Major Thomas Ward, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment

Location: Classified Facility between Dongfanghongcun, China and Khabarovsk, Russia, The Eastern Block, 2141 CE

SATELLITE STATUS . . . CONNECTING . . . CONNECTING . . . FAILURE

SECONDARY SUBROUTINE INITIATING . . . SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL

SIGNAL ACQUIRED . . . REROUTING . . . CWS GERALD FORD . . . CONNECTING . . . CONNECTING . . . SUCCESSFUL CONNECTION

Major Thomas Ward didn’t even notice the connection as a flurry of bullets turned the concrete above his head into tiny shrapnel missiles. He ducked low and ran while using what was left of the steel-reinforced wall as cover. It was a difficult task for a man six and a half feet tall and weighing nearly three hundred pounds with his armor on, but he made it happen. He dove the last five feet like a ballplayer sliding into home base. He landed in a jumbled heap and nearly lost his rifle, but he was alive.

“Where the fuck is my god damned air support?!” His deep baritone cut through the fog of war. “Wilson? Captain Wilson, do you copy?!”

“Captain Wilson got his arse blown off by a grenade twenty minutes ago, Sir.” A man slammed hard into the wall next to the MAJ back-first.

“Shit!” The MAJ got to his feet, pivoted around into the open doorway and let loose with a five-shot burst of energy particles.

He caught two soldiers in the brown and beige camouflage of the Eastern Block’s local defense force. The high-powered laser melted and cut through the ballistic weave of their body armor to create giant, blackened holes of super-heated bodily fluids and organs.

The two men died with a gargle in their throats, as the three men behind them jumped back behind cover.

“Die you slanty-eyed bastards!” The man next to the MAJ poured more fire onto the enemy’s position, but his rounds were traditional bullets.

“Colour Sergeant!” A third man joined them at their impromptu defensive position. “I don’t believe they liked being called that.”

“My apologies, Lieutenant, but what are they going to do; try and kill me?”

Despite the dire situation the three soldiers found themselves in, they couldn’t help but laugh at the off-color joke. What was a little casual racism when you were fighting to the death.

Speaking of death, “GRENADE!” MAJ Ward saw the gleaming steel ball flying through the door.

With impossibly quick reflexes he grabbed the ball out of the air, and tossed it sidearm back through the door. His little league coach would have been pissed at the poor form, but last the MAJ knew the guy was probably dead defending Alaska from the latest Russkie incursion.

The startled yell of the enemy was all the reassurance the MAJ needed before a loud BOOM ripped through the room. Without the noise-canceling effects of his helmet, his ears would have been ringing from tinnitus.

“Fall back!” He ordered as he pointed toward a door on the far side of the room. “If you’ve got any more demo, now’s the time to use it.”

“Roger that, Sir. Didn’t anyone tell you? The Royal Marines always come prepared.” The CSGT gave a smile visible through his own – slightly different helmet.

One by one they fell back into the next room, with the CSGT moving last while the MAJ and LT covered him. There were no sounds of pursuit, but that wouldn’t last long. All three men knew it, so they used their time wisely.

The MAJ unfastened his helmet and placed it on his knee. That freed up his teeth, which he used to rip open an airtight brown package that he removed from a pocket on his thigh. The scent of some pastry wafted out of the bag before he started to wolf it down.

“Major Ward, 2nd Battalion, 75th Rangers, US Army,” he said between bites.

“Colour Sergeant William McGee, 40 Commando, His Majesty’s Royal Marines.” The stout man took a seat.

The MAJ gave a nod and extended his non-pastry-holding hand to the NCO. In the US Army the CSGT would have been designated as a Sergeant First Class. It was a senior NCO position, which meant the guy should know his shit. From what the MAJ had seen so far, he looked like he knew what he was doing. McGee had close-cropped vividly-red hair when he removed his helmet. His eyes had the hard look of a man who’d seen plenty of action, and after years of this constantly escalating solar war who hadn’t.

The CSGT saw the MAJ looking, and ran his hand through his stubble with a grin. “A gift from my mum, the boys all call me fire-crotch.”

“That’s enough, Colour Sergeant.” The third member of the group spoke up, and the CSGT obliged. “Lieutenant Allen Thrumball, A Squadron 22 SAS. It’s a pleasure, Major.” The LT hadn’t taken a seat. He was alert and watching the door they’d come through.

“Likewise.” The MAJ shook the shorter LT’s hand.

The LT was thin compared to the MAJ and CSGT. The MAJ was built like an NFL linebacker – broad shoulders and a big-chested – just like the Rangers liked it. The CSGT didn’t look like he topped five-eight, but he was built like a boulder. If the MAJ needed someone to ram down a door then the CSGT was his man. The LT looked like the kind of man who could run all day and all night and never quit. He had a shrewd look in his eyes that said if he couldn’t run through something he’d go under, over, or around it, and as a last resort just blow the shit out of it. All it took was brief introductions to know that every man in this room was a highly-trained and lethal soldier.

It explained why they were here in the first place.

The mission they’d been given was simple. It was a high altitude drop out of a frigate heading up into low orbit. There were two ten-man teams: one from the US and the other from the UK. The two nations were the primary members in the fledgling United Commonwealth that had been established.

While the governments might have melded, the militaries had not. The MAJ didn’t blame the higher ups for being resistant to change. The MAJ’s Rangers and the LT’s Special Air Services had been around for two hundred years. The CSGT’s Royal Marines were several hundred years older than that. That was a lot of heritage and tradition to overcome in a few years. Still, they needed to overcome it. The war between the Commonwealth and the Eastern Block was constantly escalating. The whole solar system had a stake in the fight now.

MAJ Ward had been in charge of the US team, which was a mix of Rangers, Marine RECON, and a few SEALs. They’d dropped with the latest and greatest gear the most ingenious minds in the United States of America had to offer. The Armored Combat Suit of the Future was an integrated network of information sharing components that collected data and gave the soldier the information he needed to make tactical decisions. The three main parts were the M18 dual-action combat rifle, the two-tier body armor, and the helmet’s heads up display (HUD). The helmet protected the soldier from low-caliber impacts and the HUD filtered the information to the soldier and gave them options.

The two-tier armor was self-explanatory. There were two parts to protect the soldier from the growing threats of modern warfare. The first part was a ballistic weave that was capable of stopping objects traveling at formidable velocities. It still stung like a bitch to get shot, but it was better than having a round blow a chunk of your guts out an exit wound. The second tier was a layer of laminate plating to protect against energy blasts. The idea of the design was deflecting and dispersion of those particles. The plates were flexible enough to take the shockwave of hits to the ballistic weave above it, but they couldn’t take a direct hit without cracking, which was why there was a layer of weaving both below and above the plates. In total, the armor vest weighed around thirty-five pounds. Elbow and knee pads of the same materials added a little more to the total, but Ward wasn’t complaining. He’d taken more than one hit from the enemy and nothing had penetrated.

The last piece of the next-generation war fighting equipment was the M18. The dual-action rifle was a double barrel. One barrel fired Commonwealth-standard 7.62 rounds. Rumor what that they were working on upgrading to electromagnetically-propelled rounds – like the ones used by the warships – but the technology hadn’t been miniaturized yet. Any soldier you asked was fine with their current armament. They’d rather have something a little outdated that they could trust than something new and unreliable.

The second barrel was the tube for the laser. It was capable of twenty-five kilowatt bursts, which was about the average power usage of an entire home packed into a single bolt. After a few hundred shots, it needed to be recharged, but that could be done by plugging it into any electrical socket. Even solar recharge was possible if you had the time.

The UK soldiers – despite being from the same theoretical army as the Americans – wore the same armor, but had different rifles. Their own L96A1 fired the same ammunition and energy blasts, but it was a single barrel and required changing settings and ammunition. It had the advantage of being lighter than the M18, but it really depended on the soldier which one they preferred. The MAJ liked his M18 and the LT liked his L96A1. Both officers were pretty sure the CSGT didn’t care what he was shooting as long as it took down the enemy.

“Well, Sir.” The CSGT stated as he downed a full canteen of water. “This is a right proper clusterfuck if I’ve ever seen one. What’s the plan?”

The MAJ knew the CSGT had a point. They’d dropped into the LZ just fine, but then everything went to shit. Spoofed satellite imagery didn’t give them a clear picture of enemy forces on the ground. They ended up landing a quarter mile from the local militia’s headquarters. They had to fight their way through over a hundred men to reach their objective. The MAJ had seen at least two of his team fall in the battle. Then to make matters worse, they arrived at the objective to find nearly a full battalion tasked with guarding it. They were Chinese regulars, not some local defensive militia. That was when they’d been cut to pieces and dispersed into buddy teams to try and gain entry.

“The plan is to accomplish the mission, Sergeant. Our orders are to destroy this place and whatever the hell they were doing here, so that’s what we are going to do.”

The MAJ really would have liked to know what the hell they were doing at this facility, but that was need to know, and apparently the soldiers tasked with this operation didn’t need to know.

“I do have one question for you.” The MAJ continued. He’d been fighting long enough to know that “because I told you so” wasn’t a very motivating plan, and in their current state someone needed to ease the tension. “Why do you Brits pronounce lieutenant leftenant? That’s always bugged me.”

The CSGT cocked an eyebrow before barking out a short laugh. “Well that’s simple, Sir. Our superiors frown at us when we say they are a resident of a toilet.”

The LT shook his head, but had a smile on his face. The MAJ didn’t get it.

“One of our terms for the bathroom is loo, Sir.” The LT explained. “If you are a loo-tenant, then you reside in a bathroom.”

The MAJ just sat there for a second. “Is that really the fucking reason?”

“Hell if I know.” The CSGT shrugged.

The three soldiers would have continued their lively conversation if the door to an adjacent room didn’t burst open. Three new men in armor rushed into the room. The MAJ, LT, and CSGT had their rifles on the new team in a heartbeat, but the LT’s HUD lit up with blue friendly designations.

“Hold fire!” He yelled just as someone from the other group did as well.

Even in the digital age of warfare they’d all come within a hair of wasting each other.

The MAJ got to his feet and threw the brown pastry package on the ground. “Sound off.”

“Petty Officer Second Class Dustin Chambers, SEAL Team 3, US Navy.”

“Corporal Elijah Dawson, RECON, US Marines.”

“Sir Benjamin Cuthbert, His Majesty’s Secret Service.” The last man’s proclamation surprised everyone. The MAJ knew the PO2 and CPL.

“Where the hell have you been?” The MAJ waved his soldiers forward while the CSGT and the LT watched the two doors.

“Trying to fight our way through this hellhole, Sir.” The SEAL NCO shook his head. “I got a message out briefly before they jammed us up. We were supposed to have air support from a squadron of F-37s, but they aren’t freeing shit up from the invasion.”

The invasion was the reason there had been limited reconnaissance and preparation for their operation. Elements of the 3rd and 12th US Army Infantry Divisions, being supported by the Japanese Defense Force and Royal Navy, were trying to seize control of the key Russian naval base at Vladivostok. They would never hold it – they could never hold it – but destroying it would rob the Easterners of a critical North Pacific base and give the Japanese mainland some breathing room. It might even lead to breaking the blockade that had been starving the island nation for nearly a year.

It was why the Commonwealth commanders were throwing thirty thousand soldiers and dozens of warships at the vaunted base’s defenses. It was also where every member of this covert mission was supposed to be until they got reassigned. Not that it was much of a covert mission anymore.

Now, the MAJ wished he’d been tasked to help assault a heavily defended seaport instead of fighting for something he didn’t understand in a place he couldn’t pronounce.

He shut that thinking down immediately. He was a soldier and he would do his job no matter what the cost,

“Is anyone from the team left?” He feared the answer to the question.

“Not that I know of, Sir, and the radio is dark for everyone else.”

“So we’re it.” The MAJ walked back over to his helmet, picked it up, and snapped it back into place.

His HUD powered up as he regarded the five other men in the room. “We’re all that’s left. Let’s get it done.”

“I can be of assistance, Major.” The only man not in armor announced confidently. “I was undercover with a Russian emissary when I was captured. They’ve kept me prisoner in this lovely little spa for the last four months. I have a good layout of the facility in my head, and can point you to the objective.”

“How do you know what our objective is?” The LT asked from where he was covering the door.

“I was the man sent to discover whether or not it was here. It is,” the secret agent stated seriously, “and we need to destroy it.”

“Bloke doesn’t need to tell me twice.” The CSGT slapped his pocket where he kept his extra demo gear.

“Ok, let’s move out. Dawson you’re on point because you’re such a sneaky bastard.” That got a grin out of the Recon CPL. “Mr. Cuthbert, please tell him where to go and stay behind him to avoid getting shot. I don’t want to be searching this place when the rest of the enemy battalion gets their shit together.”

As if to emphasize the point a loud explosion shook the room and rained dust from the ceiling. The screams of the wounded and dying were only one room away.