———— Salvos, Loki Ice Ridge, 2533 ————
Commander Kylan Blair rolled as plasma seared the wall behind him. He was only on private COM’s with his team now.
“Bull, you still with me?” he said into the mike as he slouched behind a bulkhead, slipping a fresh magazine into his M&S rifle and chambering the round.
“Yeah Kylan, still here,” said a voice in Kylan’s earpiece inside his helmet. The HUD displayed on the inside of Kylan’s visor showed that only he, Bull, Lauren and Pitchy were still alive.
“Okay Nixon Team, we’re bugging out. Form up on me.” Kylan leant around the corner and fired two three round bursts from his M&S tactical assault rifle. One burst hit an alien in the chest, two rounds deflecting off its amour but the third hitting home and spouting forth green blood.
The alien staggered back, taken by surprise, and lifted the plasma rifle in its hands. Bolts of plasma spewed forward as Kylan ducked back for cover. The aliens they were fighting stood at around seven foot, each wielding rapid fire plasma rifles. Long, arching necks stretched out from their hunched backs, all dressed in sweeping armour of the deepest purple. Their faces were a mix between gecko and bear, large eyes examined the battle space while sharp fangs dripped with bloodlust.
Bull was now next to Kylan, tapping him on the shoulder, as Kylan turned to face him Bull de-polarised his jet black visor so Kylan could see his face.
“Boss! We’ve gotta move!” he said as more plasma bolts melted the wall behind them, “Lauren’s already outside in the Sparrow and Pitchy is on the way out from the lab.”
“Move out,” said Kylan, following as Bull began to run back towards the entrance they had come through half an hour ago. A plasma bolt hit Kylan in the back, sending up warnings all across his HUD about shield overloads and he began to sprint.
All the members of the Navy Special Warfare division, or NavSpecWar, were issued with Tactical Battle Uniforms (TBU). The TBU consisted of a helmet, body armour and energy shielding system and was fully powered so it felt like it weighed nothing at all. It also gave the wearer added strength, battlefield awareness and speed.
Kylan had managed to run sixty-two kilometres per hour in his TBU once.
As Bull and Kylan turned a corner and saw the entry door, a voice came over the COM.
“Kylan!” it was Pitchy, one of the other members of Nixon Team, “I’m stuck in the lab, fifteen, maybe twenty aliens between me and the exit! I can’t get out!”
Bull stopped to face Kylan, both de-polarizing their visors. Kylan considered going back for his squad mate, even with aliens crawling all across the base. Bull mouthed a silent, no.
“We’re coming back,” said Kylan as he turned around.
“Dear God no! I’m a goner either way,” said Pitchy, the sound of his M&S in the back ground, “I’ve got about twenty five fusion cores down here with me. Tell me once you’re clear and I’ll blow this place sky high.”
Kylan didn’t like the thought of leaving a man behind, but he didn’t see many other options, “Okay. Good luck,” said Kylan, running after Bull towards the exit.
“Don’t need luck, I’ve got bullets.”
Outside, Lauren was in the pilot’s seat of the SLR-7 VTOL Patrol Craft, more commonly known as a Sparrow. The troop bay’s ramp opened at the rear of the vehicle and Kylan and Bull ran inside. As the Sparrow began to rise Kylan made his way to the cockpit and took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair.
Lauren turned to face him, the visor of her green armour was clear and she gave Kylan a sympathetic smile. Kylan really liked Lauren, she was the closest thing he had ever had to a sister, and despite he may have wanted more at one stage, she felt like family to him. They’d met while living on Iso, a large, single land mass, human colony planet about thirty light-years from Earth.
Kylan had lived on Iso his whole life, an orphan at age three, he had been taken in by the Christian nuns that still held onto a religion that lingered as nothing more than a wealthy and secretive institution. He had taken to pick-pocketing the nuns for keys and holotapes, discovering how the food was brought into the orphanage.
Because The Church, as it was now known, did not allow the children in its orphanages to leave until they were fifteen, each compound was heavily guarded. Kylan had used a stolen key to get into the delivery bay, and then clung to the bottom of the van until it was clear of the compound.
Lauren had found him scavenging for scraps in the eastern part of the Fringe, a slum on the very edge of Iso’s capital, Leaning. They had become friends and lived together until they both were drafted into the CNSC and made NavSpecWar together. They were family to each other.
Kylan patched back in to the COM with Admiral Flank and secured the channel as the Sparrow blasted away from the base buried in the ice.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” screamed the admiral in Kylan’s helmet, “There are seven separate alien ships in the airspace and you’re taking a twenty-four-man reconnaissance vehicle for a fly?”
“Sir, we are in the air and coming to evac point three, I suggest you have a Stalker waiting for us or we’ll just go ahead and land in Torrance.” It was an idle threat; Kylan would never consider leading the aliens to the capital of Salvos. They were lucky that the aliens hadn’t yet sent a large enough fleet to explore outside the ice caps of the planet safely.
“Stalkers inbound,” said Flank, “You better have the data Commander.”
“Solid copy, over and out,” Kylan said and cut the COM. He took off his helmet, cobalt blue like the rest of his armour, and placed it in his lap. Kylan smoothed back his brown hair and exhaled deeply. He spoke again.
“Okay Pitchy, we’re clear.”
“May God have mercy on your souls my brothers and sisters.”
An explosion thundered underneath the ice about a kilometre behind them, and Bull opened the ramp so they could see. At first, nothing happened, just a low groaning noise as the grey slab that protruded through the ice began to shudder.
Then a great ball of flame exploded out of the roof of the base, sending concrete and ice spewing into the air. More fire shot forth, blasting outwards and the bottom of the ridge and cracking all up the sheer cliff face of the ice.
The base began to fall, the explosion blowing out too much of the ice underneath it to keep it stable, and within minutes it was laying in a heap of concrete, slush and flames at the bottom of a deep valley.
Kylan looked at the carnage. He was surprised he didn’t blame himself for the loss of half of his team, he blamed someone else.
Or rather, something else.
