Grunt Hero

by Weston Ochse

  Vipers zoomed above the Cray, moving fast enough and far enough away that the EMPs from the Cray couldn’t affect them. But at those speeds they could only make a few shots per pass, and at that rate it would take forever to get through the shield.

  I heard a rumbling coming from the harbor and increased my speed.

  In front of us was a now useless Russian ZSU-23-4. An armored personnel carrier with four anti-aircraft guns, it would definitely be the tool we needed to help the Khron. But it was dead from an EMP blast. Beside it though, were two Bofors Guns, lifeless soldiers draped across them.

  “Charlemagne and Stranz, get those things working.”

  Chance turned back to the oncoming spore-infected and opened fire.

  The rumbling was growing louder and louder.

  “How the hell do you work one of these?” Stanz asked, pushing a dead gunner from the seat and wedging himself into position.

  “Ohirra, help Chance.” I said and made my way to the guns. I found the crate of 40mm rounds, dragged it to Charlemagne’s gun and loaded it.

  I started to do the same with Stranz, but suddenly the water in a section of the harbor began to bubble and boil. I could only stare as four booster rockets emerged from the water, a corner of a net affixed to each rocket and lifting the adolescent Umi into the air. At least a thousand Cray protected the rising boosters from the sides, swirling and swooping and blocking all attempts from the Vipers to take down the rockets. Try as the Vipers might, they were unable to penetrate the wall of Cray flesh.

  Would we fail here?

  Would the first launched Umi make it into space?

  Not if I had anything to do with it.

  “Charlemagne!”

  “I see it but I don’t believe it.”

  “Shoot it!”

  “Trying. Merde!” I watched as he furiously cranked the traverse to get a firing solution on the old gun. The insane juxtaposition of a cutting edge warrior in a combat exoskeleton firing a manual ackack gun that was designed to take down WW II aircraft wasn’t lost on me, even if this was a newer version—probably circa 1990. He managed to get the gun around, then opened fire. The rate of fire couldn’t be more than a hundred a minute, but I watched as two dozen of the Bofor’s rounds struck a booster rocket from underneath the Cray shield and exploded it. The blast caused a cascade with the other rockets, destroying the Umi in a ball of flame. The whole mess fell onto another Umi, dragging both of them into the harbor’s depths.

  I cheered and smacked Charlemagne on the back. “You got it!”

  He cheered as well and held up a hand with two fingers. “Non, mon frère. I got deux!”

  “Uh, guys?” Stranz called.

  I turned to see Ohirra and Chance creating a mound of dead that was growing in height and width by the second, their flechette cannons smoking with the continuous rate of fire.

  “Uh, guys?” Stranz repeated.

  “What is it?”

  “Incoming!”

  I jerked around and saw my red flashing HUD. Incoming, no shit! Seven hundred Cray were headed for our location. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to create a defensive position. We were truly and royally screwed. Then I saw the water.

  “Come on, everyone,” I screamed. “Into the water.”

  I ran.

  From behind me, Stranz asked as he ran, “Are these waterproof?”

  “We’ll find out in a few seconds.” I hit a wharf and ran onto it. The Cray were coming quick. It was going to be close. “Hurry!”

  At the end of the wharf I dove. When I struck the water, I sank until my feet hit the bottom. My HUD relayed that I was in ten meters of water, and I could see sky glowing on the surface above. I checked vitals of everyone and saw that Charlemagne was offline. I switched to his feed view and saw a dizzying, tumbling view, but I couldn’t figure out what was happening until the feed suddenly hit the ground and came to rest, a sideways view of the wharf we’d just leapt from. In front of the camera was the lower portion of a human in an EXO, ripped free from the upper.

  You damned Frenchman.

  “They got Charlemagne,” I said.

  The four of us stood staring up through the water. Several Cray tried to get to us, but once they hit the water, all we had to do was fire our flechettes and they went away.

  Finally it was Ohirra who asked, “What now?”

  Good question. Then my HUD did a strange thing—it identified something three hundred meters deeper into the harbor. I glanced back up at the surface. We couldn’t go there, so we might as well check out what I’d found.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “Ohirra, see if you can figure out what we’re seeing... or rather, not seeing down here.”

  The going was slow. I was waiting for rockets to lift off again, but the Bofors had thrown off the Umi. They were probably wondering what to do next. I couldn’t help think that the Umi might actually be scared, and it delighted me.

  When we were halfway to our target, we identified the object. It was a rocket, probably affixed to an Umi on the water’s surface.

  “Come on! Let’s kill ourselves an Umi.” I poured on as much speed as I could with the water pushing against me. The bottom of the rocket was enclosed in some sort of immense domed chamber. I had no idea what it was for, but there were metal rungs built into it that allowed me to climb up to where I could get a grip on the booster rocket. A ridge ran up the first booster section and I used this to pull myself farther up. At one point I couldn’t find a hold, so I made one using my blade. I don’t know exactly what damage I’d done, but I didn’t care. I kept going until I reached the huge bolt that the netting was affixed to. I grabbed onto the net and pulled myself onto it. The spaces between the netting were big enough to let me walk on it without falling through. The Umi rested in it like it was in a cradle. Its mass beneath the water was significant, measuring about ten meters.

  From somewhere far away came a rumble. Another one launching. Thank God it wasn’t this one. The surface of the water was ten meters away. I crouched, then launched myself, trying to grab the edge of the Umi. My fingers grazed it, but I couldn’t find purchase and fell back. This time my foot surged through the netting, entangling me. It took a few moments, but I was finally able to disentangle myself.

  Another attempt, and I had it. The Umi had a rubbery, slimy feel, like a barnacle.

  I pulled myself out of the water in time to see three Vipers shooting towards the launching Umi. This one also had an impervious cloud of Cray, But the Khron had changed their tactics. Through my NID I was pleased to hear one of the pilots shouting, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” a Japanese code word meant to indicate surprise and taught to him by Ohirra. It had also been used by Kamikaze pilots who made suicidal runs at US Navy ships in the Pacific during World War II. The three Vipers hit the Cray umbrella one after the other, spaced a hundred meters apart. The first knocked a hole in it, which was partially filled almost immediately. The second cleared the hole, and the third burst through the protective barrier. It obliterated the rockets, the shouts of “Tora! Tora Tora!” almost lost in the ensuing explosions which took out the Vipers as well.

  The pilots had been afraid to die at first, but when I pointed out that they were clones so they weren’t really dying, they couldn’t argue with my logic. Even if they weren’t, even if it took death to make a death, that’s what needed to be done.

  I pulled myself onto the surface of the Umi and stared at it. Up close it had a translucent appearance. I could see movement beneath its skin.

  My HUD screamed warning and I saw Cray shooting down to get me.

  I had no choice. I lowered myself back into the water and eased myself onto the net. I waited there until the others joined me, staring up at the surface, wondering if the Cray might come for me that way.

  When we were all together, Ohirra asked, “What are you waiting for?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The Umi. It’s right here.” She drew her blade and stabbed it. “K
ill it.”

  The alien jerked as the blade went into it and a blue ichor seeped from the wound.

  The rest of us pulled our blades and began to stab at it. Soon the water was clouded with Umi blood as it quivered and shook.

  Then I almost lost my footing as the net shifted under me. I felt myself lift and realized that the rockets had fired. The water beneath me became hot as great gouts of flames superheated it. We began to rise.

  “Jump!”

  Stranz jumped, as did Chance.

  Ohirra stayed with me.

  We surfaced. I pulled myself up and onto the Umi, tried to stand but couldn’t. An umbrella of Cray swirled above and around us, moving with such fury and chaos it was like seeing all the legions of hell taken to the air and merging into one terrible, demonic beast.

  The Cray rose with the rockets. If any of them noticed us, we were dead. Hell, rising into space, we were dead already. I shouted, “Fuck this shit!” and shoved my blade into the Umi beneath me and began carving figure eights.

  Beside me, Ohirra did the same.

  The pressure became immense and soon we could do little beyond lay there, flattened. We’d have been crushed without the suits. Even with them, I could feel the incredible air pressure.

  We were compressed, star-shaped against the Umi, riding it as it climbed higher and higher.

  Suddenly the nature of the sound changed.

  The Cray umbrella parted, revealing open sky above.

  I could barely hear myself think. The rocket engines roared beneath us. I closed my eyes and felt my whole body shaking. I ground my teeth, afraid I’d shatter them.

  The sound changed again, this time going higher in pitch.

  This was it.

  Why hadn’t we jumped?

  Maybe I thought this would be a fitting end.

  Who was I kidding? I wasn’t even thinking.

  Then the engine noise disappeared entirely, replaced by silence. I felt lighter and realized I could move my legs and arms. I grabbed the hilt of the blade that was still in the Umi and opened my eyes to see the blackness of space before me. I managed to look over the side and saw that the net and the last booster had fallen away to Earth far, far below.

  My God, but it was a long way down.

  “You gonna give me a hand, spaceman?” Ohirra asked. “Or are you going to lay around all day?”

  I glanced over to where she was on her knees, once more hacking at the Umi, her movements in slow motion.

  “How can you tell if it’s dead?” she asked. “Damned thing has more holes in it than the Grand Canyon.”

  I wrenched my blade free and began to carve out piece of it. I waged that if there was a major organ it would be in the creature’s center to better protect it. “Here, dig here.”

  When the Umi stopped its upward movement, I was forced to stop hacking to keep myself from floating away. To stay in place I had to leave my blade in the Umi’s flesh and hold onto the hilt.

  Ohirra figured out the same thing and we hung there, wondering what to do next.

  I checked my HUD and noted that we were one hundred and sixty five kilometers up. We’d achieved low earth orbit. I was now a bloody satellite.

  Ben Mason to Earth. Come in, Earth. I began to hum that famous David Bowie song about Major Tom. Once I’d finished the song, stumbling over and making up many of the words, I sighed and stared at the numbers, which had stopped going up.

  “Mason, we have a problem.”

  “You’re just now realizing that?”

  “We’re out of air.”

  I felt the weakness come at me like a slugger with a baseball bat.

  The suits had rebreathers which could recycle our own CO2 if we had no breathable air outside. The scrubbers must have become overworked. It could even pull oxygen from water. But what it couldn’t do was pull oxygen from space. My CO2 levels were rising quickly.

  Then I noted that the altitude numbers were decreasing. We were down to one hundred and fifty eight thousand and falling. We’d reached low Earth orbit where the Umi could have escaped, but we’d killed it before it could. Now its weight and ours were bringing us back to Earth in a hyperquick orbit decay.

  Oh shit.

  We began falling faster and faster.

  “Ohirra?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Ohirra?”

  “Shut up and save your air.”

  “But—”

  I did as I was told.

  Our CO2 began to decrease as we dropped.

  The Umi began to heat up beneath us and I had an image of the space shuttle coming back to Earth, flames firing from the nose in atmospheric re-entry. We weren’t exactly aerodynamic. The flattened Umi was taking the entire heat load as we re-entered. I lay on it just as I had when we’d been rising. I watched my HUD and saw that my suit’s temperature was already at one-hundred eighty-four degrees and climbing. It could survive five hundred degrees, but I didn’t know what it would do to me, the wearer.

  “Ohirra?”

  “Yes, Mason.”

  “You’re one hell of a grunt.”

  “Fuck you. It takes one to know one.”

  And then the Umi broke apart beneath us and we were truly flying.

  I adjusted my angle of descent so that I was going feet first and watched my suit temperature rise to four hundred degrees in the blink of an eye. But then the temperature began to decrease as my speed dropped. I was at sixty thousand feet and falling. Now in the atmosphere, I was traveling much slower and didn’t have the heating effects.

  But then there was the problem of the ground.

  Yeah.

  That.

  I’d reached terminal velocity and was plummeting feet first at a hundred and twenty miles an hour towards the earth.

  “Mason, this is Alpha, stand by.”

  I blinked. Was I hearing things?

  “Alpha, is that you?”

  “Recovering Ohirra.”

  I watched my altitude decrease. I was now at thirty thousand feet and falling fast. If I was doing a HALO, about now would be when I activated my chute. But I didn’t have a chute. Twenty thousand feet. I closed my eyes. This was going to be a really messy landing. Fifteen thousand feet.

  Then I was no longer moving.

  I opened my eyes and found that I was in the doughnut-hole of a Viper. I remembered when they’d recovered Nance’s body and the spidertank from the Arctic that way. And now they had me, and Ohirra, both of us in some form of sticky stasis and at an altitude of a hundred and ninety feet.

  Then Alpha lowered the Viper to a few meters above the ground and released the stasis field.

  We fell to the ground, laughing.

  Then I puked inside my helmet.

  If you prick us, do we not bleed?

  If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

  If you poison us, do we not die?

  And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

  William Shakespeare,

  The Merchant of Venice

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  “WHAT YOU’RE TALKING about is revenge, when it should be avenge.”

  I waved the comment away. “Words.”

  Ohirra’s eyes narrowed. “Words are important, Mason. In this case each one is representative of a similar but different ideal. Avenge is applied when one is seeking retribution and justice. Revenge is much more personal, has less to deal with justice, and is more concerned with ameliorating one’s personal feelings of being wronged.”

  After Alpha had let us down in Brazil, he’d taken us back to Sydney Harbor where the rest of the Khron were cleaning up after their victory. In the end, using the Vipers as their own weapons was what won the day. Once all the Umi were destroyed, the Cray fell from the sky. They didn’t die right away, but I think that without their Queens or the Umi to guide them that there was probably little reason to live.

  I’d already said goodbye to Stranz and Chance. With Alpha’s help, I’d also been able to say goodbye to Merli
n and Earl, who were still on their way back and had refused the offer of a ride. Now it was just me and Ohirra. Alpha piloted the Viper and was waiting for me to get my farewells out of the way before we headed to space to track down more Umi.

  “Avenge, revenge, both are interchangeable to me,” I said.

  “No, Mason. I want you to admit that this is personal.”

  “Of course it’s personal, Ohirra. They came and fucked up the whole planet just so they could make babies. Of course I’m pissed. Shouldn’t I be?”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t take it personally. It’s just that when you do, when you’re propelled by revenge, you don’t tend to think straight. You want instantaneous gratification without considering the implications of your actions.”

  I stared at her. “How can I avenge the ruination of my planet,” I said, using her preferred word, “if I don’t join the chase and head into space with the rest of the Khron?”

  “You’re one man,” she said. “Do you really think it will matter?”

  “It’s mattered so far, hasn’t it?” I shook my head and exhaled. “I don’t believe in God and I don’t believe in fate,” I said, flashing a weak smile. “Okay, I sort of believe in fate—the sort of fate where you’re in the right place at the right time with the right training. Some call it luck. The Roman philosopher Seneca probably said it best. ‘Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.’ Sure, I’m one man. But I’m the one man who figured out why the Khron continued to fail. I’m one man who’s spent a life preparing for this moment. I’m a human who wants goddamn revenge for what was done to his planet. And most of all, I’m a dumb grunt who wants to avenge the deaths of all of his fellow grunts at the hands of an alien species whose sole concern was promoting its continued existence regardless of the consequences.” I paced back and forth, then stopped, whipping my head in her direction. “What I want to know, is that with all your combat skills and badassery, why are you staying and not going?”

  She looked away. “That’s a difficult question, predicating an even more difficult answer. You know my past. You know what I did that made Mr. Pink come after me.”