THE FORGOTTEN WAR SAGA
BOOK ONE: THE LAST FOXHOLE
A NOVEL BY JUSTIN ALEXANDER
Copyright © 2013 Justin Alexander
Reproduction or transmission of this book, in whole or part, by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any other means is strictly prohibited, except with prior written authorisation from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, places, and incidents described within are purely the work of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons living or dead or life events are purely coincidental.
Cover image © Justin Alexander 2013, original images courtesy of U.S. Army, Flickr.com/photos/soldiermediacentre and Mendhak, flickr.com/photos/mendhak
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated with love to my Godson Josh, my unofficial Goddaughter and second cousin Bethany and the newest arrival to the Carnegie clan Nathan born only a few days ago, along with my unofficial second cousin Zeph. Although I don’t get to see each of you as much as I would like, I am always thinking about you and I wish each of you a life filled with wonder and happiness. One day when you’re quite a bit older I hope you will read this and see that anything is possible.
Contact information:
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/reddeadlivesOR search @reddeadlives on twitter
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This is the second edition, as I have edited this myself, I have endeavoured to make sure that there aren’t any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, however if there are I hope they will not spoil your enjoyment of the story.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
AUTHORS NOTES
In the far future, humanity has thrived, scientific advancement has enabled us to reach out to the stars, and conquer brave new worlds. Yet it is not a time of enlightenment or liberty, instead it is a universe filled with torment and agony. Where freedom is not a right, given to all at birth, it is a commodity available only to those with the funds to purchase it. For those left behind, all that exists is a life of grinding hopelessness, and of course war; as the seemingly never-ending conflict against the Separatist’s rages on unabated. There are no heroes here or mighty warriors, they have no place within this tale. In this decaying realm there is only the endless fight to endure and survive.
In this dark and dystopian landscape, the final chapter of the Great War nears its bloody climax. On a far flung, barren colony, Captain Sam “Stalker” Collis, a soldier since childhood, has been sent to repel an invasion, instead he will find himself fighting for the very continuation of the human race. While Supreme commander Selina Tellin, a women longing for a peaceful life, long since abandoned, will come face to face with the very heart of the ancient order, which controls the fate of humanity itself, and catches a brief glimpse of what the future holds for all of us. The storm is coming, and when it has passed nothing will be left.
The final confrontation is about to begin, the human race stands at the very brink of its own destruction, and it is neither united nor ready.
“Within the Empire all that exists is the Empire,
To live is to serve the Empire,
To serve is to work towards the greater goal,
This is and always shall be the very continuation of the Empire.
There is no self within the Empire, this is what it is to be a puritan,
This is what it is, to be a member of our race.
Our lives are for the Empire and for our God,
This is the way, the only way.”
An extract from the Puritan bible
“Each of us bears his own Hell”
Virgil, The Aeneid
PROLOGUE
PLANET FRESAL ONE, THE KATURE SYSTEM, 900 MILLION LIGHT YEARS FROM SOL
The armies fell upon each other, like waves crashing amidst the ocean. The screams of the injured and the dying, mixed with the almost deafening roar of assault rifle fire, and high explosive detonations, until they reached a clambering crescendo. The music of war had come to Fresal one, and there could be only one winner; death.
“The war is never meant to end, it has raged for over a thousand years and it will continue until perhaps the very end of time. Some say it is the way of the universe as surely as it is the way of man. We look at our enemies and we think them monster, beasts unleashed from some nightmare dreamscape. We see them in their jutting armour, adorned with human flesh. We hear the stories of what they do and we witness first hand their cruelty and malice. Yet what we choose to forget is that they are human, however much they may try to disfigure themselves, and to rip away their own humanity. They are more like us than we wish to accept, as in them we see ourselves, our own hatred, our own intolerance, our own evil, refracted back, they hold up a mirror and show us our true souls.
Once our enemies were just simple men and women, they were farmers and traders; they raised their families and tried to survive as best they could. They loved and lost, sought some meaning, as we do in the eternal darkness of space. The only difference was that they rebelled against the choke of the Empires all-consuming taxes. They could no longer afford to feed those they cared for, and so they stood up against the might of this Realm, we have forged from our very flesh and bone. What followed is shrouded in myth and lies. All that we really know is that since then the war has continued without pause, a constant and hungry beast; that feeds upon human misery and suffering.
Those of us that fight this battle can never truly escape its grasps, even if we are lucky enough to survive it long enough to be able to buy or earn our freedom, we never forget. Once you have experienced warfare, seen your friends torn asunder, heard their screams and listened to them beg to a God, that neither listens nor cares anymore, your soul is never the same. After you have taken a life, even in defence of your own, a little piece of you dies, and the more you kill, the more violence you allow into your body, the more of your own spirit is lost. Until in the end you are nothing more than a hollow shell. You lose everything that made you human, and only then, only at that point, do you become the perfect warrior, the pinnacle of this Empires mighty army, the soulless killer. You see a soldier should be just a simple tool; a machine with one purpose to kill the enemy, to spill the blood of the opposition and continue the mighty game of war. A soldier should not feel emotion, it clouds his mind, gives him doubts and pause. The perfect warrior can have none of the
se things. He cannot hesitate to murder his foe, cannot think before carrying out an order and cannot question those orders.
I have witnessed the true face of the enemy and he is us.”
The words echoed now within the mind of Captain Sam “Stalker” Collis as if his soul itself was recounting them. He had seen them scrawled on the wall of a toilet, at the training facility on Jeders, dried blood still speckled around it, where the author had swallowed a bullet and no one had bothered to clean it up.
Enemy artillery hammered down into the Marines positions and the result was carnage. Troopers screamed as their limbs and bodies were shredded. Human beings turned into a mist of flesh, blood, excrement and bone; that rained down from the sky like some kind of nightmarish confetti.
Static crackled through the communication chip implanted in his right ear, then the voices came, terse and visceral. “This if fox-trot-sierra three, we are engaged at phase line delta, heavy enemy activity.”
“This is trench line alpha, I’ve got hostiles probing my lines.”
“This is fox-trot-sierra two, we’ve got enemy all over us down here, am engaged on all sides. Repeat am engaged on all sides. Request immediate assistance.”
“This is Bravo Company, I’ve got a platoon strength enemy force approaching my position preparing to engage.”
“This is Charlie Company, danger close, danger close, we’ve got enemy within twenty metres of my position. They’re inside the goddamn foxhole, I’m losing my position, repeat we’re being overrun, where’s our fucking support.”
Sam drew in a deep breath, the air was hot and dry. It hung heavy with the stench of cordite and rotting flesh. He tapped the com’s relay, integrated into the portable computer he wore on his wrist, so that he would be heard by all on the command Net. When he spoke his voice was clear, calm and commanding. “All call-signs this is zero, reinforcements are on the way. All call signs are to dig in and hold, you’re Marines and you know what we say, fight or die.”
Almost in unison the replies flooded in, “Fight or die.”
He brought the rifle up in snug against his shoulder and squeezed the trigger as the Separatists once again rushed the earthen ramparts, all along the line weapons thundered like ancient predators, and unleashed death upon the enemy.
White hot rounds ripped into the sea of enemy troopers, disfigured faces set in primal masks of frenzy, he watched their limbs splay out and contort in almost impossible angles as the explosive charges packed within each of the bullets detonated inside their bodies. He didn’t know how many died in only a few minutes, yet up and down the line it must have been thousands. Still they just kept coming though, like a never ending plague of locusts.
“Stalker,” a trembling voice, behind him.
He swung round to find several companies of replacements, the young Lieutenant leading them, whose name he couldn’t remember, had the call-sign “last stand” which right now seemed pretty apt to him.
“Last stand,” he uttered with a thin grin, “Get your troops up the line and reinforce company three. They have been hit hard for hours now, get in the fight, and you push those fuckers back.”
The youthful officer, glanced off down the line and his eyes betrayed his own trepidation. Yet when he spoke his tone was composed, “Roger that Stalker, reinforce company three.”
“You make sure you keep your heads down, they have got our positions zeroed in, so we have artillery chewing us up.” He hesitated and once again those words, filled his consciousness. He wrestled them away and centred his thoughts. “Look after your troops and get them to watch out for each other. I will see you all on the other side.”
The lieutenant surveyed the slaughter, “I’ll see you on the other side, sir.”
“Fight or die!” Sam said, trying to keep the sentiment from his voice.
“Fight or die!” the junior officer replied curtly, and then he swung round to his own troops. “Let’s move out, it’s time to get into this fight.”
Sam observed in stillness as the troopers rushed into the trench-line, there was no cheering or shouting, as you often saw in the holo-films, no backslapping or swearing. He didn’t think he heard a single word, they moved quietly, and he had seen the looks in their eyes so many times before, on so many un-named battlefields. Each one of them knew that they were going to face death. It took a special man or woman to look the grim reaper straight in the eye, and still go on unbowed.
He felt pride, as well as regret within his gut. As once again he ordered good troopers into the meat grinder. His thoughts were interrupted as another round of artillery tore into the ground, and his conflict shrunk down to the few feet around him.
“It’s a lovely fucking war!” he shouted, to any god or deity that was still listening.
CHAPTER ONE
Sam stood alone now upon the earthen breastworks of the first trench line, and looked out to the barren plateau ahead of him; the arid, red soil of which, was littered with thousands maybe even tens of thousands of his troopers.
The words of that unknown man or women rang once again within him, the war was hell, it was bloody, unflinching carnage, and it would never end. It certainly wasn’t the way it was shown in the movies or the propaganda vids the Empire played on all their networks, with the attractive, even beautiful hosts, showing glorious battle scenes, accompanied by fucking theme music and patriotic subtext.
No the conflict itself was young men and women, or to be more accurate usually boys and girls, who were barely old enough to shave, drink synthetic beer, or have even gotten laid. Being asked to kill, or be killed on some barren piece of rock, millions of light years from those they care about. Locked forever in a brutal fight that would never end, for an Empire that didn’t care about them, or even count them as true citizens. It was watching a young girl crawl along the dirt with her guts trailing behind, like a bloodied tail, begging for her mother, or some non-existent God to save her. Or having some boy with half his face burnt off, whimper and die in your arms. This was the true reality of war, maybe it had always been that way, maybe it wasn’t war itself that changed but simply those caught up in its vicious grasp.
As Sam strode down the ramparts he watched the battle for the planet Fresal One the capital of the Kature system rage on mercilessly. Behind him the sprawling metropolis which made up the commercial, industrial and habitation centre of the planet stretched off towards the horizon.
Vast glass and steel tower blocks reached up through the clouds, to him they had the look of skeletal fingers pointing up towards the heavens, some kind of expression of the technological might of humanity. While vast shopping centres sat around them, holo screens still portraying adverts for various offers and special deals. He had to chuckle as he envisioned the mighty wheels of commerce still continuing to turn, even as battle found this place. Traders charging a hundred times more for bottled water, or body armour, while the enemy bore down on them.
Next to these he could make out hover train lines and roadways commingled with immense factories and hydroponics farms. If you peered close enough you could even see the traces of the old domes, which used to cover the city, before the terra-forming had been completed, and the atmosphere had become breathable. The civilian population, those not counted as true puritans, and so unable to gain passage off world, huddled within the relative safety of reinforced bunkers, or if they did not have the credits for that then within basements or subterranean transit stations.
He shifted his gaze back to the skirmish and centred his feelings. He would have plenty of time after the fighting has finished to consider the wretchedness and sheer madness of this war. The problem was, he could never find enough alcohol to cleanse his soul of the memories that were now burnt into it. Now though his troopers were still fighting and dying for this useless piece of rock. So he pushed on, the mission clear within his mind, to keep as many of his soldiers alive as possible and win this fight.
He pivoted his head and scrutinised the surge of ene
my troops pour over the plain; the Separatists were clad in their distinctive red combat armour, which made it seem like a sea of undulating gore was hastening towards him. He studied his adversaries more closely, most of the chainmail and breastplates they wore were old, dented and covered in, muck and dried fluid of various colours and hues. Some were etched with runes of ancient and dark power, while others were adorned with human flesh, organs and even limbs.
His attention veered to the trench line where the fighting had become, base and primal. With soldiers grappling with whatever they could lay their hands on, helmets, swords and even shovels. This was warfare at its worst, up close and personal, so much so that you could glimpse the whites of your foes’ eye’s, sense foul breath upon your skin and even feel the warm splash as the plasma sprayed over you. It was the kind of combat that could destroy your mind and heart if you allowed it too. The kind of thing that would wake you up in the middle of the night, clothes and sheets soaked with sweat, still lashing out at some unknown assailant, in primeval fury.
He glanced up and down the line and could see more and more of the Separatists swarming forward, it was now or never, if he wasn’t able to curtail this assault then they would lose the only defensible position they had, and it would be a massacre; not just of his troopers, but all the civilians that were trapped here on this dying planet.
Sam keyed his coms unit and spoke plainly, “Light’em up!” he declared.
Almost instantly the camouflaged heavy weapons that he had placed at strategic points along the breastworks began to fire. Heavy calibre rounds, explosive shells and waves of lucid, living flames tore into the approaching enemy forces, countless of whom were cut down in seconds and perhaps the tide of the clash swung, yet it was far from over.
The Last Foxhole (The Forgotten War Saga Book 1) Page 1