Free Stories 2015

by Baen Books

  Damn!

  She looked to Jankowski, wondered what he was thinking, wondering how many family members of his were still alive over there. He lowered his head. His shoulders tensed up.

  Then Jankowski grabbed the field phone, called down to the OP. “Cease fire on the fire mission, cease fire!”

  After tossing the receiver down, Jankowski started back to where his gear was stored: battlepack, helmet, M-10. “Morales! MacKay! Saddle up! We’re heading out!”

  Melissa tried to swallow, but her mouth was dust-dry. In a flash of seconds, she knew what Jankowski was thinking: the Creepers had already taken down one resupply balloon, desperately needed by the starving citizens of Denver, and there were only two left. Help was on its way but the battle was going to be decided in the next handful of minutes. And the Colt M-10 that Jankowski—and only Jankowski—was qualified to use had an effective range of fifty meters.

  About seven hundred fifty meters too short. And Jankowski had decided they weren’t going to sit and wait behind the relative safety of the trenches.

  All three of them were going over the top, just liked the doomed British, French and German soldiers nearly a century and a half ago.

  Morales said, “What about the Quick Reaction Force?”

  Jankowski secured his helmet. “Shut up. We’re it. We’re going over, standard intercept mission, the two of you putting down harassing fire. Get to it!”

  Melissa put on her helmet, secured the chinstrap, checked her MOLLE vest and the four extra magazines she carried, picked up her Colt M-4 and joined her corporal. The M-4’s were practically useless against the Creepers, but they did irritate them, and sometimes diverted them, allowing a soldier with an M-10 to close in for the kill.

  Morales was fumbling with his helmet, hands shaking, and Melissa paused to help him out, and Jankowski said, “Guys, we squared away?”

  “Yes, Corporal.”

  “Yes, Corporal.”

  “Like I said, just like a training mission. Mac, you take the left, Morales, you take the right. We rush them, concealing as best as we can, and once we get three hundred meters behind us, you two open fire, try to slow 'em down.”

  He paused. “Denver . . . it’s starving. It’s up to us. Let’s roll.”

  Jankowski moved down trench to a section where wooden steps had been built, and he was the first one over, with Melissa following and Morales bringing up the rear.

  The first thing Melissa noticed was the smell of smoke. Maybe she was used to it in the rear lines or in the trenches, but out here in the open, in no man’s land, the scent was stronger, and part of her stomach felt a slug of nausea as she realized the some of the smoke she was smelling was coming from the funeral pyres inside the besieged city.

  Melissa counted out her steps, as she moved back and forth, over and under, trying not to pay much attention of what she was crossing over, the churned up earth, the crushed cars, the chunks of asphalt and concrete. Her breathing was harsh, cutting into her, and she recalled how many times she had trained this maneuver, over and over again, until she could do it in her sleep . . .

  . . .but now it was for real, with not one, but two alien Creepers up ahead.

  “Three hundred,” she yelled out, falling to the rough terrain. She brought up her M-4, sighted in at the Creeper on the left, fired off a quick three-round burst. She rolled to the right, and maneuvered behind a large chunk of concrete, as Morales echoed her own outgoing fire. Jankowski was in the center, M-10 on his back, moving so fast she had difficulty keeping up with him.

  Another burst of fire, and another. She moved to the left this time, just as the near Creeper raised itself up, and let loose with flame projections from each of its arms. Melissa fell to the ground, tried to burrow herself in, flatten herself out, make herself as small as possible as the flames roared overhead.

  “Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving!” Jankowski yelled, practically leaping from one mound of rubble to another. “I’m almost in range!”

  She fired off two more bursts, and then popped out an empty magazine, slammed a new one in, and let the bolt fly.

  “Morales,” she yelled out, “keep on firing!”

  Morales didn’t answer back. Not her problem. She moved again, ducked down next to a flattened school bus, the yellow paint long ago having faded to white, and she fired off one more burst. The wind shifted and two things came to her that meant a Creeper on the move: the scent of cinnamon and the click-click of their segmented body in motion.

  Never had she ever been so close to a Creeper, and her hands were shaking as she tried to keep up the harassing fire. Then Morales screamed, “They got the second balloon! They got the second balloon!”

  Melissa yelled over to him, “Eyes front, Morales, eyes front!”

  Then they were in range for the M-10, and she felt herself lucky indeed to be alive and to see Jankowski get to work. He removed a 50 mm M-10 cartridge from his MOLLE vest, spun the base dial to set the range—ten, twenty-five or fifty meters, and she knew he was setting it for the furthest range—and the corporal broke open the breech, slammed the cartridge in, closed it with a hard snap.

  She remembered her job. The three of them were in a scattered line, hiding behind a length of rubble and broken metal, probably a shattered highway overpass, and she popped up, fired off another burst at the near Creeper, the damn thing looking like it was about to crawl right over her. She rolled to the left as a streamer of flame screamed overhead.

  Jankowski moved to the right, slipped up and yelled, “Eat this!” and fired, the recoil of the M-10 nearly blowing him back. Melissa scrambled up broken chunks of concrete, saw a hole she could peek through. The near Creeper was still moving but there was a cloud in front of it, and she yelled, “Yeah, good shot, Corporal!”

  Her corporal said nothing, sliding back down the rubble, moving quickly to reload his M-10. Melissa looked back at the Creeper. The round from Jankowski’s M-10 had exploded at the fifty-meter range. The cartridge was a binary weapon, with two chemicals inside—one of the most closely-guarded secrets in this war—and when mixed, it was lethal to the creature riding inside the Creeper exoskeleton. And right now, the Creeper before her was enveloped in the cloud.

  It stopped.

  It goddamn stopped.

  The eight legs and the two weapon arms started shaking, as well as the center head stalk. It shook and quivered and then fell, to the side, the movement from the articulated limbs digging up divots of soil and rock.

  Morales screamed, “You killed it, Corporal, you killed it, you killed it!”

  Jankowski moved a few meters down the length of rubble. “Shut up, Hector, you’re waking up the dead in Denver. And where’s my harassing fire, damn it!”

  Melissa moved some more, fired a few more rounds, the bolt slamming open. Empty magazine. The dead Creeper was still dead. Jankowski was pushing his way through more broken debris, slid down a battered highway sign marking EXIT 12, and then went back up to the top.

  She tugged out the magazine, slapped in another one, let the bolt slide back. Ready.

  Click-click.

  Click-click.

  Click-click.

  The smell of cinnamon—another puzzle, why did the bugs stink of an Earth-bound spice? —and another rip of gunfire from Morales down the way. Kid was keeping his cool, which surprised her. He was too young, too eager, and he was a refugee, a Coastie, which meant he got a lot of grief from other soldiers. She could barely see him but he was still on his job.

  Melissa moved up, was so goddamn close to the second Creeper that she could throw a stone at it, and Morales yelled, “The third balloon is up! They’ve launched the third balloon.”

  Morales should have kept his damn mouth shut. Jankowski was near the top of his pile of rubble and he was bringing up his Colt M-10, but he hesitated, looked back at the balloon rising up from the staging area.

  He slipped, fell forward, got up on his hands and knees, and his head and upper torso was torn
away in a blast of fire, flesh, and a spray of blood.

  Morales screamed, “It got the corporal, it got the corporal! Mac, whaddya we going to do?”

  She yelled back, “Keep firing!”

  “But . . . but . . . where’s the QRF?”

  She yelled something nasty about the QRF to Morales, moved as fast as she could to the right, the M-4 now feeling like it was made of lead. Her chest hurt, her feet hurt, and smoke was making her eyes water, and she was chewing her tongue, trying to get saliva going again. She skittered across the broken rubble, scraping her hands, and she looked to the west. The balloon was up, by God, and dangling below was a rope net, holding crates upon crates of rations and medicine.

  Morales was shooting again. Good boy.

  She moved up the broken slope, seeing the booted feet and the uniformed legs of her dead corporal, the stench pushing into her nostrils and mouth, trying hard not to see the charred chunks and bones on the upper torso.

  Where was it?

  Where was it?

  There.

  The Colt-10 was about a meter away. She picked it up, the damn thing heavier than her M-4. Could she do it? Could she?

  She went up the rubble, a couple of meters away from Jankowski’s body, whispered something to the corpse, and then flattened herself down on a piece of rusted metal. The damn bug was filling up her entire view. She brought up the M-10, aimed over the open iron sights, pulled the trigger.

  WHAM!

  It felt like a horse had just kicked her right shoulder. Melissa screamed, fell back, and she heard the detonation of the M-10’s round. Panting hard, she crawled up the rough slope and saw the familiar cloud of a detonating round, and a Creeper, just like it should be.

  Except the cloud was behind the Creeper.

  She had missed.

  Damn!

  And in a flash she knew why. Poor old Jankowski had set the range for an approaching Creeper, and the damn thing had kept moving after barbecuing her corporal, and she had overshot.

  She had overshot.

  “Mac, it’s still moving!”

  She had to reload the M-10.

  Which meant she had to grab another round from . . .

  Jankowski’s charred body.

  Melissa moved in tunnel vision, trying to keep everything out of focus save what was before her, which was Jankowski’s body. His fatigues were torn and one knee was scraped bloody raw. He must have hurt himself bad during the attack but the guy kept on going, hadn’t bothered to stop or complain.

  Focus. MOLLE vest torn and shredded.

  There.

  Three M-10 cartridges.

  She tugged one free.

  Morales yelled something and she yelled back, “Just keep firing, damn it!”

  Sitting down, she spun the dial on the bottom of the cartridge, taking it from SAFE and stopping at ten meters.

  Just ten meters away.

  Fingers feeling thick and fumbling, she broke open the M-10’s breech, removed the empty shell, slid the fresh one in. Snapped the breech shut.

  “Morales!

  “Mac!”

  She took a deep, painful breath: “If . . . something happens, you take over, got it? There are two cartridges left on Jankowski’s vest. Got it?”

  Morales yelled something and she didn’t have time to keep talking.

  Time to move.

  She went back up the rocky slope, breathing hard, the stench of cinnamon even worse, the click-click almost deafening, More distant gunfire from Morales. Harassing fire, yeah, harassing. Just another term for doing something useless that made you feel better.

  Up now on the slope, she thought of praying but couldn’t think of a single word, and she flattened herself, brought the M-10 back to her shoulder. The Creeper was starting to raise itself up on its rear, and she thought, the rubble, it can’t get a good aim on the resupply balloon because of the rubble, and it’s pushing itself up to burn it down.

  Melissa aimed the M-10, and the Creeper spotted her, because it was lowering itself down and ---

  WHAM!

  Another scream. Her shoulder felt like it was torn to pieces, only kept in place because of her uniform blouse.

  But she forced herself to watch.

  Had to.

  The round exploded just below the Creeper, and she thought, damn, should have grabbed another cartridge, because it looked like she had missed, and then the Creeper kept on lowering itself down.

  Right through the toxic cloud.

  And within a minute, it was on its back, quivering, shaking, moments away from dying.

  Melissa rolled on her back, sobbing. Broken pieces of rock were jabbing into her back and legs and butt, and she didn’t care.

  Something floated above her, nearly blocking the sun.

  She raised a hand, blocking the sun.

  It was the resupply balloon.

  Morales appeared, dusty and sweating. In one hand he had his M-4, and in the other, an open canteen. He offered the canteen to Melissa and she took two swigs of warm and flat tasting water.

  It was delicious.

  Morales said, “The balloon’s moving in the right direction. Bet it gets to Denver within the hour.”

  She rolled over, raised up her head. Sure enough, being caught by the winds, the balloon with its precious cargo was heading straight to the Mile High City.

  “Bet you're right,” she said, giving him back his canteen. “Let’s . . . let’s gather up the corporal and get back to where we belong.”

  “Roger that, Mac.”

  She was so engrossed in her paperwork that she didn’t notice the first soldier coming into the trench, but seeing the second soldier and the third and then their lieutenant, commanding their company, part of 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, Colorado National Guard, really got her attention. She dropped her papers and stood up at attention, with Morales a couple of meters away doing the same. The third member of their squad, wrapped in a plastic poncho, secured by lengths of rope, had been taken away an hour ago by a Graves Registration team. His M-10 was leaning up against the trench, the two remaining cartridges on the duckboard.

  Lieutenant Russ Picard gave the length of trench a quick look with his good eye. Half of his face was scarred with burn tissue and a black patch covered the empty socket. His uniform was dirty and repaired, and he looked tired, very tired. Companies were usually run by captains, not lieutenants, but as was said so often, nothing was usual any more.

  “Who made the Creeper kills?” Picard asked.

  Melissa said, “Corporal Jankowski. I got the second. Private Morales provided harassing fire.”

  “Are you certified on the M-10?”

  “No, sir, I’m not.”

  He came forward, extended a hand, which she shook. “You are now.”

  She felt a flash of surprise, and then said, “The balloon, sir, did . . . did it make it to Denver?”

  He grinned. “It certainly did . . . but . . . well, it’s not enough. It’s never enough. Still, a number of civvies over there are going to live tonight thanks to this squad. Good job.”

  Then he looked down at Melissa’s paperwork, and she bit her lip in embarrassment at the mess she had caused. “What’s that on the ground?”

  “Belongs to me, sir.”

  “Tetler, if you please.”

  One of the privates picked up a sheet of paper, passed it over to Picard. He gave it a glance and said, “Well?”

  Melissa said, “Geometry, sir. It’s my geometry final. It’s . . . due at 1700 today.”

  Picard said, “No, it’s not. You just got an A. How does that sound?”

  She couldn’t help smiling. “Sounds great, sir.”

  He leaned in some. “How old are you, Private?”

  “Fourteen, sir. I’ll be fifteen next May.”

  “Private Morales?”

  “Twelve, sir.”

  Picard nodded. “Good job, the both of you.” Speaking to Melissa, he said, “You think you can stay here?”<
br />
  She spoke quickly. “We’ll need a replacement, sir. Two if they can be spared. And one of them should be a corporal.”

  Picard patted her shoulder. “Why? We’ve got a sergeant right here, don’t you think?”

  Melissa managed to say, “Thank you, sir.”

  “Good.” He looked to his escorts. “Come along gents, it’s time to get back to the war.”

  In a minute she and Morales were alone. Her head felt as light as the balloon that had made it, and her hands and legs tingled with joy. Morales said, “Why are you smiling so much? Happy about the promotion?”

  She tossed her papers in the air. “Happy I passed geometry.”