by JR Handley
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Pak. “Look at all this dust everywhere, and my helmet’s cracked. I’m frakked.”
“We’ll make it out alive,” replied Sashala. “We just have to make it to the city, and then we’re home free. We’ll sleep for a while on ice, and our nanites will scrub the radiation out of our blood.”
Sashala took point and began jogging in the direction Jade indicated in her helmet reticle. The smoke was thick in areas, as anything that could burn seemed to be in flames. It felt surreal to be running through the opaque soup, only to walk into a hulking piece of translucent Jotun architecture. Jade took the transit time as an opportunity to strategize.
The clearing around the sally ports leading into the underground city is huge, said Jade. It is imperative that you save some of your assault thruster energy for that stretch. Otherwise, you’ll be a slow-moving target. I’ve marked the best route on your helmet reticle. Move fast, don’t stop, and kill your way through. There’s no time to get bogged down in a prolonged fight.
Knowing that time was of the essence, and with nothing else left to plan, Sashala glanced over her shoulder to check on Pak. He was chugging along at the slow pace. Waving a hand over her shoulder to urge him on, Sashala increased the speed.
The terrain was more treacherous, the closer they moved to where the kinetic strike had hit the surface. Trees were blown flat, and many of them were ablaze. Their twisted roots reached for the sky as if surrendering, only to be swallowed by flames, as well. Unbelievably massive pieces of Kijiji dotted the area, forcing the pair to detour around and risk being barbequed. Outside the occasional detour, the creek bed they crept along saved them from the conflagrations dotting the landscape.
Skittering down a series of slippery rocks, Sashala heard a large thud behind her. She took another step forward before pivoting in a smooth and seamless motion, ending in a low combat crouch. She quickly scanned the area, looking for the source of the sound, as her heart raced, thumping an erratic pattern in her chest.
Looking down, she saw Pak lying in a spread-eagle position. Water flowed around him as his chest heaved up and down. His SA-71 was just out of his reach. Sashala jumped down to him, picked up his rifle, and smashed it into his chest. Instead of letting him have it, she put her weight into the rifle, crushing him.
“Listen to me. Marine. You never let go of your frakking carbine,” she whispered. “Vanderman took off his helmet. You left your carbine in the dirt. If you want to die, tell me, and I’ll put you out of your misery. But if you want to live, start acting like a Marine.”
Her tone seemed to snap him out of his funk. He didn’t reply, but Pak righted his kit and secured his SA-71 to his sling. With his gear stowed, he stood gingerly and prepared to follow her.
They continued their movement for several more hours, and the grit-filled air became darker. Even the Tranquility sun didn’t want to see what had happened to the planet below. Sashala lamented having to bring up Vanderman the way she did, but ever since that, Pak moved more efficiently. Jade sent an alert to her helmet indicating they would be leaving cover and moving into the clearing, and Sashala threw up a first to signal a halt.
Pak came over and dropped to a knee next to her, taking the chance to catch his ragged breath and drink water.
“We are about to enter the clearing, Pak,” said Sashala. “Per Jade’s recommendation, speed is our salvation. If you have juice left in your thrusters, now’s the time to use them. There’s a shite-ton of open space and sight lines ahead. It’s dark, and our visibility is nil, thanks to this haze. Unfortunately, the Hardits have outstanding natural night vision.”
“I’m tracking, Sash.”
“Jade, give me targets,” said Sashala.
The inky blackness Sashala saw in her helmet reticle flashed green, then black and white, layering night-vision with thermal. Hardits, who appeared bright white in her reticle, loitered around the blockish sally port, which was still more than one hundred yards away, uphill. The monkeys were staring across the clearing like they expected their gods to rise and deliver them from the planet on fire all around them.
She figured that they could try looping around to one of the other five sally port entrances, but Pak had already starting coughing. The crack in his helmet was causing him to suffer radiation sickness at a faster rate. They needed to move.
“We’ll go in through the front door” she decided.
Pak murmured his consent as she studied the sally port. Sashala hoped that Beta City was the same as Detroit City, since they were sister cities. She knew Detroit like the back of her SA-71, and she knew their old overlords believed in redundancy when it came to architecture.
If it was the same, the blockish structure would have exterior fortifications protecting the door to the city built below them. The entrance would be a series of blind turns designed to favor the defender and then lead to helical ramps that wound down into the city below. It would be dangerous, and she knew they’d need to be surgical in their assault to make it through alive.
“All right, Pak, let’s get this over with,” she told him. “Toss a flashbang to the far right as a distraction, then let’s make the sprint.”
They bumped armored fists before charging into the expanse ahead. Pak chucked the flashbang, and for a moment the haze in the air reflected blinding white light. Sabots began firing wildly as the Hardits reacted. The ground sloped upward, and Sashala tapped her thrusters to increase her velocity. A sabot penetrating her right thigh halted her sprint. The force of the speeding projectile knocked her to the ground and spun her onto her side.
“Contact, two o’clock!” she shouted.
Pak unleashed sabots in the general direction, but without a functioning helmet and AI support, he was firing blind. Before Sashala rolled to her chest to return fire, she ripped a can from her waist and pushed the top of it into the hole in her thigh. Medical foam hissed into the wound, and Sashala gritted her teeth so hard she thought one of them cracked. The beat of her heart softened as combat drugs coursed through her body. Soon, the pain had faded, and her tunnel vision vanished.
Pak was still running up the hill firing, and Sashala knew he wouldn’t last long at this rate. The Hardits already appeared white in Sashala’s reticle, but Jade ensured when her carbine sights were lined up, she would hit. Going from a slow jog to a faster gait, Sashala focused on the targeting points Jade provided and fired sabots through the haze-like void.
When her carbine ran dry, Sashala tapped her combat thrusters and zig-zagged. During the evasive maneuvering, her non-firing hand seated a new ammo carousel into her carbine. The process continued, and soon the hundred yards melted away. Pak was maintaining his speed; then he was gone. He hadn’t tripped or been shot. He was just gone.
A few moments later, Sashala jumped down into the trench Pak had fallen into. He was seated, gripping his rifle and coughing profusely. Small amounts of blood spattered the inside of his cracked helmet, around his mouth.
“You all right, Pak?” Sashala shouted as Jade isolated more targets for her to kill.
“Yeah, who needs blood, anyways?” he replied. “It’s either the rib or the radiation. Who knows at this point?”
Sashala knew it was the radiation. The alarms on her armor had been blaring in her ear ever since they closed in on the city, but she had Jade tune them out. They were now in the cone of radiation the gamma bomb had created, and the timeline for survival was compressed even more.
“We’ve got to get you inside and find you a helmet,” said Sashala. She took a moment to throw a grenade down the trench, blowing two Hardits to pieces. “Hell, the sooner we get iced, the sooner we can get this shite scrubbed from our blood.”
The sickly Marine stood, leaned against the trench, then straightened himself back up.
“All right, let’s make it happen,” said Pak.
The trench was cut along the outer perimeter of the sally port entrance. Sashala was happy to be surrounded by eart
hy sabot sponges. Their movement was deliberate and somewhat rapid. Maintaining magnetic contact back to back, Sashala moved forward while Pak walked backward. This method of movement in the trench, which was two times wider than their shoulders, allowed them to protect each other. Jade was using Sashala’s voice amplifier, so she could give direction to them both at the same time.
Stop here, said Jade. Sashala, give me a quick look at the sally port again.
Pak dropped to a knee with his back against the wall closest to the sally port, and Sashala stepped onto his shoulders to look over. The outer defenses of the sally port appeared formidable, proving to Sashala that the Hardits’ legendary engineering prowess was more than just idle rumor. Several machine gun nests, four that she could see, created a defensible semi-circle around the entrance to the sally port. To the flanks of these nests, low polycrete barricades, roughly waist high, allowed the Hardits to be on all fours and safely fire over the wall with their tails.
All of this stood in the way of their survival. A sabot sparked against Sashala’s shoulder and grazed across the skin, puncturing her armor. She jumped down from Pak’s shoulders, grabbed her wound, and hissed through her teeth.
That wasn’t a quick peek, that was a lethargic review, said Jade. Move forward. I see a route.
The area where she was peeking over began getting kicked up by incoming sabots. After Sashala sealed the breach in her suit with a flexible patch, they continued their back-to-back movement down the trench line. Sashala’s breathing was slow and steady, but she could hear Pak coughing and struggling to clear the fluid from his throat.
“Body to your left,” said Sashala.
“Roger,” Pak replied.
Sashala stepped over the dead Hardit she had shot in the neck, almost ripping off its head, and Pak lifted his foot high to clear it as he stepped backward. This communication kept Pak on his feet as he blindly following Sashala and engaged enemies to her rear.
Jade blared through Sashala’s voice amplifier. You two, stop now and review the holo-display I have linked into Sashala’s Digi-Sheet. I would recommend throwing proximity grenades around the bends of the trench ahead and behind, and putting two directional explosives above while you review.
Sashala broke the magnetic lock she had initiated on Pak, and he fell to his butt. She immediately felt lighter than air without the burden of pulling him along. She leaned down and assisted him to the wall of the trench. Then Sashala ripped grenades from his chest and tossed them, as Jade had recommended. Traps were placed above, and then Sashala pulled out her Digi-Sheet for the impromptu battlespace assessment.
Sashala smacked a couple buttons on the Digi-Sheet and placed it on the ground so she could split her attention between the tiny holo-display and the trench around her. The three-dimensional, glowing blue display seemed brighter in the thick smoke that clung to the burning planet after the kinetic strikes. Jade quickly reviewed her strategy while Sashala and Pak listened and glanced at the schematics.
Polycrete fortifications, here and here, are allowing the Hardits to fire with their tails from relative safety, said Jade. The holo-display flashed, showing the locations. Here, here, and here are the nearest machine gun nests. They cut these into the bunkers but limited their scope of fire. These are your primary concern. I have interlaced their fields of fire, and there is a lapse to the far right of these machine gun nests. This route will ensure only the Hardits firing blindly might hit you.
Sashala braced against the wall of the trench as one of the proximity grenades she had thrown detonated, tossing a smoking Hardit arm near her feet. Leaning over to Pak, she removed one of the grenades from his chest, switched it to proximity, and chucked it to where the last one had blown.
The force of Sashala pulling the grenade from Pak’s chest caused him to roll to his side and clench his stomach. The coughing fit that followed made Sashala’s skin crawl. More blood coated the inside of Pak’s broken helmet. Lifting his helmet to look at his face, Sashala could see the skin around his eyes, nose, and mouth looked burned and blotchy.
Sashala, he is suffering from serious radiation sickness and will require immediate medical attention to survive, said Jade. You must get inside quickly.
The two proximity grenades and the overhead directional explosives detonated at roughly the same time, and Hardit meat rained down from the opaque sky. Pulling Pak to his feet, Sashala shouted that they needed to move. Throwing the bodies of a few Hardits against the cut-earth wall of the trench, Sashala created a makeshift series of stairs.
“Pak, flashbangs on three, then we take those machine gun nests. Loop right, and we’ll come up behind them.”
Pak tried to give a thumbs-up, but another fit of coughing ruined it for him.
“One, two, three,” said Sashala as she hurled a flashbang toward the nests.
Crunching Hardit bodies, she sprinted up the bloody stairs she had created, tapping her assault thrusters as she came to the crest. Visibility was slightly better than before, but Sashala still relied on Jade’s targeting. Glancing to her left, she fired three sabots into the chest of the nearest running Hardit, which was clearly blinded by the flashbangs she and Pak had thrown.
The haze in the air flashed like a strobe as the three nearest machine gun nests to Sashala’s left pivoted their guns and fired. Jade was right: the route they had selected was just outside of their reach. Putting this threat from her mind, Sashala continued her surge upward. She needed to close on the low fortifications with the cowardly Hardits hiding behind them.
Hardit weapons seemed to hover in the smoky air in front of her. The monkeys fired randomly from behind the barricade in her and Pak’s general direction. The drenting animals didn’t bother to look. Instead, they let their tails hold down the triggers as they swept their weapons left and right. A feeling like a fist smashing her side indicated another sabot had found its mark. Jade spoke in her ear as Sashala gulped at the newfound pain.
It should be non-fatal. I’m deploying your suit’s internal foam to clot the wound and seal the breach.
“Enough!” Sashala bellowed as the combat drugs increased, and her rage intensified. Her assault thrusters propelled her tiny frame forward, closing on the drenting Hardit fortification. Grabbing a tail with her non-firing hand as she bounded over the polycrete fortification, Sashala pulled a Hardit onto its back and blasted it point-blank with her SA-71. Ten sabots later, the remaining Hardits dastardly firing at them from behind the low fortification were delivered to their unclean gods for sorting.
With her bloodlust increasing, she hauled arse past the dead Hardits toward the machine gun nests. Pak was climbing over the barricade she had just cleared, and was obviously struggling to continue moving. She knew it was up to her to clear the way.
The Hardits had built the four machine gun nests in a semi-circle around the entrance to the sally port, and there appeared to be only a single entrance to the rear. Their mistake was not elevating the firing ports high enough from the ground below. Sashala was about the capitalize on this oversight.
Jumping from the polycrete barricade she had cleared and sprinting in front of the machine gun nests, staying close to the polycrete into which they had carved their firing ports, Sashala released her carbine and allowed it to lock to her back. Ducking under smoking barrels, she lobbed a grenade into the rectangular port above, and felt the satisfying expansion of air and heat as the occupants were eliminated. The process was repeated three times, completely depleting her grenades. After the final grenade concussion, the non-stop chaotic fire from the machine gun nests finally ground to a halt.
Knowing another un-cleared barricade was waiting for her ahead, Sashala ripped two knives free from her legs and upped her speed. Carbines flashed in the smoke to her far left as Hardits in the hazy soup below, running the trenches, began firing toward their own position, trying to hit the tiny human who was destroying their fortification.
The familiar thump of a SA-71 grenade tube sounded behind her
, and a backward glance let her see that Pak had entered one of the smoking machine gun nests and was sending grenades into the trenches. Glad he was still alive to assist, Sashala gripped her two knives tighter as the rounded polycrete wall transitioned into barricade.
She jumped the waist-high polycrete gracefully, but then Sashala cursed as a Hardit stood up from behind the barricade and ruined her flight. Her body impacted the furry beast, and they tumbled to the ground. The larger and stronger Hardit gripped Sashala with its clawed hands and tail, and threw her into a wall near the entrance to the sally port.
The force of her impact against the wall nearly knocked her unconscious, and the severity of the blow caused the biometric display in her reticle to flash. She blinked away the fluttering lights in her eyes. Then she watched the Hardit let out a wild howl, pull a knife from its waist, and run toward her.
Undaunted by the charging Hardit, Sashala ripped her SA-71 free from her back and emptied four rounds into its head and neck. The remaining ten Hardits all turned their weapons on Sashala. She managed to hit two before her SA-71 clicked, indicating it was out of ammunition.
Carbine fire directly to her left nearly caused her to pee. Pak had arrived. He looked like the walking dead, but his purpose appeared clear: kill Hardits.
The reacting Hardits split their fire between Pak and Sashala, with Pak being the main sabot sponge. Sashala screamed as more sabots impacted her body, and Jade increased the flow of painkilling combat drugs to the point where Sashala felt slightly numb. Chunks of polycrete skittered against her body armor when Pak fired a grenade from the tube on his SA-71.
Shrapnel from the grenade shredded all but one Hardit, but it also sent bits of burning metal into Pak. Sashala roared her dismay when she watched Pak’s abdominal cavity open and spill his guts down his battered combat armor.
