Task Orientated

Part 2.4

A legionnaire style drop was something new to me.

An approach usually sets the tone of a job and over my career I've made a memorable few; crawling through a storm drain, hoping fences, repelling down cliffs. But hell, a touch and go drop off from a commonwealth drop ship was quickly topping that list.

As the ship assented up and out of sight its feeling lingered on, even after the engines were drowned out by the sounds of wind whistling through trees, birds chirping and the distant rushing river.

We had touched down in what had been a battlefield, right smack in the middle of a former no man's land.

To my left, not twenty meters from me, was a burnt-out tank. Must've had a hell of an ammunition blow out, from that jagged ring left on its hull and the upside-down turret left beside it. Either side the tank-wreck were other armor wrecks. I think the left one was an infantry supporter stripped of any useful parts. Its autocannon included. I recognize the right one as a personal carrier. Looks like it had been struck from above by something powerful, maybe a cruiser by how its roof had ruptured open like a crater. A hundred meters behind them the tail of a drop ship bent up into the air, its body being wedged in the surface from what would've been a hell of an impact.

That collection of wrecks, I would assume, were part of a commonwealth offensive.

"Who the hell camps in a battlefield?" Travis exclaimed. "How many buried bombs are you going to find just pegging down your tent?"

4-99 chuckled, "welcome to Candide, Moreshead. Don't worry too much though, most munitions used in the infinite front offensive were guided."

"You'll be fine," Audax reassured. "Just mind where you step, of course."

Moreshead's lips parted, only to seal as he disbelievingly shook his head. The kid pushed past me, to fall in after 4-99. He put a finger to his right ear and asked, "any other surprises I should know about, Suzie?"

"Not that I can see," Suzie remarked. "Piet triggered his beacon nearby, be on the lookout... tents, I guess."

"Compass bearing?" 4-99 asked, flicking open his own.

Suzie responded flatly, "right, east-north-east seventy-five degrees roughly three hundred meters from your position. From here, it looks like they set up in an artillery pit."

"See anything?" I asked, pushing to talk.

Suzie chuckled, "tents."

4-99 rolled his eyes, "very funny Suzie, alright I'll take point, single file behind me."

We fell in and began our trek.

Seemed be going parallel to a zigzagging trench line. It wasn't much more than a shallow snaking ditch left on a ridge line now, but with the concrete pill boxes every couple hundred meters or so I couldn't help but to fill in the blanks. Behind that line I could see dilapidated guns, still holding their sights high, poking like tree stumps towards the sky. Far off past that abandoned Blue and Gold Earth Force wrecks dotted the landscape.

"How long do you think Earth Force held out?" Audax asked, head twisted back my way.

I shrugged my shoulders, "who knows?"

It wasn't long until we reached the campsite.

Wasn't much longer than that, when we came across two dead bodies.

Audax found the first, middle aged guy in a flannel shirt and jeans, had seven bullet wounds. He called me over, and we did our best to count them and have a guess what caused them without touching the poor sap. We settled on pistol caliber, maybe making a leap to think the deep purple bruise on his forehead was the bottom plate of a pistol's grip. He was left beside one of the tents, no sign of having been moved after being shot seven times in the chest and the blood on him and the ground was dry.