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War's Edge- Dead Heroes

Page 24

by Ryan W. Aslesen


  SSgt Fontaine, commander of the formerly downed tank, asked, “Sir, we’ve listened to a lot of briefs on insurgent activity, yet we’re not supposed to fire on civilians. How are we supposed to gain an edge if we can’t take the initiative?”

  “I wish I had a good answer for that, staff sergeant. As the current rules of engagement stand, we engage enemy who have fired upon us, not civilians who appear threatening. This war is mental as well as physical, and you need to check your combat instincts with your wits at all times. The command wants to keep civilian casualties and collateral damage to a minimum, so be sure to follow the ROE and properly identify your targets.”

  “And what happens if we kill the wrong civilians, sir?” Mitch asked.

  Gunny Cormac snorted. “Go figure you would ask that.”

  “I imagine you become a PFC again, Mitch,” Manahan said, evoking some laughter, which he did not join. Or maybe you get court-martialed and tossed in prison. I guess that’s up to Mr. Wilcox.

  ***

  Manahan fought fatigue in the form of eye strain and stiff limbs as the convoy crawled southward. It had taken Golf Company only two hours to reach the mine, but the massive-wheeled dump trucks, beds tightly covered with durocanvas so as not to lose even a few grams of precious tridinium ore, restricted the convoy to an agonizingly slow ten kilometers per hour on the poorly maintained roads. Time on deck: 1645. They’d been hovering for nearly four hours, with at least one more to go, when they reached Krungsborg, a hamlet of nine hundred souls about thirty klicks north of Darmatian.

  The cramped cabin reeked of body odor. The environmental control ran at maximum power, still no match for the intense heat and constant humidity on Verdant. Manahan frequently raised his visor to wipe the sweat from his eyes. He toggled between exterior views as they passed through the town, its yellow plasterform buildings roofed with red tiles, typical urban architecture on Verdant.

  Two tanks led the column, followed by three trucks, the staggered vehicle sequence repeated throughout the column of twenty-seven vehicles. Two Dragon gunships provided overhead cover while scouting the route and keeping civilian aircraft at a distance. Civilian wheeled and hover vehicles allowed the convoy right of way on the narrow roads.

  Manahan’s tank was first in the second rank of two Maulers. He checked the view from the second tank in the column, Lt Kramer’s, then switched to the lead tank under Gunny Cormac. All appeared clear of enemies.

  At a fork in the center of town, Cormac’s tank veered right toward Darmatian. According to Manahan’s display map, the left fork led into a residential area and then terminated at a bluff overlooking a river. The two leading tanks made it through the fork and continued.

  Manahan barely heard the explosion within the armored confines of the Mauler, but the radio confusion and red warnings on his HUD told the story. Through the rear camera on Kramer’s tank, Manahan saw the smoke clearing from an explosion below the first dump truck at the fork. As he watched, a second rocket exploded against its bed, the impact not even budging the huge machine, loaded down with tons of ore. Neither of the piss-poor shots disabled the truck, which sped down the left fork to nowhere with two other trucks following.

  When his HUD confirmed ENEMY ROCKET LAUNCHERS DETECTED above red lights blinking in a building by the fork, Manahan called the fleeing truck. “Transport 1, halt and get back on route. Do not deviate.”

  But it was too late; the panicked driver continued down the wrong road. The turret machinegun on Kramer’s tank opened fire on the building where the rocket launchers had been hiding, sending red hot energy bolts down range. Manahan’s gunner followed the weapon’s track as he scanned for more targets. Civilians, who had been gawking at the convoy passing on their main street, scattered for cover.

  “Fuck that shit! I’ll find an alternate route,” came the driver’s response.

  We’ll see about that! “Increase speed and follow those trucks,” Manahan ordered Mitch. Then over the radio he commanded: “Column halt! I’m going after those trucks. Kramer, Cormac, take a blocking position and scan those buildings. Engage any targets that present themselves.”

  With his halted convoy in a very vulnerable position, Manahan sent a mental text requesting air support. He then gritted his teeth, swallowed his pride, and alerted BM’s logistician, Mr. Hedley, of their predicament. Air support confirmation came almost immediately: the two Dragon gunships inbound, ETA two minutes. Mr. Hedley did not deign to respond.

  Mitch drove up the left fork, civilian vehicles swerving out the way.

  “HALT… YOUR… TRUCK!” Manahan roared in slow motion, to no avail. Fucking bright star up there!

  The truck they followed skidded to a halt on the brick street, smoke blossoming from its screeching tires.

  Manahan stood and opened the turret hatch. “I’m going out. Stay in here.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone, sir,” Sgt Pound said.

  “I know. Cover me from the turret.”

  He deftly squeezed his frame through the hatch, stepped off the turret to the tank deck, and dropped to the road. As he approached, he noticed the small body lying in the street, pancaked flat in a pool of blood, only the lower legs left intact.

  About Brax’s age, maybe younger.

  Manahan had seen mangled corpses before, but those had been mostly enemy bodies or his fellow Marines. He fought down the bile rising in the back of his throat. He couldn’t stand the sight of the corpse. Some motherfucker was going to pay dearly for that kid’s senseless death.

  As Manahan stormed past the third truck, its driver leaned from the window and said, “I didn’t run that kid over!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” The denial, probably true, only stoked Manahan’s anger. I bet I know who did!

  The lead driver had stopped his truck when the street became too narrow to continue. Otherwise he’d be in the fucking river by now! Fuming, Manahan stopped beneath the driver’s door. From his low angle—the bottom of the door overhead—he could only see that the driver was a thin, younger man with a dirty face and disheveled brown hair. He spoke into a headset, probably to one of the morons who had followed him.

  “Get the fuck outta that truck!”

  The driver’s face went slack and ashen when he saw Manahan. He did not comply, though he did lower the window. When Manahan repeated the order, the driver said, “I dunno what the fuck you’re mad about, Cap! This route was supposed to be clear, you jarheads didn’t do your fucking job!”

  Manahan snapped. He jumped to the first step, pulled the handle, and flung the door open just as the driver went to lock it.

  “Hey, what the fuck?”

  He grabbed the driver by his ankle and dragged him from the cab in kicking protest. The driver fell two meters, landed hard in the paved street, and wailed in pain. Manahan yanked him to his feet and slammed him against the truck. He grabbed his throat and squeezed, restraining himself from outright strangling the whining idiot. “Do you have a problem following orders, you stupid fuck?”

  “The route was s’posed to be… clear!” He gagged the last word.

  “So you react by driving down the wrong road, where it hadn’t been cleared at all?” The driver tried to stammer a response that Manahan didn’t care to hear. He released his strangle hold, grabbed him by the shirt collar, and forcibly marched him to the flattened boy, where a crowd of civilian gawkers had gathered. “Look at him!” He forced the driver to kneel by the boy, made sure both of his knees were in the blood pool. “Look, you chickenshit fuck! Two fucking rockets and you panic—and you weren’t even damaged!”

  The driver responded by vomiting next to the boy.

  “Take a good look, because you won’t see the light of day again if I have any say. This is murder, and it’s on your hands!”

  A message from CONVOY CMDR ACTUAL appeared on his HUD: STAND BY. BM OFFICIAL ENROUTE.

  Manahan threw the barfing driver to the road and began walking away, but
when the civilians began moving in to take vengeance, he circled back. The minutes he spent guarding the driver from their wrath were the longest of his life.

  The insurgents had escaped; they might have been standing amongst the gathered civilians for all Manahan knew. Through scouring the neighborhood for rocketeers, Lt Kramer and Gunny Cormac were now reassembling the column. Manahan and the stray trucks would bring up the rear of the convoy when they departed.

  The gunships arrived first, ordering the crowd to disperse over their loudspeakers while hovering overhead, taking some of the pressure off his men. A hover ambulance maneuvered on the sidewalk past Manahan’s tank to pick up the dead boy, whose grieving parents had likewise shown up. Two-wheeled police cars came, yet the cops only stood by, eyeing the crowd warily. Manahan could offer the parents only feeble apologies for the driver’s crime, with an addendum that the man would pay for killing their son. He couldn’t imagine their grief and hated the realization that only he stood between them and just vengeance.

  And then the suits came, scattering the crowd as they landed on the road in a pristine red aircar. A tall man with patrician features alighted from the craft, his judging eyes taking in the decrepit surroundings. He was flanked by a hulking black security bot, a chubby young assistant, and two large men dressed in a hodgepodge of open-air power armor.

  Manahan spat on the bricks at their arrival. Fucking mercs. The rented guns wore name tags—Bilson and Shell—and badges identifying them as employees of SecureCorp, a private security contractor. Both carried plasma submachineguns, pistols, vibro-blades, and a few grenades.

  The security bot gazed impassively behind its mirrored vision plate as the tall suit approached Manahan, his distaste obvious, before asking, “Who are this boy’s relations?”

  “They’re right there!” Manahan pointed to the crying couple. “Are you fucking blind?”

  The man ignored him and approached the parents. “My name is Bernard Wilcox, legal counsel for Babcock-Mauer Industries. We are terribly sorry for your loss and are prepared to compensate you for this tragic accident by offering you the sum of ten thousand crypto credits.”

  The mother, crying over the boy, did not respond. She probably didn’t hear him.

  However the father remained coherent enough. “Ten thousand credits? Your driver ran over my son! I want him in jail!” He looked to the police loitering nearby. “Are you gonna do something about this?”

  The stone-faced cops did not respond.

  Wilcox shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but our agreement with Governor Misawa forbids prosecution of Babcock-Mauer Industries’ agents and associates working on Verdant. I suggest you take the money.”

  The crowd roared angry curses as the two mercs, their hands resting on the pistol grips of their M-7 submachineguns, eyed them coolly from behind their wraparound visors. Manahan knew they would grease the civilians without a second thought if one so much as brushed the dandruff from Wilcox’s shoulder.

  “Fucking killers!” the father shouted in heavily accented Standard, his red face screwed with anger as he took a step toward Wilcox.

  The security bot stepped before Wilcox and extended a shock baton before the father, who stopped dead in his tracks.

  Wilcox asked, “Do you want it or not, sir?” The security bot would have uttered it with more sympathy.

  The father shook his head, looked to the sky as if pleading for divine solace, then threw up his arms in frustration. He uttered a single, insane laugh. “Well, what fucking choice do I have?”

  “Very well, but first you’ll have to sign a waiver releasing Babcock-Mauer from all liability.”

  The chubby assistant produced a tablet before the father.

  Manahan walked away to stand by his tank as the man signed for his blood money, the gathering crowd growing ever more restless. If Wilcox gets attacked, I’m not coming to the rescue. His mercs can handle it.

  But it never came to that. After paying them off, Wilcox strode toward his luxury aircar, stopping to speak with Manahan on the way. “No fault is to be attributed to the driver in your after-action report,” Wilcox said. “Babcock-Mauer has been absolved of any wrongdoing.”

  “You don’t tell me how to write my reports, and he will receive all of the blame,” Manahan said. “Not that it’ll do any good. You have your waiver now, so why don’t you and your goons hit the road already?”

  Wilcox cocked his head, stared at Manahan as if he were a grotesque yet intriguing freak. “I don’t believe you know to whom you’re speaking, captain.”

  “I do. And we’re done speaking.”

  The ambulance carrying the boy’s corpse passed by his tank as he mounted up. The kid’s mother and father had been the only family present. If that kid had an older brother, he wasn’t looking out for him. He thought of his sons and hoped they would look out for each other.

  CHAPTER 18

  Rizer gazed across the shallow valley at the gigantic mining machines. A dragline with a crane twenty stories tall worked at one end of a low hill, scooping off hundreds of tons of red earth at every pass before swinging to dump its burden over the hillside into the valley. At the other end of the hill, several massive wheel loaders filled a line of waiting dump trucks with tridinium ore. Not so much as a weed remained atop the hill, where jungle hardwoods had towered days earlier. Rizer had never seen anything like the operation; heavy industry was practically nonexistent on Arcadia. He found the mighty machines fascinating, even as their rape of the land disgusted him. Nevertheless, watching them work was preferable to witnessing the events unfolding behind his back.

  But now and then the constant red messages flashing on his HUD caused him to turn his attention away. Second platoon had come to aid mercenaries employed by Babcock-Mauer Industries in clearing the village of Duberville, eighty klicks north of Camp Shaw, to make way for further expansion of mining operations. A dragline would be working here once the inhabitants were relocated.

  More like rounded up and evicted.

  About fifty civilians of all ages already stood in the muddy town square with all the worldly possessions they could carry, awaiting the trucks that would take them to their new home, wherever it might be. The veteran Marines helped the mercs with the roundup; Rizer and the newer men had been assigned to local security detail, “local suck” as it was known, at key points around town. He stood on a corner at the edge of the square, tasked to monitor the road into town for the approaching truck column and also to prevent citizens from leaving on their own.

  He didn’t approve of the roundup and took some solace in not participating directly. Yeah, I’m only abetting it.

  Those gathered in the square looked sad, angry, hopeless, beaten. “Stop draggin’ your feet, old man!” Baltazar thundered at a gray-bearded rustic holding up the column he was marching to the square. The old man trudged along, bent beneath the weight of a bulging backpack. He did not respond to Baltazar and kept moving at his slow pace. “Move!” Baltazar kicked him in the ass and sent him stumbling forward to splash down in the mud.

  “You done holding shit up?” Baltazar said after he’d gotten up. “You wanna fuckin’ move now?”

  Gray beard stared at him and his rifle a moment before saying, “No, I don’t wanna move!”

  “Too goddamn bad, now get going!” Baltazar prodded him with his rifle butt.

  Gray beard’s face screwed with anger as he reached out and tried to shove the Marine away.

  Baltazar butt-stroked him across the head, sending him spinning back into the mud to fall atop his heavy backpack. “Stupid fuckin’ dick!” Baltazar kicked him several times.

  The old man balled up in a defensive posture as he absorbed the powerful blows, grunting at each one.

  “Watch it, Balt! You’re going to kill him!” Rizer yelled.

  Baltazar paused to glare. “Shut your suck and watch the road, boot.”

  “Dumb move, geezer,” Stiglitz called
over his shoulder as he marched the rest of them into the square.

  This is fucking barbaric. All sanctioned by the Verdant government through eminent domain. Where the fuck are those trucks? Rizer didn’t know how much more he could watch. Better to face rabsidars and Vics in the jungle than take part in this legal crime.

  A few minutes later he spotted the approaching truck column, led by a hovering black light armored vehicle with several mercs hitching a ride on the outside. Thank fucking God! He notified SSgt Len and Lt Dupaul of the column’s arrival.

  The LAV halted before Rizer. All but one of the mercs riding on the outside bailed from the vehicle and moved into town. All wore uniforms yet none were uniform, their combat suits a patchwork of mismatched or custom-built pieces of powered exoskeleton and open-air power armor, with all sorts of different accessories and load-bearing setups. Some wore helmets, others only comm visors. They carried a variety of arms and munitions. Their badges and the SecureCorp company logo—a line of five projectiles topped with a padlock hasp—were all they had in common.

  The turret hatch opened. A merc deftly emerged from the hole—tall, powerfully built, shaved bald, and wearing a comm visor. He jumped lightly to the ground and joined the lone merc who had stayed behind. Taller than the bald man, the second merc wore a metal skullcap with an attached prosthetic eyepiece covering his left eye. The angry red scar tissue covering his face made Rizer think he’d been burned, perhaps by acid. A veritable walking armory, skullcap carried a M-251 plasma light machinegun, a stun baton, and a large-bore, civilian-model, slug-throwing pistol strapped to his hip. The hilt of a vibro-sword poked up over his right shoulder.

 

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