar face steps through onto Boranai. Brinai smiles as she recognizes Hugh and Semo.
"It is good to see you alive, and better still to be a few small steps from victory. My people have medical gear, weapons, and emergency equipment to stabilize this area. Where can we help?"
Upon seeing Brinai, Semo waves her over. He will wait for the Captain to fill her in before entering his own requests: healing and gear. Time to roll out.
While Hugh and Semo get proper frisbee treatment, Brinai's rebels set about reinforcing the shaky half-destroyed sublevel. They spray tan foam up and around the superstructure above the Gateway, then brace those with telescoping supports. More foam fixes the supports in place, and from this lattice the rebels continue to spray down the area until they've got a solid artificial cavern.
The situation gets laid out along with the array of weaponry toted over from the worldship. A small, heavily-armed contingent of Imperial defenders has holed up in the upper Spire, across three levels. These high-security levels encompass an armory as well as research archives invaluable to both Earth and the rebels. They've proven resistant to outside attacks, although the Needleship weapons haven't been used for fear of obliterating the surrounding area (and friendlies) with debris.
Semo slaps the full load of 25mm shells, seating it into his cannon. Atea's got enough power to maintain their portal for another 30 minutes, then Golf has orders to block the Gateway. Hugh slides a 40mm into the SCAR's launcher. They give each other a look, then regard the full platoon of Rangers that stand with them.
There hasn't been a lot of time for introductions, but Hugh thinks Golf's lieutenant is... Buchanan. He's squinty-eyed, bull-necked, and smack dab in the target demographic for pay-per-view UFC fights.
"Sir, what's the plan?" he asks Hugh, giving Semo a nod to indicate respect to his Delta status.
"We're gonna go up there and sweep the Spire level by level," Hugh says to the LT. "Armor and riot shields, whatever you guys have to protect yourselves. We're gonna use flashbangs and less lethal grenades like it's going out of style. I trust you're all handy with real bullets, but RoE is don't shoot unless fired upon. We need sweep teams going through all the rooms and rear guard to secure intersections and guard any prisoners we might take. If there's any chance of talking them down, we're gonna take that, too."
He looks around.
"I'm expecting a shitload of civilians and about-to-surrender soldiers up there, same as suicide attacks and other nasty shit. But what we absolutely can't do is just go up there and kill everyone. You got that, LT?"
"Understood, sir," Buchanan agrees. "All right, we're moving out! Do not fire unless fired upon!" At the expected murmurs and grumbling, Buchanan bellows, "Hey! There are civvies up there, so stow the shit and watch your fire! Squad leaders, I want riot shields and designated translators up front! Third squad, you're on prisoner detail. Funnel 'em down here to Kilo!"
The squad leaders start handling the provisioning of less-lethals, making sure each squad has a shield, prisoner control kits, and flashbangs. The temporary supports Brinai's people sprayed onto the walls and rubble has hardened in the meantime, diminishing the everpresent groaning of tortured superstructure.
Semo winces from sympathy as much as from the flash as his squad's pointman recoils under a flurry of beamer impacts. The heavy shield the private's toting literally glows as the Ranger ducks back behind the softly curving passageway. Drops of alloy hiss onto the floor, burning away floor covering in little licks of flame.
"Two of 'em, 15 meters down in the blast doorway," coughs the private.
Semo sets his XM-25, gathers his nerves, and leans out. The Turai were using this blast door as a bottleneck into one of the Spire's many research areas. It only takes a split second for Semo to sight in on the doorway. His cannon fires, a bassy wham followed by a whoom as the airburst round shreds the doorway. Debris pings down the corridor. The smoke isn't even clear before two flashbangs sail past Semo and add their deafening thunderclaps to the carnage just inside the blast doors.
The Rangers move in, shouting as they go. A flurry of rifle fire makes sure the Imperial defenders aren't playing possum, then the squad's through the ragged blast doors and into what shrapnel-pocked signage proclaims is "Gateway Anomaly Research 3-K". Another mini-complex full of data storage and fragments of weird shit that even Kilgore would probably have trouble deciphering.
"Sir! We got civvies!" "Down! Stay down! No move!" First squad's corporal barks in heavily-accented Imperial in the background. More to send downstairs to Atea, Hugh thinks. One of Buchanan's privates is waving Hugh and Semo forward when the young Keeper initiate the Rangers discovered pulls a small handlancer. Hugh locks eyes with the man and sees stark terror - terror he's seen before, reflected in the dead eyes of friends and comrades in the charnel house of Mesas Negras. Somehow Hugh knows the lancer isn't meant for the Rangers. They can't grab the initiate fast enough. There's the inevitable snap-hiss and the Keeper falls lifeless.
"What the fuck?!" exclaims one of the Rangers. "We weren't gonna hurt you, you dumb shit!"
"Keaton, it's a wonder we all ain't offed ourselves havin' to look at your fuckin' face every day," sympathizes a second.
"Not funny, man," Keaton spits back, his eyes furrowed.
"Shit," Hugh thinks and says. There's really nothing more to say to the senseless waste of life he just saw.
"Come on, people," he says to the Rangers, "keep the momentum going. The longer we take, the more time the guys upstairs have to get bad ideas."
He's not looking forward to clearing the rest of the Spire, or talking to a whole bunch of prisoners, or writing the after-action report. But a warm bed with a pretty girl that won't stick around for breakfast, damn, that sounds like it would hit the spot...
Hugh, Semo, and the Rangers fight their way up the Spire. The battle's in spurts and flurries, in room breaches and flashbangs and riding that split-second of pure chaos. For every Turai that gives up or Spire resident who's all too happy to head to safety there's a terrified Imperial who dies fighting or a zealot cursing Narsai even as they are cut down. This isn't the "heavy resistance" Hugh heard over the vox, though. These are pockets of people in the wrong place at the wrong time, Turai cut off from help by debris-choked corridors or civilians hiding in their workplaces. Every now and then Hugh glimpses an Apache circling the outside on a flickering holodisplay or through spiderwebbed windows.
The radios chatter away as Golf clears level after level. Bravo is still engaging hostiles at the objective - three adjacent floors housing research archives as well as an armory - but they're low on ammo and have taken heavy casualties. Hugh's men are two levels below by their count when a sudden increase in rifle fire, screaming, and radio noise sends a clear message. Bravo's just been flanked.
Following orders as he's been trained to do, Semo escorts the captain as they work their way up through the building. They've been through too many firefights together to get separated now.
Resistance is surprisingly light and they make good progress from level to level. Lots of scared people just wanting to get out alive and live another day. A few of the crazy and desperate fire at them, but provide no real danger.
At a summons from a Golf private, they find the young initiate, lancer in hand. The look in the young man's eyes is nearly enough to make Semo cry. He surges forward, but far too slowly as the lancer snuffs out a life.
A couple Rangers resort to humor in an attempt to deal with what they've just seen. Semo just looks at them for a moment, then says, "Who knows how many of the dead we've passed - and will yet find ahead - were friends or companions of his. Despair makes people do strange things."
The continue on, moving ever closer to rendevous with Bravo. Two floors shy of their goal, the comms light up. Bravo's in trouble.
"Yessir! Let's do this." Semo moves out, taking his appropriate position as determined by military protocol.
Bravo's main push was stymied in a meandering corridor off a small display/museum chamber with interior screens overlooking a large laboratory/materials testing area. The nearby network room was hit with multiple grenades early on, which was probably where the small team of Imperials made their way into Bravo's lines. Bravo thought the network room was clear, advanced past it, and got caught at close range without cover.
The corner where corridor and inclined walkway meet has a sort of rest area or break room feel to it. It's been expanded to include several now-melted flimsy tables and chairs. The decorative stonework that adorns the area, although not particularly awe-inspiring, is sturdy enough to provide cover. The floor is strewn with Bravo's dead and wounded. Smoke from beamer and rifle fire still clouds the ceiling. Several blast craters send wisps into the acrid fog.
It would appear, however, that the Turai haven't had time to advance past Bravo's position. Hugh and Semo are on point, climbing the walkway that leads into the interior battlefield through a set of ruined double blast doors. They see one Turai right away, bleeding from several gunshot wounds but still standing, finishing off a wounded Ranger. He turns and is about to coup de grace a second when he spots the reinforcements barreling up towards the corridor.
Pounding up the stairs, Semo attempts to aviod sounding like a herd of elephants, but there is only so much he can do. Reaching the top, he hears the shot and sees the blood splatter. Anger burns bright, but there is no way Semo is going to fire an HE round into a room he cannot see the contents of - who knows how many other Rangers are in the blast radius.
Fortunately, Cap is at his side and should have no trouble taking down this already-wounded punk. If by some miracle the Turai is still alive when "Sumo" gets there, it'll be time for a little disembowling action...
Admiral Duck Sauce
