Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  “Take cover!”

  Just streets away, buildings were shredded like paper and clouds of concrete erupted. Rockets flared and speared into the ground, red fireballs climbing into the sky. The black killer burst through the flames and arced away.

  “Fuck!”

  Chosukabe looked through the binoculars. The bio-bomb platoon was gone.

  She clambered around the drain pipe and slid down like a fireman. Troopers stood around, stunned.

  The air started shrieking. The ship was diving right towards them.

  “Get down!”

  To a man, First Platoon threw themselves to the ground. The shrieking became unbearable, torrents of warm air scorched down on them.

  She looked up.

  It was hovering. Its sun-bright engines tilted downwards and it descended on shimmering columns of thrust.

  She got to her feet. Landing struts extended and first bounced, tapped, and then ground heavily into the dirt. Pistons hissed and its rear hatch lowered, forming a ramp. Powerful lights streamed out, silhouetting two forms. They strode down.

  One was a tall, slim, blonde. She wore bright pink shorts and a white tank top (it read “Pet Me!”). Both were made from gleaming, tight, body rubber. She pranced on white, knee-length, boots. Her pony tail was held up with a pink bow. Nesting in her arms was a Beretta fire-and-forget autocannon, jungle warfare pattern. Sparkling, plastic, pastel stars hung from it on tinsel ribbons.

  The other was an athletic, angular, brunette. She stalked down on black thigh-highs with six-inch heels. Her black, glittery panties matched her bra. Tight around her shoulders was a (black) leather halfjacket. Her (black) choker had “Bitch” written on it in sparkles. She carried a katana over her shoulder, and a bullpup pattern, 7.62mm assault rifle in her other hand.

  The stepped off the ramp and took positions on either side of it. The blonde made eye-contact with Khan; she smiled and giggled. The brunette glowered and rolled her eyes.

  Jack Diamond appeared at the top of the ramp.

  “Hey!” he pointed, “You Chosukabe?”

  It took her a moment.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m Captain Chosukabe.”

  “Heard you were having trouble. You want a ride to the fight? If you squeeze in real tight, we can do the whole company. What do you say?”

  She stared at Elise. The blonde winked at her and made a “v”-sign.

  “Hey, Captain, what do you say?”

  She snapped back to Paradiso.

  “You heard him!” she barked, “Get the Cherokees on first! First Platoon, move!”

  It was the loudest cheer she had ever heard from her men.

  “Say again?” Koirala crouched down, back to the burned out wall. She held the radio to her ear. Her unit took up position around her, rifles ready. “Company Command, say again, over?”

  “We’re pulling out, Razor One,” the radio rasped. “Sixth Company and all committed assets are to redeploy to the docks, over.”

  Her knuckles whitened. “Roger.” She lowered the device and glared at the ground.

  “Really?” Khalid snorted. “Just like that?”

  “I knew they couldn’t handle it,” shrugged Saleh, “Droptroopers are pussies. Let’s finish the high priest and go the fuck home.”

  “No, you heard the man,” said Jahandar. “‘All committed assets’.”

  “We are committed,” Koirala stood and checked her rifle. “But we can’t recommit till we’re done here.”

  “We just got new orders,” he persisted.

  “They just got new orders. We report to – well, we report to Diamond, for now. Let’s recap. What do we know?”

  “That the Rangers are pussies,” insisted Saleh.

  “Giving up the Rice District, even to reinforce the docks, is a partial victory for the enemy,” said Khalid. “They get control of a pilgrimage’s worth of rice.”

  “All for their troops, leaving the pilgrims to probably starve,” Jahandar.

  “Now that the objective is no longer being defended, our hands our free to deny it,” she smiled. It was not a kind smile.

  “What do you mean?” Saleh.

  “There are three UNAID fuel dumps in the area,” she pulled off her pack and set it down in the mud. “They’re right next to large, grain, storehouses. Catch!”

  Jahandar caught it one-handed.

  “Explosive charges? You want us to blow up the fuel dumps?” he asked.

  “Dump them right into the biggest tank you can find,” she handed out more. “Set detonation for fourteen hundred hours. If we’re lucky, we’ll set the whole place on fire.”

  “You want to burn all the food?”

  Three heads turned and regarded him.

  “I would think that was obvious when she said we could deny them,” said Khalid.

  “While you head to the fuel dumps, I’ll continue to our target. The head priest losing his head should be a good distraction,” she slipped her pack back on and unslung her rifle.

  “This guarantees all those people are going to starve, whatever happens. I want that stated for the record.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Just get it done.”

  “You’re asking us to perpetrate an atrocity.”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “Again.”

  The war shrine crushed forward.

  It moved on black, iron, rollers wrapped in thick chains. They tore apart the road like rusty nails through skin. Sitting over the rollers was a platform mounting a rusting, green, diesel engine. Blind men in rags tended its grimy nest of gears and wires.

  Closer.

  Strung from barbed wire were tannoys praying for the end-times at a hundred decibels. Girders struck out from the sides of the war shrine. Limp necks were hung from them; paramedics taken from ambulances, schoolteachers punished for teaching heresy. Hanging beside them cocooned in white cloth, were smaller, more pathetic forms.

  That’s right. Closer.

  Thirty figures flanked it, trudging through the shattered street. They growled under hoods of chainmail mesh, glowing optics poked between rings. Their bodies were pale from cave-life and brand-scarred by rituals. Their battle dress was royal blue with diamond armor plating. Each carried an Invader-pattern weapon pod. They swept the ruins with emerald laser-sights.

  The control pad felt like lead in her hand. Her thumb tensed over the button.

  One of them held up his hand suddenly. The platoon stopped. The war shrine shrieked and strained to a halt. The hanged swung on their chains.

  Come on you bastards!

  The lead trooper stepped forward warily, a huge brute. Two others came up flanking him. They raised their gun pods and panned across the rubble.

  What the fuck are you doing?

  The leader brute looked right at Koirala. He sniffed the air, hard.

  Fat bastard, she thought. How did they find enough food for you, in hole you’ve been hiding in all this time? I bet you ate each other.

  He fired.

  The laser pulse was blinding. It struck like a speeding truck and flicked her into the air. She struck concrete at last and rolled in the eternity that was fight time. The camo cloak tore in ten places and shorted. Smart matter vanes flared like ruffled feathers, glowing red venting heat. Her sniper rifle, struck head on, lay about in three, shatter-melted, pieces. She spat a mouthful - it was as red as the pop-up alarms in her vision.

  The platoon cheered and the brute began walking towards her. He produced an axe, its jagged blade large as a man’s head. He knelt beside her; she choked as his hand clamped round her throat. The chainmail mask hung just inches from her ruined face. Words jeered through it, in sounds not meant for human lips.

  “Fuck you too,” and she pressed the button.

  The ground shook and she was bounced into the air again, like a children’s ball. Thunder crushed her screaming skull. The brute disappeared. Supersonic debris hurtled after him.

  Her ears went into reset mode, and she jumped to her feet.

>   The war shrine was a good ten meters from the mine, but the clustered soldiers had been closer. Six lay on the ground, stunned or dead, bodies twisted. Two more were dismembered.

  She drew her pistol.

  Aim. Squeeze. Fire. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

  A soldier began staggering to his feet. His head flew back, as if struck by a hammer. Red pooled in the dirt under him, she was already aiming and firing elsewhere. Four more shots, empty. She stamped on a throat, bone snapped. The empty clip fell and bounced off a chainmail hood. She slapped the new clip home.

  Aim. Squeeze. Fire.

  Blue bolts lanced behind her. Several were firing at her now, gun pods braced. She dashed to the war shrine for cover. Two acolyte-engineers cowered there, staring open mouthed. She shot one and grabbed the other. She stepped out of cover, holding him in front.

  The shooters stopped firing. She shot three before the rest found cover.

  The axe crushed into her spine, pitching her forward.

  She staggered. The acolyte broke loose and fled, gibbering. She turned. It was the brute again. He grunted and stared where the smart-matter chipped the blade.

  She stepped forward, seized his arm, and tore it off. He spun to the ground, spurting, screaming. She lifted him one-handed and flung him at his fellows. They cried out, and she ran at them.

  The invader pods were powerful anti-armor rifles, but this was hand-to-hand. They swung them round awkwardly and fired, but she was quick, her pistol quicker. She cut through them like a cadet clearing a building, every round a head shot. They broke shortly and ran. She reloaded and shot two more, their skulls splashing open.

  Her ears finished rebooting. The tannoys were finally quiet. Instead, the chanting was coming from inside the shrine. She shoved aside a swinging corpse and climbed up the side. On the platform, she could see a dark, iron hatchway. It was inlaid with spirals of basalt and crystal chips. At its’ center was a gold beetle.

  She pulled open the hatch, and peered inside.

  Microphones and wiring hung bolted to the underside. Hot, stinking, air poured out. Inside, there were no control panels, no view ports, nor seats. Instead, the cramped chamber was filled knee-high with stagnant water. Crouching and looking up was a hairless; pale; ancient man. His eyes darted under stitched-shut lids. His body swarmed with tattoos. He chanted at her, and then turned away and kept chanting.

  Translucent and glistening, they crawled up his arms and back towards the light. They stared at her unblinking, with eight yellow eyes, each.

  “Company Command, this is Razor One. HVT neutralized, over.”

  “Razor One, this Command. Your orders were to abandon mission and withdraw, over.”

  “I know. You can thank me later,” she switched off the radio.

  Behind her, three, mammoth explosions tore into the sky. Smoke began climbing after them on sturdy blocks of darkness. She ignored them, and finished crushing the salt tablets into powder.

  “I’ve never seen any of you up close like this,” she peered into the upturned tannoy seated in her lap. “Not alive, anyway. Very few of us have.”

  She sprinkled the salt inside. The tannoy began shaking immediately, thumping and clinking.

  “Shhhh, keep still; you’ll tear yourself on the barbed wire,” she dusted the last grains off her hands. “Well suit yourselves then. If you’re trying to tell me you don’t like that, I already know.”

  She poked around inside the tannoy with her knife.

  “We’ve travelled so far, across space and time, you and I. And here we are, at the end of world, talking! So many of my people would want to be here right now. They would have so many questions, so many important, vital questions for the survival of your species and mine. But, it’s just me here.” She shook the tannoy vigorously.

  “Can you understand me? I mean, really understand me? Or is this like talking to a cobra, or to a rose bush? We have nothing in common. Even our biochemistry is different. Communication is easy, but understanding? Almost impossible.”

  She stabbed with her knife, hard. It came away covered in clear ooze.

  “Almost. We do understand each other. We have some common ground,” she stabbed again, harder. “What you just felt? I know what that is. We’re going to just sit here and understand each other, for as long as I can manage.”

  She opened another pack of salt tablets.

  Sun Tzu IX

  Humid air, so wet he almost gasped for breath.

  The soil was springy beneath his feet – black and glittering with mica. Dark jungle plants towered above him. Their black and purple, man-sized, flowers opened to fluttering reptiles. Underbrush crunched and popped: the warrior swung around. Behind him was a grey centipede, as large as an anaconda. It studied him through banks of glowing eyes, and then carried on about its way.

  “What is this nonsense?” he asked. “Do you not tire of illusions?”

  “Not what is this, but where,” said the sky, a boiling sea of angry, brown, clouds. Harsh light from a white star lanced through openings, making him wince. “This is no illusion. This is Heym, a planet around a star clear across the galaxy. This is how it looked, two thousand years ago.”

  Sun Tzu walked through the jungle of purple and black stalks. He came to its edge, and looked upon a barren, brown, plain. Rising from it were earthworks, walls and ditches crumbling back into sand. Their dead heart was a cluster of short, rude, step pyramids.

  He walked towards the ruins.

  “What happened here?” he ran his hand along a shattered wall. Broken coral gleamed through the worn mortar. “The sea was nearby. These were canals.”

  “Can you not see what we did here?”

  He jumped down into a canal, his feet sinking in dust. He felt something hard underfoot. He reached down, and started digging with his fingers. He lifted it up, sand streamed from the cracks. The skull stared back at him through broken orbits.

  “When we found them, they had just started to boil metal from cracked stones.”

  Sun Tzu studied the dust on his hands: dry, fine, lifeless. He sniffed.

  “Radioactive,” he dusted his fingers. “You killed them all. Why did you do such a thing? They were no threat to you.”

  “That is exactly what they were. And, many more like them. Your masters were busy over the millennia. But, so were we.”

  “I will avenge them,” Sun Tzu stood and looked up at the sky. “I will burn you and all your kind from Space, in their memory.”

  “The weapon speaks, death is all it knows! And you ask why is it we killed these creatures. Abomination, your Masters would destroy the Universe. Humans, however, would simply stain it. I was here you know. It was I who cleansed this world.”

  “Yet, you did not do the same upon Paradiso.”

  “Oh, how I wanted to! Others however – saw matters differently. But they are not here now. Shall I make you watch, Abomination? Shall I keep you alive to make more feeble threats?”

  Sun Tzu put the skull under his arm, and walked back into the jungle.

  “Is this how you imagined it? The end of your species?”

  The pyramids crumbled away into time, and the jungle slowly marched back.

  Surgical Strike

  The squad wandered through the white-out. Faces were buried in dirty scarves, knuckles clenched around gun stocks. They peered about the whiteness, sneezing on the dust and brushing it off. It was chalky under their nails, and burned in their throats. Mostly they just tried to keep an eye out for each other. They were on their own now: the lightning advance had fizzled. The battle-plan hinged on haywire compasses and insistent bullshitters.

  Hidden gunfire tore into them, spinning and tossing them aside. It raked them again where they lay, squeezing more screams out of them. One spat, and his mouth refilled with blood immediately. He watched as cold, green, laser sights came lancing through the haze. Dark, looming shapes formed behind them. They came closer, and became khaki battle fatigues. One stopped, its opaque hel
met seemed to stare at him.

  The boy raised his hand.

  It lowered its gun, and shot him through the throat.

  “Clear,” Chosokabe’s voice was muffled under the HUD visor.

  Two troopers stepped past her, helmets and lasers panning for targets. She drew an ampoule from her webbing, crouched by the corpse, and shoved it under its chin.

  “FDC should have been dropping chaff clouds from the start,” said the radioman, standing guard over her. His fatigues read KHAN. “Fuck rules of war. It would have saved a lot of howitzer ammo.”

  The corpse coughed and wheezed, its eyes opened, bloodshot. Clear nanite solution dripped from healing wound in his throat.

  “Who are you?” the Captain asked.

  “I, I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do. Think. Who are you?”

  “Carlos.”

  “Carlos, how big was the attack?”

  “Attack?”

  “How many soldiers, Carlos? You attacked the airstrip with how many?”

  “Air? Strip?”

  “He’s useless even for a dead person,” Khan rolled his eyes.

  “Two brotherhoods,” the corpse boy coughed, his phlegm gleamed on the mud. It crumbled into white dust as the nanites cooled and self-terminated. “Another four brotherhoods with the High Priest.”

  “Four? Where are they? Carlos, where are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Carlos, I need you to – Carlos?” she slapped his cheek. White dust spilled out of his mouth. “Carlos?”

  “He’s just cloud-food now, Captain. And I have Lieutenant Shields for you,” he held out the radio handset.

  “This is Chosukabe, over.”

  “Captain, Second Company has taken back the forward line, and linked up with our remnants. The enemy remain disoriented. They aren’t falling back, but I think it’s because they just don’t know which way to be running. They also seem unable to communicate beyond earshot, over.”

  “Best news I’ve heard all day, I was afraid they were psychic. Any interference with our radios, over?”