Blood Red Sand

by Damien Larkin

  Nazis showered bullets back at them, but the sheer volume of fire the renegade Black Visors sprayed forced them to seek cover. As McCabe stumbled through the doorway, a sharp, piercing sensation cut through his arm. Trying to push the pain aside, he slipped on the blood of someone obliterated in the explosion. Beyond his field of vision, a fist smashed him square on the jaw.

  McCabe tumbled to the ground, unable to raise his weapon. A harsh-faced Nazi threw himself on top of McCabe. Saliva dripped from his mouth as he shouted in German. Hate-filled eyes drilled into McCabe. The solider pushed a knife towards McCabe’s throat. McCabe shoved him back with his rifle.

  Out of nowhere, Private Begley slammed the butt of his Lee-Enfield into the soldier’s face. The enemy soldier crashed onto the tiled floor. Clutching his knife, he lifted it to defend himself.

  Roaring like a madman, Begley raised the butt of his Lee-Enfield again and bashed it hard onto the Nazi’s face. The Nazi tried to throw up his hands to surrender, but Begley pounded the butt of his Lee-Enfield downwards again and again, reducing the man’s head to a bloody pulp.

  McCabe dragged himself to his feet, and taking shelter behind a desk, prepared to fire.

  Even with the MEF soldiers pouring into the command centre, the German defenders refused to budge. They fired from the far side of the room or stormed forward under a hailstorm of lead to engage in hand-to-hand combat. On McCabe’s right flank, a ferocious-looking German pounced on Private Donovan, skewering him with his bayonet. McCabe turned his weapon and fired twice, shooting a hole in the side of the enemy soldier’s face, causing him to slump back onto an overturned desk.

  Bringing his weapon to bear on the enemy alive on the far side of the room, McCabe took careful aim. He pulled at his trigger as he advanced and took shelter behind another bullet-riddled desk.

  Leading the charge and weaving between the storm of bullets spewing around him, Big Mo discharged his HK-17 relentlessly. For a man of his size, he moved with ferocious speed. He skidded to a stop behind some destroyed equipment for cover and lobbed a grenade at the Nazi holdouts.

  The German defenders lunged for the grenade. One of them lifted it to throw it back, but it detonated in his hands, sending scraps of charred flesh and splatters of blood across the walls. The surviving Nazis screamed as shrapnel splinters punctured their flesh.

  All the while, MEF bullets continued to crack at them.

  “Surrender! Surrender!” a German soldier shouted in English. He dropped his weapons.

  Three more joined their comrade as the Black Visors and MEF soldiers closed in from all angles. Each of the surrendering Nazis had fragments from the grenade embedded in their limbs and torsos. They raised their bloodied, shaking hands, and the Black Visors stepped in to strip them of their weaponry.

  “Secure that door,” Dub barked, pointing at another reinforced entrance opposite to the one they had stormed through. “That’s the only other way these Nazi shite bags can get through.”

  Big Mo punched in a code to lock the door from the inside and positioned MEF volunteers on either side of the door.

  McCabe removed his helmet and wiped his sweaty brow as he surveyed the remnants of his force. Four lay dead, struck down by bayonets and bullets. Six more were wounded, ranging from cuts and grazes to Begley getting shot in the leg. McCabe whispered words of comfort to the wounded lad as a medic worked to seal his wound.

  McCabe took a moment to check the gash on his own arm, and standing up, inspected the damaged room. Desks and equipment were strewn about, smashed and bullet riddled. Twelve German soldiers lay dead, stretched across the wreckage, and their cowering colleagues huddled together under the watchful gaze of Noid.

  “What should we do with them?” Noid asked McCabe.

  “We’ll secure them until we can hand them over to—”

  Dub spoke over him. “Shoot them.”

  “Wait a minute!” Smack and McCabe said at the same time.

  “That’s not how we do things,” McCabe snapped. “I don’t want our own boys getting captured and murdered when we go in to take the colony. We don’t shoot prisoners.”

  Dub closed the distance between them.

  McCabe returned the Black Visor’s glare and made no sign of backing down.

  “They’re not prisoners,” Dub said with a nod towards the terrified German soldiers. “They’re baby killers, fascists, and genocidal maniacs. There’s no Geneva Convention here on Mars, Sergeant. I say we kill them all.”

  “Kill them all,” Noid repeated.

  “No.”

  McCabe’s answer caused the room to fall silent. In his peripheral vision, his soldiers stopped what they were doing. Some glanced over at him before locking their gaze on the Black Visors. Fingers inched towards triggers, while others moved closer to back him up.

  “Private Donovan,” he called out, without taking his eyes off Dub. “These German soldiers are our prisoners and will be treated with their rights as such. Their fate is in the hands of the courts, not ours. Escort them outside and guard them until reinforcements arrive.”

  “Understood, Sergeant.”

  Donovan moved towards the POWs and gestured at them to stand up. Urging them on, he prodded them with his riffle barrel towards the exit while the Black Visors looked on. The tension in the room eased slightly when the captives were brought into the corridor outside.

  Dub continued glaring at McCabe, but after a slight shake of his head, he did an about turn and made his way to a nearby control panel. He clicked on one of the controls, causing a whirring sound to hum to life above them. The entire wall beyond the row of computers opened into a massive window, and a shutter on the other side lifted.

  Lighting a cigarette, McCabe stepped closer to the window and explored the view of the colony beyond. Huge towers stretched from the streets below, almost scratching at the massive dome above them. Rows of houses lined the wide, vacant streets. Parks and dense patches of green dotted the landscape. A classic-looking structure sat bordered by imposing towers in the centre of the city.

  “That’s our objective,” Dub said. “We need to reach the Command and Control building in the government district. But we may have a slight problem.”

  “Such as?” McCabe said in a cautious tone.

  Dub beckoned him to step closer and pointed at something directly below them. Taking another drag on his cigarette, McCabe followed the Black Visor’s gaze. Massing at well-prepared defences covering every angle around the main entrance stood hundreds of grey-uniformed Wehrmacht soldiers.

  A sudden bang bounced off the window, causing him to jerk back out of instinct.

  Chuckling, Dub extended his hand and rapped on the window with his knuckles. “That’s solid flexi-plastic. Nothing short of a full-on particle blast will put a dent in that. They can take pot shots at us all day and we’ll be fine.”

  “Shut up with the references, Dub,” Smack murmured from across the room.

  Dub turned to Smack and shrugged his shoulders in answer before focusing on the German soldiers below.

  “Christ, without tanks or armour, they’ll cut us to pieces if we try to get through the main entrance,” McCabe said with a shake of his head. “There has to be another way in.”

  “There’s a way of removing them as an obstacle, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”

  “What have you got in mind?”

  Stretching a hand towards the control panel again, Dub pointed towards a screen with three red switches.

  “These switches control the three airlock doors of the main entrance. The one on the outside, the middle one that allows you to pressurise or depressurise the atmosphere depending on whether you’re leaving or entering the colony, and the inner airlock the Nazis are massing to defend. How about we open all three and see what happens?”

  OUTSKIRTS OF NEW BERLIN COLONY

  17.37 MST

  DAY 1

  Private Peter Jenkins stay
ed unmoving as he lay on the rocky copper sand, watching Corporal Brown crawl ahead. Pausing, the corporal released the grip on his Lee-Enfield and extended a glove towards a hand-sized chunk of loose rock. After glancing at his section, the corporal pulled back his hand and threw the rock forward and to the right of their location. Midway through its flight, the automated guns guarding New Berlin’s entrance flared up. They fired until the rock was reduced to sand. Then they fell silent again.

  “Closer,” Corporal Brown ordered.

  Jenkins, his five platoon mates, plus their four French replacements inched towards the looming colony.

  “I still don’t get why they call him Mad Jack,” Private Helms whispered to Private Woodward as they crawled. “Like, I haven’t actually seen him go mad or look mad or anything.”

  “Maybe he’s just barmy,” Woodward replied in a hushed tone. “Did a stint in a nut house or something.”

  Corporal Brown raised his hand and the section stopped. Again, the corporal reached for a small lump of rock and threw it. The automated gun reacted a lot faster this time, spraying the air overhead with rounds until the rock disintegrated into fine particles of dust.

  “I heard they call him Mad Jack coz he killed a bunch of Nazi prisoners after his company was cut to pieces during D-Day,” Jenkins ventured. “I can understand that. I’d be pretty damn pissed if you lot were shot.”

  “Shut it, Jenkins,” Helms snapped.

  “Why are you ranting about us dying when we’re staring down the barrel of a machine gun?” Woodward hissed. “Keep quiet or I’ll clatter you across the ears, you pillock.”

  Jenkins shrugged off his colleague’s comments and returned his focus to the corporal ahead. The veteran NCO selected another rock and threw it. He looked on as the automated guns belched a short burst of bullets before going quiet.

  Corporal Brown cursed under his breath, picked up another rock, and flung it. This time no sound of heavy machine gun fire filled Jenkins’s ears. He glanced at his colleagues as Corporal Brown tossed another volley of stones.

  The enemy guns remained muted.

  “Alright. Listen up,” Corporal Brown said over the section comm channel. “That looks like it’s it. The gun’s run out of ammo, but we have to be sure. Jenkins, you’re up.”

  Corporal Brown drew his knife and embedded it into the ground as a marker. They couldn’t be sure, but all indications pointed to the guns being programmed to fire on movement within a three hundred metre range.

  Trying to push aside his gut-wrenching nervousness, Jenkins slithered towards the knife and paused to look at the corporal.

  “On your feet, lad,” Corporal Brown ordered. “If you hear or see anything, hit the ground. We’re right here.”

  “Yes, Corporal.”

  Fighting against every instinct in his body, Jenkins lifted his head and waited. The automated gun ahead lay fixed in his direction, but it remained subdued. With trembling hands, he pushed to his knees and again, paused. His heart pounded when he forced himself upright. He released a nervous exhale as he looked over the scarred battlefield around him. Most of the dead and wounded had been collected. Hundreds of pieces of damaged equipment and weapons dotted the red-brown sand where soldiers had fallen during the initial advance. Shuddering, Jenkins raised his rifle barrel and took a step towards the Nazi colony.

  He fixed his gaze on the massive gun barrel eying him and continued moving in a slow, cautious pace. At any moment, he expected the automated defences to roar to life, but they made no sound or motion. His legs shook nonetheless. Fearing they could give out at any minute, and experiencing a wave of adrenaline, Jenkins broke into a full-on sprint towards the gun. His heart continued to bang like a drum.

  Against all odds, he reached the weapon intact. Trying to catch his breath, he pulled two grenades from his belt. He tore the pins out, placed them on the body of the automated gun, and rushed for cover. The grenades exploded, destroying the housing of the weapon and causing the barrel to tilt downwards at an awkward angle.

  “Clear, Corporal,” Jenkins panted into his comm and waved his hands at his section.

  With a path to the main entrance clear, columns of MEF soldiers jogged towards the huge, reinforced doors of the colony. They split into two distinct groups, taking cover on either side of the entrance but leaving a gap of several metres away from it. Within minutes, hundreds of soldiers lined either side with hundreds more flowing from the landing zone beyond the sandy dunes. Transports flew in from over the horizon, ferrying in soldiers stranded across the barren deserts of the red planet.

  The surviving members of the officer core were the last to join the jumble of MEF battalions and divisions. Entire companies and battalions stood decimated, so much so that they allocated soldiers to whoever needed them most. Too few officers had lived through the various assaults by the Nazis forces, but those who did were impatient to take the fight into the heart of National Socialist power on Mars.

  As Jenkins waited for the signal to begin the operation, he and his colleagues chatted idly about the plan to destroy the enemy waiting for them on the other side of the airlocked doors. The news that some of their comrades had seized the command complex, aided by the mysterious MJ-12 operatives, caused considerable excitement. After ten hours of fighting on a barren wasteland of a planet, Jenkins was eager to remove his helmets and breathe fresh air again.

  From amongst the growing contingent of soldiers, Major Wellesley stepped away from the entrance and moved thirty metres back into the open ground. He held his hand high and waited as one of the transports circling above the colony began a slow descent towards his location. Studying his actions, Jenkins guessed that the major was organising transportation away from the battle zone. Instead, the bulky transport craft pulled to a halt, hovering a metre off the ground.

  Turning about but keeping his hand held high, as if brandishing a sabre, Major Wellesley marched towards the main entrance. The transport crept after him, leaving a few metres between it and Major Wellesley, but made no motion to land itself.

  “He’s lost his marbles,” Woodward mumbled.

  “You reckon they’ll pay us if we send Mad Jack to the funny farm?” Helms quipped.

  “I still reckon he got that name from shooting those prisoners,” Jenkins said as he watched Major Wellesley guide the transport closer to the main entrance.

  The soldiers around him began jeering Jenkins as they always did, but he ignored them. He leaned in and followed the transport with his gaze. The passageway behind the main entrance leading to the colony certainly looked wide enough to fit four or five transports side by side, but height wise, the entrance appeared far too small. Even if the vessel landed and they found a way to tow the hulk in, the compartment that made up the main body of the craft stood far too high to fit.

  Major Wellesley spent another minute or two aligning the transport to the centre of the main entrance before turning to the hunkering soldiers on either side. The transport craft hung behind him, making no effort to land itself.

  “Soldiers of the Mars Expeditionary Force,” the major called out, and his voice carried across all comm channels. “Today, we mark a historic day. A day like no other. A day of great sadness, pain, and death. We have come here to—”

  “Christ, what’s he chattering on about now?” Helms groaned.

  “Shut it, Helms,” Corporal Brown hissed over the section’s private comm channel. “If the Major wants to make a speech, then keep your mouth shut. You don’t have to listen, but you will pipe down.”

  “…an evil like no other,” Major Wellesley continued, pounding his fists as if to hammer home his point. “We will scour this stain from humanity’s soul by destroying the last traces of the Third Reich. We will—”

  “This is boring,” Woodward moaned to anyone who’d listen. “I’d rather be getting shot at then forced to listen to some blue blood cluck like an old hen.”

  “Woodward, shut up,” Corpo
ral Brown growled.

  “…I say this to you now, men of the Mars Expeditionary Force, show no mercy. Let us avenge our fallen and the millions that lay in their graves back home. Kill the Nazi scourge. Kill every last one of them. Kill them all!”

  Major Wellesley lowered his hands and placed them on his hips as he glanced from side to side. The gathered MEF soldiers looked back and forth to one another until some of the NCOs realised the senior officer stood awaiting applause. They clapped amongst themselves and nudged their subordinates into joining in, until a half-hearted wave of claps rang out in response.

  “I wish he’d hurry up and let us get on with it,” Helms said, reluctantly applauding. “I’m dying to get out of this suit and take a piss.”

  “As speeches go, it wasn’t the worst,” Woodward said. “Bit anti-climatic at the end, but I’ve heard far worse than that, I suppose.”

  With his chin tilted upwards, Major Wellesley stepped away from the main entrance and strolled to the right side of the massive, reinforced door. The transport continued to hover off the ground, with its landing thrusters gently whipping the sand beneath it.

  “Get ready,” Corporal Brown said. “The first door’s coming up now. The second one will be right after, followed by the third. Hold your ground and make no movement until ordered. Is that clear?”

  “Understood, Corporal,” Jenkins and two dozen voices chimed back.

  With a lurch, the massive external main entrance to New Berlin lifted upwards. Those who knelt closest to the entrance craned their necks to see if they could spot anything of interest inside, but Jenkins and everyone else behind them waited quietly. It took ten seconds for the fortified airlock door to fully raise itself.

  “Here comes the second door,” Corporal Brown called out.

  A wave of nervous anticipation spread through Jenkins as he waited. He glanced at his colleagues. They checked and rechecked their weapons, wished each other luck, and whispered muted prayers of protection to whatever divine power they held dear. Taking a deep breath, he tightened his gloved grip on his Lee-Enfield and turned again to observe the hovering transport, trying to figure out its mission.