Farlorn's Forlorn
Chapter Nine: (Un)fortunate sons
Part One
Tags:
Ruus Kote
G 3 M 1 N 1
Skylar Vikaar
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“Hey,” He felt someone jab the side of his thigh with a boot.
He peeked open one of his eyelids.
“What is it, Porky?”
“You ever wonder why we’re here?”
“You mean practical or theoretical?”
“What? When’d you learn such big words?”
Annoyed, Trooper Karsaw opened both his eyelids and sat up. He cracked his neck which was feeling quite awkward due to the angle against the flight harness he had decided to take a nap in. His fully-sealed battledress crinkled as he shifted himself. He could feel the sweat already pooling in his underpants, and he wanted so desperately just to rip it off, but orders were orders, and the Colonel was not a man that tolerated disobedience.
“What I meant just now is did you mean if you wondered the reason we were here in the sense of why are we here right now on a ship hurling onto a world where death is its middle name? Or if you meant it in the grand scheme of things, useless stuff like why we’re here or the equally silly question of our purpose. Trust me in a universe as mad this one, you’d probably find the truth just a pleasing as a pile of bantha poodoo.”
“That’s still… a lot of words.” Porky scratched the back of his bald head.
To say he was a large man was an understatement. He was just a standard human and he was nearly two meters tall and half that as wide. At first sight, he might have looked dumb and simple and admittedly that was mostly true. But to those that knew him, he was sweet and kind and would look out for you in the tightest spots. The fact that he could carry a heavy blaster repeater would have taken a weapon crew numbering four to use like it was nothing and had decided to crudely tape two together, connecting the triggers with a bent mess-hall fork, probably helped that reputation.
Karsaw, on the other hand, seemed to be the polar opposite of the giant of a man. His head barely came up to his chest and he had a tongue so sharp that it made Major Fennstrum blush.
“Well if you’re asking why we’re right now waiting to march to our death. Its cause some higher-up with such rod up their arse that it has its own rod told the Colonel that there’s some valuable crystal on this hell-world we gotta get cause it’ll make them richer and it’ll be no biggie if a few thousand poor folk like us die if it meant them getting an extra zero point zero one percent richer.”
“The Colonel would never send us to die for nothin’. Bet ya there’s more to that.”
“Oh, you’ll be losing the few credits you go left. You know the rumor within the ranks that’s going around?”
“No, I don’t really listen. Mostly just mean stuff about other people that we don’t need.”
“Well, the mill’s churning out the rumor that our dear commander is thinking about getting into politics. Rumour’s that our commander’s tired of being just some bric-a-brac mud-slogger that’s just ordered about to send his men to his death. He’s got his own ambitions, his own dreams and we’re going to die for that. That’s why we’re here. Just so that bastard can get some political clout.”
“I think you’re wrong. I think he’s got a better reason than that. Farlorn’s a nice man and he promised us our own home if we win him enough.”
“Oi!” Captain Osowiec called from the front of the craft and leaned forward as far as his restraint rigs could allow him.
“Quit your yapping. We’re hitting the ground in three minutes.”
“Here’s a quick reminder to all you dogs,” Osowiec had to yell over the growing sound of the turbines and the jostling as they entered the atmosphere in diving attack formation. Fourty men paid their utmost attention to him. It would have been Thirty-nine if Trooper Milo wasn’t busy hurling his rations out on the floor.
“Keep tight. I want at least one eyeball on one person at all times and constant radio contact. You see something, you say something. I don’t care if it’s a branch swaying in the breeze, you call it in. Don’t be a hero and try to take one of these bastards one on one.”
He fumbled for something in his pocket and then threw it onto the bay floor. The holo-projector sputtered on, revealing a terrain map of the surrounding area with sigils marking points of interest.
“We’ll be coordinating with the Mando’s on this one. Yes, yes, I can already hear your thoughts and they ain’t too bright but these ain’t the same ones that tried to murder our Vicelord so play nice if you come across one of them. They have the armor and the firepower to blast their way to the objective but they don’t know what’s two feet in front of their noses in this environment, even if it spat in their faces. They could be walking ambush after ambush and all they could do is piss against the wind.”
“So here’s where we come in to save their sorry arses. We’ll be providing recon for them. Our job’s to scout ahead and find concentrations of enemy forces that we can’t handle on our own and mark them so the Mando’s can blast those suckers into atoms. Should be simple enough for you dummies.”
“I’m not sure that Vraks over here understands.” Grant laughed as he pointed to his neighbor.
“Grant, if I did not have this harness holding me back, I would strangle you with my bare hands.” His sullen friend moaned.
“You keep saying that yet you don’t. I tell you, the lad here is in love with me.”
Suddenly, the speakers crackled to life and the voice of the pilot blurted through.
“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! WE HAVE TARGET LOCK!”
The drop-ship jolted so hard that one of the troopers yelped in pain when their shoulder dislocated. Equipment packs despite being tightly secured to regulations broke their moorings and went flying all around, striking Grant in the head. His head lolled loosely and blood poured from it. Vraks was screaming.
“That wasn’t normal. Was that?” Karsaw whispered.
“All systems are down!” The pilot yelled frantically.
“What the hell did they hit us with? I’m putting us down as softly as I can but it's still gonna be bumpy so strap in tight folks.”
The ship was shaking so hard that Karsaw couldn’t focus on anything. Alarms were blaring and red emergency lights snapped on, blurring into scarlet streaks before his rattling eyes. Something somewhere exploded. The acrid smell of smoke filled his nostrils as wires began to burn. It hurt his throat with every breath. Then the entire compartment became pitch-black.
“Hoods on! Hoods on!” He could still somehow still hear Osowiec.
“Yourself first and then help others if they need it!”
Fumbling, Karsaw reached for the gas-hood on his belt. Discipline and training paid off as even despite the chaos he calmly ripped his gas-hood out of its pouch, shook it out, and fitted it over his head, adjusting it so the plastic eyeslits sat squarely and clearly. He tested a few short and rapid breaths, checking to seals to find they were sound.
Still, it was insanity. It was so hard to breathe in these hoods and the claustrophobia made even season soldiers panic. Everything was so loud, echoing again and again inside the hood. He shut his eyes a tight as he could, praying and praying that he would just wake up from this nightmare.
But it didn’t stop. It just got worse. The dread bio-ship came in for another run, its tri-laser pulse cannons sparking. It punched straight through the armor of the drop-craft, leaving behind molten white-hot holes.
Vraks was slammed to the side. Something hurt. A terrible, exposed cold filled his legs and lower torso and he looked down to see that there was an extraordinarily large, bloody hole in his gut. What was left of his innards were falling out in a steaming pile like the outstretched limbs of a beached cephalopod.
Then they hit the ground… there was a terrible sliding sound of grinding metal… the heat of some fire… and then as if as an afterthought, complete senseless darkness.
----
“Landing Craft B-5 is down.” Chief-Comms Officer Bellary announced.
“But that damned alien craft finally got hit by a missile and is no longer a threat.”
Colonel Anakwar Farlorn gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. Almost an entire platoon lost in a blink of an eye. Vital heavy equipment and veteran troops are just gone.
“Send my compliments to Naval Command for assuring me their escort would bring my troops down to the earth in safety. When this is done, you’ll have to try very hard to stop me strangling whatever wing-officer was in command here.” He rubbed his forehead and sighed.
“Are there any survivors?”
“Yes, we’ve detected about two dozen life signals still beating down there. I mean you’ve got to give it to their pilot. They’re lucky, crash landing just a klick away from the Mandos.” At the very least some good information but still men were dead and equipment was lost before first proper contact.
“Do send a request to Mister
Ruus Kote
to extract my men with all due haste. I shall recommend that he bring medical personnel with him since there’s a chance we may have incapacitated soldiers. Have Captain Osowiec lads sit tight and fortify their position. There is a chance, though small given their proximity, that Charon stragglers may take notice of their predicament so I would like them prepared well for that possibility.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the meantime have the first wave stick to the plan and advance with caution into the treeline.”
“Your will be done, sir."
---
Second-Class Trooper Robutel Karsaw woke up and was disappointed that the events before his black-out were not actually a dream. He was upside down, blind, suspended painfully from his restraint rig, his ribs bruised blue and a taste of blood in his mouth. Everything, every inch of his body hurt, but he slowly realized that was a good thing. It meant he was still, miraculously, alive.
Upside down, Porky’s massive face swallowed his entire vision.
“You okay?”
“Oh, yes,” Karsaw’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“I feel as if I just took a nice visit to a four-star galactic spa. No, I’m clearly not okay.”
“Maybe this’ll help you feel better.” Grunting, he started jostling the harness back and forth, using his brute strength in an attempt to just rip it out of its socket. It was hurting the pain in his ribs more.
“Not there…” Karsaw moaned and pointed downwards. “
There’s a lever down there you can flick.”
“Smart thinking.” Then Karsaw realized something.
“Wait! Wait!” He cried out but it was too late. Porky had already unlocked the harness and dropped half a meter onto the sloping roof of the troop-ship.
“Ooops sorry,” Porky sheepishly said and helped Karsaw up.
Groaning, Karsaw got to his feet and patted the big man on the chest.
“No problem. My fault… my fault.”
“You hurt…” Porky asked.
“More than just now?"
Karsaw shook his head.
“I’ll walk again. Where are we.”
Porky took a moment to think.
“We’re eye-deep in bantha poodoo as the Captain said.”
Stepping out of the escape hatch, Karsaw blinked at the sunlight coming through the lens of his gas hood. The drop-ship that had impacted on its back was nothing more than a crumpled piece of metal that looked like a giant had stepped on it. It had left a trail of destruction through dozens of trees and digging a trench in the dirt nearly a meter deep. He looked around. Just a the reports had said, they were in a thick jungle. The trees here was massive, some looking to tower almost fifty meters easily with great thick canopies. Strung around these trees were thick ropey vines, creepers, and flowering tendrils, and thorny fern and bracken covered the moist, steaming ground. But there was something wrong with them. They were all yellowed and diseased-looking. Plant-growths were overly ripe and many lay on the forest floor rotting as clouds of flies swarmed around them. He caught a glimpse of a small rat-like creature darting between cover. Its fur was mangey and it was so thin he could see its ribs jutting out.
Porky clumsy climbed through the hatched and joined Karsaw at his side.
“I don’t like this.”
“Same.”
The pair of them found Captain Osowiec and the others just a few paces away from the crash trying to gather their wits again. Most just had bruises and cuts in their tunics that the medics sealed up.
They had set up on the edge of a wide-open clearing where the knee-high dry yellow grass swayed with the wound. It was over a hundred meters before the treeline began again. A small rocky stream formed the line of separation between forest and opening.
There was a pile of equipment they had managed to salvage. Everybody had a rifle. There were half a dozen rocket-launchers, each sharing ten rockets between themselves ranging from AP, HE, all the way the Napalm. They had a few mines, the ones that would jump up after being activated and detonate mid-air, butchering everyone around for ten meters in a storm of shrapnel. Some satchels of heavy explosives as well as a heavy repeating blaster, not counting Porky’s one.
Osowiec already had those that could, around fifteen in all, setting up a perimeter around the crash site and he had Milo in the wreck operating the radio, sending our updates every five minutes.
Karsaw approached the Captain.
“Glad to see you in one piece, sir."
Osowiec clutched his head with one hand.
"With this pain in my noggin, I wish I wasn't."
"Where’s the pilot? I didn't see him coming out with me.”
“There.” Osowiec gestured to several black tarps that had been laid out. Karsaw counted sixteen and shook his head again. He had long since been desensitized to loss but still, they were his brothers and sisters. It wasn’t right they went out like this, so far from home and in such a place.
“Where do you need me?” He said, trying to take his mind off the sight.
“You look like you can walk.” Osowiec pondered for a moment, tapping his finger against his chin.
“Go up to Speranzza’s mob by that fallen tree trunk over there. Take Porky with you and help feed his repeater.”
“Yes, sir.” Karsaw waved over Porky who was helping move around some empty ammo-boxes and razor-wire to cover their open flank by the clearing.
“Come on!”
“Remember!” Osoweic called after them.
“See something, say something. These aliens are a sneaky bunch, maybe even put the pathfinders to shame.”
The last sentence actually sent a pang of doubt down Karsaw’s spine. The Pathfinders were the most elite that the rangers could give. Masters in recon, tracking, and most of all in stealth, they were virtually ghosts. One of them could stand right in the middle of a well-lit hallway and you’d have to squint just to realize they were there. To say they had equals… surely, the Captain was just stretching the truth for comedic effect.
As they began to approach Speranzza’s position, a breeze swept through the forest. Karsaw heard leaves rustle and branches snap back and forth. Birds in the distance took flight. Insects buzzed with the sound of a chainsaw. Hooting from some sort of primate was echoing between the trees.
Then silence. Total, utter silence. Not a whisper, not a gust of wind. Even the babbling of the water from the stream had seemed to cease. Karsaw could hear nothing but his own breathing and raised voices. Others had also noticed the oddity.
Karsaw had the strangest urge to look across the clearing and saw despite the lack of wind that the trees on the other side were moving. They were shivering and vibrating. He squinted. Shadows were moving. His eyes widened and he was about to shout a warning when the first of them emerged into the clearing.
Easily three meters tall and was encased in a thick carapace exoskeleton. Their bodies were segmented like an insect, held up by four hairy spider-legs with two pairs of thick burly arms protruding from its torso. Its head was squat, wide, and shaped like an egg, ending with short, rattling mouthparts that twitched constantly. Karsaw swore that the eight eyes, black as the center of a void-hole, were staring right at him.
Before he blinked, there had only been one. Now there were three, and many, many more coming out of the treeline.
Ten... twenty… thirty…
And they were just standing there, looking at the Confederate with cocked heads. They were hesitating, their curiosity to these new arrivals for a moment overpowering their all eternal urge to butcher anything that was remotely different to them.
To their credit, Osowiec’s men did not hesitate and at once opened fire with everything they had. They unleashed a barrage of blaster-bolts and heavy-duty slug rounds at their enemy with unnerving accuracy. Rocket’s whizzed out, leaving behind funny white cork-screw patterns, all loaded with so much high explosive that more than one tree fell when a solo round hit its mark and leaving behind a crater a meter deep. Some detonated mid-air, spreading out a blanket of ignited napalm so hungry that it sucked the oxygen out of the surrounding air. Even the moist vegetation easily caught. Toxic ink smoke gushed out from the intense flames, mixing with the steam to create a truly vile smell.
For once, Karsaw was glad to be wearing his gas-hood.
The front ranks of the Charon buckled and toppled, some splintering apart, some bursting into puffs of green ichor. Some stumbled forward, entombed in a layer of napalm that was seeping right through the weakest parts of their armor and cooking them alive from the inside. One of them had their skin a bright red hue after they had been boiled by the steam.
But make no mistake they were charging, leaping forward in great bounds that covered a meter every time. The rangers were cutting them down like there was no tomorrow with their expert gunnery but there were so many of them, it was like a solid wave of jostling bodies that was leaving a carpet of dead behind it.
“Engagement! Engagement!” Osowiec frantically broadcasted on his comms-bead on all channels.
“Oh, bollocks. I’ve got a over hundred bloody hostiles in front of me and they’re coming in fast! They get one us and it’ll be bayonets and then we’ll be taken apart like speeder being found by Jawas!”
Alaria Telwith
Alban Roble
Luca Donskoi
Amelia von Sorenn
Anakwor Farlorn
Anashla Deshal
Ar'tal Ktruok
Archon Xris
Ashelia Solidor
Aston Jacobs
Aya Clarke
Bastille Rommer
Beric Layne
Bentil Mortop
Bullwark
Corvus Dravere
Colton Renth
Corran Watts
Damsy Callat
Jayce Pryde
Decious
Draconis Sederius Wolf
Easy-G97
Eli-Mae Forrest
Melina Suarez
Fawn Alzi
Faye Malvern
FN-1138
Gerwald Lechner
Holt
Hester Shedo
IG-65A
Joannis Campbell
John Locke
Julra Repraj
Karlie Lynn Destat
Kasca Fen
Kathryn Foster
Kayla Wylen
Kiff Brayde
Krystal
Kurenai Yumi
Kyber
Lady Moll
Lesya Kosarev
Luna Terrik
Lyla Quinn
Maani
Maple Harte
Maria Savilia
Mathieu Brion
Maur
Mila Uhlesifa
Millu Lee
Fury of Aerðs
Muad Dib
Myrrdin_Emries
Nimue
Nine Lives
Pravus Cruento
R4-AUD
Rabbit
Rann Thress
Razelle Breuner
Redd
Rylan Kordel
Sabine Delacroix
Saram Kote
SC-A1
The Monster
Shuklaar Kyrdol
Srina Talon
Startorn
Subject 73 Red
Taiia Locke
Talon Rahl
Talak Jenste
Tess Valnora
Teyla Sal-Soren
ToKola Bakari
Tyran Numeck
Uxagi Xatash
Valencia Hadley
Vanric Dannon
Veronika Fleischer
Vess Sadragen
Visanj T'shkali
Kyyrk
Vyse de Valorous
Vytal Noctura
Valeria de la Vallée
Cord Starfall
Telula Vale
Alluria Ivalice
Oleander Webb
