2951-10-04 – Tales from the Service: The Quickley Drop
Planet Quickley in the Lee-Hosha system was planned to be a major colonization site on the Sagittarius Frontier before the War; apparently most of the orbital and groundside factory hardware had already been delivered and was being set up when this side of the Gap was overrun. Since then, it has reportedly been an Incarnation depot world, a forward base manufacturing and storing spare parts and equipment.
Last week, our very own Nojus Brand made landfall with a Marine contingent dispatched to retake Quickley. Though I had other content prepared for today, Navy Signals brought in his first report earlier than expected. Evidently, the first forty-eight hours of the operation went well, and he was able to interview some of the Marines from the first wave.
I have only lightly edited his report for clarity and to remove a few points that Naval Intelligence was not willing to let me include.
Sergeant Myron Vergossen watched the scouting drone rise into the air until it was lost from sight. He missed operating on the other side of the Gap, where he would have F.V.D.A. troops handling little things like drone ops for his boys; out here on the Sagittarius side, a Marine had to do it, and that meant the squad had one less weapon pod, and Private Morello was doing what no private should ever be trusted to do – more than one thing at once.
So far, other than a spirited but ineffectual rocket bombardment of the LZ, and a few brave but equally ineffectual sharpshooters lurking in the lush canopies of Quickley’s towering tree-analogues, Myron’s squad hadn’t seen anything of the enemy. The briefing had suggested they would encounter a significant garrison and many fortified strong points with interlocking fields of fire, but so far, he and his boys had seen nothing of the kind, not even a smoking crater where such a fortification might have once existed.
Myron had been around long enough to Intelligence was usually wrong, but he also knew that it was never wrong in the favor of the Marines. Anyone who’d ever spent any time in a Rico suit knew only too well that suspiciously good news was evidence of enemy action.
At least Quickley was a beautiful place. They had landed in the temperate zone, on a small continent that was relatively flat and mostly forested, save for the broad, grassy coastal plains which had made such an ideal landing area. The roads were little more than dirt tracks winding through primeval woodland untouched by homesteads or villages. The only settlement that had been built on Quickley before the war was Q-S1, the partially complete spaceport site on the central plateau which hadn’t even been given the dignity of a proper name; most of the Incarnation effort on the world had been focused on this same site.
As the drone reached its optimal height, it started sending back thermal-image data of the ground ahead. The squad network used this to put the locations of anything alive on the various Marines’ helmet heads-up displays. Most of the glowing blips in front of them were probably animals cowering from the strange mechanical monsters tromping down the road that had been cut through their home, but it was impossible to be sure.
As the drone moved farther ahead, however, it spotted something that was definitely not an animal. A huge blob of heat in a thicket right next to the crossroads a kilometer ahead had a distinctly trapezoidal aspect. Most likely, it was a well-camouflaged bunker whose internal electronics were bleeding waste heat.
“Looks like we found the perimeter, Sarge.” Private Morello straightened, probably instructing the drone to circle the target.
“Probably.” Myron checked his map. If they followed the road, they’d be in that bunker’s field of fire before they could see it, and artillery capable of ranging the area wouldn’t be set up for a few more hours. The forest would slow them too much for a proper assault, and in their Rico suits, there’d be no way to sneak up on an Incarnation bunker, which was generally outfitted with more electronic sensors than a Confederated Navy destroyer. The engineers who’d built the bunker couldn’t have picked a bigger spot.
“What’s the play, Sarge?” Corporal Columbera waved one gauntleted hand toward the forest. “Think we can bypass it?”
“That’ll take all day.” Their suits had jump rockets, of course, but those had limited fuel; if they burned it all hopping around one bunker, they wouldn’t be able to use that mobility in assaulting the next one.
“We can get close enough for V-E if we stay behind this rise.” Columbera pointed to a slight, thickly wooded hillock on the left side of the road. “Maybe within a hundred meters.”
“Could be.” Myron followed the rise on his terrain map for a moment. “Take your section and get as close as you can.” He waved down the road. “Everyone else, on me. We’ve got front door duty on this one.”
