The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2)

by Donaldson, Casey

  Then, on the Monday of their fourth week, the Sarg arrived at the mess tent while they ate breakfast. This had never happened before. The hall went quiet.

  “There has been a development,” he said. “The enemy has pushed through our lines at Desmark. The city is threatened. Desmark is vital for our water supply. You will leave today.” He left the hall. Noise broke like a tidal wave.

  “Are you kidding?” stormed Bettina, “he can’t do that? We’ve only had three weeks! Three weeks of training! We’re not ready?” She looked hysterical. To everyone’s surprise, Ian put an arm over her shoulder to calm her down.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice soft, “we have no choice.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Two hours later and they were sitting in the transporter, stunned.

  “How could they do this to us?” muttered Bettina for the fiftieth time, her head in her hands. “We’re not trained yet. It’s only been three weeks.”

  Even Hutch and Jaz, who usually stood up for everything military, had blank looks of shock on their faces. Ian was the only person who seemed happy about it. Sarah had heard him mutter something about finally seeing some action. She understood all of this, even in some weird way Ian’s reaction, but she couldn’t understand Finn’s. For some reason he kept on glaring at her. After Sarah felt a hole being burnt into the side of her head for the one hundredth time that morning she finally snapped.

  “What?” she hissed. “What is it? Why are you so pissed?”

  “You shouldn’t be here. They had nothing on you.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Finn!” she yelled, exasperated, drawing the attention of the others. “How many times do we have to go through this? What’s done is done. I’m here whether you like it or not. If you want I can go and sit over near Boulder.”

  A weird expression passed across his face and he went to open his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Dylan.

  “Alright, Losers,” said Dylan. “I’ve been assigned to lead you dipshits.”

  The whole team groaned. If anything, this was worse than being sent into a war zone untrained. Dylan had made their lives hell over the past three weeks, doing everything in his power to get the loser tag to stick.

  “Yeah I’m about as happy about this as you are,” he replied. He did, Sarah noticed, look genuinely upset. “But you will do every, god, damn, thing I say out there, or you will get all of us killed. Understood?”

  “What about Hutch?” asked Gillie. The others perked up at this. They would all rather have Hutch as their leader than Dylan. They could trust Hutch. Dylan was likely to leave them in a ditch as bait.

  Dylan looked murderous but Hutch intervened. “I have the same amount of training as you guys, Gillie,” he said. “Dylan’s, well, Dylan, but at least he’s been trained.”

  “That’s right,” said Dylan, straightening up a little. “So, understood?” he repeated forcibly.

  They nodded their heads dejectedly. Who were they kidding? Dylan was the best hope they had. And if he was leading them, then he relied on them as much as they relied on him to get out alive.

  “So,” said Sarah, “do you know anything about what’s going on over there?”

  “Not yet,” said Dylan. He stood up, gave them one more look, and then walked away to join his friends in a different carriage.

  Well, thought Sarah, this is just great.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They arrived at Desmark late in the evening. They were hustled off the transporter to find older, more experienced soldiers lining the way and ushering them towards a large hanger. It was like they were expecting people to run. Just inside the entrance of the hanger were two men sitting at a fold-away table. Sarah watched as the teams in front of them were marked off against a list and waved forward. Dylan appeared out of nowhere and joined their team. Apparently he had been told what to expect, because he appeared quite comfortable and competent when he reported them as “Team 32 from Delta compound, present and accounted.” The man at the desk, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days, simply grunted and waved them through after a quick head count. The hanger was crammed full of stretcher beds. Most of these had soldiers lounging on them, some grouped around a particular bed where a card game was happening. Predictably, the camp-beds against the walls, which had the most privacy, where all taken. This left them with the beds smack-bam in the middle. Dylan dumped his bag down.

  “Find a bed, go to sleep,” he said, looking wired.

  “What?” asked Gillie, his voice raising an octave, “you’ve got to be-”

  He was cut off when Dylan reached across and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulling him forward viciously. They were now almost nose-to-nose. “Don’t,” he snarled, “just don’t. I don’t like this any more than you losers do, and I know only a bit more. You do what I friggin tell you to do, understand?”

  For a half second Sarah thought that Gillie was going to fight back, but then he lowered his gaze and nodded.

  “Good,” said Dylan, letting go of Gillie’s shirt and thrusting him back in the same movement.

  Sarah slumped down onto her own bed, feeling defeated, like she was the one Dylan had grabbed, and not Gillie. Finn collapsed onto the bed next to hers. Sarah didn’t bother trying to say anything to him. He had been in a terrible mood all day and she was sure he was still pissed off at her. It was up to him to bring himself out of his own funk. Boulder was already sitting on a bed next to Finn, his expression unreadable as he watched the people in the room. If it wasn’t for the way he kept on nervously rubbing his hands against each other Sarah would have almost thought that he was bored. Both Jaz and Hutch were doing their best to remain stoic, although both their faces were drawn. Jaz kept on scanning the room intermittently. Sarah thought she remembered something about Jaz having an older brother in the army stationed somewhere around here, but she couldn’t muster the effort to ask if that was who Jaz was searching for. Gillie was repeatedly plumping his pillow with an angry fist. Sarah could have told him that he had it as plump as it was ever going to get, but she figured that wasn’t the point. Bettina was lying on her back, staring up at the roof, her gaze determined. Sometime in the afternoon she had stopped asking why and had gone all hard. Sarah wished she could do the same. The lights in the room flickered on and off three times before being turned off completely. Sarah took this to mean bed time and lay down on her bed slowly, listening to the muffled curses of people trying to make their way back to their bed in the crowded room. There were multiple yelps as they banged their shins and tried to lie on other people. It would almost have been funny if the reason they were there wasn’t so terrifying. After twenty minutes the hanger was nearly silent. She thought that Finn was going to say something to her a few times, but he didn’t. Eventually she heard his bed creak and then felt his presence close to her. She could only just make out his outline in the dark, his face remaining completely hidden from her. He hesitated for a moment and then bent down. Sarah moved over, making room for him on the skinny cot. She did it automatically, as if they had planned this previously. The only way he could fit was for them to both lie on their sides, Finn’s arms wrapped around her body.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his voice barely heard even though his lips brushed her ear.

  “Me too,” she whispered back.

  It was as if the stress of the day was suddenly wiped from her body, leaving her only with an intense desire to sleep. Despite the anxiety of tomorrow, she had never felt more comfortable.

  ***

  The next thing she knew, she was being woken up by a shrill whistle and the sound of hundreds of feet getting up and moving.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “What’s going on?” she mumbled, sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of the camp bed as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. A giant of a man was moving around the hanger, urging people towards the main exit where another man was handing out ration packs, presumably for breakfast on the go.
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  “Moving out!” yelled the giant, his hands ushering the room forward like a farmer herding sheep.

  “Don’t know,” said Hutch, looking much more awake and alert than a person should be at that time. He didn’t comment about her and Finn being in the same bed. They had more pressing matters at hand then gossip. The sun was only just peeking over the horizon. “Dylan has gone to find out.”

  Sarah scanned the chaotic room and made out Dylan heading doggedly towards them. She saw him slip something into the waist of his pants twenty metres before he made it to them. His face was drawn but determined.

  “There’s been a breach in the defences,” said Dylan. He didn’t need to speak loudly, they were all crowded around him, waiting to hear what was going on. “They’ve changed the plan. They need us out there. Now.”

  “I said move it!” yelled the giant again, only this time much closer. The flow of people around them suddenly gained a lot more direction, and their group was hustled along with the tide towards the exit. Sarah found a ration pack being thrust into her arms as she exited the building.

  “Into your teams!” Yelled another man outside, this one only slightly shorter than the giant inside. Their team stayed together in a small huddle. A middle-aged, sturdily built woman with bags under her eyes was walking around, assigning groups to three different areas. Her eyes hardly lingered on them for a second before she pointed them off to the far right hand side. She didn’t even bother waiting for Dylan to announce their team number. Dylan guided them to where the lady had pointed.

  “This isn’t good,” muttered Boulder under his breath as they approached a small group of people who had also been assigned to the same area.

  “What do you mean?” asked Sarah.

  “Look at our group,” said Dylan, with a nod to those they were about to join, “and look at the others.”

  Sarah looked. The group they were joining looked just like theirs. They were a group of younger people, their uniforms a shade newer than those around them. One of them was off in the corner, vomiting. She shrugged, not getting it, but looked at the other groups like Dylan had said to do anyway. Then it hit her. The middle group was the largest. It had people of all ages and their uniforms looked a bit more lived in. Most of them looked scared, but they were checking their weapons and eating breakfast without fuss. The third group, to the far left, were in their late twenties, looked deadly fit and unconcerned. Some were even laughing. They wore their uniform and weapons like a second skin. Both the middle and far team were proper soldiers. Their team were the newbies, the failures.

  Finn spoke just behind her, making her jump. He must have been thinking the same as her, because his words sent an icicle of dread down to the pit of her stomach.

  “We’re the spare bodies.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  An officer with a paunch and a watery nose greeted them as they joined the group. He encouraged them to take a seat on the grass and eat their breakfast while they waited for two more groups. They didn’t have to wait for long. The other two groups, looking equally as green, joined them shortly.

  “Alright, up and moving, ladies and gentlemen,” said the officer after a final head count.

  He led the group to where a number of trucks were waiting.

  “Get in,” he ordered. Sarah couldn’t help but notice that their group had a number of seemingly experienced soldiers guarding them. The other groups didn’t have these. She guessed that they were predicting runners.

  A tall, rotund boy suddenly shot away from the group, making a desperate beeline towards some buildings fifty metres away. He only got ten metres before he was noticed. One of the guards yelled out for him to stop. The officer with the paunch looked over at the noise. He stared at the running boy with almost a look of satisfaction and then made a hand signal to one of the guards. The guard raised his gun, and before Sarah could call out a warning to the running boy, he fired.

  It struck the boy on the shoulder. His yell was cut short as electricity ran through his body, contracting all his muscles. For a second he seemed to hang in the air, and then he dropped, convulsing on the ground. They’d used a stunner. Sarah let out a breath of air she hadn’t realised she had been holding. He should still be alive. One of the guards trotted over to where the boy lay as they were once more ushered forward onto the trucks. Their truck took off at the same time the last person stepped up inside. Sarah glanced back towards where the boy was. He hadn’t moved. The guard was now next to him, bent over on one knee, one arm holding his rifle, the other holding the boys wrist, as if checking for a pulse. She saw the guard look up at the officer with a paunch, a frown on his face. Then he shook his head. Sarah gasped.

  “He’s dead,” she said, her voice coming out barely above a whisper.

  “What?” asked Finn. He realised where she was looking and swivelled around to also see.

  “Shit.” Finn’s face drained of colour.

  “He must have had a heart defect,” she reasoned out-loud, trying to work out why the stunner didn’t just immobilise him.

  “It serves him right,” said a third voice, one she didn’t recognise. They spun around to find a girl with thin lips looking over their shoulders.

  “What?” asked Sarah, flabbergasted.

  “He shouldn’t have run,” said the girl disdainfully. “Look at us,” she said, gesturing around the truck. “We’re barely friggin trained. If any of us are going to survive, we’re going to need every last one of us to pull their own weight.”

  “That doesn’t mean he deserved to die,” said Finn, “he was scared.”

  “We all are,” she said, “but we didn’t run.” She spat out the window, in the direction of the dead boy. “Coward.”

  That was too much. Sarah found herself trying to stand, her anger bubbling to the surface, but Finn held her arm, keeping her seated.

  “Leave it, Sarah,” he urged her as the other girl walked back to her seat on the other side of the truck.

  “Are you kidding me?” asked Sarah, not understanding how he could be so patient.

  Finn squeezed her arm a little. “We have worse things coming up,” he reminded her. “We need to stay on the ball.”

  Sarah pulled her arm away from his grasp but stayed seated. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right.

  The truck trundled along in silence for another twenty minutes, no one speaking much at all. There was a loud squeak through the speaker system in the truck and then the voice of the officer with the paunch floated out at them from the speakers.

  “Early this morning the Accord invaded one of the peripheral city blocks. They have established themselves there yet we are not without hope that we can win it back. The civilians have all fled or been evacuated. You will be going in on foot to clear out the area of enemy personnel. Some of you will be thinking that you don’t have the training yet, but you do. I have faith that you will be able to complete the task. Remember; do not let yourself be captured. The enemy will torture you, send you to work in the mines, and experiment on you. If you are lucky they will kill you. The Covenant is the only way the world will be able to go forward. You are on the right side. I wish you the best of luck.” There was a click as transmission ended. The silence in the truck was deafening. The officer’s words sat heavily around them.

  Sarah turned to Finn. If they were going to die, she didn’t want to end it in a fight.

  “Finn, I,” but she was cut short as the truck ground to a halt.

  “Everybody out!” yelled Dylan, his face drawn and white. He had a hearing piece inserted in his left year, and Sarah assumed he was getting orders through it.

  “We’ll talk after this is all done,” said Finn, reassuringly. Sarah smiled back weakly as she got to her feet and they stamped out with the others. She could only hope that there was an after.

  They had exited behind a large concrete apartment block. Every now and then the blast of a gun would go off. It was close. Too close as far as Sarah was conce
rned. The adrenaline was starting to pump now. She felt it running through her veins and she gripped her rifle close as Dylan drew them into a group. The others in the truck had similarly gone to join their own groups, presumably to get different orders, but Sarah hardly spared them a glance. She concentrated on Dylan’s mouth moving. He was telling them that they had to re-take the next three city blocks. He said most of the enemy should be down the far end but there had been reports of others making it closer. They had to be aware that the enemy was all around them.

  “Shoot whatever moves,” he ordered them, “and don’t surrender, remember? It’s worse than being killed.” He stood up abruptly. “Let’s move it!” he yelled.

  Crouching low, they circled the concrete apartment block. The sight that greeted them caused Sarah to falter.

  The place was deserted. She didn’t know what she had been expecting. Huge craters in the ground? Cars overturned? Instead it looked like a normal city street at three am in the morning, only now it was light. Stalls from yesterday evening, set up in preparation for today, were untouched. A single old abandoned car sat in the middle of the street. It probably broke down while everyone fled the city and was just abandoned, Sarah thought. A bit of rubbish floated down the street. Another Covenant group appeared around the corner of the far end of their apartment block. They progressed forward slowly, guns raised. Sarah’s group did the same.

  They made it halfway down the street before the first shot was fired. Sarah hardly registered the sound of a gunshot before she noticed a member of the other team collapse, a red spray coating his colleagues.

  “Take cover!” yelled Dylan.

  Sarah crouched, hurrying forward towards a cart just ahead of them like the rest of her team. They barely moved three steps before the ground in front of them opened up. Bits of gravel and cement flew through the air as the missile hit home. Sarah was knocked off her feet, her ears ringing. She stumbled upright, trying to see around her, but a great pile of dust and dirt had been stirred into the air with the landing of the missile and she couldn’t make anything out. Finn. Where was Finn? She turned desperately. Suddenly he loomed out of the smoke, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her towards the closest building. She shook her arm free, guarding his back while he checked the doors of the building. They were all locked. He kicked at one but it didn’t budge. The windows in the first two floors had metal bars blocking access. There was no getting inside.