TBntG-3 Chpt 39

=The Bull and the Genie=
==Chapter 39 - Book III - The Clan Invasion==
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==The Invasion of Oshika: Part 2==
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===The Opening Throws===
Oshika System, Draconis Combine
When the coffin exploded into fragments around Katherine, she put herself into the arrow move. Anyone with a brain would look for changes in movement on the way down, which was why half the decoy coffins had exploded and now "suit shaped" things, or at least things that looked like suits to radar, were breaking, making themselves obvious to any AA. 
Experienced Clan gunners had quickly tagged to the trick, but whoever was down there wasn't experienced and streams of missiles, lasers and particle beam bolts were blotting the decoys from the sky. Meanwhile, the other half of the decoys exploded, revealing anti-radar missiles, which promptly shot down for the guidance systems, save for a few that popped parachutes and dangled in the sky, in case someone was keeping his radar quiet.
 
<{"Ground warning, ground warning, ground warning…"}> 
 
"I know!" Katherine snarled. Stupid techs, we tell them again and again and they keep insisting we'll somehow magically not notice the ground if they set the safety's to something reasonable. 
 
She waited and then came the time to trigger the disposable rockets. Too soon and you made the kind of IR bloom that nobody would miss, too late and… you made the kind of crater nobody would miss.
 
Other drops you could use parachutes with, but not one coming right down into the teeth of the enemy. 
Now! The rockets fired and Katherine wondered if it was possible for your overies to end up in your feet, along with every other internal organ. The 10G final burn accounted for something over 10 percent of training fatalities, and was a reason why there was nobody over 30 in the first units. There were older members, but they were held back so the pathfinder units could clear a zone, or direct them to a zone that would only require a 8G or so decel. 
 
The punishing deceleration ended and the disposable pack was blasted away and Katherine landed—directly on top of a Kuritan soldier who went "squish" Two shocked soldiers stood behind him—and Katherine cut them in half with her machine gun.
 
And then out of the smoke from fires and smoke decoys, a huge figure lumbered up. 
 
Shit! Katherine dodged to the side as a medium laser blazed. 
 
A Kanazuchi. Evidently intelligence was right that they had a few of them, wrong that the prototypes would be kept back at the homeworld. The machine gun was striking sparks from its armor, but it was still up, waddling after Katherine like a particularly angry toddler. 
 
UMC units used light BA, with heavy weapons units sticking to Medium suits. After all, the point of BA was that it could move and disperse, neither one of which worked well if you were sealed into a walking turret. 
 
But… 
 
Katherine boosted and jinked with her jets in the "skater dodge" as the books called it or the "Angry dad found out you knocked up his daughter dodge" as the Taurian drill sergeants called it. 
 
More importantly, she released the machine gun and called up her can opener. 
 
Most BA missiles were more or less the same as their vehicular counterparts. Close to the same range, close to the same payload.
 
 The canopener wasn't. It was a single shot weapon, good out to thirty meters, iffy out to sixty, designed for close range fights that fast suits would get into.
 
Little more than a rocket propelled grenade, it carried no less than 10KG worth of HESH warhead. 
 
She only had one, so Katherine aimed carefully, even as pilot brought up his anti-personel gun, waiting for the laser to cycle. 
 
Then she fired. The canopener impacted directly on his chest, and then exploded, the blast throwing Katherine back. She looked out and…
 
Holy shit. The Kanazuchi came staggering out, sans most of its armor, medium laser and SRMs sparking ruin. But it raised its…
 
And three streams of machine gun fire turned the pilot to bloody gobbets. 
 
"Are you okay, Quiaff?" Tiny asked. The former Elemental said, Second Platoon's sergeant looking down with his team. 
 
"Fine. Status?" 
 
"Parking lot and train terminal secured, we are bringing down the support echelons. The factory…" He shook his head. "Is being defended."
 
"We'll take it out while we're setting up defenses." Katherine ordered
 
"Very well." 
 
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===Unpleasant Reality===
The factory defense didn't last very long. Most of the guards were unarmored or lightly armored, most of the BA being set up outside. Casualties were light on her side—the BA units had been expecting to fight mechs and were dug in, but not expecting a swarm attack. 
 
Outside the factory, they were setting up to receive guests. Angry Burros were moving to their positions, guns swiveling on their back mounts, while the heavy weapons team set up remote weapon stations, their operators safely far away and controlling them via fiber optic cables. Medical, reserve units, men and women opening supply pods and moving them to the proper place…
 
And all of it without having to ask a certain Major Katherine Steiner-Davion to hold their hands because they'd trained. 
 
And because nobody with a noble title before their name could demand that everyone do their job for them. That type didn't last very long in the infantry. 
 
"Ma'am, we've got a problem."
 
"What?" she asked
 
"The prisoners…" And before she got all the way in the factory, the CBERN sensors started buzzing. 
 
The factory floor was huge, and the intelligence sorts were going over the Computers, draining them of information while others made a hand count of the bombs in stock before they permanently disabled them—after the engineers had checked for boobytraps, of course. 
 
But the people on the floor were wearing rags, and looked skinny, with their hair coming out in clumps.
 
And the sensors on Katherine's HUD let her know that the dosage would make you sick… probably kill you after a few weeks. 
 
Pretty much what the Intelligence was afraid of. But we knew…
 
"It's the fucking masks they were given," the CBERN officer told her, his voice clipped. "Thay're packing the radioactive dust into the bombs to make them dirty bombs, since fusion-triggered bombs…"
 
"And?"
 
"And those are painter's masks, the kind of thing a lady wears because she doesn't want to get dust in her nose while she's sanding down a wall. It won't do shit for the particles here, and they've been taking it into their mucus membrane and breathing it down into their lungs. It's not just the gamma, it's the alpha particles."
 
"What do we do?"
 
"I've got the engineers rigging a washdown facility outside, the ones in here are contaminated all to hell, worse than useless. I bet most of the guards and factory staff are also facing poisoning."
 
"And the people?" 
 
"We can wash them down, shave them, those that still have hair, but the shit inside? We need to get them to a class one facility, because they're gonna have to more or less use the shit and grow procedure."
 
"What?"
 
"Yeah. You shit out most of your intestinal linings, most of your lungs, and they regrow it. Magistracy Medical came up with it, since a lot of periphery worlds still use fission."
 
"Right. Let me guess, the camp?"
 
"Contaminated all to hell." 
 
"Great. Fine, we've got some spare medical tents. Put the worst in them, the others move them upwind, and have engineering dig some shelters—after they get all the defenses set up. Also, nobody is to pop their helmet."
 
"Got that in fucking one. This whole valley is gonna be a toxic site for the next few decades."
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===There always little problems===
By the time Katherine emerged, the engineers had finished their work inside, while intelligence was draining the last of the data from the computers, not just shipping manifests, but information on who had sent the prisoners here. There was a note that some had been diverted to a site in a village about three kilometers away, for entertainment purposes. 
 
She'd have liked to go, but the CO had to stay with the fight, so Tiny's lieutenant, someone new and eager for war and not at all like the oldtimers such as her, had volunteered, visions of glory in his eyes.
 
Eh, he listens to Tiny, so he's not hopeless.
 
On the other side, the spray of the water started. "Move through, move through!" A medic shouted as others helped (or tore off) clothing. 
 
"That's fucking killing you!" one trooper told a bald, middle-aged woman who was holding a blanket in front of her. "See?" he held up his hand, holding a sensor wand. 
 
Click-click-click-click…
 
Closing her eyes, she dropped it, covering herself while they sprayed her shivering body with soapy water before rinsing with clean water, or at least as clean as you got here.
 
"Head to the medical tent, they got heaters." the troopers were calling. 
 
Not all were talking. One person, not old, but now looking skeletal, fell down, puking rich, rich, red blood, medics moved in, then one looked up and shook his head and put a black band around the teen's wrist. 
 
They didn't shout at him as they assisted him to the tent. 
 
"Major?"
 
"Yeah?" she answered
 
"Reinforcements are gonna be late. There's a little problem upstairs."
 
"Of course there is." Katherine wasn't even surprised. Things had been going too well.
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