Fallen Reapers

‘Damn’ I swore as I hit my head on the wall. I’d been just about to fall asleep too. I sighed, resigned to a sleepless flight. I decided I should see how my team was doing. They looked nervous. Anyone else wouldn't have been able to tell, but I could.

I was their leader and brother and I could read there actions. The slight tick of a finger, the tight tension in the jaw and shoulders. Who wouldn’t be nervous? This would be our first real fight. Not a drill, not a field exercise, now it was kill or be killed. They had all been hand picked by me to be the first Death Angels to go into the field.

We had been trained from birth together as siblings, fighting, eating, training, and sleeping together. We were created from the genes of the best soldiers and chemically augmented before birth. I was born in a lab, grown in a machine for one purpose: death and destruction. Out of all of the Angels, I had been selected to be the head of the Death division, as we were called by the politicians.

Now I had chosen my team. We would be the best of the best. Put in the thick of the action, sent ahead of the troops to raise morale and kill all the Northern Federation troops we could. We were the top. No one could tell us what to do, except the highest ranking commanders and generals, and of course the President himself. We were Echo Team.

Our call signs were Lone wolf, Rouge, Siren, Ghost, and Trigger and we would be known throughout history as the unstoppable force that ended this war. Russians would run from us, Cubans would cower before us, just the sight of us would create mass mayhem in the North Korean lines.

I looked to my left at closest friend, my brother in all but blood, Matt Lane. He was my first pick as our combat engineer, partly because our bond was greater than that of any other of the Death Angels, and because he was smart, level headed, knew his way around any engineering problem that could come up and could fight me to a tie in hand to hand combat.

He was twirling a combat knife around in intricate patterns, his fingers dancing through the air. With his enhanced reflexes and speed, the knife, and his hand, was a blur of black and silver lines that traced out a complex beat.

His hair had gotten him the name, Rouge. His long blond hair defied regulations, but when you were a ton of steel, Kevlar, and special ballistic plastics and ceramics no one really questioned you.

Across the hold was our sniper, Jessica Alender. Her scary, ghost-like ability to hit a target perfectly from a mile away and stay completely hidden from sight had gained her the name Wraith. Her short auburn hair was set in a crew-cut at her cheek to keep it out of her way. She kept checking and rechecking her FALCON MII 37 caliber sniper rifle. Yep, she was nervous. The rifle-checking thing was mainly for comfort.

On my right was our hot stealth expert, Whitney. I was debating about choosing her. I had a crush on her, which could cause problems, but if our team was the best it needed the best, and she was. I mean, if you can sneak into an enemy base while it's on high alert in broad daylight with our black and red ‘scythe‘ armor you have some serious skill at sneaking.

Her ability to take down gaurds with a little flirting, sneaking, or just lying was second to none. She had shown how you earn the name Siren. Deadly and beautiful didn't start to describe her.

Our last member, Erick Mitchell, was blasting some classic heavy metal band from the beginning of the 21st century. Indestructible by Disturbed. It was an appropriate choice for our line of work. He was our heavy weapons expert and could usually be seen with his P7-Bassilisk missile launcher. His head was shaved bald and his sunglasses were ever-present on his face.

Where he puts them when he has his helmet on, when he has very little baggage and when everything he does have is filled with ammo, I'll never know. All in all a typical group of 16 year old super soldiers in with the most advanced armor to be seen on earth and toting weapons that would make any arms dealer drool. Well, about as typical as they get.

“Why do you listen to that crap? That's like their worst song. Turn on Down With the Sickness or something.” Matt yelled over the drone of the engine.

“Aw come on. Indestructible is so much better. Plus it puts me in the mood.” Trigger argued.

“Somethings messed up in your head. At least put on Inside the Fire. Or Linkin Park or something.”

“Your crazy.”

“I know.” Matt admitted.

Of course it was all joking, but the pilot didn't know that.

“Will you kids shut up!” The pilot yelled over his shoulder. Wrong choice. You didn’t want to piss us off. Matt just snapped the knife closed and stared the pilot over, treating the man to his best demented stare. Matt didn't blink when he was doing this. It was actually rather creepy, and the pilot hurriedly turned back to his instruments.

“New guy?” Matt asked after a moment of drilling two holes in the pilot's headrest.

I nodded, suppressing a chuckle. Just then “AA” fire silenced anymore conversation we all got our helmets on and got ready for battle.

It had been five minutes and the fire hadn’t stopped, but we hadn’t been shot down. However, we had taken some shrapnel. The armor was weaker back here in the hold, but our diamond hard armor protected us. The D9-7 drop ship had been made to carry personnel, and supplies and if the need arose a vehicle. It was the workhorse of the American Space Corps.

Suddenly we heard a series of thumps followed by a sharp crack as a line of flack stitched across the windshield. The pilot took a lucky .50 cal shot in the head. It tore through the weak pilot issue visor and splattered the mans brains all over the inside of his helmet. Lovely.

The ship nose dived as the pilots body pushed down on the stabilizer. The armor we were wearing kept us safe from the serious G’s we were pulling, but we couldn’t move to stabilize ourselves. Our harnesses soon broke from the pressure and we were thrown across the hold. I hit the wall and started blacking out. Somebody was yelling my name but I couldn’t break free.

‘So this is how it ends, without a fight.’

Things came fuzzy at first. My head was on fire. I tried for a word. “Unnhhh...”

Matt walked into the dim interior of the ship. “Oh good, your awake.”

“Yeah, although whether or not that's a good thing I'm not sure. Sit-rep?”

“We've set up a perimeter around the crash site. You took quite a pounding in that crash, Wolf. Our armor's operating at half capacity and our communications are being jammed. Trigger's dead.”

My head jerked up at this. “Oh, terrific. What's the low-down on weapons?”

“The bird's systems are all fried, obviously, but most of the mounted cannon still operate. The 40mm nose cannon still work, and I've got Siren on that one. The .50 cals on the sides still work. Wraith's posted up in a tree somewhere, but beyond that I have no idea. You've been out for an hour.”

“Nice.” I said sarcastically.

“Trigger's MG's right here. Your rifle's smashed to bits.”

I glanced down at my rifle. The barrel was twisted and the stock was cracked in half. “I guess I'll use it then.”

Matt passed me Trigger's .50 cal. “I'd gear up quick. Hostiles inbound from the North.”

“Now that you mention it,” I got up and rifled through a crate of ammunition, coming up with a spare sidearm and several boxes of ammunition for the MG. “Get on that side gun and give some suppressive fire. I'll pull along the flank. Can you keep the attention here?”

Matt pulled back the charging handle on the side-mounted chain gun. “I think we can do that.”

“Roger that, Rouge.”

This would be fun.

I took stock of our position. We had landed at the edge of a cliff, covered by a thick jungle canopy. Only faint shafts of light found their way down here, giving everything a strange twilight appearance. Great. We were cornered.

I made sure there was ammo in the box before I crept off into the woods. Matt would keep 'em occupied while I took some of 'em to hell with me.

My short-range Friend or Foe Distinction System (FOF) showed 30 little dots on my Tactical Map (TacMap).

Five minutes later I was high in a tree with Trigger's machine gun balanced on a tripod.

The Russian point man advanced cautiously through the trees, rifle held before him. I didn't even have time to aim before the ground blew up beneath the man's feet. Siren at the 40mm's.

The next three Russians ate it, either from Siren's explosives or Matt's staffing fire. I decided now would be a good time to come around their flank, as most of the Russians were arranged in a line behind cover. But their cover only protected them from dead ahead.

A classic mistake.

I opened fire, carefully calculating the bullet's path both through the weapon's optical sighting and the bright red tracer shots that spit out every 7 rounds. One after another the Russians fell, like dominoes, and I received only a scattering of return fire.

Then one of the Russian's Armored Personnel Carriers (APC's) opened fire with a 100mm explosive shell that shattered the tree trunk I was in.

I jumped from the tree and hit the ground, rolling to disperse the energy. Two Russians immediately presented themselves.

I ducked under the first's swing and clocked him with the heavy MG. As he fell back, his partner darted forward and shoved a blade into the weak joint plating of my shoulder.

The pain didn't even register. I whipped out my own blade, classic back-handed style, and cut across the Russian's throat. He went down, and I darted past him and stuck another Russian in the back of the neck.

But now I was exposed. Crap. Eight Russians turned and leveled various nasty-looking weapons at me.

I was dead. As tough as this armor was, nothing could stand up to an all out full-auto volley of 7.62mm armor piercing rounds. This was a firing squad.

Just then Wraith opened fire, two sharp cracks resounding through the woods, and two Russians fell, clutching the stumps of their headless bodies.

The distraction allowed me to roll behind a piece of cover while Matt took up fire with his machine gun. Except that it wasn't Matt, because Matt was right next to me now, holding his hand out. I grabbed it and he pulled me up.

“I rigged the gun.” Matt responded in answer to my questioning look. “Took the nav computer out of the cockpit and re-wired it into the MG. I hooked up a couple spare boxes of ammo and let the computer do the firing.”

I grinned. That was Matt. Battlefield engineer.

“So what do you say, Wolf? Lets go knock some heads.”

“Roger that, Rouge.”