by Duran Cross
The stocky lieutenant looks up at him with pale brown eyes, “My highness?”
“I assume you’re Princess Leia, leader of this unit?”
The lieutenant’s face looks like it just aged twenty years before looking to the emblem on the gunship. “Oh that. We didn’t think it would do any harm to let the men have a little fun. Plus I’m sort of being punished,” he says looking past Rennin and smiling at an officer several gunship berths away that looks like a total prick.
“For what?”
“He found out it was me that filled his boots with Loctite. Took a laser-scalpel to remove the bastards.”
Rennin can’t help but smirk. “I think if I did that to my boss, he’d be cutting me up with the scalpel.”
Recognition flashes across the lieutenant’s face. “Ah, you’re the Godyssey guy from the lab.”
“You’ve read my file?”
“Well, yeah, that, and you’re the one who was wounded the night of the Aurelia Rally, right?”
“How’d you know that?”
“Mate, stories get passed around like the town bike here. I heard you lost both your legs and half your face from one guy, another told me the thing tried to violate you with its cast iron rod, another one was it took your guts out and tried strangling you with your own intestine, and some idiot tried starting a conspiracy that you were the android all along.”
Rennin shakes his head, “And I thought you army boys weren’t creative.”
“Yeah well, I knew you were a veteran from your file and the rest I just ignored. Good to have you here, actually. What’s your call-sign by the way?”
“Longinus.”
The lieutenant smirks. “Messiah Stabber, eh? Well I’m Lieutenant Sabre, our heavy gunner is Jawa, our spotter is Obie, vehicle specialist is Clank, corporal is Fader, Pilot Bulldog and our four grunts are Ruin, Ghost, Oxy and Boron.”
“I thought teams known with call-signs are supposed to follow a theme. Like we’re gunship Dead Star. We can all be dead stars. You could be MJ himself, I’ll be Judy Garland, that guy could be Marilyn Monroe-”
“Nothing’s perfect,” says Sabre with a small laugh.
Rennin looks again to the crude drawing of the Death Star next to the name Dead Star. “I see that.”
“Well one of the gunships is called Barbie so it’s not all bad,” Sabre says.
“Point taken. Got in trouble for something to do with barbeques?”
“No, fucking in the shower.”
“Lovely.”
“All the gunship crews have call-signs but mostly it’s pretty normal stuff.”
“Not referring to us as numbers anymore?” asks Rennin.
“Regular troops are still numbers. Hell we’re all still numbers, but gunship crews get call-signs. Something about differentiating between the meat that gets slow cooked and the stuff thrown in the grinder.”
“Big word for a lieutenant. What’s your actual name?”
He shrugs, “Best stick with Sabre, I don’t want anyone getting confused. We’ll all be referred to by our call-sign in the field.”
“Wonderful.”
“Alright, we’re all scheduled to depart in fifteen minutes so grab your ammo and get yourself ready.”
“From where?”
“There’s caches everywhere with ammunition, just look for the soldiers surrounding crates like packs of seagulls and get what you need. Grenades are at the far back wall, though,” he says pointing further down the warehouse.
Rennin moves to the nearest ammo crates that contain pistol, pulse rifle and sniper rounds. The heavy gunner from Gunship Dead Star, Jawa, is over at another crate stocking up on his special type ammunition.
Rennin pushes between several soldiers and grabs the standard two magazines for his pistol and pulse rifle, putting them in his ammunition harness attached to his armour plating. He’s about to walk off when something occurs to him. He’s seen almost every zombie movie ever made, played every survival horror videogame and they all have one thing in common: never enough bullets. He digs back into the crate and shoves every pocket he can full of sniper, pistol and rifle rounds. When he’s satisfied his ammunition belts and pockets literally cannot hold any more, he half waddles off towards the grenade crates at the far end of the warehouse.
It’s heavy, he notes, but I’m not going to run out of bullets. No way.
Arriving at the grenade crates, he clips several to the remaining free places on his webbing. A soldier next to him asks facetiously if he has enough ammunition because he won’t have room for water or rations. Rennin states the he’d rather die fighting, not eating.
Rennin focuses back to the explosives before him. Yet again he mentally chides himself for being a poor example. Then he realises that the soldier was a private mouthing off to a Sergeant, and so he feels better about the mild dressing down.
He moves to head back to the gunship when he spots a case full of NAPA bombs, behind an armoured cage. He literally feels his mouth water. He takes his dog tags out and runs the barcode across the lock scanner. It clicks open, probably since he’s an officer.
There is a god!
He drops three pouches of ammunition to fit the grenades into his harness then shuts the cage again. Even with losing those several magazines he’s still absolutely packed to the rafters.
Not long after he gets back to the gunship, the sirens go off and all crews head to their assigned squads. Rennin and the others of Nova unit pile into Dead Star and await further instruction.
Sabre stands up, waiting for his strike team to put their helmets on as the Dead Star gunship lifts off the ground with a pulse of energy.
Full deployment commences. All gunships fly out of the warehouse towards their assigned zones. Rennin looks out the left viewport at Raddocks Horizon. Random emergency lights from buildings and moonlight breaking through the clouds are all he can see on the surface. He doesn’t like the idea of being deployed in the dark, but there’s no knowing what the streets will be teeming with if they wait until morning.
The engines of the gunship roar inside the cabin, and he has brief images of the infamous drop through the atmosphere when the Possession went down in flames. But when he looks around the gunship at the others, all seated in rows back to back, he can’t help but remember his first deployment in a gunship to Hong Kong during the first major campaign of the CryoZaiyon War that would see an entire year swallowed in one single battle that raged across the solar system.
The cityscape provides a bleak background for the lieutenant, who stands in battle dress with one arm gripping a handle that drapes from the ceiling as the ship shakily shifts direction to avoid a building. Everything tilts sideways. Sabre starts talking loudly trying to be heard over the engines.
“We’re going to be dropped in hot zones where there are intense concentrations of infection. Raston Squad are holding the Stadium, which is our last line of defence, we can’t let them push us back further than that. We’ll be dropped half a klick from there. The bastards go where the meat is. They seem to be infecting or killing anyone they find.
“The LZ is entirely hostile, the ground troops have set up a perimeter in the surrounding area to keep the contaminants trapped. The gunships will then hit specific buildings, to prevent them spreading. After the gunships have cleared the main buildings we will be dropped on the ground to mop up the mess and will be reinforced with standard infantry. Remember to stay sharp and do not respond to calls for help, we know these fuckers lay traps and we cannot afford to lose soldiers that way.
“Anything you see in this zone is classed as hostile and you must shoot it. They’re not people anymore. Some of you might even recognise the faces you have to kill. It’s an inconceivable thing to think about, I know, but it’s not them anymore, it’s a parasite using the body as a puppet. Get yourselves mentally ready, there’s only three minutes until we open fire.”
Rennin looks closely out the viewport as Dead Star banks in an arc towards their
designated attack zone. The local area is already smoking with several spot fires from various buildings. From that distance he can’t see any contaminants moving around.
A voice comes over their helmet communicators of the attack coordinates and Dead Star straightens up towards a nearby building that looks like an apartment complex. Due to the blackout and satellite problems they’ve been restricted to line of sight shooting since guidance systems and missile tracking are completely useless.
Dead Star fires a barrage of regular shells through the base floors of the building, then unloads four missiles that hit the ground floor, erupting in plumes of fire. The overall structure doesn’t simply collapse in on itself as the old buildings did, it remains upright but the floors above can be seen falling inwards. The superstructure of modern buildings can withstand anything up to an orbital strike.
Another building goes up in flames to Dead Star’s left, and Rennin looks over to see another gunship firing missiles and shells. Rennin feels a small glimmer of hope that they may actually succeed in this insane mission.
You wish, shit tits.
Sabre looks at the destruction for a moment before turning back to the crew. “Gunships Horus and Genome will be taking offensive positions at the west and north of our target zone,” he shouts, with more explosions in the background strong enough to cause a little turbulence. “This is done by the book. Don’t get separated, don’t respond to calls for help and for the love of God no wanking on mission.” The crew of Nova Unit do at least have a brief laugh at that, mere moments before the lights in the interior go red, meaning their deployment into the field is imminent.
Amid a smoky street with burning buildings all around, Dead Star sets down releasing the troops out the rear ramp. Several military minds have been locked in arguments that deploying from a rear ramp instead of out either side of the vehicle is a tactical flaw, since it bottlenecks the crew and a well-placed rocket would kill everyone aboard and more than likely take out the craft. The other viewpoint is that since the gunships are heavily armoured at the front, it is perfect. The crew can exit the craft using the gunship itself as cover whilst the vehicle maintains covering fire. Dead Star is newer and is equipped with sliding armoured doors at either side but they’re not used while the tactical debate continues. Rennin inwardly vomits.
We’re not under fire. Contaminants probably don’t even know what fire is. Standard procedures don’t apply.
Rennin is teamed with Obie, his target spotter, and they hold back to one side of the transport while the others spread out to their assigned fire teams. No contact.
Jawa takes a cover position just outside the craft with his heavy gun. Rennin assumes the name ‘Jawa’ being applied to this mammoth of a man is just someone’s idea of a joke.
Rennin wistfully glances at Dead Star, trying to hide the hunger in his eyes. Obie, Jawa, the pilot Bulldog and Sabre are all that stand between Rennin and his ticket to freedom. He thinks he could take them all out, but at least one of them would be able to raise the alarm. He’d have to do this quietly with Obie and Jawa. Once inside the gunship he can shoot Bulldog and Sabre in their military faces and be free. Free and on his way to Carla, he thinks while looking at his ring finger where the marital barcode can just be seen poking out from under his fingerless gloves.
Combat hasn’t started yet, so they shouldn’t be too on edge. Without the adrenaline that he can feel flooding his system he has the upper hand. Obie is a weed, easy to remove from the equation. Jawa is the biggest immediate threat but he is also carrying the heaviest weapon, which will slow him down. Rennin isn’t as quick as he once was but decisive action tends to negate that. Most people aren’t willing killers.
Sabre and Bulldog are the furthest away, therefore the most dangerous. Closing any distance between a ranged enemy is suicide if they know you’re coming. Bulldog should still be strapped in the pilot’s chair. Sabre won’t be expecting an attack from here. All Rennin needs is to be quick, quiet, and act with conviction.
He lets his rifle hang off his shoulder as he turns to face Obie with a murderous glare. The young soldier looks at him and when Rennin sees his eyes, something in him freezes. This kid is eighteen years old at maximum, but could even be younger if he underwent accelerated hormonal therapy to advance his physical age. It’s not unheard of in this era when a young man wants to escape his childhood as fast as possible. Either way, there is no hiding the fact that Rennin is looking into the eyes of little more than a child.
He can’t do it. He turns back to the streets.
For some inexplicable reason he begins thinking of the Beatles.
As a child they were his favourite band because they made everything survivable. Even nowadays, during his most disgraceful alcoholic binges he’d have police over in the wee hours of the morning, ordering him to turn down their blaring catalogue. Perhaps he’s starting to make peace with his lot here in his own bizarre way. Maybe he’s not meant to get out at all.
A fierce frown creases his face. The last thing he gave to the person he loves most in the world is a punch to the face, and he’ll be damned if that’s the last thing she remembers of him.
He’s getting out and that’s all there is to it, but he’s not going to kill his own men to do it. Being stuck with this unit is just a little delay.
“You better believe it,” he whispers under his breath. I want to hold your hand.
He’s still in the middle of reproaching himself when Sabre’s voice comes over their headsets. “Longinus, you and Obie can board Dead Star. Fader’s team has secured a sniper zone. Jawa will provide support in case of any surprises.”
Rennin slaps his spotter’s pauldron.
“Ready, kid?” Obie nods and Rennin leads him into Dead Star, where they take their seats with Jawa. “Where are you from?”
“Middle-city, Hotham Glen,” Obie answers sheepishly.
“Rich area. How about you, Jaws?”
“Rather ‘Jaws’ than fucking ‘Jawa.’ Samoa is my home.”
“I’m from a distant crater too, but I meant locally,” says Rennin.
“I’m from Whitechapel,” says the giant.
“Well at least you live in the fortified zone.”
“Yeah. Great. All property in the area is seized for government use and the refugees.”
Rennin finds himself laughing. “Hell of a thing having refugees from your own city in your own city.”
“If anything’s missing, someone’s going to die,” says Jawa tapping his gun.
“Yeah I feel that way about my porn collection too.”
That gets a ripple of laughter, even from Sabre. Obie looks over at Rennin. “Did you really fight a progenitor-class barehanded?”
Rennin bursts out laughing. “Yep… and I masturbate with clamps and a cheese grater.”
That gets a huffing chuckle out of Jawa. “That’s how hard you are, Longinus?”
“What makes me hard is shitting spare gunship parts,” he says, realising he doesn’t hate soldiers as much as he thought. It’s not their fault they’re being used. In letting that sink in he feels the anger towards all things military recede a little, and with it fades some the resentment he feels towards himself.
Again he thinks of Carla and his resolve stiffens. Normally he’d cackle at the not-so-cunning euphemism but in this rare instance he’s being quite literal.
She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dead Star lowers onto the roof of their target building. Rennin, Jawa and Obie hurry out over to an appropriate corner, that overlooks the main road leading to the stadium that looms in the distance like a shadowy crown. Rennin rests his rifle on the ledge and trains his scope around. No contact. He looks to the stadium to the right of him.
Nothing.
He focuses in front of him, to an intersection providing little cover. Any stray contaminants won’t stand much chance. A nasal voice comes over their audio channel. “Fader here, we’re currently across the street from your position, L
onginus, don’t open fire.”
“You think the guy sniping is too blind to tell what’s what?” asks Rennin.
“Cut it out, Longinus,” says Sabre.
“Do you have to call me that? One wrong slip and it might become Long Anus. My nipples are so hard,” says Rennin getting a barely contained laughing fit from Jawa.
“Keep silent and keep your answers professional.”
“Silent and professional?” asks Rennin noticing Jawa has a hand clamped over his own mouth.
“Longinus-”
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m just trying to keep some humour up, you said we’ll be shooting people we might know. Isn’t it worth it to have a laugh while we can, sir?”
There’s a pause. “Acknowledged. But that’s enough.”
A click is heard and they’re back to talking amongst themselves.
“So who wants to steal the gunship?” Rennin asks, training his scope on it.
“Yeah I wouldn’t mind, but we’d be taken out by the Skyhook,” says Jawa.
Rennin forgot about that. Lucky. Rennin trains his scope across the buildings looking at the various readings that flash in the scope to the left of his sight. “The scanner in my sniper scope is picking up a lot of something called Substance 6, what is that?”
“I don’t know,” says Jawa.
“Me neither,” says Obie.
Rennin shrugs. “It’s finding almost as much of it as the bio-signs of people. According to the scope, the data scans are being sent to Iyatoya. That I find odd.”
“Why?” asks Jawa.
“Isn’t the city supposed to be completely contained?”
“Contact!” calls Obie drawing Rennin’s concentration back to the job. “East of the intersection.”
Rennin zooms in to the fearful expression of the contaminant. He can just make out the black veins on its neck. The thing starts calling for help. Rennin’s eyes turn to ice.
“Screamer.” A single shot rings out, making Obie jump. The contaminant’s head flies apart. Rennin curses loudly and pulls the rifle back. “Forgot the goddamned silencer,” he whispers harshly while screwing it on.