He brought his own weapon up, a small sawn off shotgun, perfect for close quarter’s battles, “Yeah we’re ready.”
“Good,” Naomi retorted as she watched the remnants of the Separatist force withdraw, trampling over the bodies of the deceased and injured. They didn’t even care about each other, that shouldn’t of surprised her she had seen then rape, torture and even eat one another. Yet for a soldier to leave one of his own bleeding and dying in the dirt just seemed wrong somehow, she had to force her consciousness to remember that, she had seen humans do worse things.
It was the ultimate existential argument, which kept the so called experts who seemed to occupy the news channels. That was whether the Separatists could still be called human, or had they changed so utterly and profoundly that they had morphed into something new. Some argued that they were never really human, they were some kind of alien race, or the result of biological warfare or some contagion, like they were living and breathing zombies.
Some even maintained that peace could be found with the enemy that only if we tried to sit down and talk could this war end. She chuckled as she envisioned of one of this curmudgeonly eggheads sitting in a room, across the table from a crazed cannibal, with human organs stitched to his uniform. Trying to begin a meaningful discussion of the cessation of hostilities. Such arguments kept all these high-brow, intelligencer occupied, yet to her the war had become so simple, you either fight or you die.
She observed the enemy flee back and dive into the first trench line, this was it, she knew it, the tipping of the knife, if they didn’t push those bastards back now it was all over, the fate of this battle and the lives of her troopers would rely on what she did in the next few minutes Now that’s pressure, but she was used to it, she had been raised since she was a child, to be able to handle tactical situations just like this.
“COMS!” She shouted.
“Here, Crash Down,” Corporal Lauren “Firestorm” Watts, uttered as she strode over tall, athletic and beautiful with light olive skin and jet black hair. She was one of the most admired members of the platoon, not just for her looks which would turn most heads, or her razor sharp wit but because no one could bring down a fire mission like her. Ergo her nickname Firestorm; she had saved the whole companies ass, more times than Naomi could remember. Always with that beaming smile, even with death staring her in the face, it was like she possessed some special almost supernatural ability and they would need that now.
“I need your magic,” she whispered with a sly, almost knowing leer.
“You know it’s what I do.” Lauren replied, as she keyed her coms unit and picked up the transmitter. “This is Trench line delta, request fire mission over, I have hostile’s within my perimeter request you deploy all remaining on my position, repeat I have hostiles within my perimeter request you deploy all remaining on my position. Line then up control, I will guide you in.”
A relaxed drawl, crackled back over the receiver, “Roger that Trench line delta you have the ball, you have bombers at every thousand feet and orbital launches, keep your heads down trooper”
“I hear that,” Lauren answered coolly and then turned to Naomi and nodded.
“This is it prepare to charge!” Naomi yelled, fear and adrenaline combined to create a dangerous cocktail within her body. She shuttered her eyes for a moment and offered a quiet prayer to a God she hoped still listened, to protect her and her child, along with the rest of her troops and the man she loved. Then she turned to Lauren “NOW!”
Lauren nodded, her demeanour, calm and almost serene, “Fire mission grid forty-seven, ten-nine, fire for effect, I repeat fire for effect.”
“Roger that, in bound, it’s a lovely fucking war!”
Naomi glanced up and surveyed as the aerial bombers began their runs, sweeping low through the dense cloud cover, she watched as the bombs tore forth and plummeted down onto the first trench line now occupied by the Separatist. She felt the shockwave and the blast of hot air, which rocked her and nearly knocked her off her feet, as waves of radiant fire rolled over the trench. Further up she could see the tell-tale blistering of the clouds as orbital laser’s, began to charge, these would fire rays of basically super-heated light, which was like directing the power of a sun, into a specific area.
She knew it was time, once again to get into the real face of war up close and personnel. The kind of brutal and almost primal warfare, that most believed simply didn’t exist anymore, that battles were now fought from safe distances, by robots and drones. The vicious truth, was that wars had always been fought like this, right back to the very dawn of time, perhaps even to the original colonies of the Sol system and it was how it would always be.
It was the kind of conflict where you feel your enemies’ putrid breath upon your skin feel their warm fluid spray over your face, the type of fighting that changed you more each time you did it. If her God was looking down, may he forgive her, but it was what she had to do, this was a dark and unforgiving universe. She was fighting to save herself and all those that she loved.
“CHARGE!” she bellowed as she hoisted herself out of the relative safety of the foxhole and ran forth into the choking gloom, heavy with the putrid reek of burning death. Her war and life narrowed to the few feet in front of her face.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Joseph “Joe” Hellerman heard the order; he looked around at the faces of his troopers, he couldn’t believe he was saying that, how could he be put in charge, he’d only been in the Marines for a year and this was his first major battle. Before that he had been at College studying history, on one of the core Worlds, safe, insulated and spoilt. Raised in opulent luxury, where he could have anything that he wanted, his family weren’t millionaires, his father a lawyer and his mother an engineer, and yet they would throw away more than most here would have ever possessed. Of course what the college had called history, was what the Empire approved of as history as sponsored by the fucking Avers corporation.
He had wanted more though, he wished now as he glanced out at the carnage and heard the screams that he could go back now and literally slap himself in the privileged, smug face. It seemed so crazy now, trying to learn the true history of the Empire, what was the point in trying to find out who really ran the whole show or how this stupid war had started, or what had happened to the original colonies in the Sol system.
The night he had been arrested, played out now like a movie of his own downfall, the purity officers bursting into his bedroom, clad in their black suits with icy stares, blank faces portraying no discernable emotion, ceasing the illegal, banned text books he had managed to find buried in the sub basements of the campus, accounts that had talked of a time before the Empire, before the War. A time when people were actually free, when they had things called governments, when you could actually see the people who ran the worlds and planets. When you could actually vote to change them, of the place called Sol and of freedom. Sure it hadn’t been perfect, they were still just people after all, they still lied, cheated, stole and killed but at least they tried to have some rights and to build a better universe.
He recollected the suits offering him a simple choice because of his age and the fact his father was a prominent lawyer, although his parents had quickly disowned him, he couldn’t blame them, they had done it to save their own lives and positions. Survival after all trumps all other feelings. He could stand trial for treason against the purity of the Empire, which would mean he would appear live on television, be found guilty and shot then and there, the idea of free trials, was something from that olden time he had read about, where anyone had the right to defend themselves. Or he could join up and fight. It hadn’t been much of a choice so now he was here.
“FIGHT OR DIE!” He screamed, as he seized hold of the sand bags and lugged his trembling body out of the relative protection of the foxhole, his rifle held out in front of him. He could feel, a sheer and primal terror, crawl its way into his gut, while his heart began to pound and adrenalin beg
an to course through his veins. His entire body, prepared itself for battle, muscles that had only begun to properly develop in the last year, became tense and his tendons and sinews crackled. He didn’t look over his shoulder to see if anyone was with him, that didn’t matter, he knew they would be, they knew the same truth he did, the only one that mattered anymore. There was no peace, no justice, no honour and no freedom in this universe. Unless that is you had the money, or power to buy it, for everyone else there was only the never ending war and when your knee deep in the shit, nothing matters except trying to endure even if it was just for today, he would let tomorrow take care of itself if he lived that long.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Naomi hurtled over the bodies, more than she wanted to think about or to count, frames torn asunder, by the chain cannons, or the high explosive shells of the orbital assault. Although the sight of the bloodshed was one thing, it was the putrid reek that really hit you, charred flesh, iron and excrement. It was the kind of stink that got under your skin and no amount of showers could ever truly remove it.
As she cleared the smoke, she could see the Separatist begin to pour forth from the trench, she spotted an officer his heavily lacerated face proof of his dedication to the cause, no eyelids or nose were visible and a macabre collection of human ears had been sewn into his cheeks. He was attempting to regain some level of control in the chaos, trying desperately to direct his forces forward. Without stopping she slung her rifle, drew forth her pistol and brought it up to bear. She began to fire as she moved, her finger depressing the trigger over and over. The first two rounds only skimmed the officer’s shoulders, yet the third hit the bulls-eye and tore through the man’s head blowing out the back of his skull along with what was left of his sick brain matter. She watched his body twitch and then flop to the ground.
It was cold bloodied murder, even a few years ago she could never truly see herself, killing anyone, even though that was part of what her training was for. Yet now, her life was so much more straightforward, the morale element had almost been completely eviscerated, here amid this forgotten War, the rules were simple, they were the same rules that the ancient jungles had possessed, kill or be killed.
Without taking a pause, she holstered her pistol and brought back round her rifle. The enemy continued to charge four or five hundred metres away now, thousands of them maybe more and what did she have five hundred maybe less, all she could hope for was some of Firestorms magic it was her time to save the day again like a mystical heroin in one of the those stories she had heard as a child.
Just behind Naomi, Lauren Watts, keyed her coms unit.
“Drop it in close, we have troops out in the open, at trench line Charlie light’em up fire for effect, over.”
“Roger that, Trench line Delta, hang on, ordinance away.”
Lauren peered up and watched as the high level bombers, flying in the planets stratosphere unleashed their deadly cargo; the ordinance tore down through the clouds, mark-5 HPCD (high, powered, chemical, distributors). All she could do was watch now as the large, black bomb cases, fell through the haze and then at about two hundred feet from the ground, burst open releasing, the deadly cargo of small bomblets. Thousands of them struck the ground, amid the enemy charge and detonated. They sent fissures of angry flames up into the sky and rained down jagged, razor sharp pieces of boiling hot shrapnel upon the Separatists.
This first bombardment, decimated the initial ranks of the enemy. She really didn’t know how she did it, how she was able to bring in the wraith of the orbital fleet, so accurately all the time, she just had a natural gift, she could just read the terrain and just seemed to know where the enemy was going to be and exactly where the bombs needed to drop.
She didn’t think of it in turns of murder, she preferred to think of it in terms of survival, the more of the Separatists she could wipe out then the less of her friends that would need to bleed, it was simple and primal maths. Something she had always been naturally gifted at even back at school, they had called her a child genius, or at least a mathematical prodigy. Even as a youngster she had been able to take one look at an equation and simply be able to solve it. She had no idea why, they had studied her, prodded her and scanned her brain and even those eggheads had no idea where her gift had come from. She could, like now look at a piece of land and know exactly the angles that the weapons would need to be released at, at precisely what time, to her it was just another calculation, a formulae that needed to be solved.
It hadn’t taken long for her story as a child to get out and then the Military had learnt of her skills and persuaded her to join up, by kidnapping her mother and baby sister, it had been an uncomplicated decision, one life for two. The universal language of maths at work again.
“We have troops in the open, grid four-one, three-five.” In her mind the battlefield, was crisscrossed with lines and angles, and hundreds of perfectly formed equations.
“Roger that, birds are inbound to your location, we have gunships vectored to you, standby for tactical control.”
Lauren looked up again and spied the gunships plummet down and start their attack run; yes this was what she was good at. After all she was the bringer of death.
Joseph locked his gaze up at the immense, sleek gunships as they broke the cloud cover and began their runs. Hundreds of auto-cannons fired in unison, spewing forth thousands of rounds of explosive tipped shells a second, while high-powered flamers rained, liquescent flame upon the Separatist troops. To him it seemed like hell had been unleashed. The killing machines, swept in low over the battlefield, creating a simple and devastating fire zone, in front of the Marines. He felt gust of hot air, pummel his body as the ships powerful engines past by overhead. He didn’t think he had been so happy to see an inanimate object before.
He could see the enemy now silhouetted against the backdrop of fire, deformed and scarified bodies thrashed about in a vain attempt to extinguish the blaze that embarrassed them.
He glanced over and saw, a Marine he had heard called “Firestorm” kneeling down her coms unit in hand, he knew that she was responsible for bringing the quite literal death from the skies and she had probably saved their lives. It was then he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned his head and saw the Separatist crawling along the ground, both his legs were gone, simply replaced by filthy stumps which dragged along after him.
It was a disgusting sight, yet it was what the enemy had clutched in his hand that caught his attention. It was a goddamn flux grenade, a speciality of their adversaries, once detonated it created a vortex of living, energy with the equivalent force of about fifty thermal grenades, it was technology not even the egg heads in army intelligence could crack. The rumour was that either it was some kind of top-secret tech, which had been stolen somehow from some clandestine, Empire weapons unit. Or that the explosive had been created by the enemy themselves, during the first stages of the war, when they operated their own, research and ordnance development planets.
Not that any of that counted for much or was important here and now. It wasn’t how it worked, or where it had come from that mattered, just that it was about to kill “Firestorm”, and with her the vital air support that was at this moment in time keeping them all alive.
Joseph had never really considered himself a man of action, he had never been gifted at sports, even though he had enjoyed watching them. No he was a man who had, always been cautious, always enjoyed taking the time to plan and process everything. Yet now, amidst the chaos of the battle, There was no time for thought, or strategies, he had to react quickly and without pause.
He set off and began to run towards the wounded Separatist soldier. Who was about thirty metres behind “Firestorm” now, pulling his body along quickly, seemingly unaware or unaffected by the fact or indeed the agony of losing both his lower limbs. He simply continued to crawl, through the muck, over the mutilated remains of his comrades.
He had heard the tales of course about the ene
my, as everyone within the Empire had, ghost stories mainly told to children to keep them in line that was what most people thought. Bloody accounts of the rape, torture, murder and sheer wanton blood lust shown by an adversary that supposedly worshipped a dark power or an ancient evil, is how the puritans like to put it, when they wished to turn the conflict into a religious battle.
To most citizens of the Empire, the war itself was just a distant thought, something they read about or saw reports about on the censored news networks and something they talked or gossiped with their friend about. To most it was not a tangible thing, it was an abstract exercise, conducted far from their comfortable lives, by people they neither cared about, nor would even acknowledge. The war itself had been raging for so long that it had become engrained in the very psyche of the realm, it was its very reason to exist, to fight the Separatist and protect all that it had built.
These immaterial considerations cleared from his mind and his vision narrowed, as he strode forward he brought his weapon up ready, he could feel the muscles in his arm tense and twitch. He had to do this just right, if he shouted a warning to “Firestorm” the Separatist could hear him and just pull the pin, even fifteen metres away as she was the blast would certainly kill her. No, he would have to be more careful, one shot, one kill, as his instructors had drubbed into him at basic. He could almost hear his drill instructor, a man mountain, whose breathe had smelt almost constantly like something had crawled in there and died. Telling him to control his breathing, remember to lead the target, never pull the trigger as they did in the movies, squeeze it gently and above all keep calm. “Panic will just get you one thing, a one way fucking ticket to hell.”
The Separatist was ten metres away now, then abruptly he stopped, he reached his free left hand over; this was it he was going for the pin. Joseph took in a shallow gasp, he felt his throat and lungs burn as adrenaline tore through his system. He lined up the crosshairs and still running squeezed the trigger, gently, as he had been taught.
The Last Foxhole (The Forgotten War Saga Book 1) Page 14
