“Fine.” She moved into a crouched position, ready to run. “You’d better keep that thing busy, though. If you mess up, I’m the one who gets screwed.”
“Don’t worry,” said Duke, giving her a nervous smile. “We’ll give it everything we’ve got.”
“Hey, Ghost?” Jackson leaned over. “Good luck, okay?”
“Good luck yourself,” she grumbled. “You’re the one it’s gonna be shooting at.”
“Everyone ready?” Ginger yelled, getting into position. “Three… two… one… Fire!”
Ginger, Duke, Parkins and Jackson stood up and unloaded everything they had at the mutant. Even Bradley, following a moment’s hesitation, rose his head above the planter and started shooting. His eyes were closed, but Ginger supposed it was a start.
She turned to Private Flores.
“Go, Ghost! Go!”
Ghost ran towards the derelict building as fast as she could. The trollish golem of a bug turned towards her… and then stopped turning as the collective marines of Fireteam Sigma and Tau unloaded round after round into its chest, arms and face. Chunks of flesh and shell popped open like bubbles on boiling soup, blood spurted in purple geysers… and still the mutant stomped towards them. The veins running from its chest into its grotesque firearms pulsed threateningly. They looked about ready to blow.
Ginger risked a quick glance over her shoulder. Ghost had made it past the soldiers bleeding out on the floor and was already a quarter of the way up to the makeshift sniper’s nest.
It would have to do.
“Get down!” she shouted, pulling Duke and Bradley behind cover with her. Sergeant Parkins dropped to the floor, too.
Still firing his rifle, Jackson glanced down at Ginger.
“What?”
“I said, get d—”
Blood splashed across Ginger’s face. She blinked her eyes clear to see Jackson stumble backwards from the concrete planter, his rifle hanging loose at his side. Then she heard Parkins screaming.
Jackson ended where his neck began. The mutant had blown his head to pieces.
“Oh, God!” said Parkins, kicking backwards across the cobbles as Jackson’s body finally toppled with a sickening thud. “Oh, Jesus Christ!”
Ginger stared at her fallen comrade in horrified disbelief, her face dripping with claret and grey matter. The war around her seemed to slow to a stop. There was no shooting, no roaches, no fireteam… only Private Jackson’s decapitated body spurting blood out of its neck.
Jackson had been borderline intolerable back on the UECS Invincible. But over the past couple of weeks, she’d actually grown quite fond of the twerp.
And now he was dead.
“Holy shit,” said Duke, his mouth agape. He shook Ginger. “Come on, Sergeant. Don’t give up on us now. Tell us what to do.”
Ginger blinked heavily and tried to clear her head. She reached up to the comm unit in her helmet.
“Ghost, you still with us? Please tell me you got into position all right.”
Nothing.
“Ghost?”
“Keep your panties on,” said Ghost, out of breath. “I was just setting my rifle up. What’s the… Oh, crap. Not Jackson…”
“Yeah. Do you have a clear shot?”
“At that monster bug thing?” A pause as Ghost tweaked the magnification of her rifle’s scope. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Then hurry up and take it!”
She switched her comms off just before Ghost fired. Even so, her sniper rifle boomed across the square like a pirate galleon’s cannon. She poked her head out of cover just long enough to see whether it had done the job.
The mutant staggered backwards. A torrent of turgid blood and bone and God knew what else flowed out from a cavernous hole in its exposed chest…
…but it wasn’t dead. It still wasn’t dead! The monster snarled in pain and fury, then steadied itself and raised both of its arms to point at the spot from which Ghost was sniping.
It went to fire.
Ghost got there first.
A second hole suddenly appeared in the middle of the mutant’s face; the shell covering the back of its head exploded outwards. It stumbled backwards like a blind cyclops before crashing onto the steps, where it lay still even as the malformed tubes on its arms kept pumping.
Ginger collapsed back into cover and let out a miserable whine. Remembering herself, she quickly got hold of Staff Sergeant Baker over comms.
“Baker, do you read me? There probably aren’t many recon fireteams out here besides us, but if you get your snipers—”
“Already on it, Rogers. Taking out the last couple of bugs as we speak. Good work.”
She cut off comms and turned to look at Jackson.
Good work. Sure, boss. If you say so.
Moments later, a fizzing red rocket shot up from the centre of the square. Ginger scrambled for her rifle, certain that it was some new kind of bug attack. But nothing happened. No explosion, no acid rain to burn the skin off her bones. Just a single bright flare slowly falling back towards the ground.
Then more began to launch from elsewhere across the city, each one marking another district free of roaches. Before long, the whole sky above Rhinegarde was red with triumph.
The marines around the public square began to cheer, slowly and hesitantly at first before swelling into rapturous applause.
“I think…” Duke dared to rise to his feet. “I think we won? Ha! I think we won!”
He grabbed Private Bradley and yanked the trembling kid up beside him, clapping him on the chest as he did so.
“It’s over, Ice! Look – we took the city!”
Bradley started to laugh as glistening tears of relief welled in the corners of his nervous, flickering eyes.
“Heh. I guess we did, Duke.”
Ghost climbed down from her nest and hurried over, but Ginger didn’t join them. She couldn’t bring herself to stand, let alone celebrate. Her hands were shaking, her legs weak. Neither did she know where poor Sergeant Parkins had run off to. All she wanted was to sit there in the dirt and hug her knees against her chest. Move over, Bradley. It was her turn now. She’d earned it.
Because victory or not, she didn’t feel triumphant.
And as Jackson’s blood trickled through the cobbles beside her, she wondered what had really stained the sky so red.
Chapter Thirteen
Baker slammed down a crate and used an old-fashioned crowbar to pop the lid. It was packed with two dozen bottles and a shedload of straw.
“They probably aren’t cold anymore,” he said, grabbing a bottle for himself, “but this calls for a celebration. Enjoy.”
Duke laughed, scooped four of them up, and started handing them out amongst Fireteam Sigma.
“Where the hell you been hiding these?” asked Ghost, popping the cap off hers.
“Command procured a whole brewery’s worth,” said Baker. “You know, for morale and stuff. For the big victories. Short of winning the war, I don’t see them getting much bigger than this.”
“Bit of a waste though, isn’t it?” said Private Bradley. “Keeping them locked away all this time, I mean. What if we hadn’t won?”
Baker shrugged.
“Then a bunch of spoiled beers would be the least of our problems, I guess. Now, you guys have fun, all right? You’ve earned it.”
Baker started walking away. Duke hurriedly swallowed a big gulp of beer.
“What about you, Sarge?”
“Oh, I’m off to find out what our next orders are. Half of the squads are marching north to the next objective, half are staying behind to get the city ready for colonists. Don’t worry. I’ll be pushing for the latter.”
“You and everyone else, most likely,” said Ghost, raising an amused eyebrow. “Good luck.”
Ginger hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words since the battle in Rhinegarde’s public square ended, and most of those had been to Staff Sergeant Baker. They, like many of the marines, now stood at
the top of the grand steps leading up towards the keep, though there were still plenty of alleys and lanes left between them and the glorious building itself. The architecture was grander, more decadent and indulgent here than back down amongst the lower districts, and the streets much wider as a result. Bronze statues gave the city’s new inhabitants their first and best look at the dominant species that came before – bipedal, yet shorter and rounder than the average human, with stubby, three-fingered hands and a vaguely rugby-ball shaped head. Already marines were clambering up to get their photo taken beside them.
That didn’t interest Ginger quite so much. Leaning over a balcony with a beer in her hand, she just wanted to savour the peace and quiet while it lasted. To simply, well… stop, if only for the shortest of moments.
“You okay, Ginger?”
Ghost leaned against the balcony beside her. Duke and Bradley took in the view on her other side. For somebody with an almost guaranteed ticket back to a lifeboat of luxury in the near future, the young private sure looked anxious.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Mostly. Just…” Ginger paused. In all honesty, she didn’t want to mention Jackson. Mentioning his name meant remembering his death, and that was one memory she sure wanted to bleach from her brain. That’s what her beer was for. “Look down there. See Sergeant Parkins? God, I don’t envy her right now.”
Below them, down near the bottom of the steps, Parkins was sitting on the tail end of a chunky med-transport vehicle. Armoured ambulances, basically. Well, more like mobile hospitals. They may have been on wheels, but it wasn’t as if they had anywhere to take the wounded. Parkins wasn’t injured as such – not physically, at least – but she sure looked like she was in dire need of help. She hadn’t looked up from the ground the whole time Ginger had been watching her.
“Do you think she’ll be all right?” asked Duke.
“I wouldn’t be,” said Ginger. “She watched her whole fireteam die, one after the other. I’d be a mess if I lost even one of you.”
Bradley took a swig of beer and winced. Clearly he’d never had to suffer such hardship as a lukewarm lager before.
“Thanks, Sarge,” he said, tapping his foot.
“Oh, you? Not so much,” said Ginger. Her voice came out so dry and devoid of emotion, she had to add a wink so he knew she was joking. “What’s up? You look like something’s bothering you.”
“If it’s the beer, I’ll have it,” said Ghost, shaking her own bottle. It was almost empty.
“No, you’re all right,” he replied, interrupting himself with a nervous titter of a laugh. “It’s just… it all felt too easy, you know? I mean, it wasn’t easy. Obviously. It was horrendous – the worst experience of my life. But… shouldn’t it have been even worse? Where did all the bugs go? There was so much resistance on the way here and then… nothing!”
Duke whistled.
“Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth,” he said, shaking his head. “We got a lucky break, that’s all. Learn to appreciate it.”
“Duke’s right,” said Ginger, though a small part of her couldn’t deny that Bradley had a point. Compared to the Bridge of Etmark, it had been easy. “You’re just feeling jittery because as hard as it is to believe, you might actually get to go home soon.”
“Home soon?” Ghost stood up straight, visibly confused. “What do you mean, home soon? Where’s he going? And more importantly, why am I not?”
“Forget about it,” said Ginger, hurriedly moving on. “I just mean it’s hard not to feel on edge even when the fighting stops, that’s all. Plus there’s survivor’s guilt and all that. You’ll get used to it, or you won’t. Doesn’t mean anything bad’s gonna happen.”
She nodded back down towards Sergeant Parkins. A medic was measuring her blood pressure and shining a torch into each of her eyes. She wasn’t moving much.
“Reckon Parkins will be back with us once we get our new orders? Or do you think they’ll send her back up to the ship?”
“The Invincible?” Ghost shook her head and went back to leaning against the balcony wall. “Nah. They’ll keep her in an infirmary down here, if anything. One thing’s for sure, though. Poor thing won’t be given another fireteam in a hurry.”
“That hardly seems fair,” Ginger sighed. “She wasn’t even the one in command. I was.”
“And Jackson wasn’t your fault, either,” said Duke, patting her on the shoulder. “Just bad luck, that’s all. There’s a lot of that going around.”
“Yeah, I hope you’re right.”
“Hey.” Ghost squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve kept us alive this long, haven’t you? And you know what? Yates had big boots to fill, but I’d say you’re doing a pretty damn good job.”
Ginger laughed and finally took another sip of beer.
“Thanks, I guess.”
Half a dozen drop ships descended over the public square. Their jet fans blew the thatched roofs off half of the surrounding houses. In their holds they carried the materials needed to start building homes and other structures suitable for more modern standards of living.
“How long do you think it’ll be before they start moving people in from the Arks?” Bradley asked, shielding his eyes from the sudden gust.
“Not for a while yet,” said Ghost, shaking her head. “Not until the engineers finish getting all the plumbing and amenities sorted. You know, I’ve always wondered why they don’t just park the Arks down somewhere and be done with it. They’re basically already cities, right?”
“Yeah,” said Duke. “Cities based on old centrifugal technology. If their exteriors stop spinning – you know, like if they touched down on New Terra – everyone would go flying into the walls. You try going to the bathroom when your toilet’s on the ceiling.”
“Huh. I never thought of that.”
“Besides.” Ginger pulled a cynical expression. “You think New Terra’s the last planet the UEC will want to colonise?”
“Oh, great.” Duke rolled his eyes. “Just when we—”
Duke was interrupted by a violent trembling in the earth. The whole city seemed to shake. One of the stone buildings below, already rendered unstable by the initial invasion, collapsed in a cloud of rubble and dust.
“Was that an earthquake?” asked Ginger, steadying herself against the balcony. “I didn’t think this part of New Terra even got them.”
“I dunno,” said Ghost. “You saw that ravine. Looked like one hell of a fault line to me.”
Another sudden rumble came as quickly as it went. They dropped their beer bottles and snatched up their rifles and gear instead. Another fireteam sprinted past them up the steps.
“What’s happening?” asked Duke, pulling one of them aside.
“It’s the roaches,” she babbled at him before chasing after the rest of her fireteam. “They’re mounting a counterattack.”
“Roaches?” Ghost turned on the spot with her arms outstretched. “I don’t see no—”
A third and even stronger tremor passed beneath their feet. This time the whole public square erupted in a fifty-foot geyser of cobbles and stone and broken statues. Bugs of all breeds poured up through the resulting hole. Tank-bugs, flying roaches… and even more of the shambling, gun-fused mutants.
“Holy mother of…” Her insides suddenly warm and watery, Ginger belligerently gestured towards the keep. “Everyone, get out of here! Move!”
They sprinted up the steps, surrounded by other marines with the same desperate idea as them. Those who stood their ground below were quickly swallowed by the angry swarm, torn apart by the claws and mandibles of roaches or reduced to chunks by the mutants’ chitin rounds. One of the drop ships narrowly avoided falling into the new sinkhole when it emerged, but as soon as the ship tried taking off again, one of the giant tank-bugs skewered it with its horn and sent it crashing back down to the ground as a pirouetting fireball.
“This is gonna be a goddamn massacre,” Duke moaned under his breath.
Panicking marines had formed a
human blockage near the top of the stairs, preventing Sigma from going any further. Ginger heard the thunderous rattle of a hundred battle rifles on the other side. Theirs wasn’t the only bug-hole in the city, it seemed. She frantically looked down each of the neighbouring alleys for an alternative way out.
No such luck.
She checked her magazine, secured her helmet and waited for the bugs to climb up the steps after them.
“I told you it was too easy,” Bradley mumbled as he slid down the adjacent wall. “We’re all going to die.”
Chapter Fourteen
Fireteam Sigma ducked behind an old, wooden storefront as chitin rounds sprayed across the narrow street. The planks were splintered and blanketed in mildew, but as cover went, they would have to do.
Twin beams held up the store’s rickety wooden overhang. One of them blew out just as Ginger pulled Bradley to safety. The entire storefront groaned uneasily above them.
Ghost popped up and let loose at a couple of charging roaches with her semi-automatic sidearm. Duke helped finish them off. They dropped behind the boards again.
“Baker, do you read me?” Ginger screamed into the microphone in her helmet. “Staff Sergeant Baker, do you—”
“I read you,” Baker replied. “Where the hell are you?”
Before she could reply, one of the stone buildings down the street from them exploded in a green flash. A stone the size of Ginger’s head screamed past and crashed through the shutters of the window next to them.
“Top of the main stairs by the square,” she yelled back. “A few hundred metres from the base of that huge, shiny building and… erm… well, other than that, I don’t know, sir.”
“Dammit. You’re way on the other side of the city to the rest of the platoon, and there’s a whole army of bugs crawling between us. For the time being, you’re on your own. Give me on sec and I’ll find you an exit point.”
Ginger shared a concerned glance with Duke and Ghost.
“An exit point, sir?”
“Yes, Sergeant. A way out.” His voice started to crackle over the comms. “Do you think you can make it to the back of that huge, shiny building you mentioned?”
Sigma (War for New Terra, Book 1) Page 13
