“What happened to your arm, sir?” asked Sergeant Parkins.
“Hmm, this?” Baker waggled his bandaged arm as if to demonstrate it was still attached to his body. “One of those damn bug rounds scraped me. No infection, luckily.”
“I didn’t realise you were out there,” said Jackson, surprised.
“Of course I was!” Baker laughed and looked at him as if he were an idiot. “I went in with the Quebec boys not long after you left. We’re stretched too thin to have people like me sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I’m a staff sergeant, not a bloody general.”
Baker’s data pad bleeped. He looked down at it and sighed. More bad news, Ginger guessed.
“Right, everyone’s dismissed. Go off and do whatever it is you do, but be ready to ship out at oh-five-hundred hours.” He sat down on the crate again. “Oh, and Private Jackson? Head over to the infirmary and get that leg looked at, will you?”
“It’s just bruised, sir,” Jackson replied. “I’ll be fine.”
“Be that as it may, it’s an order. You won’t be much good to anyone limping towards the enemy.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sergeant Parkins escorted Jackson towards the infirmary building while Baker got busy filling out forms on his data pad. Duke tapped Ginger on the shoulder.
“Hey, Ginger. Larson from Fireteam Quebec tells me there’s some booze going round in Mess Hall C. Wanna come celebrate with us?”
“Screw that,” said Ginger. “Big day tomorrow. I’m getting a shower and then some sleep.”
“Probably for the best.” Duke grinned. “You wouldn’t be able to handle it anyway.”
Ginger gave him the middle finger and laughed. Only after Duke and Ghost had rounded the corner with a bemused Bradley in tow did Ginger dare let her mask slip.
She held her hands up in front of her face. Try as she might, they wouldn’t stop shaking.
God, she needed that drink. But she needed to shut out the world even more.
A bit of peace and quiet… if only until dawn.
Chapter Nine
It stormed overnight. The rain came down hard like a monsoon, first turning the dirt to mud and then washing it away in murky rivers. The wind howled like a wolf with its leg caught in a bear-trap.
Ginger didn’t sleep well anyway. She fell asleep quickly enough – despite the visions of Jessie and Hitch’s deaths that replayed over and over whenever she closed her eyes, the battle had sapped her of all her strength – but her dreams were as turbulent as the storm that raged outside the barracks. She woke long before dawn broke, drenched in sweat and panting hard, convinced she was trapped back down in the roach tunnels.
The rest of the Fireteam Sigma appeared no better rested when they all gathered for deployment the next morning, wincing as the sun rose above the alien horizon. But that was just the booze’s doing. Moonshine and brain cells don’t make good bedfellows.
Ginger knew she ought to reprimand them, even if she didn’t really mean it. But she couldn’t see how it would make the miserable day any better. Besides, the adrenaline would perk them up soon enough.
The rain hadn’t stopped, but it had softened to a light drizzle, which evolved into a white, ghostly mist that drifted over the surrounding fields. Given they were about to advance even further into bug territory, this hardly filled the marines with confidence. At least they had armoured divisions this time.
And so they marched as a battalion, surrounded by tanks and overseen by gunships, through the soupy mud towards the towering Bridge of Etmark.
“Remind me why this bridge is so damn important again,” groaned Private Jackson, wrenching his boot free from a particularly viscous puddle with an audible plop. Following the infirmary’s diagnosis that there was nothing actually wrong with his leg, Jackson’s limp had mysteriously vanished. Funny, that.
“Because Command has deemed it to be of extreme strategic importance,” Ginger replied impatiently. “Honestly. If Staff Sergeant Baker could hear you, he’d have you cleaning out the latrines for a week. Even Private Bradley isn’t complaining.”
“Only ‘cause he’s lost the ability to speak,” laughed Duke, slapping the young private on the back. Bradley’s face was a waxy green colour. He looked ready to puke.
“How much did you give him to drink last night?” Ginger asked.
“None,” said Ghost, raising an eyebrow. “He’s just bricking himself, that’s all,” she added in a whisper.
“God, I think that’s worse.”
“Why?”
“Hangovers tend to get better. His nerves certainly won’t.”
“Don’t think the mission’s going to be easy, I take it?” asked Sergeant Parkins.
“Is it ever?” Ginger replied.
Somebody blew a whistle and the entire battalion shuffled to a stop. The mist was thinning and, apart from the light patter of rain on their helmets, all was silent. Ginger shivered. The major briefly gathered her captains up front, who then dispersed and relayed their orders down the chain of command. Within twenty seconds, Staff Sergeant Baker came striding back towards them.
“Sigma. Tau. Up front, now.”
The six marines weaved through the static crowd towards the edge of a small cliff. Baker ordered them to hunker down behind a rocky crest, then handed Ginger his binoculars.
“Half a klick, eleven o’clock,” he said. “Do you see it?”
Even through the murky drizzle, it was hard to miss. A gaping ravine seemed to almost split the planet in two – a dark, almighty crack that snaked around the equator… or so Ginger found herself imagining. In truth, she knew it to be scores of kilometres long, but not infinite – that’s why they needed to take control of its only crossing, rather than hike the whole way around. And there it was, standing proud and majestic in stark contrast to the burned fields and ruined stone farmhouses around it – the Bridge of Etmark. Its lofty bronze towers glistened under the low, morning sun.
“Now that is cool,” Ginger heard Jackson whisper.
“There are four towers in total,” Baker continued. “Two on the south side and two on the north. A fireteam is being sent to secure each tower before the rest of the battalion advances. You’re lucky. In your case, you’ve got a fireteam and a half.”
Ginger looked along the cliff. Three other fireteams were getting similarly briefed by their own staff sergeants.
“Which tower?” she asked.
“North side, west tower.”
Ghost peered at the bridge through the scope of her rifle.
“Seems pretty quiet,” she said. “I can see a few roaches crawling about – nothing we can’t handle. But what we can see doesn’t always count for much.”
“This time, it might. It’s very unlikely the bugs know we’re headed for the city, which means they shouldn’t know how important this crossing is for us either. We don’t expect much resistance.”
Ginger couldn’t help noticing Private Jackson raising his eyebrows and making a we’ll-see-about-that face behind Baker’s back. She hadn’t forgotten the enthusiastic lecture on bug castes and hive minds he’d given them the day before.
“Then why doesn’t Command just order the whole battalion to take the bridge at once?” she asked, jabbing a thumb in the direction of all the troops standing behind them. “Be a lot easier with these numbers.”
Baker bobbed his head from side to side.
“Sure. But we lost a lot of soldiers yesterday, and even more back when the drop ships got attacked. If our intelligence is wrong, Command doesn’t want another massacre. Sorry.”
“Real reassuring, sir.”
“You’ll be fine, Rogers. Plus, we’ll have snipers and long-range artillery covering the bridge at all times. You won’t be alone, even if it might feel that way.”
One of the ranking officers barked an order over the staff sergeants’ headsets. Baker nodded in acknowledgement.
“Okay, it’s time,” he said, speaking quickly. “Are your comm units ope
rational? You’ll need to radio in as soon as your tower is clear.”
“Double checked and good to go,” replied Ginger, tapping her helmet. “We won’t let you down, sir.”
“I know you won’t.” Baker nodded to the whole team. “Now get moving. You’ve got further to go than anyone else.”
Ginger nodded.
“Fireteam Sigma, Fireteam Tau – on me.”
They left their clifftop cover in tandem with the other three fireteams. The quickest route to the bridge lay a good ten metres or so below their position, past a sheer face of crumbling, chalky rock. Ginger led her team down a zigzagging path of grassy outcrops and gravel slopes until they reached the bottom.
One of the other fireteams was already in cover behind a small stone outhouse ahead. Their sergeant gave Ginger a signal: all clear. She quickly and silently led her squad across the empty field towards the bridge, checking every possible angle with her rifle as they went.
A couple of large buildings stood between them and the closest of the bridge’s four towers – a farmhouse and a barn. Their walls were built from timber and stone, and their roofs were thatched. Fireteam Charlie guarded the perimeter of the barn whilst Sigma and Tau darted inside to clear it.
Ginger rounded wooden corner after wooden corner. It was dark, the air sour. Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it. But the interior of the barn was just as empty of bugs and intelligent life as they’d expected. Rusty metal tools and strips of tanned leather hung from the beams and rafters. The closest thing they found to a threat was the manky skeleton of a bovine creature half-buried under a pile of dry hay in one of the stalls. She signalled as such to Fireteam Charlie and, with the farmhouse similarly cleared by Fireteams India and Oscar, they pushed on.
Ginger was faintly aware of something chirping in the trees nearby, but its beautiful birdsong barely registered. Her panting breath and the squelching of dewey grass beneath their feet – not to mention her thundering heartbeat, of course – seemed unnaturally loud. And all she could think of was how many roaches might be lying in wait in tunnels burrowed beneath their feet, or how many sacs might be buried in the earth ahead. She’d never know until she was ripped or blown apart.
“Roach spotted up on the south-east tower,” said Ghost. She always did have the best eyesight. Even though she was whispering from at least ten feet away, her words came through the comm unit in Ginger’s helmet as clear as stream water.
“Leave it,” she quickly replied. “Better that the bugs don’t know we’re here. Let Fireteam India deal with it.”
“Understood.”
Ginger risked a glance back at her small squad. She was actually impressed. Not that she didn’t expect a certain degree of professionalism from Ghost and Duke, of course – or from Sergeant Parkins, for that matter. But Private Jackson wasn’t cracking jokes, and, despite his obvious anxiety, Private Bradley was yet to turn tail or drop into the foetal position. Maybe there was hope for him, after all.
Maybe.
What had once been a long dirt road running parallel to the ravine and perpendicular to the bridge was now overrun with weeds. Two small guardhouses, each barely any bigger than the average toll booth, stood to either side of the bridge’s entrance. The four fireteams sprinted into cover behind them.
Ginger peered out at their objective.
Christ, was the bridge impressive.
So far, all she’d ever seen of the species who first occupied New Terra were the remains of their small, stone houses way out in the fields – more often than not either crumbled to dust or burned to black, ashen heaps. Peasant dwellings, in all likelihood. But the bridge… Well, it looked to Ginger as if the bridge had been built by another civilisation entirely. Eighteen metres wide and almost three-hundred long, the whole structure had been fabricated from layers of bronze alloy that glinted in the sun like a Roman centurion’s shield raised proudly before battle. Its four cylindrical towers rose sixty, maybe seventy metres into the air. Further along, thin copper-coloured sheets, each forty feet in height, fanned out from either side of the walkway like Art Deco peacock feathers. Grand, curved supports fastened the bridge to each side of the rocky ravine like the arches of a great industrial viaduct.
The sergeant of Fireteam Oscar gave a curt nod. Everyone slowly spread out onto the bridge.
The idea was to take the crossing with as minimal conflict as feasibly possible. The armoury at Rally Point Bravo had issued them with silencers prior to deployment, but it hardly mattered. The sound of a single gunshot would still carry, despite how the old Hollywood movies made it look. Especially when fired above a massive, hollow canyon.
Ginger thought back to her encounter with the roach in the forest and second-guessed switching to her knife. Close quarters combat with a bug was neither quick nor quiet.
Oscar and India split off, darting into their respective towers. Each entrance was wider than it was tall and engraved with calligraphic flourishes, and neither possessed doors. Ginger couldn’t hear any gunshots from either team as they disappeared inside, which she guessed was a good sign.
Fireteams Charlie and Sigma stalked further across the bridge, crossing the threshold where the ground ended and open ravine began. She wished not all of the bridge had been built from metal. It made masking their footsteps next to impossible.
The way forward was abandoned, but it wasn’t deserted. The bugs’ arrival on New Terra must have taken the planet’s original inhabitants by surprise, because the wide street was littered with discarded carts and wicker baskets, most of which had rotted in the rain. Another skeleton – picked apart, bleached by hot summers and cleaned by autumns of rain – lay beside one of the largest wagons. Ginger wondered whether the remains belonged to the creature who once pulled the cart or the poor sod who rode it on their way to market.
“Bloody hell,” Private Jackson suddenly gasped, breaking an otherwise perfect radio silence. He jerked away from one of the barriers that ran along each side of the bridge. “If you fell from here, it would be hours before you hit the ground.”
Ginger gave him a blunt shove to get his attention, then angrily mimed cutting her own throat. It wasn’t breaking radio silence that pissed her off – she doubted the bugs could track radio waves, no matter how smart Jackson claimed they might be. She just didn’t want any roaches crawling underneath the bridge to hear them.
It was a long way down, though. She couldn’t even see the bottom of the ravine… presuming there was a bottom, of course. This was an alien world, and all she could make out was endless blackness.
Fireteam Charlie’s sergeant gestured for everyone to get into cover. Ginger dropped to one knee behind a carriage lying on its side, and the rest of her fireteam followed suit.
A lone roach stalked along the centre of the bridge about six metres ahead of their position. Its legs and antennae twitched in a sharp, manic manner – it made Ginger feel like she was watching a film reel with half its frames missing. The bug’s head was low, and its mandibles clicked slowly as if it were searching for something. It didn’t appear to have seen or heard them, but who knew how sensitive the roaches were to vibrations in the metal bridge’s frame.
It suddenly jerked its ugly head towards them. Ginger leaned back into cover and gripped her rifle tight.
Did it see them? Goddammit. As her hands trembled, she imagined the roach’s fragile legs slowly click-clacking their way over the upturned carriage, envisioned its stubby pincers plunging down through her helmet and into her brain or slicing through her gut like a tomahawk. She reached up and nervously wiped rainwater from her eyes. Or maybe it was sweat – she couldn’t tell. Her chest hitched as she fought to hold her breath.
And then before she knew it, Fireteam Charlie were rising to their feet again. Ginger risked another glance around the carriage. The bridge was clear. The roach had scuttled over the barrier on the other side.
Christ, Fireteam Charlie was good. Why the hell couldn’t someone from their team have t
ransferred to Sigma instead of Bradley?
Feeling frighteningly out of her depth, she ordered her own marines to follow.
Charlie team filed into the south-easterly tower. They cleared the ground floor with expert proficiency and then advanced up its winding stairwell. A single marine stayed behind to protect the entrance.
Ginger decided to steal a leaf from their playbook.
“Parkins, Jackson,” she whispered. “Take Bradley and guard the base of the tower. Ghost, Duke and I will go up the tower and give Command the signal. Got it?”
“Sounds good to me.” Jackson shivered. “I’m terrified of heights as it is.”
Private Bradley’s attention was elsewhere, his eyes darting from one part of the bridge to another. Ginger punched him on the arm.
“Got it?” she repeated.
He spun around with a start and nodded like a bobblehead on a drop ship’s dashboard.
“Good. Move out.”
They quietly made their way inside the north-western tower. The ground floor measured about twenty feet in diameter. Dusty ornamental spears and shields adorned the walls. Flagons lay empty on top of an old wooden table scored with knife scratches. Sergeant Parkins and Private Jackson took up crouched positions to either side of the tower’s opening whilst Bradley – barely capable of holding his rifle upright, his hands shook so much – squatted near the back of the room, out of sight and hopefully out of trouble. Ginger gave the ground floor a cursory sweep for roaches and then followed Duke and Ghost up the stairs.
The bronze walls of the tower were no less sleek and regal inside than out. Each rotation of the staircase brought them to a narrow slit in the wall through which marksmen could fire arrows at the bleak, rocky landscape beyond the bridge. The steps were made for legs shorter than a human’s. Ginger was no couch potato, but by the time they reached the third crenel her thighs felt like they were on fire.
“Where the hell are you, Sergeant?” came Baker’s voice through the headset in Ginger’s helmet. She very nearly yelped out in surprise. He sounded royally pissed off.
Sigma (War for New Terra, Book 1) Page 8