The Retreat #5: Crucible

by Stephen Knight

  Then the old guy on the M240 began chopping everybody to pieces. Muldoon had seen enough. He ducked down and covered Moreau with his body, pressing her to the bottom of the truck’s bed as the big rig took off, its diesel engine roaring. The man behind the wheel brought the truck into a sweeping left turn, and it bounced up and down as it crossed the train tracks that led to Stewart. The troops expressed their discontent at the sudden motion, but it certainly beat staying and getting shot at. Someone collapsed beside Muldoon and lay still. For an instant, he was afraid to look.

  What if it’s Rawlings—

  He raised his head and turned to his left. It was a man, but he couldn’t tell who it was at first. He’d been shot in the jaw and neck. The man convulsed a few times as he choked on his own blood. Muldoon couldn’t hear any of the retching above the pounding notes of the M240, but he caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes through the lenses in his mask. It was Hackett, silently imploring him to help save his life.

  Before Muldoon could do anything, Hackett’s mortality clock hit midnight, and he died.

  “Hackett’s down!” he shouted, reaching out and grabbing the soldier. He pulled off his mask and got to his knees, preparing to start chest compressions. He was shoved down an instant later, and he heard Urena’s voice. It was full of whiplashes.

  “Stay the fuck down and cover that bitch, Muldoon! Do as I fucking tell you!”

  The gunfire continued. Muldoon fell across Moreau again, slamming down onto her with his full weight. She cried out beneath him, but he didn’t care. The more discomfort she felt, the happier he was. The bitch had helped bring all of this about, had a hand in the deaths of Hackett, Nutter, Cassidy, over a dozen other guys, even that old fucker Boats—not to mention the hundreds of thousands if not millions of civilians who had died because of her. That she was supposed to be handled with kid gloves pissed him off to no end. She was a fucking mass murderer.

  “I can’t breathe,” she moaned beneath him.

  “Fuck you, you stupid whore! You want to bitch to me about how I’m treating you? You fucking entitled little shit, fuck you! Fuck you!”

  As he spoke, Muldoon realized he was still holding onto one of Hackett’s hands. He looked over the scientist’s head. Hackett was sprawled right next to them, eyes open but sightless. He’d been a tough one, and it galled Muldoon to think that his end had come just like that.

  The gunfire continued as the truck raced away. Bullets slapped against its metal hide, pinging off as the small-caliber rounds were turned by the truck’s heavy tailgate. Other rounds perforated the sides of the bed, and twice Muldoon heard them crack over his head. Red hot cartridges rained down on him from the M240. They rolled around the truck bed, joining the small ones from the rifles as the troops tried to shoot back. The way the truck was pitching as it picked up speed told Muldoon the Joes were just wasting their ammo. There was no way they were going to hit anything, and the klowns weren’t going to pay any mind to anything as ineffective as grazing fire.

  Slowly, the firing receded as the truck accelerated away. The rig’s driver didn’t slow down for a damned thing—he just kept the hammer down, pushing the hulking five-ton to its limit. Muldoon certainly understood how he felt. He didn’t want to hang around getting shot at by klowns either.

  He figured they were out of immediate danger when they started paying attention to Hackett. Muldoon looked up as Garza pulled off the man’s helmet and mask while Campbell worked on getting his armor off. He saw Hackett’s head lolling, eyes open and sightless, a weal of blood drooling from his open mouth. The guy had survived the horrors of the Underground Hotel, and here he’d had his ticket punched in the middle of a five-ton truck.

  Urena appeared then, and the sleeve over his right arm was soaked with blood. He pushed Muldoon’s head back down against Moreau. She struggled against him, so he rapped her in the side with his left fist.

  “Stay. The fuck. DOWN!” Urena bellowed in his ear. “Are you fucking deaf as well as stupid, Muldoon? Do not get up until I fucking tell you to do so!”

  “For how fucking long?” Muldoon shouted back, and his voice was raw and high pitched. He pushed himself up against Urena despite the first sergeant’s attempts to hold him down. Even with two arms, it would have been an impossible task.

  “How fucking long am I supposed to protect someone who’s pretty much licking Hitler’s asshole?” Muldoon screamed. It wasn’t a shout, or a yell. It was scream. Muldoon realized then that he was finally unraveling, finally coming undone. He’d flirted with it in Afghanistan, that set of circumstances where a man had finally hit his limit and just couldn’t function any longer. It was ironic that it would finally manifest itself here and now, in a war where there was no such thing as R&R or sack time or a Hollywood shower. All he had to look forward to was running, shooting, and eventually, dying.

  In short, Muldoon was about to lose his shit.

  “Andy.” Rawlings dropped down beside him and threw back her hood, then loosened the straps of her mask. She pulled it down so he could see her face, and Muldoon was mesmerized by the sight. She was sweaty and grimy and filthy, and her teeth were still kind of messed up. But to Muldoon, she was the ultimate picture of beauty.

  “Rawlings, put on your mask!” Urena thundered.

  Rawlings ignored him. “Andy. Do what the first sergeant tells you. Protect Moreau.”

  “Babe, I think I’m totally off the rails,” Muldoon said. “Never been here before. It’s too much.”

  Rawlings reached out and touched his mask. “Do it for me then, Duke,” she said. “Do it for your Jane Wayne.”

  Muldoon looked up at her and laughed then, a crazy but still very much human laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He sensed the tension running through the rest of the soldiers who overhead the exchange, and he realized then that laughing was probably the wrong thing to do.

  “He’s all right,” Rawlings said as Urena brought his M4 around. “He’s going to be fine.”

  “That so,” Urena said, voice low and predatory.

  Muldoon looked up at Urena. “You can pull that trigger any time, First Sergeant. I’d really appreciate it if you did, man.”

  Urena regarded Muldoon for a long moment, then lowered his rifle. “Like hell I will, Muldoon. Typical E-5, wants to give orders and not take ’em. You just want to get out of doing work. Cover that woman, and do it until I tell you otherwise. But don’t worry, fuckbag. Rawlings won’t get jealous. And Rawlings—put on your shit right now!”

  Muldoon turned back to Rawlings. “He does sound kinda serious. Might’ve missed his laxative this morning, and the bloating is making him uncomfortable.”

  “Hey, somebody help me reload this pig,” said the man on the M240. “I took a couple, so I don’t think I can bend down and wrestle an ammo can.”

  “Rawlings, put your fucking mask on and help the man,” Urena snapped.

  Rawlings smiled at Muldoon for a moment then did what the first sergeant ordered. “Hooah, First Sergeant.” Once she was buttoned up, she moved forward, reaching for the ammunition can beside the older man. Muldoon tracked her movements, and saw the old guy was standing in a puddle of blood. He’d definitely been hit, but didn’t seem much worse for wear.

  Urena reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, and gently pushed him down. “Shield the prisoner, Sergeant,” he said. “Get it done now, boy.”

  Muldoon did as Urena instructed, shielding one of the architects of Mankind’s destruction from harm with his own body as the five-ton truck limped back to the assembly area.

  THIRTY-NINE.

  Colonel Hubert Barker wasn’t a fearful man, which wasn’t to say he hadn’t known fear—he certainly had, more times than he would care to admit—but he wasn’t terrified by risk. Many of the newer commanders in the Army had adopted an approach to combat that sought to mitigate risk, either by attempting to manage it out of the operations or by planning combat missions so conservatively that comparatively little damage was don
e to enemy formations. They relied on the psychological component of warfare to shatter their enemy’s spirit as opposed to his body, to play tricks with his mind, to force him to doubt himself and his capabilities. Barker knew all of these were good things to employ, and he fully believed that a military commander needed to show up to a fight carrying a big toolbox. But none of those tactics would ever work against the klowns.

  Which was why Hubert Barker wasn’t frightened of risk. If the klowns couldn’t be degraded by more asymmetrical methods, then he would just use every big gun he had under his command to blow them up. By his calculations, he and his troops and the remaining infantry and armor forces under his command had inflicted thousands of casualties upon the enemy. It would not surprise him to discover the artillery and machine guns had killed over ten thousand of them. He believed friendly forces had lost upwards of nine hundred combatants, but all of those fallen had taken scores of enemy with them before they died. The klowns had suffered substantial losses.

  But unlike his troops, the klowns could reconstitute. More of them were coming in all the time, and many of his own soldiers had been infected and turned against him and their former comrades in arms. Barker knew the defenders of Fort Stewart had only a short time left to live. The ammunition was starting to run out, and they couldn’t depart until the artillery fell finally silent, otherwise it would be used against them before he, his command, and their dependents could get out of range. That was the real ball-buster. While the ASP was designed to be virtually impenetrable by anything other than real big-ticket munitions, like two-thousand-pound bombs, he wasn’t convinced that it could withstand a biological attack. It had been outfitted with HEPA filtration systems as part of the Cold War load out, but he had no idea if those systems were even operational, or when they’d last been serviced. He had men looking into that right now, of course, but it was a late decision and there was a fair amount of inspections to be done before the reliability of the systems could be adequately assessed. And as this happened, one lone mortar unit was out there dropping death all around the post. If they couldn’t find it and destroy it, then he would be forced to close the ASP’s heavy doors and hunker down and wait, leaving his artillery batteries and their crews exposed to continue the fight. That was why he had dispatched the armor; they were mobile and could put eyes on target, and best of all, they were hardened against biochem attack. Along the way, they could also put some hurting on the enemy armor that was surging into the area. It was a crapshoot, but Barker was at the point where he had to commit. As risky as it was to send the armor out, it was equally so to hold it in reserve under the current circumstances.

  Fuck the risk, he told himself. If it doesn’t get used, it’s just gonna get destroyed or captured.

  He had his loaders working double-time now, clearing out the ASP and getting the ammunition out to the firing circles. And he had the MLRS unit getting fed as well. He still had the Paladins to worry about, and the tracked rocket launchers would have to be moved several miles to the south in order to preserve them. He didn’t have the manpower to efficiently protect them out in the field, so they would have to shoot and scoot once Florida defined a target for them to annihilate. His last card to play, and Barker would not be surprised if it was going to be a posthumous one.

  He walked from the TOC in one vault to the others, checking on the wounded, on the families, watching the loaders heave artillery shells and rockets and guided missiles out to the waiting trucks. Outside, the artillery pieces continued to bang out death. His crews were dog-tired and the pace was grinding them into dust, but there was no way around it. He could spike the guns and call them all inside, but that wasn’t his way. Or their way, either. The men would fight to the very last, with everything from artillery to knives. They had families to protect. Though he hoped it did not show, Barker was deeply affected at the depth and breadth of their sacrifice. He was their leader, and he had tried to play the role as effectively as possible, but they were champions. To a man, the soldiers outside were true-blue heroes, selfless in their actions, relentless even though they must have known they were a forlorn hope.

  Outside the open loading door leading to the ASP, men screamed. Gunfire rang out, a sudden volley from rifles. The loaders stopped what they were doing and grabbed their weapons as Barker ran forward, slinging his own rifle into his hands. He didn’t have his face mask pulled on, but he ran toward the commotion anyway. As he sped toward the open door, a white fog started to roll in. It floated lazily, drifting toward the cement floor as it advanced, getting lower and lower. Barker slammed on the brakes and practically skidded to a stop. He knew what it was.

  “Close the door!” he shouted. “Seal the ASP, now!”

  Two of the loaders were enveloped by the fog. Swimming through the murk, more shapes loomed. Soldiers, crouching as they stumbled inside, shuddering with laughter despite their MOPP gear. They were infected. Barker raised his rifle and began firing. Too slow; one of the infected did the same, opening up on the loaders who were still reacting to the threat. Two of them went down. Barker fired aimed shots from where he stood, not attempting to find cover. The infected soldiers jerked as the bullets slammed into them, but by and large they ignored the attack, concentrating on the loaders.

  More weapons roared as a security team opened up with rifles and SAWs. The attackers were chopped up where they stood. More infantrymen ran up, weapons at the ready. They fired outside the still-open ASP door, engaging enemy forces outside that Barker could not see.

  “Sir, get back to the TOC!” one of them shouted. “We’ll get the door!”

  Barker turned and ran back to the tactical operations center, located at the far end of the ASP. He heard the dependents screaming as the gunfire reached a crescendo, and tears began to well up in his eyes as his heart pounded in his chest. His own family was among them, and he needed to defend them.

  But first, he had one last radio transmission to send. He charged for the command and control station. One of the radio operators was away from his post; that didn’t matter. As the other soldiers manning the TOC looked toward Barker for instructions, he pointed at the radio with one hand and put the other on a nineteen-year-old radio specialist’s shoulder.

  “Son, send this immediately to all commands: Raptor is broken arrow. Stormbringer is to depart immediately with whatever payloads they have. Repeat that message for as long as you can.”

  The operator looked at him with wide eyes. “Sir?”

  “God damn it, son! Send that message right now, and keep sending it!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “God save you all,” Barker said to the staff in the TOC. He turned away from them and pulled on his mask, then donned his helmet and pulled up his overgarment’s hood. He seized his rifle and ran out of the TOC, bolting to the vault where the dependents were holed up. Other soldiers had already formed up there, rifles ready. The entrance was still open, and the soldiers there were embroiled in a brisk battle.

  Outside, the artillery fire slowly petered out. Small-arms fire rang through the air, but the big guns had finally gone silent.

  FORTY.

  Weide Zhu had the remnants of Inveigle double-time through the pine barrens, skirting any klown elements where they could, annihilating those they couldn’t. He’d heard over the radio that the enemy was lobbing weaponized variants of the bug into Stewart. That meant they didn’t have long to get the hell out of the area before the artillery fell into enemy hands. Zhu had no idea if the artillery commander had enough time to spike the guns, but he rather doubted it. There was a lot of fighting going on inside of Stewart, more than he’d heard before. It was as if every weapon was being committed now, and he had no doubt that a good number of those were former friendlies who had gone over to the other side.

  He’d found a second lieutenant to take care of the radio communications and put an officer’s face in front of Wizard, but the young officer had let Zhu know that the unit was his to run for the time being. Zhu
understood. While the lieutenant had all the basic skills, this situation was a little more fluid than his training had prepared him for. And the truth of the matter was, Zhu wanted to lead for the moment. He had men and women to get out of danger, and Inveigle had already suffered a fair cost. His goal was to sweat like mad now to try and head off any bleeding they might have to do later.

  The unit had only a mile to cover. Even through the pine barrens, it was a twenty-minute jog. But the klowns were starting to emerge now, zeroing in on Inveigle and the bigger force of Desperado behind them. He debated calling in cover fires from Thunder, but he didn’t know where Desperado was exactly, and he didn’t want to stop to figure it out. By his reckoning, a two- or three-minute pause would leave a lot of them dead, as the klowns were being their usual aggressive attackers and hurling themselves headlong at the unit whenever they detected it. Just the same, he’d asked the lieutenant to try and get some basic information from Desperado so fires could be coordinated on the move if required.

  Bullets whizzed past him, and he saw a klown element—maybe a squad in size—emerge from the brush to his left, about fifty meters away. They were shooting on the move, so their accuracy was for shit. Zhu stopped and returned fire, ignoring the searing agony in his left arm. He yelled for fires to the left, and he got more than he bargained for; three soldiers stopped and hurled grenades at the klowns, sending bodies whirling through the air. Those that weren’t killed in the attack were so severely degraded that they couldn’t immediately press the assault. Zhu took several aimed shots, dropping more of the apocalyptic ghouls before they could do more than titter in joy at the exquisite agony the grenades had caused. In less than five seconds, the klowns were wiped out.