War's Edge- Dead Heroes

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  Rizer marked Stubs location for medivac. Away from the building’s edge, the wounded man lay out of harm’s way for now. Rizer took Stubs’ machinegun and left him behind.

  Firing on the infantry, the remains of Rizer’s squad advanced into the square, a small city park of unkempt ornamental bushes and small trees that made shitty cover. Their red body-ripping bolts fell several of the enemy, forcing them to fall back. Good!

  The mech opened up on them again, forcing them to retreat from the roof’s edge, allowing the enemy troops to advance again.

  “Can’t fucking do shit!” Michaud lamented.

  Rizer heard the thunderous crack of a particle cannon. About fucking time! The tank he’d spotted earlier moved up from the south, a green rectangle on his HUD.

  “Get back there; hit the infantry!” he shouted to Michaud.

  They caught the enemy by surprise; the tank’s particle cannon shots lit up the mech, vaporizing centimeters of armor in a brilliant flash. The tremendous shock of the blast briefly grabbed the insurgents’ attention. Rizer only needed that moment. He cut the plasma machinegun loose. Three enemy fell, injured or dead, their uniforms smoldering.

  Seven remained but their numbers dwindled rapidly. Two ran when the second Mauler appeared at the square’s western edge, drawing the other mech’s fire. Doom Squad concentrated fire on the infantry, letting the tanks duel with the mechs.

  SSgt Len then led Ghost onto the street, moving behind the tank to the west and opening fire. Interlocking fields of fire from three positions gave the Marines every advantage. All of the insurgents were down within seconds, save for one who escaped to the north. Fury and Evil could deal with him.

  The mech in the northwest corner burst apart like a fragmenting grenade, its armor unable to stop the tank’s 150mm plasma cannon. Seeing his comrade’s fate, the other mech’s driver turned his machine and activated its jump jets to flee the scene. The tank fired with a thunderclap and flash of crimson lightning. The blast hit it low; the 150mm bolt blew off its retracted legs in a blinding flash of ionized energy. Knocked askew, the mech lost power and bounced across the square like a loose tennis ball. Parts flew, including one of its laser cannons, before it finally came to rest before a storefront doorway on the north side of the square.

  “Any signs of Vics in the buildings?” asked SSgt Len as he ran up.

  Rizer answered, “Negative, staff sergeant.”

  “Haven’t seen any, but we’re in the process of sweeping the rest of the square,” said Stiglitz.

  “Any sign of Perez?” asked Rizer.

  “Negative, we believe he might have been tipped off by the Verdant Guard and slipped away sometime last night.”

  Imagine that. Rizer thought to himself.

  Len put two pistol bolts into a wounded insurgent trying to crawl away, then said, “Bring it in; let’s finish off the rest.”

  Rizer went back and grabbed Stubs, then jumped down to the square. Doom and Ghost checked the wounded insurgents, found two barely alive and finished them off.

  With the fight dwindling, Rizer gazed at the upset mech lying on its side by the storefront. “Let’s check it out, Hogue.”

  Tendrils of smoke rose from the battered mech. Dimple marks and larger fist-sized impressions from rifle and heavy machinegun bolts pocked its armor. Rizer peered around it. Well look at that… The driver’s canopy hatch was half open. He was nowhere to be seen, but his helmet lay on the sidewalk.

  Alert again, Rizer hopped atop the mech to survey the battlefield. The driver, dressed in tan coveralls, sat propped against the shop door, bleeding from his nose and a forehead laceration, eyes barely open. His eyes went wide when he noticed the Marine; he lifted the pistol in his hand.

  Rizer jumped, leading with his feet, to drop a heavy, armored boot atop the driver’s forearm, breaking it and forcing his fingers from the pistol grip.

  The driver howled and recoiled in agony.

  “I don’t fucking think so,” Rizer said over his rifle, its steaming-hot barrel centimeters from the man’s nose.

  The driver instinctively moved his head away from the radiating heat. Rizer kicked his piece away, back beneath the mech, and increased finger pressure on the trigger. He would vaporize this asshole’s head for taking Stubs down.

  The driver spat something in a foreign tongue as he tried to retreat, hands raised, but he could back away no further.

  Was that what I think it was? Rizer swore the man had spoken in Sinonese, though he didn’t understand the language. Sure as hell sounded like it. He engaged the translation feature on his HUD.

  “What have you got there, corporal?” asked Len, who stood atop the mech.

  Rizer removed his finger from the trigger. “The mech driver, he’s beaten up but okay. I think he spoke to me in Sinonese.”

  “Really?” Len jumped down, raised his visor, and bent over. He spoke to the prisoner in a similar if not identical foreign tongue. It didn’t surprise Rizer that Len spoke Sinonese; he’d tangled with Union men before. The question UNION OR INSURGENT? appeared on Rizer’s HUD.

  The driver didn’t respond.

  Len grabbed him by the collar and shook him, bashed his busted grape once against the door, then got in his face and growled something that Rizer’s translator didn’t catch.

  The driver spoke up, scared shitless and cringing before Len’s wrath: I’M WITH A UNION DETACHMENT! He then started to repeat his name, rank, and serial number.

  “You guessed it, Rizer. You’ve captured a Union soldier. Good work.” Len smirked. “Get him up, Rizer. He’s your prisoner.”

  CHAPTER 26

  After a bit of persuasion, Rizer’s prisoner identified twelve Union soldiers among the dead in Harkness. Intel identified several more through clues such as script tattoos and personal effects, though none carried military ID. Three large caches of heavy weapons and munitions were located after the battle.

  The driver’s capture pleased Lt Dupaul to no end. When his commander commended him, Rizer knew the words were genuine. He felt satisfied, rather than relieved, at his official expungement from Dupaul’s shit list. At least for the moment…

  Gallardo Perez and his closest minions died in a vicious close-quarters battle with elements of Fury Squad. General Hella pinned a bronze star on their squad leader, wounded during the action, at his bed in BAS. Rizer wondered what he might have received if they had captured Perez.

  For outstanding performance at Harkness, Captain Carr rewarded Murder Company with seventy-two hours of liberty. He briefed his men before releasing them at Thursday evening formation. “I had to push the battalion CO hard for this seventy-two, Murder. Don’t make me regret it; do not fuck me over. Keep your drinking quiet and stay out of off-limits bars. I don’t want to see one swingin’ dick in front of my desk Monday morning. That is all.”

  Rizer went to grab Kasra after formation, ready to hit Damnation and distract himself from the horrors of Harkness. She wasn’t home, so he visited her at the electronics shop the next day and set up a date for that night.

  Friday dragged on, but Rizer soon found himself strolling with Kasra along the sluggish brown river flowing through Damnation, its course contained within a concrete channel. She’d wanted to bring a friend, so Rizer dragged Stubs along on a blind date.

  Allegedly healed after he’d spent three days in sickbay with a concussion, the docs ordered him not to drink for a week upon his release. Talk about fat chances. Stubs would certainly drink tonight. He looked bored with his staid date, Shannon, a decent-looking blond, as he liked his women tough, fiery, dangerous. Rizer knew he missed Leone, out for at least three weeks as she convalesced on a hospital ship in the fleet, along with several others from second platoon. Rizer almost considered them lucky. They were getting a real break from the jungle hell of Verdant, as opposed to just a seventy-two–hour reprieve.

  Rizer felt at ease as they strolled along the river, he and Kasra speaking of
nothing important. He liked it that way. They clicked on all levels, or so he believed. And even though he kept telling himself that there wasn’t a future with her, he still relished being in her presence. She brought him peace, made him forget, if only for the moment, the burned girl and the deaths of Hagel and Hood.

  Behind Mark and Kasra, Stubs told Shannon, “I played full-contact pelota for two years in high school.”

  “Uggh! I despise pelota, so barbaric.”

  Stubs chuckled. “Yeah.” He seemed to enjoy making her uneasy.

  “But if you were that good, why only two years?”

  “I, uh, had to change schools.”

  Yeah, you went to reform school. If Rizer had possessed doubts about Kasra’s interest, he might have smacked Stubs for ranking the scene on their date. But Kasra appeared indifferent to how Shannon received Stubs, her attention concentrated solely on Rizer.

  “How long since you’ve been down here?” he asked.

  “Not since our last date. But it’s nice to know this town never changes. Still smells like a monkey’s taint down here.” She cracked Rizer up. “So where are we going?”

  “You’ll see. Prepare to be surprised.” He squeezed her hand.

  “Can’t wait. Are the showgirls banging rabsidars now?”

  Rizer shrugged. “Could be, but we’re keeping to the straight and narrow tonight.”

  “All right, now I’m really puzzled.”

  “And intrigued, admit it.”

  She shook her head, smiled. “I dunno…. Guess we’ll see.”

  They arrived before their destination. The girls stared up at the sign, then down at the blacked-out plate glass windows, which vibrated to the beat of electronic dance music.

  “Uncle Pauly’s?” Kasra asked. “Are you serious? This place is lame.”

  “Was lame.” Rizer assumed a cultured, formal diction. “But this, my darling, is the new Uncle Pauly’s, vastly improved, I assure you.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Stubs, “this place is the shit now.”

  “Literally,” Rizer added. “Shall we, ladies?” He threw open the glass door. The initial salvo of thumping music pummeled their eardrums as the women led the way inside.

  “What the fuck happened here?” Kasra asked, assessing the holo-pool tables, the virtual poker and slot machines, and the Marines grinding with scantily clad women on the dance floor where dining tables used to be. Though it was only 2100, beleaguered bartenders struggled to keep pace with drink orders.

  “The owners adapted and overcame.” Rizer lifted one corner of his lip in a half-smirk that he hoped she found more flirty than creepy.

  Heads had rolled through the streets of Camp Shaw following the bombing at Guana Bar and the subsequent raids on off-limits bars. Faced with the prospect of being busted on liberty—losing rank, pay, freedom—many Marines had taken up residence at Uncle Pauly’s, still a permitted establishment. The restaurant’s former patrons, families and respectable citizens of Darmatian, ate and drank elsewhere now, driven off by partying jarheads and the regiment of lowlifes who followed them like lampreys after a pod of whales.

  With topless waitresses, the only thing missing were strippers, but Rizer hardly noticed. The whores and locals looking to get laid showed more than enough skin.

  “Yeah, adapted in a big way,” said Kasra.

  “Let’s grab that table.” Stubs led the way. Marines and their partners, most of them rented, occupied all the other tables.

  “Bout time you dickheads got here!” shouted Stiglitz from a spacious corner booth. He held court with four hookers and several Marines: Cardona, Hogue, Green, Bridger, and two others from Ghost Squad. “I need more drinks, now pony the fuck up!”

  “Isn’t that your tiny-dicked friend?” Kasra asked.

  “We call him Sergeant Tiny Dick now.” Stiglitz sat atop the world. He’d been promoted Thursday morning and had gotten new orders; his deployment would be over in less than two months. He was counting days now.

  But Rizer hadn’t come for his promotion party. “Congrats, bro, I’ll hook you up later.”

  “Pussies!” Green shouted at the table, unable to keep his head upright.

  “Yeah, believe it when I see it,” Stiglitz responded, waving in dismissal.

  Hogue taunted, “First fire team sucks!”

  “Like your mom on payday!” Stubs laughed.

  Hogue responded, but they didn’t hear him as they moved on to their table. A waitress with a bored expression and sagging tits came to take their order. Yuck! Topless didn’t always mean a great view.

  Rizer ordered drinks, adding, “And get those guys in the corner a pitcher of mind erasers.”

  Shannon rolled her eyes. “I think it’s a bit late for that.”

  “Only by a few years,” Rizer responded.

  Stubs and Kasra laughed. Shannon groaned like she’d rather be somewhere, anywhere but there.

  Lighten the fuck up.

  Their drinks arrived while the girls were in the restroom. “Take it easy tonight, Stubs. Don’t fuck up your melon any more than it already is.”

  “Eh, don’t worry, bro; gonna take it easy tonight, just a few.”

  “Gotcha. Don’t make me scrape you off the floor later.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” A confidence passed between them, not lost upon either man. With Hagel dead, Leone in the hospital, and Bach on liberty restriction, they were all they had for the moment, the inseparable and unstoppable duo. Keep it that way.

  Shannon continued bitching when the women returned. “Shit, it’s so loud in here!”

  Shuuuut up! Rizer ignored her, concentrating on Kasra. “I told you this place was born again happenin’.”

  “It’s not bad.” She grinned devilishly at him. “But I’m looking forward to another bike ride later.”

  Rizer leaned closer. “We’ll give it an hour. Stubs shouldn’t drink very much, and your friend isn’t having a very good time.”

  “Yeah, they make an odd couple.”

  “So odd they’re incompatible.”

  She nodded. “Not a great match at—”

  “The foon is here!” announced a tall, black-haired man stumbling through the front door. Another large man followed, then a third in a metal skullcap, who dwarfed the first two.

  Sawyer.

  “Shit!” Rizer and Kasra said at once. Rizer studied her, yet her eyes remained locked on Sawyer.

  He took a quick glance around the bar with eyes real and prosthetic, spotted something and walked away from his merc pals, stopping before a vacant slot machine. Rizer was about to ask Kasra how she knew the man, when another person caught his eye, the last of five mercs to enter. Dick. He could never forget that name. The three other SecureCorp mercs were strangers. None wore uniforms or carried weapons other than vibro-knives under the 15-centimeter limit imposed by local law enforcement. Most Marines carried the same knives; the PX couldn’t stock them quickly enough.

  The music briefly faded as one number segued into another. “Make way, ya fookin’ jarheads,” the drunk merc shouted, his words ringing from the walls. He rolled his Rs slightly, even when slurring. “Or I’ll grind yas oonder me heel!”

  Several Marines at the bar turned to confront him, ugly looks on their faces.

  “This fuckin’ guy’s gonna get it.” Stubs grinned, watching intently.

  Dick took two quick steps, seized the drunk’s shoulder as he staggered toward the bar and an imminent ass whipping. His forceful hand stopped the guy dead. Dick regarded the angry Marines and smiled disarmingly. “Please excuse my companion, devil dogs. He’s decided to get an early start on the evening, as you can see.”

  A different merc added, “Yeah, he’s dumber’n shit too.”

  Dick laughed. “Now now, Shell, that’s piling insult onto injury; let’s be nice now.”

  “Fook dat!” The drunk motioned toward the bar. “I’ll have a fookin’ drink now if I gotta
kick every arse—arghhh!”

  Dick pinched his neck, evoking a howl that stopped his shit talking. Nice move! It must have been crazy painful to hurt through all that liquid bravado.

  Marines stalked toward the drunk with balled fists. The bouncer, a local built like a Deca-class freighter, looked on with amusement while cracking his substantial knuckles.

  Dick stood taller. “As you were, Marines. Mr. Bilson and I are gonna have a seat now. He won’t trouble you anymore.”

  “Better fucking not!” someone shouted.

  “Fuckin’ merc trash!”

  Dick steered Bilson to a table near Rizer’s, where two Marines sat. “You all don’t want this table, shitty view.” He threw down a local hundred-credit note, enough to keep the two in drinks for an hour. “Now kindly clear yourselves out.”

  The payment, and Dick’s intimidating though pleasant presence, got rid of them without argument. Bilson and two other mercs took seats.

  Dick’s eyes lit on Rizer as he went to take his chair. “Keep an eye on Bilson,” he told his friends and headed for Rizer’s table.

  “You look familiar, Marine,” Dick said. “But I can’t quite remember your name.”

  “It’s Rizer. And I remember yours.”

  Dick laughed heartily. “Mine’s appropriate. And damned hard to forget.”

  Rizer introduced Dick. Predictably, the ladies weren’t thrilled to meet him. Everyone knew that mercs were best avoided, even those who seemed cool. Stubs was indifferent.

  “You still a lance coolie, Rizer?”

  “Corporal now.”

  “Good for you! Shit, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Haven’t seen you since we were evicting people in… What was it? Dumbassville?”

  Rizer laughed. “Duberville, I think.” But he wasn’t sure; it seemed like an eternity ago, and they’d evicted people in other towns since.

  “Right, Duberville.”

  “Looks like your friend needs some help,” Kasra said, eyes narrowed, but Bilson had calmed down, not raising any hell at the moment.

  Dick laughed, raised palms in placation. “Gotcha. I know where I’m not wanted. You all have a fine evening. Good seein’ you again, Rizer.” He turned to his table.