by Chris Bostic
“Something’s moving, Sarge,” Danny said over their headsets.
Joe looked up to see the first two were already deep in the bushes. He didn’t have far to go to join them. Before he could get there, a shove to the back brought him to his knees. He went down hard, keeping hold of his weapon in one hand as he tried to break the fall with his other one.
That was a recipe for a face-plant into the boulders.
The boom of gunshots from the surrounding hillsides followed the sound of his collapse.
Joe rolled to the side. A spider web of cracks obscured his vision. Rough hands were on him a second later.
“You hit?” Pete said.
It was hard to force in a breath. The armor was solid, but it felt like he’d been beaned by a fastball square in the back. “Yeah, but I’m good,” he croaked.
Shots erupted from the bushes in front of them. Danny’s coilgun hummed rather than burst with the explosive force of the savages’ outdated, but similarly deadly, weapons.
“Hold your fire!” Connie barked. “You’re wasting ammo.”
Gunfire rained on Pete and Joe, ricocheting off the boulders in all directions. A bullet bounced off the top of Joe’s helmet right before Pete dragged him into the brush. Leisa grabbed his other arm and pulled him deeper into the woods.
Concealment didn’t keep the savages from continuing to fire. Bullets zipped through the trees, cutting branches and dropping leaves like a stiff breeze.
“Stay down,” Connie ordered. “They can’t hurt us here.”
“Says you,” Pete said, but he turned his attention back to Joe. “You good?”
“A little woozy.” He rubbed the top of his helmet and felt the indentation from the bullet. “That rocked my world a bit.”
“They’re gonna charge us, Sarge,” Danny said.
“I know.” Connie blew out an anxious breath. “We can either make our stand here or run like rats.”
“I like our odds in daylight,” Danny said.
“Not without ammo,” Joe said, having finally inflated his lungs with a deep breath. It hurt to suck in more than a pittance, but that was a minor inconvenience compared to what would have been a shot through the lungs. If only the scientists could find a way to fully blunt a bullet’s energy, he thought wryly.
“The kid’s right,” Connie agreed with Joe unexpectedly. “We’re a bit ammo poor. We need to lose ‘em.”
“Lose savages?” Danny complained. “That’s like hiding from a drone. We should draw ‘em out and cut ‘em down.”
“You may have your chance,” Connie said. “For now, I’m still in charge…and I say we keep hoofing it before they can get down here.”
Joe figured they’d wasted too much time to debate already. He swore he could hear the sound of rocks sliding as the savages bounded down the hillsides as nimbly as mountain goats. They’d be in grenade range soon, and his armor wasn’t quite as well suited for that kind of battle.
He sprang to his feet ready to run, but had to stop for a moment as his head swam. Lights blinked in front of his eyes. He reached out to the side to steady himself. Rather than a tree, he locked onto Leisa’s slender arm. She moved to slip her other one around his waist.
“I’ve got you,” she said.
He squinted through the cracked glass of his visor and tried to nod his thanks. That hurt worse than standing.
A ray of fading sunlight peeked through the tree canopy and hit him square in the face. The cracks cast glaring streaks, and he reached up to raise the visor. It was stuck.
He cursed and dropped his weapon to beat on the button.
“Let me try,” Leisa said. She worked at it a moment before shaking her head. “It’s jammed. Can you see?”
“Not great.”
“Then wrap your arm around my shoulder again.”
“I can run,” he said, regretting that he wouldn’t get to feel her close to him, but knowing they needed to move more quickly than leaning on her shoulder would allow.
“Then follow me.”
She handed him his coilgun, and they took off through the forest, chasing after the rest of the squad. Joe decided Connie must’ve figured it was every man for himself at that point. Even Pete had run on ahead with Laura.
“You see ‘em?” Joe asked as he concentrated on staying one step behind Leisa.
“Our guys?”
“Yeah. I’d hope the savages aren’t that close yet.”
“Sounds like they could be.”
Explosions erupted from behind them. The savages fell on the position they’d vacated, tossing grenades into the woods to root them out. But the rabbits were already on the run. They just needed to move faster, Joe knew. And hopefully stay together.
“We’re across the river,” Pete’s voice carried over their headsets.
Leisa veered hard to the side. Joe was slower to react, but turned in time to avoid a huge tree. She reached back to grab his arm, and ducked underneath the limbs of another leafy beast.
“You’re doing good,” she said.
“Get over here,” Connie said. “We’re digging in.”
“Where?” Joe muttered.
“I hear you coming,” Pete said.
That’s not good, Joe thought, but figured it was too late to worry about stealth.
“We’re up against the bluff,” Connie replied. “Cross the river and head straight to the base of the hill.”
“I see the river,” Leisa announced.
With a yank, she pulled Joe into the open. His head pounded like someone had hit him with a hammer. In essence it had been, though he found it amazing to believe a little piece of lead no bigger than a nail could do so much damage to his equilibrium. And thousands more nails were to come.
From up on the hillsides, the savages chirped their frenzied cries.
Bullets rained down as Joe and Leisa stumbled across the open ground. The volume of fire grew. A projectile struck his shoulder pushing him to the side, and Leisa cried out too. But they kept going.
Joe forgot all about keeping his boots dry and waded right into the river behind Leisa. They sloshed through knee-deep water. Then the bottom fell out.
Joe slipped from Leisa’s grasp and went underwater.
Everything conspired to pull him down: his helmet, the boots, the armor. But his toe found purchase on the bottom of the creek and he shoved off.
The current pushed him into a boulder as bullets slashed into the stream. Water seeped into his helmet, presumably through the cracks, and he sucked in a last breath before his nose was covered.
Joe clung to the boulder as the force of the water shoved against him. Another bullet pinged off his helmet, clanging his brain like the lid banging on an old metal trash can. At least that meant he was above water.
He scrambled over smaller rocks, pulling himself from the water. But his ankle turned, and he slumped down on the bank, not even sure if he was on the right side.
His chest burned from holding in a breath as his head literally swam in the helmet. Arms grabbed his roughly, surprising him, and he reflexively opened his mouth and sucked in river water.
“We got you,” Pete was saying, but Joe fought them trying to get his helmet loose.
Someone smacked his hand away. Manhandled and dropped in a heap, they finally turned him loose. He yanked off his helmet and coughed up the contents of his lungs as shots pinged all around.
His nostrils burned from the unwelcome water, and soon the stench of bile as the rice made a reappearance.
“Easy, bud.” Pete beat him on the back and tried to haul him farther under the cover of the cliff.
“Easy nothing.” Joe was wracked by another fit of coughing, and proceeded to dry heave for the second time in as many days. He dropped to hands and knees and finally crawled backwards under a ledge.
“Get your helmet on,” Connie barked loud enough that Joe heard him without the benefit of the communicator.
Joe knew that much.
A sheer c
liff rose above them. The squad was tucked under a ledge, so that prevented any savage from getting a shot off from above. But the savages were also closing from the other side of the creek. Their shooting didn’t seem to be any more accurate than the barbarians, but anyone could get lucky. And Joe knew luck was never on his side.
He’d already taken at least two shots to the helmet in the hailstorm of bullets, but he wasn’t feeling strong enough to cover himself again. Pete handed the helmet to him anyway.
“Stupid helmet leaks,” Joe croaked.
“It’s the glass.” Leisa took his helmet from him and shook it to get out the worst of the water. Then she pulled her shirtsleeve over her hand and wiped out the inside. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” Joe took it back and ran a hand over the top. A long crease scraped the green paint from the top in a racing stripe. “They dang near got me again.”
“Then you better keep it on,” Laura said.
“Fine, Mom.”
“No momma jokes,” Laura quipped, trying to be one of the guys, but Joe thought she was too innocent and soft-hearted to really pull it off.
“You ladies need to quit the chatting and start digging in,” Connie said. “We’re not getting any farther today.”
“More like ever,” Pete said, glancing nervously out from under the ledge toward the river.
They had never dug in so close together. Joe knew they should have been spread out in formation along a ridge top or scattered foxholes along a slope. Instead, their backs were literally against the wall and ammunition was at a premium. So was space.
The hollowed out area under the cliff was no bigger than their briefing tent at the base camp. It couldn’t have been more than twenty feet from side to side. It was nearly tall enough to stand, though they obviously kept a low profile.
Connie got up on his knees, reaching forward with both hands to rake a mound of river gravel around him. “Gather up some rocks,” he commanded. “There’s no digging to be done here.”
Danny followed suit first, then Pete and the girls. Joe was still regaining his strength—and consciousness. He sat for a moment longer soaking in the dismal surroundings before finally coming to his senses.
The wild shots had died down to an occasional crack. Joe felt certain the savages had to know exactly where the squad had hunkered down, and figured they were massing somewhere on the other side of the creek for a charge.
“We’ve got a nice field of fire,” Connie said as he worked. “I wouldn’t mind it being longer, but it’s a good twenty yards to the creek, and all open. We’ve just gotta cut ‘em down as they show themselves.”
“Maybe they’ll wait ‘til dark,” Danny said. He sat back on his haunches and admired the nice semi-circle of rock he’d built up around his position at the far left of the squad.
Next to Danny, Connie was nearly done building his defenses. Pete was next to Joe. His lanky friend still dug frantically at the gravel.
Joe was situated in the middle again with Leisa immediately to his right. He pulled another armful of gravel toward himself and then stopped to check on her progress.
The cracks in his visor ran diagonally from the bottom left to top right like a tiger had raked its claws across his helmet. They were at the right spot to obscure his vision, so he tilted his head to the side to try to get a clearer look at Leisa.
“What?’ she said, furrowing her brow. “Why you looking at me like that?”
“Oh, uhm…nothing,” Joe said, realizing how he must have looked. He beat on the side of his helmet again, and to his surprise the visor sprang open. “Dang, that’s better.”
She popped her own visor open and muted her mouthpiece.
“Hey. How’s your head?”
After turning off his own microphone, he replied, “Blurry.”
Behind Leisa, who remained crouched like a cat on hands and knees, Laura stretched out prone on the floor of what was essentially a cave. Her weapon poked over the top of a modest rock mound. Long shadows had already stretched out over the river to their front. Under the ledge, their faces grew darker by the second.
“This is it,” Joe whispered. “Our last stand.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it is.” He shrugged. Though resigned to his fate, he wished he had one last impossible chance to see his family. “It’s not how I wanted it all to end.”
“Well, duh.” Leisa cracked a demure smile. “Not everyone can go to sleep at a ripe old age and wake up in the ever-after.”
No one lasts that long, Joe thought wryly, though he was more struck by the ever-after remark. That wasn’t the way Republic kids were taught to believe, yet he’d always thought there was something more. “You believe that…about the next life?”
“I have to,” she said without further explanation. Her soft eyes met his for a moment before she turned back to face the river.
“I used to wonder about that a lot,” Joe admitted. “Not lately. Not even when Kayla went down, but…I dunno.”
“It’s nice to think she’s better off.”
“Anywhere’s better off.”
“You know what I mean,” Leisa said, and he nodded. “We do our job, and someday we get to go home…or to whatever ever-after is.”
“Excuse me if I’m not ready for that yet.” Joe took a quick look at the river and was relieved to find all remained calm. Even the random shooting had stopped. Though doubtful, he wondered if maybe there was a chance they’d survive. “I’d kinda like to find a new home here first.” He drummed his fingers on the ground to indicate Earth. “To the fires with the Republic.”
Leisa’s eyes widened. “That’s treason.” Her voice rose, making Joe cringe. He spun around to make sure the others hadn’t heard. Lucky for him, they were all concentrating on the wall of brush beyond the river with weapons at the ready.
“Sorry,” she whispered when he looked back at her. “But we’re not supposed to think like that.”
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?’ He gestured to the darkening woods beyond and gave a rogue smile. “This will all be over soon, and you’ll have been the only one to know my traitorous thoughts.”
“I’ll take them to my grave.” Leisa’s eyes flashed and bored into his. “Just don’t expect me to be in a hurry to get there.”
CHAPTER 13
The chirping began as soon as night fell. The bushes across the creek seemed to sway, though the breeze had gone to sleep much earlier.
“Bloodthirsty savages,” Connie grumbled. “Be ready to give ‘em what they want.”
“They’ve gotta know they can’t get us outta here,” Danny said.
More false bravado, Joe thought. The squad had to be outnumbered more than a hundred to one. Maybe a thousand to one. The chance of holding off the mob was more unlikely than him getting home to find a brand new house.
Connie hadn’t given the group the capture speech in a while, and for some reason unknown to Joe he must’ve thought that was the time. Perhaps because they were surrounded.
“You better pray you don’t get captured,” he said calmly. “There’s no such thing as a prisoner to the savage mind…and only the lucky ones are dismembered on the spot.”
“They’re not taking me alive,” Danny said.
“Good, ‘cause a big boy like you will feed ‘em for a week.”
“They don’t eat people,” Pete interrupted. “No way.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Connie scoffed. “They eat dogs and cats and pretty much everything that moves.”
So do we, Joe thought, but didn’t say it aloud. Not that he’d ever been forced to eat a common house pet. That’s where he drew the line, though some of his old neighbors had almost certainly stooped to that level. He knew he’d eaten raccoon, squirrel and pretty much any other smaller varmint his dad had brought home for dinner.
Such was life in the Republic. Just because the Republic was short on manpower, it didn’t mean they had a surplus of food. If anything, Joe ac
tually ate better during his time with Regulators.
The chirping built in volume. The savages weren’t being cautious this time like back at the ridge. They had the squad cornered and were obviously psyching themselves up for the kill.
Joe’s fingers trembled as he gripped the stock of his coilgun. He kept the selector on full automatic even though he was short on ammunition. As he waited and tried to steady his breathing, he fished an extra magazine out of his pocket and laid it next to the rifle.
Joe felt someone watching him and turned to his right. Leisa had stretched out in her hole, but rolled to the side. Her visor remained open, allowing warm eyes to watch his every movement. She blinked slowly like a message. He didn’t understand it, but pursed his lips together and nodded softly.
She kissed two of her fingers and pressed them against the breast pocket of her uniform shirt.
Joe had seen her do that before. He wondered what it meant, but a heavy thunk landing in front of their position froze the question on his lips.
“Grenade!” Connie shouted.
Joe buried his head in the gravel. The earth erupted with a flash. A wall of sound and fury swept into the cave, echoing all around. Joe thought the ledge might collapse and bury him under a mound of rock. Luckily, it held tight.
His ears rang as another grenade went off farther to his left. And then they came.
The bushes across the river thrashed aside as a tide broke like a stiff wind. Feet pounded over the hard ground, an unstoppable herd.
“Cut ‘em down at the river,” Connie yelled over the din.
Joe lined up his coilgun on the shadows directly in front of him, not able to worry about what demons lay to either side. As the first of the savages sprinted into the water, Joe tightened his finger on the trigger and slowly let out half of a breath.
Not yet.
The savages foundered in the water, perhaps a hidden weakness. When he thought they might turn back, the first clambered out the closer bank and the squad opened fire. Coilguns whined and hot nickel ripped into the savages.
