The war at the river Zitar Nuo

by Morgan La Femina

under the banks of the Dru. If they could do this, they could attach the Xelon Dru from the shore itself without mounting a sea assault. They could swarm the Dru with soldiers from their own corporation right from the tunnels themselves and overtake them. Each tunnel was torso high, so that you had to crawl to enter or leave the channel, each supported by metal O-rings. The metal rings supported the soft earth above from caving in and from the earth below.

  Abreon knew the answer, from his helmet, which was in his hands, “We must bore them deeper so that we can attack the Xelon Dru and crush them and their corporation!”

  The Xelon Dru was a mining company. Their desire was to seize, envelope and destroy the Nenthar Corporation while in the process taking its land for strip mining. The Nenthar Corporation was a data and network facility, supporting other corporations and governments. Without its existence, other companies could not exist. A pause from Drean and from Abreon’s helmet, “You must take one of the drillers from depot 33E and continue excavating tunnel 33, commander Uewno will assist you further.”

  Uewno was there in his suit, lesser soldiers standing and waiting with equipment for use in the process of elongating the tunnel 33. Abreon sat on the tunnel floor next to his driller, a small belted treaded device, made to fit into the channel and drill forward while self-propelling itself. The rear was equipped with a sled with controls on the handles. Abreon could lay headfirst on the saddle and control the drill by its handles. Abreon talking with one of the soldiers next to him, “I was in the bunker and one soldier stood up, just blowing the other away.” That solider, “Hell is what you make of it.”

  Abreon, “I see, but…”

  Uewno, “Each one of you had a job, and that job is to further the cause of the Nenthar Corporation. You are here to preserve your way of life. You left your wives, husbands, your children, your families, your homes; your possessions at the company controlled and regulated living barracks. You are soldiers, citizens of this corporation. You worked and toiled for us, slaved for us. We honor your dedication to the corporation, but now more than ever you must realize they are the threat to us and our society. Those Xelon corporate raiders, without souls seek to take your stock options and your common shares! You must fight back for what you own and what you will pass on to your children. In so doing, you will follow my orders and from your senior commander Drean. We are your managers and we are corporate. In the end, I follow my orders too. We all answer to the Chief Executive Officer and President of the company.”

  Abreon to that solider in tired futility, “But, he died.”

  Uewno retorted angrily, “So, what of it? You’re stepping on a corpse right now solider and there is another one next to you. Look about you can see them all along this trench, buried in mud, flesh and bone torn apart.”

  Abreon capitulating, “Yes, I see.”

  Uewno proud he had broken the remorse of his soldiers, “Abreon, you take the first drill shift, which shall last eight hours. Censar will take the second drill shift.”

  Abreon’s mind began to wander into a haze. He looked up at the clouds above them collecting. It was going to rain.

  It did rain. It rained hard. The greasy polluted rain fell on no man’s land, the river swelling it and filling the trenches both companies dug on opposite sides of the river. The rain collected in the trenches and began to fill the tunnel he was drilling deeper. Crawling out of tunnel 33, he wiped the oily rain from his face, his helmet in hand. Someone, or some solider was handing out food rations and plastic water canteens to the soldier, which happened about once per day. Abreon held out his hands to the female soldier. The woman kept her helmet on to protect her head from the rain. It grew progressively darker, the sun seemingly setting earlier because of the dark cloud cover. He took what she gave him, which were two nutritional bars and a canteen of water.

  Another worker within the tunnel escaped from the deep shaft with his helmet light still activated and bright, sitting in the mud, pushing a corpse away. He grabbed a couple nutritional bars and a canteen of water from the distribution soldier and began eating it. They tasted of meat and fiber. The solider switched his helmet light off and removed it from his head placing on the corpse next to him. Abreon looked at him oddly. They wiped the grease from their faces. The soldier asked Abreon, “Are we going to survive?”

  Abreon finishing one of the calorie bars, “I will, I feel it.”

  “What of me, do you know? Do you think I will survive?”

  Abreon drinking, “Nothing, I don’t know if you will survive. But, I will live.”

  The rain continued as a downpour, burdening the earth with its cold, drenching tides. The torrent of rain, breaking the ground, the dirt under them crumbling into still more muck and mire. The muck and mire deepened still further, filling the trenches, saturating everything, the water collecting into a shimmering layer above me muck. The layer trembling, shimmering, as the rain fell into it. The waters swelled the massive river, the Zitar Nuo, drowning any hopes of another attack by the Xelon Dru or in that matter one from the Nenthar. Unfortunately, the drilling of the tunnels continued and especially tunnel number 33.

  Three

  Abreon was at the northern most edge of the tunnel, a hell of dark mire and smoke from the drills. He was splayed right in the mud, laying down on his stomach and head first in the crawlway they had created. He clenched his teeth as he took filtered air from inside his helmet, taking to his drill as others behind him wedged in metal O-rings keeping the tunnel from falling on them. The small bucket sized tractors took the dirt from behind him, pushing rearward to the entrance. In the dirt and in the dark he thought. Abreon thought to himself there must be another way than to work and fight for the corporation. The tunnel began to leak water, oozing out from the walls of what they had dug. Several soldiers moved an O-ring into place behind him but the ceiling began to crumble. They quickly removed it, repositioning the ring in another place. He drilled further, water now causing chunks of dirt and rock to collapse around the drill. Abreon let go of the drill throttle, the machine stopping. He removed his suit helmet, releasing the seal between it and his suit. Abreon clicked on his helmet transmitter, wiping the mud from his shoulders, “Drean?”

  Abreon looking about, uncertain as Drean answered, “High Commander Drean status, rank A9.”

  “It is Abreon, rank B4.”

  “Drean, I'm having trouble with the tunnel, tunnel number 33.”

  Drean squawking from within Abreon’s helmet, “What is the trouble with tunnel 33?”

  “The walls are saturated with water from the swollen river. The pressure is causing the ceiling and walls to crumble with water.”

  Drean from his helmet, “You shall continue as ordered soldier.”

  The ceiling falling onto the face of Abreon, as he looked up at it, wiping his face, pulling close to his helmet, “This shaft is going to collapse if not now then soon. You must let your workers evacuate, or I shall go to Commander Uewno with these findings.”

  “He is a rank of A2 and he will say no in this matter.”

  “But…”

  “You will continue until your shift is completed, the boring of tunnels and of shaft 33 will continue.”

  Abreon now so very concerned, angry and afraid, “Yes.”

  Abreon continued to drill into through the night and into the early morning, sweating end crying because he knew he and many others would die. Another soldier crawled up to him, pulled up aside him with his suit ripped and muddy, with a hat and light instead of a helmet, which was what Abreon was wearing. Abreon wiped the thick mud that had caked up on his visor and then turning on his external speaker he spit at his microphone, “We are in trouble my friend.”

  The solider behind him trying to wedge a metal O-ring in place, “The walls are liquefying.”

  Others were crying around him, “Among the wrong already produced.”

  “What'?” The soldier next to him yelled.

  Abreon listening to the sounds around him and t
he shaking before him, “What could it be?” Abreon peering out into the darkness before him while his drill lights illuminated the wall before him, which was crumbling from the inside out. Abreon yelling, “Everyone, pull back!” while waving behind him.

  The solider next to Abreon again yelling, “What!” the machines and the ground tremors creating a roar he could not hear above.

  Then the wall of rock and dirt collapsing in front of Abreon and his driller, revealing spotlights a massive driller and hot green laser blasts. All of them cowering, Abreon flicking his transponder to a longer-range secure band, “The Dru are all around us! Drean!” yelling, flicking to wideband as he ducked a blast from a Dru solider before him, “Pull back! Everyone, pull back!”

  A mass of Dru soldiers before him and his Nenthar diggers as the front collapsed. Dru soldiers with suits, lamps and lasers began to fire over the mound of dirt left from the collapse before them. A Nenthar soldier yelling out, “Escape! Run!” another yelling, “Get weapons!” as the Dru rushed into the Nenthar side of the tunnel, aiming at the defenseless Nenthar’s as they struggled to flee the Xelon’s. The Dru shot their lasers, the blasts burning into the drill as they climbed over it, following their corporate enemies. Their lasers searing the cold wet tunnel, other blasts burning into the Nenthar’s who