by Isaac Stone
Harlo was at the top of the trench when the shooting began from the inside of the opposing trench.
He saw a Volunteer to his left fall down and realized someone was shooting at them from further back in the trench. The inside of the trench where they’d crossed was blackened from the plasma strike, but there were plenty of ZR soldiers on the sides. One of them had decided he didn’t like yielding to the Olympians and began to open up with his rail gun. At the distance, it was almost impossible to get an accurate shot, which is why only one man went down.
Tulpa turned to the direction of the gunshots and unslung his rifle. While the others were still making their way to the top, he began to fire the grenade launcher attached to the bottom of it. Each ball of death fired a long arc that had little chance of striking its target. But a grenade didn’t have to reach its objective to do a lot of damage.
Harlo saw the flash of three explosions, one after another, in the distance and the gunfire stopped. Whatever they hit was close to the source. Tulpa waited a few more minutes and slung his gun back over his shoulder. Instantly, he reached down and began to help up the other Volunteers who needed to get up to the top of the trench.
The entire incident only lasted ten seconds.
“We’ve got another trench to get across before help arrives, kids,” Bey announced. “The good news is that there’s no barbed wire across this one. The bad news is that it’s full of Z-boys. That’s also good news if you like shooting your gun. Now move it!”
Chapter 18
Once again, Harlo swarmed with the other men as they raced to keep up with Bey. Tulpa, as always, stayed to one side and pushed everyone along, always on the lookout for any snipers or enemy troops. It took them two minutes to reach the edge of the next trench.
The entire Legion stooped as they looked down inside.
Inside the trench was a division of ZR troopers in their red armor suits. They were all seated on the benches made out of the dirt of the walls. For a brief space of time, the whole tableau was eerie in that the ZR troops didn’t know what stood over them. Even Bey was caught surprised.
It ended when one of the ZR soldiers looked up and spotted the Ninth at the edge of the trench. He screamed, or at least appeared to, in his suit and whipped out his rifle. In seconds, he began to fire it at the onlookers. Suddenly, it seemed everyone in the trench was shooting at them.
By instinct, Harlo unslung his rail gun and returned fire. Bey was the first to shoot back, but soon everyone on the ridge was shooting down at the ZR troops below them even as the troopers fired back. It was a blistering few seconds of heated close quarters battle, though the high ground and advantage went to the Olympians. Enough of the ZR troops fell down to force the others into a retreat, Bey slid down the banked wall of the trench while still firing is rail gun at the diminished ZR troops. Not to be shown up, the rest of the Volunteers tumbled down the walls, some trying to shoot, while most fumbled over their footing.
Harlo hit the bottom of the trench and fell over the bodies of several ZR soldiers. He regained his stance and brought his rail gun out as he joined Bey and the others who fired into the enemy. He saw a flash as the top of the trench and spotted Tulpa blasting away at the forces that were in a full retreat.
They only ceased firing when most of the ZR side had vanished around a bend in the trench.
“Don’t drop your guns,” Bey warned everyone, “they’ll be back and with some friends. Now let’s get over that ridge.” He slung his gun over one shoulder and began to climb up the other side of the trench.
Harlo followed, but stopped for a few seconds to look at the trench. It was filled with the bodies of dead ZR soldiers. Some of them were still bleeding out from the impact of rail bullets, which had exploded on their way through the suits. The body armor they used didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the passage of the bullets, which he found odd. What was the point of wearing body armor if it didn’t do anything to impede a bullet? Then he looked down at the weapons carried by the ZR troops.
Most of them had standard rifles, although of the latest technology. He noted sights made to show the target through walls and in the dark. These were not cheap weapons made for the foreign market; the dead ZR soldiers carried the best their government could find. Too bad for them the Olympians had discovered a way to make a rail gun cheap and affordable to every trooper they fielded.
The only problem with a technological arms race was that the other side would eventually catch up. And when they did, the advantage would be over. Right now, he speculated, there was some ZR scientist in a government bunker working to reverse-engineer the Olympians rail guns and make a better version.
He climbed over the next wall and joined the other Volunteers at the top. This time the next trench was far in the distance. The Blue Lotus Fortress was closer, but not by much. They still had a lot to do if they were going to reach it by the end of the day. He joined the rest of Legion Nine that surrounded Bey and Tulpa, who’d managed to travel from one side of the trench to another before anyone noticed.
This time the next objective was backed by a series of bunkers and field artillery. Some of the guns were mobile and Harlo noted them moving to get a better position. He wondered what the Volunteers should do out in the open as they would be an easy target for those artillery cannons. He stopped to watch one of them swerve in their direction. Hehad a bad sensation in his stomach.
There was a whistling sound in the air picked up by his external audio and Harlo watched the nearest mobile gun explode in a ball of flames. Several more projectiles flew overhead and he watched them explode around the remainder of the enemy artillery. Most of them were intact, but he saw ZR troopers in red flee from the barrage.
“Thanks for the help, Command,” Harlo listened to Bey transmit, “Got your last message, we are on it.” He turned to face the Volunteers behind him.
“Got a whole new job, kids,” he told them. “We are in control of this parallel, but Command wants us to help out some of our guys who’ve been trapped here the past twelve days. Our side tried an advance earlier in the month and some of the regular Force was stuck in the crossfire. They dug in the best they could, but Command couldn’t send them any help. We’ve done so good they want us to relive them so they can get out of this meat grinder and get back to the base.”
“I thought we were going to take that fort, Sarge,” complained a Volunteer with a wrench on his patch. He came from a mechanic syndicate and wasn’t used to following orders.
“We are,” Bey snapped back, “but they want us to do something else before we get there. Now just follow me, don’t complain, and try not to shoot anything unless I tell you to.” Bey turned and walked to the left as the rest of the Volunteers followed along.
Chapter 19
The trapped Force unit wasn’t that far away. They made the trip in less than thirty minutes. Harlo didn’t see one explosion or hear any gunfire on the way. He found it odd they needed to releive them. Along the way, Bey explained to them the information command sent him about the trapped unit.
When the last push took place, one particular unit had probed further ahead than anyone thought possible. They had moved so fast that the unit, which consisted of seasoned Force members, advanced so fast they over-ran a ZR position who didn’t know they were on the way. After a brief exchange of fire, both sides lost a significant amount of men. Each side was left with too few people to continue the exchange and pulled back. The ZR soldiers were able to retreat to a fortified position, but the Olympian ones had to dig in and find a defendable location in hostile territory. A few hours later, the ZR had the coordinates and pounded the Force unit with heavy artillery. The ZR plasma cannons were already in use elsewhere or they would have vaporized them. After a few days, it was obvious to the ZR another advance was not underway, at least for the immediate future. However, something had to be done about the isolated Force group that now was down to twelve men. The best they could manage was to continually shell i
t and hope one of the shells landed where they wanted. But the artillery they used on them was of an older design. The ZR Command decided it would suffice to randomly shell the position.
In other words, the Force troops they were about to releive had been subjected to constant artillery barrages over the course of two weeks.
“They need someone from our side to relive them,” Bey explained. “The Z-boys decided to quit with the barrage a few days ago, but our guys won’t come out unless they’re relieved by Olympians. I think they must be a mess in there. I can only image what being on the receiving end of constant bombardment must do to you after two weeks.”
They reached the isolated unit an hour later.
The men were still in the ditches and foxholes they’d dug in expectation of the next bombardment. It was difficult to reach the location as the entire ground around them was cratered from the constant artillery fire. Vast mounds of dirt and sand were sprawled along the place and shrapnel covered the landscape. They’d originally thought about approaching the place from the South, but the ground was so difficult to cross, so the Ninth was forced to come close to it from several different directions.
Bey split them up into three groups with Tulpa taking one with him. Harlo was part of the sergeant’s group. They crawled over mounds of dirt and through shrapnel and gouges in the earth where the shells had landed from the massive guns the ZR used on the other side of the fortress. It was much later the Olympians discovered the artillery used to shell the position was behind the fortress and still managed to score close hits. The best thing anyone could figure was that the ZR wanted to use the location of the isolated soldiers to test the accuracy of these old long-range guns.
“Force Volunteers!” Bey announced to the twelve men who were huddled together at the bottom of the shelter dug in the blasted landscape. A man emerged from the one of the holes clawed out of the ground and looked at them in silence. Harlo was shocked to discover he’d abandoned his protective suit, but when the other eleven emerged, it was obvious they’d done the same thing.
“Suit was damaged the first day,” the man explained. “Guess the gas and bugs never reached this far. I didn’t have the stuff I needed to fix the suit, so I dumped the helmet and decided to use it to communicate with Command. They told us you were on the way to relive us, but I had to be sure.” He appeared to be some kind of non-commissioned officer, but Harlo couldn’t be sure. “I told them we wouldn’t leave until you showed up.”
Soon, the other men emerged out of their shelters and joined him. None of them had protective suits on and most didn’t bother to wear the helmets. They staggered to the NCO and stood by him, starring at the Volunteers with glassy eyes. Most were dirty and unshaven. Harlo could only imagine what they’d been through. One of the men didn’t have any boots on and staggered around barefoot.
Chapter 20
Harlo marched across the blasted landscape and tried to make sense of it all. He was fortunate that Bey didn’t send him back to the base with the remnants of the unit they’d relived. Harlo was relieved because he doubted he would return once the men were delivered. Desertion was punishable by immediate execution on the battlefield. All it took was one commanding officer to sign the death warrant and, from what he’d heard, they usually didn’t hesitate. The relatives back on Earth were informed by a casual letter and the bodies were never returned.
He’d come into this war with no misapprehensions as to what it was about. The only reason he was there was because of the money and a chance for a better career once he returned to Earth. Even Bey and Tulpa didn’t seem to have much more than a casual attitude toward the whole conflict. If he’d asked any of the other Volunteers what the war was fought over, they wouldn’t be able to give him a straight answer.
The image of the wrecked men from that isolated unit unnerved him. They were half-starved and little more than walking zombies. Most of them no longer wore their protective suits, which meant their life span wouldn’t be good once they left Mars. God only knew what kind of deadly chemicals and microbes they’d been exposed to while in that dugout. The base would be forced to put them into an isolation unit until it was known what they carried.
“This is crazy,” he confided to Jack. “Did you see those men? They followed our guys who took them back like ducks. I don’t think a single one of them will ever be able to sleep through the night without screaming.” He kicked at the dirt and prayed no one overheard his talk from the speakers.
“Not much we can do about it now,” Jack responded. “We’re in the middle of this shit and we’ll have to ride it out. Unless you want to walk back to Earth by yourself.”
Harlo turned to make sure they were alone, off to one side of the dugout while Bey sent his report in to the base. “I just might do that if it gets worse,” he responded, “This is nothing like what was advertised. We were lied to, propagandized and radicalized.”
Jack decided to check the heat sword while he waited. It was a thin rod about thirty inches long, made of a special metal alloy that could head up to super high temperatures. It was used to burn through battle armor if ever they had to engage the enemy in close quarters. It was also capable of burning through almost anything else. The heat sword had a two-handed grip toward the bottom with a round cross guard that kept the wielder from burning his hands.
Another sun blossomed in front of them and they hit the ground. When Harlo raised his head up, he saw the direct location of the dugout so recently vacated by the isolated unit was a black mass sealed together.
“Guess the Z-boys decided the old ordnances weren’t doing the job,” he heard Bey comment, “So they shifted to the new ones. Good thing for our guys we arrived in the nick of time.”
Bey took them across the rest of the perimeter in search of their final target, The Blue Lotus Fortress. It still lay in front of them, although not as omniscient as it had before. The fortress didn’t look so imposing the closer you got to it, in spite of what Harlo expected. He became concerned none of the men in the Volunteers seemed to think beyond the next minute. Already they were in a permanent state of ‘Now’ where survival by the minute seemed to be the only thing that mattered to anyone. He couldn’t understand why Bey and Tulpa had tolerated such idiocy on the part of the Command, who’d allowed an entire unit of Force members to be abandoned in the middle of a fight for weeks.
Tulpa, he did start to understand. The man was born for this environment. He was there to kill and kill again. This was his ideal world where he could pursue his trade and perfect his art. The worse thing for Tulpa would be for this war to end. Since there seemed no possibility of that happening anytime soon, Tulpa had every reason to be happy. Harlo shivered when he though what Tulpa might be like during peacetime.
The returned to the trench they’d taken an hour later and sat down for a much-deserved rest. Harlo’s feet were killing him. He wanted to take those boots off, but not if it would mean death from some chemical or disease down the road. The only place you could safely remove your suit was inside a secure habitat and they didn’t have time to rig one up. Eventually, the Legion would need to put up some kind of shelter just so they could sleep. But right now, he was grateful to get a chance to sit down.
He almost grabbed his rail gun the moment he saw the red helmet of a ZR soldier over him. Instead, he froze when the red suit held up his hand in the universal sign of peace. Harlo was confused. Was this some kind of trick? He nudged Jack and pointed. Jack froze as well and looked at Harlo.
“Some kind of trap?” He asked Harlo. “He could want to set us up.” Harlo and Jack were seated just out of range of the others.
“Don’t think so,” Harlo responded. “He could have shot us both if he wanted to do it. Let me see what he wants. If this is a trap, let Bey know right away.” He stood up and walked around a corner to where the trench made a sharp turn.
Harlo climbed up to the level of the ZR soldier and starred at him. They appeared to be about the same age, but no oth
er troopers were around. If this was a trap, the ZR soldier hadn’t planned it well. They looked at each other for a few more seconds.
“You have anything to trade?” the man in the red armor asked him. The ZR soldier spoke the same language as he did, which wasn’t much of a surprise as Earth’s language base shrank over the centuries.
“Tobacco?” Harlo told him. He’d never smoked, but the commissary gave them an allotment just the same.
“Let’s see it,” the other man told him.
Harlo took out a plug of tobacco out of this utility belt and showed it to the man. It was still sealed in a protective wrap, but the ZR soldier appeared satisfied. He returned it to Harlo and produced a plug of his own, also wrapped in plastic.
“Mint tea,” the red soldier explained. “The best you’ll find on Mars.” He handed it to Harlo who returned it to the man, also satisfied.
“Sounds like a deal,” Harlo told him. “Trade?”
They switched parcels and slowly backed away from each other. The two men were still facing one another as they backed down the respective trench walls from the direction they’d come. Harlo was a little disappointed he didn’t get the other man’s name.
“So what did he want?” Jack asked him when he returned.
“He wanted to trade some tea for tobacco,” Harlo told him. “I don’t smoke.”
“Remember to share it. Don’t tell anyone where you got it.”
“I won’t.”
Chapter 21
“Let’s move, Ninth!” Harlo heard the transmission over his radio. It was Bey as he expected.
“We got Z-boys on the other side of this trench trying to hold out on us,” Bey yelled. “Command wants both sides secured before they continue.”
Harlo and Jack leaped to their feet and ran to the place where Bey and Tulpa stood. By now, the rest of the Volunteers had crowded around them to find out what would be their next objective.