TitoVillar
patreon
SCL Chapter 26: Collateral Obedience
🕑 Added 2025-04-10 18:48:37 +0000 UTCThe surviving coilgunner on the truck clutched his electromagnetic rifle, using the wreckage for cover as he returned fire. But every time one of them dared to peek out, they were immediately picked off by Ryk Kydd, the sharpshooter from Augustus’ unit, with his Sailor Longsight sniper rifle. One by one, they fell. The remaining soldiers could only raise their coilguns above their heads and fire blindly, hoping for a miracle.
Suddenly, a deafening explosion and the shriek of a sonic boom tore through the air. One of the trucks in front of Augustus was struck by a rocket from Ward. The fuel tank ignited instantly, and flames engulfed the vehicle in a roaring inferno.
Several people, their bodies ablaze, screamed and staggered before collapsing into motionless heaps. Their forms melted away like candles left too long in the sun.
From several hundred yards away, Loon Town's armed civilians opened fire on Augustus’ squad. Others, wielding only axes or power cutters, charged forward in an attempt to close the distance with the marines.
Augustus and his unit turned their weapons toward the oncoming townsfolk. Only then did he notice something far more dangerous than shotguns or farm tools: electromagnetic grenades, bundled around their waists—likely stolen from a Kel-Morian military factory nearby.
The charge was clearly organized. The attackers moved with wide spacing between them, and yet it was equally clear they weren’t trained soldiers. As seen before, they still lacked the proper weapons to pierce power armor.
Then the heavy machine guns opened fire, their blazing muzzles like lanterns carried by Death himself.
From several hundred yards away, a hailstorm of steel spikes tore through the crowd, raising a mist of blood. Those at the front were shredded by supersonic nails accelerated through electromagnetic coils, their bodies ripped apart in seconds. Limbs and flesh were flung into the air, raining down like the burst of a balloon.
The people behind them crumpled like scarecrows caught in a hurricane, their bodies twisted into ragdolls, pinned to the earth by the spikes.
Among them was the townsman who had earlier stepped forward to speak. Of the more than two hundred people standing directly across from Augustus, over half were down before he even emptied his spike-loaded magazine.
He watched as each person hit was cleaved in two. A single spike had enough force to punch through four or five people in a straight line, embedding itself in the last and flinging them a dozen meters back.
Anyone struck in the torso or head had no chance of survival. There were barely any screams—just the unrelenting roar of machine guns, the crackle of coil rifles, and the thunderclap of rockets.
By the time Augustus finished reloading, not even ten seconds had passed, but the townsfolk had already broken and fled.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Warfield barked.
The square was now a massacre. Bodies lay in mangled heaps, most too destroyed to recognize. A few survivors groaned in agony before falling silent. Those still on the outskirts fled in an instant, vanishing from the plaza.
Augustus stared at the dying, reminding himself they were a mob that had tried to kill him, that he was merely following orders. But the thought offered little comfort.
The Federation had long since grown accustomed to using slaughter to crush rebellion—blood and terror were its tools of control. And the executors of its tyranny were not police or security forces, but full-fledged military troops.
“Pursue them!” Warfield commanded. “First Squad, secure the central gas refinery. Fourth Squad, follow Kaines Road north. Second Squad, head south along Nuren Road. Flush everyone out of their homes. Medics, stay behind!”
The squads moved instantly, scattering in all directions.
“I’ll take direct command of Third Squad,” Warfield added.
“Yes, sir,” Augustus’ squad leader, Reagan, responded at once.
Warfield led First Platoon’s Third Squad toward a heavy truck lying on its side, leaving the other squads to hold position. It was the only one of the three trucks not targeted by rockets—because one of their marines was trapped underneath.
It was a rifleman from Second Squad. His power armor’s internal life monitor still showed signs of life, but none of them could lift the vehicle. The truck’s container was packed with scrap metal and alloys gathered by Loon Town’s citizens. Not even power-assisted armor could make them superhuman.
“We’ll need a crane,” Augustus said after trying and failing to push the truck.
“There’s no time to request one from Polk’s Pride engineering division,” Warfield replied without hesitation.
“Explosives.”
“Remove the fuel tank. Use the lowest yield—D-7 charges only,” Augustus nodded, turning to Zander.
Zander, a demolitions enthusiast, carried the squad’s most diverse and abundant selection of explosives in his backpack. Under Warfield’s direction, the squad quickly got to work. He personally determined the placement and amount of charges.
With a controlled detonation, the connection between the truck’s cabin and trailer blew apart. Thanks to the varying blast strengths at different points, the trailer—once pressing down on the marine—tipped cleanly to the side. Augustus, Raynor, and the others rushed in and dragged their comrade out.
The Marine’s power armor was severely damaged, with multiple dents and deformations in the plating. Augustus guessed he might have blacked out from the impact—he hadn't responded at all over the comms.
“You okay, Private?” Warfield knocked lightly on the Marine’s helmet. When there was still no response, he pressed a button beneath the faceplate. With a faint hiss, the visor slowly slid open.
Inside was a young man with tangled brown hair and a face mottled with bruises.
It was clear his injuries weren’t life-threatening—mostly soft tissue bruises. Blood trickled steadily from the corner of his right eye, and he looked dazed, possibly with a mild concussion. A medic in power armor approached, kneeling beside the Marine and lifting his eyelid to examine the pupil response.
The medic's armor was painted the same as Augustus’s unit, with a red cross stenciled on the right shoulder to distinguish him. On his back, he carried a bulky D-1 medical pack, even larger than an M-2 infantry backpack.
As Augustus glanced over, the medic was rummaging through the bag, pulling out a medical laser stapler to close the wound.
“My kit’s not enough to treat this properly. He needs to be taken to the nearest medical station,” the medic said, speaking as he worked. A pale-faced young man with an unremarkable appearance, he directed his words to Warfield while applying a low-intensity laser to sterilize and seal the bleeding.
“The closest station is in Polk’s Pride. I’ll contact HQ and request a dropship right away.” Warfield turned to look at the blood-soaked figures still sprawled on the plaza—some of the townsfolk of Loon were still groaning faintly, clinging to life. “Augustus, take your men and bring the wounded locals with us.”
The corpses in Loon Town’s central square were beyond recognition—many had been blown apart, the ground strewn with dark, bluish-black entrails, shattered bones, and pulped flesh. Only those who’d been shot in the legs were still alive.
Even after Augustus had made it clear that the Marines would treat their injuries, some of the townspeople kept trying to shoot at them. In the end, the soldiers had no choice but to return fire.
“Do they have a death wish?” Josephine asked over the comms as they worked to secure the wounded.
“Maybe,” Augustus replied. “Maybe they believe... there are things more important than survival.”
He and Raynor exchanged a glance—unspoken thoughts stirring in their minds.
Roughly an hour later, when the dropship arrived in Loon Town, the rest of First Company had already secured the town hall, the church, and the train station. They’d crushed the townspeople’s attempts at a counterattack, driving them from their homes.
In the blood-scented air, a brand-new red-and-blue flag of the Terran Dominion rose above the plaza’s central flagpole.
