SICON Archives
Arachnid War Dossier
Sec. 7 Sub-Sec. 5.3, Doc. XVII
Classifed: Level-5 TOP-SECRET
Action Report
Date: 07/05/2321
Loaction: Planet Valkyrie, KLN Sys.
Author: Burt J. Arzburger, Lt.
Rhino Squad was on recon just north of FOB Pearl, a full ten-man team. Sgt. Tivnon was in command, with Cpl. Blake on Comms, McCoy as resident medic (Doc Broskin had been ripped in half by a warrior bug last week, leaving the FOB without a dedicated medical trooper), Troopers Jenkins and Bludhammer filled the role of long-range suppression and support, though neither was technically qualified as a sniper. Trooper Alistiari was in charge of demolitions and Trooper Apollo was acting as forward scout. Troopers Renks, Smythe and Liebski filled out the fire-team, they all carried the venerable and battle-tested TW-203-A Morita Assault Rifle.
There was one other guest along for the ride. Lieutenant Arzburger, a Military Intelligence liaison who had more or less commandeered Rhino Squad for the duration of the mission. A tall, dark haired and quiet man who would have been imposing had he not been rail thin. He carried only a pistol, which the squad quietly decided was going to be of absolutely no use against the Arachnids. He didn't know most of the men called him Arse-burger behind his back.
Tivnon had told the men the mission was retrieval. A Pegasus skimmer on return from dropping a unit of Pathfinders off had run afoul of some kind of ranged bug and been shot down. The distress beacon had been ringing out for the better part of the last two days. Arzburger had told the men the pilots were priority assets and had to be rescued. If they were already compromised when they arrived their bodies were to be physically destroyed.
"Leave nothing for the bugs, ey' Srage?" said Smythe. Tivnon just grimaced and ordered the men onwards. The terrain was scrub brush, short, gangly plants eking out an existence across miles of low cliffs and rocky knolls. It was easy to get lost out here, and without Fleet support from orbit more than a few patrols would have gone missing. As things stood this was an area that Rhino Squad had never been to, and Tivnon didn't like it. The whole place stunk like bug and it made his skin crawl.
They came over a rise and about a mile away the smoking remains of the combat skimmer were barely visible through binoculars, Tivnon ordered the men out, "Double-time Apes, first one there gets to buy the flygirl a drink!" With resigned chuckles the squad increased its pace.
Less than a half mile away from the target zone Apollo called out form his forward position, "Bug holes! Three close, three far, both on rises, there's a diagonal path to the skimmer but it goes between the two sets. What's the play Sarge?"
"Two teams, McCoy, Smythe, Renks and Blake with Arzburger, the rest of you with me, my teams blows the near holes, McCoy you and the others help the Lt. extract the pilot," the Sergeant replied. The men split, Arzburger and the others moving south to come up on the clear path to the ship, while Tivnon led his team straight up to the first bug hole. It was just his luck that a warrior bug crawled out of it right as he was laying a charge, "Warrior, OPEN FIRE!"
The rattle of gunfire echoed through the low canyon as Moritas opened up on the warrior bug, shredding it by sheer volume of lead. Bright green blood splattered the Sergeant as he leapt backwards out of the way of the warrior's claws. The gunfire had attracted attention, and the screech of the dying warrior alerted others of the presence of the team.
Three more bugs came out of the nearby holes, screeches piercing the air as they rushed the troopers. A hail of bullets greeted the new arrivals and two went down without a fight. The third bug closed in rapidly on Trooper Liebski, a massive serrated claw whipping forward and spiking him through the chest. A fountain of blood erupted forth, mixing with spurts of green ichor as the rest of the unit put down Liebski's assailant. The bug collapsed, dropping the still-impaled body of the Trooper to the ground. The life-monitor on Tivnon's display ticked to KIA and the Sergeant acknowledged that there was no saving Liebski.
The second team had made their way halfway through the open pass, content to let their squad mates draw the enemy fire. Or rather, the Lieutenant was content, the rest of the team was at best apprehensive about this "strategy" as the Lt. called it. Either way, they had managed to escape notice and were only a few hundred feet from their target when McCoy motioned for the Lt. to hold, "Look, I got movement over by the back three holes, some kinda small bug, I don't recognize them. They don't look like warriors." He handed the binoculars to the Arzburger, who peered through them for a long moment.
"They're blisters, lighter armored than warriors, acid-spitters, probably what brought down the skimmer... and they've noticed us... MOVE!" The group took off running as the blister bugs began to pour out of their holes. Less than 30 seconds after the bugs had noticed the team globs of a bright green hissing acid started whipping through the air towards the men. Smythe took a gobbet of the stuff directly to the visor, the physical force of the projectile punching him off his feet. It wasn't, however, the force of the blow that made it deadly, but rather the acidic compound that began to eat through his armor. Smythe's screams of pain were drowned out by the hissing sound of dissolving flesh, as the bone underneath his face was exposed then slowly worn away.
The trooper's return fire was sporadic and inaccurate, as firing a Morita from the hip on the run was no easy task, and only one blister bug was slain while they made their way to the wreckage of the skimmer. McCoy hopped over an acid-scarred wing section and into the side of the skimmer to locate the pilot while the team set up a perimeter around the target, now returning more concentrated fire back at the bugs.
Back at Tivnon's location more warriors had begun to pop out of the three holes and his men were hard pressed to keep them from tearing them to pieces. Down a man, the Sergeant ordered suppressing fire to keep the bugs at bay as he started laying charges on the holes. The charges were M-905T's, concentrated thermo charges designed to collapse fortifications and incinerate anything withing the relatively small blast radius. They worked wonders on bug holes.
One minute of automatic fire, six fully expended clips and three placed charges later Tivnon dove off the low ridge housing the three bug holes yelling, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" He stamped his thumb down on the remote detonator and grinned as three firestorms burned away the warriors emerging from the now collapsed holes. Bugs were blown apart or instantly vaporised as the charges did their work. A large claw, propelled by the blast, scythed past Tivnon's head and embedded itself in the bedrock. The Sergeant risked a look over his shoulder, then stood, satisfied with the results, "Form up, on the rise, we need to cover the extraction team, get moving!" Bludhammer, Jenkins, Apollo, Alistiari and Tivnon moved up above the point where the bug holes had been destroyed, which gave them a clear vantage point to engage the blisters on the opposite rise as well provide covering fire for the team at the skimmer.
Inside the Pegasus McCoy found the prone form of a young female Fleet pilot, she was in bad shape, but as far as he was concerned, it was nothing he couldn't fix, "What's your name Ma'am? And where is your co?"
"Ensign Bruce, my co-pilot was killed in the crash," she replied, spitting blood from her mouth.
"Can you walk?"
"I can try, do I have much of a choice?"
"Not if you want to live, let me patch you up," McCoy said as he began to bandage her many cuts and splint her most likely broken arm. "I hope you can still raise a drink after this."
"What? Why?"
"Because obviously I'm going to buy you one," McCoy winked as he finished his work.
Outside Arzburger was getting impatient, "Hurry up in there Trooper, the blisters are closing quickly." He began snapping off shots with his pistol and, to the amazement of the Mobile Infantrymen around him, was inhumanly accurate. Single pistol rounds, which generally did not pierce bug armor, were dropping blisters with direct shots to their nerve cores. The Lt. seemed to be able to deliver his side-arm brand of death to the bugs with nerves of steel, and did not falter even when globs of acid passed dangerously close to his head. To the trooper's everlasting gratitude the blisters were not particularly accurate, relying instead on numbers rather than skill.
"This guy must be straight out of Games and Theory, he handles his Peacemaker like I've never seen," Renks piped over the squad comm, the background chatter of his Morita highlighting his words as he began picking off blisters. The hiss of more acid-spit hurtling towards the skimmer was the only response he got, other than a snort of amusement from Blake who was also opening up on the rapidly advancing blisters.
Tivnon began spotting targets for Bludhammer and Jenkins, who had switched over to single round fire setting and were taking potshots at blisters, putting them down methodically. As McCoy, the pilot, Renks, and Blake began double-timing it back towards the rest of the squad. Acid whizzed by, narrowly missing them, but their luck held and the scrambled up the crest of the ridge where Tivnon was waiting. He began to have the squad make a fighting retreat, moving away from the bug holes as quickly as possible while still laying down enough fire to keep the bugs from advancing too hard. They had been lucky there were only six holes in the area.
The volume of fire the rest of the squad laid down on the blisters to cover their comrades forced the blisters that weren't shredded outright back into their holes, offering the squad a brief moment of respite. Tivnon motioned to a pack he had been carrying on his back. "I borrowed a toy from R&D," he said as he pulled out a Javelin launcher tube and what looked like a very fat rocket. He shoved the rocket into the Javelin, hefted it up to his shoulder yelled "CLEAR!" and pressed the trigger of the launcher system. The rocket left the tube with a whoosh, streaked almost directly skyward then came straight down between the cluster of bug holes and blisters. A small sun erupted up, atomizing the bugs and cratering the entire hole-filled area. Tivnon smiled widely and shoved the tube back into his pack, "I'll let them know the Micro-tac nukes work, now, back to Pearl boys, you've earned some R&R."
End Report
Mission Status: Success
Arzburger, Lt. recommends Rhino Squad for commendation.
