Ghost had pulled one of the tables out from under the tent and was sat with her muddy boots up on the bench. She twirled a couple of fingers in the air when she noticed them coming.
“Where is he?” asked Ginger.
“Not sure,” Ghost replied. She covered her mouth with her fist to suppress a burp. Yep, she was drunk. “I think he legged it behind the latrines. Guess he thought nobody would follow him back there.” She scrunched up her nose. “He guessed right.”
“For Christ’s sake. The portaloos? Really?” Ginger pointed at the mug in Ghost’s hand. “What’s in that?”
Ghost cradled her drink as if Ginger had insulted it.
“Vodka. S’all they had.”
“Give me a sip. Come on, I need it. Where I’m going, there ain’t no coming back.”
Ghost mulled this over, then slid the mug across to her. Ginger downed a mouthful like a shot and immediately felt as if she’d swallowed one of the roaches’ bug sacs. It wasn’t like any vodka she remembered back on Earth. Either New Terra’s atmosphere did something to the flavour, or what she just drank was more closely related to gunship antifreeze.
“Cheers,” she coughed. “Here goes nothing.”
“Good luck,” Duke chuckled, as he plonked himself down on the bench opposite Ghost and resumed drinking.
Ginger clenched her jaw and tried not to breathe through her nose. The stench of hundreds of unwashed marines was bad enough without having to venture into the Battle of Portaloo (nicknamed as such because of the war between the latrines and her stomach) on the outskirts of the camp. She normally tried to avoid visiting it at any cost. If it was a toss-up between going inside one of those foul portable cubicles or doing her business behind a bush whilst her squad was on the march, Ginger chose public embarrassment every time.
“Bradley? Oh, Jesus.” She caught a knockout whiff of something rotten as she navigated her way around the exterior saddle trenches. Whoever used them last must have died in there. “Private Bradley, answer me. That’s an order.”
“Over here, ma’am.”
Bradley’s voice was morose, but at least he had it under control. She found him alone, perched on a stack of crates containing toilet roll and bleach supplies. He was staring out across the dusky fields.
“Hell of a hiding spot,” she said, climbing up beside him. “Honestly, I think I would have preferred a bug nest.”
“Only place I can ever seem to be alone,” he replied, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. God, he looked like such a damn child. “Besides, it doesn’t smell half as bad when the wind’s blowing the other way.”
Ginger couldn’t argue with that. In fact, because all the diesel-heavy tank activity was based on the opposite side of the camp, the breeze almost tasted sweet. Almost.
“I don’t know how to put this kindly, so I’m just gonna come out and say it. You need to pull yourself together, Private.”
Bradley, who’d still been staring out at the fields even as Ginger joined him, lowered his gaze and choked. Ginger rolled her eyes and turned away, saying nothing. As far as she was concerned, she’d already said all she needed to say.
“I’m… I’m just not cut out to be a marine,” he replied.
“You think?” Ginger’s single, incredulous laugh came out more like a bark. “Sorry, but no. You’re not. Anyone would have thought you’d never gone through basic training.”
Bradley’s fingers were fidgeting so hard, she was worried he’d tangle them into knots. At least a visit to the infirmary might get him out of her fireteam for a while, she supposed.
“That’s just it, ma’am…”
“Jesus, Bradley. Stop calling me that. Sergeant Rogers will do. Or Sarge. Hell, even Ginger if you really must.”
“Sorry, ma’a— I mean… sorry, Sarge. But that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” He looked over his shoulder as if worried that the whole platoon might be listening in on them from inside the latrines. “I didn’t go through basic training. I’m not supposed to be here.”
Ginger’s whole body ran cold. She turned and looked at him with a glare hard enough to shatter diamonds.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Private Bradley swallowed so hard, Ginger heard his throat click.
“I had a ticket aboard the Final Dawn,” he said, a stutter slipping into his voice. “Me and my parents. They bought them ages ago – theirs when they first came on sale and mine when I was just a baby. You ever heard of Sylvia Bradley?”
“What, the whole food businesswoman?” Ginger furrowed her brow. “She’s your mother? Didn’t she make a fortune with mass-produced artificial meat, or something?”
“Yeah. Lab-grown from stem-cells. Perfect for interstellar travel because you don’t need space to farm the livestock. Not many industries made it out of society’s collapse richer than when they started, but…”
Bradley tittered nervously. Perhaps guiltily.
“Well, everything was fine while we boarded the Ark. Got through registration without a hitch. And why wouldn’t it, right? My parents were responsible for half the ship’s food supply, almost. But then we got to our rooms.”
Rooms. Ginger could only imagine what the Bradley family’s rooms were like. Not metal-panelled coffin-bunk dorms, that was for sure. Velvet-lined suites, more likely.
“And?” she asked, no less alarmed than before.
“And there wasn’t one for me,” Bradley quickly continued. “Everything unravelled pretty quick once my Ma kicked up a fuss. It turned out that while both my parents’ tickets were one hundred percent genuine – having been purchased back when they first went on sale, you see – mine was… a little less authentic, I guess? They both feigned ignorance, but I reckon they must have bought mine from the black market and got swindled.” He kicked the crate with his heels. “I’m a coward, not an idiot. How else could they have got a third ticket so late?”
“Bloody hell.” Ginger was genuinely appalled. Billions of people had been left behind to die on Earth when the Arks left, yet apparently that sort of thing simply didn’t happen to a Bradley. “I’m surprised they didn’t leave you on the launch pad.”
“Are you really?” Now Bradley really did look guilty. “They weren’t about to kill the son of their biggest protein manufacturer. I was allowed to take off from Earth on the Final Dawn under one condition: that I serve out a term of military service. Well, sort of. As soon as a room on the Dawn becomes available, my parents will pay whatever they need to and I’ll be back where I belong. Could be a year given the age of some of the wealthier residents on there. Might even be just a few months.”
Ginger shook her head in furious disbelief.
“Are you kidding me? Are you actually kidding me? I’m babysitting a civilian while his mummy and daddy wait for a bloody penthouse to come on the market. Jesus Christ! Do you realise how much danger this puts me and my fireteam in? Do you?”
She hopped down from the crates and ran a twitching hand through her greasy hair.
“No, this is not happening. Not to me. Not to Sigma! You wait until Staff Sergeant Baker hears about this.”
“Erm, yeah. About that. Baker already knows. He’s the reason I was allocated to your fireteam, actually.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” Private Bradley cleared his throat and stared at his boots. “Well, you had a vacancy anyway. But he thought I’d do better if I was put with a fireteam with some boots-on-the-ground experience, as he put it. Not sure if by ‘better’ he meant that you’d teach me to be a soldier or just that I’d survive long enough to go back home.”
“Christ almighty.” Ginger slumped against the crates so hard, she almost knocked over the whole stack. “None of us will survive if we’re stuck escorting a civvy through a goddamn war.”
“Sorry.”
Ginger glanced up at the private and realised the kid was on the verge of tears again. Bloody hell. Like it or not, she and the rest of Fireteam Sigma were stuck with
him. It was time to change tack.
“Ah, it’s not your fault. I mean, it’s not like you asked to join this horror show. You got thrown down here like the rest of us.”
“Except I’m not like the rest of you, am I?”
“Nope, you’re not. But do you think any of us wanted to enlist? Get real. Ask anyone in camp what they wanted to be growing up, and I bet nine out of ten people say something like a programmer or a chef… or a goddamn school teacher. But dreams don’t count for much these days. They sure don’t keep you alive. Keeping your head when things get rough, on the other hand…”
She crossed her arms and tilted her head towards Bradley.
“Look. There’s no easy path through all this. If we could find one, you can bet your arse we’d take it. And we can’t carry you any further. Even Duke’s not strong enough for that. But think about it, Private. You survived this long just by cowering in every corner we came across. Imagine how much better your odds will be once you actually start fighting alongside the rest of us.”
“Sure, but—”
“Hey. It’s simple.” She gave him a friendly punch on the arm. “Do what I say when I say it, point your rifle at the nasty bugs and squeeze the trigger, and we’ll have you back up to your suite in the sky before you know it. How’s that sound?”
He rubbed his arm and smiled meekly.
“Yeah, I guess that sounds all right. I think I can do that.”
“Good.”
Ginger was halfway back to Portaloo Station when she was struck by a thought.
“Oh, and Private?”
Bradley looked up again like a startled fawn.
“Keep what we discussed to yourself, all right? Pull your weight and nobody will give two craps why you’re here. Speaking of which…”
Ginger coughed and waved a hand in front of her face as she hurried past the latrines. Perhaps she would take up Ghost and Duke’s offer after all.
She sure needed another drink.
Chapter Twelve
Blood pounded through Ginger’s temples in rhythm with the shelling. She threw herself into the nearest crater.
“Is this everyone?” she shouted through the mist of fine dirt. “Are we all here?”
As promised by Command, it had taken another couple of days to reach the end of the ravine – or rather, a point at which the ravine thinned enough for armoured vehicle-launched bridges to be installed. But apparently the marines weren’t the only ones who’d been on the move. Photographs taken by drones inside the upper atmosphere showed legions of bugs between them and Rhinegarde. Even if the platoons could fight their way through, which everyone on the ground vehemently doubted, it would take them forever to do it.
Cue the Inner-Orbit Bombardment.
A combination of nuclear-capable gunships and high-precision attack drones had been deployed at an altitude far higher than any of the roaches’ cannon nests could reach and were reducing leagues of fields and stone town buildings to mud and rubble with a steady storm of air-to-ground missiles. To Command’s credit, their desperate plan worked. The roaches that weren’t obliterated in the attack quickly dispersed, with many of their surviving number scuttling back towards the infected city. There was just one minor setback.
The bombardment was only supposed to last ten minutes. Apparently, nobody told the drone operators that.
“We’re good,” yelled Sergeant Parkins, crawling towards Ginger through the mud. “Parkins and Jackson, present.”
A hand patted Ginger’s shoulder on her other side. She turned to see Ghost making herself comfortable against the ridge of their makeshift trench. Duke also reached across and patted her arm to confirm his presence.
“Where’s Private Bradley?” Ginger shouted, eyes wide.
“Here, Sarge,” replied a timid voice from the other side of Duke. Bradley started to lean forwards, but Duke slammed him back into cover.
“Okay, good.” Ginger kept nodding to herself as a cloud of dirt washed over them. “That’s good. Hmm. Yep.”
“It’s no use,” said Ghost, scrambling away from the lip of the crater and rolling onto her back again, sniper rifle in hand. “I can’t see nothing. Just a big, brown blur.”
“Can’t even tell which way’s forward anymore,” Parkins half-screamed, half-coughed. “Where are we going, Ginger?”
“Going?” Ginger glared at Parkins as if she were insane. “We’re not going anywhere, not while those ballistics are still coming down! Safest place we can be right now is here.”
“Providing they don’t drop a shell right on top of us,” Jackson yelled back, though he seemed quite content to burrow himself even further into the crater.
“Who made the mistake?” said Duke. “Air Support, or us?”
“We all did,” Ginger replied, wincing as another missile went off only a few dozen metres from their position. “The mistake was coming down to this hellhole in the first place.”
Then suddenly, as if a switch had been flicked in the circuit breaker of reality, there was silence. For a second the absolute nothingness seemed even louder than the bombardment somehow, drowning all else and rendering the world in a kind of static aural snapshot.
And then the levee of silence broke, and a great, thunderous swell of sound came rushing back down upon them.
“The bombing stopped,” said Ghost, startled. They all listened as the earth trembled with the force of a thousand boots.
“Move.” Clutching her rifle, Ginger scrambled back onto her feet. “Move!”
They clambered up the side of the crater. The cloud of dirt drifting through the air was still too thick to see through, but, despite Sergeant Parkins’ concerns, Ginger knew exactly which way they were headed. The same way as everyone else.
Hundreds of marines sprinted beside them, shoulders hunched and heads low. Many were dusted with soil from head to toe. Far behind them, Ginger recognised the chugging belches of old tanks. A trio of gunships soared overhead.
Clenching her jaw and gripping her rifle tight, Ginger led her fireteam through the gritty mist.
They found bodies. A lot of bodies. Most belonged to roaches and other bugs – including one of their giant, lumbering tank-beetles – though it was impossible to tell how many as they rarely passed anything bigger than a head or a leg. But there were marines, too – whole fireteams who had pressed ahead as the bombardment began, believing themselves to be nowhere near Danger Close. Ginger doubted there would ever be an investigation into what went wrong, official or otherwise. Presuming, of course, that Command and the wider UEC even thought anything “went wrong” at all.
There had been a problem. Now there wasn’t.
Progress, no matter the cost.
Hell, who was she to complain? If it weren’t for enlisting in the UEC, all those marines would be dead anyway. Those who fell now were just paying their debts for the time they’d borrowed.
Something struck her as odd as they sprinted forwards. This wasn’t the sound of a battle. All she could hear through the settling smog was the rumble of their charge and the occasional war cry from a marine idiotic enough to give his position away. Other than that, all was eerily quiet.
Had the missile bombardment been that effective? Was this really it?
And then, as the dust cleared, they saw it.
Rhinegarde.
It wasn’t a city by modern human standards. To Ginger, it looked more like a medieval fortress, once home to nearer eighty thousand citizens than London’s eight million.
But boy, was it magnificent.
A grand keep rose high into the heavens, far larger and taller than any of the Bridge of Etmark’s towers. Or at least, it resembled a castle keep. It could have just as easily been a cathedral – there was something divine about it, but also something regal and fortified – or even an early attempt at a skyscraper. Its peak narrowed to a fine, hooked point that loomed above the rest of the city, yet the base of the structure spread out in such a way that as a whole it resembled
a horn, or perhaps an artistic impression of a cresting wave. And the whole building was covered in the same resplendent bronze metalwork as the bridge. Harsh flares of sunlight glinted off the buttresses, tiers and balconies that lined its massive easterly flank.
It was the most beautiful feat of architectural engineering Ginger had ever seen. Besides the Ark ships, of course. But they were only beautiful on the inside.
The rest of the city lay in the shadow of the keep. The same expense had not been extended to Rhinegarde’s other districts, though their stonework was no less impressive than anything humanity had achieved during its own dark ages. That which remained standing, that is.
The whole city couldn’t have been more than a few miles in diameter and was protected on all sides by a towering, circular wall. Charging downhill, Ginger couldn’t imagine how any barbarian horde could ever breach it. But the original architects probably hadn’t considered swarms of flying roaches when drawing up their plans. Or tanks and drone strikes, for that matter. There was already a smoking gap in the wall, strategically demolished during the earlier bombardment, through which the troops on their side of the city were expected to enter.
There were dozens of companies to the west and the north pressing forward just as they were. Many were from the UECS Constellation, and, having been deployed to other rally points entirely, had reached Rhinegarde more than a week ahead of Fireteam Sigma and the rest of their battalion. She hoped that meant they were better rested. The operation would only work if all three branches of attack were successful.
Not that they’d encountered much resistance. Fireteam Sigma was almost at the wall already, and they hadn’t come up against a single bug.
Yet.
“Should we regroup with Baker and the others?” Sergeant Parkins yelled from beside Ginger. “Figure out a plan of attack?”
“I think the plan is to attack,” Ginger replied breathlessly, shaking her head. “Besides, I don’t see him. We have our orders – get inside the walls and clear the south-east residential area of roaches. We can regroup with Baker there.”
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