Blue beams strike out against our trenches from hip fired Herculean gunners, similar to our shotguns. Whole areas of the trench are blown away and scorched as marines fall to the snow burning and screaming. The Herculeans try leaving their shields to charge us. We cut them down with concentrated fire and they stop their futile attempts, and instead march the shields closer to the trenches as before.
“I’m down,” moans Pi through my earpiece.
I check my visor to review his personal statistics. His left arm has been completely blown off, probably by one of those beams.
“Activate trauma support now Pi,” I say. The suit icon of him appears on my visor as a miniature figurine. The outline of his left arm is black with an explanation mark. After the command I gave, a green line appears at the edge where his arm was blown off and a new warning emote alarms on the visor, declaring that he is in a static state as morphine and plasma rush to his wound.
“Zero, cover fire while I retrieve Pi, drop a beacon so he can be evaced immediately.”
“Copy Ram.”
I unhook a smoke grenade, and toss it near Pi to shield him from Herculean fire while I move to his location. The Herculeans are twenty meters away, plasma fire at its highest intensity. Marines fall by the score, as wide plasma bursts rip through their flesh leaving behind smoldering exit holes and severed limbs. The snow turns a darker red as both species hit the ground. I alternate my LMG to its slug bursts option, and straddle the weapon sideways across my chest firing out of the trench as I reach Pi. Long sweeping bursts of shrapnel escape my weapon’s tip and cut away at charging Herculeans. I see Pi slumped against a piece of trench covered in a bath of his own blood, and the crisp remains of an arm smoldering about his feet.
“This is it men!” says Blake. “Everyone, if you have frags or phosphorous, hurl them on my mark!” Their shields are about ten meters away. I can hear the Herculean’s war cries at their loudest as they close in. “Then we will pull back a few meters and repeat!” finishes Blake.
“Pi, status report.”
“I—, what—what the fuck…”
“Appears delusional, Ram,” says Zero.
“From shock, retrieving and relocating on targeted evac.”
I unhook the ammo pack on my back and drop it, and grab two metal straps and turn Pi to the side. I connect the two straps around four hook holes on his back armor, and turn around pulling on the levers on my front shoulder plates. The straps tighten, bringing Pi up against my back like a piggy-back ride
A Herculean pops out of the smoke into the trench, and tears apart at a nearby marine too slow to fire. It spots me next. “Zero.” I target the Herculean with my visor, so she can get an accurate trajectory.
The Herculean’s upper torso explodes as I finish saying her name, and it flies against the side of the trench. “Herc down,” she says.
I crawl out of the trench towards the second row, while firing the last of the slugs in my chamber to keep the Herculeans back.
“Now!” says Blake. Marines unhook their explosives, and pull the pins and hurl them. They land over the Herculean shields that are up against the first trench we are pulling out of. The last of the marines barrel out of the first trench, but many of them are shot down to only slide back in. The marines hit the earth and hide themselves with camouflage cloaks, mimicking the snowfall and scorched earth while I move to the LZ. Most of the Herculean shields fall over as some aliens are flung into the air from the explosions. The phosphorus burns many of them alive and creates a smoke screen for the rest of us to reorganize under.
“Again!” says Blake. The marines unclip their last grenades and pull the pins, tossing them over the trench at the scrambling Herculeans. During the time they hurl the grenades, the Herculeans exchange a wave of fire at us. I feel a burning sensation on my lower torso. Pi screams. I look at my screen. Pi has received a plasma hit to his thigh, and it ate through his armor hitting mine too.
“Zero, I require assistance.”
“Bird is almost here Ram. On my way as well.”
I see an Osprey break through the overcast. A screeching noise also erupts throughout the battlefield. Cruise missiles pierce through the snowy clouds, their exhaust tails lingering in the air as they pound into the earth around the Herculeans, adding fiery yellow and orange to the white landscape. Many are also danger close and take out friendly marines as they explode on our side of the trench. The outlines of armored vehicles and APC’s appear through the snow moving towards me, their turrets firing rounds at the retreating Herculeans.
The bird arrives hovering above, and I unhook Pi. A rope is lowered and I strap him in place. I grab his target finder as it can be useful for latter. “Good fight Pi, get some rest.” He ascends into the air through the snowfall, dangling about on the rope.
“Ram, Zero,” bleeps my earpiece. It is our leading officer. “Nice work on the line. You are to locate Major General Jack and assist him on your next detail. Command out.”
A blue diamond appears on my visor indicating where the commander is. I reach him and see Jack talking to any remaining officers and NCO’s. “Something is not fucking right,” says Jack, scowling. “Those shields should have been fine. I think it was self-inflicted sabotage from someone in the battalion, maybe a rebel sympathizer. Also, I didn’t get any word of the assault till minutes ago.”
“Are we getting reinforcements now, sir?” says Blake, while a medic begins putting bandages and cream around one of his wounds.
“This place will. But I have other news. We are moving out ASAP. A Coalition salient force is surrounded by Herculeans further north, and my battalion is being organized to aid them.”
“But our battalion is barely half strong, sir,” says Blake.
“I am aware of that.” Jack raises a cowl over his face to keep the wind and snow out. “Like I said, something isn’t right.”
He turns to me. “Goddamn, are you the fucking commandos I was told about?”
Zero stands by my side, unloading her sniper rifle and folding its stock. “Yes sir.”
“Shit just keeps getting stranger,” he says.
The convoy is loaded with the marines from the recent battle as we prepare to move out. Cruise missiles continue to rip through the clouds at distant targets. I wrap a gauze strip tightly over my punctured armor, where Zero clamps a thin metal sheet over it, and welds it into the armor with a plasma torch.
“To bad Pi is going to miss out on our next mission,” she mentions, I catch an undertone of playfulness in it. “It’s getting fun out here.”
I feel my cheeks stretch into a grin. “More killing for us.”
XXIX
We move with Blake—the new Platoon commander after being promoted to First Lieutenant—farther north past the Kuplar region to relieve a surrounded Coalition detachment.
We enter a frozen landscape as we go deeper north, away from the thick padding snowy terrain of the earlier battle into a temperate like forest entirely glazed over with white frost and ice. The shrubbery and bushes have died and retreated into the rock hard frozen tundra, while tall barren trees shoot up into the sky ending in a spider web busts at the top, interconnecting with their neighbors occasionally. Once in a while a loud repetitive sound will put everyone on alert. We finally discover what the noise is when a tall white tree snaps at its base and falls into the middle of the convoy. The tree crashes against the ground and unfortunate APC, shattering into a thousand shards that go flying. Marines scream as they pluck the frozen shrapnel out of their skin.