by Tom Barber
Miller stopped writing and looked up.
‘Are you kidding?’
‘You don’t seem particularly bothered.’
‘What do you expect me to do, cry? We’re soldiers; we’re paid to die. It’s in the job description.’
He paused.
‘When I get home, I’ll grieve. But not right now. I can’t afford to.’
‘Why?’
‘Grief leaves you vulnerable. In my line of work, vulnerability gets you killed.’
He paused, glancing back down at the letter, and continued. Despite Olson’s interruptions, Miller had almost finished the letter. Keller wasn’t a man of many words.
I don’t want you to be sad.
‘Is there anyone waiting for you on Earth?’ Olson asked. ‘Family?’
‘Yeah. My father.’
‘And you never wrote a letter like this to him? In case you died?’
Miller paused.
Eventually he looked up at the other man.
‘The last time we spoke we had a fight. I said some bad things to him. Really bad. I’ve been waiting for a decade to apologise.’
‘You couldn’t write it down?’
‘After what I said to him, I need to say it in person.’
‘What about your mother?’
‘She died when I was a kid.’
Miller turned his attention back to Keller’s letter and finished it off as Olson went quiet.
I love you guys.
And I’ll see you again someday.
David.
He clicked the pen shut, then looked at his work. The letter wasn’t in Keller’s handwriting anymore, but this sheet was clean.
He folded it up carefully, like a flag at a burial, wrote Keller’s name on the outside, then tucked it into the inside of his BDUs along with the old one.
‘You got any brothers or sisters?’ Olson asked, persisting with the questions, as Miller rose and turned to face the windows.
‘They were all on that ship,’ he replied, not really paying attention to him as he looked at the burning wreckage in the distance.
Out there on the dark plain it was still burning bright.
Olson went to say something else, but he stopped, noticing a sudden change in Miller’s demeanour.
He was still looking outside, but his body had tensed.
‘Are you OK?’
Miller didn’t respond.
‘Corporal?’
Miller didn’t reply.
He walked forwards towards the windows.
‘Corporal?’
‘Listen.’
Silence fell.
Olson rose, and stepped forward, joining Miller by the window, the two men standing side by side.
Then a sound came from somewhere outside.
Distant yet definite.
Gunfire.
NINE
Miller stared through the windows out into the darkness as the sounds of gunshots lingered for a moment in the air.
They’d been two bursts from some kind of automatic weapon, loud enough for them to both hear it inside the room.
‘What the hell was that?’ Olson asked.
‘Where’s the door to the roof?’ Miller asked, ignoring his question and staring outside.
‘Follow me.’
Turning the two men stepped through the open door of the control room and quickly headed along the second floor corridor. Halfway along, Olson turned left and headed up a flight of stairs leading to the door to the roof.
It was an old design, opened by an old fashioned handle, but was steel and looked heavy, sufficient protection against the elements.
There was a bolt at the top but it was already slid back.
Miller hitched up his assault rifle and took the lead, pushing the door back and walking out onto the roof.
The view from the control room would be decent in daylight, but from up here it would be panoramic. Miller did a three-sixty and took in the empty plain surrounding the lone station, the burning transport the only thing breaking the darkness.
Looking down, he saw a large white marking daubed on the concrete under his and Olson’s feet, a landing pad for aircraft, some old empty beer cans gently blowing around in the slight wind.
Miller stepped forward over the old paint, past an old set of golf clubs that had been left by the wall, then stopped at the edge of the roof and looked out at the dark landscape.
All his soldier’s instincts were on alert.
There was a reason so many people were instinctively afraid of the dark, and with very good reason.
You never knew what could be out there.
The sounds had definitely been gunfire. Miller had been a combat soldier for almost a decade, and knew that sound better than anything.
He focused his senses, listening and looking, waiting for the weapon’s report again.
It had been an automatic weapon; panic fire, maybe.
Narrowing his eyes, his gaze landed on the burning transport, a funeral pyre for the fifteen soldiers and two pilots left inside.
He couldn’t hear the flames from this distance, but they lit up the area around the ship.
Someone was out there.
Olson stepped forward to join him.
‘What do you think?’ he asked quietly
‘Could it be one of your people?’ Miller asked, staring out.
Olson shook his head. ‘Not one of us. We don’t have machine guns.’
Miller waited, and listened.
Then suddenly another sound echoed across the plains.
A scream.
It was distant but distinct enough to make the hairs on the back of Miller’s neck stand on end.
‘What the hell?’ Olson whispered.
‘You’re sure you’re the only team here?’ Miller asked, looking through his sights into the darkness below.
‘Positive.’
Miller scanned the darkness, gripping the assault rifle tightly.
All he could hear was the light wind blowing across the plain.
‘Downstairs, now,’ he ordered, keeping his gaze on the dark landscape.
*
Moments later, Miller and Olson were back in the control room, Olson on the radio ordering Weathers to join them.
As he did so, Miller took another look out of the windows then checked his watch.
60:45.
60:44.
He’d made it so far, through eight years, two campaigns, scores of fire-fights and a crash landing that had killed all but two of his squad. He was so close to freedom and his trip home.
Whatever happened in the next hour, he couldn’t let his guard down or get complacent. He was getting on that transport if he had to crawl.
‘What’s going on?’ Weathers asked.
‘We heard gunfire,’ Olson said. ‘And a scream.’
‘What? You’re sure.’
‘Positive.’
‘Maybe it’s one of your comrades,’ Olson said, turning to Miller who was looking out through the windows. ‘Someone who survived the crash? He could have crawled out before it exploded.’
Miller shook his head. ‘Impossible. I would have seen them. Keller, Bailey and I were the only ones who made it out.’
He looked out of the windows.
‘Are there any other outposts on this moon?’
‘No. Just us,’ Weathers said.
‘You’re sure? No other teams that could be on the other side? Fresh stations maybe you don’t know about?’
‘Positive,’ she replied. ‘And it’s not big; average radius is less than four miles. We’d know. Visitors don’t exactly pass by undetected.’
Miller cursed, peering into the darkness beyond the windows.
A growing sense of unease started to fill the room.
‘So what do we do?’ Olson asked.
‘Do you have any weapons?’ Miller asked.
The pair looked at each other.
‘Two old .22s,’ Weathers said. ‘Air guns.’<
br />
‘Air guns? Jesus Christ.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘They’re antiques. You couldn’t put down a sick bird with one of those.’
‘We don’t need weapons here,’ Olson said. ‘If we were to get into trouble, we’d call for help. That’s what you soldiers are for.’
‘And we’re not fighters,’ Weathers added.
Miller didn’t reply, looking out of the window into the darkness.
Tonight you damn well could be, he thought.
Shortly afterwards, Weathers was downstairs, armed with an air gun and keeping a lookout. She’d just fetched the .22 rifles and box of pellets from downstairs, Miller loading one for her and showing her how to fire and reload. Just don’t shoot yourself, he thought, as she and Olson headed out of the room, looking unnerved and totally out of their depth. If she encountered an enemy, the gun would do more damage if she threw it at them, but it seemed to reassure her.
Olson went with her to make sure that the building was secure and to give the other rifle to Garcia, who apparently was doing some maintenance work elsewhere in the building.
Remaining in the control room, Miller checked outside the windows again.
He hadn’t heard any more noise but had just realised something he’d neglected to do. It was standard procedure for a situation like this, but the chaos of the crash, the blow to his head and the desperate attempts to save Keller had distracted him.
Olson soon re-joined him, stepping into the room.
‘We’re covered downstairs and above. Garcia’s going to take the roof.’
‘Good.’
‘So what now?’
‘I’m going out there.’
‘What?’
‘I have to go out there.’
‘To check it out?’
Miller pointed at the burning wreckage in the distance.
‘I need to get the flight recorders in the cockpit. Command is going to want to know what happened just before and when we took the hit. In a crash, it’s official protocol if there are any survivors, but I didn’t do it. I was too busy getting Bailey and Keller out. I haven’t even thought about it ‘til now.’
‘You can’t go out there, Corporal. You know what we just heard.’
‘If I don’t, I’ll get in seriously deep shit. Could jeopardise my immediate transfer home. And nothing’s going to do that.’
‘Just say it burned up.’
‘Those things are close to indestructible. They would have survived the crash, no question. And maybe the pilots can give us a clue who shot us down.’
‘It’s on fire.’
‘It’s dying down, and I only need to get in the cockpit for a few seconds. The windshield was almost smashed. I’ll get in that way.’
Pause.
‘And you’re coming with me.’
Olson stared at him. ‘Me?’
‘Yes, you,’ Miller said, checking the magazine of his assault rifle. ‘You drive, I’ll cover us. Just in case.’
Olson looked nonplussed and more than hesitant.
Then he walked to the door without another word and headed out of the room.
Miller flicked the M16 203 to burst fire and followed him.
As he walked out of the room, he found he was relieved to be away from the long windows.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.
TEN
Minutes later, the two men were speeding across the landscape in the Dodge 2800, Olson ordering Weathers to keep a lookout by the garage doors.
Sitting up front in the truck instead of the back like last time, Miller saw the interior was old and worn. The small compartment in front of him seemed to have broken, no doubt from all the constant rattling over uneven ground; someone had stuck two strips of duct tape across it to hold it in place.
Beside him, Olson was driving as if he was on the run from the law; it was a good thing there was nothing out here to hit. The car was an automatic but he handled it badly, slowing over bumpier ground then speeding up too fast, using too much pressure on the gas and making the journey far more uncomfortable than it needed to be.
Miller was rocked and thumped around in his seat as Olson took them across the plains to the downed ship, feeling like a ball in a can of spray paint that someone was shaking. Then again, he couldn’t blame the man for wanting to hurry; he was a terra-forma, not a soldier.
He glanced out of the window beside him at the dark land around them.
Outside of the confines of the station, he felt uncomfortably exposed, but the assault rifle in his hands was making him feel a damn sight better.
The M16 203 was a relic by modern weapons standards, dating back over a hundred and fifty years to the Vietnam war, but it was still a badass piece of weaponry and the favoured rifle of the Spartans. It consisted of two weapons attached to one another, the M16 assault rifle and the 203 grenade launcher underneath the main barrel.
The M16 had been passed down from generation to generation in the US Army as a bread and butter shooter, and it had never failed Miller while serving out here. He’d even started to prefer it to a lot of the more modern weaponry. The rifle had a grooved top which met with a second groove on the front sight, doubling as a carrying handle and effective sights, and it was accurate and powerful. The Unit used thirty two round magazines, and there was one locked and loaded in the weapon right now.
Underneath, the M203 only carried one grenade at a time but it made a hell of a statement with it. Altogether, the weapon weighed eleven pounds, but the firepower meant every single pound of that collective weight earned its place. In most assault rifles, all you had to state your case were the bullets.
Here, you had grenades to back you up if you hadn’t quite made your point.
Along with the more modern Beretta on his thigh, Miller had enough firepower on him to kill anything that moved. Looking ahead through the windshield, he watched the burning vessel getting closer until they pulled to an abrupt halt ten yards to the left of the wreckage.
Olson braked hard, throwing both men forward in their seats.
Miller unclipped his seat belt, suddenly extremely thankful he’d strapped himself in.
Don’t give up the day job, he thought as he pulled open his door and stepped outside.
This close to the fire, Miller could hear the flames of the burning ship and could also smell its effects. The intensity of the burning had decreased, but the air was sweet and sickly with the stench of burnt flesh.
He stood still in front of the burning pyre for a moment, shielding his face with his left forearm.
He hadn’t been exaggerating to Olson about the need to get the flight recorders; he’d be in seriously deep shit if he left without retrieving both of them.
The other official order in a crash was to ensure the transport couldn’t be salvaged or used by the enemy; if the self-destruct was busted, they could use explosives. The Army took it very seriously, not wanting one of their own vessels to be used against them.
In this case, that wouldn’t be an issue.
He reached into the back of the truck and grabbed a bottle of water and a towel he’d taken from the station just before they’d departed.
Walking around to the front of the vehicle, he pulled his Beretta and passed it to Olson, flicking off the safety and keeping the weapon aimed into the darkness.
‘I’ll be back in a moment. Keep guard.’
Olson hesitated, then gingerly took hold of the pistol.
Miller turned and moved around the wreckage, heading towards the front of the ship and away from the worst of the fire.
He came to a halt outside the smashed windshield of the cockpit, which was easily accessible seeing as the transport had landed on its side. The fire had started here in the first place and had therefore died out here first, the charred remains of the two pilots still strapped in their seats in the same position Miller had last seen them.
He stamped hard a few times on
one side of the damaged windshield, and it eventually gave way.
Waving smoke and that sickening smell away from his face, Miller looked inside the vessel, at the middle portion between the two dead men.
The key was to just get in and get out.
But he wasn’t going to enjoy this.
He laid his assault rifle to one side, then poured water over the towel, soaking it to protect him from the heat and hopefully from being burned.
Once the bottle was empty, he threw it away and pulled the towel over his head.
Three, two, one.
He took a deep breath then crawled inside through the smashed glass, taking care not to shred his hands as he headed straight towards the sealed panel between the two dead pilots.
Given the angle of the wreckage, the panel was chest high. Up close, holding his breath and feeling the still intense heat, he reached into the pocket of his BDUs and pulled out an automatic screwdriver he’d borrowed from the station.
He worked out the four screws, doing his best to ignore the two dead pilots either side of him, their bodies blackened and charred.
He was holding his breath and squinting, the acrid smoke stinging his eyes as he worked.
He whirred out the fourth screw, then using the end of the screwdriver as a lever, hit its handle hard to prise off the lid.
The main flight recorder was right there, fully intact.
He grabbed it by the white handle, pulled it out, then dropped down and wriggled back the way he’d come, reversing out of the cockpit.
Once outside, he stood up and took a welcome lungful of air, the box dumped on the ground beside him, that sickeningly sweet smell of burnt flesh lingering in his nostrils and on his fatigues.
Olson had walked over to him, keeping his eyes on their surroundings with the pistol aimed into the darkness.
Glancing over his shoulder, he looked down at the box.
‘That’s it?’
‘Half of it.’
Miller took another deep breath, then covered himself with the wet towel once again and went back in, this time for the Quick Access Recorder.
The main black box was an almost indestructible piece of kit, containing a mass of technical information, which also meant it required equally high-tech equipment to access and decipher the recordings inside.