“Jesus Christ,” Ghost groaned. “Please don’t try and make that a thing, Jackson. He won’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either,” Duke grumbled.
The marine led them through the camp. There had to be hundreds of people standing around in fireteams, squads, platoons – all waiting for orders. A few tents and marquees had been erected to provide some shade (it didn’t look as if they could expect rain any time soon), inside of which some benches had been set up where marines could replenish their ammunition and rations. They’d all need to grab another grenade or two before they headed out again. Another tent had flaps drawn across its front – through the gap Ginger watched as surgeons attempted to cauterise a man’s severed leg. Another bug sac victim, she guessed. Everything smelled of blood, alcohol and dirt.
Ginger suppressed a shiver. It was like humanity had gone back a hundred and fifty years.
“What’s the deal with all the nicknames, anyway?” asked Private Bradley. “I can guess why you’re called Ghost, but…”
“What?” said Ghost, her face suddenly stoney. “Because of my pasty complexion?”
Ginger smirked. Private Flores had Cuban heritage.
“Wha—? No!” Bradley floundered. “I meant that—”
“I’m messing with you,” she said, slapping him on the back. “It’s coz the enemy never even knows I’m there. Bet you’re wondering why someone with purple hair is called Ginger though, right?”
Ginger rolled her eyes. This story again.
“My surname is Rogers. It’s from my mother’s side. Apparently there was some famous actress from the thirties and forties called Ginger Rogers, and the nickname stuck. Nineteen thirties and forties, that is.”
Bradley turned to Duke, who looked down at him expectantly.
“I’m drawing a blank,” he said, shrugging. “Have you got royal ancestry, or…?”
“I’m just a really big Bowie fan,” Duke replied with a wink. “Ziggy didn’t feel right.”
“Oh.” Bradley laughed without much humour. “I guess I’d better start thinking of one, then.”
“You don’t come up with your own nickname, pal.” Duke beamed at him. “You get given one by the rest of us.”
“Presuming you live long enough,” Ginger mumbled to herself.
They rounded a corner and spotted Staff Sergeant Baker outside a Command tent, deep in conversation with the major in charge of their battalion. He gave her a sharp salute and hurried over as soon as he noticed them. Everyone stood to attention.
“At ease,” he said. “Thank goodness you’re all alive. I thought… Wait. Where’s Private Moore, Sergeant?”
“KIA, sir.” Sergeant Parkins couldn’t help but lower her eyes. “There were mines all around the edge of the forest. Bug mines, sir.”
“Goddammit.” Baker shook his head. “Well, at least the rest of you made it here. We still haven’t heard anything from Fireteam Upsilon. Fireteams Delta, Echo and Foxtrot are all missing, too.”
“Well, we’re glad you made it, sir.” Ginger nodded respectfully. “What the hell happened up there?”
“Same thing that’s stopping us from pushing through to the rally point,” he replied. “Follow me.”
He led them across the provisional base to its most easterly wall. Unlike the southern side of the camp through which they’d entered, there really was a wall – albeit one hastily assembled from empty supply crates and sheet metal.
“Excuse the scrappiness,” he said, as if reading their minds. “Until the drop ships and supply shuttles can land, we’ve got to make do with whatever we’ve got to hand. Best we could do in a few hours.”
He led them up a short flight of steps made from wooden planks and instructed them to duck down behind the metal chests that ran along the top of the parapet.
“Hear that booming sound?” He passed Ginger a pair of binoculars. “Take a look.”
The fields beyond were in a much worse condition than those separating the camp from the forest – sans the buried bug sacs, of course. They were all mud and black dirt. Trees were felled. Huge furrows had been carved down their length.
Suddenly, a stream of green fire rocketed up into the sky. Ginger recognised the projectile as something similar to the sac traps that had been laid around the forest – highly volatile explosives encased in a semi-gelatinous shell. And then another went off a hundred or so metres behind the first. They were shooting out from deep pits dug into the ground.
“So that’s what took out our drop ships.”
“And they’re not random. Look where they’re shooting.”
Ginger aimed the binoculars higher. Both of the flaming projectiles – and now, as she watched, a third joined them from even further into the field – were headed for the exact same spot in the air. Something small and mechanical flittered back and forth above the no-man’s land.
“That drone’s one of ours,” said Baker. “We’ve been using it to take photos of the landscape for thirty minutes now, and they’ve been trying to bring it down the whole time.”
“Ah.” Ginger handed the binoculars back to Baker. “Not swamp gas, then.”
“No, not swamp gas. We’re looking at some sort of primitive, possibly even natural anti-aircraft system. Seems like the bugs are smarter than Command thought.”
“Not the roach Ginger killed,” said Duke. “She said it was a snarling, bloodthirsty thing.”
“You killed one?” Baker looked impressed. “Good. Hope you had fun because you’re about to do a whole lot more of it. As soon as we’ve mapped the terrain and more reinforcements get here, you’re shutting those cannons down.”
“We’re going through there?” barked Jackson. “But that’s—”
“No complaints,” Baker continued. “There’s no way of getting to the bridge while they’re still taking out our ships. Sergeant Parkins, you and the rest of Fireteam Tau are to fall under Sergeant Rogers’ command for the rest of this operation. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
From the sound of it, Parkins was happy to give up the responsibility. Ginger didn’t share her relief. Now she had six people to keep alive instead of three. Or to put it another way: twice the opportunity to get somebody killed.
“All right. Everyone head back to camp. Get yourself fed and resupply your ammunition if you used any. Catch your breath while you still can. Dismissed.”
Everyone talked amongst themselves as they wandered off in the direction they came. Ginger hung back.
“Something the matter, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.” She sighed. “It’s Private Bradley, sir. He’s much too green for our fireteam. He’s going to get himself killed. I wouldn’t mind, but he’s going to get the rest of my team killed too.”
Staff Sergeant Baker raised his eyebrows and nodded.
“Yeah, he’s a rookie all right. But he’s your rookie, Sergeant. The transfer’s been done, so deal with it.”
“But, sir—”
“That’s an order, Rogers. If our crappy surroundings aren’t a big enough clue, then let me spell it out for you – humanity doesn’t have the luxury of training crack military teams right now. Hell, our species is lucky to have any sort of military left at all. We need every able-bodied man and woman out there fighting, and for all his shortcomings, that includes Private Bradley. If he isn’t good enough, then it’s your job to bring him up to snuff. Is that understood?”
Ginger gritted her teeth. She didn’t know what was worse – being stuck with Private Bradley, or knowing that Baker was right.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Baker pointed at her bloody, shredded fatigues. “Now go and get yourself cleaned up. You look like you’ve been in a war zone.”
Chapter Six
Ginger sprinted to the long stone wall at the end of the field. The pebbles keeping each rock in place were almost crumbled away; other sections of the wall had been blown apart completely. In the back of her mind, she wondered how
many centuries it had stood intact before the bugs took over.
The rest of fireteams Sigma and Tau fell into cover beside her.
“What now, boss?” asked Private Jackson.
Ginger peeked above the top of the four-foot wall. The earth beyond was blasted and burned beyond recognition. Ash from old crops blew through the air like black desert sand. The gutted, roasted husks of crashed drop ships lay half-buried in the soil.
The sunken pit containing the bug cannon they’d been sent to destroy lay a few hundred metres ahead of their position. It was firing impotently at the UEC ships lurking just inside New Eden’s upper atmosphere – they appeared greyed-out, half-there… the way the full moon sometimes looks in the daytime.
“See that mound over there?” Ginger gestured to the spot where a detached thruster had dug a long furrow in the dirt. “We take cover behind it and then, when fireteams Echo and Foxtrot are in position, we’ll advance on the pit. The higher ground will give us the upper hand.”
“I don’t like this,” Ghost yelled over the sound of cannon fire. “Why haven’t we seen any roaches yet?”
“You’d think if they were smart enough to build anti-aircraft artillery, they’d be smart enough to defend them,” Private Hitch agreed.
Ginger studied the battlefield. They were right. Something was off about the whole operation. But there wasn’t time to question a spell of good luck. If humanity was to take Rhinegarde and launch a full invasion of New Terra, those cannons had to go.
“That’s Echo over there,” said Duke, nodding towards a group of marines halfway down the field from them. His face turned as stoney as the wall they were hiding behind. “Looks like they’re… Wait a second…”
Fireteam Echo vaulted over the stone wall, assuming there was no need to take cover in a battlefield without enemies. No sooner had they entered the field beyond did the horror start. One member of their team exploded instantly as he stepped on a fresh nest of buried bug sacs. The rest panicked and spread apart, two of them choosing to push forwards whilst their third surviving member dived back behind the blood-splattered wall.
That’s when the shooting began.
Small, pale-brown shards rattled through the clouds of ash like rounds from an old Gatling gun. The two marines who chose to push through the field were cut down within seconds. One died as a stream of darts punctured her chest and turned her into a human pincushion. The other collapsed to the dirt, his legs shot off from under him, his screams filling what little air wasn’t already drowned under a torrent of rifle and cannon fire.
Similar scenes of carnage sprung up all down the length of the wall as fireteam after fireteam came under attack.
“Guns?” screamed Ginger, ducking down. “How the hell did a bunch of dumb, interstellar bugs get their hands on guns?”
The stones in the wall beside them disintegrated in a cloud of pebbles and dust. Everyone flinched.
“Who cares how the guns got into their hands?” yelled Private Jackson, clutching his helmet. “I just want to know how we’re gonna get the guns out of them!”
“Jesus Christ.” Ghost switched out her sniper rifle for her submachine gun. “This was supposed to be an extermination, not a goddamn war.”
Sergeant Parkins crouch-walked over to Ginger.
“What should we do?” she asked.
Ginger squinted through a tiny gap in the stones. The battlefield was too obscured with ash and dust for her to see the roaches shooting at them from the other side, especially with all the additional dirt thrown up from exploding bug sacs. But she could tell it was a massacre out there from the screams. There were no trenches or gun-nests to dive into. No way was anyone making it to those cannon pits alive.
“I don’t know,” she spluttered. “For God’s sake, I don’t know!”
“Come on, Ginger.” The hand Ghost laid on her shoulder was reassuring, but the tone of her voice was hard. “Give us some orders. We can’t shoot what we can’t see!”
A colossal explosion went off about thirty metres further down their right flank. The wall burst – there wasn’t any other way Ginger could describe it. It burst, upwards and outwards. Stones the size of footballs crashed down around the stunned fireteam who’d been charging towards it. One clocked a marine on the helmet, crushing their skull. The other three marines continued running towards where the wall had been moments before, dragging their fallen comrade with them as if nothing about their strategy had changed.
But it had changed. Everything had changed. Where the wall had been was now a gaping hole in the earth, three metres wide. And as the other fireteam approached the hole, something from inside rose up to greet them.
Two bugs scuttled out through the opening, hungrily snapping their stubby, serrated mandibles. They were roaches – the same breed of bug Ginger had fought in the forest. The three marines paused for a second, petrified, before they opened fire with their battle rifles. It was a pause that cost one of them his life.
The first roach sprung forward and used its mandibles to tear a gash through the marine’s stomach. He screamed as his guts spilled out onto the mud like gruel off a spoon. The other two marines continued to let rip, pumping round after round through the monster’s gangly carapace. Chunks of flesh and shell burst and popped until finally the bug collapsed – dead, yet still twitching – with ribbons of the dying marine’s intestines stuffed inside its mouth.
The second roach charged towards them.
“Well you can see that bug, can’t you?” yelled Ginger. “Keep your heads down and follow the wall. Move!”
They sprinted down the line, their sides glued to the stonework – where it still stood, at least – and their heads so low their knees were practically kicking into their chins. Ginger only realised they were one man short once they were already halfway to the hole.
“Oh goddammit,” she hissed through gritted teeth.
Private Bradley remained crouched by their original patch of wall, hugging his knees. His rifle lay on the dirt beside him. The idiot hadn’t even noticed the rest of them were gone.
This is it, she thought as she raced back to him. This is how he gets us all killed.
“What the hell are you doing, Private?” she screamed.
“Can’t move,” he replied, looking up at her through watery eyes. “I’m going to die.”
“Yeah, probably.” She grabbed his rifle and stuffed it back into his hands. “But ask yourself, which would you prefer – to die here by yourself, or live a little longer with the rest of us?”
Bradley’s eyes flickered back and forth as if the idiot were struggling to choose. Then he nodded, put his helmet on straight, and followed Ginger back to where the rest of their group stood firing at the second bug. It writhed under the barrage of six semi-automatic rifles and one submachine gun, its spindly limbs snapping and bursting off, until nothing was left save for a bloody, mangled mess.
“Christ, those things are ugly,” groaned Duke.
“They look better when they’re dead.” Ghost wrinkled her nose. “Don’t smell better, though. Jesus.”
One of the two unharmed marines from the neighbouring fireteam hurried over to his disembowelled companion, who still lay screaming in the dirt. He stood in open-mouthed shock as his friend cried and begged. The dying marine said something Ginger couldn’t make out – a request the sergeant standing beside him initially refused.
Then the sergeant drew his sidearm from its holster, winced as if he were in pain, and shot the dying marine in the head. The only other surviving member of the man’s fireteam grabbed him by the upper arm and dragged him back towards the onslaught in the field beyond.
“Christ, that was dark.” Sergeant Parkins watched them go with eyes as big as satellite dishes. “I don’t think I could do that to somebody under my command. I never want to do that.”
“Rather that than bleed out with your guts half-eaten,” said Private Jackson, gulping. “No medic’s gonna patch that up.”
&n
bsp; “Crap. The hole.” Ginger sprinted to the edge of the dark maw. A great mound of earth had reared up behind it when the wall exploded, which luckily afforded them some protection from whatever the bugs continued to spray across the field. “Do you see any more of them?”
Everyone aimed their rifles into the tunnel. Their flashlight attachments bathed the dirt walls in a stark white light. The tunnel was steep, rough and loose – the sort a wild animal might burrow rather than a trench dug by man. Loose dirt crumbled from the hole’s ceiling, but otherwise all was still.
For now.
“Looks clear to me,” said Duke. “Should I chuck a grenade in there, close it up before any more come?”
Ginger nodded and everyone stepped back. She turned and watched the rest of the assault’s miserable progress down the line. Hundreds of young men and women stormed the stone walls only to get cut down a second later by the weird, bony shards being fired by the bugs – or God knew what else – defending the cannons, which showed no sign of slowing their explosive barrage towards the battlecruisers above. Black ash and green fire rained down around the troops like a monsoon. Similar tunnels to their own were bursting open all along the wall. The air was heavy with screams and the stench of burned dirt and blood.
“Wait!” she shouted. Duke was a split second away from pulling the pin on his grenade, and he almost yanked it free in his surprise. “I’ve got an idea.”
Ghost hunched down beside her as another bug sac went off half a dozen metres from their position. “I don’t think I like where this is going.”
“Just hear me out,” Ginger shouted. “Everyone’s trying to go overground, and they’re getting slaughtered. As soon as we go over that wall, the same thing will happen to us. It’s what the bugs expect. So if we can’t go over, I say we go under.”
“Go under?” Private Jackson screamed. “You want us to go in there? With the bugs?”
Nobody else said anything. Private Bradley sat clutching his rifle like it was a teddy bear.
“Why not?” said Ginger, pointing to the war zone behind Jackson. “Do you honestly think you’ll fare any better above ground? Clearly the roaches are using these tunnels to get from A to B, which goes some way to explain why we haven’t seen more of them before now. I reckon they’re all connected. If we follow it, it’ll take us right to that damn cannon we’re after.”
Sigma (War for New Terra, Book 1) Page 5