Rune Town

Before June 20, the missions carried out by the 1st Company of Warfield's regiment, where Augustus served, were all rather monotonous. For two days, they stayed in the barracks and trained. The rest of the time, they were assigned to escort supplies from the Pride of Boke spaceport.

For an entire week, Augustus's squad followed the container trucks around the ring road.

It had been more than a week since Augustus was promoted to lance corporal and made acting leader of 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon. The personnel department still hadn't sent an NCO to take over, so he remained acting squad leader. As far as Augustus knew, the squad leaders of the other new-recruit squads that had arrived at 1st Company with him had all been replaced by veterans from the company.

Augustus soon realized that until he was promoted to corporal and made permanent squad leader, his replacement might never arrive.

While escorting supplies, the Kel-Morians never attacked, but Augustus remained on guard at all times against an enemy ambush.

Every day was much the same for Augustus and the others. The moment they opened their eyes in the morning, they had to put on their Power Armor and climb into armored personnel carriers. After that, the Marines spent most of the day inside the vehicles.

During this period, the Pride of Boke was unusually peaceful. Kel-Morian and Terran Confederacy troops still faced off across the Padek River in the city center, but the garrisons on the front lines didn't fire a shot. Only the artillery units on both sides regularly shelled enemy positions, and the buildings and fortifications within range had long since been razed to the ground.

Over the past year, no major battles involving more than ten thousand troops had broken out on Turaxis II. Each side controlled half the planet, and both seemed content with that arrangement.

But Augustus knew that this fragile balance was like a thin sheet of ice hanging over a candle flame. Sooner or later, one side would shatter it.

What worried Augustus most was that if both sides saw the Pride of Boke as a breakthrough point, the 33rd Ground Assault Division, caught in the heart of the war, would face a brutal battle.

Perhaps their supply-escort duties had already bored the hot-blooded young recruits of 1st Squad. So on the morning of June 20, when Second Lieutenant Reagan, the leader of 3rd Platoon, told them that 1st Company was about to embark on a combat mission in a town called Rune, everyone except Augustus and Omo cheered.

Second Lieutenant Reagan could only sigh. Augustus had led these recruits through their first battle, and the victory had come so easily that they still didn't take war seriously.

Perhaps only after they had witnessed their comrades die, after friends and fellow soldiers had left them forever, would they finally grow up.

It was nearly noon when Augustus led 1st Squad in formation into the barracks, where the emblem of a giant wolf was carved into the wall.

This was their first time using the 33rd Ground Assault Division's Power Armor. The division had previously served and fought in the freezing Silver World of Sigma, so its armor had been painted a matching silver-gray.

Like everyone else's, Augustus's breastplate bore the image of a crouching gray wolf.

The armor was still the old CMC-200 model. There were signs of wear inside, but overall, it was far better than the suits at the recruit training camp.

According to the newly issued supplement to the 33rd Ground Assault Division's Squad-Level Weapons Management Regulations, each member of Augustus's squad had also received a Gauss Rifle grenade launcher.

The armory's supply sergeant had also issued them a Hellfire flamethrower and its matching twin pressurized fuel tank, a brand-new CMC-230-XF heavy Power Armor suit, a seven-foot-long single-use rocket launcher and two large bundles of rockets. A few of them also received a Whisperer heavy machine gun and four ammunition crates filled with linked belts.

Augustus noticed that every squad in Warfield's company, including the medics, had been re-equipped. Clearly, the 33rd Ground Assault Division's high command intended to turn the entire 1st Company into a frontline assault company.

Warfield's company had always been known as the Iron Company. It was invariably the first to charge into battle, and after a few fierce engagements, it often lost more than half its men.

The 1st Company had earned this honor, and even the other companies agreed that they deserved better equipment. After all, it also gave the battalion commander even more reason to deploy them in the most dangerous places instead of anyone else.

Although regulations said these weapons should only be carried by NCOs with specialized training, it was obviously impractical to break up a full-strength squad during wartime and send some of its members away for training.

After consulting with Raynor, Augustus decided to give the rocket launcher to Ward and the heavy machine gun to the tall Benjamin. Omo would carry the ammunition crates and act as Benjamin's assistant.

Harnack got the flamethrower, partly because he said he'd loved playing with fire since he was a child, and partly because everyone else was reluctant to use such a dangerous and unwieldy weapon.

Augustus then divided 1st Squad into three fire teams, each built around members who had received the new equipment. Augustus led the first team, consisting of machine gunner Benjamin Crando, his assistant Tom Omo, riflemen Kurt Josephine and sniper Rick Kidd.

The second team was led by Raynor. His subordinates were Firebat Harnack Hank and riflemen Ilya Kulovsky and Amy Brandon. The third team was led by Arland Londerstein, with rocket trooper Connor Ward, grenadiers Zander Marks and Lee Pachinyang as its members.

"Augustus, I think we're still missing a medic," Raynor said after the weapons had been handed out.

"Our personnel and equipment are already about as close as you can get to a standard 'Special Tactics and Missions Squad.' Be grateful," Augustus said, beaming. "They usually call units like these the elite of the elite. Anyway, recruits who've only been in the service for a few months would never normally get their hands on this kind of gear."

"We'll become the elite of the elite someday," Raynor said.

When the Marines of 1st Squad had donned their new equipment and boarded an APOD-46 transport aircraft, Augustus was sure they had all been completely transformed.

Harnack had changed the most. He now wore a CMC-230-XF suit of Power Armor, the renowned Firebat armor, developed and manufactured by Procyon Industries.

Compared to other models from the CMC-200 through CMC-300 series, Firebat Power Armor used thicker, stronger steel plating. Its surface was coated with a special heat-resistant layer to withstand the blazing hot ion stream released by a Hellfire flamethrower.

The additional steel plates and insulation made Firebat armor heavier and bulkier than ordinary Power Armor. Its bright red paint job made it look even more dangerous, and the armor on its chest and groin bore the emblems of Procyon Industries and the 33rd Ground Assault Division.

The 33rd Ground Assault Division's Firebat armor had been repainted silver-gray, making it look like a giant silver man.

After some modifications to Ward's Power Armor, the steel plates on his shoulders had been replaced with larger, flatter ones, designed to mount and secure a cylindrical rocket launcher.

A more precise HUD missile-targeting scope had been fitted to his helmet visor. A bandolier holding twelve self-guided rockets and a spiked combat knife were strapped around Ward's waist.

As the transport aircraft flew toward its destination, Augustus used the HUD display on his Power Armor visor to review the mission briefing.

The latest briefing showed that Rune was fifteen miles from the central district of the Pride of Boke. Before the war, its population had been about five thousand. It had now shrunk to two thousand.

The town was still within the Terran Confederacy's area of control, but it lay downstream from the Paddick River, which flowed through the Pride of Boke's urban district. Only a single Confederacy army battalion was stationed there.

An army battalion couldn't monitor a defensive zone more than ten miles wide in real time, so Kel-Morian scout units frequently crossed the Padek River into Confederacy-controlled territory.

The mission briefing was terse: according to reliable intelligence, the town of Rune had sided with the Kel-Morians. Warfield's company was to retake the town and execute all its inhabitants.

Augustus's eyes widened as he read this.

That was right: execute, not arrest.