The Power of the Steel Needle Round

With an Exoskeleton on, one person could easily carry, set up, and fire a mortar alone.

Especially when manpower was short, one more person on the front line meant another Gauss Rifle and grenade launcher in the fight.

But the Imperial Orbital Paratroopers followed combat regulations rigidly and assigned a second soldier to stand guard.

That was the Imperial Army's way: whatever the circumstances, they followed combat regulations to the letter.

Even after the Federation had exploited that habit several times, they had never changed.

The soldier on guard held his rifle and carefully scanned the area.

The terminal built into his medium Exoskeleton lacked the processing power of powered armor.

As a result, the low-light night-vision feed in his visor had not been colorized.

He swept his gaze around. Finding nothing unusual in night-vision mode, he switched to infrared.

The image in his visor shifted to stark black and white.

Behind a boulder 150 meters away, he spotted a heat signature.

"Hm?"

The Imperial soldier immediately raised his rifle, and his HUD's targeting indicator shifted the Gauss Rifle's aim onto it.

But he was too late.

The heat signature flashed. In an instant, a 12mm steel needle round accelerated to 2,800 meters per second punched through the gap between his visor and chest armor.

The immense kinetic force tore the Orbital Paratrooper's neck apart.

Crack!

His headless body had already hit the ground by the time the steel needle round's sonic boom alerted the other soldier, who was carrying shells.

Before he could even turn, a second steel needle round followed.

It struck almost the same spot. The immense kinetic impact shredded everything above the soldier's neck.

A moment later, the moonlit air warped, and Amber appeared beside the mortar position.

He checked the Gauss Sniper Rifle in his hands, a weapon made for Psychic Agents and named Ghost.

It sacrificed fully automatic fire and was bulkier than an ordinary Gauss Rifle.

In return, it had a more powerful motor and a higher muzzle velocity.

Few tactical accessories adorned its long frame.

Apart from its folded bipod, there was only the fairly large multifunction scope atop the receiver.

A suppressor served little purpose on a Gauss Rifle whose projectile traveled fast enough to produce a sonic boom.

The entire rifle, including its bipod and scope, was covered in a black coating with a rubbery texture.

It was the same Synthetic Cell Coating used on the Psionic Special Operations Suit and Exoskeleton.

The goal was to make a Psychic Agent's Optical Cloaking more complete.

The Equipment Development Department had spared no expense applying the precious coating to every piece of equipment used by Psychic Agents.

That way, activating Optical Cloaking would not leave a Sniper Rifle awkwardly "floating" in midair.

After confirming that the two Imperial Orbital Paratroopers, both missing everything above their necks, would not get back up,

Amber slung the Ghost Sniper Rifle over his back and crouched beside the 120mm mortar.

The mortar was cast from a special alloy, and despite its 120mm caliber,

it was not particularly heavy. A soldier wearing an Exoskeleton could carry it at a run.

It was also the easiest form of accompanying fire support for infantry to obtain.

Both Imperial and Federation ground forces fielded such weapons in large numbers.

A small artillery terminal was attached to the mortar's mount.

A soldier only had to enter the target coordinates. The terminal would calculate the trajectory and provide the settings for adjusting the barrel.

Now its screen displayed an electronic terrain map of the area.

Linked by datalink to the other Orbital Paratroopers' personal terminals, it marked their live positions as green triangles labeled "friendly units."

Down in the valley, a cluster of red triangles was labeled "enemy units."

The two soldiers' vital signs had just vanished.

Three green triangles representing Imperial Orbital Paratroopers were moving toward the mortar position.

Knowing he had little time, Amber tapped the terminal several times and shifted the mortar's target beside the Imperial soldiers on one side of the valley.

The artillery terminal calculated the trajectory and promptly displayed the new settings.

Amber had never been an artilleryman, either in the game or in the real world.

But he had handled mortars plenty of times in the game's ground battles.

He adjusted the mortar's direction and angle as quickly as a trained mortar crewman.

Then Amber pulled a 120mm High-Explosive Shell from a nearby ammunition crate.

A special coating on its nose told him the shell also had terminal guidance.

He had no need for it, though. The shell's blast radius was more than enough to cover the Imperial soldiers' ambush position.

Amber lowered the shell halfway into the muzzle and took a deep breath.

Then he let go, allowing gravity to draw it down the barrel.

At the same time, he turned away and crouched.

His fully enclosed Tactical Visor could dampen noise,

but at such close range, Amber instinctively opened his mouth wide anyway.

Thump!

With a muffled launch, the powerful mortar shell climbed into the sky along a high arc.

A moment later, the High-Explosive Shell detonated with a thunderous blast in the distance.

Amber had no time to check what it had hit.

Following the terminal's directions, he adjusted the mortar and fired another High-Explosive Shell at the Imperial soldiers on the valley's other side.

With that done, Amber reactivated Optical Cloaking and vanished from the mortar position.

Soon, several Imperial Orbital Paratroopers approached in a triangular formation and surrounded it.

At the sight of two headless bodies and the mortar's still-steaming muzzle, the lead soldier knew something was wrong.

The next instant, a steel needle round tore through the air and struck the armor plate on his chest.

Driven by immense kinetic force, the Tungsten-Alloy Steel Needle Round punched through the hard Silicon Carbide Armor Plate and hurled him backward.

The other two soldiers panicked at the attack. When they saw no enemy in their low-light night-vision feeds,

they finally realized what was happening and switched to infrared imaging.

One of them shouted over the communications channel:

"Everyone, watch out! We're under attack by an optically cloaked target! Switch to infrared—"

Before he could finish, another steel needle round blew his head apart.

The last soldier's infrared imaging came online.

Directly ahead, he saw a human-shaped heat signature lunging at him like a monster.