2953-01-29 – Tales from the Service: The Calm After the Storm 

The duel, taking place as it did right in the middle of the enemy staging area, put an end to all expectations of a fresh assault up the hill. F.V.D.A. troopers now watched over the parapet with little fear of being picked off by enemy lasers from far below; those Incarnation soldiers who weren’t trying to aid their outnumbered champion were keeping their heads down. 

“Shouldn’t we be trying to help?” One trooper muttered to his neighbor. 

The other scowled and nodded his head toward the beige cloud and the sounds of mechanical thunder echoing within. “You want to charge down there, you be my guest.” 

Mauro Sorensen hated being on the sidelines when his own life was hanging in the balance, but intervening did seem rather questionable. Anyone heading down there would catch the attention of the enemy before he made it halfway. Sure, the company could spray railshot in that direction, since the slugs fired by their carbines maintained lethal velocity over ten times the distances involved, but there was no reasonable chance of hitting anything, especially not when anything that it would make a difference to hit was concealed in a dust pall. 

Though blue-violet flashes of laser fire ionizing dust regularly lit the melee in flashes of apparent stillness, it was impossible to see what was going on between the lone Incarnation titan and its quartet of shorter, stouter Marine antagonists. No doubt, Mauro’s guesses about the speed and agility of the enemy suit design were all too accurate; every time he saw its gaunt silhouette, it seemed to be in a totally different place. 

Eventually, though, the heavy autocannons mounted to four Kodiak suits proved too much. After one particularly fearsome fusillade, there was the sound of tearing metal, then a crash that rattled the ground even at the hilltop. After that, there was no more laser fire, but the cannons continued to roar. It was impossible now to see what was going on, but Mauro’s companions let out a ragged cheer. 

The smoke and dust cleared a few minutes later, and Mauro could clearly see the utter ruin that had been made of every Incarnation vehicle that had been down on the plain. It looked like not one of the armored troop carriers had escaped the notice of the four Marines in their huge assault suits. The transport aircraft that had been hit in the first moments of the assault still burned fiercely, and their Incarnation counterpart lay awkwardly on the ground, its metal torso split open and smoldering. 

Over all this ruin stood the four Kodiaks, now watchfully still. Two of them were badly scorched by laser fire, and the arm of a third was missing below the elbow joint. Mauro shuddered to think of what might have been if there had been four of the agile Incarnation suits instead of only one. 

The captain appeared at the parapet and surveyed the scene for a long moment. “Sorensen, take three men and a hovercart. Go down there and see if there’s anything we can use up here worth salvaging.” 

“Aye, sir.” Mauro turned and snapped a salute. “Just four of us? There’s probably a lot of infantry stragglers left.” 

The captain shrugged. “I don’t doubt it. But they won’t be so willing to pop their heads out as long as those big lunks are standing there. Make it fast.” 

Mauro saluted again, then headed toward where he and the others had stowed the company’s hovercarts. They’d come in with four of these lightweight gravitic sleds, three of them loaded down with ammunition. 

Espinosa followed Mauro without a word, evidently deciding that he wanted to go along. Mauro flagged down Kremmer and Lyon as well; they were troopers he knew better than most of the company, and who he knew he could rely on. 

Despite his misgivings, once the quartet had manhandled the hovercart over the parapet and started their descent, they encountered no trouble. There were still a few dead Incarnation soldiers among the rocks marking where the first assault had failed, and Espinosa checked to make sure each one was dead before rifling their pockets and tossing their packs on the cart. Most Nate gear was useful only as souvenirs to the F.V.D.A rank and file, but Incarnation infantry ration packs were a highly prized commodity. 

They came under fire only once during the descent, and that apparently by a single Incarnation solder who fired at them three or four times, hit nothing, then fled while Mauro and his companions were hugging the dirt. Lyon thought he saw a flash of grey uniform atop the brow of a low ridge a little while later, but no danger appeared in that direction. 

The group reached the scene of the battle just as the area was once again overflown by low-flying Pumas. The two least-damaged-looking Kodiaks had moved to face outward, toward the flat expanse of the desert, and the one missing an arm had fallen back almost to the foot of the hill.  

Mauro, seeing that they would have to pass close by the feet of this titan, extended his helmet comms antenna and switched it to broadcast. “Kodiak unit... err...” He squinted to make out the scorched markings. “741-AS-Beta. I will be passing your location. Do you have us on your sensors?” 

“This is Four-One Beta.” The voice of the Kodiak operator was mellow and resonant, nothing like Mauro had expected. “I have been tracking your progress. You are clear to proceed.” 

“Thank you, Four-One Beta.” Mauro waved the others forward. 

Obviously, I am using identification number schemes for this post which do not resemble those of the Kodiaks deployed on Montani or anywhere else, but this information is not vital to understand Mr. Sorensen’s account. 

Sorensen and his associates did get close enough to the destroyed Cyclops armor-suit to get good pictures, but these did not even reach me uncensored; Naval Intelligence would not permit him to broadcast them without considerable blurring. I can say that what was visible was of a machine in utter ruin; very little inside the machine survived, and if there was anything left of the operator, it would be difficult indeed to identify. 

[N.T.B. - Though I’ve no doubt this new weapon is a capable machine, there seems no way Nate can manufacture it on the worlds they’ve captured on the Coreward Frontier and no reasonable way to ship them across the Gap in numbers sufficient to make a meaningful difference in the conflict there. Most likely, we’ll be seeing more of them over here in Sagittarius. In fact, I would be surprised if Bosch’s people aren’t running into these things nearly everywhere over in Kyaroh space, since that front is the closest to Incarnation industrial centers.]