"Where are those Kel-Morian bastards? Let me get my hands on 'em!" Raynor shouted over the squad comms as he ran.
"I'm gonna blow their damn heads off!" Ward snarled through the channel.
"What the hell's going on? The mission briefing clearly said there wouldn't be any Kel-Morian forces here," Omer said.
"Well, they're here now, Tom," Augustus replied. "Stick with me—stick with your squad leader. We've got two whole battalions ahead of us—almost a thousand men. Once they take the high ground, all we'll have to do is walk up and congratulate them."
"Don't push too far forward. It won't do you—or any of your teammates—any good. Got that?"
"Yes, sergeant!"
"Loud and clear, boss!" came the firm replies over the channel.
The soldiers of First Squad stuck closely behind their squad leader. As it turned out, Augustus wasn't wrong. While they were still hacking their way through the jungle, an assault battalion from the Fourth Brigade had already launched an offensive against High Ground Z-103. By the time Augustus's squad reached the base of the hill, the Federation's red-and-blue banner was already flying above it.
Lieutenant Reagan was nearby at that point, with Second Squad of Third Platoon. They quickly regrouped at the foot of the high ground and, under orders from the platoon leader, bypassed Z-103 and headed northeast—toward Verino Town.
By then, the Kel-Morians' fortified positions atop the high ground had already been overrun by the Federation Marines. Some Kel-Morian troops had managed to retreat in the final moments, fleeing toward the town behind the ridge. Augustus's new mission became chasing down these retreating enemy forces.
Third Platoon followed a narrow country path—barely 3 meters wide—into Verino Town. Along the way, they didn't see a single trace of Kel-Morian forces. Instead, they kept overtaking other Federation squads and platoons.
Augustus saw only a few Kel-Morian corpses along the route. It was his first time encountering actual Kel-Morian regulars—aside from the Shock Cavalry—in the flesh, rather than as holographic projections in a boot camp training module.
Unlike the standardized CMC-200 powered armor used by the Federal military, the Kel-Morians—just like when they built their heavy assault vehicles and tanks out of whatever materials they could get their hands on—had no two sets of armor or weapons that looked exactly alike.
Among the Kel-Morians, only the tallest, most muscular, and battle-hardened warriors wore powered armor that closely resembled the CMC suits. At first glance, their armor looked nearly identical to the one Augustus wore—except that it had been coated with a layer of black paint over the original color scheme.
Kel-Morian-style brutal modifications covered almost every part of the armor. Take the one in front of Augustus, for example: every section of his powered armor was studded with sharp brass rivets, and two sharpened Turaxis hunter daggers were welded directly onto his shoulder plates. The black armor was covered with erratic white graffiti.
The only symbol Augustus could recognize was one he had studied back in boot camp—a unique emblem of the Kel-Morian 'Rippers': a spiked hexagonal warhammer smashing through shattered glass. The rest was much more obscure, featuring animals and unidentifiable symbols. Augustus guessed they might be family or guild emblems unique to that Kel-Morian warrior.
Augustus also knew that to even qualify to wear powered armor, a soldier typically had to be a veteran elite—or at the very least, a foreman of one of the Kel-Morian guilds.
As for the rest of the Kel-Morian warriors, their gear was far more makeshift. Over half of them wore only blue-green woolen uniforms and carried smaller models of Kel-Morian electromagnetic rifles. Some wore only suspenders and jumpsuits—uniforms with many pockets, clearly more like workwear than military gear.
Others were slightly better equipped. They wore round helmets with a central raised ridge and protective goggles, and each helmet bore two large vertical letters: 'KM'.
In addition to their uniforms, these soldiers wore crude armor stitched together from kinetic plating and thick leather padding. This armor was a far cry from the power-assisted CMC series used by the Federation, and its coverage was minimal. The better ones reached down to the calves and forearms; the poorer ones only covered from torso to thighs.
These lightly armored soldiers vastly outnumbered the Rippers who wore powered suits. Before picking up their weapons to fight against the Federal Army, they were miners and laborers working in guild-owned tunnels and factories.
After the outbreak of the Kel-Morian Coalition War, they were conscripted by their guild governments. Thus, the Kel-Morian Auxiliary Labor Army was formed—a force of miners turned fighters. They lacked armor but possessed unyielding determination.
As Augustus and his squad moved forward, they came across more corpses—some of them Federal soldiers blown apart by landmines. The fighting in Verino had already died down. Charred houses dotted the streets, and Federal troops were dragging the bodies of Kel-Morian soldiers to the town center, loading them into trucks to be buried elsewhere.
That afternoon, Augustus and the rest of his squad crammed into a civilian house assigned to them for rest, preparing for the final assault scheduled at dawn. Every house was packed with sweaty, exhausted marines. Those who couldn't fit indoors were pitching tents around the town.
No one knew where Verino's original residents had gone.
...
At precisely midnight the next day, Augustus and the soldiers of First Squad crawled up from their makeshift bedding—blankets and sheets spread on the ground—and gathered at the designated location within the town of Verino.
The assembly point for the Fifth Battalion was a wide-open area in the town center, once used by the locals as a marketplace. First Squad of Augustus's company stood in a formation of three columns and four rows, positioned between Second and Third Squads in the third row.
The floodlights mounted on the front of every Marine's chestplate were already switched on, casting bright beams across Verino and bathing the town in stark white light. Only one company from Warfield's unit had arrived so far; the rest of the large open ground remained empty.
Half an hour later, a new unit marched into the square with precise steps and tightly organized ranks—just like soldiers in a military parade. They came to a halt directly across from Augustus, facing him.
These troops were also part of the 33rd Ground Assault Division, clad in the signature silver-gray power armor. However, their suits bore no insignias, no identification numbers—nothing to indicate which regiment they belonged to.
Their numbers equaled that of an entire battalion. From the moment they entered to the moment they locked into formation, the only sound was the rhythmic thud of powered boots against damp soil. The level of discipline they displayed was nothing short of startling.
At first, no one in Augustus's unit found anything particularly strange about them. That changed at 00:45, when a commanding officer stepped in front of the formation and loudly announced his name and rank before instructing the soldiers to begin their pre-combat oath.
The instant the final word of his order fell, every soldier snapped to attention. They lowered their Gauss rifles from their shoulders and bowed their heads. Then, with perfect synchronization, they began reciting the oath.
[We swear to protect every planet and colony of the Terran Federation. We accept this as our sacred duty from birth.
We will fight all enemies of the Federation—whether they come from within or beyond the stars.
We obey all orders from our superiors as if they came from God Himself.
We are Marines. We are forever loyal. We will send all enemies of the Federation to Hell, until that Hell is filled with wailing souls.
We will die, all of us—but that is our purpose. Our sacrifice is for the eternal preservation of the Terran Federation.]
Once the oath was complete, their helmets snapped shut in unison, and their rifles were slung neatly back over their shoulders. Throughout the entire process, not a single word passed between them.
"What a bunch of pitiful wretches," muttered a platoon leader on the First Company's senior officers' channel.
"Resocialized soldiers?" asked the Second Platoon leader. "Now that you mention it, I've heard of them. These guys used to be deserters, political prisoners, murderers... all sorts of societal scum."
"They sure don't look like criminals," said the loud-voiced Fourth Platoon leader. "They're more obedient than a bunch of baby chicks."
"Resocialization," said Reagan, the Third Platoon leader, who seemed to know more than the others. "To put it simply—yeah, it's brainwashing. There are all sorts of methods. Some get dumped into chemical vats. Others get parts of their brains literally cut out—the frontal lobes, mostly. Then they get implanted with extra memory blocks."
"After that, they become hollow shells that obey the Federation's every command. If you told one of them to take a dip in a lake of lava, they'd march right in without a second thought."
"God, that's a crime against humanity," gasped one of the squad leaders.
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