by Chris Bostic
Connie sat in his typical supervisory position watching the others work. His thoughts on the robots and military life filled his squad’s helmets. “They still can’t make a machine that can climb this godforsaken place…not rock by crooked rock.”
“Lucky us,” Pete quipped.
“Darn right,” Kayla said, surprising Joe with her insistence. “I’d rather be here than back in Pasun.” She made a production of taking a deep breath as if she could actually taste the outside air through her closed visor. “This is freedom.”
Joe noticed that Leisa, keeping watch at the valley below, turned to look at Laura. The girls couldn’t speak without the whole squad hearing them over the headset communicators, but quick finger taps on the side of her helmet were apparently enough of a secret girl code to get the point across, since Laura nodded in understanding.
The girls weren’t the only ones growing rapidly convinced Kayla was losing her sanity. Joe knew no one in their right mind would think life in the Regulators was anywhere close to freedom. Granted, nothing about life at home was free or easy, but Joe had family there. A younger brother and two parents who needed him back alive more than the Regulator’s needed him. But he didn’t have a choice.
The only place less free than the military was the prison aptly named Old Stony Lonesome. That’s what happened to those who didn’t accept their conscription into the Regulators. One day you’re listening to another boring lecture in tech school, and the next they tell you it’s either soldiering or a trip to Old Stony. With helping out at home not part of the equation, it seemed like a simple decision for Joe. He had to serve his time and hope that his family survived as well.
When Joe broke into his backpack to pull out dehydrated dinner packets for the squad, he wondered if the prisoners at Old Stony ate better. Surely they did. Though he assumed the inmates were brutally mistreated, he figured they probably lived longer, too.
CHAPTER 2
After a quick dinner, Connie gestured for Leisa and Laura to do the dishes. It didn’t amount to more than wiping out the bowls, but he still insisted. Rather than bicker with him about that, Kayla restarted a different argument with her superior.
“You know the savages won’t help out the barbarians,” she insisted.
“Says you. I don’t trust the K-Nappers one bit.”
“Why would they?” she replied. “They’ve got nothing to gain.”
“Nothing to lose either. They probably think we’re coming after them next. Besides, the savages could gain a little respect with a strong showing on the battlefield.” Connie cleared his throat, and ended up having to take a drink to wash the remnants of gritty dinner powder the rest of the way down. “Not that I think they can, but you gotta watch the little guys. They’re always out to prove themselves.”
Joe was startled to hear Connie coming around to Pete’s way of thinking on the supposed build-up of K-NAP troops to the north at the border on the Yula River. He preferred not to think about it anymore, and wished he could take his helmet off to avoid the chatter. Or at least silence his transmitter, but that would be against orders. Then again, he didn’t always follow orders, and he snuck a hand under the lip of his helmet to manually override the volume down to a whisper.
Pete poked him and motioned for Joe to follow him off to the left.
“We’re going to dig in,” Pete spoke into his mouthpiece, interrupting his superiors’ argument.
Connie brushed him aside with a wave and turned back to his debate without a second look.
The two friends hoisted on their packs and slipped behind Danny who had taken the first guard shift after dinner. They went about forty yards over, and then a good thirty paces below the ridge top to where they had a commanding view of the valley. Not too far in front of their position, the blackened earth was interrupted by a small copse of sickly looking trees.
“What’s up?” Joe asked as soon as he dumped his pack and removed his helmet. Thankfully, the sun had faded below the distant peaks, which dropped the temperature ever so slightly. But the rapidly closing darkness left them subject to possible counterattack. The barbarians almost always struck at night.
“You believe all that stuff about the savages, right?” Pete said, nodding as if he was sure Joe would agree.
“I don’t know what to think.” After a short pause, he added, “I’m not paid to think.”
“You get paid?” Pete said, and tapped his buddy on the shoulder. “Seriously, though. I have a real bad feeling about this. For once I think me and Ole Connie might be in agreement.”
Joe chuckled. It wasn’t the time for laughing. The odd reaction made Pete screw up his face in a confused grimace, but Joe couldn’t help it. Connie wasn’t that old. Joe doubted the guy had hit thirty yet, but that still made him a veteran several times over. None of the three guys, or the two younger girls, had made it to eighteen yet. If Pete’s right about the savages joining the fight to help out the PVA, Joe thought, maybe none of us will.
“We’re about to test your theory,” Joe said, gazing nervously down into the valley.
“Don’t say that,” Pete said, but Joe felt certain he was thinking the same thing.
The guys hadn’t run across a single savage in their mustard-colored uniforms yet, but rumors had swirled around base that their hordes were poised to enter the war. Not because they held any love for the beleaguered PVA barbarians, but more because they hated the Republic’s Regulators more than life itself. And life wasn’t worth much anymore.
Without firsthand knowledge, the guys could only assume the savages would operate under the same rules of engagement as the PVA troops. In other words, subversion, trickery, night attacks, and anything else that put the Regulator’s technology at a disadvantage. Much like how it had been over the last few weeks trying to force the barbarians out of those wretched hills.
Joe looked back toward his superiors, but they remained barely out of sight. Probably still arguing, he thought. And darkness was flooding in faster than a breached dam.
“You’d better get to digging in,” he told Pete.
“Give me a hand, then I’ll help you.”
“Fine, bud.” Joe pulled out his shovel and frowned at the first unsatisfying crunch into the rocky moonscape. “This is gonna suck.”
“We better hurry.” Pete gazed nervously at the blackening sky.
“Thinking about those savages?”
“Yeah…and the barbarians. Kayla might not be right. They might not be running away. They could be anywhere and we’d never know.” He dug in with his shovel and cursed the hard ground. “Sorry. You know I get kinda jumpy after dark.”
“We all do,” Joe replied. “Trust me.”
It had been that way since day one. Since well before Jackson and Sievers had been cut down a couple days earlier. Or before that, when half the platoon had been wiped out in a mass charge when Joe was brand new to the battlefield.
Joe was fortunate nightmares never plagued him, but he wasn’t exactly sure why. He thought it was because he never slept through the night anymore. Or that he’d become immune. He supposed some of the bad things that had happened back home had served as a vaccine of sorts.
Mostly, Joe tried his best to not get too attached to his squad mates. The more he let himself get emotionally involved, the more the deaths would affect him. Right or wrong, he thought it best to keep to himself, though Pete had found a way to partially break through his walls.
It was getting too dark to linger without starting on Joe’s foxhole. So they called Pete’s complete even though the whole excavation wasn’t a foot deep. As the two scooted over to the right about thirty feet to start on Joe’s, Danny came running along the ridge toward them.
“Hey! Connie’s looking for you and he’s pissed.”
“He didn’t look very far,” Pete quipped. “He could’ve walked here in ten seconds.”
“Or leaned over.” Joe looked up the hill around a little bush and spotted Connie still planted
next to his boulder backrest. Kayla and the girls had left him alone.
Danny was never much for small talk. He abruptly turned to hike back up the hill, and said, “Just get those hats on so I don’t have to hear about it.”
“Aye, aye,” Joe replied, but took his time pulling on his helmet. As soon as it settled over his grimy face, the earpiece lit up like a lightning flash.
“You boys done jacking around?” With no reply forthcoming, Connie added, “I shouldn’t have to tell you the situation’s about to get serious. We go over this every night. Don’t even think about taking those helmets off again.”
“Yes, Sarge,” Joe replied, though he didn’t understand the concern other than the usual fears about nighttime attack. Everyone seemed convinced the PVA’s forces were routed and all was quiet—at least everyone but Pete, and possibly Connie.
“Everyone else in position?” Connie asked.
Communication chattered as the squad sounded off. Joe mentally tuned them out as he started digging on his foxhole. Sweat instantly beaded on his forehead, but he didn’t take off the helmet to wipe it away. Instead, he put the visor down and motioned for Pete to head back to his spot.
With a good luck hand gesture, Pete slunk off through the widely scattered trees to his hole. Joe watched him slip into the hard dirt, though his entire upper half was still exposed. He’d have to fully lie down to be out of sight.
Joe turned the other way, trying to spot Kayla and the two girls, especially Leisa. He was intrigued the most by the quiet confidence of the shapely brunette. Or maybe it was something more. He refused to acknowledge it at the risk of getting too emotionally involved.
The girls had hunkered down out of sight in the rock-strewn slope. Joe silently wished his whole crew well. The idea of something potentially serious happening did not sit well, and the lining of his stomach paid the price as his dinner turned to concrete.
A long, quiet night was exactly what they needed, but Joe knew better than to count on it. They tended to get better sleep during the day, even if it was only an hour or two between marches.
Danny had first watch. Joe wondered why Connie didn’t make two people stay up at all times, especially if he was extra concerned. Having a pair of sentries would improve the chance of the night watch staying awake and alert, but Joe expected it was because they were already down two squad members. They could hardly spare wearing out the remaining manpower.
Knowing he’d never get comfortable, Joe stretched out in his foxhole anyway and snuggled against his backpack like it was his lover. Sadly, the only lover he’d ever known.
The heat seemed to rise right out of the dark earth as if he was baking on a pizza stone. So he broke the rules again, and reached up to unfasten the clasps on the body armor to let it hang open from the chest.
The Regulators were armored as well as old-fashioned tanks even though it was some kind of peculiar liquid metal that Joe didn’t fully understand. It felt like a full body lead apron like the ones people wore when they got x-rays, but not quite as heavy. Most importantly, he knew he was reasonably safe when fully covered, other than the occasional weak spots at overlaps and crevices like between the shoulders and his helmet. It was Joe’s job to make sure the enemy didn’t get close enough to exploit one.
He kept his helmet tight. A brain was too important to leave exposed, even if he was considered nothing more than a pack mule.
Upon second thought, Joe slid his visor up to let the steam rise off his face. The miniature fog dissipated, and a clear night sky filled his vision. Stars should have been twinkling up there somewhere, but they looked more like fuzzy white dots showing through a dark bed sheet.
The haze was constant, though not as noticeable during the day. The campfires of encamped savages across the Yula River caused that, some had suggested. Others called it the fog of war.
Not much of a war anymore, Joe thought. There were no transports dropping off squads of shock troops. No clash of giant mechanized beasts across a broad plain, with lasers firing and sound pulses disorienting the enemy. And definitely no uniformed legions marching in parade precision through the streets of an enemy capitol.
The Regulators had taken their first objective weeks ago, practically without a fight. At least at first. Then the insurgency began, with stealth and darkness and the cruelest, vicious attacks. A thousand pinpricks.
Joe was happy to have missed that. He didn’t get pulled from his living quarters at the tech school until a month before, and went straight into the service of the Republic with no formal training. His training came in the form of Connie’s lectures during long transport flights, meals at the mess hall, the minutes before lights out, and—eventually—under fire.
“Might as well get some sleep,” Joe said to himself, keeping his voice down so the others wouldn’t hear him.
Danny’s voice filled his head a moment later. “Connie, wake up. You better see this. Now.”
CHAPTER 3
“Sound off,” Connie said, grunting over the communicator. Joe imagined the bulky man laboring to pull his big frame out of his hole.
“I’ve got shadows in the valley,” Danny replied.
Joe thought he sounded as nervous as a youngster scared of his own shadow. That wasn’t like Danny, though he wasn’t always as tough as he pretended.
“Yeah?” Connie replied, sounding skeptical.
“Lots, Connie. Like a frickin’ million.”
“Sit tight…whoa.” Connie’s voice echoed through Joe’s head. “Unholy alliance!”
Kayla’s voice popped in over Joe’s earpiece. “They’re not just in the valley! They’re all over the Fifth!”
The sky lit up to the squad’s right. All at once, the ancient grenades of the barbarians burst along the top of the hillside, throwing fireballs into the sky. Though far enough away from that danger, Joe and his squad mates buried themselves in the rock.
The concussions reached the squad a moment later. Joe rolled to his stomach in his foxhole. While keeping his eyes peeled on his allies to the right, he refastened his body armor and gripped his coilgun tightly. His dark eyes focused on the valley below.
Through his peripheral vision, Joe saw tracer fire like laser bursts zip into the Fifth’s position. But still none to his front. Could they be lucky enough to miss out? He’d heard the barbarians often hit small parts of the line, always probing for weakness.
He slid his visor down, and the built-in night vision immediately kicked in. The whole world turned a spooky grayish-green. He thumbed a button on the left side by his cheek, and the infrared heat display popped. Every time his eyes strayed to the right, they were overwhelmed by the heat explosions from the far ridge, so he turned his head to face the hillside below his squad’s position.
Little white dots swirled in front of the green screen.
“Anyone else see dots?” he asked.
“They’re on us!” Connie yelled. “Fire!”
Out of the scraggly trees, gangly shadows rose to full height. Something metal clunked on the ground close to Joe. He buried his head in the hole as an explosion bright as day shook the mountain next to him. Pebbles rained over him, and he thanked the body armor for deflecting the worst. It wasn’t strong enough to survive a direct hit, but the Regulators had some fantastic technology.
Joe turned off his useless infrared viewer, and rolled to get his rifle over the side of the foxhole. All around him, the woods came alive with gunshots. The old-fashioned rifles of the enemy popped, throwing lead into the rocks around him.
Another blast flared off to his right.
The air grew thicker with the smell of cordite, and even darker with the shadows of the barbarians boiling up the hillside from the valley below.
Whistling and a weird sort of clucking sound filled the air, as loud as the voices of his squad mates in Joe’s headset. With a disbelieving blink, Joe gasped at the volume of the attackers. Far more than he had ever seen before. The barbarians were pressed shoulder to sh
oulder, showering the hill with a fusillade of bullets.
He grasped his coilgun tightly and pulled the trigger without bothering to aim. He didn’t need to. The stock shoved into his shoulder as a single bolt of nickel-iron alloy flew into the attacking horde.
“Dang it!” Joe exclaimed.
“What?” Pete paused to take a frantic breath. “You okay?”
“Nothing. Forgot to go back to full auto.”
With the selector switch pushed up, Joe brought the rifle to bear on the barbarians again. What seemed like a hundred or more were thirty yards from his position and closing. He closed his eyes and held the trigger, and the coilgun replied with a sustained burst of molten metal into the attackers. In a split second, the magazine was emptied of bolts. Fifty of them, and the barbarians kept coming.
They never stopped coming.
They tripped over their comrades, clambering up the hill into a hail of fire from his squad. Joe jammed a fresh magazine into the weapon and steadied his aim. They were fifteen yards out and closing quickly.
“Cover your eyes!” Connie commanded.
Joe should’ve expected that, but crazy things happened when the enemy was on you in a flash. He buried his head in his hands, and even then couldn’t help but see the hillside light up with more strobe lights than one of the fancy clubs where the officers danced and drank themselves into a stupor.
In addition to the blinking lights, acoustics wailed at a frequency nearly beyond audible human hearing, finely tuned for unprotected ears.
“Now!” Connie shouted.
Joe popped his head over the foxhole to see the enemy staggering on the hillside. The LED-AD wasn’t deadly, but the precision mixture of radio and flashing of lights would bring even the most brainless barbarian to their knees in fits of nausea.
