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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/GeneralLeia-SAOS on 2024-10-29 09:58:25+00:00.
1st Lieutenant Manuel Ortega Rodriguez knew he was going to get into trouble, but this would be worth it. He had always been a good marine until now, but there was too much at stake.
His best friend, Marco, was killed 6 months ago when their battalion had been foolishly ordered to establish a post in the Skrizzit system. There was a lot of bitter blood between Earth and the insectoid Skrizzit, and the only possible winning strategy would be complete genocide. But idiot politicians and bootlicker generals, more concerned with their careers than their men, decided that sending a battalion would be sufficient, to test the situation.
Unfortunately for the battalion, the Skrizzit were much smarter than the politicians and boot lickers. They hit the battalion and support fleet fast during the attempted landing. Marines were jumping out of flight craft in their power suits, charged up and ready, or so they thought. During the free fall towards the ground, Marco had been hit, with one leg completely missing and another partially gone. Manuel had also been hit, but it was his landing and maneuvering rockets. As he started to deadfall, his training kicked in. His grandfather had emphasized the importance of training, otra vez, otra vez, otra vez, so that when real calamity happened, when your brain panicked and shut down, your training took over.
Marcos legs were gone, but his power suit still had rockets. Manuel used the free fall training to aim himself to intercept Marco while tucking in his limbs to reduce drag. His heart was beating so fast he couldn’t feel the individual beats, just a huge pressure in his chest. He wasn’t sure if he was sweating; the wind was so fast as he fell that it instantly dried any moisture. As Manuel fell to Marco dangerously fast, he held his breath. It was too fast. They were going to collide and surely perish.
BAM! They did collide with a deafening crunch. Manuel realized that during the fall, he had activated the magnetic interlocks on his power suit, so that when he hit Marco, their suits automatically aligned. Technically, Marco should have been given command of their combined unit because he was higher ranking, but med sensors on his suit showed his distress so that command was given to Manuel.
He was able to slow their descent to avoid a fatal crash, for himself at least. Marco wasn’t so lucky. The impact aggravated further injuries even more. Marcos face was bashed and bloody, his breathing ragged, and the med sensors on the power suit screeched, desperately trying to save him. Marco choked out, coughing blood, “Take care of Rosario and…” a final cough that spit blood on Manuel’s face and his eyes glassed over. Marco was dead.
Manuel punched the termination sequence activator on Marcos suit. A black box released and a self destruct countdown started. Earthforce power suits were legendary, and self destruct was installed into all of them to prevent enemy acquisition and reverse engineering. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to prevent tears. Then he ran.
The forest he landed in was sparse, having suffered decades of ecological damage when voracious non-indigenous species had been introduced. He wondered if it was his destiny to die here, in some sort of cosmic retribution scheme. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to cooperate.
He encountered a few Skrizzits here and there, both instantly shooting to kill on sight. He was able to rob a corpse of a weapon and a few explosives. They were the best of luck. He would shoot somewhat haphazardly with the weapon. Skrizzit would reveal themselves, thinking it one of their own, then Manuel took them out.
He passed a couple other Marines, who had perished in the fall down. He removed their black boxes and set the self destructs. The broken bodies and bloody faces were a horror, but the most nightmarish thing he saw was a rabbit. It was chewing on the corpse of a marine, looking painfully emaciated. It was rumored that rabbits that were hungry enough would actually resort to scavenging, and it certainly was true. He debated shooting the rabbit, but didn’t want the noise to draw attention. The decision was made for him when a mangy emaciated coyote pounced on the rabbit, so hungry that it was trying to eat the rabbit before it died. Manuel recorded which man it was, then flung a Skrizzit explosive at the marine. The Coyote would undoubtedly want to feast on the marine as well, and if it were in a pack, Manuel would also be in serious danger of attack.
While Manuel felt no pity for the Skrizzit he killed, he was horrified by the condition of the animals. Skrizzit had launched an unprovoked attack on Argentina when he was a boy. He could still remember it vividly. So in retaliation, the greatest general in Earths history, MORI, had retaliated. He had brought hundreds of thousands of the most invasive animal species Earth had to offer, and dumped them on Skrizzit to destroy their ecology. It worked, this planet was still a barren wasteland. Occasionally a do good faction would get support to try a humanitarian mission to Skrizzit, and they were always met with hostility.
Manuel made it to the rally point and saw Skrizzit waiting in ambush. It was only 100 meters to safety, but the Skrizzit would pick him off. He backtracked around them. He crawled out of his power suit. He grabbed a pack, put all the black boxes in, including his own and whatever explosives he could. He set the self destruct timer on his suit, then ran the furthest distance he could from the suit within range. Once he was at his designated spot he fired Earth and Skrizzit weapons towards the suit. The noise and impacts got the attention of the Skrizzit so they went to see. Manuel was able to pick off a couple, then the suit exploded. That was that.
He went to to the precise rally point and waited. He noticed that nearby Skrizzit all went to check the area where his power suit had been blown to modern art, but ignored him. That may be valuable information; Skrizzit seemed better at tracking human power suits than just humans.
As the copter craft descended to the rally point, marines in power suits emerged from the woods, followed by Skrizzit in hot pursuit. Manuel took a partially concealed position, using the stolen Skrizzit weapon to shoot as much as possible. The ruse worked; the Skrizzit seemed to think they were mistakenly being hit by friendly fire that missed the marines.
Landing was too risky for the copter, so it dropped monkey lines to retrieve marines. The power suits had a magnetic grappler so that the lines could instantly pull them up into the copter. Manuel shouted at the marines attaching themselves to cables, so they would know there was still an unsuited man, ie a man without a location status beacon. Manuel continued to provide cover fire, until the copter signaled it was time for him to grab a line and retreat if possible.
He tossed the remaining explosives he had toward what he thought was the main Skrizzit group. He holstered the Skrizzit weapon and pulled his firearm weapon.
Many worlds had tried to get human firearms banned under the Galactic laws of warfare for being a very ugly and brutal inflicter of death. Surprisingly, the best argument that Earthgov had for maintaining the legality of kinetic firearms was the low environmental impact. They didn’t have the dangerous effects of energy pulses, chemical weapons, biohazards, radiation, structural and tectonic instability of sub sonic weapons, radiation or a variety of other environmental hazards. Firearms simply made things bleed and die.
He wrapped the monkey line around his left arm and through his legs. As he was one of the last men, the copter began to take off, while the retrieval switch for the line was activated. Dear God! He thought it was going to tear his arm out. He howled and sprayed the ground under him with bullets. He saw a couple Skrizzit get hit. He used all of his concentration to shoot below him so he would avoid hitting another marine, as he felt like his arm was being yanked out of his body. He felt the pain through his shoulder, neck, ribs, chest, and back. The Skrizzits attempted to return fire, and he was grazed a couple times. That just added to the agony.
Back on the transport, he saw men fainting from pain and envied them. His left side was immobilized and he was given minimal pain medication so he could be coherent enough to be debriefed. It seemed he had lost count of how many black boxes he grabbed, which turned out to be 12, with the box from his suit being 13. He had also provided cover fire for 12 other marines to get retrieved by the copter, so he was the 13th man into the vehicle. The story seemed a little fantastic until the black boxes from all the power suits were reviewed. As it turned out, the Skrizzit weapon and an unused explosive were unfamiliar designs, so they were very valuable to Earthforce intelligence.
He healed remarkably well from his injuries, even though he spent most of the voyage back to Earth in a med gel tank. A Templar chaplain came to talk to him. He was older, on the verge of retirement. He smiled softly at Manuel, “Your grandfather initiated me into the Templars. You would do him proud.” Manuel and the chaplain exchanged several stories, a few of which straightened out some rather entertaining rumors.
As the ship was approaching Earth, Manuel spoke to his commanding officer. He asked to be part of the bereavement detail to...
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