Blood Red Sand

by Damien Larkin

  Brown slipped his binoculars back into one of his EVA suit’s compartments, and swinging his Lee-Enfield back into his hands, shrugged his shoulders. “Could be the krauts want to lure us in first, then machine gun us to death.”

  “Maybe,” McCabe said as he studied the vast dome structure in front of him.

  The MEF soldiers, NCOs, and junior officers sprinted about, checking on last minute preparations for the advance. Due to the sheer volume of casualties, men and officers from other decimated brigades had been utilised in haste to plug in the gaps in the newly reorganised task force. McCabe tried not to think of the faces of half of his own platoon that hadn’t made it this far. Shaking his head, he glanced at his new commanding officer, Lieutenant Pierre Durand from the French contingent of the MEF.

  “Christ, I could use a cigarette,” Brown grumbled, his gaze crossing the sandy terrain ahead of them.

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Sure is an ugly looking planet, isn’t it?”

  McCabe opened his mouth to reply when a series of shouts rang out from up and down the line.

  “Stand ready!”

  He repeated the command and waved at his platoon to take up their positions at the cusp of the sand dunes. They slapped fresh magazines into their rifles, and whispered words of good luck to one another before setting their gaze on the German colony.

  “Prepare to advance!”

  Overhead, a dozen transports hovering in the air with their guns trained on the colony jolted into action. As per Major General Hamilton’s orders, they began launching smoke cannisters onto the barren terrain between the waiting MEF soldiers and New Berlin. Plumbs of smoke burst from the cannisters, spreading a hazy white fog across the plain. The transports launched their payloads until only the top of the monstrous tinted dome stood visible. Thanks to Mad Jack’s eagerness for glory, the Second Battalion readied themselves to lead the assault on the eastern entrance.

  “Advance!”

  “Forward!” McCabe cried and leapt from his cover. “Move it, lads! Move it!”

  With roars of fury, thousands of MEF soldiers sprang into action and stormed down the red sand dunes. They charged into the clouds of white smoke towards New Berlin. Above them, transports whizzed about, preparing to counter any enemy.

  McCabe kept urging his platoon on as they crossed the foggy landscape. While the cannisters continued spouting thick smoke, he could hear the dark red sand crunching beneath his feet and see the vague outline of the dome towering above them. Soldiers bumped into him as they ran, gasping apologies as they stormed onwards, intent on reaching their target in one peace. The shouts of men and NCOs echoed around him, but the German colony sat as silent as a graveyard.

  With half the distance crossed, McCabe found himself in a small clearing devoid of smoke. Cannisters spewed their gasses around him, but the fog cleared enough for him to spy the eastern entrance. He turned his head to spur on his platoon and prepared to carry on when a flicker of movement caught his eye. Shifting his stance and waving off a tentacle of smoke that threatened his view, he squinted at the dome’s perimeter. It took him a few seconds to make out the shape of a rectangle emerge from the dusty ground on either side of the entrance. He noted several more rectangular boxes lining the colony’s parameter. His heart sank when machine gun barrels slid out from the boxes.

  “Get down!” he cried out, but the simultaneous roar of heavy machine guns drowned out his words.

  He threw himself to the ground when bullets tore through the fog. The sound of men’s agony filled his ears as MEF soldiers ran directly into the arcs of fire from dozens of hidden machine gun nests. Transports above fired controlled bursts back at the enemy guns, but with the smoke hampering their view, McCabe guessed they wouldn’t be much use. Bodies thudded to the ground like dominos as he shouted to his platoon and anyone within earshot.

  Panic fire erupted around him as the MEF soldiers tried to shoot back at the automated guns. In every direction, figures stumbled and hit the ground. The wounded clawed their way across the sandy terrain, desperate to find help before they bled out or the air leaked from their damaged EVA suits.

  “Sergeant,” a French accent called out.

  McCabe turned and spied Lieutenant Durand crawling across the ground towards him.

  The French officer dragged himself up beside the British NCO and checked for anyone else in proximity. “Sergeant, we must advance on our objective now. It is imperative—”

  A stray bullet smashed through the lieutenant’s visor, blasting a hole in his head. Chunks of brain and bone sprayed across McCabe’s visor. Gritting his teeth, McCabe hugged the ground even tighter as he crawled forward.

  He shouted into his comm, “Second Battalion! Anyone who can hear this, stay low. We need to get close enough to take out those guns. Anyone who has a Bren, I want suppressive fire on those guns nearest the entrance.”

  As the automated enemy guns pounded the MEF advance, some of the transports laid down fire across the edge of the dome in a frantic bid to subdue the enemy defences. Shrapnel pinged the ground as the Allied advance inched towards the entrance to the colony. Light machine gun fire hammered the enemy weapons, but the automated heavy guns belched waves of lead back on the faltering assault.

  When the blanket of smoke disintegrated, one of the supporting transports dipped lower to the surface in a bid to destroy the guns on opposite sides of the main entrance. The heavy guns mounted on either side of the Allied craft fired high calibre rounds at the German weapons emplacements, sending mounds of red sand into the air. As the transport attempted to gain a clearer shot, one of the enemy emplacements raised itself upwards to return fire. Bullets dented the side of the craft before punching through the reinforced glass of the cockpit. The vessel reared wildly as the pilot lost control and spun about before crashing.

  Seeing a chance for shelter a hundred metres from the entrance, McCabe crawled towards the downed ship while rallying anyone who could listen to his call. Corporal Brown reached the vessel with his battered section and reported finding a young American pilot lying dead across his controls. Several formed up behind the transport, hiding behind its thick metal hull for protection while they fired back at the enemy guns in a vain attempt to eliminate them.

  Some of the transports providing support overhead redoubled their efforts after seeing one of their own destroyed. They turned about and committed to strafing runs on the Nazi gun emplacements while maintaining enough distance to stay out of weapons range.

  Dragging himself up behind the relative safety of the downed ship, McCabe reviewed the motley crew of MEF soldiers taking refuge behind the craft.

  “That smoke is starting to clear,” he shouted to Corporal Brown over the din of machine gun fire. “We need a couple of anti-tank grenades. Fire what you have on those two positions on either side of the entrance.”

  “Understood, Sarge,” Brown said, and then he called out to the gathered MEF soldiers and anyone else crawling across the Martian landscape.

  Several soldiers either taking refuge behind the crashed transport or slithering towards their objective reported back. They began fixing the projector attachments onto their Lee-Enfield’s prior to mounting the anti-tank grenades onto their weapons.

  McCabe moved to the edge of the transport and took a careful view of the German guns in preparation for giving the order to fire. He opened his mouth to speak when a voice from behind interrupted him.

  “Report, Sergeant,” Major Wellesley said.

  Masking his surprise at seeing the officer so close to the front lines, McCabe gave a quick overview of his plan. Some of the transports overhead swerved wildly. At least six of them ascended much higher into the air, while others spun about, unsure of how to react.

  “Incoming!” an American pilot roared across the comm channel. “They have mortar emplacements on the dome. Repeat: they have mortar emplacements on the dome. Incoming! Repeat: we have incoming!” />
  McCabe’s gaze rose to the heavens, searching the cloudless sky for the return trajectory of the mortar rounds. The enemy guns grew mute in anticipation of the attack. McCabe listened for the tell-tale whistles of the enemy bombs on their return course back to the surface.

  “Run!” a voice shouted.

  A vice-like grip grabbed his arm and shoved McCabe away from the fallen transport. He spun about and found himself starring into a jet-black visor.

  The stockier Black Visor pushed McCabe away from the craft before bulldozing through the fleeing MEF soldiers. The two female Black Visors shouted and cajoled any stranglers while the Irishman made right for the major. The Irish Black Visor leader grabbed Major Wellesley by the neck and prodded him along with his gun, all the while howling at the top of his lungs.

  Mortar rounds crashed into the ground around them, sending pillars of copper sand and rock spewing high into the air. The landscape beneath them shuddered like a hellish earthquake under the sheer force of the explosive bombs. MEF soldiers caught in the storm of blasts were torn to shreds, and those outside of the blast zones were tossed into the air or their bodies were punctured by shards of lethal shrapnel.

  McCabe heard the downed transport vessel behind them explode from a direct hit. A second later, he was thrown into the air. He landed on his left shoulder and groaned as pain lanced up and down his arm. Several more reverberations ensued as the last of the rounds landed. In the seconds that followed, a deathly silence enveloped the battlefield. For a long, strange minute, guns on both sides fell mute. The moans and pleas of the wounded carried across the comm channels. Those voices were far fewer than minutes beforehand, though.

  “British soldiers,” a heavily accented voice called out from about the dome in clear English. “My name is Generalfeldmarschall Seidel, commanding officer of Wehrmacht forces in the New Berlin military district. Your fleet has been annihilated, you have no hope of resupply or escape. Your offensives in Germania and New Munich colonies have been contained and will soon end in German victories. You have experienced death and destruction without having even faced a German soldier in hand-to-hand combat. You will all die here today. I give you this one chance to surrender. Lay down your arms and I assure you, you will not be harmed. You have five minutes to comply.”

  Ignoring the pain in his left shoulder, McCabe sat up and looked around. He snapped at his gun the moment he saw a Black Visor sprawled a metre away from him, but the renegade soldier reacted first. He aimed his own weapon at McCabe, only to lower it a second later as he collapsed onto the Martian soil.

  “Christ, that hurt,” the Irishman groaned as he forced himself to sit back up again.

  “What do you want?” McCabe growled. He kept his barrel lowered, but his finger rested on the trigger.

  “That Nazi prick is right.” The Irishman waved at his three other Black Visor colleagues. “You’ll all die here if you keep assaulting the main entrance. That’s reinforced flexi-metal. Nothing short of a direct hit with a particle weapon will put a dent in that and, last time I checked, you boys haven’t built those yet.”

  “A particle weapon?” McCabe asked, searching his memory for information on such a term.

  “Forget it,” the Irish Black Visor said and hauled himself to his knees. “My point is, you’re not going to knock down their front door. You need to open it from the inside.”

  McCabe leaned closer to the Black Visor leader. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a hidden ventilating shaft used for venting fumes out of the underground refinery. If we destroy the fans in the shaft, it should be big enough to get people down there. The room it connects to opens out onto the main entrance complex. If we can get a team down there, we can take the control room for the main entrance.”

  McCabe gazed around at the surviving MEF units that had thrown themselves into firing positions spread across the littered battlefield. Even armed with anti-tank grenades, he didn’t relish leading them straight into the jaws of those gun emplacements again.

  “If it can be done, then why don’t you do it?” he asked.

  The Irishman signalled at his colleagues to join him and waited until they surrounded him. “This is all I have,” the Irishman said, nodding at his colleagues. “I need more firepower to take the control room.”

  McCabe looked across at his stunned superior officer.

  Major Wellesley gave him a single affirmative nod in answer.

  “The last time we crossed paths, you took my men prisoner and then knocked us all unconscious. Why in the hell should I trust you now?” McCabe demanded.

  “Because the second time we crossed paths, I saved your life and the lives of your men,” the Irish Black Visor said, while gesturing towards the scraps of metal that once made up the downed transport. “If I wanted you dead, Sergeant McCabe, you’d be dead. It’s your choice. You can throw yourselves against the gates of New Berlin and watch your men get cut to pieces. Or you can help me unlock the front door. What’s it gonna be?”

  McCabe examined the worn and exhausted faces of the MEF soldiers around him. In a short space of time, they had witnessed such bloodshed and death. They would only see more of the same if they remained locked out of the German colony. “Very well,” he said, with a reluctant sigh. “I’ll take personal charge of a support team. But mark my words, if you put my men in danger, I’ll gut you like a fish. Clear?”

  Noid reached for her sidearm, but the Irishman raised his hand to stop her.

  “Crystal clear, Sergeant.”

  McCabe ordered the twenty or so MEF soldiers surrounding him to follow the Black Visors. They covered each other when they peeled away from their positions, moving quickly lest they draw the wrath of the inactive Nazi guns. Those who had them threw smoke grenades to mask their withdrawal as they followed the Black Visor team away from the body-littered battlefield.

  Falling in beside but slightly behind the Black Visor leader, McCabe followed when he led them towards a small hill several hundred metres from their staging area.

  “If you knew about this way in, why didn’t you tell anyone?” McCabe demanded.

  The Black Visor glanced at him for a moment as he continued to jog towards the hill.

  “I wasn’t sure how you planned to get into New Berlin,” he said. “Frankly, I didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to launch a head-on attack. It’s like you’re all deliberately trying to get yourselves killed.”

  Before McCabe could reply, the Black Visor leader came to a halt when they were about to round the base of the small hill. He waited until his fellow Black Visors and their MEF cohorts joined him. With everyone gathered, he began jabbing at the ground with the butt of his Lee-Enfield. It took a moment, but as soon as the Black Visor found a dull thud, he slung his weapon and cleared a loose scattering of rocks off what appeared to be a concealed metal grate.

  The Irishman gestured at the stockier Black Visor to join him and stooped low. The two men lifted the grate in unison and peered down into the darkened shaft below. The taller female Black Visor hammered a peg into the ground and attached a thick rope to it from her backpack. Noid pulled two grenades from her belt, yanked out the pins, and dropped them into the shaft.

  The Irishman faced McCabe. “Tell me something. Has Mad Jack made his speech yet? The famous one at the gates of New Berlin?”

  McCabe glared at the renegade soldier, refusing to give his ridiculous question an answer. The ground shook when the two grenades detonated below them. The sound of metal crashing downwards before smashing into the ground filtered up through the shaft. A light breeze escaped as the atmosphere in the room below worked its way up.

  “It’s a shame,” the Irishman said before he grabbed the rope and lowered himself into the shaft. “I really liked that speech. ‘Kill them all’ and all that.”

  McCabe patted his Lee-Enfield as he watched the Black Visors descend the shaft. He had no idea what lay beneath them, but if he sense
d an ambush or betrayal of any kind, he planned to gun down the Irishman first.

  After he got a good look at his face.

  CITY CENTRE, NEW BERLIN COLONY

  17.03 MST

  DAY 1

  “…leaving ten guns remaining with full magazines. The following automated weapons are now completely out of ammunition. Gun emplacement numbers thirty-one, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-seven, thirty-eight…”

  Generalfeldmarschall Seidel tapped his fingers nervously on the desk as his gaze moved from view screen to view screen. Since the Wehrmacht’s eviction from the government district by the SS, he had been forced to relocate his headquarters to a nearby building. It sat a fraction of the size of his old HQ, but he had to give reluctant credit to his subordinates for their effort. While New Berlin shuddered from the periodic attacks of the Jewish insurgents, his staff had hastily moved and reassembled his equipment, allowing him to tap into the external cameras outside the colony. He watched the British soldiers hold their ground despite his offer.

  “…one hundred and eighteen and one-hundred and nineteen. The following automated weapons have been destroyed or rendered useless in the Allied assault. Gun emplacement’s numbers thirty-two, thirty-five, forty—”

  Seidel banged his fist on his desk. “Enough!”

  The lieutenant giving his report winced and clasped his lips shut.

  Sitting back in his chair, Seidel scanned the Allied activity on his screens. He had given them five minutes to surrender three minutes ago, and they appeared to be doing anything but that. He hadn’t expected them to, yet a part of him hoped he’d broken their spirits. The automated guns played their part in giving the invaders a bloody nose. But if they threw themselves into another attack, it wouldn’t be long until they realised that half the automated guns staring them down were completely out of ammunition.

  “How long until our reinforcements arrive?” Seidel said as he reached for a cigarette.

  The lieutenant cleared his throat and fidgeted with the papers in his hands. “The latest reports estimate they’ll reach the colony within the next forty minutes or so. Allied airborne attacks have inflicted some damage, but Oberst Brandt reports that the Wirbelwind anti-aircraft guns have held their own.”