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Into The Drop Zone

We had just opened the first of our drogue chutes when things didn’t seem quite right. It was night so we couldn’t quite make out the terrain, but never the less I had a feeling we were jumping into an ambush. Then the first chute cut away and we were in free fall again. This went on for a while, till we were on our last drogue chute. That was at about ten thousand feet. The others were above us at seventeen thousand. The ground seemed to erupt with cannon fire. There were at least six AA batteries down there trying to tag us.
“Fuck. Boss, its Drake,” I had kept my coms open the whole drop. “We got some heavy shit coming at us from below. Looks like six zu-zu-………” At that point something struck my helmet and I went black.
It was dark and quiet. I couldn’t feel anything. Was I dead? No, because if you’re dead, you don’t ask silly shit like that. What the hell was going on?
“Drake? Wake up Drake….” Was this heaven? Angels are supposed to have soft voices like this right? Wait, me go to heaven? Then I heard the voice more clearly and felt the gloved hand on my cheek. “Drake, wake up buddy”
I opened my eyes and I saw Doc kneeling over me. She was concerned, but when my eyes opened she smiled.
“Hey there. You had all of us worried.” She helped me sit up.
“What the hell hit me?”
Manx came over with the answer. Not sure I wanted it though. She handed me a long brass canister. “Fifty mike-mike AA. One slammed into your helmet pretty bad. How are you feeling?”
At this point Nina came over. Both were out of their suits, so I figured we were in a safe little camp area. “Like someone ran my face over with a truck.” I looked around. “Where’s my helmet?”
Nina smiled at my comment before answering. “The Captain and Max are going over it to see if it still works. If not there is supposed to be a small parts bin coming back with Trevor and Slim. They got equipment retrieval since you were out.”
Great. The snipers were out doing scouting and retrieval. I guess I was expected to buy some drinks now. Oh well, the girls hated dragging back pods anyways. Boring chores they called it. I heard a rustle behind me and looked.
“Well Doc, is he ok?” it was the Captain.
“Yes sir, just a minor concussion. He won’t be sharp shooting for a couple days, and I would say we rest till tomorrow night before allowing him to wear his suit. But other than that, he checks out.”
“Sorry boss lady.” I smiled sheepishly. She cracked a grin and tossed me my helmet. The face plate looked like it went a few rounds with a wrecking ball.
“Still getting messed up during landing, huh, Drake. That one is toast, but there is a spare in one of the pods. Have to reinitialize your navigation and tracking computers when they get here. Rest up till then, kitten.”
I saluted lazily. “Yes momma.” I had no problem following that order. It’s not every day you take a two inch projectile to the face at almost twice the speed of sound and live to joke about it. Hell, I got lucky it wasn’t a direct hit. That probably would have killed me.
The Captain walked off and I settled in for a field nap. First thing they taught us in AIT was to sleep when you could. It was a damn fine lesson, one that all heavies kept close to our heart. You never know when you will be able to sleep next in the field.
Nina and Manx were lying down next to me. We were the only three man team. It’s because Nina was in a dreadnaught and Manx didn’t really like working with men. They were too hormone driven she said. Guess I was ok for a guy. She didn’t have a problem with any guy in the platoon now, but we worked so well together that the captain kept us as a team. We were scout on landing but when we moved out we were the heavy fire support. Me and Manx provided cover and kept the softies from overwhelming Nina. Nina destroyed anything that the fifties couldn’t chew up. We were definitely a one of a kind team. The captain actually set up a live fire competition once against some marine tankers that claimed we were only good for wiping out small targets like trucks. They said that we would have to call heavy armor in to take out the tougher targets. This was back when the dreadnaught first came out. The target was a fortified bunker guarded by two tank drones and fifty infantry bots. We had to overcome the defenses and destroy the bunker. It took four tanks thirty minutes to do so because of the infantry shelling them with rockets and mortars. We did it in ten. And that was before the upgrade to Nina’s unit. The Professor himself watched the exercise. The Captain said that’s why we always get chosen to field test the new gear. She said he thinks if anyone can figure out how to use it effectively in the field, it will be us black cats. We took that as an honor. And the Captain made sure we got what we needed because of it. It felt good just being in the same team as them, and they fast became more like sisters to me. Lord knows, this platoon is much more supportive and understanding of me than my family ever was.
About three hours later I woke up. Nina and Manx where cuddling together to stay warm. It was dark and the scout team finally came back. I guess the new suits were stronger than our armitage models because they were each carrying two pods. Usually Nina dragged two back and me and Manx hauled one apiece. I woke the girls gently and we got up and started to get our extra gear. Doc stopped us and directed us to the food first.
I guess max figured out how to stuff a small camping stove into his cargo pod, cause he handed us some bowls of soup with a warning to enjoy and not ask ingredients. We had a nice little bivouac set up for us. Even some small tables surrounded by rocks. The tables looked like old rusted pieces of wing. Probably from some old aircraft that the jungle claimed for its own. I sat at the table and joined a game of cards. Nina went over and ate while helping load grenades into fast reload spools, and Manx went to go sit on the mapping session. We were behind schedule, but not by much. I finished eating and had Felix, one of the broadside pilots, cash me out. I got several good hands and won some free time. We usually bet with guard duty shifts. I got ten freebies from this game.
I went over to Nina and helped load up the spools into the cargo compartment on the back of her unit. Then we started to load drum magazines of .50 cal. and 12 gauge single 0 buckshot. She carried the extra ammo for our unit so that me and Manx could carry extra heavy weapons. I had a 90mm auto-mortar and an ammo drum for it and Manx carried a collapsible 35mm anti-armor gun. We loaded extra shots for those too. Then we checked her 120mm and made sure the 12 rounds were secure and in the right slots. Then we attached the extra magazine in its field armor and checked the auto mortar. At this time Manx came over with a new helmet unit for me and I started the initialization process.
Come to find out the platoon moved about five miles away from the landing zone to set up our bivouac. Guess Doc and Manx hauled me the whole way. Have to thank them later. I finished the initializing and ran a system check on the suits internal computer. It seemed ok, so I let it run the process on auto after that. I hopped down and helped Manx and Nina load the helix drum for the 25mm cannon. It was small, but with 7500 rounds, really heavy. I heard that before the corporation was founded, chain guns used to require drums the size of cars. But the helix had integral magnetic guidance technology and a service computer, so the rounds were jam packed into a much smaller area in a super tight helix spiral, hence its name. Even the avenger could carry more in a smaller package now. We got finished and ran a full weapon diagnostic with her. Then we settled in for cards and a conversation.
After a while max came over bringing my tokens with him. There were twelve in total.
“Thanks sarge. I’ll save them for when I need them.” He just smiled before he walked off. Everyone knew that I was the only one on my team who could play poker, but we always turned chips in together to get another team to do the watch. After a while they made sure that if I won a lot, I would have a number of chips divisible by three. I handed the girls four each.
“So why are we here in the jungle Manx?” I was cleaning and repacking a spare barrel for the shotgun. She was doing the same for her M2.
“This is a good area to land in. The best spot for the landing ships is that little city south of us. It’s flattish, there is some good beach area for the armor. But they have some big shit guarding it.” She was right. To the south and north was mountainous terrain on the west coastline. The Chinese started with Cape Town and took South Africa first. They used big aircraft to drop everything in.
“So, what, we take out the big shit in Pointe Noire so the marines can land and them and the UN take over?”
“Pretty much. We’ll find out more soon. The Captain is getting on a satellite to find out how we jumped into a cluster fuck.”
‘I hope someone has the answers. That was a mess.” And it hurt like hell. Someone screwed the pooch royally.
About that time, max showed up. “Captain wants you three.” Speak of the devil. He waited for us to stand and we followed to the improvised coms tent. He held the flap so we could go inside. She was standing right there waiting on us. There was a portable vid screen set up, and the Professor was on it. We snapped to attention as soon as we entered. He just smiled.
“Well drake, seems lady luck still likes you. When we heard what happened, we ran some simulations to see if it was even possible. All of them say you should be dead.” I just laughed. The Professor was always blunt. “We found the guy who leaked the info. Unfortunately he shot himself an hour ago. But it turns out he was an intel analyst. So we went over every piece he worked on. Turns out there is some good news and bad news coming out of all this. Bad news first. There seem to be some Chinese prototype heavy infantry mixed into that unit. And a few prototype walkers. Also they have a Shen Long mobile fortress in the area.”
The Captain sighed at that. This was bad. A giant tank that acted as a command base for a division. Not good.
“The good news is that there isn’t as big an armor presence as we thought and the fortress is not yet finished. The captain will brief the rest of the unit on that. I wanted to tell you to come back alive. I have some new stuff for your whole platoon, but something special for your team. Good job so far guys. Keep it up.” At that the Captain dismissed us.
As we left the tent I could have sworn I heard the captain mumble under her breath. Father? Was she praying? Maybe. She was always so private on her family life. Who knows if she was raised religious. She said to us when we first got together as a platoon, that the past wasn’t worth shit except to those who were there. So we never asked or brought it up. And neither did she.
Nina broke me out of my thoughts. “Drake, you know armor better than anyone. What’s a Shen Long mobile fortress?” I sighed. Guess I have to tell her since they are building one.
“The mobile fortress concept was originally a German design from the second world war. It was a tank that was the size of a cruiser, and had the turret weapons from a battle ship. The Shen Long takes the concept from a super heavy tank to a mechanized base capable of repairing armor and vehicles and launching attack helicopters. Think of it as a moving forward command base. It also packs more fire power than two platoons of tanks. So it is difficult to target with bombers and its armor can shrug off most tank weapons like a heavy weight boxer shrugs off hits from a feather weight.”
I looked at her as I finished and didn’t like what I saw. She wanted to drive one now. Or take it out. Nina was the stereotypical gun bunny.
”no, we can’t capture it for you. And I don’t know if we can take it out on our own.” I hated to let her down like that, but it was the truth.
“I’m more worried about them having heavy infantry. They weren’t supposed to have the battery tech yet to do so.” Manx had a point.
“Who else makes them? I know Germany, Japan, and England, but who else?”
“France has some of the tech. The Russian federation. You know England and Germany will sell them. Russia definitely would.” She was frowning. They didn’t have the finances to make a lot, but the Federation definitely had weapons tech to make us worry. Germany was almost ahead of us for anti-tank weapons, and England was good with electronics and smart weapons. A hold over from the old United States alliances from almost four decades ago.
Thankfully, japan was our ally for obvious reasons. China was gobbling up land and resources left and right; and one of the biggest resources in the world right now was scientists. This made japan very nervous as Taiwan and Pakistan were now part of the empire. Both were very advanced in many emerging technologies but had small militaries. Japan was in a similar situation. There was even talk about the corporation helping to set up the current regime as a similar board room style to the corporations own ruling body. It was working too. Not sure how, but it was.
We went back to our prep work without much talking after that. We knew that the next few days would be a test of the highest order for heavy infantry in general, and for us cats directly. The Professor himself would be watching. Maybe even the whole council. I doubt the rest of the board would be in on it. All military personnel were taught and trained that only the three council members could give orders to any branch of the military. And most orders had to be signed by all three. It was our balance system. At least that’s what we were told at lower ranks. I am sure the captain knew more, but officers never mentioned it. And asking a sergeant was like saying please beat my ass. But this was really big.
After a while the captain called the whole platoon together. She laid out the basic info that the Professor already mentioned. Then she dropped a pair of big bombs on us.
“We have new orders as far as the enemy units are concerned. First we are to retrieve as much data as we can about the enemy heavies. Second, if at all possible, we are to secure a pair of units as intact as possible. One normal, and one officer. More are always welcome. If we do this and do it well, we get four weeks paid leave, in west city. With families and significant others.”
West city was supposed to be the next best thing to paradise. Built near the ruins of San Francisco/Oakland, it was a major tourist town. Resorts, beaches, snowy mountains. It was heaven in the corporation’s borders. And most importantly, at least for my squad, it had the best shopping in the world. Everything that could be sold to civilians was sold there. And many things that military personnel could buy only were there too.
“Also, we are receiving naval support on this one. The 1st fleet is off the coast now, and they have a gorgon class super destroyer and 3 air carriers. You all know how to feed me targets. Our air force guests will also have some extra firepower for us by the time we get on target tomorrow night. Any questions?”
No one volunteered any. “Alright, rest up and be ready to move at dawn. Dismissed.” We piled out to our gear and started our resting. Tomorrow would be one hell of a march. It was time to prove what we heavies could do. Time to make someone have some bad luck.