by Chris Lowry
PHALANX
by
Chris Lowry
Copyright 2017
Grand Ozark Media
Orlando FL
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@Lowrychris
CHAPTER ONE
"Move it numbnuts," a grizzled veteran barked. The radio did nothing to mask his voice. Helmet to helmet transmission here was open channel, which meant everyone heard it. And they were set to receive, not transmit, so the recruits or new meat could just listen. Listen and obey.
Jon Renard rolled his head forward and marched away from the shuttle bay. The cargo ship that hovered over the dusty landing site blew particles of sand across the back of his spacesuit and helmet. He could hear the grit bouncing off the reinforced skin, but couldn't feel it as it pelted him.
A hover car rolled beside him stacked with black sealed body bags. A tube dropped from the cargo bay and vacuumed the dead into the recently emptied compartment.
Sound didn't carry in the thin atmosphere of Mars but Jon Renard watched it with ice gray eyes that squinted against the blowing dust even as his faceplate kept the grit from reaching him.
A half dozen warriors limped toward the shuttle, trudging in the sand and stirring up more grit for the ever present winds to catch.
The protective visors were down on their faceplates.
Jon couldn’t make out their features, but the scorch marks, rips and pressure bandages on their spacesuits told him they were fresh from battle, wounded.
"Welcome to Hell," one of them muttered across the static filled radio to the dozen recruits standing around Jon.
"Don't know where you're going," said the short man beside him.
Jon didn't know his name, he didn't know any of them, just strangers crammed together in the back of a metal box and dropped to the Red Planet.
"They blew our transport to shit," the man told the Veterans.
"Damn it."
But they still shuffled to the shuttle. It was the only way off the planet and even piled on top of the dead bodies it offered respite from the sandblast effect of the wind no matter how brief.
Renard slung his blaster across his shoulder and shuffled toward the main encampment. The wind picked up and showered their crisp new uniforms with a dusting of red sand.
CHAPTER TWO
The sun is the same on Mars as its seen from Earth. The rotation of the planet matched the home world so the glowing orb popped up on what would be the eastern horizon back home.
It glittered across mineral formations in a ridge, casting sparkles of color across the valley floor below, the light tinged with a red hue.
After dawn the sun marched across the sky oblivious to the conflict on any of the eight planets and Pluto that orbited in its system.
Renard couldn't hear the crunch of his boots in the sand but he could feel it. The ground underfoot was slippery and unsure as he crested the ridge.
Even though his suit was climate controlled and sealed, he sweated. Water dripped down his face and fell into moisture collectors that worked overtime to dehumidify the air.
It collected the water vapor from his breath, the sweat and even his urine if he bothered to create any and recycled it for reclamation.
He thought about drinking his own piss, missed a step on his footing and pitched across the top of the ridge. Renard rolled downhill in the light gravity, bouncing as he slid in a skittering of rocks and dirt.
He skidded to a stop on his back staring up at the red colored sky.
Behind him, squad leader Desmond Harper stopped at the top of the ridge and spread his leg in a surefooted stance looking like a pirate king surveying his domain.
The remainder of the squad spread behind him below the ridgeline, ten nervous men staring at the back of their leader.
"Was he hit?" a voice called over the radio.
"Do we take cover?" a second squawked.
Desmond held up a fist to get their attention.
"Radio quiet," he growled in a low voice.
Even he wasn't sure why they had to be quiet on the radio but that was command decision and he followed it like commandments from the mountaintop.
Command said and Desmond did, he liked to think, even if he was sure the short wave closed loop transmission used a scrambled digital signal that couldn't be picked up by Lick receivers.
Except they found men without helmets.
He knew that, so maybe the Licks were listening. Hell knows they always seemed to be on patrol routes ready to ambush them.
Desmond made a graceful leap and landed next to Renard. He bent down and pulled him up by the regulator on the back of his pack.
"No time to rest," the squad leader said.
He shoved Renard forward to point position again and waited for him to get twenty feet into the valley before motioning the rest of the men to follow.
Renard kept his eyes on a swivel even though he had a restricted field of vision due to the helmet. This design was better than the first generation though. The faceplates on gen one suits had been little more portholes cut into three sides of a solid helmet, designed to stand up to the immense pressure of the atmosphere. It looked like a diving helmet from the early days of sea exploration and was practically impossible to fight well in.
This iteration, the third or fourth version looked like a fishbowl sliced in half and welded into a bubble. He still couldn't see over his shoulders without turning around his whole body.
For all Renard knew, his squad was gone and even now Licks were sneaking up behind him.
His fingers closed on the grip of his rifle even tighter and he keyed the carbon dioxide filters in the suit with his chin.
Paranoia was an early sign of a gas mixture problem.
The radio lines were open. If the Licks attacked, someone would scream or grunt or just make a sound.
He would have heard it.
He spied something half buried in the sand ahead and held up his fist to signal a halt as he dropped to one knee.
Desmond marched up and dropped beside him.
"Movement," Renard nodded in the direction of what caught his attention.
Desmond grunted.
"You have to point in a spacesuit Meat. I can't see what you're talking about."
Renard lifted one hand and pointed, keeping the other firmly on the rifle.
Desmond followed the direction and stood up. He marched to a Marine in a space suit laying under the start of a sand dune.
The face was withered and mummified, staring through a broken faceplate, the blaster burned mouth open in a permanent scream.
"He won't hurt you," Desmond bent down to record his identifier tags and signal for a retrieval.
"They told us the Licks hide under the sand," Renard moved up next to him.
Desmond finished keying the request and clicked send on the communicator.
"Forget what they teach you down there Meat. Forget it real quick, you read me? Out here I am the law. You do what I say and you might live another day or two."
"Yes Sir."
"Now move out."
Renard snapped off a salute and trudged ahead of the Squad, topping another rise as they left the valley. He lost his footing on the loose sand again, but this time landed on his bottom and slid down the hill.
"God damn it," Desmond called over the radio. "Get Grazer up here to point before this new meat gets us all killed."
Desmond topped the hill and leaped down to land beside Renard again, as graceful as a ballerina in the low gravity environment.
"What the Hell's the matter with you? You trying to tell every God dam
n Lick our location?"
Grazer hustled over the hill.
His grungy spacesuit sported a few blaster burns, but he looked like every other long timer in the squad. Renard couldn't tell them apart yet, except for the names painted in block letters on the sleeves of the suits.
"Point Sir."
"I want a ten-meter point, you read me. If any of those scaly bastards are in two klicks, I wanna know it."
"Aye aye sir."
Grazer marched to point separating himself thirty feet from the group.
The rest of the squad shoved past Renard and ignored him except for the last man. The name on his sleeve read WEBER and he held out a hand as he stopped next to the new recruit.
"You okay?"
"I can't get to my feet," Renard struggled in the sand.
"One third gravity," Weber lifted him up. "The simulations never get you ready."
Weber keyed a readout and the reflective protection in his faceplate faded out so Renard could see his face. He was handsome, gentle looking with piercing blue eyes more choirboy than killer.
"I was top of the class-" Renard started.
"Doesn't do you much good out here, huh? Take small steps."
Renard nodded and tested his footing.
"Keep your visor reflected. Blocks the sun. You think it won't hurt you because we're farther away, but Mars don't got an atmosphere like we do back home. Let's too much gamma through."
"Thanks. I will."
One of his squad mates scurried back to Weber. The name on his sleeve was scratched out and a hastily drawn replacement was scrawled above it. Bellhop.
His faceplate dims to reveal a young black face, high cheekboned etched like they were drawn from granite. He smiled at Weber and it went on for days.
"Anything?"
"They cleaned him out," Bellhop answered.
Weber put his hand on Renard’s shoulder and started moving them forward after the rest of the group.
"You find a body, you take his ammo, his power clip, and air canister. You don't know when you're gonna run out and need more. You got it?"
"Got it."
"We better catch up. Licks catch us out here alone and they'll take our gear."
3
They rendezvoused with the rest of the Company later that afternoon just before dusk. There were fifteen squads comprised of twelve men each but the small contingent seemed insignificant against the expansive horizon of the Martian desert.
The squads worked with vibrating shovels to scoop foxholes into the sand. They were building a circle roughly a hundred yards in radius with another foxhole in the center.
They worked in silence except for grunts and breathing. The open radio line meant every sound and sigh was transmitted to every other Marine in the Company, but the alternative was a chaos of confusion if they tried to click through different channels.
"Here it comes," one of the Suits pointed.
He had the name BURLY stamped on his sleeve and stood next to the Commander of the Company, CREE.
All of the Marines stopped as a tiny hoverjet scooted over the horizon and zeroed in on their position.
It passed over and dropped three supply canisters that plopped into the sand sending up small geysers that added to the wind blown grit.
"Retrieve those," Cree commanded but
Burly was already motioning three men out of the group to get the supplies.
Cree watched the hover jet race away from their position. An RPG zoomed out of the hills after it, hit a wing and lit up the sky with a brilliant fireball.
"Did you get a read on that?" Cree turned to Burly.
"Fifteen klicks, Sir."
"They're coming tonight," Cree cursed.
"If they know we're here."
"They know."
The commander turned back to his foxhole.
"Get those men to double time it. And get me a line to HQ."
On the edge of the perimeter Weber directed Renard and Bellhop in widening the hole they were digging. All three worked in unison.
Weber drew a number in the sand and pointed at it with the tip of his shovel.
Bellhop clicked the communication channel over to the new frequency and tapped Renard on the arm to do the same.
Renard keyed the radio in his headset, a little worried about being cut off from the rest of the group, but he wanted to fit in with the men who had shown him the first kindness he'd seen on the harsh planet.
The first kindness he'd known since training really.
Music filtered through his headset along with chatter from other men in the squad as they dug the next hole over.
"Glad they got it after it dropped our rations," said Bellhop in a deep voice that belied his youthful face.
"Wouldn't be the first time we've gone without."
They finished the hole with rough dimensions. Six feet deep, like a grave, thought Renard. Ten feet wide, ten feet across. They dropped down into the hole and began to line the walls with a plastic alloy to seal it from the Martian soil.
"I've never seen one made before," he huffed into the radio.
"That little hole is going to be your slice of heaven tonight," Bellhop said. "You can take that can off and breath fresh air."
"I wouldn't call it fresh," Weber interjected. "I know what you grunts smell like."
"Six weeks since I had a shower. And I ain't the worst."
"Don't you belive him. It's been eight weeks."
The two men laughed with each other, the kind of laugh that comes from an easy sense of familiarity.
"You boys having fun?"
They stopped laughing as Commander Cree's voice cut across the music on the frequency in their headset.
The three men glanced up, started to snap to attention.
"At ease," Cree said.
Desmond and Burly stepped up next to him.
"I want the men in tight and sleeping in ten minutes. Set up advance sentries one klick beyond our perimeter. If we get visitors tonight I want to know before they drop in on top of me."
"Yes sir," Weber snapped off a salute.
Cree popped one back on the reflective visor of his faceplate and moved to the next hole, squad commanders in tow.
4
On the edge of the perimeter a man in a spacesuit dug a long narrow depression deep enough to fit a body and little else.
The name GEAR was etched on the side of his suit and he moved the vibrating shovel with practiced ease.
He finished carving out a low spot in the sand and lay down in it, facing out toward the desert. He pulled his blaster close and watched the empty landscape in front of him.
Behind him Weber and Bellhop dropped into the recently completed foxhole.
Renard prepared to jump when his comlink squawked.
"Renard."
"Sir?" he keyed the link.
"Take a position one klick out from Gear. And don't fall asleep."
Renard looked down at Weber. He shrugged and gave him a gloved thumbs up.
"What the hell are you waiting on?" Desmond barked across the radio.
Weber keyed a control panel set in the side of the plastic sheeting on the walls.
The top of the foxhole shimmered in a pale covering of energy that obscured everything inside of it like looking through opaque glass. Its covered with a layer of dust before Renard can even turn around.
He trudged toward Gear's position, gave a small wave as he passed.
"You keep your fucking eyes open new meat," the man said over the open line. "Don't get me killed."
Renard marched past the perimeter set by Gear and stopped roughly one klick out.
He was two from the foxhole that served as the command center and saw other lone bodies scattered along a far spaced line with him.
When the sun drifted below the ridge on the horizon shadows danced across the valley bathing it in dusky twilight.
Renard knelt and scraped a hole with his shovel then lay down with his rifle to watch th
e darkness grow complete.
Stars winked to life bathing the desert with a soft white glow. There was no atmosphere to filter out the weak ones, no pollution to hide their brilliance.
It was like laying under the glare of a full moon it was so bright, but the other worldly whiteness made everything stark and pale.
Renard wondered how long first watch lasted and who would come to relieve him. Less than a day on planet and he was stuck on guard duty on the perimeter of a primitive camp in hostile territory.
