Unwilling From Earth

by Andrew Maclure

  “Thanks for the lesson, but I just want it off me.”

  Laying on his back he got both of his feet against the soldier’s hip and pushed as hard as could, moving the body just enough to pull his arm free. He looked around and saw Orange, crouched against the building wall and firing on the approaching enemy soldiers. Several of them had collapsed energy field armour but their body armour was protecting them against Orange’s KE fire. Mark rolled over and using the dead soldier's body as a shield and to rest his Mark Eight on, quickly shot all of the unshielded soldiers and started targeting the others. Finding themselves caught in crossfire out in the open, the remaining soldiers rapidly retreated to the shelter of the buildings.

  Mark remembered what Simon had taught him about firing while running on the firing range on Mother, but quickly realised that only worked if you were running towards your targets and really worked best if the targets weren’t shooting back at you. He ran in an awkward sideways shuffle towards Orange, firing in the general direction of the enemy soldiers, but thought they were probably safe from him now, as he clearly couldn’t run sideways and target his weapon at the same time.

  He stumbled to a stop and dropped to the ground next to Orange. Only intermittent shots were coming from the enemy soldiers sheltering amongst the distant buildings.

  “That was a pretty fancy bit of work back there.” Orange said to him. “Simon trained you bloody well on the firing range. Your running style could do with some work though, you came across here like a seven legged crab. Time to go in. Keep us covered while I make a door.”

  Orange shrugged off his backpack and clipped his rifle onto it. He reached inside and pulled out a tube with a handle at one end and a nozzle on the other. He held the nozzle to the wall and pressed the handle at the other end, squeezing out a line of white paste in a wide circle on the building wall. As he stood to bring the circle higher up the wall, more shots came from the enemy soldiers but very few were on target and those that hit were deflected by his armour. When the circle was complete, Orange took a small device from a pocket on his backpack and pressed it into the paste.

  “That’s going to open a door for us.” Orange told Mark. “We need to get back a few metres and shelter at the bottom of the wall. Listen carefully. I’m going to fire a flasher and detonate the charge on the wall at the same time. Hopefully, that will confuse anyone out in the open long enough for us to get a foothold inside. Follow me.”

  Orange led the way right, stopping about three metres along it. He dropped down, pressed against the wall. “Get behind me.” He told Mark, and when Mark had scrambled past him, said “As soon as it blows we go in shooting, clear the area and get the demolition charges on to the synthesiser. Shut your eyes and cover them.”

  Day Trip

  Mark squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his arm against them. A faint flash made its way to his eyes and a loud explosion ripped through the air. Mark leapt to his feet and ran straight over the top of Orange pulling a grenade from his belt. He dashed through the hole that had been blasted through the wall, catching his foot on the edge and sprawling flat on his face. He fell on top of his right arm and managed to keep his grip on the Mark Eight but the grenade flew out of his left hand, bounced across the floor and detonated in the midst of a small group of surprised soldiers. Mark pulled his Mark Eight from underneath him and fired at them. The grenade had depleted their armour enough that only a few shots from his Mark Eight, assisted by his field attenuator, was enough to collapse their energy field armour and rip into them through their body armour.

  By now Orange had followed him in and was standing firing his KE weapon, first at soldiers until their armour collapsed and then at technical staff running from the fire. Mark picked off the soldiers with collapsed energy fields but couldn’t bring himself to shoot at the technicians. At least, until they started throwing grenades, picking up weapons from racks and firing at him. Mark noticed that the green line against the image of his armour had turned red. He rolled over a couple of times to get some cover from a bench blown over by the blast that opened up the wall. Holes exploded through the bench as the technicians fired on him, but either their aim wasn’t as good as the soldiers or they couldn’t see exactly where he was. Mark unclipped another grenade and tossed it over the top of the bench in the general direction of where gunfire was coming from. As soon as it detonated Mark jumped up and fired at anyone he could see, dropping three technicians firing rifles. A soldier burst out of hiding firing an energy pulse weapon, running straight at Mark. Orange was walking forwards with his rifle up, shooting at anything that caught his eye and fired a stream of bullets into the running soldier. The fire from Orange’s KE weapon and Mark’s Mark Eight along with the effect of their field attenuators rapidly collapsed the soldier's armour and he went down.

  There was only an occasional burst of fire coming from within the building now. Mark noticed that Orange’s armour was showing a red line too. Orange put a new magazine into his rifle and ran towards a stack of crates where the shots were coming from, firing as he ran. Mark followed him firing too. Targeting was much easier when running straight towards your target, but as bullets and pulse weapon fire came towards them Mark was seriously worried about his armour holding up. If the enemy had field attenuators like his, it would have all been over some time ago. The combined assault of Orange’s KE weapon, Mark’s Mark Eight and their field attenuators soon collapsed the enemy’s armour and they finished them off quickly.

  Mark stood and looked around. He didn’t know what an industrial sized synthesiser should look like but guessed the thing that looked a bit like a forty foot container with a cluster of thick pipes coming out the back of it was probably it. He jogged over to it, looking around for anyone ready to shoot at him and was joined by Orange.

  “Our armour is pretty low.” Mark said.

  “Yeah. I hope we won’t be interrupted for a few minutes so it will have a chance to re-charge.” Orange said, pulling off his backpack. “You were a bit keen to get in here.”

  “Yes, well, until now it’s just been targets, with targets shooting back at us. It was distant, more like a video game. But that big bastard - that was personal. He saw me and wanted to kill me. He could easily have shot me but wanted to get close up, looking into my eyes and sticking that bloody great blade into me. That was different. It made me realise that these aren’t just targets, these are bad people. It’s all different now.”

  Orange pulled out two demolition charges, about half the size and the same weight of a house brick and handed them to Mark. “Stick these on something that looks important while I plant these around the synthesiser.”

  Mark looked around for somewhere to put the charges and saw a bank of consoles. He jogged over and peered round them, looking if he could see what they were connected to. They were wireless, but the desks they were on looked like they had something built into them, so he pressed one of the demolition charges underneath the most central one.

  Mark looked around for something else to plant his remaining demolition charge on. He noticed a point on the wall where a lot of cables and pipes came in. Unfortunately, it was about three metres above floor level and there was nothing Mark could see to climb up on. He jogged back to Orange and waited while he finished slapping charges onto the synthesiser.

  Orange turned to Mark and asked, “Did you find anywhere to put your charges?”

  “Yes, but I need a hand from you. This way.” Mark led Orange over to the wall where the pipes and cables came in. “Give me lift - but without crushing me.”

  Orange grasped Mark around the waist with his large hands and lifted Mark up to his arm's length. Mark reached up and slapped the charge against the wall just below the point where the pipes and cables came in and Orange dropped him down to the floor.

  “That looks a good place.” Orange said.

  “I thought I said don’t crush me.” Complained Mark, wincing and rubbing his waist.

  Ignoring Mark’s c
omments, Orange asked, “How many grenades have you used?”

  “Four.” Answered Mark.

  Orange dipped his hand into his backpack and pulled out five grenades and handed them to Mark. “Top up your grenade belt and keep one in your hand. I’m going to make another hole in the wall. As soon as we get outside, throw a grenade and fire your weapon. Don’t worry if you can’t see a target, we just want to cause a distraction while we select targets.”

  Orange reached into his backpack and pulled out the tube he had used to place the ring of explosive that made the hole they came in through and started making another ring on the wall with it.

  “I thought we were leaving when we achieved our objective?” Mark asked. The red line next to his armour icon had turned green again but was still very low.

  “I’ve got plenty of ammunition left, your Mark Eight will keep going. We’ve got lots of grenades and a few demolition charges left. We might as well use them while we’re here.”

  “Shit, you must be mad!”

  “I would never have got into this team if I wasn’t.” Orange answered as he continued working.

  “I guess not.” Answered Mark.

  Orange finished squeezing the explosive out, pushed a detonator into it and threw the tube across to the far side of the building.

  “Behind me, against the wall again. I’m going to fire the other flasher which will let them know that something is about to happen but should mean they can’t see anything for a couple of minutes. Are you ready?”

  “Ready.” Said Mark, though he didn’t feel ready to go out and get shot at when his armour was so low.

  The explosion caught Mark by surprise - he thought Orange would give another warning before detonating it. This time, Orange was first out but Mark was almost by his side and flung the grenade as hard as could. Mark wasn’t a strong thrower but in the low gravity, the grenade flew through the air and landed on open ground with nothing that looked like a target anywhere. He told his AI to detonate anyway and it exploded harmlessly.

  Mark fired his Mark Eight as he burst through the hole in the wall and as soon as he got his bearings swung his weapon around towards the buildings where the enemy had been taking cover. His AI started picking up enemy contacts and overlaid images of their energy field armour on his vision. Orange crouched down about twenty-five metres out from the building they had just left and was picking targets to fire at with bursts from his KE rifle. Mark ran on for another twenty-five metres and dropped into a crouch to present a small target while he continued to fire at the enemy. Puffs of mud splashed up and smoke rose from the ground around him as bullets and pulse weapon fire missed him, though some of the fire was hitting his armour which was dropping back down towards the red again.

  Mark noticed a figure running up from behind which dropped down about twenty-five metres away from him. As he started to swing his Mark Eight round to target it, his AI identified the figure as Mike. He saw her armour was almost at full charge. Another fast moving shape came up from behind and dropped down about fifty metres away and the boom of two rocket-propelled grenades being fired from the launchers strapped to Ti’rrk’s side reached Mark. Mike’s arm went back then swung forward as she threw a grenade much further than Mark could manage.

  “We could do with her in the England cricket team.” Mark thought.

  Heavy calibre KE fire from Ti’rrk ripped into and around the buildings but enemy soldiers determinedly returned fire. Mark’s armour was steadily draining and he noticed that Orange’s was dangerously low. A flurry of KE fire poured into Orange and his armour abruptly collapsed.

  Mark jumped to his feet and called across the unit comm link “Orange’s armour is down!” and sprinted over to stand by Orange to draw the enemies fire. In the heat of the moment he had forgotten that his armour was very low too. Seconds later Mike arrived and stood by Mark, both of them firing at the remaining enemy targets. Only moments later Mark's armour collapsed too and he felt the thud of bullets hitting his body armour.

  A dark shape flashed in front of the trio and Ti’rrk crashed to the ground in front of them.

  “Get down you idiot!” Mark heard Ti’rrk’s voice, “Take cover behind me!”

  Mark could see that Ti’rrk’s armour was almost fully charged and he dropped down, sheltering from the hail of incoming fire.

  “Everyone - concentrate your fire on the left-hand flank and we’ll work our way to the right. Mark - grenades!” Orange ordered across the comm link.

  Mark scrambled to pull a grenade out of his belt, confident that he wouldn’t be able to throw it the eighty metres to reach the enemy soldiers. Having got one out he stood up, swung his arm back and threw it as hard as he could. Aided by adrenaline and the low gravity of Gnn'Ath the grenade sailed through the air and landed fifty metres in front of them. It bounced feebly on the wet compacted soil and lay there, well short of where it could do any damage.

  “Never mind.” Orange said. “Detonate it anyway.”

  Mark’s AI detonated the grenade and Orange issued another order. “Ti’rrk, advance twenty metres slowly, keeping us in cover, we’re taking the fight to them. Mark, keep down until your armour is active again.”

  Mark could see that his armour was just coming online again, which meant it would protect him from pulse weapons, but would soon collapse again if he took a few hits from KE rounds. Orange’s armour was in slightly better condition than his, but not by much. Mike’s armour was at about ninety percent and Ti’rrk’s was at about eighty percent, despite the number of hits she was getting, as she was a large target for the enemy soldiers.

  Ti’rrk moved steadily forward, continuing to fire her heavy calibre KE weapon. Mike stopped firing for a moment and threw two grenades in quick succession to a cluster of enemy troops towards the right of their line then resumed firing on the left of the line.

  Mark could see that her grenades had done more than just distract the troops she had targeted. He counted seven soldiers in the cluster, two of whom had pulsing armour. Ignoring Orange’s order to keep down and to work from left to right, Mark brought up his Mark Eight while shuffling along to keep sheltered by Ti’rrk’s armour, and lifted up just enough to target one of the soldiers with depleted energy field armour. With his field attenuator targeted, he fired two shots at the targets head and the image of its armour went out. There was a brief pause in the fire coming from the remaining six soldiers - just long enough for Mark to target and fire at the other pulsing armour, and that went out too. Feeling that he had pushed his luck far enough, Mark ducked down out of the line of fire.

  By now, Ti’rrk had finished moving forward and Orange was bobbing up to add his fire to Ti’rrk and Mike’s.

  “Orange, if we move forwards another fifteen metres I can reach them with grenades.” Mark said to Orange across the comm link.

  “We’re plenty close enough. Your armour hasn’t recovered enough for you to do anything yet. This should all be over soon, some of them are running. I noticed you disobeying orders, you’ll get yourself killed.” Orange replied, continuing to fire.

  A grenade exploded right in front of Ti’rrk, seconds later another exploded just to their right.

  “Mike - break cover, go right. Try to see where they are coming from.” Orange ordered.

  Mike left the safety of Ti’rrk’s shelter and broke into a crouching run dropping down to lay on the ground about twenty metres to the right. Mark followed her.

  “Fuck!” Mark heard Orange over the comm link. “If you get killed Mark, Sally’s going to be furious with me!”

  Mark dropped down just behind Mike, using her for cover and propped himself up on her to scan for targets.

  “Nice to have your company.” Mike said dryly.

  “Just keep still so I can shoot straight!” Mark snapped back.

  “The grenade thrower is at the corner of the square building right in front of me.” Mike broadcast on the comm link.

  Mark caught a glint of moonlight on an
object in the air heading toward him. “Incoming!” He shouted and ducked down behind Mike.

  The grenade fell short of them and about ten metres to the right. As soon as it detonated Mark got back into a firing position laying half on top of Mike. “You OK?” He asked her.

  “Yes - shoot the bastard!”

  Mark was already on target and pouring continuous fire toward the grenadier. The enemy soldier ducked behind the corner of the building but Mark’s AI continued to track it. The rapid pulses from his Mark Eight tore through the walls of the building and hammered into the soldier’s armour. Mike was firing her Mark Eight into him too and although their field attenuators were ineffective through the walls, the soldier’s armour couldn’t hold up to such a savage assault for long and began to pulse for a few moments and then - the soldier was gone.

  “Any particular reason you are laying on top of me?” Asked Mike.

  “Check out my armour level. I’m using you as a shield.”

  ”Oh, I see. A girl really likes to be appreciated. That explains why Orange was shouting at you.” Mike said. “I suggest we keep an eye out for anyone else throwing grenades and get back to firing on the left.”

  Mike and Mark started picking off the enemy with pulsing or collapsed armour on the left that were under fire from Ti’rrk and Orange. There weren’t many of the enemy soldiers left now. Most of those that weren’t dead had melted away into the forest and soon there was nothing left to fire at. They stood up and walked back to Ti’rrk and Orange.

  Debrief

  Mark wasn’t looking forward to seeing Orange after disobeying his order. He didn’t know much about army discipline, but thought that disobeying a direct order would probably be frowned upon.