End of the Line

by Travis Hill

  I doubted they had a sense of humor, or at least one humans would understand, so I was sure they weren’t toying with us. The Kai had been utterly ruthless opponents up to this point, and were doing their best to end that statement with an exclamation point made of incineration chambers. The fact they didn’t seem interested—or maybe had already forgotten we’d killed their Vipers—just didn’t sit right with me. It was as maddening and uncomfortable as trying to deal with the waste system of a CR-31 while constantly in fear each step would trigger a Kai ambush. It could drive a man to well beyond his breaking point.

  “Halt,” Sergeant Lowell said.

  I hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than my fear that we were all going to die. I had cranked up my suit’s external mics for long periods of time, which hadn’t done anything to alleviate my visions of doom. It was one of the eeriest, most silent walks I’d ever been on. As Terran Marines, we didn’t get much training for fighting in a vacuum, since that type of combat was left to the Special Ops and STAR units.

  We received three days’ worth of instruction, a necessity when the only way to transport ground troops was via starship. The Kai had never attempted to board a human ship, preferring to slag us from a million klicks out, but Command wanted to make sure if it ever happened, we’d be ready. The memory that stuck with me most from those three days was how space was dead silent, as if I were in a coffin six feet underground.

  “Grummond and Vasquez, I want you two to scout down the east end,” Lowell ordered. “Hollingsworth and Jordan, west end. Lofgren and Bishara, center. The rest of us will hold until you clear the area.”

  “Roger that, Sir,” I said along with everyone else.

  I dropped my gear, adjusted the blanket, then waited for Bishara to divest himself of the 300 he’d been hauling. We checked our weapons then made our way down a short hill into the Salmon River Valley. I hated being the first man into an unknown situation. If my asshole hadn’t been crawling inside my colon before, it was now. Bishara and I split apart, putting two hundred meters between us, the main highway dividing our scouting sectors. I switched on my visor’s low-light enhancement, needing only a little boost to make up for the long shadows stretching across the entire valley.

  Salmon wasn’t anything to write home about from what I remembered, and still looked the same from my vantage point. It had been a small town for more than a century, but like most cities on Earth, it experienced a tremendous boom after we’d entered the war. The conflict required the sacrifice of hundreds of millions of young men and women, and the colonies were adamant that an already overcrowded Earth become the main faucet to draw from. In the end, every single human outpost had given their all, but more than three-quarters of those who fought came from humanity’s home planet.

  I was surprised to see what looked like a barricade stretched across the land. It had been hastily erected, and didn’t seem to have deterred the Kai in any way, other than the few places where large sections had been smashed, blown out, or possibly never even built. Bishara radioed me to let me know the barrier stretched through his sector, with the other scouts confirming the same as they made their way around the outside of the city. The entire town was dark. Not even the hardy emergency lights that were usually left burning in every other city were visible.

  I walked across the main east-west road and made for the tree-lined western side of the street. Just as with our walk down the mountain valley, Salmon was as dead and silent as a tomb. I kept a steady pace as I made my way deeper into town, sure that at any moment the Kai would jump out and yell SURPRISE! before lighting us up. I noticed a puff of ash at my feet a few blocks away from what my Nav-Comp said was the downtown area.

  “You see this?” I asked Bishara.

  “Negative,” he responded. Two minutes later, he confirmed it. “Shit. Just stepped in it.”

  “How’s it look, ladies?” Lowell asked.

  “It’s pretty dead, Sarge,” I replied.

  “There ain’t shit out here either,” Jordan added.

  “Keep moving and keep your eyes open.”

  The main downtown area was as empty and dead as the rest of the city. The ashes were thicker, and there was evidence the residents had put up a fight. Probably not much of one, since they were limited to whatever firepower they would have had on hand, but it lit some kind of hope within me. That tiny flame of hope was immediately snuffed out by the knowledge that it was too late for us if civilians had been forced to pick up their guns and fight. I could see the smudges and the disturbed ash where the Kai had parked their incinerator. Based on the evidence, I guessed the oven they’d brought to Salmon was three or four times the size of the one we found in Hamilton. I couldn’t help but imagine a slick Kai salesman happily chattering to a Kai commander how his company made all shapes and sizes, for all exterminations big and small, no matter the organism being expunged from the galaxy!

  “Sending in Monohan and Goldman, center stripe. Lofgren and Bishara, keep heading south until you hit the city limits, then I want all six of you to meet up and walk a line back to us.”

  I continued my search to the south, but every block looked the same as the previous one other than the architecture. Another thing that bugged me each time we’d passed through a liquidated city was the fact that we never found a single survivor. Throughout our history, whenever an invading army took a town and either occupied it or razed it to the ground, there were almost always survivors hiding in an attic, a basement, the sewers, or any number of places.

  The Kai must have some way of finding unsuited humans, which made even less sense. It seemed logical that if they could detect every last human being in a given area, they’d easily be able to spot our suits, stealth or no stealth. I found it hard to believe that aliens who had the power to dominate a seven thousand light year area of space hadn’t thought of things like thermal, infrared, or even enhanced night vision. I realized I was postulating on an alien enemy doing something human-like.

  Bishara and I met up with the others at the southern edge of town. We turned north and spread out in a line a klick wide. Sergeant Lowell had the squad begin shuffling gear in from the hillside after Hollingsworth picked out a decent spot to set up. I helped Jordan set up the perimeter network, then began to wander on my own after getting permission from Sergeant Lowell. I was curious enough to go back to the downtown area.

  “What’cha thinking?” Sergeant McAdams asked, nearly scaring me into a heart attack.

  “I’ve been staring at this for the last half hour,” I replied. “Look at how efficient it was.” I pointed down to the nearly bare spot where the incinerator must have been. “There’s hardly any footprints leading away from it. Now look along the path that everyone’s feet made while they were walking to the oven. Again, almost no footprints anywhere but the main path.”

  “Yeah, so?” she asked. “They were docile and went to their deaths willingly.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “It’s supposed to, isn’t it?” she asked.

  I looked at her, trying to see something in her face, but she had her visor blacked out.

  “Yeah, it is,” I said.

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Of course it does.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t understand why everyone just marches into the fire. Everywhere we go, it’s the same.”

  “These people aren’t Marines, Dana. They’re civilians.”

  “Bullshit. They’re human beings, and there’s like… eight billion of them. There can’t be more than a hundred million Kai on the ground. They didn’t nuke us, or use any other mass-death weapon, just so they could round us up like animals and feed us to the flames. Yet we just take it. It bothers me. A city like Dallas with twenty-five million citizens should have been able to muster enough resistance to put up a good fight, but they didn’t.”

  “There was heavy fighting in Dallas,” she reminded me.

  “I kno
w. But it was mostly us doing the heavy fighting, with a couple thousand civvies doing their best to keep up. Where were the other million or five million or however many were left? Why did they allow themselves to be guided along until they were poof no more?”

  “I don’t know, Dana,” she said softly. I felt her touch my suit’s arm. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”

  “Then why the fuck are we still carrying on as if there’s a purpose?” I asked angrily, pulling my arm away from her. “Why haven’t we turned our rifles on ourselves so the Kai can’t have the satisfaction of claiming us?”

  “I don’t know,” she said again.

  “What the fuck do you know?”

  “Careful, Private Lofgren,” she warned, but I saw that she’d cleared her visor.

  McAdams took a step toward me and touched her helmet to mine. We stared at each other for a long time. I was grateful to see something other than the remains of the city’s residents coating every surface for a klick in all directions. I was more than grateful when I saw a single tear roll down the sergeant’s cheek.

  “I’ll fucking kill you if you say a word,” she growled, popping her visor up to wipe the wetness away. “I’ll fucking torture you then kill you if you say a word to anyone else.”

  I began to giggle, then laugh, as her gloved finger smeared dirt, sweat, ashes, and the single tear across her cheek. She reminded me of the athletes on the holo who painted black marks under their eyes. I laughed until I felt tears begin to spill down my cheeks. The surge of emotions swept through me quickly, and I composed myself before a minute had passed.

  “Come on,” McAdams said, turning toward our camp. “If we get downtime, you’re stuck with me.”

  Whatever emotions flashed through me were replaced by a new surge of different ones. I felt my nerve endings tingle, and my step seemed lighter as I walked alongside her. I wouldn’t call it a crush, but “crush” sounded better than “obsession.” Not that I was obsessed with Sergeant Krista McAdams, or at least not in a way that had ever been revealed by my actions or words. However, there was something about her that had caught my attention and refused to let go.

  ***

  Sergeant Lowell didn’t have the same confidence about Salmon as he did Hamilton. There were no bio-weapons labs in Salmon. It had been a place for rugged adventurers to turn their love of nature into a haven of conservation. It had also been a huge tourist trap, with millions of urbanites paying dearly to experience “the real outdoors” of America, including hunting and fishing in well-stocked designated areas.

  The entire region was one of the few left on Earth where all forms of industrialization had been banned, which nearly bankrupted the city after the Coalition outlawed all fishing and hunting by civilians. Meat was too precious and too scarce, and soldiers felt they deserved it more than civvies who couldn’t be bothered to suit up and try their hand at war. Especially soldiers like me who didn’t get a choice and had been drafted.

  We set up camp in Hayes Park on the southern end of town. We had half a klick of open space on all sides thanks to the civilians clearing out all of the trees before marching into the oven. McAdams was set up in the three-story house on the south end of the park, while Jordan was a klick to our north in the tallest building in the city. The bank tower was only six floors in height, but its roof afforded a view of the entire valley thanks to our suits’ optics.

  “I guess this means no downtime,” McAdams said on a private channel to me.

  “Don’t worry, Sergeant,” I said with a grin she couldn’t see. “You’ll get your chance.”

  “Try to keep your junk from getting shot off, okay?” she replied. “I’d like to find out what all the fuss is about.”

  “What fuss?” I asked.

  “There must be something special about you for Hollingsworth and Talamentez to suddenly take an interest in you.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I don’t know what that’s about, honestly.”

  I truly had no clue why I was suddenly a popular guy with three of the four women. I wasn’t hung like a horse, or like anything other than an average guy as far as I knew. I wasn’t a stud or a ladies’ man, and I didn’t consider myself as anywhere close to spectacular in the sack. I knew what I was doing thanks to Cherise Tyson and the other women of the 191st (who taught me things that would have made the girls in my hometown faint had I suggested even the tamest ones).

  “Must be that big brain in your skull,” she chuckled.

  “McAdams,” Lowell’s voice said in our earbuds, a sure sign he’d been listening in. “Status?”

  “Clear to the horizon, Sergeant,” she answered.

  “Good. I’ll have Talamentez relieve you in two hours. Lofgren, get some sleep. That’s an order.”

  “Roger that, Sir,” I said.

  “How the hell does he do that?” McAdams asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Butt in on a conversation at just the right time? Or better yet, how does he know you and I are talking?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “Maybe he’s got ESP. Or some kind of command module. Maybe he just knows when you’re thinking dirty thoughts instead of watching out for the Kai.”

  “Maybe,” she said, but sounded doubtful.

  EIGHT

  I woke to an alarm in my ear. My eyes opened and I powered up my suit. My HUD was instantly littered with tactical information. Three large globs of red triangles poured out of larger red wings at two different locations, with two more large red wings coming in on an arc to land five klicks to the north of the city.

  “Vasquez!” Lowell yelled across the Wire.

  “I’m on it,” Vasquez said, the sound of heavy breathing and suit servos painting an image in my head of the sergeant running like hell to find cover.

  “Get ready. Buddy up. Lofgren, you’re with me.”

  I ran to my CO’s marker and hunkered down next to his suit. I watched green markers pair up except for Talamentez and Monohan, who were our lookouts in the two tall buildings. The flash of weapons fire was visible to our east, an occasional white-hot plasma projectile streaking by our location.

  “We need better cover, Sarge,” I said.

  “Damn right.”

  He bolted toward the eastern end of the park, staying low and as stealthed as possible. He looked like a blurry tumbleweed as he darted across the open ground. We both came to a stop behind a large civilian vehicle. I knew it would provide very little protection, but it would slow down a plasma round enough that our energy shields wouldn’t be overwhelmed. I chanced a look around the end, but saw nothing other than darkness with my eyes, and at least five dozen enemy markers with my Tac-Comp overlay.

  Two green streaks rose from the ground a klick to our northwest. The G-60 rockets impacted the Kai troopship before its stabilizers could touch down. The ship’s marker blinked twice then disappeared at the same instant a massive explosion lit up the sky. The second troopship immediately swung toward the area the rockets came from and began chewing up buildings and vehicles with its front cannons. Vasquez’s marker was already a quarter-klick away to the west. Seconds later, two more G-60s rose up and struck the ship in its undercarriage. The troopship spun around twice before breaking in half, dumping the Kai inside to the ground a hundred meters below before crashing down on top of them in a ball of greenish-blue flame.

  “Get those 300’s going!” Sergeant Lowell ordered.

  Whoever was responsible for the automated guns responded immediately. One turret began to chew up a squad of Kai soldiers moving west on a street two klicks from its location on the rooftop with Monohan. The other two opened up on two more Kai troopships descending into the valley. The vehicle we hid behind began to vibrate as a third troopship lowered itself from the sky toward the middle of the park.

  “Kill that ship!” Lowell screamed.

  We both turned around and fired our rifles, our rounds doing little more than leaving small black marks on the ship’s armor. A series of holes pe
rforated the side closest to me as the nearest 300 began to work on it.

  “Fire in the hole,” Corporal Jordan said casually and launched a pair of G-60s directly into the nose of the assault carrier.

  The explosion forced my suit’s mics to cancel all noise, and the impact lifted us off the ground a few centimeters.

  “Move!” I shouted and grabbed Lowell’s arm, pulling him behind the civilian vehicle.

  It was a bad spot. Six Kai markers were less than three hundred meters from us, still heading west a block north of us. Sixteen Kai markers were converging on the park from the east three blocks to our south. I opened my mouth to say something when the troopship crashed into the ground and burped a jet of fire into the sky. Goldman’s Tac-Comp tracked at least a dozen Kai soldiers scrambling to escape the burning wreck. Kirilenko and Hollingsworth ground the dozen down to three before the soldiers to our south arrived and made everyone scramble for cover.

  Except Sergeant Lowell, who stood up and turned in a slow circle to let his Tac-Comp update. We were out in the open on the east side of the park, while everyone else was to the west, or in the buildings to the north and south.

  “Get us out of here, Sarge,” I said, sighting in on the intersection the six Kai to the north were about to reach.

  “Let’s take it to them,” he said, and immediately began to run toward the intersection.

  I grinned and followed, moving a few meters to the left so I wouldn’t have him in my line of fire. Lowell rounded the corner of the closest house, went to one knee, and opened up on the alien squad. I ran for twenty meters until I was behind a tree too small to shield all of me and began to send bursts of plasma into the enemy. The six went down after returning only a few shots at Sergeant Lowell. They seemed surprised—if the Kai were capable of such a thing—as none had even looked in my direction until my first shot ventilated one of them.