The Biomass Revolution ttc-1

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Night was Obi’s favorite time in his day. It was, for the most part, the only time he had any peace, if you could call it that. During the day his unit moved about the outskirts of the great Tisaian walls, scavenging for weapons and food buried by the never ending dust and ash from the Biomass Wars. When he wasn’t training or looking for his next meal, he was telling jokes and stories with his friends in his unit—Squad 19.

  The number assigned to the small group of soldiers was nothing more than a few strands of string sewn carelessly into his uniform, but what they meant was a different story. The entire rebellion knew Squad 19 as a beacon of hope. They were the most respected unit in the entire Tisaian Democratic Union and even the CRK had grown to fear them.

  It was an unusually clear night. The stars were bright and plentiful in the small opening at the top of the old windmill. Obi took great interest in examining them. When he was a child, his uncle brought him on a number of camping trips, pointing out different constellations and teaching him how to tell time by the position of the sun. A few years later he taught Obi the art of orientation, and he quickly became skilled with a compass and map—one of the main reasons he was the lead scout in Squad 19.

  Obi shivered. It was now late winter and with the days getting longer and warmer he opted to leave his thermal gear at headquarters to cut down his load. Tonight the decision haunted him, the cold wind biting through his fatigues. It was only the crackling fire that kept him and his squad from freezing.

  Obi sat dangerously close to the flames, warming his hands and wind burnt face. He checked his watch, realizing it was going on midnight. He should be asleep like the rest of his squad, who were already curled up in their sleeping bags.

  A deep cough from one of his soldiers startled him. His eyes quickly darted from his watch to Nathar, a 24 year old former refugee from the east coast. He had fallen sick days ago and the crackling in his lungs was getting worse each day. Obi knew the young man needed medicine soon, before his cold turned into something worse.

  The Wastelands was not the place to fall ill. He had seen men die from lesser things than a cold. It had a way of catching you by surprise, when you least expected it. But Nathar was no ordinary man. He was a survivor, like the rest of the squad.

  Obi recalled the day he helped rescue Nathar from the mines. Nathar, like so many others, had snuck into Tisaia through an abandoned storm drain, only to be captured and placed in an immigrant camp. The conditions there nearly killed him, and if it wasn’t for Obi and several other rebels, Nathar would surely have perished in the mines. It was at that point Obi offered him a chance to fight for immigrant rights and freedom, something Nathar couldn’t turn down.

  It was a dismal story and a common one. For a moment it reminded him of Sasa, another young immigrant he had rescued. The memory was too terrible—too painful to remember. She was still a teenager when Squad 15 brought her to him, but unlike any teenager Obi had ever met. She was mentally broken in the beginning, but she had a wild spirit and wanted so desperately to fight. Reluctantly he agreed to train her to shoot, in exchange for her loyalty. In the end she had died with her fingers gripped tightly around the .45 he had given her. She had sacrificed her life to save several members of Squad 19, taking two Tin Cans out in the process.

  Obi felt nauseated. If only I had been there—if only I had…his thoughts trailed off. He couldn’t go back there, not tonight. He had to keep his wits. His squad was in the Wastelands and falling prey to his demons would do nothing but get more innocent people killed.

  His fingers found the cold silver of the necklace around his neck, the one she had given him the day of her death. It was the only thing that gave him solace—the only thing left of her.

  He sucked in a lungful of air and continued to scan the room, his eyes falling on Alexir Jahn next. He was known to his friends and fellow squad mates as Ajax. The 30 year old soldier was given his second name by his companions after he single handedly killed two Tin Cans with nothing but a knife. Named after the Greek warrior from Homer’s Iliad, Ajax had perhaps the most fitting nickname of anyone in his squad.

  There was also Creo Saafi, lying in the middle of the pack. A Spaniard military refugee, he was considered the wisest of Squad 19. And while he did not have physical command of the group, he was often consulted by senior leadership about military strategy.

  Squad 19 was made up of the best the TDU had to offer. If the rebellion had special forces, they were it.

  Obi knew better than anyone that The Biomass Revolution would be won with flesh and bones, something the TDU lacked. The entire army consisted of around one hundred soldiers, a mere fraction of the CRK forces. And while they could always replenish their ranks from immigrants and Rohanians looking for work, they weren’t trained soldiers like the Knights. Most of the new recruits didn’t make it past their first year.

  Obi groaned, trying not to let the numbers affect his judgment. He knew his life expectancy was cut in half the day he joined the rebellion, but he did so because he believed in the cause. Nothing would change that, not even if the TDU were outnumbered one hundred to one.

  He looked back down at his watch. Time to check the perimeter, he thought, rising and walking to the entrance of the ancient stone windmill. He swiped his sniper rifle off the ground and glassed the darkness. The infrared scope allowed him to see any heat signatures approaching their camp, but tonight the small circular screen didn’t pick up anything but several small rodents scavenging the barren dirt ground.

  He placed the rifle back down, resting it against the thick stone. Next he checked the roof to ensure no smoke was escaping from the top of the windmill for anyone to see. Satisfied, he walked back to the entrance to examine the broken door hanging loosely off its hinges.

  “Go to bed,” Ajax grumbled.

  His rough voice was almost soothing to Obi, comforting in the perilous world filled with danger at every turn. He watched Ajax turn over in his sleeping bag, his monstrous arms poking out from under the nylon blankets, revealing his chest plate of armor. The lightly bearded man rarely took the metal off; it was as much as part of him as the radiation scars on his arms.

  Ajax scratched his receding blonde hair. “Creo already checked the place out, it’s safe, boss.”

  “We’re never truly safe,” Obi shot back.

  As lead scout it was his job to keep the squad out of harm’s way. “I just wanted to make sure there isn’t any smoke escaping from the roof.”

  The noise awoke Nathar as he stirred in his sleep. “Guys, go to bed. Goddamn, you’re being loud,” he moaned.

  Obi walked back to his sleeping pad and took his .45 out of its holster, placing it under his small pillow. It was the same gun he had let Sasa borrow the night before she died.

  He stretched out his fatigued body carefully on the rocky ground, caressing the silver of the necklace before folding his hands behind his head. He was so tired from traveling that he was dizzy, but he still couldn’t sleep. He was too worried about the next few weeks of the campaign. More innocent people were going to die.

  It was necessary to achieve their ultimate goals, but it was nonetheless disheartening to think of innocents being caught in the crossfire in a war that had already claimed so many lives—lives like Sasa’s. His superiors made it quite clear he should take necessary steps to ensure innocent people were not killed in the next attack. But Obi knew from past experience that when bullets started flying he had little control over their final destination.

  Obi opened his eyes again and glanced over at his men who were now all fast asleep. For some reason he scanned the youthful face of Nathar again. His thick brown hair was cropped short, and his eyes were crystal blue and kind—the type you couldn’t help but trust. The combination of youthful features gave him the appearance of a teenager at first glance, which by TDU standards equated to a grown man, battle ready. It was the unfortunate fate of so many young people trapped in a never ending war. Nathar should have been in college or st
arting a career, but instead he was forced to fight.

  I bet he misses his family.

  All Obi knew was that Nathar’s family had been killed in the first part of the Biomass Wars in the last offensive of the United States Army, just months before most of the country collapsed into ashes. Nathar sought refuge at a camp in New York City, before it was leveled by a tactical nuclear weapon.

  Obi knew loss wasn’t specific to Nathar. His entire squad had lost their families. They were all orphans now. Sasa had been too, like so many others, their innocence robbed from them at an early age. In an odd way Obi thought of them as his children, wanting more than anything to protect them and keep them safe. If it came down to it he would take a bullet for any one of them, but he couldn’t save them all—he couldn’t even save Sasa.

  In his mind the only difference between his men and his biological son he chose to hide with a Rohanian family years ago was blood.

  The thought of his estranged son filled his eyes with tears. It was a painful memory, recalling the look in his son’s eyes when he was forced to say goodbye. It was a decision he lived with every day, but he sought comfort in the reality of the situation—giving up his son had saved him from the world of constant war. And growing up without a father wasn’t as bad as not growing up at all.

  Obi closed his tired eyes and massaged his temples in an attempt to relieve the pain of the past and his worries of the future. He thought once more of his duty to Tisaia and Squad 19 before he drifted off to sleep.

  Time: 7:01 a.m. January 28, 2071

  Location: The Wastelands

  Obi’s radio blared to life, the static crackling over the fierce wind.

  “Obi, this is Jackson, standby for report. Over.”

  “Roger, Obi here. Standby to copy. Over.”

  “Reports of a convoy of Scorpions heading your way. Over.”

  “Copy that. Standby.”

  Obi crawled out onto the edge of the massive bluff overlooking an abandoned highway below. He covered his mouth with his bandana and glassed the valley, watching a trail of dust follow a few black specks in the distance. They were still about two clicks from the western wall surrounding the border of Tisaia.

  He discarded his binoculars and pushed a button on his goggles, zooming in to get a better look. Sure enough a convoy of CRK Scorpions was racing towards their location.

  The dune buggies were covered in gmetal, equipped with .50 cal machine guns, shocks for off-roading and massive Biomass fed engines. Their most infamous trait, however, wasn’t their deadly equipment, it was the humming their engines made. Any reasonable TDU soldier knew when you heard that humming, you didn’t stand your ground; you ran, or hid.

  Scorpions were one of the most effective weapons the CRK had in its arsenal against the TDU, who primarily traveled by horseback, by foot, or in a vehicle if they were fortunate enough to steal one.

  “Jackson, this is Obi. We have four CRK Scorpions heading our way, waiting for your orders. Over.”

  “Roger, Obi, sit tight, we’re on our way with armor piercing rounds. Prepare to defend your location; we’re still about three hours away, over.”

  Three hours? We aren’t going to last 30 minutes against that type of firepower.

  “Hurry the hell up, Jackson,” Obi said, grabbing his rifle. He rose to his feet and stumbled over the broken ground.

  “Nathar, you and Creo take up positions on the highest part of that rock formation you can find. Creo, you take my sniper rifle; I’m going to use our missile launcher,” he said, pointing into the distance.

  “Yes sir,” they said simultaneously as they raced off towards a narrow path leading up to the rock formation. Obi watched them leave, his eyes following them as they turned their backs and began to climb up the steep trail.

  The gray of morning consumed the landscape as a weak sun struggled to rise, the rays of crimson splitting the horizon in two. He turned, looking at Ajax, who still sat at the edge of the rock, peering out through his binoculars at the approaching vehicles.

  “It’s just you and me, Ajax. How many grenades are you carrying?”

  Ajax turned his massive torso, gripping his black CRK assault rifle. It was his weapon of choice, and it came equipped with a double blade bayonet, a design the TDU gunsmith created at his request. Ajax was dressed completely in black fatigues outfitted for the severe cold weather they were experiencing in the Wastelands. If it weren’t for his size he would look like one of the ninjas Obi remembered seeing in movies as a child.

  “I have four, including the one I keep in my pack; what do you got in mind, boss?”

  Obi thought for a moment, trying to contemplate the best way to approach the Scorpions. He remembered what he had learned in the CRK military academy before he dropped out and joined the rebellion.

  The best defense is a good offense.

  “Ajax, we’re heading down to the road. Just follow me, and trust me.” Without hesitation, Ajax fastened his assault rifle onto his back and they began their descent into the valley below.

  Time: 7:59 a.m. January 28, 2071

  Location: The Wastelands

  Ajax and Obi lay waiting for the dust storm to pass. They sought refuge in the bed of a charred pickup truck, the paint now nothing more than a distant memory, a faint blue peeling off the weathered metal. Gray ash and dust drifted across the cracked blacktop. An army of limbless electrical poles lined the edge of the highway, a single remaining wire swaying violently in the fierce wind.

  Obi pulled his mask tighter over his face, wiping a single bead of sweat off his nose. He wanted to ignore the death, the stark reality that the stumps of charred trees and the sun bleached bones jutting out of the scorched earth were not real. But they were. It was an image he had seen many times before and a reality he had accepted long ago.

  “Men, I want radio silence from here on out,” Obi whispered into his radio. “Nathar, you and Creo take out any foot soldiers from your position. Ajax and I’ll take care of the Scorpions before they can call in reinforcements.”

  The dust storm shook the sides of the pickup truck, rattling it like a toy. Blasts of dust and rock bit Obi intermittently through the rusted out holes in the side of the metal truck, while the wind continued its tirade. The humming of the Scorpions in the distance sent a chill down his spine. The sound of their engines was deafening at close range, and even over the noise of the fierce wind, Obi could hear them buzzing through the Wastelands like a swarm of hornets.

  Obi wasn’t sure where they were going, or what their mission was, but he assumed they were scouts responding to intelligence they had received on TDU positions. His plan was to stop them before they could call in reinforcements.

  His main concern wasn’t the Scorpions racing towards his squad’s position. It was the proximity of their location to the Tisaian walls. If the Scorpions had time to call in reinforcements, they could be there in minutes. And there was no way his squad could escape the Scorpions on foot. Not now. They were forced to fight, forced to stand their ground. It was the opposite strategy other TDU squads used in the past and exactly why Obi thought it would work.

  Within minutes the dust storm passed and visibility returned to normal. Obi peeked over the bed of the pickup truck, watching the small black specs of the Scorpions growing in the distance.

  “Time to move,” he said, shaking Ajax’s shoulder and jumping onto the blacktop, a cloud of recently deposited ash billowing into the air. Within seconds he was trotting through the maze of charred vehicles, Ajax following close behind, his weapon bobbing up and down on his back. As the humming got louder the pair broke into a sprint, grimacing when the intermittent wind stung their bare skin with sand, dirt and rocks. Obi raised his right hand and pointed to a slab of concrete bunker. “There!” he yelled. Ajax stopped, panting heavily, and squinting into his goggles to make out what appeared to be the basement of an old gas station.

  As Obi neared the structure he saw it was about eight feet deep, a perfect fox
hole for someone Ajax’s size. It was also three feet above grade and would provide the perfect sniping point.

  “Ajax, this is going to be your position. I’m going to take cover in…” Obi paused as he scanned his surroundings for the perfect spot. His eyes came to rest on a fully intact minivan not 100 yards away.

  Out of all of these cars, the one to survive was a freaking minivan.

  “Your grenades,” Obi said, holding out his gloved hand.

  Ajax reached into his side pockets and pulled out a handful of the explosives. For a second their eyes locked through their goggle lenses, and a look of uncertainty passed between both men. It wasn’t fear, or nerves, just the feeling they might not see each other again. The feeling lingered momentarily before they nodded and parted ways to take up their positions. They were soldiers and were trained not to have emotions in combat situations, and the sharp buzz from the Scorpions was growing louder by the second.

  Luck was on Obi’s side today. The Scorpions were headed right for their location, blind to the danger ahead. By the time Obi detonated the first grenade the lead Scorpion was already in the air, the explosion lifting its front end off the dusty road and turning it into a spinning ball of flames. As the Scorpion smashed back onto the pavement, the collision caused the soldier manning the rocket launcher to fire prematurely into the blacktop, the explosion instantly enveloping the entire vehicle.

  The other three Scorpions zipped away in different directions, one of them only narrowly missing the burning hull of the first destroyed Scorpion. Clouds of dark smoke erupted from the belly of the vehicle, now nothing more than a crater in the ground.

  Obi peeked through one of the van windows, trying to keep track of the Scorpions as they raced away from the ambush. He pulled the mask down from his face and wiped the sweat from his scorched forehead. A piece of shrapnel from the first Scorpion had torn through the thin metal of the minivan door, narrowly missing his scalp and leaving a black streak of grease across his forehead. He wiped it clean and nodded to Ajax across the road, ready for the next phase.