CPL Nickelbaucher

Location: Harper’s Junction, Star Kingdom of Windsor

“Bobby!” One of the other PVT’s yelled out as he saw his battle buddy lying on the ground.

“Take cover!” Mitch yelled, hoping to override the PVT’s instinct to go to his fallen friend.

It was a common tactic for a sniper to wound a person and then wait for others to come to their aid. Since Commonwealth soldiers didn’t leave their fallen comrades, this would give the enemy ample targets. Mitch looked over and saw PVT Robert “Bobby” Martinez twitching on the ground. The PVT’s hand was at his neck. Mitch brought up the PVT’s vitals on his HUD and saw the man’s blood pressure and oxygen were dropping. He had to do something.

The Dragonscale armor was above and beyond what most infantry forces in the galaxy had, but even then it had weaknesses. Unlike HI, scales had to move so the infantryman could run, jump, and fight the enemy. That’s where the ballistic gel inserts came in, and while they provided great protection against the lesser-equipped armies of humanity, they were still a far second to the main duro-steel vest of the armor. Most snipers who knew they were going up against the Commonwealth would do their research, and one who did it well enough knew that the best way to kill an infantryman was to shoot them in the neck.

The armor came complete with a neck gator where a thin layer of scales overlapped the CMU’s that spread up to join the helmet and seal the soldier off from any chemical or biological attacks. The problem was that while the rest of the armor had the 1 cm ballistic gel plates, or 3cm armor, the neck gator was half a centimeter and the scales could only work to deflect the incoming rounds in limited directions. It wouldn’t work for the scales to deflect an incoming round from the neck up into the head, and a soldier needed the maneuverability in the neck to keep his head on a swivel. Even with the armor’s HUD offering 360 degree coverage, a soldier still needs to turn and look at things to bring his rifle to bear.

All of that made the neck the vulnerable part of the armor, and the enemy sniper had nailed Bobby right where it hurt. Mitch kept low to the ground and started to crawl toward the PVT. He took a few deep breaths and reached out to try and grab the man by the foot. He felt the impact of his arm right before the snap of the sniper’s rifle filled the air.

“Shit!” He instinctually retracted his hand and shook it out. The ballistic gel had hardened and stopped the round from penetrating, but whatever the sniper was using as heavy and fast. His armor told him he had a hair-line fracture in his Ulna, but the adrenaline flooding his system made him barely feel it.

“Everyone kiss the dirt!” The SGT yelled as the telltale whistle of incoming arty announced itself.

Bobby’s armor might have failed him in one aspect, but not in another. The silicon brain in the scales’ operating system had shot a back azimuth on the round that had struck and wounded its occupant. It shot that data to STRATNET, which the officers and NCO could then use to locate the sniper. The sniper’s second shot at Mitch had sealed its fate. A second back azimuth from that round fed into the system and gave a ninety-nine percent chance the sniper was hiding under a camo net within a one hundred square foot area just over two kilometers away. Additional analysis of the round pointed to the rifle being an older model, which meant the person picking off Commonwealth soldiers was likely a Windsor loyalist from Harper’s Junction, and also one hell of a shot.

It didn’t matter if the person was good enough to be on the Prime Minister’s Own shooting team of the best sniper’s in the Commonwealth when a spread of HE shells smashed into his position and turned him into hamburger meat.

Once the reverberating sounds of explosions passed over Mitch, he dove for Bobby. “Stay with me,” he yelled as he opened his medical compartment and started pulling things out.

He applied pressure to the wound while getting off his helmet and sliding off his neck gator. Another PVT helped with the arduous task. The gator was meant to protect the soldier, not be taken off because it had been penetrated. Blood spurted a few times when he lost his grip, and he quickly had to reapply pressure.

Next up came a shot of general medical nanites. They were programmed to protect against the number one killer of soldiers: bleeding out. They went to work clamping and stopping the bleeding while he pulled out an aerosol bottle of Insta-Flesh. The first puff was sterilizing agents, which made the nearly comatose soldier’s eyes bulge with pain. The second sprayed the flesh into the wound to seal everything up and hold it together in conjuncture with the nanites until the PVT could get to a surgical suite.

“We’re set,” Mitch stuffed everything back into his armor, “What’s the ETA on that bird, Sergeant?” While the Spyder was coming to take the enemy mech, it could also take a critically wounded marine.

“Corporal…”

Mitch ignored the other PVT as he was patched through to the Spyder by the SGT.

“Corporal…”

“What?!” he snapped at the PVT before looking down at Bobby.

The young man’s eyes were open, lifeless, and staring into the planet’s pale blue sky. A planet that had no strategic or economic importance to the greater Commonwealth, but nevertheless was the planet Bobby Martinez had been sent to fight and die on.

“Fuck!” Mitch screamed and lashed out to kick to side of the mech. A wicked idea seized his mind and he acted on it. He scrambled up the side of the war machine and found the hole where the Windsor pilot was trapped. He pressed his rifle into the opening until it made contact with the side of the pilot’s head.

“Corporal, FREEZE!” the SGT yelled.

His Basic instincts kicked in and Mitch froze.

“Remove your weapon from that armor and step down.” The SGT’s voice was calm and collected. The roar of the Spyder coming in for a landing kicked up the dirt around Mitch, and painted an idyllic picture of the Commonwealth soldiers in battle that lacked any of the pain the soldiers’ were feeling at the moment. “Go back to Martinez, that’s an order.”

Mitch’s finger hovered over the trigger and he pressed the barrel of his weapon farther into the hole so the pilot’s face was mashed up against the side. With a long exhale, Mitch withdrew the weapon and went back to his fallen subordinate.

The Spyder set down about fifty meters away and a team of techs and a medical team rushed out.

“Hey, we’ve got a KIA here!” he called out to the medics. One peeled off and came over to check.

“How long has he been down?” the medic looked at the armor’s vitals to ensure Bobby was actually dead before looking over Mitch’s first aid work.

“A few minutes,” the other PVT replied.

“Bring a bag!” the medic yelled out and another two medics emerged from the Spyder carrying some sort of contraption.

Mitch didn’t recognize it from any of the FMs he’d been reading in preparation for the mission. The medics plopped the heavy bag next to Bobby, unsealed it, and slid the soldier in. Whatever the material was it was see-through, but blurry. The medics fingers ran across a PAD attacked to the side and there was a hiss as the air was sucked out of the bag. Mitch had seen the same thing down to zip lock food when he’d worked as a food-fabrication plant before joining the infantry. What he hadn’t seen was a blue-green mist being released as the air was sucked from the bag, and the telltale crystal formulation as something was frozen.

“What the hell is this thing?” he asked as the medics picked up the contraption, which was now stiff and moved like an old-fashioned stretcher.

“Something our new alien buddies gave us. We should have your friend up and about by the time you all get back to the Bush.”

“Up and about?” Mitch looked at the medics like they were crazy. “He’s dead.”

“No, he’s barely dead. We’ve put him into a type of stasis. We’ll repair that damage onboard. Flood his system with the good stuff and he’ll wake back up. He’ll have one hell of a hangover, but he’ll live.” The medic looked at Mitch expectantly. “That’ll only happen if you get out of my way, Corporal.”

“Oh…yeah,” he stepped aside, and they took Bobby to the Spyder.

he looked at the smoking remains of the tank and knew that whatever remains of the crew were in there, there was no way they were getting resurrected. he told himself so he didn’t go do something stupid knowing he’d live again.

“Aliens, man…” the PVT came back to stand next to Mitch as they watched a thick cable attacked the enemy mech and a winch start to turn and drag the hulk of death and destruction into the bay of the assault shuttle.

“Quit gawking around like a bunch of school girls,” the SGT snapped them all back to the present. “Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot have cleared the town. Echo got hit the hardest, so they’re going to remain here as a garrison and recover while the rest of the landing force comes down. We’re joining the rest of Alpha and the 9422nd to push over the mountains and gain an overwatch position overlooking the approach to the capitol. Keep your heads on a swivel though. The word is the mountain passes are filed with pissed off locals.”

“Great,” Mitch mumbled to himself. “More people that want to kill me.” He couldn’t get resurrected if he got buried in some ambush rock slide.