by Chris Bostic
As the enemy slowly regained consciousness, Joe and his mates cut them down with withering bursts of automatic weapons fire. Grunts and moans overrode the zip of coilgun bolts, and the shattered horde stumbled back down the hill.
Connie kept firing. “Don’t let ‘em get away that easy!”
A couple of the others continued the barrage, but Joe sat there in stunned disbelief. He’d been practically close enough to touch them, and not just one. A couple more seconds and they would’ve overrun him. No armor in the world was going to protect him from that.
“Everyone okay?” Connie asked once the firing tapered away.
Joe sounded off, and listened closely as the others reported in. Even after hearing that the rest of the squad were okay, his heart rate refused to slow from a coilgun staccato of chest-rattling beats.
Shadowy mounds dotted the landscape all around in front of him. He stared, sure one of them would start moving or moaning or anything, but a nervous quiet settled over the hillside. Somewhere way down by the valley, he heard an allover kind of pained grumble again mixed with that odd clucking sound. It reminded him of chickens. Even at that distance, he still didn’t feel safe.
“Thank all that’s holy for the LED-AD,” Kayla said, surprisingly calm so soon after the mad rush.
“Does a heck of a job with crowd control,” Connie said with a laugh. “It’s just a dang shame we have to let ‘em get so close.”
“You can say that again,” Danny said breathlessly. “I coulda seen the whites of their eyes…if they had any.”
“Not pretty, was it?” Connie said.
Kayla interrupted the guys. “You fellas better cut down on the chit-chat. They’ll be coming back.”
Joe swore he could hear Laura gulp before she said, “You think?”
“I know.”
Great, Joe thought to himself, but he didn’t doubt it. From what he’d heard, the barbarians would throw themselves at a brick wall over and over, as if it was possible to eventually break it down.
The lines of his squad were stretched so thin, it wasn’t going to be any small feat to hold them back. The key was to keep the barbarians far enough away from the wall. But fifteen yards was way too close. That made him wonder about their lack of advance warning.
“Why didn’t my infrared work?” Joe asked.
“It’s gotta be a hundred degrees out here,” Connie replied, and Joe could imagine him wiping his forehead as he said it—except Connie would never take off his helmet. Not even that long.
The explanation sort of made sense, seeing how their body heat had to be close to the ambient temperature. If anything, lower. “So, uhm, wouldn’t that make them show up as cold spots?” he reasoned.
“Not with those things,” Connie replied. “I swear barbarians are cold-blooded.”
“They wear some kind of heat shield, I’ve heard,” Kayla said.
“Nah, they’re like lizards,” Connie argued. “Slithering up here all quiet like, and hiding under rocks to block our scans.”
“Not everybody believes that,” Kayla retorted. “They might be ignorant creatures, but they’ve got some kind of tech that hides ‘em.”
Connie harrumphed over the mike. “All I know is I’ve never gotten a good scan on ‘em.”
Joe’s curiosity was piqued. He’d been through some firefights, including the rout early on that decimated his platoon. But mostly his battles involved blasting away at a distance. The urge to get a closer look at their attackers was enough to override his fear of crawling out of the little foxhole.
“I’m going to check one out,” Joe said, and without waiting for approval he crept forward to a lifeless mound not ten yards from his position.
“What?” Pete said. “Why?”
“I didn’t see any capes or special clothes or nothing,” Joe replied.
“Nothing but shadows,” Danny said. “Murderous shadows.”
Joe stalked up to the closest mound, and abruptly pulled up short. Nestled against a boulder, covered by dark clothes, he nearly came face to face with the enemy. A living enemy, who emitted a horrible smell of kippered fish.
Joe raised his gun to fire. Before he could pull the trigger, the soldier slumped to the ground. His unusually round face turned toward Joe and his tongue lolled out his mouth like a dead deer.
The lifeless, glassy eyes followed Joe like a portrait as he moved closer. Joe tapped the man with the muzzle of his gun, and recoiled as the man let out a gasp. But the eyes didn’t move. The biggest, roundest, darkest eyes he’d ever seen. Unnatural eyes.
Joe found himself oddly fascinated by the soldier. Besides the foul fishy smell that continued to assault his nose, something else was wrong about him. In odd contrast to his round face, the man was stick thin, perhaps starved. He looked like a gangly, scraggly tree with a lollipop head, which was nothing like the typically shorter, stockier barbarians of the PVA.
Against all advice, Joe illuminated the man with a handheld flashlight, and thumbed the button to raise his visor. He stepped back in disbelief as the gray-green night vision was replaced with normal light.
His enemy’s dark uniform was mustard brown.
“Pete was right,” Joe mumbled into the communicator. “The savages are here.”
CHAPTER 4
“Told you guys,” Connie bragged, apparently willing to take Joe’s word for it and keep Pete from taking the credit. Also so he could rub it in to Kayla rather than worry about what that actually meant for the squad, Joe thought cynically.
“You sure about that?” Kayla asked.
“Positive,” Joe replied, his body quivering. “He’s got some kind of chicken-scratch looking patch I’ve never seen before on his shoulder…and the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“Bug eyes?” Connie asked. “Smells like dead fish?”
“Oh, yeah. Horrible smell…and the eyes are kinda buggy too.” Joe was drawn back to the man’s mouth. In the narrow gap between abnormally thin lips, piranha teeth gleamed. A shiver crept up Joe’s spine and turned into a tremble that affected his voice. “Th-the teeth. They’re pointy…like they’ve been sharpened with a file.”
“Savages for sure,” Connie muttered.
Joe heard movement above him, and looked back to see some of the other squad members creeping out of their holes toward the enemy.
“Phew. Yep, that’s savages,” Danny replied first as he examined a body close to his position. “Even their fingernails are sharpened like claws.”
“Great,” Kayla replied. “You got what you wanted, Sarge.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” Connie shot back.
Joe switched off his flashlight and struggled to swallow the fear building in the back of his throat. No one made a sound. Joe used the time to slink back to his foxhole. All the while he thought about the oddly sharpened teeth and exceedingly round heads. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before, and he hoped to never see it again. Savages seemed to be a fitting description for the K-NAP soldiers.
Connie finally spoke up. “I’ve gotta check in with Fifth.”
Joe settled into the hole, wishing he’d had the time to dig it deeper. He thought about getting out the shovel and trying, but knew it would be too loud. Then again, the savages already knew where they were at. For all he knew, they were massing again for another charge. Or more. They didn’t seem any more likely to give up than the barbarians.
“I can’t raise Fifth,” Connie said.
“Then we should fall back,” Kayla said.
Joe glanced along the ridge and realized that the night had grown strangely calm to their right too.
“Not without orders. Battalion will crucify us for that,” Connie replied. “Besides, we’ve got their flank.”
“Who’s got ours?” Kayla answered.
Joe found himself agreeing with her. They didn’t know if the Fifth was still there. Regardless what the officers might say later, he thought they should pull back while they had the chance. But that wa
sn’t going to happen.
“Oh, crap!” Danny bellowed. “Here they come again!”
Joe looked up to see round-headed stick figures rise and run toward them. They came with more grenades this time, which sailed through the air in advance of the force.
Explosions erupted all around the squad’s position. Joe heard a girl shriek over his earpiece, but couldn’t place the voice.
“Cut ‘em down!” Connie was yelling.
Before panic could seize him, Joe went on autopilot. He raked the slope in front of him with fire, and swapped out magazines as quickly as humanly possible.
A weird chirping sound rose along the oncoming line like a gigantic flock of birds. It was followed by the thumps of the squads’ bolts impacting fleshy, unarmored bodies and grunts of pain. The nickel-plated bolts tore into the savages’ ranks. K-NAP troops dropped, but more kept coming. Where one fell, two took their place until it looked like a dark wall.
Joe didn’t have time to feel fortunate that at least his squad had seen them sooner. As the enemy finally closed to within whispering distance of the foxholes, Connie hit the LED-AD again.
Joe didn’t close his eyes soon enough. He didn’t dare with savages lunging for him with bayonets fixed, though he instantly became woozy just seeing the lights stream through the scraggly trees from behind his position. He somehow kept the trigger depressed and fought the urge to vomit.
The lead savage took the LED-AD’s blast head on. His knees buckled, and he pitched into the foxhole with Joe firing the whole time. The point of the savage’s bayonet poked a hole in Joe’s shirt, but bounced off his armor.
The force of the charge knocked Joe to the ground, and he rolled to face the LED-AD’s light display head on.
As the enemy force crumpled and fled back downhill, Joe vomited all over the inside of his helmet.
He struggled to rip it off, and tossed the helmet aside to suck in a pungent breath of burned cordite and spoiled fish. He bent over and dry heaved until he would’ve sworn breakfast from three days ago came up.
“Blech,” he said, and spat a final time on the scorched earth. “Water.”
As he spun around to find his water bottle, a dark shape rose up in front of him. Joe dove for his weapon and leveled it.
“Hey, don’t shoot,” a familiar voice said.
“Huh?” Joe said, still disoriented. But, thankfully, he held his fire.
“It’s me, Pete.” He closed the distance cautiously. “What the heck happened to you?”
Joe had to take a long drink to clear his throat before answering. “The freakin’ LED caught me.”
“Yikes.” Pete pointed to the spine of the ridge. “Grab your helmet and your gear. Connie wants us all up top.”
Joe threw his backpack over his shoulder, recoiling under the weight. His legs trembled as he reached over to reluctantly retrieve his helmet.
Pete noticed the mess. “Did you…”
“Uhm, yeah. It’s not pretty.”
“Good luck getting that stank outta there.”
“No worse than the savages,” Joe said, but he didn’t necessarily believe it.
“Why do those guys smell so bad?” Pete asked. “It’s way worse than the barbarians.”
“I dunno.” Joe turned his helmet upside down and shook it out. As they plodded back up the hill, he looked forward to pulling out the soap to help with a little clean-up. But that would mean the others would notice—assuming Pete didn’t rat him out first.
“About time, ladies,” Connie said as the guys met up at the top of the ridge. “Still no word from Fifth, and I can’t raise anyone at battalion either.”
“So…” Danny said, trying to draw more information out of Connie.
Joe was more worried about the others than what they were doing next. “Where’s the girls?”
“Taking care of one of their own.” Connie seemed as disinterested as if it had nothing to do with him.
Joe tried, but couldn’t fight off the concern. “Who?” he asked. He hoped it wasn’t Leisa, but amended that to hope it wasn’t any of them. Even Kayla.
“I dunno.” Another disinterested reply. “How we doing on ammo, boys?”
“Fine, I think,” Pete replied. He dropped his pack to check, and Joe copied his movements.
“I’m getting low…like six,” Danny said. “What’s the chance of resupply?”
“None if I can’t raise HQ,” Connie replied. He dug through his pack and tossed three magazines to Danny. “But don’t worry about that. I always carry extra.”
Joe counted out ten magazines of his own. It might be enough to make it through two more mass charges, but that would probably be it.
First, he needed to clean out his helmet.
“Where’s the dish soap?” he asked.
Connie tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? One of my guys is asking me that?”
“I’ve gotta clean off my visor.”
“Oh. The ladies have that. You should know that.” Connie gestured to the side with his head to indicate where Kayla had the girls formed up. “Hurry up. We’re moving out.”
Danny raised an eyebrow. “Retreating?”
“Heck no. A fighting withdrawal…at least until we can hook up with Fifth.”
“I thought we weren’t abandoning without orders…”
Joe missed the rest of the conversation as he slipped over the ridge with helmet in hand. Between alternating at staring down the slope for more savages and searching for the girls, he slipped more than once on the rocks.
“Kayla,” he called out, finally deciding to ask rather than risk a fall.
“Here.”
He followed her voice over a little knoll to a foxhole on the other side. Kayla was bent over at the waist, applying pressure to a wound on the shorter of the two girls.
“How’s Laura?” he asked.
“Fine,” she answered for herself.
“Not really,” Leisa replied, as Joe slid up next to her. She wrinkled her nose. “Yeesh. You smell like death.”
“Thanks for noticing.” Joe grimaced, and tried to change the subject. “So what’s up here?”
“Shrapnel. Must’ve got between her helmet and the armor.” Kayla finished attaching a bandage to Laura’s neck, and stood to look at Joe. “What’re you doing over here?”
“I need the dish soap.”
“You smell like you need a shower,” Kayla said. “But that’s not gonna happen anytime soon.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Leisa groaned, hopefully because she wanted to clean herself up, rather than it having anything to do with her noticing the unfortunate vomiting incident.
“So…” Joe said, holding out his hand for the soap. “My visor’s filthy.”
“I’d say,” Kayla said. She turned to offer a hand to Laura to pull her up. “Leis, will you dig out the soap?”
“Sure.”
“Leis?” Joe whispered as she led him over to her pack.
She pulled off her helmet and wiped her forehead. “Yeah. What about it?”
“I ‘spose that’s better than Meatface, Jackleg, or Hey You,” Joe replied, thinking back to those and the many other creative nicknames Connie preferred.
Leisa shook her head but couldn’t get the sweaty strands of her barely meeting regulation, shoulder-length brown hair from her forehead. Joe wanted to brush them aside himself, but held back as she ran a hand across her scalp and tucked the strands behind her ear.
He stood back as she knelt over her pack and fished inside to find the soap.
“Thanks.” He took the bottle and started to walk away so he could clean in solitude. “I’ll be right back.”
“You need help?” she asked.
“Oh, uhm…I think I’ve got this.”
“At least one guy can clean up after himself,” she quipped.
He turned his back on her, and slipped over the top of the ridge. After a quick glance to make sure the area was still clear of savage
s, he shed his pack and dropped to his knees. Retrieving his water bottle from the pack along with a scrap of an old towel, he set to work on his helmet.
Joe tried to work quickly, but the clean-up was no small task. He ended up pulling out a spare shirt. As he ripped it into strips, Leisa popped up behind him.
“Whoa, you sure you don’t need help?” she asked. “What happened?”
“LED-AD.”
“Oh, dang.” Leisa shifted her weight from one foot to the other as he worked at every nook and cranny. “I’ve got bad motion sickness. I can barely handle riding in the hovers, so I really can’t take that thing.”
“Apparently neither can I.”
He tossed the rags to the ground and left them. He wasn’t about to try on the helmet yet, and simply handed the dish soap back to Leisa.
“We’re supposed to move out,” she said softly, and leaned in closer. “I won’t tell anyone about, uh, you know, your mess.”
“Right, I just needed to clean my visor,” he said with a subtle smile. “Thanks.”
“Wait a sec.” Leisa grabbed his wrist to stop him. She dropped her pack to put the soap back inside and fished out a small bottle of spray sanitizer. “This might help with the smell.”
Joe looked at it curiously. “This isn’t like fruity or something?”
“Not really. More like lavender and vanilla.”
He recoiled, almost dropping the spray canister like it was poison. He would never hear the end of it from the guys.
“I’m joking,” she said. “It’s just a sanitizer.”
“Oh, okay.”
She nodded for him to give it a try. Joe held his helmet to the side and sprayed a fog into it. A definite aroma reached his nose. He looked at Leisa with a furrowed brow. She smiled deviously.
“Okay, maybe it had a little mint in there, but you’re gonna thank me for it.”
CHAPTER 5
“Hey, you smell pretty,” Pete said with a grin as Joe rejoined the group along with the girls. “Whatcha been doin’ with the ladies?”
Joe blushed and shot a sidelong glance at Leisa, but her face was hidden by her visor. Ignoring his friend, he held his breath as he slipped his minty fresh helmet on. Surprisingly, his first sniff was pleasant with no leftover trace of bile.