Chapter 4

Working our way back to the main base, I did a visual check of the men under my command. I noticed that Jax had a small leak in his jetpack.

"Switch, use that repair pack and fix Jax's jets." I relayed to my teammate.

"Sure thing, Gan." he responded. "So, have you had any reports from base?"

"No. This damn desert is terrible for communication unless you happen to have broadband." I answered. "I think at about a hundred yards we'll get a clear signal though." I started loading the extra ammo into my spare weapons as the crack in Jax's jetpack got gradually smaller. About five minutes away from the compound, I started to hear the crackle of the comm in my ear. Listening to what little I could understand, I relayed to the men that we had one hell of a fight to get ready for.

The Blood Angels were the first group to accept me into their ranks. I remembered the first battle we had ever fought. It was in the swamplands of some backwater place. The planet had had a bad reputation for not allowing anyone to leave it. We, along with about fifty other men and women, were assigned to protect a stronghold being built due to there being a large metal concentration in what little land there was. I was still being given the ribbing due a junior member of the team. I had awakened that morning to find a very large and very bright target painted on my armor. Going along with the joke, I walked around all day shouting "Shoot me!" at passersby. When the attack sirens sounded, there was no time to start scrubbing, so I had to fight like a madman. The respect from my teammates grew that day, and the pranks and ribbing stopped too.

Clearing my mind from my reverie, I focused on the task at hand. Reaching the lip of the depression, we could see the base finally. The carnage and destruction that met our eyes was unlike any other we had ever witnessed before. One of the barracks was a smoldering mass of charred metal. The tarmac looked as if a deranged gopher had decided to call it home. As Hippie flickered back into life on the comm, directing a flank movement, I noticed the sheer number of red triangles bouncing back and forth on my HUD.

"I think their reinforcements got here a little sooner than expected." mumbled Jax.

"Big D... we're back from the skirmish... where do you want us? I asked into my mic. "Goose and Roberts are down, but not out for the count." I added.

"I see you on the scanner, Gangreen." Big D answered immediately. "We're sorta holed up right now, but if you can give us a little leeway, we've got something big waiting for these b******s."

"Gotcha covered. Jax," I called while motioning to a depression a few hundred yards to our right, "head on over there and do that sniping voodoo you do so well." He grinned at me then took off. "Switch, what's your grenade count?"

"Full load, Gan." He replied.

"Well, then, hope you're warmed up, 'cause we're gonna try to pitch a no-hitter tonight." I gave the signal for an escort and headed down the gentle incline towards the destruction.

I noticed that the enemies' attentions were centered on securing the one barracks left standing. With their focus elsewhere, I hoped that we would have the element of surprise. We were loping along the line of shadow being cast from the lip of the crater, so as to make our outlines hard to see. Taking a quick glance at my HUD, I noticed the the green markers that were my teammates were intermingled with the glaring red spots. "They must be underground!" I thought to myself "Might want to be careful of the grenades." About fifty yards away from the skeleton of the first barracks, someone spotted our position. "Now!" I yelled into my comm. Switch started lobbing grenades at the crowd with unerring accuracy. Switch was one of the few men that I knew that could toss grenades with the precision of a sniper and still be on the move at three different vectors at a time. As we reached the unsteady shelter of a pile of smoking wood, I heard the telltale buzz of a laser, followed by a streak of red, burn a line from right above my shoulder to the forehead of the heavy making the laborious turn to face us. The grenades started going off.

BOOM

"Okay, Big D." I started.

BOOM

"You've got your distraction..."

BOOM BOOM

"Better do what you need, 'cause we're sitting ducks out here." I finished. Taking a glance from behind cover, I noticed about five hoplites launching themselves up into the air to overtake our position. "Switch, you've got ground defense, I've got the skies."

Switch let out a primal scream followed by his signature, "Die, you decayed dogs of disease!!!" on the open channel. He launched out from behind the building frame with a grenade in each hand and a look in his eyes to give the undead chills.

I heard Hippie's voice in my ear. "Gangreen, stay away from the main crowd. They're about to be no more." I couldn't help but to hear the chuckle in his voice.

"Gotcha." I answered, dodging a disc. The five attackers suddenly became four after a shot from Jax. Switching over to my chaingun, I ripped a second man open with a hail of flechettes. As I headed toward the earth at a speed not normally dared by most people, I noticed a glint up on the ridge I was facing. I kicked on my thrusters and absorbed most of the shock of landing by doing a sideways roll and kicking off backwards after the roll was complete. The slight shock of the disc landing where I just was, pushed me into one of the many craters pocking the landscape. I exchanged my chaingun for the familiar grip of my spinfuzor while waiting for my energy pack to recharge.

"Another one down." Switch yelled on the channel. "Gan, I hope you don't like your hidey hole, 'cause some mortars are heading your way." He warned. I launched up out of the hole leaving a mine hanging from the lip as I blew by. Just as I had hoped, one of the incoming lites followed me with his eyes as his body continued forward.

KA-BOOM

Glancing down, I noticed his body was no longer going forward. Hopping around like a rabid jackrabbit, I took care of another bad guy before a shockwave bowled me over. For a split second, while I was tumbling head over heels through the air, I thought "Who brought the nuke?" I landed somewhat haphazardly and just had time to cover my head when a shower of dirt and bodies started raining around, and on, me. Hazarding a glance, I saw my whole team explode out of the new crater where the enemy throng used to be.

"Take 'em down, boys!" Big D hollered over the open channel. "These pieces of steaming coil are getting on my nerves." I lifted myself from the ground and started hopping over to the main collection of friendlies slowly spreading from the hole. I must have landed harder than I thought because I could only get a few feet off the ground before losing altitude. Running over to the group, I waved my hand in Big D's direction.

BZZZZZT

Red hot pain was all I could feel in the hand I had lifted. Falling to my knees, I raised my left hand to my face, and looked through the nicely cauterized hole in it. Even through the searing pain, I knew enough not to stay in the same place. I rolled to my left in time to see a scorch mark appear where I was just kneeling.

"I've got your back, Gan." I heard Jax say from what seemed to be a very long distance.

I slowly stood up and made my way to the building that my HUD told me where Hippie was. Oblivious to the battle, the only thing that made it through my fuzzy intellect was "Now how am I gonna flip burgers? I sure as hell can't do it with my right hand." Screams and explosions were ignored as I trudged my way to my friends.

"Well, it looks as if our medics may be able to do something, but I doubt that you'll ever get full use back." Hippie was informing me in the corner of a small room set aside for a medic station.

"Aw, man!" I whined back. "I stir soup with that hand. I simmer things. All my cooking's going to go to crap."

"You mean it's not there already?" Beef asked from the cot across the aisle. He was wrapped from the upper torso to his thighs. I'd heard that he was actually inside the first barracks when it exploded. Most of the gang was outside running off the last of the stragglers.

"Don't worry about it, Gangreen, we'll be sure to still eat what you serve up." Hippie assured me. "No one can fix up some of the grub you can."

"Thanks." I muttered under my breath.

Big D, being a little beaten around in his heavy armor was wincing as the nanobots stitched a large patch of flesh on his midsection. "Good show out there, Gan." he said to me. "Too bad we don't have rank in our little outfit or you'd be getting a promotion."

"Just doing my job, boss." I answered back with a grin on my face.

"And doing it like the bad a*s you are." he responded. 

 

Just then, a heavy with a charred helmet and armor smoking from use, tromped up to the doorway to the room.

Hippie looked up at him and slowly frowned. "You're not part..." he started as the man behind the mask lifted the mortar gun and pointed it directly at him. I heard the quiet poompf of the weapon discharging a mortar right into Hippie's chest. "OOF!" was all Hippie let out as the smoking canister knocked him off his feet.

"Get down!" Big D yelled as he launched himself of top of the mortar. The heavy standing in the door toppled over when Beef, purple with rage, pointed a plasma blaster at him and filled him with raw energy.

SLAM

Knocked off my bunk and bleeding, I crawled to the form that was previously my leader. I reached the spot where he lay wheezing. The lower half of Big D was gone, vaporized in the explosion. One eye rolled in my direction and a gurgling sound issued from his throat.

"Gan..." I could barely hear the whisper. "The dragon..." He took a long, hitching breath. "...never dies." Then, he collapsed, all the energy he had left used up in those few final words.