by Richard Fox
“Get him on his feet!” Hoffman yelled again.
“He doesn’t have any feet!” Garrison shouted. “Sir. Sorry. He’s missing parts.”
Garrison gripped his arms around his stomach and turned away, bile rising in his throat.
“Then just…leave me,” came from a speaker in Aignar’s throat. “I’d shoot myself and save you the trouble…just can’t hold anything…pull a trigger on my own.”
“You’re coming with us,” Booker said as she pulled a cylinder off the small of her back and twisted it between her hands. It popped open and extended into a litter. She set Aignar’s frail body onto the litter, then removed her emergency helmet from her kit.
The device was a pad of metal that popped open into a bullet-shaped dome when she pressed a finger to a button. Setting it over Aignar’s head, she snapped it onto the seals of his body suit, attached an air tank to one side and gave his shoulders a shake.
“Can you breathe? Give me a thumbs-up?” she asked.
Aignar raised an eyebrow at her from within the helmet.
“Shit. Sorry.”
“I’ve got air,” Aignar said from the speaker.
“Garrison, take the bottom poles,” Booker said.
Garrison, his back to them, didn’t respond.
Booker stood and kicked Garrison across the backside. “Function, Marine!” she shouted.
“Right, sorry.” Garrison put his torch away and looked at Aignar’s legs, both of which ended just below the knee in metal sockets. “Not much I’m scared of, Booker. Dying? It’ll be fast. But what happened to him…that’s what gets me.”
“I can hear you…crunchy,” Aignar said.
“I strap him down then we get him out of here, you understand? No one left behind,” Booker said.
“What in the blue hell are you doing down there?” King called down.
Garrison grabbed the twin poles at the foot of Aignar’s litter and lifted on Booker’s command.
“Three coming out,” Garrison answered.
Chapter 8
Hoffman ducked into a building, one of the few they’d found with most of its roof and four walls since they’d begun exfiltrating back to Gold Beach. A steady drizzle pattered against the building, wiping away the grime of dust to reveal the true lime-green colors of the neighborhood.
Booker knelt next to Aignar’s litter as she prepared an IV line. The rest of the team shuffled in, taking up security positions against the windows and walls.
“How long?” Hoffman asked the medic.
“Give me five minutes,” she said. “He’s going to need every dose we’ve got.”
“Dose…what?” Aignar croaked from the speaker in his throat.
“Pantone cocktail,” Booker said and removed a blue vial from her med kit. She snapped it into her gauntlet and blue liquid ran through a line connecting it to a port on Aignar’s neck.
“I’m getting cake?” Aignar tried to sit up weakly, but Booker pushed him down with a light touch.
“Anti-radiation Kool-Aid. Keeps your body from absorbing too much,” she said. “This rain will send your dosage through the roof.”
“We don’t have the time to wait this out,” Hoffman said. “I don’t know how long this rain will last and I don’t know if the Kesaht are on our heels. So you’re getting the blue stuff. All we’ve got. That should keep you out of the danger zone for rad exposure.”
“Don’t you all…need it?” Aignar asked.
“Our seals are good for a while yet,” Hoffman said, looking over at Opal. The doughboy didn’t have a thyroid to protect. He had a processing stack that wouldn’t benefit from the cocktail of iodine and radiation-bonding materials. “You’re the one in trouble.”
“Doing good?” Booker asked as she tossed aside the spent cartridge and snapped in another.
“I’ve had one worse day.” Aignar wiggled his stunted limbs. “That one turned out OK in the long run. Today is looking pretty shitty.”
“Where’d you get hit?” Hoffman asked. He peeked out a window, his concern growing as the rain picked up and cut down visibility.
“Cygnus. While back. Found out I’m one of the few that can’t take vat-grown limb replacements. Armor…don’t need everything. Just have to have to find your iron…take the plugs.”
“Your kidneys are going to go into overdrive,” Booker said. “Tell me if you feel any worse.”
“So no cake?” Aignar asked.
“Who said panettone? The cake is a lie,” Booker said, readying a third dose.
Steuben nudged Hoffman’s arm. “This is the enemy’s lair. We need to move soon,” said the Karigole, his visor slid up onto the top of his head. “There’s something in the air.”
“What is it?”
“A gust…sterile but tinged with Rakka pheromones. Different than the grave smell of this place,” Steuben said.
“Movement,” Duke whispered through the IR.
Hoffman knelt next to a wall with Steuben as Booker drew back the lines from her gauntlet and used her body to shield Aignar.
A picture from Duke’s optics flashed onto Hoffman’s visor.
Sanheel. Four of them. A lone Rakka walked just behind them, leading a muscular canine creature by a chain leash.
“Hold fire,” Hoffman said into the IR. “Let them pass.”
Steuben grasped the handle of the scimitar sheathed on his lower back.
Hoffman held still, taking slow, shallow breaths to minimize the chance his armor’s servos might squeak. He felt pressure build in his veins as he tried not to move. Just what the canine was trained to find—the scent of their suits, disturbance within the graveyard of the city—he didn’t know. There was a chance the animal would miss them. They hadn’t been found out yet. He didn’t dare move, didn’t even think about moving. If he did, his team and Aignar would suffer the consequences.
The Rakka’s guttural language cut over the rain, answered by one of the Sanheel. Hoffman tensed, and his finger curled around his rifle trigger with the slow precision of a sniper trying to avoid being detected.
Keep moving, you alien bastards…just keep moving, he thought.
The back and forth continued…but the sound decreased as the conversation meandered away. Hoffman, his heart pounding, kept listening. Maybe…just maybe…
The canine snarled, and barked twice.
The wall in front of Hoffman’s face exploded as a Sanheel bullet shot through. Steuben growled and fell to his side, one hand on an injured shoulder.
More rounds stitched through the wall and Hoffman threw himself flat. He looked up at the pockmarked wall just as a Sanheel jumped through, knocking bricks and dust across the Hammer’s position.
Hoffman rolled onto his back and aimed his rifle up at the Sanheel. It had a long rifle with a serrated bayonet attached to the barrel. The alien’s braided hair whipped around as it looked down at the lieutenant, its dark eyes fixed on him.
Hoffman fired and the round glanced off the alien’s flank as the Sanheel stabbed at him.
Opal’s hammer swung out and knocked the blade aside. The doughboy growled and leaped at the Sanheel, his hammer held up and behind his head. He slammed it into the alien’s equine back half, cracking its spine and armor with the blow.
“Kill enemy!” Opal shouted as he shoulder-checked the Sanheel off its hooves. “No hurt broken man!”
Another Sanheel was in the opening the other knocked out, its weapon leveled at Opal. It fired and the bullet struck the doughboy in the sternum and shot out his back.
“Hurr…” Opal lurched forward, ignoring the blood spurting out of his wound. The doughboy swung his war hammer back and flung it at the Sanheel. It struck the alien in the chest, doubling it over and sending it to its knees. Hard.
Opal grabbed it by the head and twisted, breaking its neck with a crack, then the doughboy slouched against the alien.
Duke fell next to Hoffman, the Rakka dog’s jaw clamped onto his forearm.
Gauss fire
snapped around Hoffman as he got to his feet. Feeling the rumble of a charging Sanheel, he called out a warning.
Hoffman saw the glint of the bayonet as it cleared the gap in the wall. Saw the blade strike Opal and carry him off his feet. The Sanheel hoisted Opal into the air, the doughboy’s hands clasped against the barrel.
The Sanheel fired, blowing out Opal’s lower back. He slumped and fell against the bayonet, fully impaled.
“Opal!” Hoffman shouted and fired full auto, stitching rounds across the Sanheel’s flank and knocking it over.
The alien tugged the stock of its weapon to one side as it fell, and Opal crashed to the ground, the bayonet still jammed up to the hilt in his chest. Opal brought one hand to his breathing mask and tore it away.
Hoffman forced himself forward, time slowing as his feet moved like the air had become sand. Sound died away as he made it to his old friend and fell to both knees. He put a hand on Opal’s bare head.
“Opie?”
The doughboy’s clear ersatz blood poured out around the bayonet. His power armor compressed around the wound with the sound of a wringing sponge.
Opal looked up at Hoffman, his eyes glazed and confused. “Legs…don’t move,” he said.
“Stay still. I’ll—Booker!” Hoffman touched the bayonet, but stopped before he could yank it out. Removing it would only make Opal bleed out faster.
The medic slid behind Opal and her medi-gauntlet hummed to life.
“Look at me, big guy,” Hoffman said, cradling the doughboy’s head. “Booker will fix you right up. Stay with me.”
“Dark now…” Opal’s chest seized and he spat a glob of fluid onto Hoffman’s legs. “Dark time.”
“No! No, you will not leave me, Opal. You remember what we promised? Until the end, you and me, never give up. Don’t you…” He looked up at Booker.
The medic shook her head and backed away.
“End…end time, sir.” Opal grabbed Hoffman by the wrist and brought his thumb to the doughboy’s forehead. “Team. Keep team safe. No more hurt.”
“Opal…we’ll get you back. You’re too tough to die, you hear me?”
“Error Omega omeg-ga-ga-ga…” Opal’s jaw locked up and his body tensed as every muscle contracted. He went limp a second later, then looked at Hoffman.
“Opal hurts sir.”
“No, no, you can’t hurt me.” Hoffman bit his lips to stop emotion from pouring out.
“Take…hammer. Take hammer before too dark.”
The lieutenant looked over his shoulder and saw the rest of the team was watching. There was only one thing he could still do for Opal, and the Hammers still needed him.
Hoffman took a deep breath and put a thumb to the doughboy’s forehead. “I will never forget you, Opal. You or your brothers. I’m very proud of you, you understand?”
Opal nodded slightly…and smiled.
“I’ll miss you.” He pressed his thumb down and clicked a button on the doughboy’s skull.
“Golem. Colossus…lucent. Chaos.”
There was a snap and Opal went limp.
Hoffman hugged Opal’s head to his chest for a moment, then pushed the body flat. His own body shook, every muscle trembling, but he buried his emotions under years of hard training and experience. He removed the dog tags from around Opal’s neck and wrapped them around his hand.
“Sorry, sir,” King said. “We can’t…can’t—”
“Can’t carry him back,” Hoffman said. “Too slow with him and Aignar. Garrison. We need a pyre.”
“On it.” Garrison went to Opal and whispered into his ear before removing fuses from his kit bag and cranking the timers. The breacher slid the fuses into the battery packs integrated into Opal’s armor as Hoffman walked away.
Hoffman picked up Opal’s war hammer, struggling with the weight until his armor compensated. He grabbed it by the haft near the head, stained with Sanheel blood, and turned to his team.
“We are less without Opal,” Hoffman said, “but we are still Strike Marines. We still have our mission. Get the armor back to Gold Beach. Save him. Fight on.”
Garrison hustled over and flashed two fingers at Hoffman. The fuses would ignite the batteries in Opal’s power armor, incinerating him and leaving nothing for the enemy.
“More are coming,” Steuben said, motioning toward the Kesaht dome.
“Hammers…follow me.” Hoffman looked back to Opal and his heart ached, not just for Opal, but for all the doughboys he’d led through the years—all of which had died under his watch. He’d known—known for years since the first of his doughboys went dark—that this moment was inevitable, but it still hurt. It still gripped his heart and squeezed with all the malice that war could bring.
He crossed himself and looked to the sky, hoping God would accept a prayer for Opal.
Chapter 9
Crude fortifications stretched between buildings—piles of rubble pushed into hasty barricades and topped with razor wire.
“Is that really it?” Garrison asked from the head of Aignar’s litter.
“You think there’s another landing zone out here?” Max asked.
“No but—” he did a double take at Aignar “—we might look like a damn horse. Somebody wave. Shout. I don’t want to get shot because some sailor punk gets trigger-happy.”
“I’ve got IR.” Hoffman tapped his helmet and pointed to a gap in the barricade where Rangers on top of the mound were moving aside strands of razor wire. “King, there’s a car coming for Aignar, get him to the field hospital.”
“Friendlies coming through!” echoed up and down the defenses.
Aignar’s litter went up first, the uneven footing making it slow going.
Hoffman went up last, stopping just near the top to look back at the city. A thin line of smoke carried in the distance, but he wasn’t sure if that was Opal’s funeral pyre. Part of him thought the last combat doughboy deserved better, but to fall on the battlefield was the best fate for Opal. He would’ve succumbed to degeneration in time. To die with enemy dead around him was a better fate for the doughboy, but still not what Hoffman wanted.
“Sir,” Duke said, nudging the lieutenant, “we’re exposed out here.”
“Right.” Hoffman went over the top and slid down the back.
A suit of armor was there, watching as Aignar got loaded into a cargo truck repurposed as a field ambulance. Booker retreated a step as the litter went into the back.
“Booker, go,” Hoffman told her, removing his helmet and feeling the cold air sting his skin. She climbed in next to Aignar and the ambulance took off in a cloud of dust.
The armor turned his head from Aignar to Hoffman, servos whining. “I thought Aignar was…well done, Marine,” Gideon said.
“He’d…he’d better be worth it.” Hoffman wiped his face and put his helmet back on.
Steuben, one shoulder patched up with filler putty that had hardened into metal since the last fight, stood next to Hoffman. “This city reeks of death,” he said.
Another armor stepped out from behind Gideon, or at least that was what Hoffman thought at first. The figure—a female—was nearly as tall as Gideon in his suit, wore a hodgepodge of stitched-together flight suits…and was green.
“Is that a miracle?” the too-tall green woman asked.
“Sweet Jesus.” Max swung his rifle up but Steuben slapped it back down.
“You act like you’ve never seen an Aeon before,” Steuben said.
“Is it—is it on our side?” Garrison gawked at the Aeon as she and Gideon walked away.
“I have heard many dumb questions from Strike Marines,” Steuben said, “but that one is impressive.”
“A Dotari and a Karigole and a—” Gor’al caught himself before he could mention Opal “—they fight beside you. Is it so hard to believe the armor have allies too?”
“Sorry, I didn’t get the memo about giant green…whatevers,” Garrison said.
“Babe,” Duke said, nodding slowly. “Giant gree
n alien babe.”
“We need to decontaminate and hot swap our batteries,” King said. “I know where to go. Duke…don’t put the moves on the fifteen-foot-tall woman.”
“I guess,” Duke said and rolled his shoulders back and forth.
“Come on.” King pointed to Gold Beach, a more silent, somber place than Hoffman remembered from before the failed attack.
****
Duke leaned against a wall and slid down to the floor. The air was cold in the recovery tent and it felt amazing to finally have his helmet off after God-knew-how-many hours.
He reached into his kit bag, then looked to one side and then the other…and found Gor’al a half inch away from his nose.
“Gah, damn pigeon,” Duke said.
“You have something…yes?” Gor’al’s brows wiggled.
“We’re on a hostile planet. Surrounded. Low on everything but targets with no chance of rescue…and you want my dip?” Duke scowled.
Gor’al’s hand came up, holding a plastic bag of what looked like medium-sized grapes. “I will trade you coffee berries. Straight from Jam-aye-ka. Blue Mountain genus…smooth finish.”
“You see a coffee pot around here?” Duke asked. The recovery tent was little more than a pressurized room with a box of rations and water in the middle. The rest of Valdar’s Hammers, minus Hoffman, sat around commiserating.
“If you attempted to ruin my berries by torching them, crushing them, drowning them in scalding water then further desecrating their corpse with glucose crystals and bovine extractions…you would lose fingers,” Gor’al said.
“So you don’t have anything to trade?” Duke asked.
“I will gladly reimburse you once we’re back on Earth.”
“Chance of that?” Duke huffed.
“Extremely high. You should feel confident enough to give me your entire stash.”
Duke snorted and pulled out a single can of chewing tobacco. “This is all I got, pigeon.” Duke tapped the can against his thigh, his eyes on Gor’al as the Dotari stared hard at the dip. Twisting the can open, Duke proffered it to Gor’al. Thickly packed black leaves filled one half.