“One.”
XXVIII
Understanding where and what I am becomes blurred as the pod accelerates towards the earth. The pod flips and flops about, my head in a tense position as the straps and meshing try to keep it in place. Equilibrium never has time to catch up with me, and Zero in her red tinted power armor, ends up looking like a red towel in a wash cycle at laundry.
“Stabilizing,” says the AI.
The pod stops spinning, and instead, we bump up and down—must be the pod skipping over the snow covered landscape. The pod begins to roll again, and confusion of my surroundings takes over till the pod eventually comes to a stop. We take a minute to orientate ourselves.
“Determining best exit.” The pod panel above me explodes open as it flies off to the side. The overcast snowstorm welcomes us. We pile out of the pod. Snowflakes land on my visor and a blue electrical wiper streaks across to clear them away. Ahead of us, as outlined by my visor, lays the defensive shield of the besieged marines. Bright flashes of color break through the white and grey landscape as munitions fly and land about.
“Operatives, begin mission,” say the AI.
“Zero, do you copy?”
“Copy Ram.”
“Pi, do you copy?”
“Copy Ram.”
We run in a loose line. I lead with Pi near me, and Zero tailing farther behind with her huge marksmen rifle she lugs against her shoulder plate. We pass the command tents—dug up hovels in the snow—and artillery parks of automated howitzers that fire ordinance over the shield wall at the Herculeans. An observation tower, about eight meters tall and one hundred meters away from the frontline, sticks out of the pale landscape.
“Zero, set up over there.” I ping the location on my visor that will also pop up on hers.
“On my way.”
Pi and I are about twenty meters from the trenches when the shield wall goes out. The bunker towers that operated as channeling pillars for the shield wall sizzle as smoke fumes out of them. We near the trenches, Herculean fire picks up with the shields down. The marines cuss and curse. I watch an engineer waddle out through the snow towards a bunker, he plies off the circuit panel and attacks it with his utility built. Seconds later he flings backwards onto the snow on fire. He rolls around frantically to put himself out as marines crawl out of the trenches to get him.
“Hold men, hold!” says an officer atop the trenches, directing fire at the advancing Herculeans. I focus on him till my visor matches his voice to a name in the database. It is Platoon Commander Tarnus of Company L. One of their marines had received a Medal of Honor, before his tragic drug overdose due to a bullet puncturing his chemsack, and death by a rebel ambush while waiting for a dustoff. Damn, would have liked to meet such a hero.
I order Pi to set up inside a strip of trench nearby. He moves into it and kneels down. His mobile missile launcher on his back extends out to fire rounds. His right shoulder plate unfolds as a target finder is inserted on top of it. A tripod is set up and he connects a HMG to it where he begins to fire away at the Herculeans.
“Make sure to paint me targets Pi,” I remind him.
“I am assuming high yield opportunities?”
“Wouldn’t want it any other way.”
I drop into the front trench. Marines pause to look at me.
It looks like boys like the new look on him.
“What the fuck is that?” says one of them. I visor scan him. Private Isaac Kurtz.
“I don’t know,” says another—Corporal, Conal Bartolina. “But I want one.”
I brace my LMG by folding my left arm underneath it, and look for a target. The Herculeans are advancing under rectangular mobile shields that reject all projectiles flung at it, expect the howitzers that can fire over it. Marines mimic the batteries by lobbing grenades from repeating launchers to try and kill them before they reach the trench.
“Pi, paint me targets over the shields. Zero, try out some of your grape darts. When a shield is down, fire into the condensed groups before they can find cover.”
They both reply with a copy.
Pi’s target finder lobs a small beacon up into the air, my visor instantly picks it up and exaggerates it with a yellow circle around it. I watch it land right before one of the marching shield columns. The visor informs me that I will need to fire my grenade at a sixty-five percent angle to reach the beacon. I adjust accordingly and wait for the shield to walk over the beacon, and fire two rounds.
The grenades land on top of the shield wielders just making it over the shield itself. Two bright explosions followed by the shield collapsing visualize success. Then quick bursts of red circles appear before the exposed line. Those are Zero’s darts. The canister round she fires explodes right before impact, blasting dozens of shrapnel darts into her kill zone. Herculeans fall in waves as Zero’s darts, and concentrated marine fire tear at the exposed gaps. We repeat the process onto the next line with similar success. The Herculeans continue to advance towards our trenches, their alien screaming and war chants now hearable. Commissars on our side try desperately to out noise them with our own Party cries.
I look around as my LMG reloads itself, and notice—feel, something different I haven’t till right now. I have to strain to maintain the thought. These marines are eager, a product of their stims and valor in this just cause, but they are all fragile, small, weak from their time out here, and lack of superior equipment. One Herculean plasma bolt takes down any of them instantly, their bodies rolling and wrestling about in the trench as they fight uselessly against death. Where their corpses become trampled over by frozen boots, till the upturned snow covers most of their body. Till only the blood stained trench, the red turned snow they painted, is the only memory of them. This trench, once white like the national color of the Party, is now red, like the stripes on my flag, of the blood of sacrifice. If white is the color of purity and integrity that America claims, it is our red that allows it to be so.
“Heads up Ram,” alerts Zero.
He’s back—that was weird.
Keep him focus.
Our formulaic process of killing Herculeans is disrupted by an unfamiliar sight. Blue orbs shoot up into the sky from the Herculean side, and fall over us onto the artillery park behind. An engineer runs towards us shaking his arms wildly into the air. “EMP, EMP, they took our batteries out!”
“Fuck,” says Conal. “We must rely on our strength and valor men!”
Tarnus exit’s a foxhole to reach our line. “Communications have been cut! We are stranded! I am organizing a retreat! Prepare—” Tarnus’ body collapses against the trench parapets, as the side of his head splatters over the snow frosted blue helmets of nearby marines.
A Commissar walks over placing a boot over Tarnus’ corpse, his revolver smoking at the tip. “Warriors of the Coalition do not retreat! The Ideals of the Party do not retreat! We fight to the last man!” I scan him, Commissar Herus of Platoon L.
The marines cheer, and continue hurling death at the nearby Herculeans, taking back generous amounts of it themselves. I look over at a marine kneeling by Tarnus’ body, he grabs his dog tag and places it into his chest pocket under his scarf. I scan him, Sergeant Blake of E Unit.
Blake rises from the body and comes to the top of the trench, so he is a few meters taller than all of us. The snowy wind flaps his cloak and scarf about as he talks. “Listen up! We are holding this line to they reach us, where we’ll organize a withdrawal to the next line of trenches.”
Herus looks at him broodingly, then turns around leading the marines in a war cry as the Herculeans advance. The Herculeans are too close for my grenades to do any effect with Pi’s target tactic. I switch to my LMG and order him to do the same. The Herculeans are about forty meters away, and I focus my weapon at any exposed positions to try and pick a few off.