And, as it flew closer, I noticed that there were dozens of smaller ships buzzing around it. From where I lay, the scene looked like a hive of bees attacking a bear cub as it tried to run away.
The valley seemed to shake under the echoing rumble of the big ship’s engines. The ship was dropping lower and lower. The fighters that surrounded the ship continued to pick at it with lasers and rockets.
“Harris, get out of there!” Lee screamed. “That thing is going to crash.”
Flames burst out of the front and rear of the ship as it dropped like a shooting star. A few bullets struck the ledge below me as I jumped to my feet, but I no longer cared. I sprinted as hard as I could, turning corners and skidding but staying on my feet.
The battleship slammed into the far end of the valley sending a shock wave, flames, radiation, and debris. Nearly one mile from the explosion, the shock wave hit me so hard that it tossed me through the air and into the canyon wall. The blast knocked the air out of my lungs, and my head rang with pain.
Dazed and barely able to stand, I continued up the path, fighting the urge to lean against the canyon wall for support. I could hear nothing except the sound of my breathing. The audio equipment in my helmet had gone dead. I was panting. My legs were tight. I placed my hands on my thighs and pushed, hoping it would help me run.
Below me, the canyon was consumed with molten fire. Looking down the slope was like staring into Dante’s “Inferno.” The battleship had skidded across the canyon, cutting a deep gash and spewing fiery fuel and radioactive debris in every direction. The very earth around the ship seemed to combust in an explosion of flame, smoke, and steam. I did not see any people in my quick glimpse, but I saw the remains of an upturned tank as it melted in that blazing heat.
Even one mile from the crash site, the heat from the fires would have cooked me alive if it hadn’t been for my armor. For the only time in my career, I felt heat through my body glove.
As I reached the top of the trail, Lee and another man grabbed my arms. My legs locked and I started to fall, but they held me up. I could tell that they were trying to speak to me, but I heard nothing through my dead audio equipment.
Lee and the private lowered me to the ground. I fell on my back and stared into the sky. Above me, a U.A. Phantom fighter circled in triumph. An entire regiment had been demolished; but for Robert Thurston, Little Man was a triumph indeed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Growing up in an orphanage, I sometimes imagined that I had parents on another planet looking for me. In my fantasies, my parents kept a room on the off chance that I would someday return. The room would have a crib, a bicycle, and closets filled with toys. Until they found me, my parents would seal that room, entombing its contents. In my mind’s eye, I saw the room as dark and filled with shadows. Dust covered the toys and crib.
Over the years, my childhood dreams were replaced by adult realities, and I forgot about that room until I returned to the Kamehameha with only six of my men. When I entered our vacated barracks, I experienced the very emotions that my imaginary parents would have felt whenever they visited my imaginary room.
Of the twenty-three hundred men sent down to Little Man, only seven survived. There were no wounded. That was the reality, and I kept on realizing it again and again.
Lee and I did not speak much when we returned from Little Man. We were not mad at each other, we simply had nothing to say. We returned to our living quarters with five privates in tow and the rows of empty bunks looked like a cemetery. You can shake a jar filled with marbles and never hear a sound. Take all but a few of those marbles out, and those last few will rattle around in the empty space. We rattled around corridors once teeming with Marines. We were the ghosts.
Captain Olivera allowed us to remain in our barracks, but he closed down the mess hall, the bar, and the sick bay. That meant we ate with the ship’s crew, which might have been the most haunting part of having survived.
The first time we went to the upper decks for a meal was like stepping onto an alien planet. When the elevator doors opened, we saw sailors walking in every direction. Men talking, some shouting, others rushing past the door—I had forgotten what it felt like to be among the living.
I stepped off the lift. Lee followed. The hall fell silent. People slowed down and watched us. Nobody told us to leave. People simply stepped out of our way as we walked to the mess hall.
We arrived during the middle of the early dinner rush. Looking through the window, I saw men with trays walking around in search of places to sit. I heard the loud din of hundreds of conversations and remembered when our mess hall was equally loud. The noise evaporated as we entered the doorway. We were the only men wearing Marines’ uniforms. Everyone knew who we were. I heard whispers and felt people staring, but nobody approached us.
I reached for a tray, and somebody handed it to me. “Thank you,” I said. The man did not respond.
The battle on Little Man lit a fire in the public’s imagination. “The New Little Big Horn” said the Unified Authority Broadcasting Company (UABC) headlines. Other famous massacres were also invoked. One reporter called it “a modern-day Pearl Harbor,” an irony that would not have been lost on Yoshi Yamashiro, though I doubt the reporter recognized it.
The Pentagon served up an endless supply of details about the battle, milking it for every drop of public support. A briefing officer held a meeting in which he traced our movements using maps. The public affairs office released photographs of the captured map room. The Joint Chiefs gave the UABC profiles and photographs of the hundred officers who died during the assault. Captain Gaylan McKay, a promising officer in life, became a public figure in death.
The Pentagon did not release information about survivors, but somehow the press got wind of us. We were dubbed, “The Little Man 7.” Probably hoping that the story would go away, the Joint Chiefs acknowledged only that “A fast-thinking sergeant had managed to evacuate six men from the field.”
They did not release my name. I did not care.
Over the next six weeks, as the Pentagon released a litany of tidbits about the Little Man 7, SC Command ignored us as we rattled around the bowels of the Kamehameha. Once word was out about the survivors, I think the Joint Chiefs hoped that the public’s interest in Little Man would cool, but it continued to grow.
As time went by, Lee returned to his weight training, and I became obsessed with marksmanship. I practiced with automatic rifles, grenade launchers, and sniper rifles, shooting round after round.
Lee and I went to the crewmen’s bar almost every night. The sailors seemed used to us by that time. Some invited us to sit with them whenever we showed up. By the time our transfers came, Lee and I had almost forgotten about the animosity between sailors and Marines.
Having spent a month and a half hoping for the public to forget about the Little Man 7, Washington finally embraced us. In his capacity as the secretary of the Navy, Admiral Huang announced plans to bootstrap us to officer status. The thought of promoting a Liberator must have caused him great pain. Lee and the other men were transferred to Officer Training School in Australia. I was called to appear before the House of Representatives in Washington, DC.
The night before Lee and the others left for OTS, we all went to the crewmen’s bar for one last gathering. We found that news of our transfers had spread throughout the ship. As we entered the bar, some sailors called to us to join them.
“Officers,” one of the men said, clapping Lee on the back. “If someone would have told me that I all I had to do was survive a massacre and a crash to become an officer, I’d have done it five years ago.”