Twenty minutes later they abandoned the now empty pod and spread out across the grasslands in two lines. At the back of her line, Alice still scoured the skies. Then in the distance, over her own heavy breathing, she heard what she had most feared – the sound of an aircraft engine.
“Oh God,” she murmured before shouting down the line. “Pick up the pace!”
As they lurched across the open ground, she fumbled off her backpack. Inside it was their only real defence against whatever that aircraft might be about to drop – one of the few precious thermite grenades left to them. Hidden by the clouds above, the aircraft passed over them.
Trust me, we’re not important enough to bomb, Alice thought.
Then she heard it turn.
Her end of the packing case thumped to the ground as she dropped it. Jolted to a sudden halt, her partner swore loudly. Alice ignored him as she twisted the priming cap and threw the heavy device as far as she could.
“Go! Go!” she shouted as she seized her end of the packing case.
“One, two three...” she counted beneath her breath as she ran.
From high above, she heard the distinctive pop of a missile launch, while from behind her came the whoosh of the thermite going off. Even at a distance she felt a flush of heat on the back of her neck. Lungs straining, legs burning, she forced herself to run faster to put precious distance between them and the burning grenade that would be suckering in the heat seeker missile. Hopefully.
A sound like a rising whine reached her ears.
“Get down!”
Hitting the ground, she lay as flat as she could, nose in the dirt. Then behind there was an explosion that went beyond mere noise, emitting a shockwave that knocked the breath out of her. She felt rather than heard metal fragments spin through the air above her.
Staggering to her feet, Alice looked back at where the grenade had been. It was now a circle of small fires where the thermite had been scattered. Five hundred metres ahead she could see smoke rising. The first of the group back to the wood had started the bonfire they’d laid down. Even with an emergency flare and a dozen marine firelighters, it would take time to get going.
Moving again, they caught up with the next pair ahead. A young woman, Alice couldn’t remember her name, cradled an equally young man, screaming incoherently as his blood soaked into her clothes. Alice glanced at him. After the trenches of Douglas, a glance was enough to tell her that if he wasn’t already dead, then he was certainly beyond saving. He hadn’t ducked fast enough. She could still hear the aircraft. There wasn’t time to be gentle and Alice dragged the woman to her feet by her hair, kicking and slapping her until she was moving again. The body was left where it lay. As they ran, Alice saw at least three cases abandoned in the grass. She didn’t have the breath to curse about it.
With her laboured breathing blotting out the sound of the aircraft, they were now under the first of the trees. Her partner paused at one trunk, gasping, but she didn’t have the breath to urge him on. The blood soaked young woman slumped to the ground, too exhausted to cry. Hands on her knees, Alice looked around just in time to see the small Nameless jet dip below cloud cover and turn towards them. Its engines howled as it accelerated towards them. Close to its nose there was a glimmer of light.
“Down!” Alice shouted as she dived behind a tree. As she huddled and threw her arms over her head, she could hear the thud of bullets hitting the ground and the ping of flying fragments all around them. The tree behind which she hid shuddered from the impact of the rounds and shredded leaves and branches rained down. Some distance away, she heard a brief, cut-off scream and knew she’d lost another one. Above them, the jet’s engine roared as it passed directly overhead. As her adrenalin kicked in, Alice leapt to her feet, grabbed the box and sprinted with three others further into the trees. Alice briefly registered the body of another man, torn open by gunfire. But they were now going deep into the woods and the worst was over.
It had taken them five days to walk from their hiding ground to the drop zone. It took them nearly seven to get back. Repeatedly, they were forced to go to ground as Nameless aircraft buzzed overhead. Several times the aliens must have got some kind of read and dropped bombs. Most missed by wide margins but one stick of four straddled their column. It was a miracle no one was hurt.
Seven days after the drop they were intercepted.
The forest was silent but for the steady tramp of their boots. At the head of the column, Alice paused and crouched down. Those behind immediately followed suit and within seconds no one was moving.
Up ahead the sound came again – a whistle. Alice pulled out hers, blew twice and then waited, hand resting lightly on the butt of her pistol. The figure of a marine stepped out of the undergrowth ahead.
“Lieutenant Byatt, what are you doing out here?” she said in recognition.
“Looking for you,” he replied, “was starting to think they’d got you.”
“We came under air attack and it slowed... What’s happened,” Alice said as she registered his grim expression. Behind him two more marines appeared. Byatt motioned her away from the rest.
“Shit’s hit the fan,” he said grimly. “Don’t know how, but the bastards got some kind of idea of our position.”
“Oh God, have they...”
“Not yet. Fleet’s bombardment must have taken out most of their air and orbital assets or we’d have been carpet-bombed by now. Or if they wanted to be really sure, they’d have nuked us from orbit. They’re coming in from the west with infantry and armour. They’ve got a few gunboats but after we tagged one of those with a SAM, the rest are keeping back.”
“Can you stop them?”
“If we couldn’t stop them at Douglas Base with all of it fixed defences, we sure as hell ain’t gonna stop them here. All we can do is slow them a bit.”
“Then what will we do?” she asked. “What’s the Colonel ordered?”
“Retreat and scatter. I’ve been ordered to find you and then get the military supplies to the fighting. The Colonel wants you at the farmland to organise an evacuation.”
She would be running again. Alice hadn’t realised she’d allowed herself to hope, but now she could feel that hope dying. Byatt snapped his fingers in front of her face.
“Hey, wake up! This shit is happening and we need to deal with it.”
Alice shook herself.
“Arms and munitions are in the first ten crates, food and medical supplies in the ones after that. No point taking those in. If we’re running, those emergency rations might be what stands’ between us and starvation.”
Byatt nodded as he pulled out his computer pad and brought up a map.
“What we need is a rallying point,” he muttered.
Before she reached the outer perimeter Alice could hear the horribly familiar sound of Nameless missiles coming in. Byatt had detached his two marines to escort her and all three of them had to fight the urge to run, either away or towards the fighting. When they reached the first of the farms the evacuation was well underway and Alice met her old deputy William.
“Hi, Boss,” he said as her saw her approach. “Looks like the uniforms have fucked up again.”
There wasn’t any real anger in his voice. He sounded too tired and too defeated for that.
“Yeah,” she replied as the two marines, aware of the air of hostility around them, shifted uncomfortably. “What have you heard?”
“Only what the first group of people to come through told me. The bastards came during the night. Anyone that could get out ran for their lives – no food, no supplies, no nothing, just the clothes on their backs.”
William nodded towards the closest group of people. Now that she looked properly, Alice realised they were mostly packing ripe banana patata into backpacks woven from vegetation. In the distance there were three deep crumps as Nameless missiles landed.
“We can’t carry the whole harvest,” William said. “We’ll take what we can. The rest we’ll leave and
hope we can come back for at least some of it.”
That last part sounded over-optimistic and looking up at William, she could tell he knew it too. In fact, as she looked around the camp, Alice saw her own errand was probably futile. Any central control was already breaking down. Those who would survive were the ones already reacting. Any of the farming settlement simply awaiting instructions, would not get out.
“You might as well come with us, Boss,” William said.
She wanted to, she wanted to finally rip off those cursed stripes on her sleeve. But people still needed her and there was still a chance she could get at least some of them out.
It took another four hours to reach Camp Dautsch and Alice was in no doubt she was walking toward a battle. The landscape rocked and echoed to the sound of artillery fire. When they did finally reach the camp, her two escorts were immediately commandeered and ordered towards the sound of distant small arms fire. Alone, Alice continued towards the Colonel’s command post. The camp, orderly when she’d left nearly two weeks ago, was now a shambles. Holes had been torn in the forest canopy with trees either felled completely or severed mid-trunk. Packing cases like the ones she’d recovered lay around in piles, emptied and abandoned.
“Corporal, you’re not dead,” Dautsch observed as she walked into the command post. Only a single marine was in attendance, his arm strapped across his chest in a grubby sling.
“We got twenty-one out of twenty-five cases at the cost of two dead and three walking wounded,” Alice began to report before petering out.
Dautsch smiled bitterly.
“I think as you can gather, things have moved on a bit,” he replied as he gestured her forward.
The map in front of them gave a rough layout of the camp and the surrounding farms. Projecting in from the northwest was a red line that pushed in through the outer farms and up to the camp. Somehow that simple line on the map, through locations she had come to know and associate with people, made it even more real than the sounds of battle.
“It’s a delaying action,” Dautsch said in a tired voice. “That is all we can hope to do. I think that by the way they’re coming straight at us rather than attempting to work around our flanks, means they don’t know how widely spread we are. They located this camp but didn’t realise that the farms were there. That gives us a chance of getting people clear.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Head south. Rejoin your own farm group and get yourselves away.”
“What will you do?” she asked quietly.
“Engage them for as long as we can, then break off.”
There was no need to point out how difficult that would be.
“You’d better go while there are still a few hours of light left,” Dautsch finished.
“Good luck,” she said, for want of anything better to say.
As she turned to leave, he spoke again.
“I shouldn’t have asked for the drop,” he said. “It was over-ambitious and I’ve brought this down on us all. I should have kept our heads down, waited it out.”
“We couldn’t wait forever. Remember?”
“We got a briefing download when they made the drop. No details, but the fleet is coming. We only needed to hold on for a few more weeks.”
Looking at him, Alice realised with shock that the confident man she’d known all these months was gone. In his own mind, Dautsch had made a terrible mistake and now his troops and those he’d come to protect were paying the price. He turned his back to her before she could say anymore.
No other civilians remained in the camp and she charted a lonely course back towards what had been her own settlement before they’d met the marines. When it became too dark to see where she was going, Alice settled in to wait for dawn. She could still hear the fighting in the distance and several times caught sight of missiles arcing down onto the site of the camp. After a day of hard walking, and almost in spite of herself, Alice slipped into a restless slumber.
She woke at first light, as rain began to fall. To the north there was an ominous silence. Resuming her trek, a thought occurred to her, one that should have come before. What would she do if she found no one at the farm? What if they’d already evacuated, leaving her alone? Once that thought arrived, it tormented her. In her mind’s eye, she could see herself blundering around the uncharted wilderness until starvation or illness felled her. When she heard the sound of voices, Alice threw caution aside and ran towards them.
Two of her old group looked up from the banana patata crop, startled, as Alice came crashing out of the undergrowth.
“Boss,” one of them said, “what are you doing here?”
“Thank God, you’re still here,” she exclaimed. “Why are you still here?”
“What?”
“What do you mean ‘what?’” she demanded. Then looking at their baffled expressions, she realised they didn’t know of the attack. Shielded by the hills between them and the main camp, they’d seen and heard nothing.
“We have to get out of here!”
Alice waited impatiently, occasionally glancing to the north. Around her pandemonium reigned. People were attempting to pack up everything they could. The sky above them was a monotone grey and the rain was falling hard now, drowning out any other sounds. Instinct told her to shout at them to drop everything and move, but her intellect said that was exactly what they couldn’t afford to do. A few weeks until the fleet arrived Dautsch had said. No, she couldn’t believe that. That promise had been made and broken too many times now. Even if it was true, a few weeks were more than enough to starve.
Badie approached.
“Another half hour,” he said forestalling her question. “We had people out on the fields that haven’t even got back in yet.”
“We can’t wait much longer.”
“We have to. We have wives and husbands that won’t leave without their spouses,” he replied, before hurrying away again.
There was no warning. The big Nameless gunboat dropped from cloud cover, its engines howling to full power. The muzzles of it guns flashed and rockets raced out, terminating in explosions that shook the ground and cut down men and women only beginning to react. Hovering in the air, lines dropped from its belly and Nameless soldiers came abseiling down.
“Run!” Alice screamed as she reached for her pistol. “Everyone, run!”
Then she was on the ground with no memory of how she got there. She could see people, people she had known, running, screaming, falling and dying. The sounds were muted, as if they were from another world. Turning her head, she saw the gunboat moving forward slowly, guns still flashing. Below the Nameless infantry squad unhitched their lines and reached for their guns.
Dazed, Alice raised her hand to her face, but it wasn’t there. Her arm ended just above her wrist and blood oozed through torn flesh over white bone. A Nameless soldier saw her move and raised its gun. Alice watched helplessly, knowing she should move and knowing she could not. From behind the Nameless, something flashed and there was no warning for the gunboat as a missile speared out of the forest and knifed into it. The ensuing explosion tore open the fuselage, rupturing gas cells. The engines howled now, battling but failing to keep the mortally wounded craft airborne. Then the gunboat’s munitions detonated as it ploughed into the forest. Seconds later, the Nameless soldiers began dropping as gunfire ripped into them and Alice lost consciousness.
“We can’t make the problem any worse, we operate or she dies.”
“What are her chances?”
“At best... Fifty-fifty. She really needs a blood transfusion but we don’t have the means to give one.”
Alice opened her eyes and attempted to speak. All she could manage was a dry croak. It was dark but there was enough light to make out Badie’s silhouette leaning over her. Even that effort was enough for her nearly to pass out, but she fought to stay conscious. She was tightly wrapped in blankets and lying in a crudely built shelter.
“Boss, can you hear m
e?” he said. “Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”
“Where am I?” she asked.
“Twenty kilometres from camp,” he replied. “We’re laid up for the day.”
Over his shoulder a tired and bloodstained marine looked down at her.
“A few of the marines got away and came our way. They used up their last missile saving us,” Badie explained.
“They owed us,” she whispered. “How many got away?”
“The Colonel led a counter attack to buy…”
“No. How many of my people?”
“We lost eleven boss,” Badie replied. “Boss, I’m so sorry but we’re going to have to amputate your arm at the elbow. We have no choice.”
Alice could feel the blackness rising again and this time couldn’t fight it.
“Badie, in my pocket, a map,” she whispered.
As her voice dropped he leaned in.
“That’s where I sent the supplies. Take my stripes. You’re in charge now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Day of Retribution
10th April 2069
Positioned on the very shores of intergalactic space, the gulf between the arms of the Milky Way was not a place for humanity. The holograms, which usually showed views of outside the ship to prevent the crew from going mad with claustrophobia, had mostly been turned off, as even the steadiest individuals felt the chill of the unimaginable emptiness beyond the hull. But in this war, if not a place of comfort, this was a place of safety, a place where the Worms couldn’t reach them and final preparations could be made. Spectre, her sister ship Phantom, the strike boat carrier Pankhurst, three support ships and, bringing up the rear, the lumbering presence of the former bulk carrier Sherlock, now converted to a very different purpose, all drifted while within their hulls, their crews prepared.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 32
