His world, fell into slow motion, he saw the muzzle flash and watched as “Firestorm” swung round just in time to see the projectile rip through the enemy soldiers left temple, it detonated within the Separatist’s skull, causing his head to explode, in a bright cerise fog. The enemies’ body slumped to the ground, his bloodied stumps still wriggling, as the grenade rolled harmlessly from his dead hand.
“Firestorm” turned to him and he saw her face clearly for the first time, thin feminine features, plump lips which parted into a beaming smile, that transfixed him, as she exclaimed, “Good shooting.”
“You’re welcome,” Joseph replied awkwardly, suddenly struck dumb. He pivoted back, to watch the charge push forward, “You’re keeping us alive Firestorm.”
“Thanks,” she answered, her voice lowered, “You can call me Lauren, I think you deserve that after all you just saved my ass, quite literally.”
His own cheeky grin arrived, “It’s good to meet you Lauren, I’m Joe and your welcome, you’re the one who’s keeping us alive out here.”
She fixed her gaze on him, gleaming tawny eyes, which looked like burnt caramel seemed to stare right into his soul. “It’s good to meet you too Joe.”
“I’ll see you later, maybe?” He uttered off the cuff as he set off back towards the distant din of combat.
She nodded slightly, “Maybe you will.”
He couldn’t help but glance back as he ran and he caught her eyes following him. He found himself grinning even in this living hell, sometimes there was a moment of respite, a brief instance that made you remember that whatever happened you were still a human being. For a stolen minute, he was back in college, maybe on the quad or waiting for class, he was back in his old life, where the most important thing he had to worry about was whether this girl actually liked him. All he could do was hope he lived long enough to see her again. He picked up speed and re-joined the line of troopers again and continued the advance.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
At the front of the charge Naomi pulled up, crouched down on the ground, amidst the corpses and bodily fluid and brought her weapon up. Through the magnified sights she could see the last remnants of the Separatist horde, bloodied but not beaten, pour forth from the trench. The built in processor, zoomed in the image and she could see their disfigured countenances set in masks of war.
They were too close now for aerial support, though it had done its job and given them a fighting chance; it was time for the real combat to begin. Her fingers nimbly edged over the side of her rifle and set it to fully automatic. There was no real point in aiming now as the surge of sanguine bore down on her, she didn’t know if any of her troopers were with her, she felt alone, one women against the overwhelming power of this sea of death. She thought of the new life that was just beginning to flourish within her and she thought of her real job, the real reason she had been assigned to this unit, the real reason she had found herself here. The great lie she had told, in order to get close to her target and how even if she survived this she wouldn’t be able to tell him
She pushed the thoughts from her conscious mind and squeezed the trigger. Her assault rifle bucked in here hands, like some primitive beast and spewed out the eighty rounds of armour piercing shells from her magazine in a few seconds. She watched as they cleaved through the advancing fiends, without stopping to think she quickly ejected the spent magazine and thumped a fresh one in.
As she began to fire again, she saw out of the corner of her eyes the rest of her trooper’s race up around her and saw the distinctive flares as they too began to fire. Along the line someone threw a grenade into the advancing enemy, the shockwave blew a hole in their ranks and the scorching shrapnel created a circular killing zone. Yet like when you drop a rock into a lake, the gap was soon filled by more of the Separatist.
They seemed to her like a never-ending wall, it didn’t matter how many rounds she expended, they simply kept coming getting closer and closer until she could smell them, the fetid odour of putrefaction. This was it; she knew it and she didn’t like it. There was no falling back now, the battle was on a knife edge, if they pressed on at this instance and broke the enemies charge then there was a chance that they could make it, yet it was slim and diminishing with every passing minute.
She stood up and screamed; “CHARGE!” them she was off. A palpable sense of dread, permeated her spirit and she struggled to stifle it down.
The first enemy soldier was perhaps ten feet from her, she reached him within a few seconds. He was a giant of a man, his crimson chainmail adorned with bloodied scalps, which still had clumps of matted hair still protruding from them. His face covered by a grisly mask, constructed from various strips of human flesh that created a patchwork of colours and hues. She didn’t think, there was no longer time for that, this was primal warfare. The kind the earliest Neanderthals would have fought when they stepped foot out of their caves and struggled over the first source of fire. You had to rely now on your base instincts and the very human emotion and desire to survive and endure it was all you had to rely on at this point.
She relaxed her body and allowed her training to take over, the hours and years she had spent learning to fight, the muscle memory of every practice, which allowed her limbs to almost work independently of her mind. She swung the butt of her rifle round, viciously, knocking the enemies mask off, to reveal a young, almost handsome face, piercing, icy-blue eyes and a mass of unruly strawberry blonde hair. It was not what she had expected, luckily her body didn’t stop. While her consciousness wrestled to reconcile this very human appearance with the enemy she knew. Her limbs reacted and pushed forward the attack. She stabbed her white-hot bayonet into the man’s exposed throat, as she yanked it free, warm, glutinous arterial spray coated her face.
Her mind reeled with disgust, and she felt bile rise in her gorge, yet she didn’t halt, her body wouldn’t let her; the red mist of combat had fallen. The next adversary loomed over her a double-handed sword brandished high above his head. He let out some kind of guttural scream, which made her think of a beast loosed from an ancient tale. Then he swung down, yet she was too quick, she rolled away from the blow. Watching as the Separatist immense blade flew down into the mud. Calmly, almost sedately, she slung her rifle behind her back and drew forth her pistol, she raised it and shot the enemy through the head before he had time even to pull his sword free from the ground. She didn’t wait to see his body fall, her limbs were already moving, already searching out more targets. She swung round, three more Separatist were felled by rounds from her pistol, when it went dry she simply dropped it and pulled her rifle back round.
She didn’t hear the enemy soldier or even smell him, she should of done, her schooling was better than that and she was better than that. All she felt was the searing pain as the blade sliced through the slightly weak armour around her ribs and slashed brutally through her flesh. Lathered blood exploded from her mouth and the metallic taste burnt her tongue. As the Separatist pulled his blade free, her mind was swimming, fear ripped deeper than the wound, fear for the life within her and all she would lose.
It was only through those hours of training, hours of drills, hours of movement, until in her sleep her body moved on its own, that she was able to react. She rocked round and brought her rifle up, just as the enemy soldier prepared to strike again and she depressed the trigger still on fully automatic, fifty rounds burst from her weapon and literally disintegrated the enemy soldier as well as two more behind him. A cloud, of flesh and bone fell from the sky.
She could feel her own respiration becoming laboured as if someone had just put a tank on her chest. The fear came again, primal and base, the fear only a mother can know. She knew the blade had penetrated her lung, as she sank to her knees. Around her it was if the battle was now suddenly slowed down markedly, she spied soldiers clash in the most feral combat, some simply clawing at each other, while others used shovels and helmets. This was it she thought, this was finally going to be it, her dea
th; it wasn’t all that she had thought it would be, on her knees, in a puddle of mud and blood. She prayed one final time, not for her life but the one she had help create. Then the darkness came and encompassed her World.
Back behind the charge Lauren watched helplessly as the two armies clashed, it was as bad as she seen it, hand-to-hand combat at its worst. She could see her troopers were losing though, even having slimmed down the enemy with the first two fire missions there were just too many of them, if she didn’t act quickly it was going to be all over. She glanced down at the portable screen in her lap which gave a live orbital feed view of the battlefield, her mind was racing, equations rolled in front of her eyes as she attempted to calculate where she could deploy the precious ordinance. After adjusting for wind resistance and orbital bounce, she saw it there was a chance not a great one, but then this was the war. A single window to perhaps turn the tide and save as many lives as she could.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Joseph pulled the blade from the Separatist’s chest and watched as maroon foam geysered from what was left of its mouth. He could barely tell if it was a man or a woman and to be honest he no longer cared. He dropped the sword and groped around amid the filth and human tissue for his weapon. He could feel the wet, slime of human remains, he tasted bile in his mouth, he swung round and vomited heavily.
It was then he saw Naomi, on her knees clutching her side. Without thinking he set off over the bodies and pools of murky scarlet. When he got to her, he could see already that she was in trouble, fluid gushed from a wound in her side and her breathing was slow and shallow.
He reached into his webbing and pulled out an EB (emergency bandage), pulled it open feverishly and slapped it on the wound. Naomi winced, which was good sign. The chemicals and nano-machines within the dressing, began to form a new layer of skin over the wound and he could see the flow of blood had been steamed. He glanced to her face and saw that the colour had been drained, she looked insipid, and ashen, he would have to get her out of here.
He looked up just in time to see six, Separatists, rushing towards them, he grabbed for Naomi’s weapon and brought it up only to find the readout on the side, showed zero, he clapped at his webbing searching zealously for more magazines, yet he had none. He shifted his gaze to the enemy, no more than a hundred metres now. He peered down at Naomi, and then back to the fiends, he pulled the grenade from his belt and prepared to activate it.
“I won’t let them take us!” He whispered.
In front of his eyes, his privileged and wasted life played out, all the mistakes he had made, all the girls he hadn’t had the courage to talk to, all the fun he had irked, while he played one the of the VR games. All the sunsets he had meant to watch, all the books he had meant to read, the journey’s and life he had dreamed of living, the one he always imagined he would have time to lead. All of it now made up the film of his wasted existence His finger moved over the activation button.
“I wish,” he whispered, as tears stung at his cheeks.
Two clicks away, on the twentieth floor of the bombed out habitation block, Valus, peered through the scope and watched the battle unfold. The fighting was vicious and visceral, it was all the worst things about war, merged together to create some kind of nightmare. As he panned the rifle he saw the Marine on his knees, clutching another soldier in his arms, a woman it appeared to be, it was then he saw the grenade, he shifted his gaze and found the enemy, they were about sixty feet away now.
“I shoot true, as my father taught me.” He whispered as he lined up the shoots.
He relaxed his arm and squeezed the trigger tenderly.
Joseph’s finger hovered over the activation button of the grenade, the enemy were so close now he could see their, scarred bodies and smell their familiar stench. He could see the bloodshot, sunken eyes and hear their growling, guttural war cries. Once again he feels the grim reapers bitter clamp on his shoulder and he primed himself for what was to come. At least, he would die on his own terms instead of being torn apart or face some other grisly and grotesque death at the hands of the Separatist. Sometimes in this war there were worse fates than death.
“Come on!” He yelled defiantly, finding some hither too untapped strength within him.
He wanted them to just get a little closer, to enter the killing zone as it was called, of the grenade, just a few more seconds and they would be there and he could end it.
It was then he saw the Separatist nearest to him, a woman, whose near naked flesh was etched with strange and disturbing looking runes and marks, stopped in her tracks and wilted to the mud, he didn’t realize it but her head was missing. He couldn’t understand what was happening, he shifted his attention to the next Enemy soldier, who also became still and then crumpled. Then the four remaining troops were on the ground, bodies twitching and squirming, as blood quickly covered their torsos.
Valus ejected the magazine and slammed a fresh one in quickly.
“I only pull the trigger, when the shot is pure.” He fired.
“I remember my father and the huntsman.” He fired.
“I only kill when it is necessary.” He fired.
He scanned his rifle and found more targets, he squeezed the trigger and more Separatists fell. Once again he could feel his father’s paw upon on his shoulder, he drew in calm, shallow gasps and continued to engage the targets. Along the battleground, he had become death, he would expend all of his ammunition and finally become the perfect huntsman. It was what he was borne for.
Joseph, was still in shock, when Naomi, shuddered in his arms, he glanced down at her and his mind cleared. He picked her up gently and hoisted her over his shoulder and set off back towards the relative safety of their own trench line and the assistance he would need if he was going to keep her alive.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EMPIRE DETENTION CENTRE, HYDROS FIVE, LEVEL SIX SECURITY, 900 MILLION LIGHT YEARS FROM SOL.
Hydros five was a dead world; its entire surface had been wiped clean in a long forgotten war, before even the Empire had come into existence, some kind of ancient colonial fight, over land or religion or perhaps simply because they could. The ground itself so decimated that no plant could ever grow again, the air so dense with poisonous fumes that not even bacteria could survive for more than a few seconds. When it had first been discovered it had been ignored, for it had no strategic value and certainly no worth as a colonial hub. Instead it was left in its dead state for over a thousand years. Until the Empire’s justice department had stumbled across this long forgotten place while searching for a suitable home for their most highly advanced detention facility. A level six-security installation, reserved for the most dangerous criminals and terrorists in the entire Realm.
It took the justice department twenty years to construct and cost the lives of over fifty thousand forced labourers. Yet in the Empire, life had always been cheap and for those in control of the organization, this was the perfect solution to all their problems. A secret and deniable prison complex, where they could transfer all those that were too dangerous for a regular penal colony, or those that they wanted to simply make disappear, political prisoners, journalists anyone that may question the Conclave.
As Lady Kiera Foster, peered through the reinforced porthole of her personal shuttle she couldn’t see exactly what they had come all this way to visit. On the surface all that was visible of the centre was a single landing stripe, leading into a small domed hangar. Yet as she had been so ably informed in one of the many tiresome briefings prior to their arrival in this backwater galaxy, the complex itself stretched for over twenty miles below the surface, housing over one hundred and fifty thousand inmates, watched over by over thirty thousand guards.
To her this entire escapade, seemed like a colossal waste of not only time but also credits. Yet her Father, the Baron, had given her the task personally, of accompanying the small party that was going to make contact with one of the prisoners. She sighed wearily, the two weeks on board the fami
lies military transport had been dull enough, but now she was expected to endure more hours of staring at the walls of this drab shuttle.
“We’re beginning our descent my lady,” the pilot uttered politely from the cockpit.
“Very good,” Kiera replied laconically. She tried to lean back and find some comfort on the small plastic seat, clearly designed for practicality rather than relaxation in mind. She had little interest with most of her father’s political manoeuvres and especially this one, which seemed to her, at least to be moronic. To travel hundreds of millions of light years in order to talk to some kind of captive, the whole thing seemed crazy, she would have been far happier back at the royal court where she could have at least the benefit of all of life’s pleasure and all the comforts she had become used so used to.
A soft voice, murmured, “My lady are you sure you wish to accompany us into the facility, your father gave word that you were to remain in the shuttle while we retrieve the prisoner?” Talius McDermott the head of the royal honour guard was the source of the whisper, as he spoke, his fingers tightened on the handle of his laser rifle.
Kiera studied the young man for a second, most would have called him handsome that was for certain, with strong, rugged features, bright eyes and long flowing golden-brown hair that was today hidden beneath a monstrous, golden plumed helmet. Yet he was far too clean cut for her, he had no edge about him and no soul that she could ever detect. He was a good and loyal soldier, yet such things mattered little to her, they had no part in the life that she wished to lead, far away from the political backstabbing of the Conclave, and the Empire itself. She had no wish to follow in her father’s footsteps, the beast that he was.
The Last Foxhole (The Forgotten War Saga Book 1) Page 15