End of the Line

by Travis Hill

  I sat up and flipped back the entrance flap to see her in a squatting position half a meter from me.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, her face full of concern.

  “Yeah. I’m cool.”

  “You don’t look cool, and you damn sure don’t sound cool.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, putting on my best normal face.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  I thought she might ask me if I wanted to partner up, but she only leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth. She broke away after a few seconds, gave me one last sad look, then walked away.

  ***

  We stayed in the canyon for two more days before Sergeant Lowell had us suit up and prepare to move out. No one called him “Chancellor.” We still called him “Sarge” or “Sergeant Lowell” and he didn’t mind. In fact, none of us called each other by our new ranks or titles. It felt stupid, even though it had somehow felt gratifying to be a general, an admiral, or a colonel. They were empty ranks and titles. For me, they were simply one more set of reminders that we were likely the last seven humans in existence.

  I spent the time alone, even though McAdams and Hollingsworth each offered to partner up with me. I felt the buildup of sexual tension, but it was overshadowed by my gloomy, bitter outlook and my refusal to extend my emotions to another human being. I did my best to hide it, but I think everyone recognized it. The emergency flash and the knowledge that it was down to the wire for us, coupled with the foolish assignment of new ranks and titles, finally burst the cyst within me. I could feel the black, poisonous venom of utter hopelessness begin to shut down essential parts of my personality that made me human.

  The squad’s food supplies were at a bare minimum. Lowell estimated we’d make it to Long Valley in four days if the terrain wasn’t as horrible as what we’d already been through. The choice of where to go once we reached the valley was fairly limited. Payette Lake to the north and Lake Cascade to the south sounded like good places to hole up, as both would likely to be stocked with fish now that the military contractors were no longer around to harvest them regularly. From there, it was either north up into Washington or Canada, or south to Boise.

  Once we hit Boise we could go in any direction we chose, as the environment wouldn’t be nearly as brutal. However, the high plains and wide valleys to the south and east would put us at greater risk, as most of those areas were flat and cover-free. The amount of food required to feed almost a billion soldiers at the peak of the war had forced almost every tillable hectare to be handed to the Coalition’s agricultural division. Growing up, I could walk a thousand meters into the foothills and see nothing but green squares and circles across the valley clear to the horizon, picking out the various automated harvesting machines here and there with my father’s binoculars. I remember a family trip when we drove to Portland. I had been fascinated with the farm fields that covered the entire landscape, even up in the Blue Mountains and the Cascades, both of which had been terraced with extreme efficiency.

  The next two days of traveling were slow thanks to an early winter snowstorm. Sergeant Lowell kept us holed up in a small gully to shield us from the blowing, drifting snow. We stayed there two nights, worried that the fresh snow would easily give us away once seven suits disturbed it as they trudged on endlessly. The fact that we hadn’t heard a peep from the enemy in ten days was worrisome, yet a relief. The notion that they truly thought they had nailed the last of us in the canyon was a purely false hope, but for the moment, it was the only hope worth holding on to.

  By the time we began our descent down into the valley, most of the snow had melted at our elevation. The valley looked clear, green, and absolutely dead. Lowell chose to scout McCall, a small city on the southern end of Payette Lake. It had been an upper-class winter haven for more than a century, but now it seemed to only be a haven for ghosts and insects. We watched from ten klicks out on a low hillside that had decent tree cover. The only thing that moved in twenty-four hours was the drifting ash and the dry, powdery snow.

  I stared at the muddy mix as we made our way into the city from the east. In another year or two, the constant rain and snow would scour the bricks, pavement, and rooftops of the last remnants of humanity. If a race of alien scientists landed in a thousand years, or ten thousand, and had instruments precise enough to detect DNA, they’d find the lakes and reservoirs to be teeming with the stuff, assuming ashes didn’t eventually become something else. Maybe in two hundred million years, other aliens would land and pump the compressed remains of humanity out of the ground in a new galactic oil boom. I decided to stop thinking about what ashes became over a long timeline and focus on staying alert.

  We split up into pairs to explore and scavenge for supplies. I paired up with Jordan, while Kirilenko and Lowell searched together, and Goldman and Hollingsworth scouted along the edges of town. McAdams was on her own, and chose to sit on top of the tallest building in the area to keep watch. I was glad to see the 300’s marker active, but a single automated turret and seven soldiers weren’t going to be much good if the Kai showed up with more than fifty. I wasn’t even sure if we could survive an encounter against a group of twenty.

  Everything turned south on us an hour into our exploration. Jordan and I were ransacking a grocery store, commandeering its stocks of high-energy, low-bulk protein bars, when Goldman’s marker went dark at the same moment a cry of intense pain slammed into my ears.

  “Contact!” Lowell shouted. “To Hollingsworth, now!”

  We immediately dropped the boxes we were stashing into a suit-pack and ran toward Veronica’s marker. Jordan didn’t bother to slow down and open the glass double doors. He powered through them with a crash, never breaking stride. The crunch of broken glass reverberated through my suit as I ran through it half a second later. We heard the rapid pulse of a plasma rifle from three blocks away, followed by two more rifles opening up. My HUD displayed three green markers and at least twenty reds, the Tac-Comp assigning the icon for Vipers to all except for the two mechs.

  Jordan skidded around the corner then immediately dove back behind the brick building, barely avoiding the closest mech’s anti-personnel missile. We both cursed, then he slapped me on the helmet and pointed to the opposite end of the building. I gave him a thumbs-up and ran along the building, rounded the corner, then another until I saw the mech walking in the middle of the street, heading toward Jordan. The three plasma rifles chattered away, and I noticed Hollingsworth’s icon began to glow yellow, indicating she was in serious trouble. I kept an eye on the clump of red triangles and the red square assigned to the second mech, all of which seemed to be converging on the three friendlies, while waiting for our mech to get another fifty meters down the street.

  “Ready?” Jordan asked over the comm.

  “Call it,” I replied, closing my eyes and starting my count.

  “Now!” he growled after I’d counted to thirteen.

  I ran forward until I hit the corner, dropped to a knee, and opened up on the mech. Jordan popped out from a second floor window above the mech, raining plasma down on its dome. The three-meter mech staggered, regained its footing, then turned its upper body toward the window.

  “Shit,” Jordan said in a casual voice as he disappeared into the building.

  The mech launched two rockets from its left arm toward Jordan’s location. The explosion rocked the street and disoriented me for half a second. I heard Jordan begin to cackle like a mad scientist, his marker still green and strong, as he fell to the ground floor when the upper level collapsed. I had my Tac-Comp activate the LR-25 grenade launcher component of my Harper-640, loaded it with an HE charge, and let it fly.

  The high-explosive grenade caught the mech in the middle of its back, shoving it forward until it fell to its knees. Jordan, still laughing maniacally, jumped over a broken section of brick wall from the destroyed building and aimed his G-60 at the mech. I fell to the pavement, crossed my legs as best I could in the sui
t, and laced my hands over the top of my helmet. The idea was to survive the shrapnel by losing chunks of your thighs and maybe both of your hands, instead of your genitals and chunks of your brain.

  The whoosh of the G-60 lasted a fraction of a second, then the shock wave of the dual warheads detonating pushed me along the ground for half a meter while my helmet canceled all external noise. I looked up to see a single leg, bent at the knee, and not much else beyond a lot of smoke and metal shards. I got to my feet and ran through the massive hole in the building toward Jordan’s marker. He’d been blown back ten meters, though his marker was still strong and green.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said when I found him and helped him out from under a pile of rubble. “Did you see that shit?”

  “You dumbass,” I laughed. “What were you thinking?”

  “That I maybe better get a little closer in case I missed. Only had that single ‘60 left.”

  The sound of a large chain gun spinning up reminded us that we didn’t have time to appreciate the mech kill we’d scored. Hollingsworth’s icon was now amber, and the Vipers had been thinned out to less than a dozen, but the mech had our people pinned down behind a concrete wall. The chain gun slowly chewed through the concrete while the Vipers flanked them. We moved down the street, Jordan hugging the west side storefronts, while I did the same on the east side of the street.

  When we reached the street where the mech steadily advanced, burning up tons of ammo, neither of us paused. I sprinted toward the mech, the stealth software mostly giving up on trying to keep me hidden. Jordan had the same idea. The mech’s operator, or software, or whatever it was that controlled it, seemed oblivious to two blurry Terran Marines rushing it as if it were a quarterback in the Galactic Bowl. I altered my path slightly to give Jordan an extra three steps to catch up so we could hit the mech at the same time.

  The huge mech turned its upper half toward us, too slowly, too late. We gang-tackled it, hitting it with enough force to knock it over—except we rebounded from it as if it was made of metal and we were annoying rubber bullets. The roar of the chain gun blanked out my suit’s mics, its barrel passing only centimeters from my visor as I rolled out of the way. The mech’s other hand began to fold in on itself as it attempted to ready a rocket or some other weapon stored inside its arm.

  Jordan began laughing again, and jammed the barrel of his rifle into the opening at the end of the mech’s arm. I launched myself from the ground and grappled with the chain gun arm, though my suit wasn’t a match for the powerful hydraulics of the alien mech. I felt my feet leave the ground as it raised the chain gun. I held on, hoping the mech wouldn’t be able to point the gun’s barrel at Jordan’s head. His plasma rifle began firing into the mech’s arm, one or more of the rounds finding an armed rocket within.

  He flew backward when the arm exploded, his marker turning yellow instantly. The mech teetered, its upper half still attempting to get a bead on the human who had blown off its arm. I let go of the arm and swung my rifle up the instant my feet touched the pavement. I set the Harper to full-auto and held the trigger down with the barrel only a meter from the thing’s head unit. A grenade impacted the mech’s chest, blowing out a large chunk of its armor plating, making the mech stagger once again. I felt a flash of irritation that someone was firing grenades into the damn thing while I was standing next to it. A second grenade hit its legs and a piece of shrapnel pierced my suit’s armor and shielding. The metal fragment barely broke the skin, but the heat seared the wound, putting my body into shock just enough to get a dose of painkillers and an anti-anxiety cocktail.

  “Get the fuck out of the way, Lofgren,” McAdams said in my helmet.

  I reached down, yanked the hot metal shard from my suit, then began to roll to my left, barely making it out of the way before the 300 tore the upper plating and limbs from the mech in seconds. I stopped rolling and looked down the street. McAdams had hastily set the 300 up on a second story residential rooftop and sat behind it, holding its legs as an anchor to keep the automated turret from sliding off the roof while it slagged the mech.

  “Goddammit,” McAdams said when the 300 ran dry.

  I looked back to where the smoking, somewhat-melted remains of the combat mech cooled in the fall evening. A check of my HUD showed Hollingsworth still alive, but barely. Kirilenko’s marker was next to hers, with Lowell’s twenty meters to the east. I watched the last two Viper icons wink out before getting to my feet. I found Jordan behind a building half a block away, his hand covering a hole in his suit’s chest armor.

  “Goddammit, Jordan,” I growled, pulling his hand away. “Why the fuck did you get yourself shot?”

  He began to laugh. As empty as I felt, I couldn’t help but laugh with him.

  TWELVE

  Our moment of levity was cut short by Sergeant Lowell.

  “Lofgren, she’s calling for you.”

  The laughter died in my throat. Jordan looked away, the sadness in his eyes unmistakable. I helped him up and we made our way through the streets to the small fabrication shop where Hollingsworth lay dying. Lowell met me at the doorway, a single shake of his head telling me everything. I flipped up my visor and turned off my comm.

  “How bad is it?”

  “You better hurry, Private,” he said, looking through me. He’d partnered up with her the last two nights we had downtime.

  “That’s Colonel, Sir,” I said, trying to smile.

  He jerked his head toward Hollingsworth. He didn’t want me to see him cry. I respected that. I was sure he’d done his share of it, but he was our CO, the last commander of the entire Terran Coalition military machine. We’d go down swinging, but he’d be the last leader the human race ever had. I wanted to sit down on the ground, put the barrel of my plasma rifle in my mouth, and pull the trigger. Sergeant Lowell was possibly the only thing keeping me going. I wanted to know what the man was made of that kept him sane enough to keep leading us on.

  The shadows in the workshop made it hard to see detail, but when I knelt next to Hollingsworth, I was thankful for the dim lighting. I grabbed her hand, listening to her shallow, rapid breaths. A tear fell from my cheek onto her suit, diluting the blood, hydraulic fluid, and ashes until it became a dried swirl. Veronica was missing her left leg just below the knee, and most of her left shoulder, including her arm. Her pale, beautiful face was scrunched into a grimace, her lips opening only long enough to expel a labored breath.

  “Vee…” I said, trying to keep my voice strong.

  “Dana?” she asked, her eyes opening.

  She tilted her head slightly, focusing on my face. I waited for her to say something, squeezing her hand in encouragement as well as comfort, letting her know I was there for her. I realized the silence was because she was no longer breathing. I flipped my visor down to check her vitals just as her red marker blinked and went dark.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. I wanted to tear the owner’s arm from its socket and go wild, beating whomever it was to death. I wanted to grab my rifle and march to the nearest Kai outpost and take out as many of them as I could. I wanted to override the codes in my suit and detonate its power pack. I never wanted to feel another emotion again.

  “Come on, Lofgren,” Jordan said quietly, his hand squeezing my shoulder enough for my suit to relay it to me. “Come on. We have to go.”

  I shook my shoulder from his grip, then removed my helmet. I closed my eyes. Please be happy, wherever you are, I thought. I leaned down and gave her one final kiss, tasting the sweat and blood on her warm lips. I didn’t bother to close her eyes. It didn’t matter to her anymore. It didn’t matter to me anymore either. I put my helmet back on, locked my visor down, and stood up. Jordan gave me a pat-grip on my bicep, then led the way out of the workshop.

  “What about Goldman?” Jordan asked.

  “There’s even less of him left,” Lowell answered.

  He didn’t bother to gesture in the direction of Goldman’s remains, and we didn’t ask. I didn’t want
to see him. I wanted my last memory of him to be his haughty explanation of my hillbilly ancestry. I laughed inside my helmet. I’d been extremely annoyed at the time, but now it was funny. I was a hillbilly. An uppity hick who’d wanted to go to college, but instead ended up killing aliens a thousand light years from home. An uppity hick who had outlived all but four. I didn’t have time to let the guilt destroy what was left of me.

  “Krista, do a final sweep and get down here. Leave the 300 if it’s dry, we don’t have time to make ammo. Helen, go with Dana and retrieve the food, but if it doesn’t feel right, then ditch that idea and get back here. I’m gonna patch up Mr. Jordan, and then we’re going to get the fuck out of here.”

  “Roger that,” I said and took off toward the store where Jordan and I had been replenishing our stocks. Kirilenko joined me seconds later, both of us trotting down the street, neither of us seemingly concerned about being exposed, easy targets. “Sarge, what the fuck happened?” I asked over the squad channel after turning right onto the main street through town.

  “They must have been waiting in hibernation, or maybe they were motion activated, who knows.” He paused. “Two mechs… we can’t fight mechs.”

  “I guess they thought two would be enough,” Jordan said.

  “That means wherever we meet up with them next,” McAdams said, “they’ll have four. Or eight. Maybe a hundred just to make sure we can’t get away again.”

  “Cheery thought,” Kirilenko said, surprising me. She’d barely said a word for weeks.

  “Atta girl,” Lowell said. “Keep your eyes sharp. General Jordan will be just fine, but my asshole is starting to pucker. Get it done as fast as you can.”

  “Roger that.”

  We scrambled for two minutes inside the store. I was thankful that Jordan and I had already filled up the bags halfway. Using a CR-31 to perform delicate tasks—such as opening a hempfiber container to get at the foil-wrapped packages inside without destroying the foil-wrapped packages—wasn’t impossible if you focused on what you were doing, dialed up the sensory feedback units, and took your time. Kirilenko and I were like wild animals, ripping open containers, jamming what we could into the two sacks.