SHOCK Chronicles - Chapter 2

SHOCK Chronicles - Chapter 2

They kept me inside a fucking lab for two weeks. Two weeks of endless tests, questioning and injections filled with the weirdest chemicals. Seriously, one of those liquids changed colour rapidly. No, I am not insane.
And what did they find out? Jack shit. All of my bodily functions were normal, with no hint of a genetic anomaly. How that is possible, I don't know. Hey, I'm weird, kay? They knew I was weird, too. More... practical tests proved the regenerative cycle existed. The numbskulls didn't get any additional data during those, either. I think I'm just badass. So, they just sent me back into the fray.

******

We heard another round impact the Pegasus' hull and get deflected by the reactive plating. Damn, I can't count how many times that very plating has saved me. At least one good thing the scientific morons did right.
The holo-projector then popped up.
“Today, the Zaelots of Light have secured our services, thanks to a quite sizeable sum of credits. This will be the battlefield today.” the image showed a large, fortress-like building. High walls protected four azure towers, which rose high into the sky. Those towers were actually defence emplacements, with many powerful turrets placed inside. The inner keep was sure as heck protected. The whole complex was surrounded by a massive chasm, over which, two golden bridges led. On the chasm's other side, a vast forest stood. Took up the rest of the holo-image, too. It was too pretty to not be artificial, “one of their sanctuaries here on Majinta has come under attack by one of our rival mercenary providers, Flame Raven. They have gained control of both bridges and their forces are closing in at the facility. Their fleet has also blocked all space-bound escape routes from the area. That's where we come in. Our mission is to escort the High Seer and her acolytes out of the fortress and bring to one of our extraction zones. Our own fleet will take it from there. Squads Dragonfist, Darkclaw and Bulldog will land inside the fortress and provide protection for the Seer. Use the acolytes as meat shields, if necessary.” that is one reason, why I loved SHOCK's briefings, “all other forces shall assault any and all Flame Raven forces in the area, clearing a path over one of the bridges in the process. All units should expect encounters heavy infantry and several bipedal battle mechs. Give ém Hell, boys. Command, out.”

After such a long and boring transmission, sarge spoke:
“Well, seems their little god can't help 'em, eh?”
I have to remind ya, listenert this was not the same sarge as last time. That one died two hours after he had brought me to the labs. By enemy hands, too. I answered:
“Maybe because he's an asshole.”
I just knew all of them grinned, even though they all had helmets.
“Why do ya say that, Steel?”
Yes, the numbskulls had found time to give me my codename. It became a nickname within ten minutes.
“I'm just saying. If the human race is the result of íntelligent design', the design was either retarded or wanted to have some amusement. Just look at us. Starting fights and wars for the stupidest of reasons. Many millions die every day. This is practically his version of Sims. In the end, torturing the guys is always the most fun.”
“You've got a point there. Well, boys, get ready for deployment!”
The transport touched the ground and we exited almost immediately. I looked around and spotted two more landing next to our own.
More of us left the crafts' insides. In in all, we were thirty. Three Sargeants, ten Troopers, five Guardians, four Snipers, six orange Cleaners, who carried some badass flamethrowers, and... two black Obliberators. Obliberators are SHOCK's heaviest infantry to this very day. I guess the exosuits have something to do with that. Capable of withstanding anti-tank rounds and more carrying weaponry bigger than me. This particular duo carried a humongous gattling gun and a railgun. Now, let me rephrase myself. I only hate railguns when the enemy uses them. When our side has them... they are sweet. Really sweet.
We greeted our fellow clones and watched the three ships fly off. One of them exploded in a massive fireball after a minute or so.
“Sarge, wasn't that ours?”
“Yeah, Steel. Poor pilot. Owed me money, too.”
“Sucks, doesn't it?”
Ïndeed. Now, let's get this mission started!”
We made our way through the garden. Yes, garden. The inner keep was surrounded by myriads of brightly coloured plants and flowers, making it seem like a small paradise. I bet the pryos would have burned it down, if, ya know, they hadn't gotten strict orders not to. Twice.
On the walls, defenders kept dying rapidly. They looked like a bunch of fanatics wearing white robes and armed with plasma weaponry. Probably because plasma guns are nice and shiny. The robes didn't seem to provide any defensive bonuses, judging by the amount of torn limbs. Yeah, the Zaelots' military policy has remained unchanged to this day, so they still suck. Noobs.

The keep's gates soon opened and out came an interesting group. A woman clad in golden armour, surrounded by the same white meat shields. Acolytes often get replaced rapidly, anyway. The higher ups are important, of course. Who cares about footsoldiers, right? Well, I do. And I never liked the Zaelots because of that bullshit.

The woman came closer. I swear, the sun reflecting off that armour almost blinded me.
“You are the escort? I cannot say I am impressed.”
My squad's sarge was the first to retaliate:
“Hey, anything's better than the infantry-suckage behind you.”
We all grinned, she frowned and the acolytes seemed to acknowledge the sad truth.
“This shall be mentioned to your superiors.”
“They don't give a damn about the ravings of religious lunatics. Also, we were paid in advance, so sucks to be you. Listen, lady, we can stand here like dummies at a firing range or we can get moving.”
She was visibly irritated.
“Hmph! So be it!”
“Great! Okay... Steel, stay close to her. Make sure she doesn't leap into a missile.”
“Understood.”
From that moment, every commander seemed to have gained a nasty habit of sending me and, many a time, any unfortunate clones in my squad through the deepest rivers of shit. Seriously. Surviving one hellhole only led to another, deeper one. But we were never trained in disobeying orders, so I listened. I stood next to the Seer. She game me a brief, annoyed, look and turned back to her acolytes.
I just stared at the bunch. This clone never could really understand religion, ya see, so I was quite intrigued by them. Downright fascinated. They could willingly give their life to an omnipotent being, that probably didn't even exist and would do so to save themselves from its wrath. Crazy assholes.
We soon got a message from the main force. They said the western bridge offered less enemy opposition. Only one mech, to be exact. The guys in the east reported many more units. Heavy losses on both sides. We were outnumbered... and yet, every of our own still took down two of theirs. Yes, this is why SHOCK is the best.
I heard sarge again:
“Okay, maggots! I know you love that word and I won't let ya forget it! Now, we don't have time for the western force to completely secure the bridge as planned. We move now!”
I love precise orders. Minimal room for error. In a couple of minutes, we stood in front of a large silver gate. We could hear the battle clearly. Gunshots, explosions, curses and screams of pain... my kinda' sounds, really.
The Seer looked at one of those on the walls and nodded. The man immediately made his way to a small panel and managed to activate it before his brain flew out of his skull, courtesy of a single bullet. Yup, the big guy is an asshole.
The gate started sliding to the side. A rocket suddenly flew through the small gap, missed my head by several inches and then hit the opposite wall. Suffice top say, we took cover behind the walls. Not that those would be that good at stopping bullets, but the Ravens' at least couldn't see us.

The Seer looked over the corner. I did the same, not wanting to be blind to enemy movement. Many soldiers in red armour, which had black flames painted on it, marched towards the fortress, taking cover when necessary. In the distance, a large, bipedal construct towered above them. Its two arms had been replaced by a pair of massive cannons, not unlike those on tanks, probably strong enough to obliterate groups of infantry with a single shot. The day was getting better and better.

Sarge made a motion towards the Obliberators, who almost instantly opened compartments on their backs. Without their hands. You see, SHOCK's exosuit-wearing boys get all the cool stuff. Including neural implants, which let them command their suits with greater efficiency. They also get weapons from the 'most probable to explode upon use' category, so not all is cool, now that I think about it. Anyway, from those compartments, two thrusters appeared and ignited. The ton-weighing dudes were suddenly up on the wall.
They seemed to have a brief verbal conflict. That means they hurled obscenities at each other, if ya don't know what I mean. Then, the one with the gattling cannon aimed. What followed was a bright display of death, destruction and suffering, provided by AP bullets the size of my middle finger being fired at a cadence of three thousand rounds per minute. One ammo box... yes, BOX, had three thousand rounds in total. The landscape in front of the gate turned into a bombarded area, with chunks of metal, flesh and brains flying in every direction. It took an additional minute for the dust to finally settle.

The advancing force was all but gone. If you don't count the messy bits here and there. But one thing was still standing. The mech. Its cannons were aimed directly at the pair. A bright flash of light and deafening explosions later... we found out, that exosuits are not that indestructible. And that the walls of this place weren't that thick. Figures.
The mech's pilot then seemed to decide it was time to lay down some pwnage. The defenders were stood on the walls, suddenly frozen with fear. But I spotted... hope. A glint of light on the battlefield not too far from the wall. I somehow just knew it would help us. The metallic beast shot again, demolishing the inner keep's roof. I yelled:
“Get her to cover! I've got a plan.”
“Wait... wha-?!”
I wasn't listening, not anymore. I darted straight into the battlefield. Enemy gunners spotted me and started firing. Some found their way to my shoulder and made short work of my armour. It stung, too. But my shoulder was still in one piece, so it wasn't that bad.
Finally, on the ground, I could clearly see it. The exosuit-guy's railgun! Of course, it did look kinda' scorched, but still, it was our best bet. I threw away my rifle and grabbed the massive weapon. Damn, was it heavy. And I mean heavy with a capital 'H'. I actually had to crouch to even think of aiming.

I could see a screen with a green aiming reticule and my hand was on the trigger. Thank god the guys who use the guns don't have to be physicists to get them working. On second thought, that isn't really a good thing, when ya think about the meat shield acolytes back there.
The reticule was aimed at the thing's chest. Dead center of it. Only fools think the cockpit is located in the head. That's a too vulnerable spot. Now I just needed a precise hit. As soon as I pulled the trigger, I knew only too well, why they always wear exosuits when shooting with these things.
The recoil was ridiculous. Not to mention the sound... think my ears went to Hell and back... Shattered the bones in my left arm, made it assume a weird position, broke a part of my armour and sent me flying into the wall several yards behind me. I was like, 'HOLY FUCK!'. Come to think of it, everyone else who saw my daring shot was like that, too.

The bullet flew at those very high speeds and pierced straight through the mech's armour. Unfortunately, that was all it did. Fly through, leaving a sizeable hole. But no critical damage or anything. What? Did ya think I'm a super hero or something?
To add insult to grievous injury, the mech then fired at the wall above me effectively burying me. I 'died' yet again. And was back at full battle capacity within minutes. Well, kinda'. I was still under a ton or two of scrap. Just great. But I wasn't gonna' give up that easily.
Thankfully, my hands were still armoured and... my visor was intact, somehow. Did they start using no glass or something? In any case, I started digging my way to the surface. No shit. I just started digging where I thought was up. I heard another loud explosion... the mech had fired again. Which was not good. I dug faster.

When my visor finally popped out of the rubble. I saw the thing was closer to the walls. Too close for comfort, in fact. A brief look to the now-demolished gate later, I knew that all the acolytes were dead, and most of our unit, too. A Sergeant and a few troopers were the only survivors. But I could also see the golden armour close to them. So our mission-target was still alive. Judging by a massive shell, which was unloaded from the mech, that would soon change. Just great.

But suddenly, the lunatics' prayers were seemingly answered, for a barrage of missiles came from the sky and impacted the mech all over its body, their heavy payload piercing even its thick armour. It was swiftly reduced into a pile of smoking rubble and several fighter jets flew above us. We got a message:
“Fleet to all ground troops. The enemy fleet is at full retreat., brace yourselves for cleansing bombing runs and prepare to go home. Mission accomplished, boys.”
I stood up and slowly made my way to the gate, while the lights of bombs filled the air behind me. The Seer's mouth was wide open as I saluted.
“But... you...!!!”
“Yeah, I'm one crazy asshole. Anything else?”
This time, the last one I could call 'sarge' answered:
“Yeah. You're badass.”
“Awww, shucks. You're making me blush.”
Within ten minutes, our favorite transports picked us up and we flew towards the stars.