The endeavor is unfortunately called off after a few more failed pushes, and the marines instead resume sitting tight in their earthworks, firing away excessive amounts of ammunition at the remote Herculeans. A blinding light flashes Peter’s face and he falls backwards dazed. His visor automatically readjusts to dim the light as he recovers. Rommel lifts him up and he slumps against the trench for a moment.
“You alright brother?” says Rommel.
“Yeah, what happened?”
“Bastards almost got you with a firework.”
Peter goes back to shooting from his piece of trench, placing all of his weight against the top of the earth till he is hugging it with his torso instead of actually standing at a firing position. His cheek slumps against the rifle stock—he shakes his head and lifts it back up. He stares at his hands, watching them reload the XM and fire at enemy positions, but suddenly pauses shooting, eventually discarding the last empty magazine. He drops the XM and it dangles from his hostler strap while he sinks into trench down to his ass. His whole body solidifies itself against the dirt wall his back has melded into. He lifts his visor, but he still wears a mask of sweat pouring down his face. It drips off his raised visor and onto his lips. He tries wiping it away, but his dirty gloves only smear it about with the alien earth.
My heart’s beating as fast as the machinegun firing next to me—I, gotta, must breathe. Inhaling deeply causes a headache and I wince at the sharp strikes of pain. I suck on my bladder mouthpiece to fight the salty sweat taste in my mouth, and spit it out. Jesus, Creon wouldn’t believe this shit. Puts those imaginary battles in the backyard to shame.
Here, Peter, stay here. My body becomes an anchor. Don’t move Peter. We’re good here. Exhaustion creeps into my muscles from the sprint here. My heart hurts alongside my chest. How can one person take so much? Fuck this headache. I slide my helmet back to rub my forehead.
“What are you doing down there marine!” says Blake.
Oh shit!—I look down at my legs that have nested comfortable against the trench base.
“Are you hurt?” He checks the vital signs on my arm pad.
“No sir!” I lower my helmet back and get up promptly, to only duck again as plasma fire blasts the sandbags behind us. “I was just resting.”
That was the wrong use of words.
“Resting? Are you resistant to Stims, Private?”
“No sir! Not that I know of sir!” Resistant, that can happen?
Blake grabs my forearm, taping my dosage key. “Back to the wall, suppressive fire on the Herculean positions Private.”
Peter grabs the cover once more with his comrades, and aims at the distant frontline. His legs stand firm and his arm doesn’t waver once as he braces the XM for victory. “Let’s get closer, I wanna watch them die!” he says. Others shout their agreement. Additional Commissars arrive and lead the Creed with Herus. The marines repeat the lines onto the outskirts as tithings for war.
“We are powerful!” says Herus, “Invincible!”
Peter and the others cheer to the declaration. Buzz tells them so, as it should. The marines roar in unison demanding Herculean death, and they throw insults at them alongside bullets.
“Prepare for the assault!” alerts Tarnus’ radio.
“Listen up!” says Tarnus. They pause to give him their attention. “The Army boys are ready to push up with us. Any moment the Goliaths will roll out towards the frontlines. Once they pass we’ll follow behind them for cover. Stay together, don’t get trigger happy from your war rage and get separated. We rendezvous on the Herc shield wall where we will create our new frontline and await further orders.”
The rumbling engines of the Goliaths are heard before they are seen—their name wonderfully describing their size. The massive rectangular tank carriers trek through the shield wall out onto the open field. Easy has to dodge one as it turtles by. Their frontal repeating cannon blasts away at fortified Herculean positions. The marines cheer at the awesome prowess of their armored titans.
“Follow behind!” says Tarnus, “We got Herc’s to kill!”
Love empties the trenches in unison with the other marines. They quickly turn around to the commotion and uproar behind them. Thousands of soldiers slide through the shield to join their brothers. They move onto the Herculean frontlines as one enraged force. The Goliaths tow armored troop dollies behind them, and Easy hops on for a ride. The terrain is scarred with shell holes, and Peter watches as a nearby dolly breaks off from its Goliath as they get stuck into deep craters.
“I’m gonna get there first!” says Peter at a group digging out their carrier.
Peter turns to view the approaching city outskirts, and to examine the surface of the Goliath he rides on. Its rear has a fully staffed mortar crew lobbing incendiary, and its horizontal armored sides are a porcupine of multiple portholes and prodding turrets that score the battlefield. An armor square panel on each side opens up and a volley of rockets launch out into the air, screeching loudly before they hit the Herculean positions near their shield.
The air becomes congested with assaulting aircraft, and the hazed trails of shells that the rear howitzers and Herculean batteries fire at each other. The ground then rumbles with a new entrance to the battlefield: the magnificent sight of an emerging Fleet frigate hovering in the skyline above, its side turrets shaking Peter as they pound the Herculean defenses.
“Get some!” roar the men in agreement as it comes within a few kilometers of the city itself. It fires a barrage of missiles. Peter raises his thumb into the air following them, to be gleefully satisfied that they are the size of it from his distance. He punches his fist into the air as they smack against the base of the Herculean shield. The marines giggle like schoolgirls. The horizon is filled with bright yellows and oranges. Next, it angles itself in order to fire a broadside of its dozen multi-ton cannons.
Peter trembles in awe. This is human might, bringing its best offering.
“This is how we will teach the Herculeans a lesson or two about fucking with the superior race!” says Tarnus.
As if an attempt to defend themselves, a smooth angled Herculean warship also descends from the atmosphere. In its height advantage it is capable of scoring off a successful strike against the top of the Coalition frigate. Two smaller Fleet ships follow behind the Herculean craft launching missiles. A direct hit from one of them ignites the alien warship’s thrusters in a bright blue flash, and it drops fast.
Time slows down as all of the men are captivated by the unfolding spectacular—but also tragic—event. The Herculean ship collides into the top of the Fleet frigate it engaged, and the two massive vessels hug together into an inferno of streaking fiery exhaust. A thunderous boom dwarfs the noise of the battlefield for a moment. The heap of flaming metal smashes against the Herculean shield dome over the city, creating fireballs of debris that rain over the field. The shield reverberates with a violent shutter, similar to when a boulder penetrates a pond, and the dome disappears. The remaining wreck crashes into the skeletons of damaged skyscrapers collapsing a few. Moments later, a wave of earth and plaster meters high swoops out from the city outskirts, and covers the advancing humans in a storm of debris as it passes over the field. Soldiers turn around and duck behind vehicles to doge the wave.
“Holy fucking—,” Isaac is cut off as the wave engulfs them. His visor wiper—a blue vertical electric line on his helmet mask—moves from right to left frantically to clear away the caked dust. Peter follows his blue line as well as it moves back and forth clearing the debris from his visor. The wave dissipates and the men cough out dirt and climb out of earth mounds that buried them. They all wait quietly in anticipation, as if an encore is supposed to happen.
“Now they’re gonna get it boys!” bellows Herus over a microphone, “Time for revenge! Into the city!”
They roar back at the city in a wave of their own battle cries. But they are quickly out noised again; however this time by dozens
of screaming jets flying overhead. Peter watches as sortie after sortie of aircraft zoom over him, beginning their relentless bombing runs. The Air Force mercilessly takes advantage over the lack of Herculean shield defenses, and the smoke inside the city lights up a thousand times as ordinance is dropped. It truly is a glorious sight.
The assault continues.
Herculean fire begins to pick up as they get closer. “Stay low in the carriers,” says Blake, “Don’t pop your head out for anything!”
If they can’t see them, they can’t kill them. Where’s the fun in that?
The city burns with fires that must be tens of meters tall. Black smoke darkens the sun creating an artificial dusk.
They trek under the shade of their own destruction.
The city has to be destroyed in order to save it.
The advancing humans cover about four hundred meters when the next congress of death is called. At this distance the Herculeans are now able to exploit their once armored Goliaths protecting them. They shoot diagonally through the gaps at the marching rows.
“Stay in cover!” says Blake, as he grabs Peter’s collar and throws him down into the armored hull of the carrier. Plasma bursts smack against the hull melting away chunks of plating and covering them in hot splinters. Volleys of bright beams streak through the gaps of armored columns from the Herculean defenses, showering the rest of the advancing force.
Corporal Kaiden peeks out to help a desperate marine into the dolly when he is struck by Herculean fire. His helmet cracks all the way to the rear as he falls backwards, and gore spurts out making a liquid arc in the air as he hits the carrier floor. The open face wound cauterizes from the plasma hit, leaving a smoldering burnt crater of bone and distorted flesh.
Blake looks at his once to be NCO stone faced. “I said stay down.”
A wave of gunships hover above the advancing line, raining missiles back at the Herculeans. A bright blue beam—a Herculean projectile the humans have never seen before—strikes out from within the city ruins against one of the helicopters’ propellers knocking it out of the sky. After the gunship crashes against a marching column, additional beams zip out from the city upon the forces. Further helicopters are hit by the beams and they collide into the marching soldiers causing chaos. Some of the Goliaths blow apart from concentrated fire, bringing the entire vehicle to flames as meter high gusts of dark smoke billow out from their destroyed frames.
Easy Goliath’s treads are hit, sending hot white rotation gears flying off and impaling nearby marines as it grinds to a halt immobilized. They pile out quickly without need of Blake ordering them. A shell lands in the carrier throwing out chunks of crewmen too slow to escape. A mortar crewman tries to ditch his gun port on the rear end of the Goliath, but only stumbles out on fire to land into the exploding shell that tosses Easy onto the ground.
Peter looks up from the dirt at the other rows of pinned comrades and Goliaths. The Herculean cannon beams swallow entire lines of soldiers in single strikes. Fellow brothers are burned alive before they even hit the ground. Some charred into place like crumbling statures. Herculean plasma fire picks off stragglers. They fall in demented shapes and forms like fucked up gymnasts onto the scorched ground with their hissing scorched wounds. This is no respectable way to die. Fight them fairly!
The rest of their line hits the dirt for safety. A commanding officer runs up Peter’s row to try and lead the suppressed forces. He comes close to Peter then a blinding beam zooms past them, and the officer falls into a shell hole. After the beam dissipates Peter crawls into the crater and discovers the remains of the officer, his entire left side is charcoaled black and singed beyond recognition. His mouth opens but the burnt check restricts its function, and instead the man’s face and exposed muscle tears open from side to side forming a deranged smile. Out of his untouched eye tears form.
“My god, brother!” says Peter. He then notices another marine in the hole, towards the top of the crater. The man fires blindly out of the hole, stops, glances at the dead officer at the bottom and slides down. He leans his head over the officer to give CPR. “He’s gone brother,” Peter tries to tell him. The man looks up at Peter—a wild red glazed look is in his eyes; his visor cracked away and face completely black with smut. The features of his face shrunk inside his own flesh revealing where all the bones are, giving the impression he is not wearing a face accurate to the dimension of his head, but one stolen and wrongly sized. The man crawls back up to the top, fires off a magazine, and slides back down to the corpse. His head hovers over the officer’s, then he bites his neck sucking on the flesh for a moment. Peter turns to leave. The marine behind him crawls back to the crater top to fire, and once again back to the corpse, repeating the process over. On his next time back to the top, he loads an empty magazine and shoots nothing into the distance.
“Take cover!” says Blake, “Get to the shell holes and destroyed vehicles!”
A Herculean bombardment has begun.
Peter pauses at the top of the shell hole for cover. Boots stomp on him and he falls back into the hole. Piles of soldiers and marines squish into the crater and Peter fights to escape the crushing boots.
“Peter!” says Vance, discovering him clustered and dazed in the hole. His hand breaks through the mob of limbs and dying brothers. “Come on!” Peter latches onto the arm and squirms out. He lies on the ground at the base of the shell hole recovering his breath, then places one hand in front of other and pushes himself upwards from the ground. Vance, then Isaac who spots them and comes quickly to their aid, raises him the rest of the way and they take cover inside the burnt skeleton of the Goliath they were riding behind.
“Now we’re really deep in the shit,” says Vance, checking his XM and gear while they cough inside the dusty metal skeleton. Isaac performs a self-body check to confirm no injuries. Peter pokes his head through a gap in the Goliath to view the situation outside. The columns break apart into a disorderly fraught rush for anything to take cover behind. Some soldiers run back towards the shield wall.
“Turn back!” says a microphone. “Forward onto glory! No cowards!”
Peter spots Ray in a search for cover, straddled by his heavy LMG.
“I’m gonna go get him!” says Peter. He dashes outside of the Goliath as more marines pile in.
“Ray!” says Peter. “Brother!”
Ray spots him and makes a run for his location. Herculean artillery pounds the terrain between them, and Peter hits the dirt for cover. He rises looking for Ray after the salvos land, crawling through shell holes in search of him. Multiple hands of his injured comrades grope about in the air and latch onto his clothing, begging for help.
“Soon brothers!” says a Commissar walking by holding a bloody machete. “Stay strong! Your pain will not be in vain. We will come back for you!” A hand tries to grab his boot and the Commissar swings the blade before it.
Peter hops from crater to crater to find Ray, pushing aside injured men trying to grab him. Peter spots him, crawling back towards the shield wall the Party Reps warned not to do. “Ray! Get over here!” Peter reaches him and discovers that his helmet has been thrown off, and the back of his neck has been sliced and bleeds freely. Peter slides to his side placing a hand over the wound. Ray kicks and flails in a frenzy to get him off. “What the fuck! Stop! I’m trying to help brother!”
“Get away from me! I have to get out of here! I gotta get back to my girl—we’re gonna die!”
In the tussle, Peter feels a lump on his neck that loosens and falls into his hand. It’s a piece of tubing, in fact it’s his drug distributor cord—he should really put that back in. Another shell lands near them, and the force sends Peter rolling sideways back into a crater. He crawls frantically to the top so he can help Ray again.
But he is already off, running to the shields. A few others are doing the same. Peter drops the bloody cord, perplexed. Why are they fleeing? There is no valor, no glory in it. The rear Humvees sw
oop around them as if directing cattle while the officers and Party Reps yell. One fleeing man is charged by a Humvee and run over. “No cowards and deserters!” says a Commissar, it’s Herus over a microphone. “Those humans in the city need you! Earth needs you!”
Dirt flies about from the shelling, and Peter squints hard to try and find Ray through the obstruction. As the smoke and dirt clear for a moment Peter watches as Herus aims his revolver from the top of a command Humvee at Ray. Ray runs with his arms thrown in the air. Herus fires, the slug torpedoes straight through Ray exiting out his back. Ray collapses against the ground, his legs bending over him. The events are concealed again by landing Herculean shells, and Peter moves quickly back to where his cover was.
A coward’s way out nonetheless. He deserved it.
Peter makes it back to the ruined Goliath, and is greeted by his company and a few other marines. They listen as their artillery fires back at the Herculeans.
“What are we supposed to fucking do!” says Isaac. His voice is angry. Angry that they are stuck here when they would rather go out and fight.
“I don’t know. It’s pissing me off!” says Vance. “Let me out of here so I can get back at them!”
Confusion takes over.
“What do we do?” says Peter.
“Going out, we will surely die,” mentions a marine not of their outfit. “But staying here feels wrong. I want to fight!”
“Kill them all!” say the marines in agreement.
The salvos obliterate their sanity, making them unbearably anxious. When will they be able to leave and kill again? One of the marines goes hysterical, and chooses to crawl out of the hole, to only be flung back in mutilated from a landing shell.
“Jesus!” says Peter.
“We can wait a little longer,” says Isaac.
Another marine slides into the Goliath covered in black smut and dried blood. It is Blake. “We are creating a smoke screen then advancing through it at the city,” he says. They look at him dazed, and before anyone can reply he is already out of the hole.
Travesty (SolarSide Book 1) Page 10
