Each landing Osprey carries two units, twenty four men in total. Blake halts us at the ramp to a half filled Osprey. “Take the left and fill to the end.”
“Welcome to Foxtrot,” says the Sergeant of his unit already positioned inside.
“Hey,” grunts Blake, “we’re Easy.” We sit down, and buckle up as the landing ramp behind us clamps shut sealing us into our metal box. The hull lights switch from red to green indicating that our independent life support system is online.
“Mind if I smoke in here?” says Isaac. No one replies. “Cool.” He lights an ancient, Rommel and Ray follow suit, but with their vapsticks. Isaac offers me one and I say no—even though the military shoots me up with their drugs at ease now. Soon we’re coughing from the cloudy hull.
“For fuck sakes, no more after that,” says Blake, red eyed and waving a hand to clear the smoke. “Why are you smoking ancients anyway?” Mutters of agreement echo throughout the hull.
“Air is stale enough asshole,” says Vick.
“Jesus, alright, alright,” says Isaac, putting his tin box away. “Take it all out on me, won’t ya?”
Blake places a metal oval holotablet that’s magnetic on the floor in the center of the hull where a person’s face projects. “I am Major General Jack, your regiment’s commander for the landing assault on Jericho. As your transports break away from the carriers and prepare to enter the atmosphere, the planet crackers will land forming a semi-circle around the outskirts of the city. You will land around a thousand or so meters behind the crackers and will advance immediately to man and defend them. After that, the Goliaths will land and form the spearhead of the assault into the city, where you will advance inside or behind them for cover to combat any Herculean remnants. Remember, there are still human civilians inside the city, practice restraint once you enter. There is also, surprisingly, some surviving local militia pockets still fighting inside, it would be generous of you to find and aid them. Good luck boys, God bless America and the Party.” The transmission ends and Blake retrieves the holotablet.
“The time has come,” Hannibal’s voice projects into our hull. Apparently our Marshall has something to say too before we go. “The enemy is at the gates of Jericho, and the planetary defense force, the Carthaginians, have tried their best to withstand them, but lie close on the verge of defeat. Now it is our turn to show the alien menace what humanity is capable of. We are the liberators of this oppressed planet. We march towards the sound of chaos. May God guide and be with us. God bless America and the Party.”
“Battle stations,” says the intercom after Hannibal’s speech. “Prepare for impact. Fleet fully engaged with enemy force.”
A new siren sounds for emergency action with the declaration that we are fully submersed into the warzone over the atmosphere. The ship tumbles about and the hull becomes dark.
“What’s going on!” says Vance.
A greenish iridescent light brightens the hull again. “Power has been relocated to charge the batteries and thrusters,” says the Osprey Pilot in the cockpit. “We have fully detached from the ship’s power source and are using our own. We will be ejecting momentarily into space.”
Fear covers me in its cloak. My hands grip the seatbelt straps firmly till the knuckles turn white. It’s hard to breathe. None of us here knows what war is like, or can even imagine the idea of what this war will be like. We’re almost all drafts, never intending to service the military in any way. Now we’re part of the biggest human endeavor ever created, to liberate Nova Terra from the Herculeans.
We partake in a symphony of heavy breathing to fight the lumps in our throats. Sweat collects on our foreheads and palms. Each of us—we’re scared shitless. It’s a new type of fear. One I have never encountered before. The only way to explain it, is that it feels like the monsters I feared under my bed at night were actually real. Instead of my dad coming in and playing along with my nightmare and fantastically defeating the monsters with a flashlight so I can sleep again, they crawl out from beneath my bed before I can call out for him. Their claws grasp at me till I am tangled in their limbs, and they drag me away to the abyss of their cave to never escape. I am at the cusp of this bed, a brave new world, and the monsters are real, I am about to fight them.
A marine—chaplain—from Foxtrot with a large gold cross necklace speaks, “Let us shield ourselves in the anointing of oil before fighting.” What? “To acknowledge God as our ultimate commander and to protect us through the battle we are about to fight.” He reveals a flask of olive green oil. He begins by dipping his fingers against the top of the flask, then taking his pointer and middle finger and combining them into one, draws a streak across his forehead with the oil. He passes it to the next marine. “Everyone, please,” he looks at us with sincerity. “For God, for salvation.”
The flask moves around the hull as each marine dips his fingers, and marks a line on their forehead. Soon it will be my turn. Is he fucking serious? That oil would actually do anything. That it somehow carries the word or protection of god himself. Why doesn’t god just give me a ship to go home, or strike all the aliens down with some magical plague of his?
Alex, sitting beside me, hands the flask out for me to grab. I take it and continue the ceremony that finishes its course back to the chaplain. The chaplain returns the flask to his chest pocket. “Thank you. Let its holy oil and our sign of obedience and trust in our heavenly Lord carry us through the coming trials. Amen.”
The ship shakes. “Hanger doors opening,” says the Pilot. “Hold on to your asses.”
The hanger doors slide apart revealing space and the battling fleets—our long rectangular clunky battleships verses their slim wide ones—over the bright expansive atmosphere of Nova Terra. The planets blue and green swirling oceans and pink tainted clouds blanketing the surface hug me with terror and awe.
The Osprey’s thrusters propel our craft into space as thousands of other transport craft depart from carrier ships, and into liaison for the planetary invasion. Frigates not engaged with the Herculean fleet begin their descent into the atmosphere firing their massive side batteries towards the planet surface. The planet crackers jet out of the bottom sides of battleships, leaving a zig-zag stream of exhaust as they tear through the atmosphere and clouds. Coalition and Herculean battleships slam each other with warheads and missiles blowing apart cavities in hulls, and shooting condensed atmosphere trails of debris across the dark of space.
The planet, with its oblique white aura that trims the outline of its shape, is indifferent to our struggle above it. Blast shields close over our windows making it dark. Its surface formed millions of years ago absorb our tiny metal aircraft as we descend into the atmosphere.
Into a war I can’t imagine surviving.
SUMMER
We are only equal in our abilities to kill each other.
IX
“Blast shields opening,” says the Pilot. We have broken through the atmosphere and are reaching our deployment zone near the city outskirts.
“Oh God, oh God, oh my God,” rambles a marine from Foxtrot, “We’re going to die. Shit, Jesus, God oh my God.” Another marine dry heaves, gagging horribly from having nothing in his stomach to vomit, and a few others are crying. Julian, buckled across from me, tightly holds a picture to his chest occasionally kissing it. I turn my head to view the rest of the hull. Almost everyone is looking down at their thighs, hands griping their asses. I see Tommy at the end, he retrieve something—a scarf—from his vest and stuffs it down his collar, letting part of it dangle out where he sucks on it.