The Mighty First, Episode 3

by Mark Bordner

  Manny left two of his men with the prisoner, and continued on. C-Company, 1st Battalion linked up with the Attayan 2nd Light Infantry Brigade an hour later, effectively gaining control of northern Dayton.

  Indianapolis, Indiana

  Storian Command and Control

  11:50 PM

  The conference suite that served as the operations center was a hive of activity as technicians monitored radio traffic from field commanders reporting the situations in Dayton and the far-western line that ran south-to-north along the Illinois border. On the western line, the Attayan Elite Corps had established a strong defensive front months prior, effectively holding the majority of Grozet’s 1st Army at bay--- keeping them boxed in from Illinois back to the Rocky Mountains. U.S. and Mexican allied forces were dominating the southern line, and Canadian and French forces continued to squeeze from

  the north. Supplies were beginning to dwindle, even with procuring what was needed

  from the civilian population. Many units had been reduced to utilizing pre-war design kinetic weapons that relied on bullets, commandeered from gun shops and private homes.

  Plasma munitions were running low. The blasted Attayan and United Earth space navies still dominated the regions out along the Kuiper Asteroid Belt; the blockade preventing his own navy from delivering much-needed supplies and fresh troops.

  On the inside of the Illinois line, Grozet’s 2nd Army was boxed in from the Great Lakes south to Dayton, and that circle was growing ever so tighter by the day. The Earth-dwelling humans had most certainly gotten their act together. No other race in Storian history had presented such a formidable opposition. While he was infuriated by this, he could not help but also be impressed, giving a grudging respect to them for their determination.

  On the large conference table were several maps marked with various indicators showing the advance of the Allied forces against the current positions of his own. Grozet studied it, noting the time-notations of the most recent activity. It was apparent that his attempted counter-offensive at Enon had somehow incensed the Americans as never before. Their aggressiveness had amplified astoundingly within hours of it taking place. The reports of out-right savagery staggered his imagination.

  For the first time, he was beginning to feel an inkling of doubt. Grozet wondered just what had stirred them so. The GNN footage of the approaching assault on every scope of Dayton had raised his ire, and now, to hear and see this outpour of

  unchecked ferocity sweeping the city rather unnerved him--- though he would never admit that to anyone.

  Over-Marshall Garrow stood on the other side of the table, a comm-link held to one ear, making new notations on the map as a field officer spoke to him. Grozet watched as yet another section of Dayton was marked as lost to the Allies. The battle was quickly encircling the city center, his elements there becoming surrounded. They would either be captured or destroyed out-right before long, and he could not afford to sacrifice what he had left. He made a difficult decision. The retreats up until now had been strategic, to lure the Allies into one trap after another, but this was the first time he would be forced to withdraw under duress.

  “Order them to fall back, Jasper.” Grozet spoke, leaning on the table with his knuckles.

  Garrow looked up, surprised, telling the officer on the link to hold on. “Excuse me, my Lord?”

  Grozet locked eyes with him, “Pull them out. It’s less than forty miles to the Indiana border. Have them fall back to the artillery line we have stationed there. Dayton is lost to us,” He stated bitterly.

  Garrow blinked, then nodded his understanding, then relayed the new orders to the officer on the link. While he did so, the Emperor gazed at the Ohio-Indiana border on the map. What he had waiting there for the Allies when they chose to pursue would take some of the wind from their sails.

  I-70 would be rendered a no-man’s land.

  October 9th

  Dayton, Ohio

  I-75 battlefront

  It had actually taken 3 days to fully gain control of the city, and drive the Storinas further west. With the U.S. and Mexican armies occupying Cincinnati to the south, the Allies now effectively controlled the state of Ohio, adding to the Liberated Zone. The troops were spent, both emotionally and physically. There was no means to rotate them to the rear with the current situation still so fluid and volatile, so Command chose to just sit stationary for the time-being, and allow them time to recuperate. Strasburg decided to house his regiment in a strip-mall near Irvington, where there was still electricity. The troopers divided by companies and took up residence inside the stores, where there was conditioned air, light, and food and drink. The support vehicles and tanks found ample space in the parking lots, turning the group of shops into their temporary garrison. The grumblings of the store managers were duly noted and promptly ignored as they were shuffled away. Customers did not seem to mind, content to loiter on the sidewalks along the street and gawk, taking pictures and gossiping in general. Marines assigned to guard duty kept people from wandering beyond the landscaping that skirted the lot.

  The command staff chose to set up shop inside the anchor store, a Wal-Mart, which would give them plenty of elbow room and a huge supply of edible goods to distribute to the troops. C-Company had been chosen to provide staff security and was

  assigned to bunk in the store as well. The garments section had been rearranged to fit all of them, the racks of clothes pushed outward to create a hollow space in the center.

  Minerva and Amell had raided the candy aisle, chiefly claiming all of the black licorice for themselves, and found a quiet corner in the book section to sit and munch. Neither girl spoke much, preferring to merely share one another’s company. Conversation would inevitably veer toward what both wanted to avoid. So, with their helmets lying on the floor next to them, they just sat in silence and ate their candy.

  Over the previous days, Minerva had become withdrawn and short-tempered. She ate little and had been lax in her hygiene. Amell had noticed that her friend twitched a lot in her sleep, and often burst into tears upon waking. Minerva refused to talk about it, and cursed vehemently at the Chaplain when he attempted to council her about her grief. The master sergeant preferred to allow her gunnery sergeant to run the company, often waving off questions when they were directed to herself.

  The senior staff was beginning to take notice, but had as yet refrained from saying anything about it. Sergeant Major Ford had been watching from a distance, and could only imagine what the poor girl was going through, but he could not allow her descent into self-pity to become a detriment to the battalion. Reluctantly, he finally decided to confront her.

  It was not long before Sergeant Major Ford found them and leaned against one of the racks, picking up a body building magazine, absently thumbing through it.

  “How are you girls doing?” He asked.

  Both just shrugged. Minerva offered him the bag she held, and he accepted one

  of the candy sticks. He bit into it and sighed.

  “I’m sorry about Mark,” Ford told them. “He was my friend, too. We’re all hurting right now.”

  Minerva nodded, wiping away a fresh tear. Her face blushed, and she avoided his gaze.

  “We still have to carry on, though,” He continued carefully. “That’s what he would have wanted from us.”

  The girls nodded again.

  Ford looked down at them, tossing the book back onto the rack, “Amell, Colonel Strasburg has authorized your field-promotion to master sergeant; you’re now company commander for Alpha. They’ll be flying back in tomorrow.”

  Amell’s furry ears twitched in apprehension, “But, that’s Mark’s company.”

  Ford visibly flinched at the mention of that, and his brow furrowed in frustration, “Mark is dead! Now, I need you to step up and take over for him!” He retorted sharply.

  Both of the girls cringed, faces agape at the outburst. Minerva kept her composure despite the tears now running freely down her face.


  The sergeant major clenched his fists and pressed them against his eyes, drawing a breath between his teeth, “I’m sorry.” He whispered. “I didn’t mean to say it that way. I’m sorry.”

  This was not what he had in mind, not the way he had wanted to approach Minerva.

  His guts churned with emotion, and hot tears of his own sprang and wetted his cheeks.

  He turned and walked away, stance stiff with grief.

  Minerva began to weep and leaned into her friend, who put an arm around her, joining in her sorrow.

  Ford stomped to the liquor aisle, where Captain Hannock had stationed a pair of privates to guard the booze against pilfering. The young troopers did not even attempt to stop him when he shouldered his way past and grabbed a bottle of J.D. whiskey. The sergeant major carried it through the employee doors that led to the stockroom and sat heavily on a row of unopened boxes. He twisted the cap off and tossed it aside, taking a long swig from it, grimacing with the burn. Next followed his cigar case, popping it open and taking out one of the Attayan-rolled Coronas, first smelling its sweet outer leaf. Lighting it and drawing that first mouthful of mellow smokiness brought a measure of calm to his jangling nerves.

  As he slowly exhaled through his nose, Ford remembered how he and Mark used to share moments like this one, usually after a particularly difficult day. Just sitting somewhere and lighting up, sometimes finding something to laugh about, other times too spent to even talk. The young man’s humor was dry, and at times Mark would give him a sideways glance with that cocked eyebrow--- which would inevitably crack him up.

  Ford grimaced, brow furrowed, and he jerked with sobs that were stubbornly held in. It was too much. The kid had been like a brother. The emotions abated quickly as he swallowed them down with more whiskey, glancing about guiltily to make sure no one had seen him give in to his pain. He wiped his eyes dry with the hand holding the bottle and took another pull on the cigar from the other. That hand trembled.

  Colonel Strasburg happened to walk through the employee doors, in search of the restroom, and spotted Ford sitting alone near the wall. He approached him, hands in his pockets, looking like a wizened, old school teacher who had just found a pupil playing hooky from class. The older man took a seat on a box next to him and reached for the bottle. Ford relinquished it, and the colonel took a good swallow of his own.

  “I could sit here and lecture you about the hazards of getting too close to your troops,” Strasburg said, turning the bottle around and around in his hands. “That would be a drop of piss in the ocean to a man who has already opened his heart to a friend and lost him, though.”

  Ford took the bottle back and helped himself to another drink.

  “You care for these kids as if they were your very own,” The colonel told him. “That’s part of what makes you such a damn fine deputy battalion commander. There’s a point, though, where you have to draw a line in the sand, and remember that your job is to send them into battle. They are going to get killed. You can’t give up so much of yourself to them that there’s nothing left.”

  The sergeant major smoked, saying nothing. His eyes gazed off into the shadows.

  “I’m sorry, Dwayne,” Strasburg offered.

  Ford looked at him and nodded, handing over the bottle. The colonel took it and rose to leave, then stopped and looked back.

  “We’ll make this bastard pay,” Strasburg said. “That, I promise you. “

  The sergeant major couldn’t meet his gaze, instead closing his eyes and resting his head against the wall behind him, the cigar wafting its peppery smoke into the still air.

  Five

  Footprints in the Sand

  USS Terra Daley, SNMS 13

  Space Navy medical ship

  Stationary Earth orbit

  The intake triage during the first hours of the battle at Enon, Ohio three days before had been a hectic mess. Medevac Huey-shuttles had come in an endless parade, delivering Marines with horrific wounds. The surgical teams scrambled without rest for hours trying to cope with the stream of mass casualties.

  The Graves Unit was tasked with the daunting duty of identifying the dead and collating the data. Bodies were delivered on gurneys, and in some cases, bags with parts. Marines were stripped of their armor, which was taken to maintenance for cleaning, reprogramming, and recycling to be used for other troopers graduating basic training.

  Once the armor was removed by the first team, the dead proceeded to another pair of techs who would cut away the clothing and discard it, then sponge-wash the body clean. A photograph was taken, using computers to photo-shop out any gore, and make the face appear at peace. The picture was attached with the appropriate name, and a file created, one for the Corps, one for the next of kin. The body was then preserved for

  burial if intact, the ones who arrived in pieces were cremated.

  This job was tedious, and at times, stomach-turning. Those who worked there had developed a sense of robotic detachment, seeing the process as a sort of assembly line. The bodies were no longer people, or in most cases, children in their teens. They were inanimate objects in need of cataloguing. It helped to preserve one’s humanity and sanity to see it that way.

  After many hours of this demanding procedure, the first pair of techs had shifted into their survival-mode frame of mind, methodically receiving Marine, and laboring to unlatch the plates and layers of nano-armor; dropping the parts into a bin. As they worked on their ump-teenth customer, neither tech took particular notice of the body as they snapped and pulled at fastenings. First came the helmet, then the shoulder plates, followed by the the breast plate, and on down the body until they were unlacing the boots.

  One of the techs, a middle-aged woman with two children of her own back home, glanced back at the marine’s face, making a tsk-tsk noise.

  “It’s a shame,” she said to her partner. “I have one at home about this age. No way in hell I would sign permission for him to enlist, and end up like this poor kid.”

  The Attayan man working with her pulled the boot free and dropped it into the bin, looking back at the boy’s face, “This one must have managed a good tan when he was still alive.”

  The woman wasn’t following, “Huh?”

  He nodded toward the face, “Look how pink he is. They’re usually really pale, even blue when they get to us.”

  She pulled off the boot on her side, frowning, looking back at the face. The boot was sat on the side of the gurney, forgotten, as she moved back toward the head; looking intently down at the young man’s face.

  “He does have color, doesn’t he?” She remarked, pulling off her disposable glove to touch his cheek. Her eyes bulged and she gasped.

  The Attayan looked up from the chart he was filling out, “What is it?”

  She gawked at him, “He’s warm! This one’s alive!”

  Lt. Commander Carol Gilliam had just finished her seventh trauma surgery since noon, and was prepping for number eight. The ward was a scene out of a nightmare, with blood all over the deck, and teams of doctors fighting hard to cope with the wounds at their tables. Gilliam finished scrubbing and rinsing, had just donned a new pair of gloves when the compartment intercom chimed.

  “Code Blue to the Graves Unit,” A voice announced.

  Gilliam scowled over her mask at her assistant, “Did I hear that right?”

  The junior officer nodded, her eyes as surprised as her own. The wall-comm began buzzing for attention. She picked up the receiver and held it to the commander’s ear for her, so as not to contaminate her sterile gloves.

  “This is Commander Gilliam.”

  The voice on the other end was frantic, “This is Graves!” The woman spouted, “We have a marine down here with a pulse and faint respiration! Somehow, he slipped past the intake team!”

  Gilliam sighed, “Alright, take it easy. A med team is on the way, and I’ll take a look at him when they get him here.”

  “Hurry!” The woman implored, “He’s been lying ignored
for hours!”

  The commander motioned for her assistant to hang it up. She did so, looking at her expectantly.

  “We have a little surprise on the way,” she explained. “Somehow, a live one got sent down to Graves and Registration. Let’s see if we can save him. Get the table ready.”

  October 10th

  Richmond, Indiana

  Major Rogett had volunteered to take the 101st Airborne Division and spearhead the advance into Indiana, utilizing West I-70. Backed by elements from the 108th Armored, they had a six-tank escort, four Hummer-Jeeps with Bushmaster gun mounts, and four APC’s with Anti-Tank mini-cannons. It was a formidable force for a light-infantry unit, but Rogett wanted to take no risks in losing their hard-won forward

  initiative.

  The column was actually about 8 miles east of Richmond, and advancing without meeting any sort of resistance. They had been making decent time all day, and it looked like they would reach town well before nightfall. The major was feeling pretty smug about it, thinking to himself that they would finally have one over on the 1st Marine Battalion, who had been hogging all of the glory since D-Day. He glanced over at the GNN crew that marched with them, looking bored. There had been little worth filming since the battle for Dayton. The public thirsted for action, not endless miles of walking.

  Their boredom was soon ended, though, as the quiet afternoon was suddenly interrupted by the unmistakable whirring of artillery rounds approaching fast.

  “Incoming!” Several troopers yelled at the same time.

  The vehicles braked to a halt and soldiers dropped to the ground, scattering to either side of the highway and seeking cover on the shoulders. The camera crew ducked low and began recording.