by Kyle Noe
Quinn paused for several heartbeats, still standing in the same place when a sound hit.
A shrill whistle that came from somewhere on the other side of the jungle.
Instinct told Quinn that it was the sound of approaching mortars again, and in a flash, rounds were detonating all around, shaking the earth and sending black smoke into the air. Several rounds landed nearby, peppering her and her fellow Marines with debris.
“TAKE COVER!” Quinn screamed.
A Marine to the left of Quinn spun, searching for an enemy to shoot, when BAM! A mortar hit him dead center, pulping him and two others nearby.
Spattered with their gore, Quinn dove behind a wall of her freshly fallen platoon mates.
She counted to three, trying to control her breathing. Looking about to see who was still left, she froze at the sight of red armor, the Syndicate fighters entering a clearing thirty yards away.
The world was still spinning, her ears still ringing from the mortar rounds, when a distant shouting started. She saw Renner come running back, holding two old-school machine pistols like a madman.
Quinn had seen several of the Honduran spec-ops carrying the weapons, and realized Renner had taken them from the fallen. He unleashed hell on the Syndicate fighters, but the shots were ineffective, the bullets bouncing off the red armor. Renner cursed, dropped the weapons, and brought around his grenade launcher.
“SEMPER FI, BITCHES!” Renner screamed, letting loose a war-whoop.
Renner dropped five of the Syndicate fighters. He held his launcher up, signaling at Quinn.
“Follow me, and I will take you to the place where heroes are born!” Renner bellowed.
Quinn rolled her eyes at his hyperbole, but followed. What choice did she have?
Renner vanished into the jungle, and Quinn grabbed her rifle and ran after him, cutting through the undergrowth as enemy shots ripped through the greenery, leaving scorch marks. Quinn had no idea where Renner was, but saw Milo up ahead and sprinted after him.
Milo turned and motioned at Quinn when—
WHAM!
An explosion mushroomed the earth just up ahead. The blast rocked Quinn to the ground, but she levered herself up, scanning for Milo. For a moment, she saw only smoke and fire. And then she saw him… on the ground… motionless, maybe twenty yards away. He was one of the strongest members of the unit, and if was down, what hope did the rest of them have?
She pushed such thoughts aside and plowed forward, refusing to give in so easily.
The dead and dying carpeted the ground between her and Milo. She dropped to her haunches as ordnance thudded nearby. She studied the hillock of bodies, and saw movement where Milo lay.
Grabbing her rifle, Quinn plunged forward. Blood roared in her ears as she stumble-ran toward Milo, her feet feeling like they were encased in stone.
Quinn was fifty feet from him when Milo rolled over and looked at her, his face a mosaic of welts and lacerations. He was injured ... but alive!
Quinn raised up a hand and—
WHUMP!
A mortar round landed off to her right, impacting against a pile of bodies. As if on the end of an invisible string, the blast yanked Quinn sideways. She lost her rifle and smacked into the ground so hard that it stole her breath. Woozy, and on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness, she struggled to get up from the ground.
There were several seconds of eerie silence before Quinn looked up...
...directly into the masked eyes of a Syndicate fighter that glittered like knives. Whether the soldier hidden behind the garnet-red armor was biological or mechanical, Quinn couldn’t tell. Frankly it didn’t matter. What was important was that the bastard was the only alien in sight, mad-dogging Quinn, peering at her over the end of a black blade that was as long as a man’s leg.
Reflexively, Quinn feigned lunging left, and then went right.
The blade slammed into the ground, barely missing Quinn. She grabbed an empty Fusion rifle from a fallen Marine and came up swinging.
Quinn fought with cold control, using a mixture of martial arts and underhanded street fighting skills.
The invader slashed at Quinn, who parried the blows and uppercut the attacker with the end of her rifle. The Syndicate soldier sailed back as Quinn pounced. She brought her rifle over her head, readying to finish the alien off, when the Syndicate soldier threw out a leg that caught Quinn near the ankle, doubling her over.
She dropped the rifle, and the alien shrieked and brought the blade up over his head.
Quinn stared at the ground, searching for something, anything to use as a weapon. And then she found it.
A mortar round that hadn’t exploded!
She grabbed the round and turned in a flourish, but the alien was one step ahead of her. Quinn realized it was too late and then—
PLUNK!
A rock bounced off the enemy soldier’s battle helmet.
Startled, the Syndicate fighter hesitated.
And in that brief pause, Quinn rammed the shell into a gap between the alien’s body armor and helmet and kicked it.
BOOM!
The blast liberated the alien’s upper torso from the rest of its body, scattering the remains as the shock wave tossed Quinn to the ground. She rolled over once again, overwhelmed by the funk of what smelled like smoldering rubber. She reached down and grabbed her legs, and said thanks to God that she wasn’t missing any parts.
Her eyes roamed and soon they were locked with Milo, who was on his knees. Milo blinked.
“That was epic,” Milo said.
“Jesus, you, you … threw a rock?” Quinn asked.
Milo nodded. “Quick thinking, huh?”
“A … fucking rock?”
“That was the best I could do given the circumstances,” he added.
Quinn cursed under her breath and moved to Milo, then helped him up. Milo was covered in powder and dust, yellow murk from the Mechs, and the blood of other Marines, but otherwise unharmed. A whistle sounded nearby, and they turned to see Hayden, Giovanni, Renner, and close to two dozen other Marines signaling for them to follow.
“Any day now, Marines!” Hayden shouted.
Quinn and Milo met up with the others, all of them looking utterly spent, marinated in blood and gore.
“Where the hell’s everyone else?” Milo asked.
“You’re looking at everyone else,” Giovanni replied.
Hayden nodded. “No plan survives contact with the enemy, and so we find ourselves all by our lonesome, Devil Dogs. We are the last motherfuckers standing, hence the only ones who can do the deed.”
“And what deed might that be, Gunny?” Quinn asked.
Hayden glanced at Renner, who grinned in response. “Blow up the fucking jungle and save the world,” Renner said.
Chapter Seven: The Fog of War
Quinn felt her knees about to give out as she ran down the hill, Milo and Giovanni at her side. Soon, she got a second wind and rushed ahead, swatting away vines and creepers. Every time she lost sight of Hayden and the others behind a tree or the tall bushes of the jungle, she wanted to shout out and tell them to hurry the fuck up. But for now she knew she needed to control her breathing and just keep pushing on as the others caught up.
Over the crest of the hill, the Marines appeared little more than silhouettes as they chopped through the undergrowth, mud-surfing down the backside of the barren half of the hill. Quinn was still out front, setting the pace, moving like someone with the VO2-max of a greyhound.
She stopped on the brow of a hill and listened to her own shallow breathing.
Some of the others had murmured about “fog of war” during boot camp and in the days leading up to the assault. Even Hayden, the unit’s battle-hardened Gunny, had told her to expect “dust in her eyes” the first time she saw the enemy up close. Quinn hadn’t experienced that at all. In actuality, she could feel every muscle, every fiber in her body seeming to move as one. Smells were more pronounced and colors more vibrant. She hesi
tated to say it, but after her first taste of real combat, she felt more alive than ever before.
Hayden caught up and stopped at her side, fighting to catch his breath. “Ain’t you ever heard that it’s bad to show up the boss?”
“Noted,” she said, and paused. Quinn held Hayden’s look. “How you feeling, Gunny?”
“Like a bag of smashed assholes.”
“You got a lotta weakness leaving the body then, huh?” A smile tugged at the corner of Quinn’s mouth.
“That's what they say pain is, right? Weakness leaving the body.” Hayden scoffed. “But I say fuck that. Pain is my body's way of saying I'm going to kill every last one of those toad-licking mud-fucks.”
Quinn laughed, but Hayden’s face went wooden. He was studying the faraway jungle tree line, and glanced back to see that the other Marines had come to a stop behind them.
“How far?” Milo asked, catching his breath.
“We’re close,” Hayden replied. “Four thousand yards, maybe less.”
“Where are they?” Giovanni asked.
“All around,” Hayden whispered, in reply.
The big man turned and pumped a fist, and the Marines dropped down a decline, then negotiated over a massive tree that bridged a hissing cataract of water.
Minutes later, they sliced past the fire-blackened wreckage of three drop-ships and gliders, running by the bodies of fallen Marines from other units lying motionless, parts missing and leaking fluids.
Hayden used hand signals, urging the Marines to double-time it, when a sound echoed out in the distance.
The note rose and fell like someone blowing a whistle.
One of the Marines swiveled and looked up … and his head disappeared in a red spray.
“AMBUSH!” Giovanni shrieked.
Quinn grabbed Giovanni and pulled him back to safety as tracer rounds grazed over the top of his head.
More whistles sounded, and now the jungle was alive with movements. Rocket fire rang out, explosions rocking the ground and wounding or killing a half dozen Marines.
Renner barrel-rolled under cover of a wing on a fallen dropship and raked the tree line with grenades. Quinn and the others triggered their weapons, letting loose a merciless wave of return fire that shredded the advancing Syndicate fighters, turning the triple-canopy into a fireball.
There were screams, and Quinn looked up to see several of her brothers- and sisters-in-arms on the ground out beyond her, wounded, writhing in agony.
Quinn ran forward with three others to rescue the wounded, including two female Marines that were bucking on the ground amidst a heap of dying Syndicate fighters.
Quinn grabbed the arms of the wounded females as the other Marines stumble-stepped toward a downed Syndicate warrior. Quinn stared dumbstruck at the alien attacker. The alien’s armor was wracked with convulsions, as if it were being jolted by a million volts of electricity, and a viscous liquid geysered from a wound in its combat helmet.
Quinn watched a section of the alien’s red armor pull back to reveal an inner cavity. The attacker stabbed a finger against what might have been a button, and a whirring sound grew in intensity. Quinn’s internal fear-meter instantly began to tick up.
“Get back,” Quinn said, softly at first.
The whirring sound pulsed, and now Quinn could see that all of the wounded Syndicate fighters had done the same—had triggered some mechanism housed within their armor.
“GET THE FUCK BACK!”
She dragged the two female Marines back into a ditch as the area in front of her disappeared in a bonfire-bright fireball. The other Marines that had been probing the dead and wounded Syndicate fighters were carbonized as Quinn shielded her eyes, the flames licking the air. For God’s sakes, she thought to herself, the aliens had the ability to self-destruct!
Somebody shouted “PULL BACK!” and meaty hands grabbed her arms. Quinn looked back to see Milo and Giovanni pulling her.
“We need to move now!” Milo shouted.
Forcing herself up, Quinn joined the remaining dozen Marines just as the ground rumbled under the treads of a pack of Syndicate drones. Horror filled her as she watched dozens of enemy drones emerge from the tree line, chain guns and rocket launchers rotating on turrets, searching for targets.
The drones opened fire as the Marines ducked into the undergrowth on the opposite side of the battlefield. Quinn covered her head as trees were turned to matchsticks, shrapnel and debris pelting her helmet and armor as she ran for cover, praying she wouldn’t be struck down. Thinking of her daughter.
She spotted Giovanni and Hayden ahead, the latter shouting orders and gesturing wildly, and then they were following him. They darted to their left, moving around massive, moss-covered boulders, then down into a valley where they turned north.
Whether she knew where they were going or not, she couldn't give a damn, as long as somebody got them away from where they'd been. And yet, Hayden actually seemed to be guiding what was left of the unit through the gauntlet with a destination in mind.
They emerged into what looked like just another section of jungle, but Quinn immediately knew that something was different. She could see the faint mounds of earth from where bunkers and an elaborate series of tunnels had been dug into the ground.
This was where the trap was to be sprung.
“Let’s go!” Hayden shouted, windmilling his free arm and leading the Marines over an embankment that crisscrossed a partially open field. They were heading directly toward what Quinn could see was an access hole, maybe two feet wide by three feet deep. The hole was wreathed on all sides by plastic and appeared to be reinforced on the inside by metal sheathing.
They ducked into the hole and proceeded through a series of trap doors, slithering up, then sideways, and finally dropping down as far as twenty feet into the ground.
Internal passageways led to a labyrinth of caverns that snaked through as many as four separate levels. Quinn followed the others as they passed sleeping chambers, kitchens, latrines, and huge caches of non-perishable food. All of this had been built and put in place years before in anticipation of this day, like some modern-day Maginot line constructed underground.
Quinn stared at corridors that led to other corridors, thinking back on something that someone had told her, that the complex’s tunnels ran for two hundred miles in every direction, stretching well beyond the jungle.
“What’s the plan, Gunny?” Quinn shouted at Hayden.
Hayden glanced back. “I’m calling an audible.”
“The hell does that mean?” Milo asked.
“Time for a little improvisation,” Giovanni replied.
Hayden nodded. “We lure the bastards down into our lair,” the big man said.
“And then?” Quinn asked.
Renner glanced around, then his eyes narrowed in concentration. “We find a way to blow this fucking place sky high, baby.”
The ground shook as the Marines crouch-ran down into the ground, and the shouts of Syndicate fighters echoed from behind. It was only a matter of time before the invaders found them.
Quinn pushed on, doing her best to follow the remnants of the unit through the tunnel that corkscrewed down into the belly of the complex. The tunnels seemed to vibrate around her, then close in. She felt her head spinning.
“Come on, Quinn!” Giovanni shouted above the thunderous attack.
She had collapsed to her hands and knees, not even realizing it until she was staring at the darkness and her fingers were digging into the dirt of the tunnel floor. With a great heave, she pushed herself up and leaned against the wall.
Giovanni was at her side, wrapping an arm around her, and helped her to stand. He froze, staring at her midsection. When she looked down, she saw why—a crack in her armor, a line of blood escaping through it.
When had she been hit? The world started to spin again, but Giovanni pulled her close and said, “You got this.” Then they were stumbling forward, doing their best to run side-by-side in the narr
ow tunnel.
Quinn worked her fingers into the armor, prying back a clasp to see a small hole, likely made by shrapnel. Blood seeped, and she put pressure on the wound even as the sound of the pursuing Syndicate attackers grew. She knew at that moment she could give up. Just lean her head back and throw up her hands and wait for the alien invaders to reach her. But that wasn’t who she was. In a sense, she’d been born and bred for this.
Having grown up with her brothers, she’d never been given the easy way out, and that wasn’t about to change. She had to keep fighting for herself and her fellow Marines—and the little girl that was waiting for her to return home.
Quinn loosed a primal scream and tried to hurry. Teeth bared, she fumbled forward, realizing she’d lost sight of the other Marines. She closed her eyes and listened for them, but couldn’t discern anything over the howling shrieks of the Syndicate soldiers.
The tunnel forked up ahead, and Quinn searched the ground for telltale signs of the Marines. Seeing nothing, she jogged left, her breathing growing more labored, blood from the wound sheeting the front of her armor when—
BOOM!
The tunnel behind her exploded, the blast propelling her forward.
She bounced off the earthen wall of the tunnel, spinning onto her side. Through the smoke of the explosion she could make out the faintest hint of a Syndicate attacker. More of the aliens appeared, aiming their weapons.
Quinn managed to pull herself back as the Syndicate opened fire.
Rounds from their weapons kicked up dirt and buzzed past her head like a herd of angry bees.
She willed herself forward, following the tunnel as it spooled down into an open space, a control room of some kind.
Quinn planted a foot and made a move to cross the space when a round from a Syndicate rifle tore through the soft flesh of her hamstring.
Quinn toppled like a cornered animal.
She screamed, gripping the puckered hole in her leg.
Elbowing herself up, she watched six Syndicate invaders enter the room and stride before her. Clucking sounds emanated from the helmets of the aliens, and Quinn knew they were communicating. One of them seemed to laugh, unsheathing another impossibly long black blade and making a motion that to Quinn looked like they were preparing to take her head off.
