“He’s gone. There isn’t much left of him to recover. And I don’t know about you, but I ain’t wading through the water to find his damn tags! It’s not my decision anyhow. I ain’t the leader. Spooks is. So if you got any questions, ask him,” I said, wiping some mud off the side of my railgun.
The guy nodded his head and fell back in line. We all made our way through the small opening in the bush. Before we knew it, we were back on track toward the incapacitated rescue aircraft. But my spirits were crushed. Less than ten minutes ago, I’d been optimistic. Optimistic about getting off this planet alive. Optimistic about doing a good job. A good deed. But now, now I felt differently. It was like I couldn’t shake this damn curse off me.
Whenever I was around, people died. I’d managed to kill one of my own. Yes – it had been the only viable option if we were all to survive. But that didn’t make me feel any better about it. That Marine was now gone. And it was my Semtex grenade that killed him. Even if he was turning into some monstrous beast, it still didn’t feel right.
None of this felt right. But we had to get off this planet. There was no mistaking that. But once I was off this godforsaken rock, I had questions that needed answering. Questions that I was determined to get answers for. Even if I had to die getting those answers, I would do so gladly. For there was something fishy going on here. Something was off. I wasn’t stupid. I may have been a recruit, green around the gills, but I wasn’t an idiot.
There were certain things worth dying for, and this wasn’t one of them.
***
We continued to walk down the path that we had been walking down before. It was covered in sticks and stones, my boots were struggling to remain steady on the uneven ground. A strange solemn silence fell over the group. Everybody was down in the dumps over the loss of the Marine that had been drinking out of the waterfall. I guess that it had been a traumatic incident. An incident that most of us weren’t likely to forget anytime soon.
As I continued to walk in a single file behind the sturdy line of troops in front of me, I could hear the quivering sobs from the native. The insect was at the back, as far from me as possible, which was just as well, because I didn’t like being this close to the native, not after what I’d come to know of him; and how he didn’t much care for any of the humans that were risking their lives to save him. It was obvious to me, regarding the way he reacted at the sight of the dead Marine on the embankment. I’d seen the smile on his face. Like he was happy that one of our own had come to such a sticky end. It angered me immensely. I mean, what right did he have to smile like that?
We were here to help him and the other natives. We were not here to lose men. We were here to win battles. And so far I thought we had done a pretty good job. Sure, some of the men had died, some of them violently, others valiantly, but we had survived. And the fact that we had come this far at all proved that we had done a good job. This planet held nothing but death and destruction around it. It was teeming with danger around every rocky, craggy, and sand-dune infested corner. There wasn’t a speck of drinkable water on the ground for Christ’s sake! The sand and dust covered absolutely everything. And the wildlife was monstrous both in size and quantity. There was a lot that could kill you on this planet, and that was even before we took into consideration the pirates and their damn pet dinosaurs!
But we had survived. And the fact that that mother fucker had had a smile on his face when one of my fellow Marines had died trying to quench his thirst made me sick. All I wanted to do was wrap my hands around its neck and snap it like a twig. I wanted to pound my fists into its bulbous head, piercing its hard shell and grabbing its brains out and shoving it down its stupid pincer-filled mouth. I wanted to kill that native behind me, but I refrained from doing so. It was all I could do. If I even attempted at taking a shot at the creature, I’d be sure to hang once we got off this planet – that’s if we did get off this planet at all.
I could tell by the mood and atmosphere surrounding the march through the forest that a lot of my fellow Marines felt the same way about the native. A few of them were conspiring. I could hear them in front of me. Whispering, conceiving some devious plan. I could hear bits and pieces of their plan. And to be honest, it wasn’t a good plan. It involved treachery. Treason. High treason at that. Sabotaging a mission was considered treason. It was a misdeed to your planet. And when you joined the Marines, you represented your species. You represented humanity. And in my opinion, if you were willing to let your emotions override you and distort your decision-making capabilities, then you deserved everything that came your way. Even if it meant being executed!
I was tempted to approach the conspiring Marines in front of me, and pull them to one side. I was tempted to tell them that their plan was silly and would only result in their death. There was no way that they were going to be able to just take the native out and suffer no consequences for their actions. Then there was another part of me, a part of me that knew my place. The two Marines in front of me were gunners. That meant that they were higher ranked than me. They had medals. They had accomplishments. They had experience. So who was I to tell them what to do? Besides… It was all just talk. Because that’s what Marines do. They talk. They talk about the things that they would like to do.
Things like wind the mission down, get back on board a ship, take a hot shower and finish off the evening with a cold swig of beer. They talked about these things – but they knew that these things were far out of reach. They were fantasy. They were bedtime stories. They were the land of fairy tales. Because when you’re in the Marines, on the front lines, there is no beer and no hot showers. There is no ship and there is no respite. There is just the job. The duty. The mission. And just like the fairy-tale of comfort that most men dream about on the front lines, this particular fairy-tale was also a fable. And they knew it. They knew that taking out the native would only result in a new sort of fairy-tale. A new fable. A new reality. Hell on earth. Left to hang at the Capital City Square. Thousands watching as they would take their last breath before their necks would snap under the rope. Left to die a treasonous death.
So I was certain that it was just talk. The sort of talk that men partake in when there is not much else to do. And it made sense. We had just seen one of our own die. And before that, we had seen many more Marines die. I guess everybody was fed up with seeing good men perish. So it was only natural to find somebody to blame. Or in this case, something to blame. And the native was an easy target. It was unappealing on the eyes and on the senses. It was irritating and rude. It didn’t share the same way of thinking that we did. It was stunted in both height and personality. Maybe it only knew how to be a grouch? Maybe this particular native was the nicest of the bunch? Maybe we were fighting a war for a load of ingrates? But the job was the job. And it was a job that we would all have to do whilst keeping our opinions to ourselves.
But it didn’t stop the mood from becoming darker. As we made our way through the thick bristles of the forest, plumes of smoke in the distance guiding us toward what we hoped was the remnants of the aircraft that had been swatted by the beast, the mood was solemn. It was reflective. And it was unsettling. Many of my fellow Marines were chatting amongst themselves. They were coming up with their own theories on this mission. Theories that were well out of place. Theories that bordered on paranoia. But a lot of the men were afraid. Afraid of what lurked in the forest. They had seen plenty of horrors since setting foot on the Tribeca planet.
And I guess that the sight of one of their own being ripped apart by a parasitic alien that sprouted tentacles from within its stomach was at the limit of what most humans were willing to put up with. Hope was definitely a commodity that was running low. Our stores were empty. Running on fumes. I myself was feeling the burn.
My calves were aching. My shoulders were hunched. My back was locking up. And we still had a little way to go until we reached the smoke. Every time I looked up into the sky, the smoke seemed to dwindle further east. It was
as if the more we walked, the further we got from our objective. And it seemed that with every second that passed, the likelihood of us finding any survivors became slim. But if I was brutally honest, survivors weren’t on the top of my list of things I wanted to see come out of this mission. As far as I was concerned, survivors were just more men to look after. They were more mouths to feed with food that didn’t exist. They were men that didn’t have guns. They were men that didn’t have ammo. They were men that weren’t battle-hardened.
They were men that were medics. And we didn’t need medics. The wounded soon turned into the dead on this planet. What we needed was a ship. A ship to get off this rock and back to our mothership. Once we were on board that ship, we’d get the answers that we needed.
“How much further?” Somebody asked near the back.
I could see Spooks in the distance, he looked like a smudge from where I was standing, he turned around and signalled with his hand. He held out his right hand and stretched his fingers out. He made a five sign. Five minutes was his guess. But I wasn’t as optimistic. In fact, I was certain that we would never get to the crash site. For all I knew, the ship could have exploded by now. There was certainly enough smoke in the air. The closer we got, the thicker the smoke became. The readings on my heads-up-display were telling me that the air was severely compromised. It was so compromised that I had a feeling that there wouldn’t be much left of the ship when we finally reached it. Something would have to be severely burning to produce this much pollution in the air. And unless there was another explosion I wasn’t fully aware of, then our chances of finding the ship intact were slim.
“How much further then?” The guy asked again, this time his voice was a lot louder.
It was obvious that this particular Marine was at his tether, as was I. I didn’t appreciate his tone. So I quickly turned around and stopped in my tracks, making the Marines behind me come to a halt as well.
“The man said five minutes, so hold your fucking horses and shut your mouth before I stick my boot down your throat,” I said, my hands tightening around my railgun.
I saw the synchronised reaction from the men staring at me. Some of them were amused by my outburst, while a few were offended. But one of them in particular was wearing his emotions on his proverbial sleeve. And I guessed that that was the man that had enquired as to how long was left before we would reach the downed aircraft. So, I made a conscious decision to slowly make my way toward him. I pushed my way past the on looking Marines and got right into his face. Sweat was dripping down his chubby mug, and his visor was steaming up. Either he was shitting himself or he was just as angry as me.
“You got any more questions?” I asked, pushing the guy, my hands hitting his chest.
He didn’t budge, he stood there like a brick. And on second evaluation, I realised that this Marine was twice my size. I didn’t usually make a habit out of starting fights with men that could squash me like a fly, but I was in a different state of mind. A state of mind that I wasn’t used to being in. It felt like I had so much fight in me, but at the same time not enough patience to see the fight through. I was angry. Angry at how we were just tossed into the deep end and expected to survive. Angry at how there were only two aircraft that were sent for us. Angry that every single man that set foot on the Tribeca planet was pretty much left to their own devices. No artillery. No vehicles. No backup. Just a railgun and some attitude. And I had plenty of attitude to accompany the heavy railgun in my hands.
“My problem isn’t with you, recruit, it’s with this mission. I don’t want what happened to Smith to happen to me,” the guy said, clenching his jaw as he stared directly into my eyes. I assumed that Smith was the Marine that had taken a fatal drink at the waterfall and ended up turning into a part-man-part-octopus sea monster.
“Well, I suggest you keep your visor on and stay thirsty. He wouldn’t have died if he wasn’t such a greedy fucking idiot,” I said, immediately realising how insensitive I sounded.
But I guess even in the heat of the moment you can end up saying something that you don’t mean. And I didn’t mean it. But as I said, I was angry. Angry that the detour we had taken had resulted in a man dying. Dying because he wasn’t thinking properly. And the fact that he didn’t think properly about his actions had ended up putting us all in danger. And that was unforgivable, no matter the outcome.
But unfortunately, the Marine twice my size in front of me didn’t see it the same way. He had stopped clenching his jaw and was now pacing back and forth. He pushed me back. And took two giant steps towards me, grabbing at my oxygen tank. I had a feeling that he was about to rip the tank off and beat the living crap out of me with it. But he was stopped by Spooks who’d ran towards the two of us when he saw that we were about to get into a confrontation. He pulled us apart and pushed us away from each other. By now, a few of the Marines were egging us on to fight. I guess even in the heat of battle, Marines still found ways to be entertained by their fellow man falling out.
“Cool it off! You two bickering like two women isn’t going to bring Smith back. Try to act professional here gentleman, we are here to do a job. So wind your necks in and fall back in line before I give you something to fight about,” Spooks said, pushing the giant Marine away from me and turning toward me. He grabbed me by the arm and escorted me up toward the front. He cocked his head towards me and gritted his teeth.
“What was that all about? You’re supposed to be one of the good ones here, one of the ones with their heads screwed on tightly. I’ve seen how you’ve performed today, and I have some recommendations for Command when we get back. But I can’t make those recommendations if you’re starting fights with other Marines. Remember, we are all on the same side here Jensen,” Spooks said, gently whacking me across the helmet.
I deserved that. He was right, I was acting like an idiot. But I was angry. The problem was I was misplacing my anger. And so was the big Marine behind me. In fact, we were all misplacing our anger. That was the problem with coming across a lull in combat situations. The adrenaline was still pumping, yet the enemy was nowhere to be seen. Tensions usually rise until they are at boiling point. And once things start simmering, fists usually start flying. I’m sure Spooks had seen it before. And he’d most likely see it again if he ever got off this planet. But he wouldn’t be seeing it from me. I needed to get my act together. There was no use in fighting with my comrades when my anger should have been aimed directly at the reptilian pirate scum that was tearing this planet apart.
“Sorry sir, poor judgement on my part. I wholly accept responsibility for my actions, and will not hold it against you if you court-martialed me when we returned to the ship.”
We finally reached the front and Spooks let go of my arm. He smiled at me and shrugged.
“I’m not going to court-martial you, you idiot! This is the Marines. Infighting happens. It takes a man to recognise when he is wrong. And you certainly are a man, Jensen. I appreciate your candour, but please keep your aggressions off the native and your fellow Marines. So what will it be, still up for kicking some ass?”
I nodded.
“You bet your ass I am!” I said, clunking my fist against Spooks’ hard metal shoulder braces. Spooks conked my shoulder back and turned around to face the men who were all looking our way.
“You hear that ladies? That’s the sound of a Marine that’s itching for a fight. And I know all of you are chomping at the bit to get at these reptilian pirates, but please, don’t misplace your anger here. This is a brotherhood, and when the shit hits the fan, every single one of you are responsible for each other. So leave that petty bullshit back at the barracks. Once you set foot back on Earth or wherever else you may converge on, you can give each other a few tackles here and there. But this ain’t no place for tickling soldiers. This is a place for dishing out death. So if you’re not willing to exert your energy into snapping each others necks, then I suggest you save up and store the grit and violence that’s bubbling in the
pit of your stomachs and use it to rip these mother fuckers into shreds!” Spooks said, raising his gun into the air and firing his weapon three times. The Marines around us erupted into a chorus of cheers.
“Ooooo-rahhhhhh!” We all shouted.
None of us knew it, but we were only yards away from discovering the downed aircraft nearby. So after the morale-boosting speech, Spooks gestured us to follow him through some more bushes. And after thirty seconds of stepping our way through some muddy marshland, we appeared in an opening. An opening that stretched on for a few miles. Trees and bushes surrounded us, along with rocks and natural forming cliffs. This was definitely an ideal place to get ambushed. We were wide open from every point around us. A three hundred and sixty-degree radius of openness surrounded each and every one of us. It was the perfect spot for a sniper to creep up and lay a few of us out. But none of us were thinking straight. We were too preoccupied with the burning aircraft a few yards in front of us. It stood there, wedged into the ground, dirt and rock scattered around it, two bodies lying beside it.
We were too busy running up to the wounded to realize that we were being watched from the treeline.
Chapter Six
The ambush
My feet crunched against the brittle ground. Dried leaves and twigs intertwined with the ash being dispersed from the downed aircraft a few metres from me. I watched as embers rose and fell to the ground, some of them dancing amongst each other before evaporating into nothing. My eyes were completely fixated on the two bodies on the ground. One of them was charred black. The other was half naked. A woman. The top half missing clothing. The bottom half; ripped and jagged trousers. She was missing her left shoe. Her sock had a hole in it. Her back also had a hole in it. A massive hole. And in that hole, sticking out, was a piece of rotor blade from the aircraft beside her.
“Damn, I think these two are gone,” the guy I’d had a bust-up with earlier, said, sidling up beside me, resting his massive frame against the idle carcass of the ship. It groaned slightly in protest as it held the man's weight. The other Marines around us were checking for any signs of life nearby. But the area was clear. The only two people we found were the ones on the floor.
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