The Shape of Surrender

The shuttle started to shake beneath Tor’laen’s feet.

“Heads up, ladies, we’re entering the planet’s atmosphere.” Came Mikka’s voice from the front of the shuttle. Tor’laen reached up and snapped his visor shut around his head, the equipment’s internal screen coming to life. He tapped into the operation channel.

“You’ve all been briefed, but I’m going to go over this one last time,” the Lieutenant Commander was saying over the channel. “There is an unreported military complex on this planet, and we’re about to go in and neutralize it. Now we’ve only been mopping up terrorists and civilians who think they’re separatist militia lately, but this is gonna be different. These are PMC troops. They aren’t on our level, but this is their profession. Expect well-equipped and well-trained enemies. Accept surrender if it seems legit, but don’t trust these bitches for a second. Remember, this is a fucking black site, these mercs haven’t exactly been picking flowers and holding tea parties here.”

The shuttle stabilized once more, having made it through reentry.

“Now the target compound has four sizable anti-air emplacements protecting it. I don’t really feel like getting shot out of the sky, and the Royal Hand seemed to agree, so we’ve been tasked a bomber wing from the Aegis. They’re going to blow those fuckers up before we’re even in firing range. Fortunately for us, all the AA are outside of the compound, so we still get to go in and have our fun instead of sifting through rubble for the next few bells.”

The sound of an engine screamed by, audible even inside the shuttle. Tor’laen pressed a button on the side of his visor, tapping into the craft’s external camera feed. He watched as another bomber shot past them, much closer than he imagined would be regulation standard. The ship was shaped like an arrowhead, streamlined and covered in sleek anti-radar coating. They were two-person craft, needing a pilot and a gunner, and apparently carried enough advanced ordnance to reduce an entire city block to rubble.

As he watched, one of the bombers rolled, weaving between the three troop-filled shuttles.

“Fucking show-offs,” he heard Saia mutter through their squad channel, apparently watching the same feed as the Ydani. “Those flygals just can’t friggen resist.”

Tor’laen simply grinned into his visor.

The shuttles and bombers had been dropped off at the very edge of the Grace Eridi Zii system, far enough out that even the massive Citadel’s brief emergence wouldn’t be detected. Over the past few bells, the small fleet of craft had slowly made their way toward the planet, running minimal emissions to give the target compound as little warning as possible.

Orders had finally come through the Q-comm network, and now the hunt was on.

Mikka paused for a moment, fingers on the side of her helmet.

“The bombers are starting their attack run. If you ladies want to see some fireworks, tap into the operation feed.”

Tor’laen did so, a window popping up on his visor’s screen of the bomber’s targeting feed. The image was slightly grainy, a testament to just how far the bombers were attacking from. The blocky buildings of the complex came into focus, surrounded by walls on all sides, with guard towers at each corner. The anti-air emplacements were also now visible, the barrels of their weapons pointing up toward the sky.

A few moments later, a bright flash blew out the image, a guided bomb slamming into an emplacement and detonating. The picture faded back into focus, the remaining three AA guns starting to rotate, but it was too late. A breath later and another series of flashes washed out the image, the effects slowly fading to reveal nothing but three craters where the other emplacements had been a moment earlier.

A small cheer filled the shuttle.

“Calling card delivered, Commander,” came a woman’s voice over the channel, the leader of the bomber wing.

“Nice fucking hits, girls,” Mikka chuckled. “Feel free to take out some of those guard towers. Just use the nose cannons — I’d like there to still be a place to land when you’re done.”

“Acknowledged, Commander. Time to go put some holes in things.”

Tor’laen watched as the bombers streaked away from the shuttle formation, preparing for their strafing runs.

Mikka pounded her fist on the wall separating the crew bay and the cockpit.

“Once we land, no sitting there twisting your mindthreads in there!” she barked at the pilot over the operations channel. “I want you isolating whatever frequencies these bitches use and cracking it! They’re probably a couple years behind our tech — shouldn’t be too hard.”

“You got it, Commander.”

“Alright ladies!” Mikka turned back to the Armswomen. “Obviously, they know we’re coming now. Get ready to come out swinging!”

The shuttles accelerated towards the compound, trying to capitalize on what remained of the element of surprise. Tor’laen cycled a round into the chamber of his SMG, as many of the Armswomen did the same around him. The Ydani reached down with his free hand and found the newest addition to his kit, making sure he was completely familiar with its location.

At his personal request, Mikka had helped him fabricate a sidearm, to his precise specifications. The thing was oversized, even by Ydani standards, taking as high a caliber round as he believed he could control. His test firings had supported that — the kick was brutal, but nothing that he couldn’t handle. Mikka and Saia had affectionately dubbed it his “hand cannon”, a term he really couldn’t disagree with. Tor’laen was satisfied. His SMG was great, but he felt at ease also carrying something with a bit more of a punch.

He could feel the shuttle descending, veritably hurtling into the compound. A loud bang echoed through the craft, jolting its occupants hard as its skids slammed into the ground. A barely controlled landing, but a quick one.

“Go, go, go!”

The doors sprang open, and the Armswomen poured out.

Immediately the yard of the complex came alive with gunfire. Mercenaries were pouring out of both the main building and the barracks, some of them still tugging on body armor or tightening chest rigs. The Citadel’s forces didn’t wait for them to finish getting ready.

The Armswomen instantly moved to cover, some using the shuttles, some moving to nearby buildings or concrete dividers. The three shuttles had landed in the southwestern area of the complex, disgorging the nine squads of soldiers from the Aegis.

“Grace squad, on me!” Tor’laen barked over his team’s channel, the five Zakkili women moving closely behind him. “We’ll bottleneck the barracks!”

His squad moved in a sprint, firing toward the entrance of the squat building, forcing the mercenaries exiting it to dive for cover.

“Suppressing fire!” Mikka’s voice came over the operation channel. “Keep the Shield Consort covered!”

Bullets whistled by, as the squad completed their mad dash, ducking behind the low wall that ringed the courtyard of the barracks. They paused for a breath, Tor’laen and the Armswomen cycling new magazines into their weapons. Tailored to the Ydani’s strengths, they all carried relatively close-range weapons, three of the women wielding SMGs like him, and a tactical shotgun in the hands of a burly woman, at least by Zakkili standards, named Tovik. That left Saia as the one with the longest-ranged weapon, a battle rifle with hybrid optics, though the woman also carried a machine pistol on her hip.

Just as Tor’laen slammed the fresh magazine home, an assault rifle started to poke over the wall near him, aimed at the Armswomen providing covering fire. The Ydani didn’t hesitate, simply grabbing the mercenary’s wrist and heaving her bodily over the wall, throwing her out into the open. Two of his squad mates immediately gunned her down.

“Oril, Saia, frag grenades!” he ordered, jerking his thumb toward the wall. The two women grabbed the round explosives from their rigs, yanking the safeties out of them. They both paused, waiting a few seconds, then tossed the devices over the wall. A couple yells rang out, then a pair of bangs muffled by his visor’s automatic hearing protection.

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Tor’laen was about to lean over the wall, when a slug struck him, slamming into his chest plate and knocking the wind from him. Instantly, he calculated where the projectile must have come from, looking up. In the guard tower behind where the shuttles had landed was a trio of mercenaries with rifles, the glint of their optics catching his eye.

“Fuck!” he gasped, raising his SMG and sending a spray of slugs up at the women. He didn’t have much hope of hitting them, but he needed to keep them from calmly drawing a bead on his squad. “We have snipers in the guard tower!” he barked into the operations channel. “Southwest corner!”

Saia was already aiming up at the tower, following the direction of his fire. She put a few shots into the walkway, the shooters quickly ducking back out of sight.

Before he could give another order, there was the roar of an engine, followed by a loud buzzing, his visor filtering the noise slightly. One of the bombers swooped by, the rotary cannon under its nosecone flashing. In seconds the top of the guard tower was chewed apart, the high-caliber slugs shredding through the concrete and steel.

“That works,” Tor’laen muttered to himself, peeking over the wall. The little courtyard of the barracks was in chaos, with mercenaries tripping over each other to get out the door and get to cover. His visor was automatically tagging each new contact, relaying the locations to the rest of the squad. He glanced at his squadmates and gave a gesture. They nodded.

As one, the squad lifted their weapons over the wall, firing into the chaos, turning the small open area into a storm of tungsten. The roar of Tovik’s shotgun sounded again and again over the purring of the squad’s SMGs, each blast ripping chunks out of another combatant.

Gradually, the mercenaries started to get organized, a squad of them returning fire from the cover of the building’s front door.

“Shit!” Saia swore, as a round took a chunk out of the section of wall she was firing from, the slug pulverizing the concrete. The other members of his squad faced similar issues, a round pinging off Tovik’s shoulder armor, and another punching Oril in the chest, denting the Armswoman’s plating.

“Back to cover!” Tor’laen ordered, dropping behind the wall, ripping out his nearly spent mag and slamming a fresh one in its place. He winced as a flare of pain came from where he had taken the slug earlier. That was probably a couple of bruised ribs.

Thankfully, help was quick to arrive. Another two squads ducked into cover on the outer side of the courtyard wall, similar to the Ydani’s team. They were spread out enough to overlap their fields of fire, but not to the point of dangerous crossfire. Tor’laen nodded to one of the other squad leaders and got a nod in reply.

All three squads popped up, their concentrated fire overwhelming the regrouped mercenaries. After a few breaths, the mercenaries had completely fallen back into the building, leaving only bodies lying on the ground outside. The barracks was still for a long moment, when the sound of shattering glass pulled their attention. A mercenary had just punched out one of the windows on the second story with the butt of her rifle, and lifted her weapon to the newly-created hole, her higher position letting her see clearly over the cover of the low courtyard wall.

Before Tor’laen could even open his mouth, a crack rang out from his side, as Saia put a round straight through the visor of the mercenary’s helmet.

“That will make them think twice before they try that shit again,” she muttered grimly over the team’s channel. Oril gave the woman a friendly punch in the shoulder.

“Tor’laen!” Mikka’s voice came over the operations channel. “There’s a back door to that barracks. I have Chapel squad watching it, but no movement yet. Get your team over there and do what you do best, big guy.”

“Acknowledged, Mikka.”

The Ydani signaled to his team, and they fell in behind him, staying low but moving quickly. They circled around the building, Tor’laen glancing up as a bomber dismantled another guard tower in a strafing run. He spotted the squad covering the back door as they rounded the corner of the building, the sergeant leading it signaling an all-clear to the consort.

“Tovik, breaching charge,” he ordered as they reached the rear entrance, a single unremarkable security door.

“With pleasure, squad leader.” The woman’s voice was full of barely contained glee. Tovik loved a good explosive solution.

Within moments, she had the charge set on the door, and moved to the other side of it, while the rest of the squad stacked up for the breach. He felt Oril’s hand on the small of his back, his shoulder a bit out of reach of the Zakkili woman.

“Three, two, one, bang!” Tovik’s thumb came down on the detonator, and the door exploded inward, flying off its hinges.

Tor’laen pushed inside immediately, stepping through the cloud of dust. He had only made it a couple paces in when he nearly tripped over a mercenary soldier, the woman still disoriented from the blast. Reflexively, he dropped his SMG, letting the firearm hang from its sling. He slammed his fist down on the woman’s rifle, knocking the weapon from her grasp. The Ydani quickly wrapped an arm around the enemy’s neck, putting her in a chokehold. Hearing voices coming from farther in the dust cloud, he hoisted the struggling mercenary in front of him, using her as a living shield as he drew his sidearm.

Behind him, his squadmates were already entering the room, fanning out around him, keeping their lines of fire clear.

The dust had settled enough for everyone to see each other, Tor’laen’s squad coming face-to-face with the squad of his captive. The mercenaries hesitated for a fatal moment upon seeing their teammate’s predicament.

Tor’laen’s squad had no such hesitation.

Three of the mercenaries dropped immediately, chewed up by the Armswomen’s SMGs, the shower of slugs finding the gaps and seams in their plating. Tor’laen took out a fourth, simply aiming for center of mass and firing, the oversized handgun blasting straight through his target’s chest armor. The final enemy tried a tactical retreat, only to take a shotgun round to the back of the neck, Tovik having already made it inside.

“Clear!” Oril announced, sweeping the room with her SMG.

Tor’laen increased the pressure on his captive’s neck, until the woman finally went limp, falling unconscious.

“Let’s move.”

The squad formed up again, and quickly started to sweep through the building. They met no resistance as they pushed through room after room of bunks and storage lockers. The enemy had apparently sent only a single squad to watch the rear entrance, leaving the rest of their forces at the front of the building.

Tor’laen’s team was moving through what was clearly a mess hall, when the Ydani held up a fist as he approached the double doors on the far side. He could hear voices and movement from the other side.

“Prep some frags,” he said quietly over the team’s channel. “Their gear is probably hardened against flashbangs, so we’ll create some chaos the old-fashioned way.”

He received a chorus of acknowledgement, and the Armswomen each pulled one of the rounded explosives off their rigs, moving to either side of the doorway.

“You ladies cook them, I’ll kick the door in. On the count of five.” He glanced around, his team nodded their understanding.

“One. Two.”

His squad pulled the safeties from their grenades, holding them at the ready.

“Three. Four. Five!”

The Ydani slammed his foot into the middle of the doors, causing both of them to fly open. Smoothly, his squad deployed their grenades, some of the women gently tossing them, others hurling them at full strength, and Oril simply rolling hers along the floor. The squad jumped back into cover as alarmed yells rang out in the next room.

A series of muffled explosions sounded out, and Grace squad swept into the front hall of the barracks. It was a bloodbath. The mercenaries were disoriented — at least those not taken down outright by the explosives — and Tor’laen’s squad did not hesitate to eliminate the remaining combatants, laying down a hail of tungsten slugs on the off-balance soldiers. Within seconds, the enemy’s morale had broken. The last few surviving mercenaries threw down their weapons, diving onto the floor, their hands on the backs of their helmets.

“Barracks front hall is clear!” Tor’laen reported over the operations channel. “We’ve got some prisoners here, move in with the restraints.”

The two squads outside the building moved in, quickly snapping restraints onto the cowed mercenaries, and pulling their helmets off.

“Sergeant, take your squad and sweep the second floor. Clear the building,” Tor’laen ordered, the woman snapping off a salute and hurrying toward the stairs. “We’ve also got one unconscious in the rear of the building, send someone to bundle her up when you’ve got a moment.”

Motioning to his squad, the Ydani stepped out the front door of the barracks, taking in the evolving shape of the battle.

“Quite the fortified compound, for something you knew nothing about, High Lady Rastia,” Nalyra remarked casually, a small smile on her lips.

The High Lady’s face was a mixture of fear and outrage, perhaps upset at how easily her soldiers were getting dismantled by the Citadel’s Armswomen.

The Crown Daughter was the picture of calm, but inwardly, she breathed a sigh of relief. Her eyes had been almost constantly on Tor’laen’s feed, and she had to stop herself from taking in a sharp breath when he had taken a round to the chest. However, it seemed like the situation was rapidly coming under control.

“What…what is this beast you have unleashed upon those women, Crown Daughter?” Sivena asked, her gaze fixed upon the feed of a squad leader who was currently looking at Tor’laen.

“A beast, High Matron?” Nalyra asked, her tone light. Despite the insult, part of her was pleased that the foolish Matron recognized the danger lurking within her Ydani. “Do take care about how you speak of my consort.”

“Your consort?” The woman turned her gaze on Nalyra, her eyes wide.

“Yes, Shield Consort Tor’laen.” Nalyra gave the woman a winning smile. “I suppose news doesn’t reach this part of the frontier so quickly.”

Sivena simply stared at the Crown Daughter, her face incredulous.

“Now then, I wonder what else we shall find here.” Nalyra gave a small huff of amusement. “I look forward to seeing it.”