The Mighty First, Episode 2

by Mark Bordner

  In a far corner of the basement sat a row of wooden workbenches and a pegboard of various hand tools, a shop area where the building’s former maintenance employees did their work. Lance Corporal Brion took her section and had them each claim a bench for themselves to clean and perform maintenance checks on their weapons. Afterward, they divided up their combined rations, ammunition, and any field gear that was found to be in need. She hovered over her people like a mother hen, ensuring that no marine under her umbrella of responsibility was

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  for want of something that might be needed in the field.

  Minerva and Amell both noticed this and nodded to one another in much the same fashion that Ford and Corporal Bri had done back in basic training. Without realizing it, they had transgressed from student to graduate, and at last, to teacher.

  Xxxxx

  August 6th

  The storm had subsided before dawn, but the morning was still overcast and drizzling. The air was fresh and somewhat cooler, at least for the time-being, but that kind of humidity would be cooked into a soup by mid-day.

  At first light, the regiment was roused and told to conduct their bodily needs in a quick manner. After that and a harried breakfast, the companies were formed up outside and the convoy motored out from their hiding places in the myriad of warehouses up and down the road.

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  “Bravo is on-point today,” Captain Hannock announced over the net. “Alpha backs them up, Charlie in the rear. Time to roll!”

  The head of the convoy consisted chiefly of several hummer-jeeps with Bushmaster gun mounts, followed by trucks pulling the artillery pieces. The troopers were divided by platoon on either shoulder a short distance behind them.

  From a few blocks back, Ford was watching the lead vehicles reaching the freeway on-ramps that would lead them onto I-76 West, and a feeling of apprehension washed over him.

  “Manny, bring your company to a halt for a second,” He ordered.

  Up ahead, he could see the gunnery sergeant raise a closed fist, and the marines stopped. Some of the lead vehicles kept going, though, slowly making their way to the top of the ramp. The troopers were yet perhaps a hundred feet from the ramp’s base.

  “Drivers!” Ford spoke. “Hold on, stop for----”

  An earth-shattering explosion erupted before them.

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  The overpass was a rapidly expanding wall of fire and debris, the shock wave sweeping outward, leveling anything and anyone in its path. Bravo Company disappeared in the wash of smoke and dust. Several vehicles were tossed off of their wheel bases and flipped over. The concussion knocked people off of their feet even as far back as where Alpha Company stood, two blocks away, and the air was filled with streamers of debris laced with flame.

  Concrete, asphalt, and body parts began to rain down around them, bouncing off of their armor and thumping across the ground like hailstones. A large section of the freeway teetered, its support struts and columns wrecked, then heaved over and collapsed, adding to the conflagration.

  Minerva immediately had C-Company fan out and form a defensive perimeter to cover the rear in case of a follow-up attack. Marines were running and shouting, diving for cover behind anything that offered it. Corporal Brion had her team climb a nearby pile of rubble from a collapsed building to use the high vantage point to establish a wide field of fire coverage.

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  Ford cursed vehemently, ranting about needing to watch for Storian traps such as this one. He bellowed at his people to get on their feet. There would be hell to pay. Mark led A-Company in a full run toward the billowing wave of dust and smoke, disappearing into it. It was imperative to find and get treatment for the wounded as quickly as possible. The GNN crews remained well out of the way, filming the rescue effort. Troopers were buried under rubble, others had been wounded by projectiles. There were as yet an undetermined number of casualties, but one thing remained clear. The convoy would be delayed in its advance in significant fashion that day.

  Xxxxx

  Ford and Captain Hannock stood with the colonels, taking shelter under the loading dock roof of a mattress outlet, reviewing the tallies gathered by the troopers. It was a depressing meeting. The afternoon had brought more rain--- a steady, driving type laced with soft rumbles of thunder. The ground had turned to mud and the roads were brownish streams of running water.

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  The convoy sat idle, and the troops loitered with their respective groups.

  “Eleven Hummers, six trucks, and six artillery pieces were either destroyed or damaged beyond field-repair,” Hannock was saying. “Not to mention the deaths of the driver crews.”

  Ford spat into the rain, “Most of Bravo’s First Platoon was killed in the blast. Thirty-eight people. Another six were injured critically, and will need medevac. That leaves Manny with thirty-six Marines in his company.”

  Strasburg was livid. The Storians were being devious in their tactics, and his own impatience had cost his people dearly. He felt horribly guilty about it. Worse, the entire thing had been caught on film. He knew that this kind of flubbery would cast a bad light on the Free Zone’s confidence in the Allied capability.

  The familiar whir of a Huey shuttle approaching interrupted them. They watched as the pilot hovered down into an open parking lot, a huge Red Cross set in white stenciled on its fuselage. The pilot had braved the weather to come out, determined to retrieve the wounded. Mac, the cameraman, obediently recorded

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  it from where he stood in the doorway.

  Strasburg turned back to his staff, “We’ll need to resume heading west after this pick-up,” he stated. “At the next on-ramp, we’ll take the time to inspect the freeway for any demolition charges before getting on the damned thing.”

  Ford put his helmet back on and walked away without excusing himself. The two officers watched him go, heading back toward the battalion. Mac kept filming.

  “He’s very passionate about the well-being of his Marines,” Hannock observed.

  Strasburg nodded, “Ford’s the best there is. He should be the one running this operation. Between him and those kids of his, the First Battalion will win this war.”

  Hannock smiled sadly, “Just like the movie posters say, here comes the Mighty First.”

  The colonel sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose against an approaching headache, “Ooh-Rah! “

  Xxxxx

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  The march through the rain was gloomy. The convoy had finally found safe passage onto the interstate and was plodding along in the wet greyness, the water running off of their streak-free visors and the armor. The Marines were dry inside their gear, but it did nothing to lift the dreariness of the day. Many of their brothers and sisters had been killed that morning in one, instantaneous slap. There were a wide range of emotions, including anger and sorrow, but mostly it was simply depression.

  The kids were feeling far from home, missing their parents, and afraid that their turn at death might visit them soon. There was quite a bit of muffled sobbing, but the kids held their resolve. They would not buckle under the pressure, determined not to give the Storians the satisfaction of breaking them. The GNN crews tastefully kept their cameras off during this period of reflection and mourning.

  The convoy pushed west, further into the rain.

  Xxxxx

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  Jenny Vasquez and Julie Weiss were a generation apart, yet like sisters in their mode of thinking. Jenny, being the younger at 28, had scarcely survived the war up until the present. She still had nightmares of the first day of the invasion, of being parked in front of the elementary school kindergarten wing, ready to go in and get her daughter. The car radio had been blaring reports of
the attack on Star Harbor, and a fleet of Storian Space Navy vessels encircling the Earth shortly after.

  The Emergency Broadcast System then started howling, cutting into the news report. Jenny had been driving to work during this, and promptly turned right around and headed back to get her 5 year old and go home. Sitting in the parking lot, the EBS tone broke for an announcement from the Civil Defense office. She had paused, curious, the driver’s door partway open. Adrenaline was flowing. Part of her was screaming to run in and get little Casey. Get home! The other part of her wanted to hear what was going to be said. It couldn’t be real! There had not been a war for over a hundred years, with anyone! Surely, this was just a publicity stunt for a new movie or something.

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  The radio cut to static, though, and the city air raid sirens began ramping up with their mournful wail. People on the street began panicking. There were traffic accidents at the intersections. Screaming. Jenny watched all of this, stunned, still sitting behind the wheel.

  The nuclear weapon that detonated over the city was of the clean type---no radiation, and went off at high altitude. It was intended as a disruption device, to knock out power and communications. It lit the sky, forcing Jenny to shield her eyes against the glare. The over-pressure wave slammed down moments after, with crushing force. Her windshield shattered, as did the windows of the school. The ground shook and her car rocked on its tires.

  This weapon’s electro-magnetic pulse also disabled planes that were in the air at the time. A Boeing 757 passenger jet happened to be in a holding pattern to land at the airport, and found its propulsion and steering plants wiped out in an instant. The jet plummeted like a stone, falling at a thirty degree angle, almost three hundred miles an hour.

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  It was banked sideways as it fell into the First National Bank opposite the school, and its wing sheared into the school’s middle as it screamed past. The explosion lifted Jenny’s car and threw it backward into the wall of the supermarket behind the lot. Jenny was protected from the worst of the blast force by her vehicle, and miraculously unscathed when it plowed top-first through the plate glass window frames and came to rest butt-first against the rows of shelves and crushed shoppers that piled up behind it as the car dragged into the store. It teetered for a second, then fell forward onto its tires with a violent jounce. Jenny, who still had her seatbelt on, was bounced painfully and bit her tongue as her head jerked down against her chest.

  Dazed, bleeding from her mouth, and still sitting in the driver’s seat, she could see through the gaping hole that her car had created in the side of the grocery, realizing that the school was an inferno. The building collapsed in on itself and sent flames and sparks spewing up into the tower of black smoke.

  Those nightmare memories had driven Jenny insane. She did not recollect the days and weeks and months after that, as she

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  wandered the streets and alleys, living from scraps and muttering to herself. Sometimes stealing. Sometimes killing. She found a strange sense of release when she killed. Usually, it was a stray dog or cat for food, but over time, it had progressed to knifing Storian soldiers whenever she found one walking alone.

  There were times, though, when she was confused. Sometimes she found herself with bloodied hands, standing over an American, not remembering what had happened. But each time, it was as if she were striking back at the invaders, who had burned her little girl to death. It alleviated her own guilt, for having sat a moment too long to hear the radio report. The killing began to increase, as did her slide into the comfort of insanity.

  It was only a few weeks before the initiation of D-Day when Jenny encountered Julie Weiss. Fate is an unpredictable, and many times, a cruel mistress. Weiss had been a clerk in the First National Bank. On the day of the attack, she had taken an early lunch and was in the market, picking up a sandwich and some fruit. Her husband was the bank manager, and had decided to wait for her in his office.

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  Standing in the checkout lane, counting her cash for the purchase, the lights had gone out. Only then did she and the other customers hear the keening of the air raid siren. Then came the flash and the resulting thunder. She forgot about her lunch and ran outside with a gaggle of others. That was when the passenger plane fell from the sky and wiped out the bank. The blast flung a small car into the store from which she had just emerged. Her own sanity had dissolved that day as well, and like Jenny, she found solace in murder. It did not matter to her if it was a Storian or not. In her tortured mind, everyone was responsible for her pain, and everyone would pay. She left a trail of bodies in her months-long streak of opportunistic vengeance.

  On the day the Allied assault took place at Hubbard, the forty year old widow had been stalking her next intended prey, which happened to be Jenny. The younger woman was walking casually ahead of her on the sidewalk, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings. The morning was clear and warm, and people were out and about.

  Her quarry turned from the main drag and cut through a

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  side lane between a row of shops. Weiss followed, beginning to close the distance, her hand clutching the handle of the blade that she had hidden in her layers of baggy clothing. Then, an astounding thing happened that caught her completely off-guard. The younger woman had passed a lone Storian soldier, who was pissing behind a large dumpster container. The Storian paid the young woman no further attention than a casual glance, an action that had cost him dearly. The woman spun, a long blade flashing as sunlight glinted from its surface, and plunged the knife into his throat.

  The soldier collapsed, grasping his jetting wound, eyes wide with surprise. The young woman then faced Weiss, stance on of someone ready to do battle. Weiss grinned. A strange and terrible bond formed right then, and the two agreed to share in a feast of slaughter.

  That had been then.

  Now, in the present, the two wild-haired, filthy women stood together in the shadows of an abandoned convenience store near the edge of the rural highway. Rain pattered down from a

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  featureless, grey sky. The column of the 83rd Marine Combat Regiment had, for the most part, passed them by. The women, not unlike wild animals--- for that was what they had essentially become, shivered in their hiding place, sniffing the air and watching wearily. The last few marines were passing the boarded-up store, not paying very much attention to their surroundings.

  Weiss looked at Julie and nodded, a silent understanding passed between them. They did not see the Marines for who they were, instead thinking that it was a column of Storians. Soldiers were soldiers.

  Julie had a routine worked out that had often served her well. She emerged from her hiding place and approached the shoulder of the highway, staggering as if wounded, clutching at her middle. The troopers immediately spotted her. Four of them stopped, taking notice, and one began coming to her. He raised his visor, exposing his face.

  “Holy cow! Lady, are you alright? “

  From the road, Corporal Brion was watching from the point

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  position of her section, and felt a rush of adrenaline. Something was very wrong.

  “Private! “ She shouted, raising her rifle. The Marine was directly in her line of fire, though, and she found herself helpless to do anything. “Stand fast! “

  He seemed not to hear her, so intent he was on helping the disheveled-looking woman.

  The young trooper shouldered his weapon by its strap so that he could use both arms to reach out and steady her. That was when she lunged forward, bringing the knife up and through his chin. He stiffened a moment before his knees buckled. His buddies could only gawk in disbelief.

  This was C-Company. Minerva, who was near the front, turned back in order to
see what the shout had been about from the rear portion of her platoon, and witnessed the marine falling. She saw the other three frozen near the edge of the highway shoulder, and Jovannah Brion pointing her weapon at the woman in the driveway.

  “Contact!” Minerva bellowed over the general frequency

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  while at the same time leveling her rifle, sighting down its barrel, and loosing a stream of rounds. The plasma tore into the woman and spun her around, the huge knife flying off, leaving an arc of blood. Brion fired at the same instant, her own stream of plasma twisting the woman back in the other direction even as she fell. By then, the entire company was mobilizing. Squads dropped into defensive positions and began pouring fire into the dilapidated structure. A mortar team dropped three well-placed rounds through the sagging roof, blowing the walls out. The building fell in on itself.

  “Hold up!” Minerva ordered, “Cease firing!”

  The Marines, keyed-up, were reluctant to do so, and the shooting tapered for a few seconds before stopping. She trotted over to check on her downed man, calling for the Corpsman. Reaching the pair of prone figures, Minerva fired a precautionary round into the woman’s head before kneeling next to the marine. Incredibly, he was still alive. The blade had cleaved through his jaw and tongue, and likely into the nasal cavity, but not into the brain. He was wild-eyed and clutching at his throat, gagging and

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  spitting blood, still possessing enough state of mind to be cursing vehemently.

  The Corpsman reached them and began administering what aid was possible, calling for a medevac at the same time. Minerva stood and looked back at the now-collapsed store, which was beginning to catch fire. She spotted a pair of legs sticking out from beneath a section of wall. Angrily, the master sergeant stomped over and seized one edge of it, heaving it up. The body of Weiss stared up at her, torn nearly in half. Minerva let the piece fall back into place and spat on it in fury. It wasn’t enough to be in danger from the Storians, now there were crazies like this on the loose!