The Battle on Fergo- Sci-Fi SS

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Author Note: This is a SS, and is a Sci-Fi one at that. Comments and such would be awesome ^^




My name is Sergeant Jaris Cooperman, I lead platoon #53 on the battleship called Destroyer it’s called that because of the role it played during the Naval attack on the now extinct Mogats.

Like all Government Issue clones, I obey orders before I can go over them; it’s an annoying little piece of neural programming, but whatever works. I was one of those lucky speckers to  go down to the “Planetary Home of Morgan Atkinsâ€�  there’s another name for it which Private first class Philips came up with, it’s a bit immature for my taste though.

We were sent on a suicide mission from the start, once they gave us a moron of a Colonel leading the mission I should’ve known. Poor specker never made it off the planet; the hero of that battle was a Master Gunnery Sergeant Wayson Harris.

Wayson wow what a soldier, made corporal in three weeks fresh out of boot, got promoted to sergeant after a battle on Little Man, and then promoted to Lieutenant for being one of the Little Man Seven. They all got promoted to officers- first specking clones to ever make it that far up the ladder.

Rumor has it that Wayson got out of the Army, and was recalled by the late Admiral Che Huang- I hate Huang, probably the most antisynthetic officer turd out there- as a specking Colonel. That is the highest any clone ever made it, and want to know something else? He was a specking Liberator. Everyone hates Libbys and yet he made it all the way, of course when Admiral Brocius called him back into service Wayson was demoted to Master Gunnery Sergeant.

Well this isn’t about Wayson Harris, or any of his little pals, this is what we call the new era, and at the moment I’ve been sucked in with it.

The Confederate arms of the Milky-way galaxy is trying to break off once again, and succeeded with over sixty self broadcasting ships. We only have those specking explorer craft with the ability to self broadcast; everything else was used through the Broadcast discs which now lay broken.

Brodcasting is something no one knows every last detail about, especially marines. When you approach a broadcast disc it send out an electrical what you could call “barrier� around the ship, and converts the ship into pure energy and shoots it across the galaxy at alarming speeds- normally a few hundred thousand lightyears in a mere instant. Communications also run through the broadcast network, and without it things have gotten a bit slow, although we always get news one way or another.

Today I had been out in the field training my platoon on aiming. Yes aiming, these guys can’t shoot for their specking lives, which is exactly what we will be doing. I’ve double timed all of them, and ended up knocking a few heads along the way.

Today we were going to see action, and that action was taking place on the most hostile planet in the galaxy, it’s what we call the “Planet of distilled **** gas� every rock on that planet is made of a gas which eats at anything soft be it armor rubbers, skin, wires; anything that it can eat through it will utterly destroy.

The boys at Navy Intelligence say that there is a Confederation occupation there, and we need to get there to wipe them out. Luckily we have one self broadcasting ship; Destroyer me and my boys are specked.

**

1200 Hours; planet of distilled **** gas.

The briefing was done by an ignorant Major who was all talk and at most a specking *******. We all hated that guy and we were all making fun of him over the interlink in our helmets.

We were sitting inside the kettle- which is the cargo bay of a Transport, now Transports are the bulkiest pieces of junk you can see in the sky; they have incredible durability and shield, but no fire power. The kettle has metal walls, ceiling, floor, and toilet with no windows, or anything of the sort. It was the most uncomfortable place to be.

Lucky us that it landed with time to spare, heck twenty five transports carrying over 100 marines a piece touched down. 2500 + Marines were put into platoons, which were put into squads which were put into fire teams which consisted of a team leader, a grenadier, a rifleman, and a sharpshooter.

This planet was all black and had a toxic atmosphere which would kill anyone here on contact.

“Do not fire at the ground, or any rocks.� The Colonel who was the commanding officer of the mission said over the open frequency so everyone could hear. He was right; firing at those two things may just end your life out on a planet like this.

My team was in the lead while other teams flanked on either side, we had no idea what we would run into, until we heard a scream over the open frequency, everyone stopped dead as they saw what had happened to a team who had pulled a bit ahead of me on the far right, they had fallen into shallow snake-shafts, and everyone knew what this meant. Their bodies melted before our eyes while their screams pierced our ears.

Activating sonar in my helmet via optic commands, I pinged the area once; the place was covered in these snake-shafts. The speckers thought we’d bring tanks and heavy artillery and so played the same trick the Mogats did.

We would kill them for that.

“Now what?� a Private asked from the crowd of marines.

“Ping the area and all of the snake-shafts will be discovered, step around them and do not step into them or you will die quite painfully.� The Colonel said over the open frequency for everyone to hear. He didn’t want to fail this mission more or less because his career may be hanging on to the success of this particular encounter.

It was a hard treacherous cross through the snake-shafts, we came in with 2500 + marines and now we were down to 2350 marines. Many had missed a step and most ended up tripping to death; their screams still penetrated the night, or was it day? There was no sun so we couldn’t tell.

At this point we were up at the mouth of a cave when the first shot was fired; it was a blind shot which blasted one of Simmon’s boy’s head off. It was a gruesome sight up close, but at least we wouldn’t smell the cooking meat from the body.

 â€œGet to cover!â€� I yelled over my platoon frequency so only they heard my orders, others were doing the same despite this and I assumed that the other sergeants were giving the similar order.

“Sarge, there’s three guys in there, I can frag ‘em!� said a Private who already had the grenade in his hand.

“You so as much pull the pin on that and I’ll shove one up your *** and use you as a live grenade you understand me?� I yelled through the interlink in my best sergeant voice.

“Yes Sarge.�

“Good, now use your heat vision and pick them off one at a time, and do not hit a wall.�

“Already on it.� The private was a sharpshooter, and a blasted good one at that. He nailed the first two as they peeked around the corner, and got the third who wanted to see what happened to his buddies.

“Jackson, you me and Richardson are going in, it’s too much of a bottleneck for everyone to squeeze through and we’d be sitting ducks waiting to get gassed out.� I said over the platoon wide frequency.

“Yes Sarge.� They both replied, normally I would have said something about being called “Sarge�, but everyone needed the small morale boost at this point.

“Alright then, remember the basic rules and we should get along nicely. Disobey the rules, and I’ll use you as a shield got that private?�

“Of course Sarge, you can count on us to not shoot anything while being chased by a bunch of Confederate speckers.�

Perhaps I should have said something about this earlier; we clones use the word “Speck� in many ways to refer to so many things. It can mean “Amazing� “This sucks� and “Our officer is a specking moron.� There are so many other ways to use it, but explanation on what it means is not something I’m going to get into.

As a group of three we slowly crept in, normally I would have sent some sort of recon robot in to go check out the place, but there were none around, so I had to be the recon bot, and these two were my maintainers.

With my M27 close to my chest, and with a few scans of the area ahead using thermal vision, Night-for day lens, and a few other systems, I made the sign and the three of us walked right on in.

We didn’t need lights, we had Night for Day vision, the downside to it that you have absolutely no depth perception, but the good part was you could see in the dark and no one could see you, or at least that’s what I was told.

We made great progress, and these two knuckleheads kept their mouths shut the entire way- a wise thing to do. If the feds knew we were around, they would tap into our interlink systems and listen in on conversations that go on and around. Ours would tell them that we were close.

Halfway down the tunnel three guards were up ahead with lights, they would be easy pickings and before they could show their ugly faces, I and my two boys had slipped silencers on and over the barrel of our M27s. Right when they turned the corner each of us took a silent shot at one, and they all died on impact. The bodies slid to the floor and made a small muffled thump noise, but nothing large.

Satisfied that the rest of the way was clear we moved onwards. That was the only group of guards they sent out; specking morons. Luckily these speckers didn’t have Amos Crowley or Mr. Atkins on their side, or we would’ve been screwed from the start. Those two bit the dust in the last battle which ended the Mogats.

Lights were bright up ahead, and me along with my boys knew that we had stumbled in on the place we wanted to get to. The cool thing was that the light was shining below us; we were on a ledge which had a stairway going up towards it. Why? None of us could figure out.

This was too easy, and it would continue to be too easy. Lucky for them that there was only a group of maybe fifty feds in the area, if they had a larger amount of people down there, casualties would have been heckishly big.

I tossed down a ‘nade on high yield; now high yield on grenades could take out city blocks, medium could take down a building, low could clear a room. I liked going out with a bang and that is precisely what I did.

The explosion killed those fifty once they realized there was a golf ball sized grenade down there with them, they were the lucky ones. The brownish gas of the rocks and such began pouring out of the large crater and began seeping into other areas.

Apparently there were more feds than I thought as screams could be heard while their skin melted off of their own bodies, and pools of what was once human poured out of doorways and such.

If they were civilians I would have felt horrible, but they were soldiers, the same soldiers who hated clones, the same soldiers who took out friends, and all I could say was “Specking brilliant.�

My two boys were rather unhappy that they couldn’t take out more feds than I did, and I occasionally reminded them of that just for the fun of watching them grumble about it on the way back.

When we got back, that was when we were screwed.

I was right, the first run-in and run out was way too easy, it had been a distraction for our troops and fleet. We had one self-broadcasting battleship, which was hiding at the moment. Great specking help that was.
 
The feds had several new transports for troops, they were more like gunships than the transports we all know and hate. These things had particle beam cannons and several lasers on the outside along with shields which covered everything they could.

There were fifty of these mechanical monsters, and they all had a compliment of 100 troops ready for action.

“Take those birds down NOW!� I yelled over the interlink, our grenadiers got the message and hefted up rocket launchers.

The first twenty shots missed, the twenty first hit a gap inbetween the shields and blew it up. Thirty more were downed, but they had already dropped off their troops and we had lost half of everyone left. I hate Mondays.

The last twenty gunships dropped off their soldiers and left the comfort of the atmosphere and back to whatever ship they came from, but as for us we had about four hundred enemies to deal with.

We had about 1200 men at this time, these four hundred would have been easy pickings had they been Mogats, but sadly these guys weren’t Mogats and were far more organized. Rockets hissed through the air and battered a good two platoons to nothing more than dust, which brought our numbers down 100 clones leaving 1100.

We retaliated, but these speckers had spread themselves out which made them incredibly small targets, of course aim with a rocket isn’t needed so much, but we would have to take them out all at once, or another five hundred would get blown.

Out of seemingly nowhere lasers hit a few men who were running right through their visors. The skill was not that of a human marksman, but that of something far greater; a tracker. Trackers, like their name suggests, track your movements and fire on you when ready.

“Everybody get down, and get cozy, moving is not an option until those trackers are disabled!�

“Yes Sergeant!� They all replied, they knew better than to call another enlisted man “sir� such respect was reserved for officers, and everyone knew that.

“Take out those trackers! That is our primary objective, and permission granted to shoot any fed specker that gets too close!� I bellowed through the interlink, I bet some marines thought I had spit covering my visor, oh well nothing I could do about that.

From where I was taking cover, I could see several feddies fall over with oversized holes in their heads, and I couldn’t help, but smile. The trackers fired rockets in the direction of those poor marines who were then incinerated by the blast.

Now we had more marines running away from the gas and they were all killed by the trackers.

Zooming in with my telescopic lens, I could see the faint image of one tracker; I shot it from this range, lucky as that shot was I did it with a rocket. I didn’t miss, and the smokey remains were all that was left of the tracker. The gas was pouring out of that hole I had made with the rocket, and the nearby trackers were consumed by it. Their shells were not harmed, but their wires had been eaten through and destroyed from the inside.

More of our friends were killed, clones were made to obey orders and think of them after, if they lived. Our moronic Colonel was handing out the stupidest orders which got our men fragged by the oncoming enemy. I cursed quietly to myself and looked over the rock. Three hundred were left, but they were scattered.

Where are the SpecOps and Liberator clones when you need them? Well not here is what I can say. I was able to pick off forty two which decreased their numbers down to about 258 feddies left.

They still retaliated, and our men still died, but now things were more even. Without the help of their trackers, our Sharpshooters could take them out by the thirties. One Feddie for each sniper.

In no time we had them down to a mere 100, but we ended up losing twenty-five sharpshooters. This terrain didn’t give much cover when you’re firing at someone which made you easy pickings.

Firing rounds of rockets would normally have been what we would do, but on a planet such as this we may all die from such a thing. Instead we tried picking them off with particle beam weaponry; we hit a total of fifty out of 1100 men here. 300 of those men were shot at and were hit.

We were down to 800 men, and this was still in our favor, but things were going down the drain fast. Marines don’t lose, we win, and this was no exception.

“Fire rockets!� I barked in my interlink, it may have been a relatively dumb order, but they obeyed anyway, it was in our programming. Rockets lit the sky and tore through the feds who approached, their cover was blown to bits and the toxic gas took care of them, but the gas had spread towards us and marines yelled as their flesh melted.

893 men died from that, I along with Jackson and Richardson were three of the last seven marines. It was another Little Man; like them we would be called the Fergo squad; they chose to call us “squad� for some reason I was never told about.

We were able to get off that planet and onto that useless battleship. Of course I had a little talk with the Captain. I would’ve pounded his face in, but was able to control myself.

One final thing on Clones GI series; we have a death reflex which kicks in once we find out our origins and believe it, there has been a drug found amongst us clones that deactivates it. The government does not know about this, and so I should be grateful about that.