Tarina sat on a red and white checkered blanket holding a glass of white wine in her hand. Sheridan had picked a shaded spot on a hill overlooking his family’s home in Plymouth. He smiled at her before playfully rolling over on his back until his neck rested on her lap. She smiled at him, leaned down, and delicately kissed his lips. Sheridan thought her lips tasted like strawberries. He had never been happier in his entire life. The last few years with Tarina by his side had been a blissful blur. Every weekend they could manage to be together was spent away from the academy.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Tarina said.
“I was just wondering how a guy like me was so lucky to find a girl like you,” replied Sheridan.
“It must be your very large family trust fund that makes you handsome.”
“That’s not even funny,” Sheridan said, hitting her on the arm.
“Will your parents be home tonight?”
“Yes, I called. They’re on their way to meet us at the house for supper.”
Hesitantly, Tarina asked, “Do you think they’ll like me?”
“Sure, why not? I’m head over heels in love with you.”
“Yes, but you’re not your parents, just like I’m not mine. People can be judgmental even if they won’t say so to your face.”
“It’ll be alright. You know, you worry too much sometimes.”
Sheridan reached up with his right hand and placed it on the back of Tarina’s neck. He could feel the warmth of her skin on his hand. Gently, he pulled her mouth down toward his.
“Sir, you need to get up now,” said Tarina with a serious look on her face.
“Why would you say that?” mumbled Sheridan.
A hand shook him. “Sir, you’re dreaming. Wake up!”
Sheridan opened his eyes and saw that he wasn’t on a hill with the sun shining down on him. Instead, he saw a troubled expression on Cole’s face.
“What’s up?” asked Sheridan as he sat up in the seat he had fallen asleep in.
“Thank God for that damned dog,” said Cole barely above a whisper. “She heard it long before any of us did.”
Sheridan was confused. “What did she hear?”
“Listen,” said Cole, pointing up at the roof.
At first, Sheridan didn’t hear a thing, only his own breathing. A couple of seconds later, his ears picked up the faint sound of something mechanical rolling over the debris-strewn floor over their heads.
Sheridan’s eyes went wide.
Cole nodded and then mouthed the initials HK. Rather than risk any more casualties, the Chosen had begun to inspect houses they had passed for any Marine stragglers using armed robotic vehicles known as hunter-killers.
Sheridan whispered, “Can it get down the stairs?”
Cole shrugged.
Everyone in the room, including the dog, stared up at the roof. Even their breathing grew quiet as the machine crawled along, breaking wood and glass under its treads. They followed its movement until it came to the stairs leading down into the cellar.
Cole raised a finger to his lips.
Through a crack in the door, they could see a light shining down from above. For a moment, all was silent. Sheridan hoped that the robot would move on. Then with a thud, he heard the machine begin to make its way down the stairs. Taking them one at a time, the robot grew close.
“What do we do?” whispered Sheridan.
“We can’t play dead; its thermal camera will pick up our body heat,” replied Cole. He looked about. A second later, he hauled a dust-covered tablecloth up off the floor and indicated with his hand for everyone to move against the wall.
Slowly, methodically, the machine made its way down the stairs. Inside the room, everyone waited and listened as the robot extended a mechanical arm to see if the door was open. When it realized that it couldn’t push the door open, it fired off a small explosive charge on the end of its metal arm.
With a sharp crack, the door lock snapped apart and the door flew open. A bluish-white laser instantly shone inside looking for movement. When it detected none, the robot advanced into the room. In a flash, Cole threw the tablecloth over the top of the machine. For a few seconds, it moved back and forth trying to pull the sheet off.
All of a sudden, it stopped moving.
Cole looked over at Sheridan and quietly pulled his bayonet from its sheath. Sheridan, his mouth turning dry with fear, did the same.
Voices above them cursed and swore up a storm. A light was switched on and shone down the stairs, looking for the robot.
Footsteps.
Sheridan heard two Chosen soldiers coming down the stairs bitching and complaining about their equipment always failing. The first one stepped inside the room and stopped in his tracks when he saw the cloth draped over the machine. His eyes widened. He was about to step back and draw his pistol when the second warrior, not paying attention, crashed into the back of the other one, sending them both into the room.
Like a pair of coiled snakes, Cole and Sheridan struck. Neither man had ever killed a person with a knife before, but it was a case of them or the Marines and both men wanted to live. Repeatedly, Sheridan smashed his blade into the nearest Chosen’s open side until his victim’s knees buckled. Sheridan hauled back on his quarry and in one final thrust he plunged his knife into his dying adversary’s heart.
With his heart pounding away in his chest, Sheridan let the lifeless body fall to the ground. Even in the dim light, he could see that he had killed a woman. Guilt tore through his heart when he saw the woman couldn’t have been any older than himself and had skin as dark as Tarina’s. Sheridan dropped his knife and fell down on his knees beside the dead warrior. He reached out and gently turned her face toward his. She looked so much like Tarina that for a brief second, he thought he had killed the woman he loved.
A hand reached over and grabbed him by the shoulder. Sheridan was hauled up off the ground. Spun about, he found himself looking into Cole’s eyes. “You did what had to be done. Sir, you haven’t done anything to be ashamed of.”
Cole glanced up the stairs. The thought of remaining near the people they had just killed for even one second more was too much for him to bare. “We can’t stay here. They’ll come looking for their people.”
“Sir, what are your orders?” said Cole forcefully to Sheridan, snapping him out of his daze.
Sheridan looked over at Cole. “Lead on, Sergeant, find us another spot to rest in. It’s too early to start moving about outside; we’ll be spotted or sure.”
Ten agonizingly long minutes later, they took refuge in a nearby house. It was far from perfect, but it would have to do for now. Sheridan sat down in the corner of the room and looked down at his hands. In the gray light of dusk, he could see that the blood had dried to a reddish-brown color on his hands.
“Take this,” said Cole, offering Sheridan his canteen.
Sheridan wet his hands and rubbed them, trying his best to get the blood from every crack and pore in his hands. It was no good; the blood wouldn’t come clean.
“Sir, you’ve got to clear your mind, or this will get to you and you’ll be no good to the rest of us. Between you and me, if I could find a bottle right now, I’d chug the whole thing down. So don’t you fall apart on me, not now.”
Sheridan lowered his hands and placed them on his rifle. “I’m okay; it’s just that that Chosen warrior reminded me of someone I know. It spooked the hell out of me.”
“I’m sure that’s going to happen thousands of times until this war comes to a close. There’s probably families firing and killing one another; they just don’t know it.”
Sheridan took a deep breath. He hadn’t thought about it that way until now. “Sergeant, do you think we’re getting close to our lines?”
“I’m not sure. When it gets dark, the fighting will kick up again. That should give us a good indication of where our forces are.”
On the other side of the room, Garcia was fast asleep with the dog nestled up right beside her. “Roberts and his
dog saved our skin,” observed Cole. “Sir, you can forget what I said before; I want a dog in the platoon from now on.”
An hour after dark, the world in front of them erupted in flames. The sound of Marines and Chosen warriors engaged in combat to the death drowned out everything else. Kneeling so he could judge where the fighting was raging, Sheridan felt more a spectator than a participant to the violent struggle going on no more than few hundred meters away.
They waited until they saw wounded Chosen soldiers hobbling to the rear to seek medical help. Sheridan nodded and Cole led off once more. Slowly, moving from room to room, from building to building, they edged ever closer to the front lines. When they were less than fifty meters from the fighting, Cole suddenly lifted his hand and stopped.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sheridan.
“I could be wrong, but I thought I heard a child crying.”
For a few seconds, they stood still and listened. Barely audible over the titanic fight, they both heard a kid crying out for its mother. Cole pointed to the destroyed house beside theirs. Sheridan nodded. They all dashed over to the building and came to a sudden halt when they found a room littered with dead civilians. It looked as if they had all died when a shell struck their house early on in the fighting.
In the dark, a child whimpered and then called out for its mother. Garcia heard the cry and walked over to a turned over sofa. She bent down, stuck her head underneath and saw a young girl, probably no more than five years old hiding there. “Hey there, hon, my name is Isabel. I’m here with my friends to help you.”
The girl lay there with tears in her eyes, staring at Garcia.
“You can trust me, hon, now why don’t you come out from under there and we’ll take you away from here.” Garcia waited a couple of seconds and then gently reached out for her with her hand.
Unsure if she should, the young girl hesitated for a few seconds and then took Garcia’s hand. Slowly, she crawled out from under the sofa. Fear and disbelief filled the scared child’s eyes. For a second, she looked as if she was ready to bolt back under the couch when she laid her eyes on Roberts’ dog. “Doggy,” she said, reaching out for the animal.
Right away, the dog stepped forward and let the girl pet her on the nose. The girl smiled as she leaned forward and tightly wrapped her arms around the dog’s neck. The animal just stood there and took it all in stride.
“Do you like Tammy?” Roberts asked the girl.
She nodded and kept her hands tight around the dog’s neck.
“What’s your name, hon?” Garcia asked.
“Danika,” answered the young girl.
Garcia brushed the girl’s matted hair away from her dirty face. “Danika, it’s not safe to stay here. There are bad men all around here. My friends and I are here to take you to safety.”
“What about Mommy? I can’t wake her up.”
Sheridan felt a lump in his throat when he saw Danika look over at the body of a woman lying facedown on the floor. The thought that she had been all alone for days while her family lay dead on the floor tugged at his heart.
“First, we’ll take you somewhere safe and then we’ll see what we can do for your mother after that,” explained Garcia. “Would that okay?”
Danika meekly shook her head and then looked up at Roberts. “Can I walk with Tammy?”
Roberts smiled and handed the young girl his canteen and what was left of a candy bar.
“Sure thing, Danika, but Tammy prefers things to be nice and calm so were going to have to be extra quiet until we reach our friends. Can you do that?”
Danika enthusiastically nodded as she devoured the candy.
“Why do we seem to attract all the stragglers?” Cole whispered.
“I guess it’s on account of your warm personality,” quipped Sheridan.
The sound of a Kurgan tank firing its rail gun a few houses away shattered the couple minutes of calm they had been enjoying and brought the war back onto their doorstep.
“Time to leave,” said Sheridan.
Cole warily edged to the shattered doorway and peered out into the darkened street. It was clear. Waving everyone to him, he pointed at the next house they were going to all run for.
Roberts swept Danika up in his arms. “Just until we reach the other side,” he whispered in her ear. She wrapped her arms around his neck, closed her eyes and held on tight.
“Now,” said Cole. As one, they darted across the street and straight into the darkened building. They stopped for a moment, listening for the sound of anyone following them or perhaps moving around in the dark. When he was sure they were alone, Cole looked over at Sheridan who indicated for him to continue.
They repeated this routine for nearly an hour until they were close to the fighting. The smell of burning wood, explosives, and ozone from the Kurgan’s rail guns hung thick in the air. With Garcia, Roberts and Danika taking cover in a cellar, Sheridan and Cole crawled through the wreckage until they found a vantage point to observe the fighting. A long street marked the furthest extent of the Kurgan advance. It was easy to make out the Chosen warriors in their white camouflaged smocks lying in heaps beside the burnt-out remains of several destroyed tanks. They couldn’t see their own people, but the occasional muzzle flash from a window or firing port showed them where the Marines were firing from. It was obvious that anyone stepping out into the open was a dead man for sure. If the Marines didn’t kill you, the Kurgans would.
Sheridan looked up at the night sky and was surprised to see that there was half the number of drones hovering above the Marine’s position as there had been just two nights ago. He wondered if the Kurgans were having problems keeping them going in the cold weather.
Cole tapped Sheridan on the arm and pointed to a smashed tank sitting lengthwise across the road. “Sir, I think I just figured how we’re going to make it to the other side.”
Five minutes later with everyone briefed up, Cole stepped off and led the group through the ruined remains of a store. Its shelves had been looted. There wasn’t a thing left on them.
Sheridan was becoming uneasy. It was too quiet where they were. All of the fighting seemed to have suddenly shifted to the next block over.
His caution was shared by Cole, who had slowed to a snail’s pace. He suddenly raised a hand, indicating a stop and slowly dropped to one knee. He whispered over his shoulder, “Sir, see if Garcia is carrying any powder in her med kit.”
A minute later, a small bottle was handed to Cole, who unscrewed the lid and squeezed the bottle sending a fine cloud of powder up into the air. As the dust began to fall, the floor of the room they were about to enter was lit up with at least six beams of light that crisscrossed the ground.
Cole whispered, “Booby traps. Probably set by our side as they withdrew.”
Sheridan knew from his training that anti-personnel mines could be set up to be triggered if an enemy stepped in front of a laser beam. Backtracking, they carefully made their way out of the building. After a minute’s discussion, Cole picked a new route through an adjacent store. He moved carefully, stopping to check each room for traps before moving on.
The eerie silence that gripped the long, black street was unnerving. Sheridan’s mind began to play tricks on him. Every shadow, every odd shape became an enemy soldier. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. If they were going to make it to their lines alive, he had to stop being so jittery.
With less than ten meters to go to the destroyed tank, Cole told everyone to wait while he checked it out.
The sound of boots crunching glass underfoot made Cole freeze in place. Like a statue, he didn’t move a muscle as he listened to a couple of Chosen soldiers poking around in an empty shop. He couldn’t understand a word but figured that they were looking for food. After about a minute, the men abandoned their search and left the building, heading back toward their own lines. Cole let out his breath. He removed his finger from the trigger of his rifle and cautiously looked to see if there were any more Chos
en moving around in the dark. When he was sure that they were alone, he walked back and told the rest of the group to follow him. Using a nearby burnt-out vehicle for cover, they made their way unobserved to the back of the tank. Cole went first crawling on his belly underneath of the tank. Sheridan ordered Roberts and Danika, holding onto the dog, to go next. As soon as they vanished under the tank, Sheridan told Garcia to follow them while he pulled up the rear.
With one quick look around to make sure that no one was following them, Sheridan dove under the belly of the metal beast and began to crawl. Because of the size of the large armored vehicle, there was plenty of space underneath to move. In less than a minute, Sheridan was at the far side. He got up to his feet and sprinted to join his comrades. He had barely stepped inside a building on the Marines’ side of the street when a pistol was jammed into his face.
“Hands up, you Kurg bastard!” snarled a man.
Sheridan heard the anger and the fear in the man’s voice. He carefully raised his hands, hoping not to antagonize the frightened Marine. A pair of hands roughly grabbed him from behind, ripped his rifle from his shoulder and then pushed him down a long empty corridor. A couple of seconds later, he was manhandled into a room.
Cole stood there shaking his head in disbelief. “I guess these idiots think that the enemy has drafted little girls and dogs into the war effort.”
“Are we okay?” asked Danika as she took Roberts by the hand.
“We sure are,” he replied. “These people are just being careful, that’s all.”
A stream of invectives filled the air outside of the room.
Cole grinned. “Gunny Wilson’s still alive.”
The door opened and a chastised Marine waved at them to follow him. They walked through several destroyed buildings until they came to a set of stairs that led down into a basement. Inside, Sheridan saw Captain Rolleston huddled over a map.
Rolleston turned to face the newcomers. He had a bloodied bandage over his left eye. “Mister Sheridan, I take it that this is all that remains of your platoon.”
“Yes, sir, I believe so. Some could still be alive trapped under the ruins, but I doubt it.” For the next five minutes, Sheridan briefed his commander on what had happened to them and how they had made their way back to friendly lines.
Rolleston said, “It’s truly amazing that you made it back here alive. With your people, we now have a grand total of twenty-one Marines in the company.”
“Jesus,” muttered Cole.
Gunnery Sergeant Wilson said, “We’re being topped up tonight with whatever they can scrounge up. We’re going to receive a couple of platoons of artillerymen to act as infantry.”
“Something is better than nothing,” noted Cole.
“Get some food into you. After that get some rest,” said Rolleston. “You’ll probably be going back into action later tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Sheridan. Before he left, he found out that there was a refugee control center nearby. Roberts and Garcia volunteered to escort Danika to the center while Sheridan and Cole scrounged up some food and ammunition. After grabbing all they could carry, Sheridan and Cole found a quiet room in a building that hadn’t been too badly damaged in the fighting and took a seat.
Cole took off his helmet and scratched the top of his head. He let out a weary sigh and grabbed two ration packs. Before Cole could ask Sheridan what he wanted to eat, he heard the young officer snoring loudly. Cole turned his head and saw that Sheridan had fallen into a deep sleep the instant he sat down.
Chuckling to himself, Cole dug out his thermal blanket and laid it over Sheridan to keep him warm and then picked a ration to eat. He cracked his neck, sat back and listened to the sound of battle in the distance. With a resigned sigh, he envied Sheridan’s ability to fall asleep. He knew he wouldn’t relax until Garcia and Roberts were back. Such was the life of a platoon sergeant, he mused.
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