Dropship One

by L. D. P. Samways

  “I thought we’d killed one of these already? This isn’t fair!” someone next to me sneered.

  “You killed one of these?” Mr. Pea Shooter asked, crouching behind me, trying not to get hit. I turned my attention to him for a few seconds and shook my head.

  “What the hell are you doing near me? Get to the back and keep the native company,” I said, pointing to the insect-like companion that was accompanying us on this rollercoaster.

  “That thing? No thanks! I’d rather cut my own wrists! Was going to ask you what the deal was, actually,” he said, nearly holding onto my leg.

  I’d become distracted by a few more approaching melee pirates and took them out before they could do any damage, all the while the hulking beast gained pace on us, even if it was tremendously slow, but it was methodical. With every step it took, the ground shook. I figured that it would take at least four to five minutes to reach us on account of its size. Right now, all it was was an ominous shadow on the horizon, but make no mistake, it was getting closer.

  “That thing over there is our mission, Pea Shooter, so get your ass over there and protect him!” I said, pushing him away from me, making him fall to the ground, which was good because the pirates in the treeline were still peppering us with suppressing fire. He looked up at me confused for a second, like the lights had gone out and he was in the dark. I could see that he was searching for answers to a question that was about to roll off the tip of his tongue.

  “Pea Shooter? What…Um…My name’s…” I interrupted him. “I don’t care what your name is, civilian, get your ass to the back, or you’ll take a bullet!” I said, kicking him away from me.

  He stumbled to the back and stood next to the cowering native who was hiding behind a tree. Pea Shooter was giving the native a hard stare, not that the oblivious creature noticed it.

  “I’m not a civilian,” I heard him mutter before a tremendous roar rocked the lot of us.

  We all nearly fell on our asses. The beast in the distance was getting closer, and now that it could smell us, it wanted us, badly. It began to pick up pace.

  “Shit, incoming! Open fire, open fire!” I’d heard Spooks order before the group opened up a can of whoop-ass on our transgressors.

  We were holding our own well enough, taking out the majority of the melee pirates that had been rushing toward us, only their crumpled up bodies remained, but the real problem was the lack of cover and the pirates taking pot shots at us from the treeline.

  By now, two of our squad were on the floor. One of them injured, shot in the chest, the other decapitated by an energy sword. If our odds didn’t improve soon, we’d have to retreat and miss our extraction.

  “Anyone got any more grenades?” I asked, noticing that my belt was dry. I got a collective no back over the radio. “Shit,” I said, realizing that if the beast reached us, then we’d be toast. The only reason we had been able to take out the other one earlier was because we had explosives. A lack of them was going to be a problem.

  A big problem.

  “Any ideas?” I asked, still suppressing the oncoming pirates and the marauding beast en-rout. But from this range, I wasn’t getting any hits. At least the immediate threat of the sword swinging reptiles had been dealt with, but if this was a video game, then the real challenge lay ahead in the boss. And this was the biggest boss I’d ever seen!

  “Run? Is that an idea?” I heard an unfamiliar voice say. I quickly turned around and saw that the voice belonged to Pea Shooter who was wearing one of my fellow Marines’ helmet.

  “How the hell did you get on this chat channel, and why the hell are you wearing a Marine issued helmet?” I snapped.

  Pea Shooter shrugged.

  “Figured that the guy who was wearing it wouldn’t need it anymore,” he said, pointing down to his feet at a dead former Marine.

  “Christ,” I said, turning back around and firing my railgun some more. It was getting mighty hot in my hands.

  “We need to think of something ASAP or we’ll all be creamed out here,” Pea Shooter said. I couldn’t help but agree with the lucky bastard. Part of me had wished that it would have been him who’d taken a bullet and not one of my fellow men, but you couldn’t fault the guy for his resilience.

  “The twit is right. We need to bail - or generate wings to fly ourselves off this damn rock if this HELOE doesn’t show up,” I heard Spooks say to a chorus of grunts.

  The beast couldn’t have been more than fifty yards from us. The ground shook violently before I heard a familiar sound in the distance, coming from behind us. I turned around and was thankful to see the HELOE approaching our position.

  “Did anyone order a pickup?” a woman’s voice came over our comms, making some of the men cheer in victory, but I wasn’t counting my unhatched reptilian chickens just yet. We still had to get on board, plus before any of that happened we needed the HELOE to land.

  “Hit the ground, I’ll sort this minor inconvenience out,” the woman’s voice said. On instinct, none of us questioned her and hit the deck in unison, burying ourselves in the dusty dirt. Even Pea Shooter joined us in the fun and games.

  “She’s going to drop a bomb, isn’t she?” Pea Shooter asked. I laughed and said “Welcome to the frontline, civie.”

  And that was all she wrote, literally. As the last word left my lips, the aircraft above us showered the hulking beast with a half a dozen missiles. I heard it groan and roar and then hit the ground, making the floor vibrate around us for a good thirty seconds.

  “Holy shit,” Pea Shooter said, the first one to get to his feet.

  Rookie mistake. The dust was choking him out on account of him only wearing a helmet, the helmet he’d stolen off a dead Marine. But he wasn’t wearing a suit. So there was no seal to stop the mighty cluster-fuck of debris hitting his lungs and rattling around his oesophagus. Pea Shooter was on the floor before the dust settled back down and we were back up.

  “Next time, stay down,” I said, walking up to the wheezing medic and helping him up. He grabbed my hand and got to his feet, trying to act unfazed by his near-asthmatic attack.

  “Anyone see the native?” Spooks asked as he sidled up beside me.

  “Right here,” a voice said, near my feet. I tilted my head and saw that the native was holding his thin insect-like arm. He’d been shot.

  “You okay?” I said, kneeling down beside it.

  “Yes, thank you human. I am fine. A little tired, but fine. You all fought bravely and I’m glad this is over,” he said, wincing in pain, it’s bulbous face a little off-colour. I quickly evaluated it and came to the conclusion that he’d be okay. I was no medic, but I could tell that he’d been winged. There was no substantial life-force loss.

  “Come on board!” I heard the woman’s voice say, breaking over my comms. I turned around and to my surprise the HELOE was on the ground. Half of the Marines had already boarded it.

  “After you, human,” the little native said.

  I obliged and walked toward the aircraft. Dust and dirt were being kicked up by the engines as it idled waiting for all of us to get on. I reached the sliding doors and ramp and was helped up inside. Spooks was already on board, sitting down on one of the chairs up against the right side of the carrier. He’d saved me a seat and beckoned me over.

  “You did good, kid. I’ll be making some recommendations to Command. I hope to see you back beside me when we land at the Capital,” he said.

  I nodded my head, sitting down and watched as Pea Shooter and the native got on. They were the last man and insect to board the carrier. The sliding doors closed back shut and before we knew it we were ascending. The ship rocked back and forth as we climbed high into the atmosphere.

  “You reckon they’ll want us at the city straight away? I don’t know about you, but I’m pooped,” I said, a little annoyed at the choice of words I’d used, instantly regretting it. But I was fatigued and wasn’t prepared to talk. All I’d done for the last eighteen hours was fight like hell, so tal
king felt alien to me.

  “They’ll give you enough time to rest up, but once you get some shut-eye and a hearty meal in you, then it’s back to business once again. How you feel about that, son? You ready to bring it to these dinosaur scum?”

  I smiled.

  “I was born ready, Sir.”

  ***

  The aircraft jolted slightly as we came in contact with the mothership. My legs were shaking violently as the ship vibrated, the floor beneath me rattling in rhythm with the humming coming from the engines. For the duration of the flight, all I had done was look at the floor beneath me. Flashbacks of my time on the troop carrier that got me to the Tribeca planet was playing vividly within my subconscious. Sitting there in my seat, strapped securely, my mind wandered in a lucid state – reimagining the very last seconds I’d spent on the troop carrier before setting foot on the alien soil below.

  Our mothership was stationed in orbit of the Tribeca planet, a good hundred miles above the crest of the atmosphere. And even though it was so close, the trip to the mothership felt long winded. By the time we’d docked with the large vessel, I was beginning to feel like a sardine in a tin can – minus the red sauce of course. So you can imagine that I was more than happy to step off the aircraft and touch my feet down onto the sturdy yet shiny floor of the mothership. It looked so grand and elegant in appearance compared with the drab landscape of the Tribeca planet.

  I smiled to myself as I hoisted my railgun over my shoulder and made my way down the hallway. Beside me, some of my former squad were doing the same thing. And just like me, they were wearing surprised looks on their faces as they walked toward the bunk/shower rooms. It was an easy look to decipher. The look of somebody who’d noticed something as familiar, but at the same time had been away from that something long enough for it to cause a void within the centre of their own ability to recognize. And believe you me, the tour we’d just come back from on the planet below may have only been one Earth day, but it felt like plenty more to me.

  I didn’t recognize any of the men beside me walking toward the bunk room. Most of them had their helmets off, as it was protocol to leave them on board the ship to be checked for defects by the deckhands. I’d forgotten to take mine off, but wasn’t that bothered. I’m sure any cracks in my visor were the least of my problems. To be truthful, I was far too tired to care about damn protocols. I was still reeling from the experiences I’d had on Tribeca. Experiences that I don’t think I’d be forgetting anytime soon. All I’d wanted to do was sleep. Reset my body clock. Defrag my brain. Get rid of the cluster of horrors that lay buried deep within my cerebral cortex. And the only way I was going to accomplish such a thing was if I’d shut my eyes, and drift off into a land that didn’t include killer reptilian pirates or any hundred-foot-tall dinosaur beasts trying to rip me to shreds.

  Walking into the bunk room, my mind was racing with imagery from the battlefield. Grimes getting ripped to pieces. My Marine Sargent suffering a similar fate. Then there were all the enemies I’d killed. Back when I was in the thick of it, fighting for my life, opening fire on anything that had moved, I hadn’t given much thought to the lives I was taking, even if they were just reptiles, they were still living creatures. I had shut my brain off as I’d protected myself from the fate they had suffered at my hands. But now – now my brain wasn’t letting me forget. So many reptiles. So many bullets. So many horrific memories, and technically, this was only my first day at the office.

  As I walked up to my bunk, which was on the bottom, I hung my gun by the strap on the end of the bed and didn’t hesitate in crashing on the hard mattress. I hadn’t taken my helmet off. There was no point. It took too long and as I said, I was far too tired. The most tired I’d ever been in my life before. My bones felt like they were screaming at the ligaments. My back was so tense and taut that I thought if I moved too suddenly, I’d snap into two. Not to mention my head was pounding like a thousand drummers beating on two thousand drums, sticks in each hand, heavy whacks sending me off to sleep nearly instantly. My helmet-cladded head hadn’t been on the pillow for more than a minute before I was dead to the world for eleven hours straight. I’d like to say that I was able to switch off from the horrors I’d faced in my sleeping state, but all I’d managed to do was relive every second once again, before waking up with sweat dripping down my face and terror in my eyes.

  ***

  “Hey, Jensen! Wake up! The bar is calling,” I heard a voice say. I was still in my hazy dream state as I blinked a few times and saw somebody standing over my bunk, smiling down at me. At first, all I could see was their teeth. They shone brightly at me, and made it rather difficult to concentrate on anything else.

  It was like somebody had turned on a load of artificial lights in the room, and they were blanketing the dorm in a bright hot white light. But after I blinked a few more times, the bright light and over-white teeth saturated back into the usual dull colour of life, a sheet of grainy film covered my lenses.

  “Bar?” I muttered, sitting up in my bunk, nearly hitting my head on the metal slats above me. “What bar?” I asked, not taking in the identity of the person in front of me who was now sitting on the end of my bed, smiling from ear to ear.

  “The brass has given us two days of leave. Something about re-shifting men around before making an assault on the capital,” Pea Shooter said, still smiling. “So I guess the good news is that you and I can get a brewski, and the bad news is that the two days they gave us have turned into just one day for you, I’m afraid,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as if to say sorry.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, wiping the sleep out of my eyes.

  “You slept through the first day! So you only have today left before we’re cranking the killing machine back up again and getting back out there to kick some butt. Well, you’ll be kicking butt, I’ll be…picking dead butt off the desert floor and whatnot. I ain’t complaining though, I’d rather not risk my ass for a few thousand credits extra a month. My wife would like me to come back in one piece, one fully functioning piece that is,” he said, getting off my bed and pacing.

  He seemed excited. I couldn’t tell if he was excited about having some downtime, drinking some beers or picking up dead butts as he put it. This guy was a strange character, but for some reason, I was warming to him in the same way that peeing yourself in the cold is momentarily enjoyable, if not regrettable afterwards.

  “You want me to go for a drink with you?” I asked, surprised, getting out of bed and taking my helmet off, placing it down on the ground and grabbing a shirt from a drawer beneath the bed. I put the shirt on and turned to face Pea Shooter.

  “Yeah, I want to go for a drink with you. You seem like a cool guy. We went through hell out there, might as well recount it with a few swigs of ale, don’t you think?” he asked.

  I found myself looking around the room in awe, noticing that everybody was missing. All the beds were messy and boots were left lying around the place. On closer inspection, I could see that everybody had left their combat kit hanging on pegs or draped on their beds, so that could only mean one thing:

  “I’m missing the party, aren’t I?” I said, realizing that I’d slept through leave day festivities. Getting a break from the grind was rare. You’ve got to remember that even though this was technically my first tour, I’d been grinding down boot camp for two years getting ready for war. There were very few off days, so the fact that I’d slept through one of them had pissed me off.

  “How long was I out for?” I asked.

  “Twelve hours I think? We lost count at ten. The squad decided to go for a few, which turned into many more. But we still have a little time, so might as well soak it all up before we’re back in the thick of it!” Pea Shooter said, gesturing me to follow him.

  “Hope there’s some grub. I could eat a horse,” I said, following him out of the dorm and down the hallway. The closer I got to the bar, the more I could hear the sound of people having a jolly good time. Before goin
g through the double doors, Pea Shooter turned around and smiled.

  “Time to lock and load some buds!” he said, jogging through the doors, momentarily leaving me behind. I watched him disappear into the fray and realized that a whole new kind of war was about to be waged.

  A war on my liver.

  ***

  The bar was heaving with my fellow cohorts. Everybody was either flat-out drunk or a drink or two away from a serious problem. I felt a little out of place walking down the middle of the room, tables and chairs to my sides, men of all sizes enjoying themselves. This wasn’t my scene at all. I didn’t usually partake in copious amounts of drinking. My body wasn’t built for swills of liquor. It had a way of making me pay big when trying to fit in with a crowd.

  Back at boot camp, I’d tried to fit in with the obligatory drinking and card games when the lights were turned off, but I’d never really found my stride in that sort of environment. I’m talking about a man that a day ago was chucking up chunks as the troop carrier he was in landed on the Tribeca planet, and opened a door of horrors that he had no idea existed. So you can imagine that I wasn’t really looking forward to sitting down with a bunch of animals and talking about the kills we’d clocked up and the broads we’d banged before coming on this life-changing tour.

  But that all changed when I saw Spooks and Pea Shooter sitting at a table in the far end of the room. It was just the two of them there, sitting quietly, drinking a pint of beer, their eyes searching the room as if they were looking for somebody. I then noticed that the table had three beers on it and only two occupants thus far. I then figured out that they were waiting for me. So I sighed inwardly and made my way toward their table. As I approached, Spooks stood up and extended his hand out over the table. I frowned slightly, shaking his hand firmly and nodding at Pea Shooter who’d remained seated.

  “What do I owe the pleasure, gents?” I asked, looking at the free seat beside me. Spooks pointed to it and I sat down. “We just thought it would be nice to catch up before we all leave tomorrow. Besides, somebody had to get you out of bed!” Spooks said, sitting back down. He then nodded at the beer in front of me.