Despite all the weapons and armor, the Rumsfeld was obsolete before it rolled off the assembly line. It moved too slowly for practical use in battle. Other battlefield units could outmaneuver Rumsfelds and ultimately cut them down. The government had labeled them obsolete thirty years ago, but they should have been discontinued long before that.
“Are they on you?” I asked. I worked as I spoke, hoping to find the guns that foot soldiers used to shoot gas canisters. I found a rack of compressed-gas shooters near the door. These were breech-loading rifles with barrels as thick as baseball bats.
“Bearing down,” Evans said.
“Just hold on,” I said. “Help is on the way.”
Rumsfelds had a closed circulation system with filters that could weed out noxium gas—a biogas that quickly evaporated into the environment. I did not think the tanks’ filters would hold up against distilled shit gas, however. That long-lasting corrosive would eat through the filters. Shit gas hung around for hours as it seeped into the ground. The Rumsfelds would probably fire the canisters in one direction, then drive off in the other.
I pulled off my helmet and placed four canisters of shit gas into it. The canisters were about three inches tall and two inches in diameter. I removed three of the other canisters as well, the ones with the gray-colored gas.
Philips removed his helmet and did the same.
Strapping a shooter to my back, I climbed to the top of the train. Up ahead, I saw at least twenty Targs facing into the station. Rumsfelds lurked in the distance, rumbling in like dinosaurs. I sat on the edge of the doorway with my feet dangling down as I unstrapped that shooter. “Philips, pass me my helmet,” I said.
Each of the tanks had brown camouflage paint and a golden crown painted on its turrets. The Targs had formed an elliptical row about forty feet from the station. They fired cannons into the station in rapid and unordered succession. I saw the flashes, then heard the rumble of their guns a split second later.
Hoping to create an uncrossable puddle, I planned to fire distilled shit gas into the street behind the station. Distilled shit gas was heavy, and that puddle would last for hours. I would shoot canisters of noxium gas in front of the station to clear a path. In the open air, the noxium would do its work and evaporate in a minute.
“If you see gas floating in your direction, run,” I said over the platoon-wide band.
“In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve got tanks out there,” Greer said.
“Not for long,” I said as I loaded a canister of noxium gas into my shooter.
“When I give you the signal, I want you to run,” I said.
“They’ll hit us,” Greer said.
“Take my word on this one, Greer,” I said. “Getting hit by a shell would be a lot better than waiting around for this shit.” I fired. The canister sailed through the air so slowly that I could actually watch it as it hurtled toward the target. The shot lobbed over the roof of the train station. A moment later, the top of a silver-white cloud appeared in the air.
I quickly loaded a canister of distilled shit gas and fired behind the train station. The canister flew into the center of the tanks, where it vanished in a rapidly spreading cloud of brown haze.
“That gas won’t hurt those tanks,” Philips said, as I loaded another canister of shit gas. “They have shields.”
“It won’t hurt the outside of those tanks,” I said, and squeezed off the next shot, lobbing this canister deeper into the tank column. “Those boys have to breathe something. It’s like spraying insects.”
Philips handed me the next canister. It was gray—noxium gas. I loaded it into the shooter and fired over the roof of the train station.
“Get running!” I yelled to my squad leaders.
Philips handed me another canister of distilled shit gas. I raised my trajectory and fired at the Rumsfelds in the distance. Dinosaurs that they were, the first of the Rumsfelds charged straight ahead, directly into the spreading cloud. Philips handed me another canister. I loaded it and fired deeper into their lines. I did not want any stragglers to escape.
One of the Rumsfelds fired back.
“Incoming,” I yelled, bracing myself in the door of the train for cover.
The shell hit the train like a giant hammer. Standing below me, Philips lost his balance and fell, his arms cradling the canister-filled helmet. The canisters did not break. They were designed not to break until fired, but I did not want to test the quality of their manufacture.
“Give me a brown one,” I told Philips.
Tanks were now coming in our direction. I reached down without saying a word, and he slapped the canister into my hand. I loaded and fired at the tanks, and they fired at us.
“Duck!” I yelled, as I dropped into the train.
Philips placed his helmet top down on the floor and laid over it, cradling it in his arms. If he’d seen what those gases could do to a man, he would not have been so brave.
One shell hit the train, followed by a second, then a third and a fourth, in rapid succession. Then there was silence.
I emptied the remaining canisters out of my helmet, then pulled my helmet down over my head. I called my squad leaders. “Report.”
“What was that?” Thomer asked.
“What is your status?” I asked.
“Safe for now,” Evans said. “We made it to an apartment building.”
“What did you hit them with?” Thomer repeated.
“Bug spray,” I said. “Be ready to make a quick exit from your building. The reason they brought that shit out here was to feed it to you.”
General Crowley, I thought to myself. The son of a bitch was always ahead of the game. He knew that if we made it to this planet, we would hide in buildings with tank-proof shields; and he found a way around it. Gas the buildings, and the occupants would die. Bastard.
CHAPTER
FIFTY
“What are you doing?” Philips asked, as I headed back into the car with all of the gas canisters. The shelling had stopped but more Rumsfelds were undoubtedly on the way. The last place he wanted to be was in a train car carrying canisters filled with deadly gases. I didn’t want to go back there any more than he did.
I had not worked with Ray Freeman for two full years without learning a trick or two. The man did not talk much, but he knew the angles for every situation. He knew how to find winning solutions to desperate situations and how to turn traps to his advantage.
“The Mogats know we’re here,” I said as I pulled a grenade from my armor. Grenades were all-purpose devices. You could pull the pins and toss them, or you could program them, then pull the pins. In this case, I programmed the grenade for maximum yield and set it to explode on impact, then I pulled the pin and laid it to rest between two canisters of distilled shit gas. Then I set three more grenades the same way.
“They know we’re in the train, and they’re coming after us,” I said. “They’re probably going to shell the train to shake us loose, right?” I patted the second grenade to make sure it was snug. Those canisters were designed to not explode until fired from a shooter, but I had the feeling that a grenade might do the trick.
Looking around the car, I did not find what I wanted. I rushed to the next car and found it—a small airtight case for carrying canisters. As I pulled it off a shelf, a Mogat moaned and stirred on the floor. I shot him, then went back and fitted eight canisters of noxium gas and four canisters of distilled shit gas into the case.
Satisfied that I had the right load, I headed for a doorway through which I could leave the train. I had the canister shooter strapped over my shoulder. I carried my M27 in my right hand and the case of gas canisters in my left. I also had two canisters of noxium gas tucked into my armor. If anything broke those canisters…
“Where are you going?” Philips asked.
“That way,” I said, pointing to my left. The Mogats were coming from the right. Using the telescopic lens in my visor, I could see two waves of tanks on the way. The rea
r guard were Rumsfelds, slow, vicious machines. The first wave were Targ Tanks. They were still five miles back, but they would close that gap quickly. There were hundreds of them this time. These guys could tell what I had done to the first wave. They would skirt around the gas.
“I’m headed that way and going as fast as I can.” I swung my legs over the edge of the train and hopped off.
“Why left?” Philips asked.
“Do you want to head right?” I asked.
“Guess not,” Philips said. The ground was still covered with distilled shit gas in that direction. If he used his telescopic lens, he would have seen the next column of tanks coming from behind us. He slid down the roof of the train and landed next to me.
“Those tanks back there are going to start shelling this train in another minute,” I said. “That will set off my grenade, gas will leak…”
“That gas is going to leak out of every orifice,” Philips said. I was going to say doorway, but I preferred his description.
“Harris, you better beat it out of there,” Evans called over the interLink. “The whole frigging Mogat Army is headed in your direction.”
“Where are you?” I asked. “Give me a beacon on your building,”
“Just up the street. I can see you from the window.” The virtual beacon turned the building blue in my visor.
“Are the streets clear?” I asked.
“Not entirely. I sent my snipers up to the roof to clear a way for you.”
I heard sporadic gunfire. The crack of rifles echoed through the streets.
“Call your boys in,” I said. “We’ll catch up with you, but for now, I want everyone tucked in safe.”
“Harris, those tanks are getting closer.”
“I got it,” I said. “Just bring your squad in.”
“Philips, let’s move out,” I said. Feeling a little awkward with a gun on my back and both hands full, I hunched over and sprinted as best I could up the street. We ran one block, then another before the shelling started. When I looked back, I saw searchlights from the tanks. Then, hearing another shell fired, I ducked against a storefront. It was a three-story Laundromat, of all things, with an all-glass fascia, but it was the only choice we had. At least I knew it was empty.
“Philips, in here!” I yelled. I pushed the door open and ran for the stairs. Philips and I climbed to the top floor and hid behind a row of washers.
“Oh, shit,” Evans said. “Look at all those specking Mogats.”
At that very moment, the tanks fired a barrage of shells. The Targs fired at the train. They pounded it.
I could see the whole thing from the third floor of the Laundromat. Shells and rockets slammed into that train, sending it sliding, jostling the cars back and forth. It reminded me of shooting at an empty can to see how long you could keep it in the air. Eventually, several cars rolled upside down.
The gases did not mix. Brown and gray gases began oozing from the windows and doors of the train. The brown gas crept along the streets like a tide, swelling nearly two feet in the air. Targs might have been fast, but they were not built for sharp turns at top speeds. The first row of tanks on the scene cut sharp and managed to avoid the gas. The tanks that followed did not. Line after line of Targs stampeded into the deadly fog and stalled.
From my third-floor vantage point, I saw dozens of tanks stall in the distilled shit gas mist. I could also see hundreds beyond them that the gas would never reach.
Around the train station, I saw the carcasses of the tanks that I’d gassed. They sat totally immobile, looking like stones. No, not stones. With their curved backs and squat, low-slung profiles, and their green camouflage, they looked like gargantuan frogs. At least the Targs looked like frogs. There were twenty Rumsfelds in the mix. From up here, they looked more like armadillos.
The distilled shit gas I’d fired at the Rumsfelds would have dissolved the wiring in the tanks as well as the drivers. I shot the Targs with noxium gas. They would still work, so long as you didn’t mind sitting in the puddle of what once was an enemy soldier.
A half mile away from the train station, the nearest traffic ramp spewed out a river of green personnel carriers. Our men had put up a fight there. Beside the ramp, a couple of trucks lay on their sides; but the men we sent to hold that ramp were dead or in retreat, and now tens of thousands of Mogats poured out.
From here, I could also see the nearest elevator station. When the reinforcements came, they would funnel through buildings like that one. I imagined ten thousand soldiers storming through each station, M27s raised, grenades in their hands. Sooner or later they would need to destroy the elevator stations so that they could lower their tanks and gunships.
Lord, it would be a beautiful sight to behold, I thought. I had begun to doubt whether any of us would live to see it.
“Talk to me, Evans,” I called on the frequency for squad leaders.
“They stopped shooting,” Evans said.
“Can you see the street around your building?” I asked.
“I can’t see the street from here,” said Evans.
“No windows?” I asked.
“I’ve got a window,” Evans said. “I just can’t see the street. There are too many specking Mogats on it. Those speckers are everywhere.”
“How long can you hold out? I’m going to try to make it over to your building,” I said. Not much had changed since I left Little Man; I was still committing passive suicide.
“We barricaded the entrance,” Evans said. “They might be able to bash through with their tanks, but I’d hate to be the first man to come through that door. We may go down, but we are not going down easy.”
“Is Philips with you?” Thomer broke in.
“He’s here,” I said.
“And he’s okay?”
“Not a scratch on him,” I said.
Thomer did not answer. I figured that he probably switched bands and called Philips directly.
“Master Sergeant, there’s no point in coming here,” Evans said. “We’re cooked.”
I laughed. “Evans, we’re all cooked. I don’t know about Philips, but I’d rather go down with my platoon.
I’d lost a platoon a few years ago. I still remembered every man in that platoon by name. Sometimes I heard them in my sleep. “We’ll find a way to reach you, Evans. Just hold on.”
“What about your friend, the giant with the rifle?” Evans asked.
“His name is Freeman. He came here hunting Crowley.” I said this more to myself than to Evans.
“You mean Amos Crowley, the Mogat general?”
“Crowley is a field general. He likes to go down to the field to fight with his men. He’s down there somewhere right now. At least he should be. He’ll be sleeping with Napoleon and Caesar if Freeman spots him.” I did not believe what I’d just said. In truth, I regretted bringing Freeman on a suicide mission.
“Are the Mogats outside your building, too?” Evans asked.
I looked out the window. The path back to the train station was almost clear. Most of the tanks and troops had gathered around the tenements. The street around the building in which my platoon had hidden looked like a parking lot.
“Nope,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “All’s clear.”
“You should stay put,” Evans said.
“Are you shitting me?” I asked. It might have been the combat hormone speaking by then. If someone had shot me in the head at that moment, I think I might have leaked out more hormone than blood or brains. “Just keep some men by the back door. Philips and I are on our way.”
I switched frequencies. “Philips.”
“Thomer says I should shoot you. He says I should shoot you and lie low until the Army comes.” Thomer must have listened in on part of my conversation with Evans.
Philips stood in front of the window staring down at the street. The sky had turned dark during the time that we hid in the Laundromat. Bright lights shone all over the city, and fires blazed near the train statio
n and some of the traffic ramps.
Philips removed his helmet as he viewed this panorama. He stood still as a tree holding his M27 by the butt in his limp right hand, its muzzle pointing straight at the floor. “Look at all those specking Mogats. Hell, with that many men, they don’t need to shoot us. They can just wait till we run out of bullets, then trample us to death.”
I pulled off my helmet and stood beside Philips. Neither of us spoke for a time. Then I pointed to the building where the rest of the platoon was waiting. “They’re only six blocks away.”
He said, “Damn, Master Sarge, you can’t possibly think we’ll survive those six blocks.”
“You know what, Philips, I really hate being called Master Sarge. The rank is master sergeant, not master sarge.”
He smiled but did not answer.
Still glaring at Philips, I replaced my helmet. It was at that moment that the lights went out.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-ONE
The city lights did not stutter. They did not blink on and off. They went out. In the pitch-darkness, my visor automatically switched to night-for-day vision. I stared out the big glass window down at a cityscape painted in blue-white and black.
I looked over at Philips as he put on his helmet. “The power is out,” I said.
“I can see that,” he growled.
“You don’t get it,” I said, and I fired my M27 into the window, which shattered into tire-sized pieces of jagged glass and dropped to the street.
“Evans, Thomer, Greer,” I called. “The shields are down.”
“Harris,” a familiar voice interrupted my conversation with my squad leaders. “You out there?”
“Nice to hear from you,” I said.
“I’m the only SEAL with any time on this planet,” Illych said. “They had to send me.
“I’m in their capital sector. You should have seen this place. It’s wild. It’s half government, half religious shrine. Too bad it’s all going away.”
By this time Philips and I had already started down the stairs. The rows of washing machines did not glisten or reflect light. There was no light for them to reflect. This world had become that dark, as black as any hole.
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