Dire Contingency
Copyright© 2025 by Snekguy
Chapter 11
Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 11 - A disillusioned special forces group stages a violent insurrection, stealing experimental weapons from a Navy black site and using them to take over a remote colony. With help months away, the only person who is in a position to oppose them is Ruza – an old veteran of the Kerguela war. The planet is plunged into a brutal conflict, with local resistance groups hellbent on breaking the occupation.
Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Romantic Heterosexual Fiction Military War Science Fiction Aliens Space Oral Sex Petting Size Politics Slow Violence
DAY 23 – STEEL PLANT – RUZA
“Just got confirmation,” Reed said as he stowed his phone in his pocket. “Our guys have spotted dropships taking off from one of the garrisons, and a convoy of PDF vehicles is on its way. The Borgs are taking the bait.”
“Can we guarantee that Hoff will be here?” Rivera asked.
“I don’t think he’d miss a chance to crack some skulls,” Reed replied. “He’s not the type to sit back and leave all of the fun brutality to his men. Omar seemed pretty confident that he’d show up in force as a way of sending a message.”
“And all of your snares are in place?” Ruza asked, his arms crossed as he leaned against the far wall.
The men were standing in an old office, a few of the steel plant’s towering chimneys visible beyond the dusty windows, belching dark smoke that was quickly carried away by the wind. It wasn’t unlike the room where Ruza had originally met with Bergmann, though it had seen more frequent use, the sparse furniture not quite as caked with dirt. This place stank – the inescapable fumes from the smelting stinging his nose wherever he went. The plant was massive and sprawling, almost like a small city in its own right. It formed a maze of pipes and unidentifiable machinery, sitting in the desert just beyond the city like a steel jungle amidst the ocean of dunes. Ruza hadn’t spent much time around human industry, and he was already starting to dislike it.
“Everything is ready,” Reed confirmed with a nod. “Plans A through C are good to go. We’ve all seen these Bullsharks in action now,” he added, glancing around the office. “We all have some idea of what they’re capable of. Remember – guns won’t do shit against these things. If push comes to shove and this op goes south, you run. Don’t try to be a hero, don’t stand your ground, you tuck your tail between your legs and get the fuck out. No offense,” he added with a nod to Ruza.
“Another colorful human expression, I assume,” the Rask grumbled.
“The men are in place,” Rivera added. “We have Marines and loyal PDF hiding among the workers. When the shooting starts, they’ll be in solid, defensible positions. We tried to convince the plant workers to evacuate, but a lot of them stuck around. They’re certainly tenacious – I’ll give them that. I just hope they don’t get in the way.”
“I don’t know how I feel about using you to draw Hoff out,” Reed said, looking to Ruza again. “Are you sure about this?”
“You have asked me several times already.”
“Yeah, well I’m asking you again,” Reed insisted as he folded his arms.
“Hoff harbors a hatred for the insurgents, but I am his most coveted prize,” Ruza replied. “If I challenge him openly, I believe he will pursue me, and he will likely attempt to capture me alive. It is a risk, but one that I choose to take.”
“Well, let’s hope that one of the plans works,” Reed muttered. “I’m pretty confident in B.”
“If you were asked to board a shuttle and the pilot told you that he was pretty confident it would fly, would you get on?” Rivera asked.
“If it was a Navy shuttle, probably not,” Reed scoffed.
“Cease your bickering,” Ruza growled, leaning over to glance out of the nearest window. “We must get into position. It will not be long before the enemy is upon us.”
He lifted his rifle from where it was leaning against the wall, donning his mask and goggles before draping his shawl over his head. Many of the fighters could travel freely and go unseen thanks to the conditions on Hades, but the same could not be said for a Rask. He was two feet taller than even the largest humans, and he stuck out like a sore thumb, as Reed would say. The man could scarcely get a sentence out without including some nonsensical human expression or adage.
Reed and Rivera donned hardhats and high-vis vests, disguising themselves as workers, hefting rifles and heading out onto a raised catwalk outside the office. Ruza followed, ducking through the low door and stepping out into the hot midday sun.
The steel plant stretched out before him – a vast sprawl of structures that occupied an industrial park, great pipes and overhead skywalks crossing the vaguely defined roads and walkways that snaked through the maze. There were more distinct buildings buried beneath it all that housed some of the larger and more dangerous machines, some of them easily the size of the warehouses he had seen. Great towers rose up towards the sky, belching plumes of dark smoke – the way that the endless pipes and scaffolds enclosed them reminded him of great trees laden with parasitic vines. To his eye, it looked like the mechanical guts of a jump carrier had been turned inside out and somehow deposited on the surface, as though some great metal beast had spilled its innards, but each and every part had some purpose or meaning to its builders.
It was a far cry from the rows of furnaces and bellows that he was used to seeing back in his home territory. The humans did everything at such large scales that it often lost all meaning to him, like someone repeating a single word or phrase until it ceased to make sense. They proceeded down the narrow metal steps until they reached ground level, his two human companions heading off to join a picket line that had assembled near the plant’s parking lot. They were making a lot of noise, clustered together in a large group that had formed a loose line blocking the entrance to the plant proper, homemade signs and vests tied to poles waving in the air.
A couple of hundred workers were present, a substantial number of which were resistance fighters in disguise, and more were concealed throughout the plant. The forest of interwoven machinery, side passages, and overhead gantries made for very defensible positions. The snipers that Ruza had personally trained were among them, hidden in elevated perches high in the towers, their rifles trained on the ground below.
“Stick to the plan,” Rivera said as the three men parted ways. “And remember – no heroics.”
“Why are you looking at Ruza?” Reed complained in mock outrage. “I can be heroic too, you know.”
“Just get to your mark,” the Marine sighed.
Ruza turned his back on the picket line, heading deeper into the facility, following a dusty road that was bridged by more walkways and gantries above. They connected the structures to either side of him, their metal walls rising up several stories, a few dirty windows looking out from their weather-beaten facades. This must be where the trucks would bring scrap and ore from the mines into the factory for processing.
Strapping his rifle across his back, he leapt from the ground, easily able to clear his own height in a single jump in this low gravity. Like an Araxie climbing through the jungle canopy, he made his way up, hooking his claws around the skeletal structural supports and pipes, heaving himself up onto an elevated walkway. He would be hard to spot from this position, and he would have a good view of the parking lot through his scope. His sensitive ears twitched as they heard the telltale whir of a rotor, and he lifted his head to see a pair of surveillance drones hovering over the site. There was enough cover above him that he should be difficult to spot, but it wouldn’t matter for much longer. There would come a time when he wanted the enemy to see him.
Ruza leveled his rifle and rested its barrel on a low guard rail, taking a knee and dialing in his scope so that he could get a closer look at the protesters. They looked convincing – there were no visible weapons, and nobody had forgotten to remove their armband.
He spotted a dust cloud in the distance, increasing his magnification to see a procession of armored personnel carriers heading in from the city along the solitary road. It was impossible to lose one’s sense of direction with the towering space tether visible for hundreds of miles. There was a dark shape standing out against the deep blue of the sky, too, and Ruza shifted his aim higher. A pair of dropships were flying above the convoy in tight formation, their glass canopies reflecting the sunlight.
“I have sighted the enemy,” Ruza said, lifting a pad to his earpiece. There had been no earpieces custom-made for Borealans of the kind he had used while working for the UNN, so Astrid had built him one, a headband securing the device near his ear. “Two dropships and five APCs – estimate two SWAR teams and twice as many PDF.”
“Let’s hope one of those shuttles is carrying Big-H,” Reed replied.
“We’re not calling him that,” Rivera complained.
“I just did, over.”
“Keep the comms clear,” Ruza muttered.
The dropships arrived first, but instead of landing, they began to circle overhead as they waited for the PDF to clear the site. The five trucks pulled up in the parking lot, keeping some distance from the picket line, PDF troopers pouring out of their rear doors. The men were equipped for riot control, wielding the same transparent shields that Ruza had seen them use at the protest. There were more guns this time, however – each group equipped with several XMRs. They spread out to form their own opposing line, some of the shooters taking up position to cover them, climbing atop parked cars to give themselves a little more elevation. Each of the APCs had a gunner poking out of a hatch in the roof, leveling a rifle at the protesters.
Only now did one of the dropships break off, swooping low over the parking lot and transitioning to vertical flight mode, its thrusters blasting the tarmac below clean of sand. It bounced on its wheeled landing gear, the large gun turret mounted beneath its overhanging tail dropping down, guarding the ramp as it began to open. The second dropship remained above, and Ruza noted that its gun was also deployed.
“They have aerial fire support,” Ruza warned.
“Those cannons will chew us up if we get caught out in the open,” Rivera warned. “I’ll alert the men. We may need to move quickly when this kicks off.”
Ruza watched as something large enough to make the dropship sag on its landing gear marched out of the troop bay, its gray and blue armor coming into view when it stepped out of the shadows. It was Hoff – easily identifiable by the yellow star that was painted on his suit’s chest piece. A dozen SWAR operatives poured out behind him, splitting into two fireteams and flanking to his left and right. Ruza’s last encounter with the Bullshark had been the sight of its painted teeth burning in the red glow of its hot coils, and it was no less intimidating in daylight, even from a distance. As always, the suit was wielding an overbuilt XMR large enough that even a Borealan would find it unwieldy. Every step that it took made its thick, layered armor panels shudder, the silver pistons and machinery that formed a skeletal frame around its limbs shifting.
“That’s our guy, alright,” Reed said over the radio. “Get ready.”
“There could be more reinforcements inside the second dropship,” Rivera added. “It’s impossible to say.”
“This is fewer operatives than responded to our diversion at the ASAT sites,” Reed continued as Ruza watched the airborne craft coast past overhead. “Maybe they’re anticipating another bait and switch?”
“There are still more than enough to be a problem,” Rivera grumbled. “Remember that Hoff is priority one. If we have to lead the rest of the SWAR team on a wild goose chase through the entire plant, that’s what we’ll do.”
Ruza didn’t feel too confident, but he refrained from voicing his concerns. He had seen firsthand what SWAR were capable of when the fight was fair and the insurgents lost the element of surprise, especially in enclosed spaces. Instead, he trusted the humans to do their part, watching through his scope as the towering suit lumbered towards the picket line.
“Fun’s over!” Hoff began, his voice carrying through the suit’s speakers. It was loud enough that Ruza’s sensitive ears could pick it up even at such a distance. “The Governor has declared this an illegal strike. Disperse and get back to work, or force will be used against you.”
The protesters responded with more chanting and waving of signs, Ruza observing the movements of the enemy from his high vantage point. The PDF were forming a shield phalanx down the center of the parking lot, while the two SWAR teams were moving to the left and right, forming a pincer. The tail gun of the landed dropship and the troopers watching over the crowd from atop their APCs were well-positioned if violence should break out. Timing would be paramount.
“I’m not gonna tell you twice!” Hoff shouted, lifting his massive XMR with a single hand and aiming it up into the air. “Get back on the line!”
He loosed a burst of gunfire, the deafening cracks of hypersonic slugs echoing across the plant and making Ruza flatten his ears, the weapon barely shifting in the suit’s grasp. The fighters knew the plan as well as Ruza did, and he watched as they began to slowly retreat. Their goal was to disperse into the factories and split up the enemy’s forces – give them no choice but to pursue in smaller groups, leveraging their greater numbers. There was no decisive victory that could be won here, and enemy reinforcements would arrive within fifteen or twenty minutes of being called, but taking out Hoff would be a strategic blow to the occupation.
The PDF began to move in, raising their shields, some of the troopers at their rear firing off grenade launchers. They were non-lethal weapons, the shells landing amongst the workers and spewing clouds of white gas – likely a chemical irritant. With all of the protesters wearing masks and goggles, it was minimally effective, the wind blowing it across the crowd like smoke.
Some of the workers near the back of the group began to toss rocks and stones at the PDF as the troopers inched forward, the projectiles bouncing off their shields and helmets harmlessly. Ruza had no fear of the peacekeepers – they were trained for scenarios like this, but he kept a close eye on the SWAR agents. They were still moving, and it looked as though they might be intending to cut off the workers’ retreat.
“Weapons at the ready,” Ruza warned. “Hold for my signal.”
His snipers were some of the best shots in the resistance, and he had tasked them with targeting the SWAR operatives. They would only get one opening salvo before they lost the element of surprise, and they had to make it count.
Omar had undergone the same training regimens as these PDF, and according to him, their next move would be to break formation and dash in. They would attempt to beat back the crowd and drag away individuals for arrest, but that couldn’t be allowed to happen, as any detainees might be tortured for information or simply executed.
“Keep moving back and reinforce the flanks!” Reed ordered. “Don’t let those fireteams get behind you!”
Hoff was marching behind the shield wall, raising his rifle and firing another burst into the sky, a few of the nearer protesters flinching away.
“You can spend the rest of the day at your posts, or you can spend it in a cell!” he bellowed, punctuating his threats with another crack of gunfire. “Your choice, dirt farmers!”
“We need to do something soon,” Reed warned. “If we let those fireteams get into position, the picket line will be boxed in, and our guys will be in the line of fire.”
“A little more,” Ruza insisted. “They have almost retreated through the main gate...”
The crowd continued to move back, the line of shields drawing nearer, the operatives creeping at the edges like razorbacks stalking a dying animal. Hoff drove them on with his jeers and threats, his grinning teeth looming over the troopers.
Ruza waited until the last moment – until the operatives were ready to spring the trap and the troopers were preparing to break ranks, exhaling as he let his crosshair come to rest on the painted helmet of one of the SWAR operatives.
“Fire on my mark,” he said, feeling the trigger beneath his pad. There would be more bloodshed this day, but he recalled what he had told Bergmann during their first meeting. The only way to oppose evil was for good men to be more skilled in violence.
He fired, the crack of his rifle echoing across the plant, the SWAR agent dropping out of view of his scope. Barely a breath later, six more shots rang out, the snipers who were perched in the towers firing almost in tandem. Five more agents dropped, their armor useless against the high-powered rifles, most dead before they had time to fall.
That was the signal for the protesters to break ranks, and they took advantage of the chaos to retreat back through the main gate, the wide aperture designed for large trucks doing little to slow them down. Once they were on the other side, the wall that encircled the plant was between them and the enemy, providing cover enough that they could disperse into the plant.
More shots joined the chorus, fighters laying down fire to cover the retreat from concealed positions atop elevated catwalks and through factory windows. The PDF riot shields provided no protection, the slugs tearing straight through the transparent polymer, sending several of them dropping to the dusty ground. It created a panic, the PDF not nearly as disciplined as the SWAR agents, the troopers scattering to the safety of nearby cars.
One of the agents who had taken a hit was still alive, thrashing on the ground as one of his companions began to drag him away, the rest of them firing bursts into the mess of pipes and walkways above in the hopes of suppressing the shooters. They rushed to the cover of the wall along with the more attentive PDF, getting out of sight.
“Get the fuck out of my way!” Hoff bellowed, tossing a flailing trooper out of his path with a swipe of his arm as they scurried before him like desert mice. “What are you waiting for, you idiots!? Return fire!”
The troopers mounted atop the APCs began to shoot back, molten trails sailing over the heads of their comrades, but they had no clear targets. Ruza watched as the fighters who had been part of the picket line sprinted across open ground, making it from the wall to the nearest cover, diving behind the sprawling industrial machinery or disappearing into buildings. Many were producing concealed sidearms from beneath their shawls, others pausing to pick up rifles that had been hidden just out of sight in preparation.
Hoff knocked another fleeing trooper aside, very nearly trampling the man, his suit flashing as some of the fighters targeted him. That must be his plasma shielding – Ruza had faced down similar countermeasures before. Instead of being a handheld shield that remained ignited, the system seemed to be reactive, only activating to create intermittent barriers to intercept the slugs.
The hulking suit spread its arms, inviting the gunfire, the segmented armor that made up its chest heaving as though its pilot was laughing. The fireteam that had taken fewer casualties darted out of cover and took refuge behind him, moving with him just as Marines were trained to advance behind their armored vehicles.
“You think you can kill me!?” Hoff demanded through his suit’s speakers. “I’m fucking invincible!”
He leveled his heavy XMR, returning fire, the camera dome mounted beneath the suit’s angular chin halting its incessant spinning and twitching as though locking onto something. Hoff’s fire was far more accurate, Ruza watching as the hyper-velocity slugs tore through two feet of industrial pipes to hit a fighter who was taking cover behind them. The tumbling rounds and subsequent shower of molten metal threw him clear of his perch, the man hitting another pipe on his way down, landing on the road some thirty feet below with a dull thud.
The cannon on the landed dropship spun up, its long barrels glowing red as it spewed a stream of high-caliber slugs, cutting through one of the towers like a burning torch. Ruza snarled, glancing to his left, lifting his eyes to see the molten holes that had been burned through multiple feet of metal.
The remaining SWAR were becoming more accurate, too, forcing some of the shooters into cover. Perhaps Hoff was sharing his targeting data with them, his suite of sensitive cameras and sensors able to pick out heat signatures and movement amidst all of the sun-baked metal and cover.
The airborne dropship was upon them now, swooping in low, the gun behind its tail joining its grounded counterpart as it harried the plant below. Ruza watched it catch a few stragglers, turning three fighters into a gory mist and churning up the tarmac, leaving a trail of smoldering craters.
“Retreat deeper into the plant!” he heard Rivera yell over the radio, the sound of muffled gunfire echoing in the background. “Get into hard cover!”
It was a full-on war now, both sides exchanging constant fire, chunks of concrete flying from the perimeter wall where stray slugs punched through. They had succeeded in separating the two forces, dead and dying PDF lying strewn across the parking lot, the bulk of them now cowering behind parked cars. A few had made it back to their APCs, leaning around the armored vehicles to fire off potshots. The report of XMRs was punctuated by louder salvos from the dropships, anti-materiel slugs laying down withering fire.
Hoff was rallying in front of the gate, his fireteam advancing behind him, his suit seemingly impervious to damage. That shield would burn bright, flash-heating the incoming slugs, leaving flecks of molten slag cooling on his ocean-gray armor panels.
“It’s open season, boys!” he declared with a mirthless laugh. “Kill ‘em all!”
He breached the compound, his glowing barrel snapping this way and that with a mechanical fluidity, pausing only to loose short bursts of fire. It was cover enough for the SWAR agents to break, sprinting out from behind him faster than any human should have been able to move, darting into the nearest building. Hoff maintained his position, holding the gate as another two agents raced through the opening behind him. Some of the braver PDF followed, but they weren’t quite as quick, a few of them falling under the hail of slugs.
“Rivera – you have at least five SWAR and far more PDF inside the plant,” Ruza warned as he brought down one of the troopers with a body shot as the man approached a door.
“Big-H is in the pipe, Ruza!” he heard Reed yell into his ear. “It’s now or never!”
With a snarl, Ruza lifted his weapon, eyeing the ground some twenty feet below. He stepped off the walkway, dropping down and landing with a crouch to absorb the impact. He was in the main road in front of the gate now, buildings and snaking pipes rising up to either side of him, the gantries and machinery above him forming a dense ceiling to shield him from the circling dropship. He was only a hundred meters from Hoff now, his heart skipping a beat as he watched that swiveling camera dome focus him with its electronic eyes.
“You!” Hoff bellowed, lifting his rifle and pointing an accusing finger. “You’re cornered now, Madcat! I’m gonna skin you and use your hide as a rug!”
Ruza bared his sharp teeth, giving the human the best roar of defiance that he could muster. By the time Hoff was leveling his weapon again, Ruza had darted into cover, putting the pipes and machinery between him and his pursuer. Hoff set off at a run, gaining speed, that suit carrying him down the road at an alarming pace.
“Now, Reed!” Ruza shouted as he dove behind a large power transformer.
The mining charges that had been buried to either side of the road erupted, catching Hoff between them, the asphalt seeming to lift as though some great creature was rising from beneath the ground. The blasts tore apart the nearby infrastructure, sending twisted catwalks and segments of pipe collapsing into the billowing cloud of dust and flames below, severed power lines sparking and jets of steam pouring from broken lines. Ruza could feel the pressure wave in his very bones, even from fifty meters away, his ears ringing as he rose from his prone position to peer out from behind the transformer. All he could see was an opaque wall of dust, a few fragments of rock and scrap raining down around it, pinging when they hit metal.
“We fucking did it!” Reed cackled over the radio. “We fucking killed him! That’s what you get when you come to my house, asshole!”
“Don’t celebrate too soon,” Rivera warned, sounding short of breath. “We still have the rest of them to deal with! Get a team in there and confirm the kill.”
“Of course he’s dead,” Reed scoffed. “I used even more explosives than when I wrecked that armored convoy.”
Ruza’s sensitive ears twitched, the ringing subsiding to be replaced with synthetic laughter.
Hoff strode through the swirling dust, tossing aside a fallen structural beam and rolling his suit’s shoulders, sending a shower of dirt and sand falling about his feet. His armored plates had been charred by the explosives in places, covered in speckled flecks of dirty glass, his shields having melted the airborne debris.
“That the best you got?” he asked, brushing a stubborn fragment of molten rock from his forearm with the same ease that someone might wipe dirt from their sleeve. “You’re gonna have to hit me a lot harder than that, pussycat!”
“It did not work!” Ruza warned, feeling a surge of adrenaline make his heart race. “Repeat – the target is standing!”
“Plan B, plan B!” Reed replied in a panic. “Get the hell out of there, Ruza! Run for it!”
Ruza bolted, ducking just in time for a salvo of slugs to cut through the transformer where he had been standing a moment before.
“Keep running!” Hoff laughed as he set off at a lumbering sprint. “I’m gonna hunt you down for sport! I killed Rask bigger than you on Borealis with my bare hands!”
Ruza came to a fork in the road that wound its way through the plant, taking the left path, already starting to run out of breath. His body wasn’t designed for endurance, and Hoff’s pursuit was tireless. He pushed himself onward, hearing the thudding of the suit’s massive boots growing louder beneath the report of XMRs. He reached a T-junction that led into one of the warehouses, making another hard turn, his claws scrabbling for purchase on the asphalt. He got off the main road just in time to hear a salvo of slugs whizz past behind him as Hoff rounded the first bend, taking an opportunistic shot.
“Here, kitty kitty! You can’t hide – I have you on FLIR.”
Ruza made it to the closed warehouse doors, ducking through a smaller, human-sized opening. Once inside its dark confines, he put his back to the cold metal wall next to the entrance, taking a moment to catch his breath. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the gloom, but he could already see shelves of supplies stretching off into the blackness, along with the vague outline of a large cargo truck some distance away. The ceiling was easily thirty meters above his head, suspended by rib-like metal supports.
“In ... position,” Ruza panted into his radio. “Target ... approaching.”
His sensitive ears could hear the Bullshark through the open door, the whirring of its machinery and the stomping of its heavy feet drawing nearer.
“Nowhere left to run,” Hoff chimed, his synthetic voice echoing from the suit’s speakers. “I’d be lying if I said this will be over quickly. You killed my men – good men. You owe me a pound of flesh, fleabag, and I’ve come to collect.”
The truck’s engine rumbled to life, filling the warehouse with its growl, Ruza blinking against its bright headlights. The cab was offset to one side, providing room for a massive radiator grill that occupied the space, and it illuminated to reveal that nobody was sitting behind the glass. It was easily as wide as the road outside, equipped with massive tires as tall as Ruza, its articulated trailer fitted with a dump box large enough to carry several tons of ore or scrap. The vehicle itself must have easily weighed thirty tons unloaded, its yellow hull weathered by Hades’ unforgiving environment.
It began to roll forward on its off-road tires, accelerating rapidly and picking up speed, the massive warehouse giving it plenty of space. Ruza hit the door control button with his fist, and they began to slide open, sunlight bleeding through the growing gap between them. The dump truck had started a hundred meters away, parked at the far end of the warehouse, and it must have been going forty or fifty klicks by the time it reached the doors – close to top speed.
If Hoff thought anything about the warehouse door opening was suspicious, he remained undeterred, only reacting when he saw the house-sized vehicle bearing down on him. His armor was too heavy and unwieldy to leap out of its path, and he scarcely had time to fire off a quick burst into its radiator, a bellow of surprise and rage leaving him as it made contact.
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