War's Edge- Dead Heroes

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  They freed Stubs from the mire in under half a minute. The laser fire came steadily now, forcing them to low crawl across a field beneath a canopy of barbed wire that constantly snagged their skins and load-bearing harnesses.

  Lasers blasted the top of the next berm as they approached, the explosions throwing up steaming columns of muddy earth.

  “There!” Rizer pointed to one of three corrugated metal culverts running through the berm.

  “We’ll have to fuckin’ swim through those!” Coltin said.

  “Then take your chances up there!” Belzer responded.

  She led them into the culvert. Rizer figured the water was about two meters deep, though it might as well have been bottomless when factoring in the mud. Their combat swim training came into play. Rizer swam on his back as they’d been taught, letting the buoyancy in his suit keep him afloat, slow going with the clock ticking, but they were obviously meant to go this way.

  “This fucking sucks!” Stubs said.

  “Speaking of sucks, shut yours right fucking now, Stubneski!” Mack thundered over the radio. “You got about five minutes left!”

  Rizer and Hagel had to help Stubs out of the culvert, no easy feat with laser fire just over their heads. They low crawled to a trench network that resembled a series of canals. Mud sucked at their boots as they moved through meter-high water, heads ducked to avoid the fire mere centimeters above. They exited the trenches at the base of the next berm. Laser fire narrowly cleared the top, with no culverts to hide in this time.

  Belzer called out, “Low and fast!”

  She reached the top and crawled over, a laser blast barely missing her ass. Rizer made it over, but an explosion erupted nearby and sent him rolling. He crashed into a double roll of razor wire at the bottom. Entangled, one of the barbed blades sliced through his allegedly slash-resistant skins at the elbow. He hardly registered the pain. Another explosion rang his ears as Stubs and Hagel worked to free him.

  “Come on, Kwon!” Shelburn said.

  “Kwon, what the fuck? Get over the top!” Coltin ordered his man.

  Kwon responded in short, hyperventilating wails of fear before crying, “Help!”

  “Low crawl, Kwon! What the fuck’s your problem?” Belzer demanded. She had already moved on from the razor wire.

  “No…” Kwon said. “No! Help me!” He’d become hysterical, obviously sobbing in his terror.

  Once Rizer was freed, Stubs shouted, “Let’s go!” He moved through the wire at a crouch, parting the spools gingerly with his rifle butt and two pinching fingers, leaving the passage open for the next man.

  “Kwon!” Coltin shouted.

  “Leave him!” Belzer said. “Finish the course, first squad!”

  “No!” Rizer stepped back from the razor wire, got on his face, and started crawling.

  “Finish the course, Rizer; that’s an order!” Belzer said.

  “I’m not leaving a man behind! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Your squad leader gave you an order, Rizer!” Mack said. “Now rejoin your team and finish the course! An instructor will pick up Kwon when this is over.”

  Rizer ignored her next call and several others as he crawled back over the berm. He slipped under the lasers at the summit and dodged several explosions before he found Kwon cowering in a shell crater. “Come on, Kwon; let’s finish this!” He offered him a hand.

  “I’m not going out there!” The quaking man cringed away from Rizer’s hand.

  “The fuck you’re not! No one gets left behind! Let’s finish this!” Rizer stared down at Kwon, who didn’t move. Fuck it! He seized Kwon by the wrist and dragged him from the hole. “Move!”

  Bawling in time to his frantic breathing, Kwon’s legs began moving. Rizer led him out of the hole a few moments later. An explosion five meters away, Kwon cried out yet kept his feet.

  “Low crawl!” Rizer instructed as they neared the summit and the bolts of laser fire.

  Kwon seemed okay as they prepared to crest the berm. Explosives detonated a few meters behind, showering them with mud. Kwon snapped at the concussion. He uttered a scream that raised every hair on Rizer’s body, stood, and took off sprinting over the top.

  “Get down!”

  A laser blast caught him in mid-air as he jumped over the top, sloppily blowing him into two uneven pieces. Rizer buried his face in the mud, felt the lower half of Kwon’s body tumble over him as the pair of legs bounced down the slope.

  That didn’t just happen! He lay there a moment in exhausted disbelief, until another explosion shook him from his torpor and got him crawling again.

  “Are you fucking happy now, Rizer?” Mack’s shrill voice cut his eardrums. “Finish the course, god dammit!”

  He did, though his failed efforts to save Kwon had pushed the squad’s time over ten minutes. Their failure was his fault.

  Mack greeted him as he came off the course. “Come here!” She grabbed him by an armhole in his load-bearing vest and dragged him into seclusion behind a metal shed. “Cut your radio,” she growled, after which she laid into him. “You were given a direct order by me and your squad leader to continue. I could have you dropped from training and tossed in the brig for this, you fucking asshat!”

  “Ma’am, we were taught never to leave a man behind!” How many fucking times have you said it?

  “The mission comes first!” she spat into his face. “Yours was to complete the course! People die! It’s part of the fucking job!”

  “This is supposed to be training! Was the mission really worth it?”

  He must have leaned in too close while defending his actions, invaded her space, since the DIs were very sensitive about that. Or maybe he failed to address her as ma’am.

  Whatever the case, her right fist took him under the chin, snapped his jaw shut, and sent him reeling backward to fall on his ass. She knelt next to him as he stared into the dark and rainy sky. “Training’s hard and so is the enemy. Deal with it! You think the enemy gives a flying shit about your buddy crying for help?”

  “This mission wasn’t worth his life. Ma’am.”

  Mack lowered her voice. “It’s rarely worth it, Rizer. Get that in your thick skull.”

  “Then why do it?”

  She stood and brushed some mud from her sleeves as she studied him. “Because it’s our duty. Now get the fuck up and join your squad before I bounce your ass into the brig.” As she walked away, she muttered, “Fucking idiot!”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Short, controlled thrusts, first fire team,” said SSgt Mack through Rizer’s helmet radio. Her words sounded sharper in space, devoid of background noise, and she wasn’t yelling as much today. “Stay with your leader.”

  The gray bulk of the naval training frigate they were to breach and clear filled the face shield of Rizer’s helmet. He wore his load-bearing gear and armor over an EVA suit specially designed to carry a full combat load. Distance from the Condor dropship to the target was only about three hundred meters, yet the trip demanded patience. Firing the jet pack for even a fraction of a second too long might cause him to overshoot the objective or, even worse, approach too hot and slam into it. Unlike a ship, the jet packs did not have reverse thrusters.

  “Shit,” Stubs muttered, then more forcefully, “Shit!”

  “Remain calm, Stubneski,” Mack said. “What is your problem?”

  “Losing oxygen pressure, ma’am!” Oh fuck!

  “Perform emergency system check, Stubneski. As you were, Rizer! Continue with your team to the objective.”

  Rizer, who had turned to help Stubs, responded, “Aye, ma’am.”

  Belzer and Hagel had continued on, now thirty meters in front of him. Stubs’ problem had Rizer alarmed. He dallied a bit on purpose in case Stubs needed help returning to the dropship.

  “What is your oxygen pressure, Stubneski?” Mack asked. Rizer had never heard her so calm.

  “Eighteen-point-nine k
ilopascals, ma’am!”

  “Relax, it sounds like you have a minor leak. Return to the dropship immediately.”

  Let’s hope that’s all it is.

  Fifty meters ahead of Rizer, Belzer and Hagel approached the air lock on the frigate.

  “Close it up, Rizer,” Belzer called.

  He didn’t respond. Belzer reveled in her power as first squad leader, but he had to obey her without hesitation. In addition to the DIs, a cadre of high-ranking personnel observed the training from the dropship: officers and staff from series to battalion level, as well as the regimental sergeant major. Space training required calm and concentration—many problems could arise, often with fatal consequences—and the DIs had toned down their rhetoric accordingly. The presence of staff and officers further curtailed browbeating from the DIs.

  Stubs made it back to the ship. Relieved at the news, Rizer fired his thrusters to catch up. Immediately he knew that his two-second thrust was overkill. He rocketed toward Belzer and Hagel and hoped he would slow in time to approach at an acceptable speed.

  “You’re too hot, Rizer!” Mack said.

  “I got him!” Hagel turned and held out an arm to intercept Rizer.

  “As you were, Hagel; continue on course. Rizer, proceed to the instructor and then return to the dropship. You can try it again with second fire team.”

  God dammit! As Belzer and Hagel maneuvered the final few meters to the air lock, Rizer fired a split-second thrust and flew toward the bot instructor hovering over the training ship, who caught him and turned him around. The bot wore no EVA suit or helmet, merely a jet pack. “Thrust level three is all you need,” said the instructor. “Go!”

  Rizer depressed the thrust button in the jet pack’s right control handle for 1.5 seconds. Each level of thrust comprised approximately half a second on the button. Exact thrust levels could be achieved through verbal or mental commands, but training demanded they learn to do it manually through estimation in case their systems failed during a mission.

  Returning to the dropship without incident, Rizer cleared the air lock about five minutes later. Alpha ordered him to refuel. Everyone aboard seemed to be watching him, except SSgt Mack, who stood at an observation window speaking to Belzer and Hagel as they cleared the ship. Stubs was changing into a new EVA suit.

  “Come here, Rizer.” Bravo crooked a finger.

  Burrmaster joined them as Bravo charged Rizer’s jetpack with fuel. He raised Rizer’s face shield and turned off his radio. “I don’t know what the fuck happened out there, but you best get it right this time if you wanna graduate, because you will be rolled back.”

  This was no idle threat. Five recruits had been dropped during space training for failure to master the basics of moving in a zero-gravity environment or not learning the emergency procedures for EVA suit malfunctions.

  “Understood, sir.”

  Fifteen minutes later, after the necessary checks of equipment and fail-safes, SSgt Mack briefed the five men on second fire team—Coltin, Smythe, Shelburn, Rizer, and Stubs—before they stepped into the airlock.

  She singled out Rizer, repeating the threats of rollback. “No excuses this time, Rizer. Keep your dick skinner off that thrust button unless absolutely necessary. Do not fuck this up! Step into the airlock now for comm check.”

  Coltin made frosty eyes at Rizer as they performed the comm check but kept his cock holster shut. Mack had explicitly warned them against using profanity or wisecracks while the brass listened.

  Shelburn, who had barely squeezed by during preliminary training, breathed heavily into his radio. Smythe seemed nervous as well. A few of the recruits had been in space before—Ward had even performed outside work on spacecraft during his time as a merchant mariner—but most had not, Rizer included. The DIs had antagonized the recruits during prep training, of course, further raising tensions. Their favorite tactic: sneaking up behind recruits in the training bay and cutting off their oxygen to see if they properly followed emergency procedures.

  “Proceed to objective, second fire team,” Mack ordered.

  Coltin opened the airlock and floated outside. The team formed a wedge to either side of him. “Thrust two,” Coltin said.

  Rizer depressed the thrust button for roughly one second.

  “You’re off course, Shelburn,” Mack said. “Redirect and wait for my order to compensate.”

  Shelburn acknowledged through much heavy breathing. He and Smythe sounded like a couple of dogs hot on a rabbit’s trail.

  “Redirect, Shelburn! That means point yourself toward the objective.”

  Shelburn’s panic broke loose in that instant. He hit the thrust button and rocketed toward Smythe, who held out an arm to snag him.

  “Don’t touch him, Smythe!” Mack ordered, but it came too late.

  Smythe grabbed his left arm, and Shelburn’s high velocity threw him off course. The two went spinning away, both shouting their panic. Shelburn now flew toward the objective at a high speed that only increased when he jabbed the thrust button again for some reason.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Coltin asked.

  “Stop thrusting, Shelburn!” Mack ordered.

  Above the objective, the instructor bot thrusted to intercept Shelburn before he hit the frigate. Moving at an absurdly high rate of speed, Shelburn yelled gibberish over the radio, drowning out Mack’s instructions.

  The chaos in his ears had Rizer’s head aching. He waited to witness Shelburn’s fate.

  “Maintain course, second fire team. Do not thrust!” Mack cut in over the cries of Shelburn and Smythe.

  The instructor met Shelburn just as he was about to collide with the frigate. For a moment Rizer felt relieved; it appeared Shelburn would be saved before impact. The bot grabbed Shelburn by the leg, but his great mechanical strength wasn’t enough to halt the man’s inertia completely. Shelburn’s body spun to slam headfirst into the frigate.

  Over a hundred meters away, Rizer couldn’t see the damage Shelburn had taken, but the dull crack of a sundered helmet, followed by silence over the radio, told the story. Decompression and the bitter cold of space killed Shelburn in seconds.

  The bot holding him by his lifeless leg reported, “We’ve lost him.”

  “Shit!” Mack thundered, breaking her own rule. “Maintain position, second fire team.”

  Having halted about fifty meters from the objective, the remaining team members joined hands and waited. Another bot instructor intercepted Smythe and announced he was bringing him back.

  “Instructions for the failed recruit?” asked the bot holding Shelburn’s corpse.

  Rizer recognized the company commander’s voice. “Tether the body to the ship for now. Continue the mission when fire team is reformed.”

  Jesus! But Rizer supposed it made sense. Retrieving Smythe had wasted valuable time, and Shelburn wasn’t about to protest.

  With the precision thrusts of an expert, the instructor bot returned Smythe to the team, where he resumed his place to Coltin’s right.

  “Can you finish the mission, Smythe?” Mack asked. “We can’t afford another accident.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He sounded subdued, though damned far from calm.

  “Very well. Thrust point-five and not an instant longer.”

  With that command, Coltin led them forward.

  Rizer again came in slightly hot but reached the objective in good shape. Magnetic tether, he commanded. His boots activated electromagnets to connect to the exterior of the vessel. He stood on the hull in a defensive posture with his rifle as Coltin applied a breaching charge—actually a training block of harmless plastic—to the airlock door. The team walked several meters away from the airlock, as they would when breaching with real explosives.

  “Fire in the hole!” Coltin said, an instant before the door would have blown.

  Coltin opened the door and led them inside. The airlock would be rendered unusable in a real breaching, so C
oltin and Stubs set up electromagnetic field projectors on the walls, floor, and ceiling. When Coltin activated the projectors and sealed the airlock, translucent sheets of energy appeared, its shimmer barely discernible. More powerful space walls sealed the landing bays on large ships. A human in a jetpack couldn’t generate enough velocity to pass through a starship’s powerful space wall, and it took a good bit of strength to walk through the weaker portable version, but second team got through without issue.

  Four men weren’t expected to secure the sizeable frigate, only the deck they’d entered, to clear the way for further forces. Training bots guarded some of the rooms and hallways. The team cleared the deck but not without problems. Stubs and Coltin sustained simulated fatal hits. Nevertheless, second fire team passed the evolution. Mastering the jet pack and the challenges of operating in space were the goal today, not the clearing operation, which they had practiced several times on Forge.

  After clearing the deck, they joined first fire team on a lower deck to await the rest of the platoon.

  “Shelburn was weak,” Belzer commented upon hearing of his demise. “I don’t know how he made it this far.”

  Not surprisingly, Coltin put him down as well.

  Rizer didn’t feel like arguing or speaking up for Shelburn. He found it ironic how Kwon and Shelburn had withstood bootcamp for over thirty weeks, only to panic under live training, when all the stresses they’d endured should have prepared them for these situations.

  Am I any better than they were? Perhaps so or maybe he’d just been lucky. He might have slammed into the frigate earlier. It might have been me floating dead out there, tethered to this ship. He didn’t want to think about it anymore.

  Stubs sat next to him, drained and depressed. The rest of 2084 gradually filed in by fire teams. No others died, though two more recruits were rolled back. Of the original eighty-six recruits, only twenty-one remained. Of those, less than half were expected to become Marines.

  ***

  Rizer awoke swinging, his fists striking empty air. Certain recruits, particularly Abek, loved to fuck with their sleeping brethren. Most everyone now came up swinging when shaken awake.