by J E Loddon
“How are you doing?” Casper asked her, his voice softening.
“It hurts,” she admitted. “I can move my arms and legs, but they’re all tender. How are you holding up, Liberty?” she asked.
“I’ll be OK,” Liberty answered wearily. I gave her a worried look. The blood was only dribbling slowly out, but the patch-up job she’d managed to do on the wound wasn’t going to last forever. “Cal? Tell us about your arm?” she said. Cal had reluctantly wandered back to his position, and was slowly lowering himself back down.
“It’s fine,” he snapped back grouchily. “I should probably try to set it, though, if anyone can find a solid stick anywhere.”
I scoured the ground. All the twigs I saw looked pretty frail. Casper got up, and crept a little bit further in the forest, and we searched around cautiously for a few minutes. I kept looking around, still expecting someone to pop out and shoot me any minute. With the amount of noise we’d been making, though, if there’d been anyone around, they’d be on top of us by then. Casper found a strong stick, and I helped Cal wrap it around his arm with a field bandage. It looked pathetic, and I didn’t really believe it was helping him at all.
“Liberty?” Antonia said. “Liberty, you OK?” I looked across, and Liberty had her eyes shut. I ran across and knelt besides here.
“Liberty?!, I said, pulling one of her eyelids up. “Liberty, are you with us?” She smacked my hand away, with enough force that I felt a small sense of relief.
“Yeah, bud,” she replied groggily. “I must have just dozed off for a second.”
“That’s OK,” I said to her. “Just stay with us. You rest, though. There’s nothing happening, we’re clear for the moment.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Cal interjected, his voice tense. I looked across at him. He had his ocular up to his eye, and was looking out across the water. I frowned, and took my own ocular from my belt. At first, I couldn’t see anything. Then, I remembered the jutting cliff. I followed it out into the sea, and that’s when I saw it. Drifting into sight from the East, behind the cliff, a boat came into view. Then, a few seconds later, another. Then, a third. They were coming.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“How long?” Liberty asked, trying to keep her voice steady. Cal looked through his ocular again, furrowing his brow.
“They’re having to make a wide arc around the rocks at the base of the cliff,” he replied. “They’re big boats, not built for speed or manoeuvrability. I’d say at least five minutes.”
“How big?” Casper asked, genuine panic in his voice.
“Big enough to carry equipment, materials, and machinery,” Cal answered.
“And how many troops?” Casper asked, voice rising.
“Hundreds,” Cal replied. “It’s possible they’re mostly construction workers, but even if there were just five or six soldiers, we’d still be out of luck.” It was a fair point. With Tasia down, Cal working with one arm, and Liberty looking like she was pretty much done, we had no chance.
“Right. It’s definitely time to move,” Casper exclaimed.
“Casper!” Liberty barked, fire coming back into her eyes momentarily. “That isn’t helpful. We need ideas.”
“Actually, as ideas go, it might not be a bad one,” Antonia pointed out, drawing an angry glare from Liberty. “What?” she asked. “We’re can’t defend this tree trunk fort against an enemy force of vast numbers. If we stay here, we’re dead.”
“Even if we did move,” Liberty replied calmly, “they’d be looking for us, and our lead would diminish quickly.” She gestured towards Tasia. “Only a few of us can move at full speed, and we’re all exhausted, so full speed isn’t even very much.”
“So, what, we sit here, hoping the transport picks us up sometime in the next few minutes?” Casper asked sarcastically.
“No,” she replied. She looked over at Cal. “We sit here, and we cover Cal’s retreat into the forest.” Cal looked across at her in shock and confusion.
“What?!” Casper spluttered.
“We give him the spare extraction rocket. We put up a fight here, slow the enemy down, buy Cal as much time as possible. With any luck, they won’t even know how many of us there are. Cal can hide out, find a good extraction point.”
“That ain’t happening,” Cal asserted.
“It’s the obvious thing to do,” Liberty replied. “Someone has to get back, report what we’ve found here. Cal, you’re the only one that knows what your mission was. It doesn’t matter if the rest of us survive. If we buy Cal time to get away, and he gets back to Galactic Division as a result, I’d say that would be mission accomplished.”
Cal went to speak again, but stopped. He sat there, looking a bit bewildered. Casper just sat, shaking his head for several seconds.
“This is nuts,” Casper said eventually, but with little force behind his voice. Liberty was right. We could all see that, even Casper and Cal. Cal was obviously reluctant. He couldn’t ask us all to stay behind and face certain death so that he could live. He knew, though, that was what had to happen. It was weird. I didn’t feel fear, and I didn’t feel hard done by. I actually felt sorry for Cal. Our deaths would be on his conscience. It wasn’t his idea, and it was a sound military strategy. He would. However, have to live the rest of his life knowing we died for him. Along with how many others? Eleven years, hundreds of missions. How many others had had to die so that Cal could reach this point in his military career.
“I don’t want you to do this,” Cal said eventually. He was looking at the ground, teeth clenched. He didn’t want us to do it, that was clear. He was, though, going to let us.
“You can wait, if you want,” Liberty said. “As long as possible, in case the shuttle comes down.” Cal nodded.
“You guys can all go,” Tasia chimed in. “Leave me here. I know I’m the one that’ll slow you down. I’m the reason we can’t all move.”
“No!” growled Casper. “We are not leaving you. I’m staying.”
“We’re all staying,” Liberty reiterated to Tasia. “We’re not leaving you behind.”
“I should get higher,” Antonia said. Liberty shook her head.
“Not yet,” she said. “We need to be in position in case the transport comes. You go up when Cal leaves.”
We all looked across the water at the boats. We could barely see them without oculars. They were just blurs on the horizon, bobbing up and down. They were, though, our fate, headed towards us. I looked across at Liberty, then at the others. Then, I looked up at the beautiful, green trees all around me. If I was going to die, I was happy it was here. I looked again at Liberty, energy drained away, but still making the decisions she felt were right. I realised that, even though Chris wasn’t here, I was happy to die with the people I had around me. Even Cal. I looked at the old man. He wasn’t actually old, but to us, dying at age 19, he really was.
“Here, kid,” Cal said, handing me his guns.
“You’ll need these,” I said. “We’ll only be able to hold them off for so long. If they decide to go out looking anyway, you’ll need to be able to protect yourself.”
“If they decide to go out looking,” he pointed out, “I’ve got no chance, guns or no guns.”
We pooled our rations together, and every other piece of equipment we had. Weapons, we distributed amongst the squad. Everything else, anything that was useful for survival, Cal took. Antonia helped me to try to get the splint on his arm right, but we just couldn’t do it. The pain we would cause trying to force his arm into the right position would be too great, and he wouldn’t be in a position to get away from anything. We then moved on to Liberty, replacing the patch on her arm, and strapping more bandaging around it. If she was going to die, she was determined that she’d do it fighting. Knowing Liberty, that fighting would be ferocious, too.
We sat Tasia in a slightly different position, one that allowed her to see the water, and hold a gun resting on some branches that we stacked together on her lap. I
t looked incredibly sad, and I felt hot tears welling up in my eyes. The adrenaline was pumping, but I was starting to feel icy cold fear reappear. Casper was right. It was crazy. Necessary, but still completely crazy.
“We’ve still get three or four minutes,” Cal told us. “The boats seem to be having trouble manoeuvring around each other.” I looked across the water, and could see the boats still looked just as blurry as they had before. I’d never been on a boat. I’d never, I thought now, been in the ocean either. I looked at the water. I’d had a bath before, once or twice. Water had been a fairly precious commodity back home, though. I had no comprehension of how swimming worked, though I knew it was something people did on planets all the time. Some planets were made up mostly of water, so there must be people who swam every day. I had a sudden urge to run down to the water. To jump in, and try to swim as far as possible. I had a job to do, though. Plus, I’d probably just drown within couple of minutes. That might be preferable to being blown apart, or shot to pieces, but it was far less useful.
I was going to die a soldier. That thought gave me a strange sense of pride. I’d never had any desire to be a soldier, and that hadn’t really changed. I hadn’t really stood for anything back home, though. I’d made no impression on the world. I’d lived to make just enough money to be able to spend my spare time drinking and having fun. I’d been happy enough. Looking back, though, it had been a waste. I wasn’t necessarily dying for a cause that I had a great deal of passion behind today, but I was dying for A cause, at least. As soon as I’d been conscripted, I’d known that I was going to die as a result. I hadn’t felt like I’d die as an actual soldier, though. I’d seen myself dying as a reluctant, useless recruit. I’d done enough now, though, that I felt I could consider myself an actual soldier. I’d completed missions, and I was about to die a heroic death. What more can you ask for from a soldier?
“About three minutes,” Cal called out.
The death countdown was horrendous, and inappropriate, really. It was just Cal’s nature at this point in his life, though. He was a military man, he looked at everything with that militaristic eye. I was glad I hadn’t lived long enough for that to happen to me. Liberty, on the other hand, was driven my militaristic views. I felt glad for her, that she’d been able to die following her dream. It wasn’t exactly the way she would have wanted it. She’d have loved to have been able to do much before in her time, to make a much bigger difference. She had been able to dictate the plan that led to her end, though, and it had been for a noble purpose that would potentially help the defence of her home.
The boats were starting to come a bit more clearly into view. They were a very dark grey, almost black. I couldn’t fully make out the shape though. It was impossible to get a decent sense of scale from this distance as well. How many would be on board? Dozens? Hundreds? It didn’t matter to us either way, but it would matter to those who had to come behind us, to engage the full force of this army in an attempt to quell the alien’s advancement into our territory. Even if Cal did get back to the ship, and raise the alarm, who would come? With the large attack forces on the main front lines, would they even be able to spare a big enough force to take this planet? Or would humanity be forced to retreat back?
“Two minutes,” Cal called out.
Casper was sat, holding Tasia’s hands, eyes closed. He really did care, evidently. The boy I’d originally met, just a few weeks ago, wasn’t bothered by anything. He hadn’t really been cocky, as such. He just hadn’t cared enough for confidence to be an issue. Something had happened over this last month that meant his cool, non-committal demeanour and slipped, and ultimately broken The horrors of war can do that, I guess. Antonia sat looking pensive. I didn’t really know her well enough at all, I realised. She seemed motivated only by herself, the challenges she set. She didn’t seem to have any issues with confidence either, though stuck mostly to what she was good at. I guess that was the key. Only do the things you know you can do, and there’s far less chance of failure. Tasia was testing her arms and shoulders out, seeing how much movement she had for firing back at the enemy. She seemed to be doing a bit better now. She could turn her head, and didn’t look nearly so pained. I liked Tasia. She was sensible, but with a sense of humour. She shared my philosophy on combat. She had no interest in killing people. She’d had a life back home, much more than I’d had. She’d had to leave it behind, and had been completely out of her element at first. Almost naive, which was saying something, coming from me. She’d warmed into her role as strategist, though. It was a shame, really. Given a few more missions, I think she would have gotten really good at it.
“About one minute,” Cal called out.
The size of the boats was starting to become a bit more clear now. They were pretty big. A lot bigger than the transport, when it had all the pods hanging from its wings. The transport was designed to carry six squads of five people. Room for thirty people in the pods, and thirty in the main ship too. So these boats could carry significantly more people than sixty.
Cal started getting ready to move, and I tried to shift into combat mode. It was hard, though. I’d accepted my fate, and with nothing but the very defiant sounds of the boat rocking through the water, it was almost serene here. There were even sporadic bird sounds again now, some of the flying creatures having returned following the loud gun battle that had caused them to flee earlier on.
“They’re turning around!” Tasia called out excitedly. I narrowed my eyes, and looked back at the boats. She was right. They were slowly rotating around. It took a good thirty seconds until they were all sideways on. They didn’t continue turning, though. Instead, something seemed to be opening up.
“What are they doing?” Casper eyes, sounding worried.
“They’re not turning around at all,” Cal replied. “They’re launching landing craft.”
“What are landing craft?” I asked, turning towards him. He looked at me like I was a small child.
“Landing craft. The boats are big. They can’t sail right up to the beach, they’re too heavy. They’ll get stuck in the sand. The troops have to travel to the shore on smaller, lighter boats.”
“Oh,” I said, that’s pretty clever.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “I never saw a boat before,” I explained, shrugging. The boats continued to open, and we could see movement inside.
“I guess it’s that time,” Cal said. “Thank you all. You’re heroes, all of you.”
“Good luck Cal,” Liberty said weakly. “Make sure you get home. The Division needs to know about this.” Cal nodded, and slowly, reluctantly, made his way into the forest. We could see troops sat in much smaller boats now, and the sounds of engines faintly buzzing.
“They’re on their way,” I said grimly. We listened to the high-pitched buzzing growing slowly louder, as Antonia made her way up the tree. The sounds of the small craft approaching suddenly became very loud, until they were almost deafening. Antonia slid back down the tree thud next to me, a wide-eyed look on her face.
“What is it?” I asked her, bewildered.
“It’s here!” she shouted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“What’s here?” I asked in confusion. I didn’t need to wait for her to answer. The deafening roar behind me was enough. It wasn’t the boats that I’d been able to hear getting louder. It was the descent of the shuttle. I looked at it in disbelief, as it floated down to the sand, hiding the malevolent presence of the troop carrying craft speeding towards us.
“Help me!” Casper shouted out. He was trying to pull Tasia off the ground, but she still had the branches piled across her lap. Antonia rushed to help Casper, pulling the branches away. I looked down at Liberty. She was barely with it, and I wasn’t sure she even knew that the shuttle was here.
“Liberty!” I shouted. “Liberty!” She didn’t respond, and I felt a knot in my stomach. I rushed down to her side, and started shaking her.
“Wh... What is it?” she asked faintly, groggily opening her ey
es.
“It’s the transport!” I shouted. “It’s here. Can you move?” She looked at me blankly, confusion in her eyes. Then she looked around, as if trying to place where she was.
“The transport?” she asked me finally.
“Yes, yes, the transport. Can you move?” I asked again. She started trying to clamber to her feet, and I helped her up. By this time, Antonia and Casper had gotten Tasia up, and between them were carrying her to the shuttle. I heard the sounds of gunfire, coming from the direction of the sea, and the pinging sound of bullets bouncing off of the shuttle. “Come on, we gotta go,” I said to her urgently, trying to lift her up. There was no chance of that, though. She was too heavy, and I was too weak by this point. Instead, she leaned heavily on my shoulder as we walked as quickly as she could move towards the shuttle. Then, I remembered Cal.
“Cal!” I shouted into the forest, pausing momentarily. “Cal, the shuttle’s here!” I saw no movement. I began moving towards the shuttle again, Liberty’s weight pressing hard onto me. “Cal!” I continued shouting as I went. “Cal!”
