Ashes

by Russ Linton

  Her tarp rattled. Donovan shoved his head past the door frame, and she flinched. She'd been expecting him for so long, it had coiled up inside her muscles waiting for the chance to trigger. Of course, he wasn't here so much for her, but her sat phone. Luckily, they hadn't instituted martial law in Restrepo and commandeered it.

  The smile he gave at her jump wasn't friendly. "Time to hit the hill."

  She steadied herself under his smug stare. A brief nod, that's all she would spare. Any sign of frustration or anger would only satisfy his recent confidence. His overly serious act had been justified in a twisted sort of way. All of them were as consumed as he'd been with doing the right thing. Donovan disappeared into the night, and she followed him, dragging on her vest, helmet, and shouldering her gear.

  Franklin met them at the wire along with Captain Perrino. Everyone else was at their posts, making sure the patrol wouldn't meet with any surprises.

  "You've done this before," said the Captain. "Up and back. Keep low. Message...the same."

  "Wouldn't want to change that message," grumbled Franklin.

  The Captain offered no response as he returned to his command post. Jackie watched him go. Months of familiarity had rendered the central command structure indistinguishable from the jumble of bare wood and piled sandbags which made up the rest of the base. She'd seen more convincing buildings in the slums of Mumbai. Still, for the first time, she found herself anxious about leaving.

  Jacobs came forward. She caught him rubbing the bracelet he wore. The names of every man lost under his command engraved the surface. If they made it out, he'd have to add another.

  "You ready?" he asked her.

  "Fuck off," she said. He smirked at the familiar game, no joy left in it. "But not too far."

  Jacobs snorted and spread his arms, backing away into shadow.

  She snapped a shot. Full aperture, long shutter speed. The 35mm fixed lens could make a portrait from starlight, she knew. But the results were always ominous. She didn't check to see if it had turned out.

  CHAPTER 18

  JACKIE CROUCHED LOW between Franklin and Donovan at the edge of the concertina wire. These first crucial seconds were always the hardest. No cover existed between here and the trailhead. Cleared to see incoming enemies, patrols had been ambushed right as they stepped outside the base.

  Donovan went first. The heavy 240 machine gun barely hampered his run. If anything, the reassuring weight probably held in check an urge to sprint recklessly. She watched the dimness devour him and waited for gunshots to shatter the calm. He'd just disappeared behind Angel Rock when Franklin tapped her shoulder.

  Jackie went into a choppy sprint. Each step felt dreamlike, the noise of her boots submerged beneath the blood in her ears. She invented a halfway point in her mind where she'd be closer to safety than death. The point continued to move. Heart racing, she made the first bit of cover and crouched stiffly by Donovan.

  Franklin sauntered after them.

  "What voices you think we'll hear up there, huh?" he called from somewhere near the halfway point. His smile returned in the blue dimness of a starlit night. Her only answer was the click of her shutter.

  They left the protection of Angel Rock to start the dangerous ascent. She could add plummeting from a goat trail in the dark to the list of ways to escape Korengal Valley. Unable to suppress it, she smiled. It would be a stupid way to go.

  A few minutes in, her hyper-alertness slackened. As the steep trail forced her knees higher, shoulders forward, fatigue replaced the constant paranoia. The "suck" offered a release from all the pent-up energy. Donovan had his 240 and Franklin had his rifle mounted with an M203 grenade launcher. All she carried was her Canon Mark 2 and a backpack loaded with equipment. Coronary Ridge, another aptly named way to escape.

  She'd been in similar positions so many times before and told herself she wasn't going to die. Work usually dragged her out of the terrifying thought. Back in her tent, it hadn't helped. She double checked the electrical tape over her display and snapped a useless picture of the mountains against the stars.

  "Keep moving," Donovan hissed.

  Jackie turned her focus to Mars. It burned a bright reddish hue among the silver specks. She let it lead her up the hill imagining they'd get there and instead of a speck, the point would be a globe, then a definite shape with arms, legs. A burning inferno in the night sky come to carry her out of this shithole. Her, the whole platoon.

  Only after she'd had a few words with Ember.

  Jackie would tell her what a shit mother she'd been. Tell her how her father drank himself to death over her. How he'd tried to raise a precious angel and raised a dike instead. Idolizing Augments as a kid had been slowly consumed by teenage angst and rage, then left to cool in a funeral parlor. Alone.

  Soon she was marching ahead of her escort.

  Jackie didn't stop to catch her breath once they reached the top. With shaky hands, she broke out her satellite phone while Franklin slung his communications gear off his back. She covered the LCD and powered it on. Nothing. She looked up again as if she could read the orbits of the satellites and diagnose the problem. The red star stayed far, far away.

  Franklin cursed and slammed the radio receiver. The move drew a brief glance from Donovan who kept his night vision active and returned to his sweeps of the valley.

  "They fucking left us here, you know. Left us."

  "Well, while we're up here, try the fuck again," Donovan said, eyeing Franklin at the far end of his sweep.

  "Why? Call out for supplies? Evac? Ain't gonna happen, you know that. We should've busted out of this death trap weeks ago when we had the chance."

  Donovan remained quiet. They all knew there'd never been a chance. One spectacular defeat and their enemy owned the valley.

  "Why don't we just walk this ridge that way, in the direction of the Pakistan border—" Franklin said.

  Donovan whirled. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

  "Sure, you all by the book," snapped Franklin. "We made it up here with no contact. Haj must be on some sort of religious break. Beatin' wives, worshiping the full moon."

  "And what about their new Augment leader?" Donovan said, his telescoping lenses stopping on Jackie.

  Jackie had been the one to report what she'd seen and shared the photo of the Lady. The Captain had ordered her to delete it which she had no intention of doing. The raw display of power should have been enough to confirm an Augment was involved. Some didn't want to believe, though. A rogue Augment took the situation from desperate to hopeless.

  "Earthquake," said Franklin, scowling at Jackie.

  Given daylight, she'd ignore their bullshit and continue taking pictures. There'd been a time they'd even have shrugged off the candid shots and laughed about how she'd photoshopped the drama. Not now. Under their uncertain glare, she needed a different tactic.

  "Let's both try again. One more time," she said.

  "There ain't going to be one more time, Jack. Don't you feel it, Jack? Taste the Haj sweat and gunpowder, Jack." Franklin edged close, his voice too loud. "Smell those fuckers in their sweaty manjammies crawling up the hills?"

  "Keep it down," Donovan said, shoving Franklin away with the butt of his 240.

  Laugh it off. Dry humping in the dirt. Those days were gone. She looked away from Franklin's intensity and down on the stark walls of the base. Gray in the starlight and broken up by splotches of camouflage netting, it was all so insignificant and much too far away.

  Franklin and Donovan continued arguing in hushed whispers. Peppered with enough loudly uttered fucks, Jackie decided she had no more to give. She gathered her gear and started down the trail.

  "What, now you in charge here?" Franklin called. Too fucking loud.

  "Freedom of the press, feminism, all that." She fixed on the base, determined to make them move with her. They would because despite the frayed nerves, they'd never let a man wander off alone. Behind her, rocks skittered, and gear clanked as they scram
bled to catch up.

  "Get your ass back here!"

  She stopped short as they reached her.

  "Shut the fuck up!"

  Fixed on the base, she'd been framing a nighttime shot she didn't have the proper time to stabilize her camera to take. Bristly shadows of the cedars along the slopes seemed to stir. She heard it now, a wind confined only to the valley floor. Cool evening air remained pressed against her skin, cadaverous and cold.

  "What?" Franklin shouldered past.

  "Wait," she said, half reaching for him. This couldn't be. So far, the Lady had left the base under permanent siege to wither and die.

  Franklin gave her an annoyed look. She heard Donovan's boots crunch to a stop beside her. Shifting flakes of stone nudged her feet as he went prone. From the corner of her eye, she watched him adjust his night vision.

  "I got nothing," came Donovan's rushed reply. "Fuck. There." His 240 propped on the ground, he stretched out a finger into the night. "Two hundred yards from the wire, northwest corner."

  "Fuck. Fuck!" Franklin reached for the radio. "How many?"

  "Just the one. I—shit." Leaning toward the edge of the path, his 240 slipped, and he fell to one knee never taking his eyes off the shifting darkness.

  "Is it her?" Jackie asked.

  "Too far. I think so?"

  Franklin had already hailed the base. Muffled voices escaped the receiver pressed to his ear while he replied. "Copy...D says two hundred...northwest...tell Jacobs he's fucking blind."

  Jackie tried to follow Donovan's call outs. Nothing. Blackness. A writhing blackness of lurching trees. As she stared, she felt as though she were moving, earth slipping forward. Without thinking, she steadied herself on Donovan's shoulder.

  "Do you feel that?"

  Neither soldier answered. She found a point on the far horizon to fight the odd sensation. No, she'd been steady. It was the treetops, their conical hats marching toward the base. A ragged line screened the area Donovan kept describing.

  "The trees are moving," Jackie said.

  Franklin squinted into the black. He couldn't see any more than she could, maybe less. Jackie's eyes had been her weapon, her livelihood for as long as he'd been in the service. He continued to scour, weighing his skepticism against the movement of the trees.

  Soldiers drilled for this possibility. Engaging unknown weapons who wielded such immense powers meant the only real response was to call in your own Heavy and hunker down while heaven and earth split open. Without that option, you emptied every weapon you had in hopes you'd trip some vulnerability. In a situation where you were under siege, waiting to die, the resulting waste of ammunition could be your last breath.

  Franklin pressed the receiver tight to his ear, his free hand poised and jittering in the air. "Augment contact! Augment contact!" An unheard go ahead, and he swatted Donovan's helmet excitedly. "Light the bitch up! They'll follow!"

  She clapped her hands over her ears, but too late. Stretched out behind the 240, Donovan opened fire. Franklin fell beside him to help feed the rattling beast. Bright tracers pumped into the valley below. Unimaginable destruction spewed from inside the makeshift fortifications.

  Jackie gave up on her ringing ears and readied her own sights. The battlefield revealed itself in sudden bursts. She captured mortar shells exploding in fiery clouds followed by the delayed thump of their launch and rumble of detonation. Lances of fire and showers of sparks played havoc with the camera's metering. Automatic settings were useless mid-firefight. Her own presets and intuition took over, learned from sleepless nights spent in sandy bunkers and wrecked city streets.

  "Mayday, mayday!" Franklin shouted into his radio. "Augment contact, FOB Restrepo. Request support. Request Heavies, pronto. Anybody?"

  A quick turn and she framed Franklin's face in the afterglow of the chaos. They'd already made so many unanswered calls, but she knew why he tried. Like her, he acted on raw instinct and training. Shit hits the fan, and nobody thinks about desperation or bravery or the fear eating away their insides. She knew, he knew, the cry for help was hopeless, their whole situation, hopeless, but he'd go down the mental checklist hammered into him deeper than the relentless barrage of enemy and friendly fire.

  Below, the barricades darkened. Spools of barbed steel merged with an advancing undergrowth. The outer walls lurched and crumbled forward, devoured by the creeping shadow of vegetation. She would watch them all die.

  "Keep your pants on. You got Augments." She barely heard the broken reply over the receiver, limp in Franklin's hand.

  They stared at each other, incredulous. Even Donovan, his gun left to hiss in the chilly air. They had memorized the distinct character of each and every platoon member's voice over the radio. This one was new.

  "Augment team, stand by for coordinates of target." Franklin smacked Donovan to prompt a call out.

  "Negative, we got eyes on. And don't lay off that fire from the ridge, 'cause it won't hit us anyhow. Get ready to evac that base. You're gonna want to keep ahead of us."

  Massive pines and a tangle of brush continued to creep over the sandbag emplacements. Netting tore free of anchors, consumed by vegetation. Jackie captured the muzzle flares as men retreated, firing wildly into a wall of bark, needles, and stone. She rose to a crouch and backpedaled, her camera shutter chattering.

  At the far edge of the camp, a bright gout of fire unleashed. Sustained, she quickly ruled out yet another explosion. It receded into a continuous trickle, never fully disappearing. Trees burst into flame, and a figure moved in the shadows.

  Whoever it was, they wielded fire.

  She backed down the trail, framing wasted shots of her escort. Neither looked up to see her edge further and further away. At night, her telephoto lens was useless. No way she could zoom close enough to be sure. This, she needed to see. She had to know.

  Her backpedaling became a sideways shuffle, then a run. Taking the loose trail at full speed was more dangerous than the trudging climb upward. Reaching into her shirt, she pulled out the necklace tucked underneath her vest. She clutched it tight as she skittered down the slope, her camera gripped in the other hand providing a fearful balance as the strap bit into her neck.

  A fierce smile broke across her face. The voice had said Augments, plural. Fire. Augment. Who else but Ember?

  CHAPTER 19

  SMOKE BLURRED JACKIE's vision as she pressed her eye to the viewfinder. Flames licked at the hilltop base. What concertina wire remained visible glowed an angry red. It took everything she had to stomach the coughing long enough to get a clean shot. The fire hadn't stopped the valley's advance, only slowed it.

  Granite slabs and towering trees continued to reclaim chunks of the base. Those same timbers and slabs had braced entire villages on steep slopes in defiance of earthquakes and bunker-busting bombs. Jackie realized the miracle wasn't in the design of those stubborn settlements but in the strength of the valley itself. An iron will which had been mobilized.

  This close to the base, she could feel the heat. Her eyes searched for a new shape—feminine and wearing the corona of the sun against a slim and deadly figure. The whole way down the steep trail, Jackie had let that image settle in her brain until it was all she could see. It had driven her out of the darkness at a frantic pace. She'd slid through scree in barely controlled slides, running in the brief moments she kept her feet underneath her. Pants ripped, legs gashed along with the palm she'd used to control her descent, the one thought on her mind was Ember.

  Inside the orange aura, she instead saw a man. He was old, the harsh illumination deepening the scowl on his face which balanced a thin cigarette. He wore government issued fatigues, combat webbing, and an olive drab T-shirt stained with sweat and dirt. His arms were hard, like the cedars. In his hands, he gripped the wand of a flamethrower. He squinted at her under fluffy, white eyebrows and released another jet of flame into the encroaching wilderness.

  "You gonna take a picture or fall the fuck back?"

  Jacki
e took a picture.

  The man gritted his teeth, clenching the cigarette. Ash and sparks trailed free on a wind created by the inferno. A snarl of undergrowth braided with concertina wire clawed toward him. Another burst of the flamethrower and it withered away.

  "C'mon," he said.

  She'd heard of this Augment: Hound. Some of her mentors had caught fleeting glimpses on battlefields of yesterday. A relic, he wasn't a likely candidate to save them from whatever horror currently tried to consume them. He walked back toward the trenches calmly, holding the flamethrower aloft in one hand and reaching for a tactical radio with the other.

  "Y'all clear of the base? Back off that cover fire now. We gotta get to work. Don't worry 'bout your reporter. She's with us."

  Us? Jackie stood speechless, not sure which way to turn. Then she felt a shiver run down her neck. Camera aimed, she whirled. The inky depths of the trench ran like an open wound in the flickering landscape. She waited for movement, listened for any sound above the crackling fire and the leviathan groan of the trees. Nothing.

  She raced after Hound. Another photo filled her memory card, this one of the front line. Another. The aging soldier striding away, a heavy tank of fuel strapped to a straight, unflagging back. A smile threatened her cheeks. This wasn't Ember, but she'd never been so close to an Augment before.

  Hound twitched his head, his nose angled toward the fire-borne breeze. Jackie had a second to react. He spun, pistol in hand, sending several rounds back toward the slope. From a crouch, she captured the flare of the gun, a sudden blur of motion. Where he'd fired, a web of trees boiled from the flames. Green and piled with dirt, they absorbed each shot.

  "Hurry it up," he shouted to her. "And don't stop to take the next photograph. She's too close. You need cover."

  They hustled deeper into the outpost. The web of trees peeled open and she saw a ripple of green cloth right as one of the outbuildings cut off her view. She nearly stopped and ignored Hound's warning. A stern, slant-eyed glare and she kept pace.