The Conscripts: Fight or Die (Blood War Book 3)

by Rod Carstens

  Hu grabbed his shovel off his leg holder. The nearest hybrid was rolling on the ground. He almost had the fire that was consuming him out. He turned on his back and saw Hu, and with what must have been a near superhuman effort given the flames that still engulfed him, he grabbed for Hu’s leg. Hu swung his razor-sharp shovel and took the hybrids head off at the neck. It rolled burning across the roof. The other hybrid, who had taken the brunt of the retros’ flame, lay still. Then she began to sit up. Hu caught her in the top of the head with blade of the shovel and she fell back and didn’t move. He snapped his shovel back into his holder.

  The other two hybrids were running, flames fanned, desperate to escape the fire. Hu pulled his .48 off his chest and started to shoot them. Then he remembered the children on 703 and decided to let them burn.

  Someone behind him fired two bursts from a rail and tore the two burning hybrids in half in a spray of blood and burning flesh. Hu turned and saw it had been Gras, his assistant fire-team leader. Close behind him were Lena and Bien. That meant his whole fire team was down and safe. Hu glanced at his heads-up and saw they had been dropped exactly where they were supposed to be, at the northwest end of the hangar. The rest of the platoon was stretched out in a line. At the other end of the hangar he could see one of the laser towers crumble to half its height.

  Around Hu the roof was a melee of hybrids and Marines in hand-to-hand combat. Hu, with the rest of his fire team, ran toward a group of Marines and hybrids near a stairwell leading up from the hangar below. The Marines were literally tearing the unarmored hybrids limb from limb. He saw one marine rip a hybrid’s arm off and begin to beat him with it, but more continued to pour up the stairs.

  The Marines and hybrids were in too close to use his rifle, so he snapped it back into its rack on his chest and grabbed his pistol and shovel. He fired point-blank into the head of a hybrid raising a rail, then kicked the body aside and swung his shovel at the head of a hybrid just emerging from the stairwell. The shovel took the top of the hybrids head off, and he fell back down the stairs.

  Hu shoved his pistol into its holster, grabbed a fistful of mini-grenades from his leg pocket, and threw them down the stairwell. Multiple explosions filled the stairwell, followed by screams of pain from below. No more hybrids came up the stairs. He turned and looked for more hybrids, but all he saw was Marines standing around amidst mutilated bodies. None of the Marines were down.

  Even though the hybrids had been unarmored, that had not stopped them from attacking. It had been a slaughter, but it was a behavior Hu had seen on 703. They would attack as long as they were alive. Everyone stood there for several moments, stunned by the last few minutes. Dropping into a hand-to-hand battle, even if it was with an unarmored enemy, would make anyone pause.

  Finally Lieutenant Taro said, “Let's go. We’ve got to move! We’ve still got a mission to complete.”

  “Behind you!” someone yelled.

  Hybrids were jumping from the ground onto the roof. He could see the flash of Marine’s rails as they fired on the ’brids all over the roof. Before he could move, a hybrid jumped from the ground and appeared above the roof’s parapet not twenty feet to his right. He fired and hit the hybrid just before it landed blowing it back off the roof. The runway was covered with hybrids converging on the hangar and the other buildings where the company had landed. Always choose the high ground, Hu thought.

  “Lieutenant, the runway,” Hu said.

  “First squad, get on line. Fire on the ’brids on the runway. Second squad, take care of the ’brids at our backs,” Taro ordered.

  Hu and the rest of the first squad ran over to the edge of the hangar and began to fire at the hybrids racing across the open ground of the runway toward them. Hu put his crosshairs on a hybrid and fired, then took out another and another. They seemed to be appearing out of nowhere. They had to be coming from Hangar Three across the runway. That was third platoon’s drop zone. Hu saw no friendly troops over there. Where was Bravo Company?

  “Lieutenant, you got a readout on Bravo? They have Hangar Three and the runway?” Staff Sergeant Elias asked.

  The lieutenant’s armor gave him a company-view selection on his heads-up. He was the only one in the platoon who saw the deployment of the whole company.

  “Negative. I’ve got nothing on my heads-up.”

  “I don’t think we can hold them,” Elias said.

  Hu realized he didn’t see Nani’s position on his heads-up. If she wasn't on the roof then she was somewhere by herself he had to find her.

  “Where’s Nani!?”

  “Unknown. Fire on the goddamned runway! We’ll find her later!” Elias yelled.

  Just then one of the Mike boats came roaring back down the runway at no more than fifty feet. Its engines kicked up dust and debris as it made a gun run. Its metal-storm .50 caliber tore up the tarmac and the hybrids. When two hundred and fifty thousand rounds a minute walked down the runway, hybrids simply disappeared in bloody mist in its deadly stream of fire.

  135th Penal Battalion

  3rd Company

  First Platoon

  The APC banked several times, first to the right then to the left. Fenes was thrown right and left in his seat’s harness, but the pilot never said a word about where they were or how soon they would be on the surface. It was a weird ride in the back of a blacked-out landing craft, with no idea was happening or see anything except his heads-up. He knew their landing craft had to form up with the other ships in the first wave, then once in formation would dive for the surface as quickly as possible. He knew that destroyers were in a ball-of-twine set of orbits pounding any and every target they could find. Fenes wished he could see that, or anything for that matter. It might have made him feel better.

  The nose of the ship pitched down. They must be making their entry now. The ride got rougher as they went through the upper atmosphere. The APCs were hardly made for aerodynamics—it must have been like pushing a box through the air. The ship dropped so hard it threw Fenes forward against his seat’s straps. The shipped continued be buffeted as it entered the atmosphere so violently Fenes held his breath until the ride slowly smoothed out. Maybe the worst was over.

  Then the ship thrown up then down again, but it felt different—it didn’t feel like pilot was doing the maneuver. Fenes heard something banging on the ship. He had no idea what causing the pounding until he saw a dent appear in the opposite bulkhead next to Ardan’s head. The Xotoli's were firing at them! He glanced at Striker. He looked as if he was asleep, he was so relaxed. Fenes tried to take his lead from Striker, but he couldn’t stop shaking. More tremendous bangs and more dents appeared in the side of the ship. The ship was thrown almost sideways, then down again. Fenes wondered what would happen if they were holed. Could his suit survive the vacuum? His heads-up was suddenly filled with a countdown clock. It showed one minute.

  “One minute. Lock and load,” Striker said. He wasn’t asleep after all.

  Without thinking Fenes went to lock and load his .48, something he had done hundreds of times over the last months. But his hands were shaking so badly he wasn’t able to do it his first try. It took him two more tries before he had his rifle locked and loaded. The countdown on his heads-up turned red when it hit ten seconds.

  Nine.

  The ship flared out so the compartment was in a horizontal position.

  Eight.

  Even through his armor and the bulkhead, he could hear the landing retros firing to slow the ship down.

  Seven.

  More and louder banging on the side of the compartment.

  Six.

  Holes began to appear in the bulkhead as rounds went through the armor.

  Five.

  More and larger holes.

  Four.

  The lieutenant was violently thrown forward in seat, blood spattering everywhere. He was bent double, not moving. Blood poured from what had been his faceplate.

  Three.

  The ship lurched one way then a
nother.

  Two.

  Fenes couldn’t wait any longer. He didn’t want to end up like the lieutenant. But the straps in his seat held him in place.

  One.

  The straps automatically released.

  The back ramp dropped and the closest men and women ran down the ramp into the dark. The night was lit up with red, green, yellow, and white streaks from weapons of all types. The first troops to exit hesitated when they saw what waited for them outside the APC.

  “Get off my ship, you shits!” the pilot screamed over the intercom.

  “Move! Move! Move! This goddamned ship is a great big target!” Striker yelled over the platoon frequency as he pushed through the frozen troops.

  Fenes reached the ramp and jumped off into the sand. He was stopped in his tracks by what he saw in the chaos-filled night. To his right a group of troops from another APC had just jumped off the ramp when something exploded in their midst. Some fell. Others simply disappeared. An arm was thrown in an arc out of the explosion and landed on the ramp next to Fenes. The armored hand closed into a fist while the stump spun. Then it was still.

  A trooper from the third squad was blown backward by the force of whatever struck him. He landed on the ramp, a huge hole where his chest had been. An APC screamed overhead, trailing smoke and fire. Troops were jumping out the back and falling over a hundred feet to the sand. Fenes stood there, staring at the maelstrom, more scared then he thought possible. He stood still staring at the deadly chaos, Fenes was completely overwhelmed, unable to move. What could he do in the face of this kind of violence?

  “Danger, danger. Take cover. Large volume of enemy fire. Danger close. The fire is danger close. Take cover,” his suit’s AI informed him in a calm, computer-generated voice.

  His armor was right. He needed to move, but where? It seemed as if everywhere he looked there were explosions and all types of weapons tearing up the ground. A green tracer passed so close to his head he ducked and began to move. If he stayed still, the next one would be in the middle of his chest. He went to run forward but tripped over something and fell face-first into the sand. A streak of orange light passed just over his head and blew a hole in the side of the ship. He pushed up and looked back at what he had tripped over. It was the bottom half of a soldier, still in his armor, legs kicking. Fenes lay there looking around for something, anything that might give him some courage or direction.

  Then he saw Striker. He was standing a few feet away in middle of the hell, calmly walking around and pulling platoon members to their feet, shoving them to the left of the huge crater in front of them.

  “Get up and move. You’ll die lying here. Move. Come on, move.”

  Fenes was amazed at how calm Striker was as he moved around the rear of the ship. He was astonished nothing hit Striker in that storm of fire. Fenes realized that that was what leadership looked like. Standing up and doing something when everyone else lay there waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

  “Move to that small crater on the left. Move!” Striker was pointing to a crater about a hundred yards away.

  If Striker could do it, he could. He stood.

  “Goddamn it, move! You heard Striker, move your asses! Follow me!”

  His legs were weak with fear, but he was able to move.

  Ardan and Minga were up with Fenes. Fenes ran as fast as he could, using the armor to take big bounding steps that covered the open ground quickly. The rest of his squad was close behind. As they ran, the ground around them was churned up by all types of weapons as the fire from a ridge in front of the landing zones. It was lit up by hundreds different kinds of weapons firing at them.

  “The small crater to the left!” Striker shouted to the rest of the platoon. More and more of them began to stand and follow Fenes, Ardan, and Minga toward the crater.

  The crater was deep enough to provide defilade cover from the ridge until they could get their bearings. He turned to check on his squad and saw the APC that had carried them lift off. It had not reached a hundred feet when something struck it. An explosion broke its back. It plunged out of control into another APC that was just unloading its troops. Both of the ships and the men and women they carried were destroyed in a series of explosions, throwing debris and troops in a wide area around the crash site.

  Everywhere he looked, there were ships landing, taking off, or crashed and burning brightly. An APC landed nearby and dropped its rear hatch. A stream of green rounds from the ridgeline filled the troop compartment before a single trooper could move down the ramp. One then another trooper fell out, but no one else got out. The APC just sat there, rear ramp covered with dead bodies. The fire from the ridge must have killed the pilots too, because it didn’t take off.

  The LZ was in chaos troops were running everywhere. A few seemed to be trying form up, but most were simply running. It looked like Fene's company was being decimated before they had even gotten off the APCs. Fenes could see the ridge in the distance more clearly now. It looked like a string of lights had been set up along its length, there was a constant twinkling. Then the streak of a plasma weapon tore into the burning hulk of an APC. The sand around Fenes began to kick up in large fountains. They had spotted him and the rest of the platoon.

  In one large leap he covered the last twenty-five yards and landed in the crater.

  Fenes looked around. He spotted Ardan and Minga with their sergeant stripes on the backs of their helmets. They were on either side of him. They had made it. Striker was standing in the bottom of the crater doing a body count.

  “Is this all there is?” Striker asked.

  “Where's the rest of the company?” Fenes asked.

  “No idea. We’re gonna move to our objective. If there are any others left, they'll eventually show up. All right, we gotta move cause they are going to nail this crater as soon as they can get a good bearing on it. We need to get to the dunes. I want first squad in a wedge, second squad diamond, and the third on line. Keep your fucking intervals or you’ll draw fire.”

  Fene's training finally kicked in, he had something to do and people to lead. He stood and said, “First squad on me. Wedge. Double time, move!”

  He was up and out of the crater and moving as fast as he could toward the large field of wind-shaped dunes in the distance. His heads-up said they were close to a mile away, but the way he was moving it wouldn’t take long before they reached them.

  It dawned on Fenes that this was the first time he had ever really worn his armor—all the other times had been in the simulation. It felt exactly the same, and he found he didn’t have to think about it to use it. All the training on the ship had prepared him for this. Given how crude the sim was, he was amazed at how well it had prepared him. He landed and pushed off with his right leg and took a long stride over some small craters and the rock-strewn plain. He landed on his left leg and bounded again. He was covering ground at a rate that he had never been able to achieve in the simulation.

  On his next bound Fenes looked past the dune field. In the distance almost on the horizon could see the colors of a battle as the marines made their landing at LZ Sol. Being on the extreme left of the VF forces, it would be up to his platoon to tie in with the marines. A Ura saying came to mind. Worry about your piece of the war and let the people with all the brass on their collar worry about the big picture. Take care of you and yours.

  He glanced at his heads-up and saw with a sense of pride that his squad was in position and moving together just the way they had practiced for days on the ship. Second squad was in a diamond with Striker in the center, and the third squad was on line. The whole platoon was moving just as they had been trained to do. The fire from the ridgeline was concentrated on the LZs. Striker was right. The sooner they got away from the LZ’s the better. They were overgrown bull’s-eyes.

  Fenes kept sweeping across their line of movement. Nothing. All the physical training was paying off. The fast pace felt natural, and he had learned how to use the armor without exertin
g his body too much. He could keep this pace up all day.

  A red streak passed over his head, followed by a huge explosion. It was the destroyers trying to take out the Xotoli in the ridgeline. Another red streak. This time the explosion was closer. Sand and rocks bounced off his armor. He knew it was hard to hit something from orbit, but how about leaving a little margin of error?

  Fenes turned his attention back to the ground in front of him. It was perfectly flat, covered by small rocks and pebbles. The sand ranged in color from a deep red to almost an orange, with a number of hues in between. No place to hide or take cover until the dunes ahead. He increased his pace. The sand was very fine, with a texture that was almost a powder. His armor’s weapons system was scanning ahead for movement or anything else that was not natural. Nothing. A lot of nothing. The aliens were still concentrating on the LZ’s. The explosions and streaks of plasma and laser weapons around LZ Sol were getting more vivid as they moved. He had almost reached the first line of the dunes. The dunes were all U-shaped, with the arch of the U pointing toward the ridgeline ahead. They would provide cover and concealment until the platoon could link up with the marines.

  “Don’t stop at the first line of dunes. I want us in the middle of those things,” Striker said.

  “Roger that,” Fenes said.

  He landed at the base of the first dune. They were huge—at least thirty feet high, some even higher—and the space inside the U formed by the dunes walls were hundreds of yards across. Fenes made sure to put extra into his jump and cleared the first of the outer dunes. He continued to move through the dunes, checking his squad for spacing and formation in this very difficult terrain. They were still in a wedge as best they could manage given the landscape. By the fourth or fifth set of dunes, Fenes saw they were well into the dune field, with plenty of cover from the ridgeline.

  “Sarge, how about here?”

  “Looks good, Fenes. Ground and spread out.”