DogForge (24 page)

“What is it?” Wiss asked.

“I don’t know. Scan profile will be loaded into Denny’s suit.”

“So we don’t know what it is, where it is, but do we know what it does?” Kane said.

Captain Maya shook her head. “Nope.”

“Big? Small? Little? Tall? Heavy? Mobile? Explosive? How do we get it out?” Garlan rattled off his concerns.

“All I know is it’s old human tech, and we don’t get it out.”

“Do we blow it up?” Kane asked with a smile.

The others around the room chuckled.

“No,” Captain Maya said and looked back to the screen. “Praetorians will secure the objective.”

The room exploded in angry barks and howls.

“What kind of deathtrap is this?” Kane asked. “Praetorians? Sweet tits of man.”

“Why send us in at all? The Praetorians can handle it,” Til said. He stretched back and shook his head.

“They can’t maneuver in the tunnels and passages. Once we find it, they come in and secure it.”

“Until then, it’s just us?” Kane asked.

“That’s right.”

“Captain?” Denali piped up. Everyone seemed awfully worked up over a funny name. “What’s a Praetorian?”

“I’ll show you,” Captain Maya said. Menus cycled through the display screen. “I can find footage of our last deployment with them.”

The screen slid into black and a string of numbers flowed across. A helmet camera winked on. Tight passages and collapsed structures filled the view. A suit of recon armor like Denali’s crawled in front of the camera. The passage was so tight that the dog barely made any progress.

Windows opened from side to side, the debris was piled all around in crushing heaps. A flicker of motion darted across the camera and the dogs dropped into a wider chamber.

The Praetorian charged into view and blasted his way in front of the scouts. The body was metallic, a mixture of armor, synthweave panels, and augmented limbs. What was left of a dog’s body hunched in the center and controlled the whole thing. Bits of fur and skin poked out through the plates. The helmet had massive fangs, a gaping maw, and red sparkling eyes.

It snapped into a steel girder and ripped it out. The girder flew back and clanged against the wall. The Praetorian shredded its way through the concrete in a flurry of dust and then it was moving again. The recon team followed and passed corpses of small insectoids.

Denali watched with wide eyes. Her stomach tightened. Look at them all, piles and piles. Where did they all come from?

A second Praetorian marched alongside the first and the two shattered everything that came before them. Weapons pods blasted the insectoids as soon as they darted out from cover. They crushed any that came into reach.

“The problem is,” Kane mumbled, his eyes glassy, “they send everything after the Praetorians.”

“And hell follows after,” Belle whispered.

The Praetorians stopped, turned, and a wall of insectoids exploded out from every opening. The recon pack turned and fought. Monofilament daggers shot out, fusion lances exploded against armor, and the cybernetic beings died in droves.

Belle whimpered and turned away, only Kell and Denali still watched.

“That’s enough,” Captain Maya said, and turned off the feed.

The squad shifted and looked away from each other. Kell and Denali glanced around, like watching a funeral.

Denali sensed the fear, she could smell it.
They’re the vets, and they feel that? I can handle this. Yes, yes, I think I can.
“I can do that. I’m not afraid.”

Wiss turned to Denali. “We should be with you for most of it.”

Denali tried to speak but her throat jammed up. Well, maybe a little afraid.

“Afraid? There is everything to fear there,” Garlan snapped. “It’s tight, the walls hide things, little things, things with teeth and fangs and claws.”

“Garlan,” Kane growled.

“Then they come out, and they’re all around, gnashing and biting and—”

“Garlan!” Kane barked.

Garlan snapped his head to the side.

Denali saw it, that animal fear, that prey fear. Is that really why he’s so grumpy? It doesn’t seem that bad, just gotta move.

“Who’s the marshal?” Belle asked.

Captain Maya turned away from the group. “Hango.”

The room was silent, the dogs even stopped breathing.

“The Sword of Winter,” Kell whispered.

Denali smiled a bit and then it slowly drooped off her face. The other dogs stared into nothingness, no one even grumbled or pouted. Light of men, they look like ghosts.

“Get packed up, we’re dropping in eight hours,” Captain Maya said. “Dismissed.”

––––––––

“W
ho’s the Sword of Winter?” Denali asked Kell. She watched the diagnostics unfold on her prosthetic leg. All systems green. Better than a dogs leg.

Kell looked behind him and all around. “So when we drop sometimes the comms gets cut off and Caesar can’t supervise so we still have a full chain of command. The one in charge is the marshal.”

Denali nodded and closed the maintenance panel with her nose. She’d heard as much in training.

“There’s a drop on this planet a few years ago and the fleet has to go, so Marshal Hango is in charge. Now this planet, it’s like a ball of ice. Frozen, right to the core. Ain’t nothing on it but these melting stations, they bore in and suck out the minerals. Everyone thinks, oh, we’ll just sit tight and wait. Nope. Not Hango.”

Denali felt the chill of the glaciers and couldn’t imagine a world that was just one big ball of ice.

“Suits ain’t got enough power, so they start to ration. First thing they shut down is the shields, second thing is the internal heaters. Then the crazy bastard orders an attack. One after another. He lost like three legions, and every time he’d regroup and send em out again. He says to them ‘You are my sword, the winter of our deliverance.’ What’s that even mean right? So they call him the Sword of Winter.”

“Did they take the planet?”

Kell shrugged. “I wasn’t there.”

“So how do you know?”

Kell squinted at Denali. “You hear things, right? There’s a guy in the Eighth recon who served under a—”

“He doesn’t know,” Kane grumbled.

Kell and Denali both looked up at Kane.

“He landed with three Legions, and lost them all. But yes, in the end, we took the planet.”

Kell nodded to Denali. “See?”

Denali wrinkled her nose.

“I’ll use you as my sword, and then you shall find winter,” Kane said, and stared into space.

“Wait? You were there?” Denali asked.

Kane glanced back at his tail. “I left half of that tail in the ice.”

“See!” Kell said and wagged his wiry tail.

Denali watched Kane go.

“Suit up!” Captain Maya barked and the robots came to life.

The squad lined up at the suit maintenance cell and waited as each was encased. Denali stepped up, closed her eyes, and felt each panel lock in. The sheets of armor were cold, the synthweave even colder. Sword of Winter. The name rolled through her mind.

Tightness gripped her stomach and she pictured the dogs fighting on the ice. Sword of Winter. Stop it! He’s just another dog, just a big tough one, you know big tough ones.

Fear crawled back in and she shivered as the helmet locked in place.

You’re afraid.

“
Yes.”

Denali stepped off the platform and checked her weapons systems. The mono-filament snaked out, then back in, like a frosted spider web. The fusion lance arced and hummed on her shoulder, like a knights lance of old. It’s just us. You two and pokey.

Why?

“What do you mean, why? This is my first assault.”

It can’t be any worse than Forge.

Denali wrinkled her nose. Stupid computer, stuck in my head. “Skeletal robots or robot spiders, I don’t like either.”

Fear is good, it keeps you alive.

“I shouldn’t have any problems then,” Denali mumbled and fell in line with the rest of the squad. She looked down the line and wondered what thoughts everyone else had when they were alone in the suits.
We’re all steel now, the emotion is gone, just robots with a dog inside.

I know this place.

“Oh?”

It was a manufacturing center, big one, but not in my sector.

“
Do you miss knowing everything?” Denali asked with a bit of a smile.

Cicero didn’t respond and Denali regretted asking the question.

Belle stepped off the platform and fell into line. Her fusion rifle snapped out, crackled, and then tucked back into the armor like a blister on the steel.

“Move out!” Captain Maya barked.

The squad marched single file through the silent corridors. They waited as a company of bears, armored and grim, marched past.

Denali, the last in the squad, peeked around the rest and tried to watch the bears. They fascinated her, huge creatures, but so unique. On Forge they were but a legend, almost more so then men.

The bears clanked past and the squad followed behind. The corridors opened wider and companies of dogs fell in beside the Recon squad. Dogs of every shape and size, but the companies of those born on the forge worlds towered over everyone but the bears.

They marched and the columns of armored dogs grew and grew. The column, at least a legion large, entered the largest of all of Caesar’s drop hangars. Dropships, like lowback beetles, filled the expanse. The dogs marched and were like ants next to the massive troop carriers.

Denali took it all in and felt the fear. It crawled in her stomach. The immensity of everything around her took her breath away. She didn’t dare move her head to look, so instead she strained her eyes to see it all.

They marched into the dropship and Denali followed until the line stopped. Drop straps snapped out of the ceiling and floor. They locked onto her suit with a ka-chunk. She relaxed and took a deep breath. Her chest shook and she clamped her teeth down.

“Listen up!” Captain Maya called over the squad comms. “The main force is hitting a facility a couple of kilometers away from our drop point. They’re the diversion. We get in, find it, and get out. We’ve been over it all before.”

Denali called up the gritty orbital map and studied it again. The others had laughed when they saw the map, useless they said, but Denali tried to find some use for it.

The rings came together, like they walled everything inside, and from what she was told they did. Salvage, junk, equipment of every sort. Then it was all sorted and repurposed. In an era where amazing technology could last a hundred thousand years, nothing was junk, everything was potentially priceless.

The floor vibrated and the hum of the engines shook the armored suits.

Roaring sounds echoed in Denali’s suit and she darted her eyes looking for the source. She craned her neck and tried to look behind her and saw nothing but armored dogs behind her. The unit marking showed them as part of the Ninth Legion.

Was Mjol in there? Or Samson? Or anyone else from Forge? She wanted to look again and see, but realized that all of them would be watching her.

Denali’s comm system clicked to life and her display showed it was a direct feed from Kane. “How ya doin’, kid?”

“I’m fine.”

Kane chuckled on the other end. Denali could picture his warm smile. “I’m sure you are. It’s going to get bumpy. So turn off your suit comms and howl as much as you have to.”

Denali wrinkled her brow and smiled a bit. “I won’t howl.”

Kane chuckled again and cut the feed.

The thrust pushed Denali against the floor and the suit restraints clacked from side to side. Then they were off.

The first part was quiet, calm, like they weren’t even moving. Only the steady hum of the drives gave any indication. The tone changed and the dropship shuddered.

It shook from side to side. The suits slammed around in unison, and then it got interesting.

The ship slammed around and fell faster. The suits rose off the floor as the dropship plowed its way through the atmosphere.

Thrust slammed into her and then she howled. Fear ripped through her and all she could do was bark and howl. She was sure they were all going to die, that there was no way this could be normal, and that any second they would crash. Crash and burn.

The thrust grew stronger, heavier, slamming her to one side. An explosion racked through the dropship. Light opened up in front of her and a group of armored dogs were sucked outside. 

More explosions raced through the hull of the dropship. The flashes illuminated the hold through the gaping hole in the hull. The light changed and grew darker. The thrust changed pitch, the dropship banked again, and settled down for a hard landing.

“Get out through that hole!” Captain Maya barked. “Clamps off!”

The suits sprang forward and leaped out. The wounded just fell to the floor and toppled over.

Denali rushed past the dead suits. The engines thrummed in her ears like great booming drums.

Light exploded all around her and she followed after Kane. She leaped over a gritty wall and tucked behind it.

Weapons fire slammed down from the heights. Balls of arcing energy sizzled out from fusion blasters. The impacts exploded the ground in geysers of dirt. Heavy thudding echoed through the ground, puddles of mercury rippled, heavy artillery was smacking someone nearby.

“Oh!” Denali called out as she looked all around.

The concentric rings she’d seen from space rose up a thousand meters. Windows, alcoves and cubbies dotted the entire rise like an old apartment building. Piping, smokestacks, and drains spewed out every manner of industrial waste and smoke. In the center rose the objective, the main salvage facility. It seemed plain compared to everything else.

Several squads from the Ninth spread out around their dropships and fired into the walls.

“Why’s it look different?” Denali asked Kane.

Because they didn’t build it. Men did.

“Got me kiddo! Look out, here they come!”

Gunships swooped down the rust streaked walls and laced kinetic rounds into the structure. Sparks and flames burst out. Bodies of the insectoid defenders rained down from the heights and exploded on the ground like ripe melons.