Jack shook his head and focused his attention on the task at hand. The first parts of the enemy column were passing by on the road below, lit by the spots of sunlight that filtered through gaps in the canopy. He looked over at Flores and saw her squinting at the approaching enemy patrol from under her helmet.
“We’re running low on ammunition, so make every shot count.” Jack kept his voice as low as possible.
“If you need me to go through the fundamentals of marksmanship with you, just let me know.” Flores turned to meet Jack’s eyes.
“Excuse me?” Jack raised his chin. Everything had gone so well with Flores for the last few days. Was she really starting a fight again?
Flores stared back at Jack for a few seconds before a smile spread across her face, the white of her teeth standing out against her dark skin. “No sense of humor, sir?”
Jack relaxed. “The Navy forgot to issue me one.”
Flores chuckled softly and returned to her weapon, a smile still on her face. “Copy that.”
Jack felt himself grin. His working relationship with Flores had improved in leaps and bounds since the briefing. She was a little rough around the edges — forceful, stubborn, proud of her own and her rangers’ abilities, definitely a field officer more than an administrator — but she was a damn fine lieutenant, and he’d been glad for her expertise on more than one occasion. Hell, he could almost say he’d come to like her.
The small, light bubble in Jack’s chest deflated as he looked back down at the enemy troops. He shouldered his rifle, digging his elbows into the moist earth, its rich, soggy smell drifting up to him. Movement in the corner of his eye told him Flores and the rest of the platoon had done the same. He aligned his sights on the enemy officer’s torso, finding center mass. He exhaled, taking up the slack in the trigger. He felt his heartbeat pulsing in his temples. The officer shouted something at the men ahead of him.
CRACK.
Jack felt the rifle recoil into his shoulder, and when the sights came down again, he could see the officer dropping forward, clutching an expanding red spot on his chest. A chorus of shots erupted around him as the rangers opened fire, and he trained his sights around for another target.
An enemy running almost straight toward him for the cover of a tree.
CRACK.
Another one fumbling with a grenade on a bandolier.
CRACK.
Jack had learned fast during the last couple days, and the rangers had been good teachers. Showing him how to use a rifle effectively, how to screen out any recognition of the target as a person, to treat each one as an object to be brought down. It made this easier to stomach. Jack methodically worked his way from target to target, dropping each of them with precise hits — and the occasional miss. The enemy patrol was coming apart, some of them trying to run back down the trail, while others, lacking orders, fired blindly into the woods. Little bits of branches and pieces of leaves sprinkled down around Jack as the enemy bullets shredded the foliage but missed their marks.
Jack raised his head from his rifle and shouted over the din to Flores. “Remember, I want a prisoner this time.”
Throughout all their engagements so far, going all the way back to that first ambush on the docks, they had not yet managed to catch one of the enemy troops alive. The ferocity of the fighting had been such that none had surrendered, and Jack had noted that taking prisoners was not the rangers’ first nature.
“Aye sir!” Flores’ response was barely audible as one of the rangers peppered the enemies below with a machine gun.
There were only a few enemies left now, trying to return fire from behind trees or among the toppled bodies of their comrades. One by one, they fell under the precise fire of Flores’ platoon.
“Cease fire!” Flores turned on her side, waving her open hand in front of her face. The ranger’s guns fell silent, the boom of one last shot knocking down another enemy soldier. Jack scanned the trail for survivors, didn’t see any.
“Damn!” Jack shook his head. “We can’t keep screwing this up.” He started standing up, but felt Flores’ hand push him back down.
“There.” She pointed her bayonet in the direction of a fat tree with a large knot near its base.
Jack caught sight of what looked like an elbow protruding from behind the trunk, felt a brief wave of embarrassment wash through him for having not seen it.
Jack cleared his throat. “Surrender!” He set his rifle down and cupped his hands over his mouth. “If you come out now and throw down your weapon, you will not be harmed.”
The person answered by firing in Jack’s direction, the bullet striking a tree a few feet to Jack’s left and blasting a chunk out of its side.
Jack flinched and watched as the man below ducked back into cover. “There’s no reason for you to die. Come out now and surrender.”
Silence. Jack glanced over at Flores, who shrugged her shoulders.
“We know you’re tired, son.”
Jack looked around to see where the voice had come from, and turned to see Sergeant Néri crawling up next to him from the left.
“It’s hot. Your friends are dead. Let us help.” Néri continued, his deep, gravelly voice filling the woods and carrying with it a clear sense of the size and strength of the man who produced it.
Jack gaped at the sergeant. Since when had the gruff NCO become a psychologist?
“Fuck you!” The panic in the enemy’s voice was obvious. “You killed them! You bastards! Don’t you know we’re trying to save you? We’re trying to save you all! And you serve the monster. You’re just like them.” The man fired several shots toward the rangers, stopped. Jack could hear him muttering curses under the metallic clacking of the man dropping an empty magazine.
Jack saw Flores raise her carbine out of the corner of his eye.
“We don’t have time for this,” she hissed between her teeth.
Jack couldn’t argue with that. The noise of the ambush would no doubt attract any nearby enemy patrols, and the Alliance troops would need to move quickly to avoid being caught. With their ammunition almost gone, they needed to return to the bunker to re-supply, but only after a circuitous, confusing, exhausting route that would throw off their pursuers. They couldn’t risk doing that if another patrol was following them too closely.
“Be careful,” Jack said. He watched as Flores took careful aim, then fired.
The bullet struck the edge of the trunk near where the man was hiding. He screamed, no doubt stung by the shards of wood from the round’s impact. Suddenly the man darted from behind cover, one arm over his face, a rifle held in his free hand. He was running back along the road, his ragged clothing flying behind him. Jack gasped as Flores fired again. The enemy screamed and fell onto his face.
Anger built at Jack’s temples. This had been the best chance in a long time to finally get some information about this damned mess, and they’d ruined it.
“I said be careful, Lieutenant!” Jack turned to Flores, but found himself looking at her boot.
“I was.” Flores ran down the hill toward the man. Jack stood up and followed, seeing with a rush of relief that the man was squirming where he lay, clutching one hand to his calf.
Flores was nearly to him, and the man was reaching for something at his side. Adrenaline surged up into Jack’s throat as he saw what it was.
A grenade!
“Lieutenant, get ba—”
“Knock it the fuck off!” Flores interrupted Jack’s shout as she knocked the man’s hands away from the grenade with the flat side of her bayonet. She pushed the blade point up to the man’s throat. “Unless you want to be shish-kebab, you stop moving, okay? My troops are real hungry after tracking your ass.”
“Bitch!” The man spat up at Flores, but Jack saw the lieutenant merely put her foot on the enemy’s wounded leg and press down. The man yelped and whimpered.
“That’s cute, buddy. Real cute.”
Jack reached Flores’ side, felt Néri, Corporal Laza
ar, and one of the other rangers — a rifleman named Aziz — beside him.
“Get him up, and see to that injury.” Jack turned to Néri. “I don’t want him bleeding out.”
“Sir.” Néri nodded, gestured to Aziz, and the two of them hauled the prisoner to his feet. He shrieked when his weight came onto his wounded leg.
“Strap him to something.” Flores stepped out of the way, tearing the man’s grenade belt off of him as Aziz and Néri dragged him away. “And gag him. We need to move out of here now.”
They spent a few more minutes picking the fallen enemies clean of ammunition and grenades while the platoon medic clotted and bandaged the prisoner’s wound. They then struck out south, climbing high into the wooded ridge.
Jack breathed hard, sweat dripping down his nose from under his helmet in the thick, humid air. It would be a few more hours before they got back to the bunker, and it would be one hell of a hike. Jack was beginning to get a solid sense of the topography, and he knew Flores would take a hard route there, something that would throw off or slow down pursuers.
He turned his thoughts from his screaming calf muscles and almost moaned at the thought of the coolness of the bunker’s concrete interior and the cold cistern water that would be waiting there.
“You did good.” Flores’ voice interrupted Jack’s reverie.
Jack turned to see Flores walking next to him and felt a stab of annoyance at the fact that she wasn’t even breathing hard. He brushed it aside and grinned. “Thanks. You too, Lieutenant. That was a good shot. I thought you’d killed him for a second.”
“Thank you, sir.” Then all humor left Flores’ face, and she looked at him with exaggerated seriousness, her eyes wide. “I can always arrange that marksmanship course for you, sir.”
Jack shook his head and laughed in spite of himself. “As long as I can give you a course in military decorum.”
Flores frowned slightly, then did something Jack didn’t expect and laughed, throwing her head back slightly and then shaking it from side to side. “Aye sir. But you be careful now. The Navy didn’t issue you a sense of humor, remember?”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Flores laughed again, then accelerated her pace. Jack smiled, watching her dodge between trees as she jogged up the slope toward the head of the column.
Neville stopped walking and leaned against a thick tree to catch his breath. He squinted up at the bright sunlight breaking here and there through the blue-green canopy of leaves, wishing that a breeze would rustle through them. The damp heat was growing every hour, and Neville felt like he was burning up. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead, flapped his arms slightly to fan the sweat-soaked fabric of his uniform shirt. Doing this alone was even harder than he’d thought, and the reality of his decision was sinking in. He peered along the forest trail in the direction he’d come from, doubt working its way into his throat.
Should he go back?
They’d been woken up this morning by a sudden explosion of gunfire. Fletcher, Maher, and Gram had left the group to check on what it was, leaving Gosse and Becker to guard their camp. Neville had stayed seated on the ground next to Corporal Cassas, who had moaned and shifted about, her face ashen, while Gosse and Becker had picked up their rifles and strolled to the edge of the trees around the clearing. Neville had watched as they’d hidden themselves behind large trees and peered out into the woods. He’d almost wanted to laugh. Why even bother? They were all doomed. They’d wandered for days through the woods, tired, hungry, and thirsty. It was only a matter of time before they were captured or killed. Their only hope was to get the hell off of Kensington as fast as possible.
He’d looked down at the red-stained bandages around the Corporal’s leg as he’d listened to the sustained roar of gunfire in the distance. Cassas had been growing weaker every day since they’d escaped from the fort, the loss of blood and the pain wearing her down. They’d been able to keep infection away with a small first aid kit Fletcher had worn on his belt, but she wouldn’t last forever. Neville shuddered. That — or worse — would happen to all of them if they didn’t get out of here, if they didn’t find a way off this planet.
Fletcher, Maher, and Gram had returned as the noise had begun to die down.
“One of the enemy patrols is getting torn to pieces,” Gram had panted. “It looks like one of our ranger platoons is over there.”
There had been an audible sigh of relief among the soldiers, broken only by the sound of distant shouting, followed by two gunshots. Then silence had engulfed the forest once more.
“What are your orders, sir?” Fletcher had crouched in front of Neville, his dirt-smudged face softened with what could only be hope.
“I… I say we continue toward the dockyards,” Neville had said. “Find transport off the planet.”
“Sir, if there are still other Alliance units on the planet, that puts you in command.” Fletcher’s lips had pursed together. Condescending bastard. Neville knew his own rank.
He had raised his chin, doing his best to hold Fletcher’s gaze. “It’s up to us to get off this planet.” Seeing the confusion in the other’s faces, he’d added, “We have to get help. Warn the Alliance.”
“If we could get off,” Becker had said, crossing his arms. “There’s no guarantee we’d make it to space. Those air patrols could come back at any minute. They’d catch us as soon as we lifted off.”
“And the rangers…We can’t just leave them.” Gram’s voice had held a note of finality, and when Neville had looked at him, seen the set expression in his eyes and the eyes of the other soldiers, he’d realized that the choice was no longer his. He’d known then what he had to do.
“You’re right,” Neville had said, standing up. “We’ll meet up with the ranger unit.”
They’d packed their supplies in a few minutes and shifted Cassas onto the makeshift stretcher they’d put together out of a few uniform jackets and some branches. Neville had stayed at the rear of the group as Maher and Becker had lifted the stretcher and followed Fletcher, Gosse, and Gram into the woods toward where the sounds had come from. He’d waited a minute or two, allowing himself to fall farther and farther behind, then turned off into the woods, heading back toward the trail they’d been following before, the one that was supposed to go to the harbor.
That had been hours ago. He wished he’d thought to snatch one of the water bottles or one of the rifles, but that wouldn’t have been subtle. The important thing was to get away. He had no illusion about who his superiors would blame for losing the fort, and he wasn’t about to suffer for the incompetence of his garrison. He had to be the first one to reach the authorities, the first one to share what had really happened, shape the story.
His breathing even once again, and feeling a little cooler, Neville continued along the trail, which curved around the shoulder of a hill as it climbed higher. His legs hurt with every step, his muscles unaccustomed to the activity.
Office legs. That’s what Lieutenant Flores had called them once when talking about him to the other officers.
“Leave it to candy asses with office legs to not go where they can’t drive.”
No doubt she’d thought he hadn’t heard. At least she was probably dead now. Good riddance.
The trail rounded the edge of the hill and emerged onto a high overlook. Neville sighed with pleasure as a cool breeze swept over him, carrying some of the heat of the day away. He peered over the tree tops in front of him, could make out the long, dark line of buildings along the dockland, the brilliant blue of the water. It couldn’t be more than a day’s walk away now, maybe ten miles. Below him and to the right, the slope dropped away sharply, marching down toward the main road and the rail line. He studied the road carefully, looked for anyone moving along its length. Completely abandoned. He knew enough not to strut in the open down the trail, not when he was alone, but if he kept just inside the cover of the trees… The ground on either side of the road was so much flatter than these dam
n forest trails. He didn’t have time to waste.
He turned off the trail and descended the slope, heading in the direction of the road. His boots crunched through branches and twigs as he moved downward, the occasional loose rock rolling ahead of him, clacking as it struck other rocks or tree trunks. His feet suddenly skidded out from under him, and he caught himself from falling onto his back. His hands stung as pebbles scraped them. He was about to curse, when he stopped, a bolt of terror moving up his spine.
Voices! He tilted his chin up slightly as he tried to pick out the sound, his eyes darting down the slope and among the trees, looking for the source of the noise. A breeze sighed through the woods, carrying with it the scent of trees and seawater. The forest stared back at him, unmoving.
Neville let out a breath. His imagination was getting the best of him.
He pressed on, stumbling and scrambling on the rock. He reached the bottom of the slope and trudged in the direction of the road. He came to the edge of the trees, took a moment to reassess his bearings, then turned left and continued walking, keeping just inside the forest.
He tried to think of something to keep his mind occupied. He looked down at his feet as he moved, his thoughts drafting exactly what he was going to say when he made it to the next Alliance post, how his garrison had lain down in front of the enemy, how the ranger officers had rebelled against his command, how even the crew of the Verdun had proved useless when the enemy attack had begun. He looked up, blinked.
Some twenty yards away, there was a man, dressed in tan rags and what looked like work coveralls, standing next to a tree. He had his back to Neville, and from the position of his arms, looked to be relieving himself against a tree. Another fifty yards beyond the man was a group of people, also dressed in dirty, torn work clothes, who seemed to be resting. Neville’s heart knocked in his chest as stared at the rifle hanging over the peeing man’s shoulder.
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