FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This is the one combat-heavy chapter for the novel, as seen from the perspective of the notional good guys.

Well. Crucible has been paused for quite some time. I considered writing up something about this, but I have decided that it has been sitting for long enough. There's not really a good way to summarize the preceding novel, so it is probably best to just go back and read it. In exchange for this unhelpful answer, I commit to publishing a new chapter once a week until the story is finished, starting now. So you can keep it in your head, if you want. Or wait! In any case, this is the one big 'fighty' section of the novel, which was not really intended to be about the combat, per se. So, content warnings for that. Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute--as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

---

Crucible,, by Rob Baird. Part 14.

Just south of Jackson Township

Militia-aligned Jericho

29.11.2560

The only consolation, to Adaliy Arkanja, was that his commander looked as weary as Arkanja did. Her helmet, like her powered armor, was filthy: shrapnel-scarred and caked with dirt from the past 36 hours of fighting. She’d removed it, and the mountain lion’s fur was pristine underneath—but her eyes betrayed the exhaustion they all felt.

“Another half an hour,” Colonel Lekaras said. “We’ll have better coverage then. Captain Zhulo, your report?”

Captain Zhulo, K Company commander, twisted his gloved paw over and called up the projection of a tactical map. “Nothing, ma’am. Nothing we don’t already know about.”

Jackson was, formerly, a mining town of a few thousand humans. They seemed to have left, save for two hundred or so manning a set of defenses built into the southwestern flank of a mountain nearby. The miners had been industrious: it would more properly have been called a fortress.

Headquarters believed that the position needed to be taken out. As long as Jackson stayed garrisoned, their enemy could strike the Kashkin’s eastern front at will. They all knew that a major attack was being planned, for which Jackson remained an unacceptable vulnerability.

But Colonel Lekaras’s mobile infantry battalion did not have the means to capture it. Mobile infantry was designed for flexible attacks, deep behind enemy lines—armed scouting missions and harassment of unguarded rear areas. Arkanja, like Lekaras, had served as an espatier in CODA. They both knew this well.

The 9th Mobile Infantry Brigade had, in fact, spent the previous day and a half going after vulnerabilities behind the human lines. They’d ambushed a supply convoy, and destroyed a series of listening posts and relays, and demolished two temporary bridges. All of those had been well-defended… but nothing like the fortifications they now faced.

With General Sanuk marshaling her forces for the planned offensive against the Alph River, though, there was nothing else available in the sector. And so 2nd Battalion, 9th Mobile Infantry Brigade had been waiting for six hours just south of Jackson, out of sight of its human defenders.

The Kennel kept promising updated reconnaissance from their drone flights. Any mobile infantry platoon could’ve scouted ahead, but Sanuk didn’t want to tip their hand and Colonel Lekaras had assented to that degree of caution. New intelligence continued to be half an hour in the future every time the colonel asked.

Before that time had elapsed, one of the soldiers in the headquarters company made their way over, and gestured for Lekaras to put her headset on. A few seconds later, and the mountain lion no longer seemed weary. Arkanja didn’t like the look her face twisted into any better.

Nor did he like the way she headed for the radio truck, with the other officers in the headquarters section. “You don’t suppose the war’s over, do you?”

The other two company commanders both shared the same fatalistic expression as Zhulo; both, though, also gave him the same glare. Captain Talu Sudana—his S Company was the most battered of the three—snorted. “She wouldn’t need Hadal for that, I don’t imagine.” Major Hadal was the battalion’s intelligence coordinator.

Lekaras kept her introduction brutally short when she returned ten minutes later: “Eastern Command says that Jackson needs to be taken or knocked out. They also say it needs to be done in the next six hours.”

The other company commanders had already been on edge; Lekaras’s words saw them all tense, Adaliy Arkanja included. “Six hours?” Captain Zhulo asked incredulously.

Lekaras pointed towards Major Hadal. “Major, can you summarize?” Hadal, who spent most of his time in one of the command vehicles, was out of armor; the fennec looked wispy and insubstantial next to the other infantrymen.

But dangerous, like a disturbed krait: “Orbital intel, combined with one of our reconnaissance flights,” he explained, putting a high-resolution map in the air where they could all see it. “They say there’s strong evidence that Arcadia is aware of our units and preparing to take action. They’re assembling what appears to be two or three companies of mechs and a few IFVs. Based on their location, the Kennel believes it’s a relief force meant to strengthen the Jackson garrison. They’ll probably move at first light.”

“It will take them a few hours to reach here,” Lekaras went on. “General Sanuk expects us to have occupied Jackson by 0900. Which means we should be ready to attack by dawn, too. By then, we’ve also been promised a battery of artillery for fire support.”

But a single battery was, to Arkanja’s way of thinking, precious little to offer meaningful assistance. “Only one, ma’am?”

“Supplies of ammunition are limited. We’re going to have to make do.”

“And no air support?” Zhulo wanted to know. “What about for the mechs? The Hasskit should be able to handle that.”

The mountain lion’s ear twitched, though her face remained impassive. “They should. But the Hasskit is also being retasked. We either attack now, when it’s difficult, or we attack once it’s been reinforced—and it’s impossible. Jackson can’t just be bypassed. So we’re going to do our jobs. Now…”

There were two obvious approaches, corresponding to the roads that led to Jackson itself. Only one offered anything like cover; even then, they were essentially committing to a frontal assault.

“The alternative is making our way through the mountains just to the north. The terrain’s difficult, but… not impossible, not for powered armor. Major Hadal doesn’t think it’s seriously defended, and the rocks will have made automated surveillance difficult. You can also see the catch, I assume?”

“It’s narrow,” Adaliy guessed. “You can’t get more than a company into position there. The lines of fire will be… challenging.”

“And you’ll be separated from the rest of us. You’ll have to be ready to dig in and hold off their counterattack. But that should buy the rest of the battalion enough time to advance inside their perimeter.”

He could read between the lines: “‘You’ll.’ You mean my unit, ma’am.”

“Ulak Company is in the best shape right now, Dalija. We’ll scrounge ammunition and whatever else you need from the rest of the units. How quickly can you be in position?”

‘Best shape’ was true, though clearly relative. On paper, the company was supposed to have 115 soldiers, Arkanja included; they’d had only 110 when the war started, and after 48 hours in action behind the front lines only 92 were still with him. Still, Zhulo’s K Company was down to 80, and Captain Sudana’s S Company had lost most of an entire platoon.

They were supposed to have been reinforced: 9th Infantry’s 3rd Battalion was holding position just on the near side of the Kashkin’s eastern border, where they were being kept as the sector’s reserve. For whatever reason, though, no support had been forthcoming.

Captain Arkanja suppressed his sigh until he’d left the briefing. It wasn’t necessarily a complete disaster; he was sure that he could move his infantry into position without being detected, and they’d be able to use the uneven terrain to hide their movements until they were all but on top of Jackson’s defenders.

And then what?

Most of the static defenses faced to the west and south. The automated sentry guns he was aware of were pointed in that direction. Those probably couldn’t be repositioned to pose any threat to a flanking maneuver. Drone coverage pointed to half a dozen armored cars, though, and they would be challenging.

Each of his four platoons, theoretically, had at least two soldiers who carried light missiles that would, theoretically, be plenty to take out the light armor on any vehicle they were likely to encounter. But that was only if they could get a clean shot, and if they could do that the armored cars would be doing their utmost to suppress any incoming fire.

A lucky shot from one of the support gunners might be able to disable an armored car; he was loathe to leave them exposed for the attempt. No, he thought: it would be up to the missiles, and putting them in the right place involved gambling on where Jackson’s vehicles would move to when the fighting started.

His C&S officer, a badger with focused glare as sharp as her teeth, wanted to make sure they had plenty of time to integrate every new bit of surveillance they gleaned as they made their way over. They could remain motionless, then, waiting.

Lieutenant Grazhan led 4th Platoon, the heavy weapons group with the greatest number of trained anti-armor specialists. He positioned her as close as he dared, so that the mobile infantry would be able to immediately disable any assault vehicles they found. His other three platoons he held slightly back—in any case, the powered armor would let them catch up quickly.

Just past 5:30, he asked the platoon leaders for their final status. 2nd Platoon’s Lieutenant Fyodorov was the last to answer. He was a Soviet immigrant; the wolf’s Rukhat was accented and imperfect. But he knew the relevant words: “nan’tag. We’re ready.”

Arkanja beckoned his C&S officer over, and together with the first sergeant they reviewed the signals data from Lieutenant Grazhan’s platoon. “There’s nothing on the approach,” the badger pronounced. “No mines, no tripwires—if they have any sensors, it has to be purely passive.”

“They wouldn’t be expecting powered armor,” Adaliy suggested. “We’ll have the element of surprise for at least a few minutes. The priority has to be those gun trucks. Do whatever you have to do figure where they are, where they’re going, and where we can hit them from.”

“Yes, sir.”

His radio buzzed. It was Colonel Lekaras: “This is Rahak. Ulak Company looks to be in position, captain, from your signals. You’re set?”

“Yes. We’re standing by.”

“Right.” A long, heavy pause. “We’ll call for artillery on the hour. As soon as it’s over, we’re going to attack. Be ready.”

“Understood.” The timer on the inside of his helmet read 5:42. At 5:44 a countdown joined it, marking the time until the Type 6 battery would open up. The fire mission was intended to blanket the southern front; with luck they’d be able to at least disrupt any sentry turrets out in the open.

The four pieces of an artillery battery could fire 64 rockets in one salvo. After that, they’d need to reload. That, Arkanja knew, would take time—at best there would be only two support vehicles, and while the two rocket pods on a Type 6 could be independently loaded, they couldn’t be fired at the same time as that was happening.

Lekaras had requested 48 rockets. It would take precious time before they’d have such quantity available again. The first sergeant nodded gravely; the bulk of his helmet gave the gesture additional weight. “I’m sure they’ll make it count.”

“So am I. But still…”

“Still,” the sergeant agreed. “We must hope.”

The countdown began to flash; a moment later he heard shot out called over the radio. His map plotted the rockets’ ballistic trajectory: the battery, he saw, was just east of Shadesh. Short rounds would miss Colonel Lekaras’s two companies; any that overshot would spend themselves amidst the town buildings rather than Arkanja’s own men.

That, too, was a small favor.

But there were no short rounds—the rockets and their 150-kilogram warheads hit precisely where they’d been meant to, saturating the forwardmost part of Jackson’s defensive line. And, even as the explosions rolled over where Adaliy crouched, he heard small-arms fire start to pop underneath it.

Nearly all of it was from Lekaras. The rockets had done their work: for nearly two minutes he could see almost nothing opposing the mountain lion’s advance. But the town’s defenders had begun to crew their positions. One point of return fire after another began to zero in on his comrades.

“Signals.” Arkanja jerked his head sideways, towards the C&S officer. “EM and acoustics indicates three vehicles just started. Medium hoverdyne engines. Doppler and reflections suggest they’re moving south. Away from—”

He saw her flinch behind the open visor of her helmet. “What is it?”

“They’re engaged. Must have plasma weapons. Don’t check your thermals, sir.”

Of course, he did anyway. The view—interpolated from their own sensors and those of the two other companies now in actual combat—was chaotic, but the impact of the energy weapons couldn’t be more obvious. Scarred swathes of hillside sizzled, cooling from a thousand degrees where the shots had landed. “Yassuja...”

“Kossik Company is within two hundred meters of the first manned position. I don’t think they’re getting any further, though.” First Sergeant Chashki had his own map open, peering at the angles carefully. “Those trucks are… murderous.”

“They probably can’t flank Zhulo, at least,” Arkanja pointed out. “Not without S Company having a clear shot. But then… how does S Company manage to advance?”

“Blow a hole in this section of line, right here, and move up in that blind spot.”

Arkanja saw the vulnerability, too, although not how to exploit it. “Zhulo’s support platoon is still in decent shape, but the sappers won’t be able to—” Ashid, this is Rahak 6. Fire mission. Over. “Last of our rockets,” he muttered. “They’re going to need our help.”

By the time the rounds landed, and Shek Company pushed forward into newly exposed cover, two more Arcadian hoverdynes had joined the ones already pinning Lekaras down. Lieutenant Grazhan, following the battle just as closely, radioed him for new orders.

“Stay where you are. Hold fire.” His order was curt, and tense; so was her acknowledgment. Colonel Lekaras was not, he knew, so distracted as to have forgotten about U Company. She was baiting Jackson’s defenders: letting them waste their ammunition; exposing one active position after another.

Gambling, too, that they wouldn’t be able to inflict serious damage to her battalion. None of the humans seemed to be able to hit her directly. Fifteen minutes elapsed, and then another fifteen. There didn’t seem to be any new hostiles appearing. The line was formidable enough as it was.

“Rahak 6 to Ulak. You’re still ready to engage?”

“Affirmative. Ulak is standing by, ma’am.”

“Do it. Try to put pressure on the southwest. Shek Company is the most vulnerable right now. Find a way to hit their closest opponents and let’s roll them up. Understood?”

“Copy that. Ulak Company! Move!” Arkanja needed to be close enough to see what was going on for himself. His suit helped with that—with the press of a button, the town’s buildings went translucent, with the far side filled in by what the soldiers in his company could see.

A heavy machine gun emplacement, for example. The half-dozen humans manning it didn’t notice the approaching threat until Lieutenant Grazhan’s platoon was nearly upon them. By then it was too late: fire raked the nest; the gunner slumped forward with the two barrels still halfway through turning to face the mobile infantry.

One of Grazhan’s men kicked his body from the mount, pointed the gun at the next position down the line, and poured 14mm rounds into it until movement stopped there, too. Finally they began to draw attention; the infantryman leapt free of the emplacement, with a brief glow from his suit’s rockets, only a handful of seconds before the grenades hit.

As far as Arkanja could tell, though, ‘attention’ was haphazard. Most of them still seemed focused on Lekaras. He saw a bright flash, two blocks distant; when the harsh shadows dropped back into darkness Lieutenant Karah’s soldiers announced that they’d found and destroyed one of the hoverdynes—still directing its fire towards the south.

The dog checked his surroundings and took cover behind a pile of rubble that had, at one point, been some sort of server room. Circuitboards and twisted machinery attested to that, and to the thoroughness with which the impact of a Type 6 rocket had ended this function. All such a terrible waste, he thought. All of it. Their own munitions could’ve been spent on something better.

But it had not been. “Rahak, this is Ulak 6. Message, over.”

“Go ahead.”

“We’re on the northwest side of town. We’ve engaged a few defenders, but they don’t seem to be reorienting towards us. What do you want us to do? Over.” Sergeant Chashki joined him, waiting for the reply.

“Ulak 6, can you move south to link up with Shek Company? Over.”

Arkanja nodded, and looked for confirmation to Chashki, who did the same. “Affirmative. We can do that. Over.”

“Good. Alright. Secure your perimeter where you are now, and make your way towards Captain Sudana. It doesn’t look like there’s too much between you, but he’ll hold until your signal. Understood? Over.”

“I copy, yes. We’re moving. Out.” The dog’s gloved fingers toyed idly with a mangled bit of computer as he reviewed the map. “Leave 1st and 4th platoons here, you think?”

“Yes. Have Karah hold these two intersections to cover us, and we can push south with 3rd Platoon.”

He ordered the rest of the headquarters section to stay with Karah and set up something like a command post—Chashki joined them to coordinate their new position—and went with 3rd platoon to see what Captain Sudana was still up against.

Lekaras had been right: there wasn’t much. They moved carefully, anyway, surprising another armored car. A missile punched through the vehicle’s rear quarter, and it burst into flames; Arkanja watched, carbine ready, for the occupants to emerge, but that proved to be unnecessary.

And then there was nothing. The remaining distance held a score of scattered bodies, and abandoned or disabled weaponry, but no remaining defenders. Captain Sudana made his way over in cautious, low skips boosted by his suit’s engines, but that wariness, too, turned out to be unnecessary.

“Cut the line in half,” Sudana said. “It’s still busy to the east.”

“Hasn’t gotten any quieter,” Arkanja agreed. Colonel Lekaras, and Captain Zhulo’s company, were pinned down with no clear sign that their opponents even realized what had become of the other defenders. “How’s your company?”

“Eighteen casualties. Nothing in the last half-hour. The initial advance was the worst part.”

“We’re set up about three hundred meters into town. We can consolidate resources, if any of your wounded are mobile…”

Sudana shook his head grimly. “Not really. We’ve got twelve. The serious ones are more or less stabilized, but I’d like to keep them there until we can get the ambulance up. Lekaras knows we have casualties. So does she.”

And she wanted them to push onward, sweeping the town clear in a gradual arc that would converge on her own slower advance. Even with S Company just over half strength, the two together had plenty of soldiers to cover their move northward—plenty of what passed for heavy weapons in the mobile infantry, too.

The fractured Arcadian defenders were still doing their best to pin down Lekaras and Zhulo’s K Company. Arkanja didn’t see how they could be unaware of the infantry behind them; either way, they were uninterested either in displacing or in trying to guard their flank until they came under direct attack.

Just like earlier, by that point it was too late. Sudana managed to get in position to direct fire at an armored car anchoring the line’s western edge, and a reinforced trench just beyond it. This, finally, collapsed the resolve of the fifty-odd humans separating the two groups: they fled, and quickly.

The clock told him that it was just past 7:30; Lekaras had been under constant fire for nearly two hours. For a few minutes, though, it seemed like their 9:00 target for capturing the town would prove easier than Arkanja had feared.

But, on the advance, Lekaras and Zhulo hit resistance almost immediately. Neither Arkanja nor Captain Sudana could see the source from their end, at least not directly. Checking the map, he decided it was the town’s metalworks: a squat building with thick walls, its own generator, and—apparently—a significant number of defenders.

Some of them would’ve been the retreating Arcadians they’d just evicted, injured and exhausted. But Lekaras seemed, in Arkanja’s opinion, to be taking too much fire for that alone. “Chashki,” he muttered. “We need to find a way to cover them. Can we—”

Before he could finish, the company’s radio burst into panicked chatter. It was coming from 4th Platoon, who had suddenly found themselves under attack from multiple angles. There were already casualties; when he looked in that direction, the platoon’s markers in his helmet flickered ominously.

“Ulak 6 to Ulak 4. Report.”

“Ulak 4. We’re—” He heard an explosion through the radio well before it rumbled over the distance separating him from the platoon. “Ulak 4 is in contact with hostiles to the east; dismounts and vehicle support. Did their reinforcements arrive?”

Had they? “Wait one.” He checked the situation map, and the communication logs—if the mechs were in a position to threaten his company, they’d need to retreat at once. “Nothing new that I know of. Ulak 1, what’s your status? Can you get in position to cover Ulak 4?”

Lieutenant Karah came on herself. “This is 1-6 actual. Negative, sir. They’re a block to our north, but if we expose ourselves we take immediate and intense suppressive fire. We could maybe… ah, we could head another block south, to 4th Avenue, then try? Over.”

“No. Hold your position.” Arkanja had already started sprinting to join them; Karah and her platoon, with the rest of his headquarters section besides Chashki, were only two blocks away. He wanted to see what was going on for himself—in any case the circuitous route Karah proposed would’ve exposed them to whatever defenders Colonel Lekaras was still confronting. “Ulak 4, do you have any better idea of what you’re facing?”

“Right now we’re too busy not getting shot, sir.”

He tensed, and jumped onto the sloped roof of the nearest building. Crawling the rest of the way, the dog poked his head over to examine the situation. The two remaining armored cars were parked at the corner of the main intersection, covering one another with rapid plasma fire.

“Captain, get down!”

The voice in his ear came from the company’s C&S officer, who must’ve noticed something he hadn’t. Arkanja ducked back reflexively. “What is it?”

“Active scanners. Let me see if I can toss a drone over…” The badger was a few blocks away, still coordinating with Captain Sudana, but Arkanja’s helmet tagged the drone she flung airborne for him as clearly as if they’d been standing next to one another. “Are you getting this, sir?”

“Yes.” He gritted his teeth, growled over the muted radio, and called Lekaras. “Rahak, Ulak 6. My 4th Platoon is pinned down on the main east-west road by two hoverdynes. It looks like every building sturdy enough to take a hit or two has been garrisoned. C&S shows strong weapons telltales along my approach.”

Colonel Lekaras took a moment to answer. “Understood. We’re running into the same problem to your east. How many hostiles do you think you’re up against?”

“At least thirty, from what I can see. We’ve already taken casualties, and we’re not in a good position to hit the enemy vehicles on our own. Can we get some fire support here?”

“Affirmative. Ashid is standing by. Tag what you can and pull your men back.”

Lieutenant Grazhan did not answer the order; the platoon sergeant said that he’d assumed command. However badly they’d been hit, 4th Platoon managed to withdraw in good order. Arkanja let his C&S officer highlight the buildings, and waited for the artillery to do its work.

The badger took the job of assessing the result, too. “One of the hoverdynes is destroyed, sir; the other seems to be immobile. I’m still reading active EM from inside most of the buildings, though.”

He called up the drone footage she was working from in his own helmet. Sure enough: a few buildings had been collapsed, but the barrage had left plenty dangerously intact. Arkanja reported that to his commanding officer, and waited.

The delay went on long enough for him to know what Lekaras would say. “We can’t spare any more rounds, and we’re running out of time. You’re going to have to clear that street on your own, captain. Can you and Sudana do that?”

“Ah… maybe, ma’am. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Arkanja hopped down from the building and found that Captain Sudana had already made his way over to join them. The tiger’s company was down to half its effective manpower; on the other hand, that had left the remainder with plenty of extra ammunition, which could also be distributed to Arkanja’s own U Company.

Colonel Lekaras and K Company were all of three blocks away. Between them were a dozen intact two- and three-story buildings: offices and workshops with thick walls and plenty of natural viewports from which to pin down any attackers. And the damaged hoverdyne, even if immobile, was a potent static defense. The rockets and grenades their mobile infantry was equipped with would only be able to do so much.

“But,” Sudana countered: “they haven’t had time to prepare, either. There are no barricades, nothing put up for concealment; no signs of cloaking devices. They probably won’t have any traps set. Just a lot of effective cover.”

“True, and if we flush them out, they won’t have much time to set up again. They’re going to want to withdraw north, right? That’s where their reinforcements will come from. If we try to funnel them that way, keeping the momentum up…”

“This structure first. Then that one, and the one on the other side of the street. That keeps them from being able to move between anything else they have protected. If I can get what’s left of my support section on top of the garage over there…”

Together they had something of a plan, although Arkanja pointed out they’d still need to clear each building individually, and they didn’t have much time for doing so cleanly. Sudana merely shrugged, the fatalism in his gesture muted by the armor. Arkanja radioed back to the colonel: “nan’tag, Rahak 6. We’ll get this done. But it’ll be messy.”

“I know. We have new rules of engagement, based on what we’ve encountered so far. Anybody left in town should be considered hostile. Turn the buildings to rubble if you have to. We’ve almost got this position reduced. After that, I’m going to try and set up at the… civic center, I guess it is. We’ll look for you to approach Galena Street along 2nd Avenue.”

The streets glowed brightly in the map projected within his helmet. “Understood. Ulak out.” Arkanja looked to Captain Sudana, echoing what he thought were the most salient of their commander’s words. “‘Rubble, if we have to’—apparently.”

His visor kept Sudana’s expression from showing through. “We’ll have to,” he said flatly. “Count on it.”

While he left to direct the company’s heavy weapons into position atop a squat parking garage, Arkanja and Chashki drew up plans for the attack sequence itself. Lieutenant Karah would hit the closest building with grenades and rockets borrowed from 4th Platoon, which Arkanja now considered combat-ineffective.

Then she would breach it, killing or incapacitating anyone left inside. And as soon as they seemed to have broken, Lieutenant Fyodorov’s 2nd Platoon would shift from standing by to reinforce Karah to storming the next building in the exact same way, while Karah leapfrogged him to position herself near the last target.

On Fyodorov’s signal, 1st and 3rd platoons would jointly assault it—it was the largest building, but Arkanja hoped that also meant it would be comparatively undermanned, and isolated without the aid of its neighbors. Sudana would cover the whole operation—the captain himself on the garage with his support section, and what remained of his remaining platoons on the ground to shoot anyone who tried to fall back into one of the other buildings.

“Quick,” Arkanja stressed. “We have to be quick. Don’t worry about damage to the buildings, and don’t give them a chance to regroup. If they surrender, kick ‘em out to let Sudana handle them. Shek Company can help move wounded, too.”

“Nan’tag,” Karah said; the other leaders echoed her.

“I’ll be with you. Sergeant Chashki will join Fyodorov and adapt the plan as needed. But if you don’t hear anything, stick with it.”

And Sudana announced that he was ready. Arkanja followed Karah to the intersection nearest their first objective. Karah gestured with her paw; the platoon’s C&S specialist sent a drone forward. The building had two stories, and there looked to be people on both of them. Next to it, the damaged hoverdyne was still waiting. “That one first,” she ordered; a soldier with a missile launcher crept forward. “As soon as it’s out of commission, I want grenades through every window. Proximity triggers, not timed.”

It was 8:22. Karah counted down from five on her fingers. When she clenched her paw into a fist, the soldier darted into the street and fired—backblast sent debris flying in a messy spray, and Arkanja could only see the man jump backwards and into cover by following the icon on his helmet.

Her C&S specialist called out ‘good hit,’ but before they’d finished the hoverdyne exploded violently as the damaged reactor, overtaxed from driving its main cannon, boiled over. Superheated plasma spouted against the side of the building, punching holes through its side with the clean precision of an organized demolition.

And then Karah’s platoon was on the move. Arkanja joined them to see smoke and bits of concrete gout from the shattered windows. For the briefest second, someone returned fire—blindly, sweeping the street erratically. Another grenade went off. The fire stopped.

There were three entrances. Sudana could cover one of them. Karah pointed at the main door; barked a name. One of her section leaders charged—kicked the door with the full impact of his suit-augmented muscles. Then he stepped back. More grenades.

Lieutenant Karah counted down from three, that time, before plunging into the smoke. Arkanja found himself in the lobby of an office: PRESTON LOGISTI—the last letters had been blasted from the wall. Some of the furniture was overturned; more than a few pieces were on fire.

The environmental alarm in his suit warned him the smoke was toxic and the oxygen fraction had become dangerous—filtering was no problem, but the suit could only supply so much breathable air. Shouting from further in the building, in a language that was not Nakath-Rukhat, suggested the problem was a shared one.

But Arkanja was fine, for the moment. He and two of Karah’s men pressed further inside. Someone opened up from within the smoke—one of the soldiers alongside Arkanja collapsed with a short yelp. He fired back reflexively at what his helmet told him was the source of the noise.

It ceased.

So did the yelping from the downed moreau. His companion knelt next to him, trying to make sense of the suit’s medical readouts. “Call for help,” Arkanja ordered. We have to be quick. He kept going.

Between outside surveillance and the other infantrymen, his suit’s computers now had a good idea of the building’s layout. Karah was one room over to his left; two of her other squads had made their way up the stairs and were clearing the second floor.

He was in an empty garage. It ran the width of the building. The doors were slowly swinging open, with the sound of damaged metal screaming against the warped rails. There was no other movement. He found a light machine gun, still hot in his thermal vision, resting on a rolling workbench.

Behind the bench was a sprawled woman, in camouflage and wearing some insignia—but no armor to have saved her; the holes punched into her chest were precise and deadly. He saw blood on the wall, next to the switch to open the doors, but it had to have been the last thing she’d done.

Too late, anyway.

Another interior door opened, and Karah stepped through. “Clear, sir?”

“Clear.”

She nodded, and tilted her head up. He could hear what had to be at least three or four support weapons like the one the woman had been using. “Right over us is a meeting room of some kind. There’s only one way to get into it.”

The garage was big enough to have fit three cargo hoverdynes. Their bays were marked in paint on the floor, and separated by concrete support columns. Arkanja indicated the two columns immediately below the meeting room. “Only one way on that floor, lieutenant.”

“Give Fyodorov the word, captain?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Ulak 2, this is Ulak 1-6. You’re good to go.” Three more soldiers had joined her. They understood immediately when she pointed at the concrete columns. One of them was the sergeant who had destroyed the hoverdyne, and already had a missile launcher. Arkanja stood back while another was brought forward, and the two took aim, one at each column.

Slightly more distant explosions had already begun outside as Fyodorov began his assault. The humans in the meeting room could have tried to stop him—but then, one after another, two rockets struck the columns, right up against the ceiling.

One of them shattered completely under the shaped charge. Two-thirds of the cross-section of the other had been blown away; the rebar within was twisted and partly severed. Arkanja watched the floor ripple and sag from the center out—then give way altogether.

Movement stirred in the rubble—someone bringing up the carbine they’d managed to keep hold of. He opened fire; there was a squawk, and the gun dropped. Arkanja kept staring, waiting: for a moment he heard only muffled groaning, but at last another human staggered to their feet, both hands raised.

Karah and her soldiers went forward to take him into custody; they dragged another, unable to walk but no longer in the mood for fighting in any case, clear of the debris. There had been two more, but either earlier injuries or the collapse preempted any need to take them prisoner.

Regrouping and figuring out what had happened took a few minutes. Karah’s platoon had lost four of their number, three of them dead and the fourth in need of immediate evacuation. They had taken only two humans prisoner; from what Arkanja could tell, the second of those was unlikely to survive, himself.

And the building was unsalvageable. But it didn’t need to be. 8:55. How is 2nd Platoon faring? Lieutenant Fyodorov was calling over the radio to Captain Sudana. Arkanja hadn’t heard been paying attention to the initial message, but he heard Sudana’s firm: “understood. Stand clear.”

Sudana’s C&S officer had a drone aloft. He switched to the live camera feed; watched as a dozen impacts in quick succession slammed into the upper floors of Fyodorov’s target, immediately next door. They tore apart the front of the building—and no sooner had the interior been exposed than, from only a few hundred meters away atop the parking garage, Sudana’s heavy machine guns opened up on whatever they found inside.

“We need to be ready to move on the last building,” he told Karah. “Can you be?”

“Of course.”

It was across 2nd Avenue from where Fyodorov was methodically dismantling his target. With the garage doors open, Arkanja could see it clearly enough just by leaning around the corner. He watched through the drone, instead. Two humans, with Fyodorov’s men about to break through, vaulted an empty windowframe and tried to cross the avenue.

Sudana’s gunners saw them first. The screaming lasted only a few seconds longer before a second burst shredded them into silence. Neither Sudana nor the drone were able to look into the facing building. Arkanja could: from his position inside the garage he saw a figure rise into an open window on the second story, both hands up.

The man could see Arkanja, and Karah’s platoon, just as clearly. “Hold your fire,” the dog warned, in case Karah’s men were jumpy. Across the street the human bent down; he tossed a gun from the window and straightened back up. His mouth was open. Shouting. “Does anyone speak their language?”

The fire from Fyodorov’s attack had begun to taper as they ran out of targets. A corporal in Karah’s platoon spoke English; she called back across the way, in the increasingly frequent moments of silence, and reported back what Arkanja had expected: “they want to surrender.”

“Tell them: one at a time, with their paws raised. We’ll say when each one can come out.” And he ordered Karah to be ready with grenades into the interior of the building, in case anything went wrong or the defenders thought better of their odds.

But there were only seven humans, two with anything like body armor and none carrying any equipment. One, the last of them, was naked above the waist; her arm was wrapped in cloth and the exposed skin was red. “Hoverdyne crew,” the translator explained. “The truck burned.”

“No more?”

“They say there were twenty or so, but they left through the back door. These were supposed to guard their retreat.”

By the time Karah had swept the building and confirmed it was empty, Fyodorov provided three more prisoners and reported his target cleared as well. Arkanja radioed Colonel Lekaras, requesting orders.

9:27.

“We don’t see any more movement. You should be clear.”

They advanced carefully, anyway, but the colonel was right—there were no defenders remaining. According to their intelligence officer, a drone flight confirmed that a few dozen soldiers were retreating on foot, northbound towards friendly territory. They also confirmed that the human mechs had stopped their own advance.

“So we’re safe?” Sudana asked.

Lekaras had her helmet off again. She nodded wearily. “We can rest. For now. Sector command says they can spare transports to bring the most badly wounded straight back to Chadagh—should land in the next ten minutes or so.”

Arkanja had to wonder if that would matter. “And the rest? What about our prisoners, ma’am?”

“The rest we can put on trucks. The prisoners… I don’t know. How many do we have?”

Nineteen, in total. One of those, under questioning, said the town had been held by a battalion of militiamen. By Arkanja’s figuring, they had fought nearly to a man. For what? They could’ve pulled back when his company had first threatened their flank—linked up in good order with the mechs sent to aid them.

The delaying action, if it could be called that, spared only the twenty or thirty who finally had escaped. For that, 2nd Battalion, 9th Mobile Infantry had given up two dozen dead. That number would increase, of course. Lieutenant Grazhan was still alive, if unconscious, when she’d been loaded onto the medical transport; the look Arkanja got from the medic told him all he needed.

He found, more than anything, that he was angry.

Colonel Lekaras called him and the other company commanders back over; he’d been sitting next to a wounded sergeant in Karah’s platoon; talking, trying to reassure him. The dying leopard hadn’t shown any sign he was even aware of Arkanja’s presence, although for his part the dog didn’t think his words truly counted for much, either.

More vehicles had appeared, in the interim. It was 11:15, and a platoon of tanks was now idling on Galena Street. “From 5th Armored,” Lekaras said. “We might get another platoon later today, depending on how the situation evolves.”

“That’s a reserve brigade, isn’t it?”

“Yes. They’re all reservists. With luck, we won’t need them.”

“But we’re staying here, ma’am?”

“Until further orders, yes. General Sanuk began her attack along the Alph River at 9AM. All of Division East is committed, including the rest of our brigade, and the 20th Motorized. And the Hasskit.”

“Colonel?” Captain Sudana was the first to speak, after Lekaras’s words sank in. “This attack was a diversion?”

“It would seem so. General Sanuk wishes to thank us for keeping the Arcadians confused. The mech column coming here was engaged and destroyed by a screening force from 2nd Armored half an hour ago—before it could join the defense of the river. The Kennel believes we might be on the other side of the Alph as soon as this evening.”

She did not look any less exhausted than she had six hours earlier. She did, though, look relieved. Arkanja felt around for his own emotions. Was he relieved? Did it make any more sense? “Will we join them?”

“We’re not in any position to, Dalija,” she told him, shaking her head. “I expect we’ll be pulled back to Corsini or Aless Hakin as soon as there are troops available to secure this town. Perhaps folded into one of our sister battalions, but…”

They all knew that the OVKK’s battle plans called for the conflict to be swift and decisive. Reorganizing the battalion would take too long. Captain Zhulo looked towards the southwest, where unchecked fires in the damaged buildings filled the morning sky with thick smoke. “This was our war, ma’am?”

“Maybe we’ll be that lucky.” The mountain lion pressed her fingers to her temple, to steady the tension in them, and rested her muzzle on her thumb. “For now, let’s start with the calm we have and go from there.”