by Kyle Noe
Quinn screamed as the missile ripped the fighter apart, the shockwave from the explosion rocking her sideways. She lost her bearings and control over what had already been a turbulent descent.
BOOM!
Another missile struck, turning the younger resistance fighter who’d barfed on the glider into bone-confetti. The missile’s kinetic blast hurled Quinn and the others sideways. There were stars in her eyes and her brain was pain-fogged. She could feel herself nearly blacking out, but instinctively tapped her HUD to deploy her parachute just in the nick of time.
The ‘chute deployed, violently yanking Quinn to the left as the asteroid’s frozen surface rushed up to greet her.
WHUMP!
Quinn landed hard, the metal studs on her combat boots providing traction as she hit the ice, which was so green it appeared black, resembling a never-ending sheet of obsidian glass. She slid forward and then found her feet, galloping across the ice, searching for the location that had fired the rockets. She fought for purchase with every step, the metal studs on her boots clawing at the ice, slowing her slide, keeping her from slamming face-first into the rock-hard surface until she came to a full halt. The metal studs retracted, and she balanced herself by kneeling.
She shucked her parachute and turned back to see the others doing the same, pulling out their weapons, readying to fight. Pivoting back, Quinn watched as missiles from Syndicate batteries, likely hidden within the ice, arced into the sky. She presumed they were being fired at the glider and prayed that Cody had enough sense to fly it out of range.
Eli was next to her, sprawled on the ice, enveloped in his parachute. Quinn moved to him and he rolled over, his face as pale as spilled milk.
“Pretty sure I crapped my pants on the way down,” he said.
She smirked. “Join the club.”
Quinn hauled him to his feet as the metal cube filled with the battle drones slammed into the ice. It opened and out flew two airborne drones that immediately ascended and began beaming back footage of the landing zone to the fighters. Eli and Quinn dashed to the cube as the three other drones, including the eight-foot battle machine, plodded forward. They turned and began leading the way across the ice. Quinn waved her arms, motioning for the others to follow.
In seconds, the other fighters were at her back, charging across the ice. The wind shrieked, and despite their advanced armor, everyone could feel the cold air. Explosions detonated all around, mushrooming up ice and snow.
“We’re getting hit hard down here!” Quinn said, over comms to Cody. “Can we get a hand?”
“Can’t get any closer,” Cody said. “I drop any lower you’re not gonna have a ride home.”
Another missile landed, blasting a resistance fighter sideways. The young woman flapped through the air and fell into a hole that had opened in the ice. Quinn lurched for the unlucky fighter who was struggling in the water, but the ice around the hole closed up an instant before she could reach her. Staring down, she saw the young woman gurgling, screaming on the other side of the ice. Realizing there was nothing she could do, Quinn slammed her hand into the ice and that’s when she saw it—the little tributaries of red visible a few inches under the ice. She stood back and peered down. The surface of the lake looked as if it had veins running through it.
“God almighty,” she said, to herself upon realizing what she was witnessing.
There were blood trails under her feet. Hundreds of tiny ribbons of blood that spidered between the bodies, the bodies of soldiers who’d died here at some point in the past.
She could feel the hairs on her neck stand at attention, the eerie sensation of déjà vu taking hold of her. Before she could fully process everything she was on her knees, wiping away the ice.
She could see them in full now, the dead lying frozen amidst a collection of blackened equipment, weapons and errant ammunition scattered like seeds. By the look of things, there’d been a tremendous battle fought here before, she could tell that now. How many bodies were under the ice? Hundreds? Thousands. Her hands were a blur as she continued to slash at the ice. The faces became clearer. Quinn was so focused on what she was doing that she didn’t even notice the other warriors who’d surrounded her. Hayden and Milo were calling out her name, but she couldn’t turn back, she wouldn’t.
“OMIGOD!” she screamed, hands covering her mouth.
“What is it?!” Milo shouted.
Quinn pointed and Milo and the others looked down to see it.
See her.
Quinn.
The body immediately beneath the ice looked exactly like her.
And there were other helmetless bodies that looked like Milo, and Mira, Renner, and even Hayden. Their mouths were open and their eyes wide and they were all very dead and staring up at the living. And below these bodies were other bodies, other corpses that looked just like Quinn and the others. These bodies were more ragged, older looking, the flesh sucked tight around their blue faces. How many times had it happened, Quinn wondered? How many times had they come here and failed?
The lifeless bodies lay in rivers of blood that appeared to have discolored the lake, giving the lower ice a dark color. She could see now that there were indeed likely thousands of bodies under the ice, suspended and ensnared with Syndicate soldiers and battle drones. The other fighters had noticed what she was doing, and were similarly staring down into the ice.
Quinn’s jaw locked. She cued the communications link on her helmet. “Cody, you copy?”
There was a moment of dead air and then someone coughed. “I’m here.”
Quinn panned her head back and forth, giving Cody a glimpse of the ice. “You seeing this?”
“Sure am,” he replied. “Can’t say that I’m believing any of it.”
“What the fuck is this?” Hayden barked into the side of Quinn’s helmet. “What the fuck kind of joke is someone playing on us?!”
“You hear that?” Quinn asked Cody.
“I did and I have no idea what’s going on,” Cody replied.
Quinn smacked her helmet. “Well, I do. I’ve got an idea.”
She turned her gaze toward the other warriors. “We’ve been here before.”
“Bullshit!” Hayden bellowed.
“We’ve fought this same fight and lost, Gunny,” Quinn replied, her voice strained. Cody was whispering something about the bodies being an illusion, so she powered down his voice. He was obviously clueless and she had very little time to bullshit around.
Hayden traded a long glance with Quinn. He lifted his rifle and peered at the others who appeared distraught. “This is straight-up psyops, people. Psychological operations, smoke and goddamned mirrors. If the aliens can build a starship, they sure as shit can plant these bodies or make it seem like they’re under the ice. They are trying to fuck with us.”
“Mission accomplished,” Eli said, raising a hand.
“I don’t believe it,” Hayden said, scuffing the ice to obscure the bodies. “I don’t believe in nothin’ but this moment right here and now.”
Quinn looked back down at the ice, terrified to see the plastic bracelet Samantha had given her, the one currently around her own wrist, dangling from the wrist of the body under the ice. She felt Hayden’s meaty hands grab and pull her up.
“I need you with me, Quinn. You hear me?!” Hayden bellowed.
Quinn shook off her shock and gazed into his fiery eyes.
“Got no idea what kind of voodoo bullshit this is, but we got us a job to do, Marine,” Hayden said. “We gotta get across this lake and grab what we came to find.”
“What if we can’t?” she whispered. “What if all of this was destined to happen?”
Hayden squeezed Quinn’s hand hard. She yelped.
“Did you know I was gonna do that?”
She shook her head.
“You didn’t know because all of this is new. This ain’t no rerun. We make our own goddamn realities, Quinn. Ain’t nobody else pulling the strings. This whole thing is fake fuck
ing news and they’re tryin’ to play us, but I won’t let it happen. It’s time to go and bring the noise.”
Quinn hazarded a glance back down at the ice and something changed. Maybe Hayden was right. Maybe the Syndicate had concocted some elaborate psychological operation to sow doubt and fear, to dissuade anybody who landed on the ice from venturing across it. Anger welled up inside her. She grabbed her rifle, adrenaline flooding through every fiber of her body. She cued the communications link on her helmet.
“Give me some good news, Cody.”
“The Syndicate appears to have far fewer drones on the asteroid than I imagined.”
“How many?” she asked.
“Only around seven-hundred, maybe eight-hundred tops.”
Quinn sucked in a breath. “We’re hitting them head on and then we’re moving to the other side of the lake.”
“Affirmative,” Cody replied. “The coordinates have been downloaded. The totem is located on the other side of that mountainous region, at or around a cavern that lies beneath the alien’s original manufacturing location. If you make it through the first line of drones, you’ll be in the clear.”
“‘If?”
Cody cleared his throat. “I’m – that was just a slip of the tongue.”
“Watch and see how it’s done, doctor.”
Quinn killed the link and signaled for everyone to charge and they did, fanning out fighting through the icy mist at the backs of the battle drones. Soon the assault force was blitzing forward, braving incoming, increasingly heavy fire from hidden Syndicate positions.
Mortar and rocket rounds exploded, sending up geysers of liquid and huge chunks of ice. Miraculously none of the other warriors had been wounded or killed and then—
CRACKBOOM!
A mortar round landed and tossed a female resistance fighter, carrying a Hafnium rocket launcher into the air. The woman dropped the launcher and slammed into the ice, smearing across it, the blast having carved a divot in her chest. Quinn didn’t even know the woman’s name, but the fighter was mortally wounded, twitching in a crimson pool. Time and sound slowed as Quinn watched Milo appear and kneel before the woman. The fighter’s helmet had been wrenched off and there was puzzlement in her glassy eyes. The uncomprehending look of someone who couldn’t quite believe that they were dying. The woman’s chest heaved once and then fell silent and Quinn knew Milo was about to freak out.
“LET’S GO!” Quinn screamed, pulling him out of his daze.
Milo swiveled and grabbed the dead woman’s fallen Hafnium launcher.
“They ambushed us, Quinn,” Milo said, pointing down. “Time for a little payback!” he snarled.
Milo rose and fired his rocket which curled up into the air and detonated several hundred yards away. Something was apparently hit because there were secondary explosions followed by a mini-mushroom cloud of black smoke.
The others saw this and Milo ran forward, loosing a yell and windmilling his arm, as Quinn and the others followed. More mortar rounds landed, splitting the ice and Quinn was forced to long-jump a massive hole that opened in the dark lake. Alongside Quinn and the other warriors, the battle drones fired out their weapons at the obscured Syndicate positions even as the incoming fire destroyed most of the machines.
Quinn spotted a rocket whistling through the air, trailing a line of smoke. She covered her head as the rocket landed, detonating a few hundred feet away, partially disabling the last, and largest, battle drone. Quinn crawled over to the machine which was still heavily weaponized but unable to move forward. Shrapnel from the blast had penetrated its exterior and a little wisp of smoke rose up from the area around its control panel.
How’s she looking?” a voice said.
Quinn spotted Eli, hustling across the ice, slipping, falling, righting himself.
“Looks like the game’s over and we’re out of quarters,” Quinn replied.
Eli did a quick inspection. “She can still brawl, Quinn. She just can’t do it on her own.”
Quinn looked up. “What are you saying?”
Eli studied the drone again. “Gimme a boost.”
“What?!”
“Gimme a boost up!” Eli shouted.
Quinn did and helped lift Eli up onto the back of the battle drone where there were three metal rungs that a person could use to enter the single bubbletop that crowned the machine.
“You have any idea how to operate that thing?!” Quinn shouted.
“Just like driving my truck,” Eli replied. He popped open the bubbletop and scrunched himself inside before closing it and removing his helmet. Quinn watched him reach in a pocket and pull out a cigarette, his trembling fingers flaring a match. Lung rocket dangling at the corner of his mouth, Eli flipped switches, manually powering the drone to life.
Eli pumped his fist like he was pulling down on an air horn, the drone’s pistons thundering, the hydraulics whining. The machine maneuvered forward awkwardly for several steps and then—
WHAM!
An energized round from a hidden Syndicate weapon glanced off its turret.
Eli flinched and bumbled into the controls as the drone tottered and nearly toppled over. Quinn expected the worst, but was shocked when he grabbed the controls, cigarette smoke haloing his head.
“That’s it!” Quinn heard Eli shout. “You wanna mess with the bull, you’re gonna get the horns!”
He jammed the controls down and to the left as the drone spun around, ready to face the Syndicate lines even as more alien incoming fire rained down all around him.
Quinn winced, slowly opening her eyes, shocked that Eli hadn’t been ripped apart by the blast. She looked up to see him puffing away, grinning down at her. “LET’S DO THIS!” he shouted.
Quinn watched him spin the drone around and let loose with everything the machine had, firing out its mini-chain gun and rocket pods. Quinn pumped her fist and pointed as the other Marines and resistance fighters charged forward.
They took cover behind a snow berm and looked out over the lake, which was shrouded by a thick, dark fog. Forms were visible toiling in the gloom, fanning out, seeming to encircle the Marines’ position. Quinn poked her head up and watched the Syndicate soldiers and their drones pop out of spider holes they’d hacked in the ice. The holes in the ice, along with the multi-spectral camouflage that the Syndicate deployed, had likely been the reasons why nothing showed on the thermal imaging. They’d been hiding here, waiting for the Marines.
Quinn looked back at Milo as Hayden and Renner appeared, all three of them winded. Eli maneuvered the drone into a crouching position, waiting for the fighters to give him a signal. Hayden dropped to the ground alongside Quinn and peered over the berm. He and Quinn could see the Syndicate drones scurrying like crabs across the ice. It was clear now that they’d stumbled into an ambush. They were surrounded. She thought back on the bodies she’d seen under the ice and wondered how many times this had happened before. How many mistakes had they made in the past? How many times had she fucked up and cost the lives of everyone around her?
Renner tapped on the ice and began gently waving his hand. For a moment he looked like a conductor, guiding an invisible band. “You know what the difference between a good conductor and a bad conductor is?” Renner asked.
“No,” Quinn whispered.
“Emotion,” Renner said. “The good ones listen to the orchestra, they block out all other sounds and focus on the rhythm.”
“Yeah, that’s awesome, Renner,” Milo said, “but we’re kinda in the middle of a battle on a goddamn frozen lake.”
“You don’t get it, man. I can hear them,” Renner replied. “I can hear the sounds, I can hear the rhythm the aliens make when they scurry around like friggin’ roaches. They were down in the ice and now they’re crawling all around us.”
“Just like those insurgents back in Yemen,” Hayden replied.
Renner placed a hand to his helmet and peered into the lake’s icy haze. “Which means that once again, we’ve got ‘em exa
ctly where we want ‘em.”
“We’re surrounded, numb-nuts,” Milo said.
“Exactly,” Renner added, angling a thumb at Hayden. “It’s like Sarge said before. Being surrounded just means no matter which way we shoot, we can’t miss.”
Hayden looked at Quinn. “What say?”
Quinn nodded. “Charlie Mike,” she replied. “Continue mission. Engage the enemy, move forward and find the totem.”
A harsh, metallic whining note echoed, making it sound as if the entire lake was an enormous machine that was just beginning to start up. Then came the recognizable screech and squeal of metal treads on ice and the clicking made by machines as they readied to attack.
“I see the fuckers,” Renner said, pulling the firing bolt back on his Parallax rifle. “I swear to all that is holy I can see the yellow of their beady little electronic eyes.”
“Stay frosty and remember our creed,” Hayden said.
“Shoot first,” Quinn said.
Milo looked over, pausing. “Wait, what? That—that’s it? That’s our creed?”
Quinn shrugged. “It was either that or ‘We’ve got a rendezvous with death.’”
“Okay, yeah, I like the other one better,” Milo said.
Quinn checked the downloaded coordinates for the location of the temporal totem on her HUD. She could see the Marines’ position and the images of the approaching drones from the footage being streamed by their airborne drones. There were so goddam many drones. More than Quinn could count. She was hopeful that the others weren’t witnessing what she was. She didn’t want them to lose heart. She signaled to them and they gathered around her.
“Please tell me it gets easier,” Mackie said, readying his rifle.
Quinn gestured forward. “We carve right through the middle of ‘em and keep moving to the other side of the lake,” Quinn replied.
“A quick and dirty, huh?” Mira asked.
Quinn nodded. “We’re gonna be in and out so fast nobody’ll ever notice.”
Mira smiled. “You sound just like my last boyfriend.”
Quinn jerked up. She grabbed the Hafnium launcher from Milo and made ready, screaming, “BURNING!” Ears were covered as Quinn triggered the Hafnium launcher. There was a burst of orange fire and then a rocket curled up and zoomed over the ice, detonating somewhere out in the fog. The report was louder than a cannon blast. A mini-mushroom cloud rose up and the ice was soon littered with bits of flesh and heaps of metal shrapnel. A cheer rose up from the Marines and resistance fighters as they hurtled over the berm and charged headlong toward the Syndicate lines.
