From the Torment of Dreams

by Iain McKinnon

  “Good shooting,” he thought as he covered the disembarking troops.

  Jackson saw Keir and Shorey run past him up to the building ahead. The pair hit the wall and leaning tight up against it they started moving towards a door. Without ceremony Shorey opened fire and blew the door from its frame.

  The last three men were just coming out of the helicopter when from the corner of the building came a rocket propelled grenade. It struck the tail of the chopper, the explosion severing it from the body. The force, coupled with the turning rotors, spun the fuselage round uncontrollably. Skidding round, the cabin started to buck. The rotors tipped forward and struck the ground causing them to rip apart. Fragments sliced through the occupants of the helicopter and the soldiers who had been covering the exit.

  Lan's gun barked angrily in the direction of the corner. Chunks of concrete flew off the wall with the impact of the bullets.

  “Come on!” ordered Keir as he waved the three of them in from the open ground.

  A second rocket flew from the corner and caught another of the disgorging helicopters.

  A fighter swung round to take out the operator but, just as she came to, a ground to air missile cut through her decoys and detonated against her engines. The explosion sent a shock wave booming across the landing zone, the force caught Lan, Nasim and Jackson and knocked them to the ground. The remains of the vaporised aircraft rained down at speed.

  A piece of shrapnel ricocheted off Nasim's helmet. Its composite shell buckled and cracked. When he stood up to run for cover it slipped off and rolled away down the concourse. Nasim paused for a second before deciding to abandon it and run for cover.

  Lan sprang to his feet and marched up to the corner. He kept his gun in the firing position, the stock tight against his shoulder.

  “Get back here, Agstaff!” shouted Keir but Lan ignored him.

  As he was about to turn the corner the muzzle of a gun came into view. At the end of the barrel was a fresh grenade ready for firing. The Terran soldier moved round for a better angle on the last helicopter as it took off.

  Then Lan cleared the corner.

  The Terran brought his gun to bear but because of the grenade attached he couldn't fire. His eyes went wide with panic.

  In contrast Lan's gaze was empty and soulless.

  Lan pulled the trigger and shot him between the eyes.

  He wiped a hand across his face clearing away splashes of blood.

  “Clear.” Lan shouted, happy with his work.

  “What now?” asked Jackson as he drew level with Keir.

  “Half the squad's down an' safe, we carry on with the operation as planned.”

  Gunfire pierced the air from the other side of the concourse. Keir looked round to see the twenty men who had made it down in the other choppers fighting their way to the command bunker.

  “OK that's team two going after General Weston. Let's get our arses in gear and start ferreting out ours,” said Keir.

  “But there's only five of us left!” Jackson protested.

  Keir's normally calm tone had gone, his voice now carried a sharp edge, “We're still a viable unit and we have our orders.”

  “We owe it to the others,” Shorey piped up.

  Jackson realised that he didn't even know the dead men's names but that was hardly the thing to say to Shorey.

  Keir nodded to Nasim, “OK kid point the way.”

  Keir still didn't understand what the youth was doing but his eerie ability had been proven in training.

  “This way,” Nasim pointed down the corridor ahead.

  “Want me on point?” Shorey asked Keir.

  “It's only you an' me who can spot booby traps and trip wires but I need you at the back to cover my ass.”

  “Sure thing,” Shorey stepped back to let the rest pass him.

  Lan, Jackson and Nasim took up the middle, sandwiched between the veterans.

  They walked forward following Keir, his pace was slow and deliberate, alert for any snare or ambush.

  Keir raised his fist in the air, signalling a halt. They had come to a junction in the passageway. Running along the wall just inches above the ground were a set of wires. He peered around the corner following the bundle of cables.

  He could now see that they led into a large brick that sat on the floor.

  Keir cautiously approached the object and examined it. He gently prodded it with his finger leaving an indentation in the pliable surface. The brick was wrapped in what could have been greaseproof paper and the texture of the underlying material resembled firm butter.

  “Plastic explosives,” Keir looked back at his men, “They're planning on levelling the place.”

  Shorey added, “They must expect us to overrun them.”

  From behind them came the sound of boots running down the corridor.

  Silently and swiftly Shorey trained his aim back towards the junction. From the sound there couldn't have been more than three or four soldiers.

  The first Terran trooper cleared the corner and took the full force of Shorey's burst. The volley of bullets tore the soldier apart, killing him outright. A couple of stray shots found one of his companions who fell back howling.

  One of the Terran soldiers let loose a wild spray of fire cutting across the corridor from behind the corner.

  A hand reached out and grabbed the wounded man. He was dragged into cover by the carry handle on his flak jacket.

  “Fall back!” Keir struggled to be heard over the din of suppressive fire.

  The team started to retreat, putting into practice their contact drill. Shorey started walking backwards firing in the direction of the Alliance troops, Lan and Jackson rushed passed Keir; from further down the corridor they knew they could command a better arc of fire.

  Both sides were shooting wildly, merely laying down bullets to keep their opposition pinned down.

  A fist-sized lump of steel came bouncing down the hall.

  “Grenade!” screamed Shorey as he threw himself to the floor.

  A flash of brilliant white light filled the corridor. The noise thundered off the walls travelling in tandem with the blast.

  Everyone dived for the ground.

  Lan and Jackson were the furthest away and had managed to get down flat on the floor against the wall. Shrapnel rained down on the group thumping off their protective uniforms.

  Keir screamed out in agony as the molten hot debris showered him. Closer to the grenade than Lan and Jackson his gel armour suit was pierced by sizeable chunks of shrapnel.

  Jackson shook off the ringing in his ears and opening his eyes he looked back down the smoke filled corridor.

  Shorey had taken the full force of the explosion, his limbs were mangled and torn. And in front of Shorey's corpse lay Nasim still and saturated in blood.

  There was a moment of relative quiet as both sides overcame the force of the explosion.

  All too quickly the Terran soldiers resumed their random shots.

  Lan grabbed his rifle and returned fire.

  “Get Nasim!” Jackson yelled to Lan. He grabbed Keir by his webbing belt and dragged him along the corridor. Tears streamed down Keir's contorted face as he shrieked in fits and bursts. His body convulsed and shuddered with the pain and a trail of blood oozed out behind him.

  Lan edged forward, firing to give himself some cover. He grabbed at Nasim. He was drenched in blood and his limbs were heavy and lifeless. Lan grasped hold of Nasim's blood soaked ankle. Another volley of fire came from around the corner. Lan pulled the trigger of his own weapon. Instead of the familiar chatter of bullets came a dull thud.

  The trigger froze.

  “Fuck!” Lan cursed as he pulled at Nasim's foot.

  A burst of enemy fire whizzed past his head and Lan lost his footing on the wet floor. A ferocious volley of shots smacked into the walls round him and Lan's fingers slipped off the slimy boot. Gunfire forced Lan to squirm back up the corridor on his belly without his fallen comrade.

  Fol
lowing a thick trail of blood he found Jackson around a corner kneeling over Keir.

  Spilt on the ground in front of him were the contents of a medical bag. Jackson was pounding on Keir's chest and softly counting up in thousands.

  “Check his pulse.” Jackson called to Lan as he ducked down to give Keir mouth to mouth resuscitation.

  Keir's chest swelled with the circulating air.

  Lan placed his hand around Keir's wrist and with his index and middle fingers felt for the rhythmic beating of his heart. It was hard to concentrate with his own heart and lungs pounding in his ears.

  “Nothing,” he finally said.

  Jackson went back to the heart massage.

  “He's dead we've got to get out of here.” Lan pleaded with Jackson to leave.

  Jackson ignored him and pressed his fingers against Keir's neck checking for a pulse.

  “Come on!” said Lan.

  “Shh!” Jackson held up his free hand to silence him.

  He paused, “There it is! He's alive!”

  Jackson started searching through his kit for the half litre of plasma they carried and something to use as a tourniquet.

  “Where's Nasim?” demanded Jackson.

  “He's wasted!” Lan said abruptly.

  “Ah shit!” Jackson picked up a fluid filled syringe from his first aid kit.

  “We've got to get the fuck out of here,” he said as he sank the needle into Keir's neck and emptied the contents.

  Gunfire could still be heard from down the corridor.

  “Now you're talking,” Lan looked around trying to subdue his paranoia.

  He exposed the firing chamber on his rifle to check what had jammed. A bullet had entered at an angle and was blocking the firing pin.

  “How the fuck do you suggest we get out of this shit hole?” Lan shouted not to make himself heard but to vent some of his anger. He pulled out his knife from its scabbard and started levering the jammed bullet out of the breach.

  Jackson continued trying to stabilise Keir's condition, “I don't know; find an aircraft and we can fly out.”

  The offending bullet popped free. Lan pulled a grenade from his webbing and set the timer.

  “What are you doing?” asked Jackson.

  “Leaving a little surprise,” he pulled the pin and the digital countdown flickered, “fifty nine, fifty eight.” Lan lay the grenade at the corner of the wall and started off in the opposite direction.

  “OK, let's hustle,” he said as he passed Jackson.

  “Give me a hand with Keir!” Jackson tried to heave Keir's unconscious body over his shoulder.

  “Leave him!” shouted Lan, “He's as good as dead after a blast like that.”

  “We're not leaving him!” Jackson shouted after Lan.

  Lan paused and looked back, “There's no way we can get him back to a friendly hospital in time. Jackson, you have two options. Leave Keir to be captured, and hope the Terrans will give him medical attention, or put a bullet in him.”

  “We can't do either!”

  “No, you can't,” said Lan.

  Encumbered by his rifle Jackson couldn't heave Keir over his shoulder.

  “Keir, old buddy, you won't like this,” Jackson dropped Keir to the ground and unshouldered his rifle. Jackson decided to commit the cardinal sin of an infantryman. He put his rifle down.

  “You're too fuckin' heavy,” Jackson moaned as he heaved Keir over his shoulder.

  Looking down at his discarded rifle Jackson added, “If we need to shoot our way out I don't think we'll get too far no matter how many guns we have.”

  Lan protested again, “We can't take him with us, he'll slow us down, we'll get caught for sure!”

  “We can't leave him.”

  “We have to! We'll never get to a hospital in time,” Lan looked Jackson in the eyes and tried to sound sympathetic, “His only hope is if we leave him behind the Terrans might give him medical treatment.”

  “God knows what they'll do once we've gone. They might even shoot him on sight. We can't leave him!”

  “Then do the best thing for him,” Lan checked the breach of his rifle and looked back at Jackson.

  “Fuck no, we can't,” Jackson was shocked by the very thought of it.

  “Well I can,” and he pointed his gun at Keir's head.

  “No, you inhumane bastard!” shouted Jackson, “We're all getting out of here and that's that!”

  “It's your funeral, but I suggest we move seeing as that grenade's only got ten seconds before it blows,” Lan turned and ran down the corridor.

  Zinner's headset burst into life.

  “Borderman to Zinner. We have encountered infiltrators. We have casualties, please advise.”

  “Zinner here. Are you in a position to eliminate them?”

  “Affirmative. But we need help with the wounded. Can you assist?”

  “Try to press an advantage. I'm on my way. Zinner out.”

  There was a strong metallic taste in his mouth. His head hurt like it had just been kicked by a mule. Nasim sat up not knowing where he was. His eyes came into focus. He was sitting on a blood soaked floor. Lying beside him was Shorey, with his eyes wide open. His expression held none of the shock or pain of his death. It was the kind of face someone would pull if they were completely stupefied.

  The body was peppered with holes and contorted into a weird position. Nasim patted himself down checking for wounds like Keir had taught him in basic training. Only the fact that he had been so close to Shorey when the grenade went off had saved him, Shorey had unintentionally acted as a shield.

  Nasim was still too bewildered to feel thankful for his lucky escape.

  “Clear!” shouted an unfamiliar voice from behind him. Nasim turned his head to see that two Terran soldiers had ran past mistaking him for dead.

  “Down here,” exclaimed one of the men as they turned down a junction.

  There was a loud boom from down the corridor and the Terran soldiers were blown back by the explosion. They flew through the air, screaming and on fire, until they connected with the corridor wall. Nasim pushed himself to his feet to help the men but his concussion toppled him to the blood drenched floor. He looked up to see the Terran soldiers lying motionless and crumpled. Their bodies sprawled in a contorted heap of fractured bones, patches of flame burned on them but the men's lives extinguished.

  Still dazed, Nasim got to his feet. He staggered into the wall and stood propped up against it. Rubbing his face with his hands he tried to dispel the clouds in his mind and the smell of burning flesh from his nostrils. All he succeeded in doing was smearing his face with more of Shorey's blood.

  Dazed, Nasim found himself wandering down the blood washed passageway with a profound sense of deja vu. His mind was beginning to clear but he had little idea where he was going.

  Section 39

  An opening appeared in the belly of the Sovereign Chance. From its hangars came a squadron of modified shuttles. Welded onto their chubby bodies were lengths of metal, the protruding arms making the craft look like angry porcupines. From each strut trailed lengths of cable. The long thin lines glistened like spider silk against the blackness of space. At regular intervals round blobs hung on to the gossamer thread. There were hundreds of knots to each line and each strut carried dozens of lines. The squadron of ships raced head first at Neotra until the blue-green orb filled their view. Firing their breaking thrusters they levelled out just before entering the atmosphere.

  The knots untangled themselves and drifted into formation.

  As soon as their cargo was free the shuttles pulled up and headed back to their mother ship to reload.

  “All units form up for re-entry,” the voice was firm and carried an air of command defined by countless engagements.

  The knots completed their manoeuvring and formed groups of V's like migrating geese.

  “All units check shielding,” the commander ordered.

  The soldiers wrapped in their high tech suits looked like
knights from the Middle Ages with the polished metal replaced by a dull camouflage.

  Commander Ketser went through the checklist on his computer.

  “All systems green,” the soft female voice reported back.

  “Ready for re-entry on my mark,” his tinted visor slid into place concealing his cold blue eyes.

  Ketser viewed the battle below, eager to quench his longing for combat. After the months cooped up in the hold of a freighter he savoured the anticipation.

  Even from this height a dirty cloud of smoke could be seen drifting from the battle zone. Some of that dark discoloured cloud showed the tell-tale thermal patterns of radioactive fallout. Ketser's precise vision scanned over the glowing site of the nuclear attack.

  He watched the swirling clouds below and re-calculated the optimum trajectory to avoid the worst of the radiation.

  “Mark!” Ketser gave the signal and simultaneously the squadrons of men dived down towards the planet.

  Their backpacks fired jets that pushed them into the planet's gravity.

  “Maximum burst achieved, initiate roll,” Ketser ordered.

  The troops rolled over to expose their hardened shields to the inferno of re-entry. Looking up into space Ketser could see the convoy of ships against the backdrop of stars. The ships were lumbering slowly into orbit, taking up positions to off-load their cargo to the fortress below.

  Ketser watched as the Balas and the Ironclad opened their gun ports and locked on to targets on the surface. Their metallic hulls sparkled with beads of reflected sunlight. They looked like diamond jewellery resting on a pillow of black velvet.

  “Sloppy,” thought Ketser, “Those glints will make them visible to half the planet.”

  But they were not alone in this black sea. Already in orbit above Veruct was a battle-hardened flotilla of cruisers, corvettes and defence satellites. These were just as obvious, as not only did their sun-lit hulls shine like beacons but each ship also spewed a continuous deluge of fire onto the planet's surface.

  Ketser's onboard computer beeped a warning.