Tales from the War of 3308 - Excerpt 1
24 Jan 2022Oxforth
I found this piece of text hidden (more like buried) in the Galactic Vikings intranet. I back up data on my personal servers routinely. And now I found some extra time to sit down and have a read-through. This document is not complete, I believe. At least it's not finished, that much is clear. It is either written by or in honor of Lieutenant Rowan Mune of GalVik GRIN. I remember him well, after all, I was the one who head-hunted him to lead the unit after Captain Harvik died in battle.
If I find the time, I may, perhaps look for any other text that detail Lieutenant Mune's endeavours during the war against the Baguettes.
System: Valhaling
Ruling faction: Galactic Vikings
Conflicting force: Star Norse Union
Planet: Valhaling 2
Earth Masses: 1.8410
Gravity: 1.41 G
Surface Temperature: 503K, 229C, 445F
Lt. Mune, Rowan. GALVIK GRIN-Unit
Rowan tightened his grip on the armrest. The Vulture shook violently. Brightness bloomed somewhere on the fighter’s starboard side immediately followed by another shake.
“We’re coming in hot, soldier” the pilot’s voice boomed through the intercom channel.
“Roger that,” Rowan replied. He unbuckled from the seat and paused on his way to the drop-hatch to gaze at the battlefield below.
Straight ahead lay the gray, desolate face of the planet; illuminated by streaks of light where dropships traded fire as they deployed their cargo; armed soldiers seeking to defend their factions' interests. Explosions blossomed here and there as anti-air weapons tried their best to keep GalVik soldiers from deploying. The damned french-fries had hacked the outpost defense systems. A minor concern, nothing the Vikings couldn’t reverse with a little ingenuity … and a lot of firepower to grease the wheels. Still, the Frenchies had a considerable presence, Rowan was glad Commander Skandragon was on-site and wreaking havoc. So far, rumors had reached beyond the system of her endeavors; how she had single-handedly liberated several settlements from the blasted Baguettes.
The pilot turned towards him and waved a hand, “better get strapped in. We’re about to enter the AA-killzone!” That got him moving. Luckily it was not far to run from the cockpit to the drop hatch. He was the only soldier on this particular flight, he was just a replacement. A unit commander had bit the dust and GalVik High Command had headhunted him, specifically, to take over leadership of the unit, instead of promoting one of its surviving members. Though he could understand the decision, based solely on his resume, he still wondered why. He was certain that he would not immediately be popular among the unit he was about to assume command over. He’d been there before, part of a tight-packed unit when their commanding officer croaked, then some cherry new guy would come and tell them what to do. It was going to become a problem, Rowan knew that much from experience. He’d deal with it when he got that far, as for now; he had to survive the drop.
He strapped himself into one of the harnesses and slammed the greenlight-button, telling the pilot he was ready. He did not have to wait long. The vulture lurched left, causing Rowan to sway in his harness and his stomach to clench against the sudden onset of false vertigo, an external explosion sent a shockwave rippling through the hull; setting his teeth chattering before the Vulture went into a nosedive straight down before veering right. Rowan’s legs lifted in the opposite direction, as did his lunch, and another blast rippled through the hull shaking him further. He was beginning to believe he would never see his boots hit the dust. His skin flattened against his skull, feeling pounds heavier as the Vulture straightened itself. Then the pilot hit the boosters hard, probably redlining both the thrusters and the engine. Rowan could feel his lunch crawl back up his throat. He bit down and ground his teeth; refusing to drop onsite with a helmet full of vomit.
“Dropping in ten!” The pilot sounded out of breath. Beneath Rowan, the floor fell away as the drop hatch opened. He felt his stomach lurch again as he suddenly looked down on a crater-pocked planetary surface ruled by dust and shade. I might die down there, he mused.
“Odin, should my blood wet the Dustlands of Valhaling-Two this day; make a garden grow forth from it, worthy of Frey,” he barely finished the quick prayer before the harness yanked him back and down. Rowan craned his neck, trying to read the surroundings as best he could as the harness turned him around to face the opposing rack of empty harnesses. Then the support of the harness vanished, leaving him in a split-second state of inertia before gravity got hold of him and pulled him down.
He produced his TK Aphelion Laser Automatic Rifle before he engaged his suit’s thrusters to combat the gravitational pull, slowing his fall the last ten feet out of a sixty feet drop in total. Above him, the vulture was already veering off to the side and firing off its chaff-launchers to avoid the heavy barrage from the anti-air cannons.
Rowan did a quick three-sixty scan of his surroundings before slamming his back against the foundation of a solar-powered recharge station. Above him, the vulture’s shields gave way to the incoming flak and disintegrated in a storm of electromagnetic pulses and photons. The visor on his helmet polarized against the brightness, but the shields of his suit took a severe dent due to the electromagnetic pulse. He eyed the vulture as it pitched its nose down and dove beneath the anti-air cannon’s field of fire. The damages to the hull had been minor, so long as no other aircraft pursued it; it would make it back to Ferguson Prospect safe.
With his pulse already riding high, he exited his cover; rifle leading, and did a new scan of his forward direction. The main complex lay ahead, flanked by dozens of smaller buildings.
Movement caught his eye and he snapped his crosshairs onto a three-man unit hunkering down in an equipment shelter. The roofs above them were raised on poles and there weren’t any walls; instead they had waist-high barriers to hide behind made from gray concrete painted yellow to stand out from the dreary surroundings. Now the question remained whether they were friend or foe. Without any atmosphere to carry sound, sneaking up on them was no bother. Except that his 80 kilograms of body weight, combined with a twenty-five-kilogram Dominator-Class combat suit and three weapons totalling at six kilograms on a one-point-forty-one-gee planet made him weigh roughly one hundred and fifty-seven kilograms. Even with the suit enhancing his movement and strength, it was something completely different from the zero-gee environments he was used to. What if the enemy were better acclimated to the gravitational pull than him? What if their suits allowed for quicker movement and greater strength. Not only would they grow tired slower, but their reflexes would seem enhanced and even cat-like compared to his sluggish movements.
Rowan had been scanning for allied communication frequencies as he made his way towards the shelter where the three unknowns were hiding out. As he drew closer, he went radio silent. He crawled the last twenty feet, staying below their line of sight over the waist-high walls, even if they were busy looking the other way. He was glad he had, as when he came closer, his IFF-scanner notified him of enemy proximity. Rowan dared a peek over the barricade to make absolutely sure. One of the soldiers bore a holographic projector on his shoulder reading Jotunheim Raiders. Rowan scoffed, these pretenders had no business cosplaying as Norsemen, Vikings or anything else. GalVik High Command had mentioned that the enemy were feigning common ancestry to share cultural roots with the Vikings. It may be true. The Viking Age had ended over two millennia ago, and the Vikings had left their trace throughout Europe, reaching as far inland so as to reach the middle-east. But the French had never maintained their Norse or Normannic reputation. Instead, they had twisted their mustaches, brandished their baguettes and engaged the Englishmen in battle, screaming ‘Omelet-du-fromage’.
Not that it mattered. None of that mattered. Not one tiny sliver of a bit. What mattered was GVHC’s standing orders. Any soldier affiliated with the false pretenders known as the Jotunheim Raiders were to be exterminated and left to rot and bleach in the dust and sun forever. “Let their corpses serve as a memorial to their own folly.” General Oxforth had been quoted in the Heimskringla news broadcast.
Rowan took a series of deep breaths before he rose from his cover, screaming death and destruction. He slammed his rifle-stock into his shoulder and leaned into it, and squeezed the trigger; firing even before the crosshairs found their target. The enemy soldiers noticed nothing immediately, as there was no atmosphere to carry Rowan’s warcry to their ears. Instead they had to wait for visual input; of which there were two.
First of which was the TK Aphelion’s rapid fire of laser beams that ripped through the shields of the nearest soldier, then the next. That’s when the second visual input alerted them of the attack: the motion sensors. Rowan was distantly aware that the heads-up-display of the nearest soldier wash his face with a red, blinking light while Rowan holstered the TK Aphelion and produced the Karma AR-50—a kinetic-force, ballistic auto rifle—leaned into the stock and squeezed the trigger once more. The rifle, weighing two kilograms on its own weighed eight hundred and twenty grams more on Valhaling-Two, reducing the kickback significantly and thereby allowing Rowan to fire center-mass on his first target. It took half the magazine to penetrate the soldier's suit. A breached suit was a death sentence on its own, but Rowan had no time to wait for the Frenchie to suffocate or die from his injuries. He fed another quarter magazine of rounds into his body, watching as the bullet punched blood out through the wound to immediately freeze and crystallize.
The dust, pulled tight against the planet's surface by the g-forces, barely rose from the ground where the soldier fell. Meanwhile; Rowan shifted the crosshairs of his Karma Automatic Rifle right and fired into the next target. His shields were also drained by the previous thermal onslaught from the TK Aphelion Laser Automatic Rifle. Rowan let the kickback have its will this time, allowing the muzzle to climb until the rounds ripped into the soldier’s neck where the suit was more flexible and therefore less protective against ballistics.
The suit ruptured, spraying a cloud of crystallized oxygen as it vented out into the vacuum. Then a pillar of blood ejected from the jugular only to freeze in place. The soldier, refusing reality, grasped futilely at the suit rupture and the wound, breaking the frozen column of blood into a cloud of crimson crystals that gravity seized and pulled down hard. Rowan vaulted the barricade holstering the Karma as well, ripping the TK Zenith from its holster and dodging left to avoid the third soldier’s fire. The automatic plasma fire ripped past Rowan, biting into his shields and reducing it further before he was behind cover leaning against a stack of crates. The odds were against him, he realized. His shields were at twenty-one percent. The remaining enemy’s shields were at full strength. The enemy also had his primary weapon out, if he was equipped like Rowan, that meant he had one more primary weapon and a secondary handgun. Rowan had no time to reload his Aphelion or his Karma AR. Which meant he was left with his TK Zenith, the rapid-burst-fire thermal laser pistol. It was great against shields, but rubbish against the suits themselves. Still, orders were orders.
Rowan shouldered out of his cover, ducking to a knee whilst hoisting his gun up. As soon as the crosshairs overlapped the enemy, be it legs, torso or head, he fired. The suit’s shield generator did not distinguish, it didn’t give a fuck. As far as the shield generator was concerned, a suit rupture was a death sentence, so it did its darndest to keep that from happening. The enemy returned fire, breaking Rowan’s shields with the first burst of fire. Rowan screamed, stood and charged, gun leading. The enemy staggered back in surprise, momentarily letting go of the trigger. Rowan kept shooting, burst after burst. On the fourth press of the trigger, the lasers from the Zenith lanced out and penetrated the Frenchie’s shields. They popped like a balloon with a burst of electromagnetic energy and rogue photons. Rowan slammed into him. One hundred and fifty-seven kilograms propelled by pure, seething rage sent the French-fry reeling. Rowan planted his feet and slammed the butt of the Zenith into the raider’s helmet hard enough to crack the glass. Oxygen shot out through the crack like a geyser. The Raider’s eyes met Rowan’s. They were full of fear and resignation.
After all; a suit rupture was as good as a death sentence.
Rowan watched the Raider’s eyes plead in silence. When determination finally took hold; as the echoes of Fleet Admiral Ramforth’s Orders echoed through Rowan’s mind, the Raider’s eyes grew wide with realization. And horror.
Rowan clenched his fist and slammed it into the Raider’s visor hard enough to break both glass and bone. The glass came apart and exploded outwards as the air jettisoned out of the suit in a mist of gray tainted with a soft pink trailing from the Frenchie’s nose. The soldier fell backwards and Rowan strode forth to look down upon him as he lay gasping for air. But what good can a set of human lungs do against the vacuum of space eternal. Soundlessly, he lay there writhing in the dust, fighting against a fate already sealed. The frost bit into his eyes, first, covering them in crystals. Then it spread across his face with such fierce speed that Rowan found himself cringing. The cold delved into the Raider’s nostrils and mouth, delving deep only to freeze him from the inside out. Come morning, when the star of Valhaling rose above the horizon, the body would fry to a crisp in a matter of minutes in the five-hundred-plus kelvin heat.
With that, Rowan turned on his radio again and started scanning for frequencies.
“Lieutenant Mune, GalVik GRIN, checking in. Is anybody there?” Rowan transmitted the message and waited for a reply.
“Lieutenant! Where the hell are you? Systems show your ship dropped twenty minutes ago,” the heads up display showed that this was Commander Skand, leader of the ground forces engaging the Frenchies on Valhaling 2.
“Affirmative,” Rowan replied, “dropped outside the facility, had to walk a bit. Stumbled over three Frenchies entrenched in an equipment shelter. They’re dealt with.”
“Good job, soldier,” Commander Skand replied, “now get your ass over here, pronto.” A decryption key was transmitted to his comms-unit, allowing Rowan to unveil the hidden GalVik Nav Beacon.
“Coordinates received, commander. Headed your way now,” Rowan replied, and started walking.