“On two.”
Wolfgang counted, then heaved, pulling Leah up, her feet scrabbling on the ice. His hand held her arm and she grabbed his arm with both hands. The sniper rifle felt awkward on his back, long and stiff, not allowing his body to contort the way it needed to in order for him to pull his fiancée up properly.
Her backpack weighed heavy on her, threatening to pull her backwards down the long slope.
He heaved again and she was able to get her knee up on the ledge where Wolfgang braced himself.
“Much longer?” she asked in German.
Wolfgang grunted. He didn’t know what to tell her. They still had a long way to go.
“How many more days?” Sergeant Goetze asked when they stopped on the one flat spot they could find on the side of the mountain. His voice sounded accusatory.
“These people are not trained to cross these mountains. I am not trained to cross these mountains,” Wolfgang shot back, lying on his pack trying to work out his shoulder. He pulled a muscle hauling Leah up a steep slope. If they had crampons or even an ice axe, it would be much easier. The overcast skies caused by the alien’s meteor bombardment changed the weather patterns, turning summer into winter. They found the snow line at a much lower altitude than anyone could have expected.
“I’m sorry. I’m exhausted,” Goetze replied, also falling back on his pack, carefully cradling his sniper rifle. Wolfgang had done the same before he rested, moving the weapon off his back.
“We make camp here,” the sergeant added.
“How much longer?” Leah asked again, close to tears.
Wolfgang shrugged bitterly.
“Three or four days at this rate,” Goetze said and his team huffed or sighed in frustration. He still looked at Wolfgang for confirmation and Wolfgang nodded this time. He had no idea how long it would take, though. It could take as long as two weeks at the rate they were traveling.
The squad stared around at the snow covered Alps and everyone knew they weren’t prepared or trained to cross these mountains.
“I can’t do it,” Leah said in Italian, too tired to speak a foreign tongue. No one understood the words but they gathered the sentiment.
“We better eat something warm while we can,” Wolfgang said. He got up on his knees, shucked his pack off, and began rummaging for the hiking stove.
“Sure. You have someone to keep you warm at night,” the corporal said. He was the only sniper on the team with a confirmed kill.
“Shut up,” Goetze ordered. Wolfgang ignored them both and busied himself with setting up the stove.
“She can keep me warm tonight. I’ll have more energy for tomorrow.” The corporal grinned and looked at the others for support, but no one smiled with him and Goetze ordered him to shut up again.
“I can say what I want,” he replied.
Goetze dove on the man, slugging him in the face. Wolfgang waited for the sergeant to land a couple of well deserved blows, then said, “It’s okay, sir.”
Goetze held up, then put his finger in the face of the man underneath him.
“Your experience does not put you in charge. I am in charge. I. Am. In. Charge.”
Wolfgang, apparently Goetze, and probably everyone else on the team tired of hearing the corporal brag about his two kills.
The corporal turned his head sideways, looking away from his commander who still lay on top of him. His face held a sullen, defiant expression.
Everyone was tired. Everyone was disappointed at their lack of progress. They’d climbed more meters in altitude than they had gone linear meters that day, and their position on Goetze’s topographical map looked unchanged. And they only had food for two more days unless they rationed.
Wolfgang wanted to say all this. He wanted to say words that would assuage the anger and the fear, but he also didn’t want to draw the sergeant’s ire. He continued setting up to cook food and another private, a tough as nails Tyrollean woman, began helping him.
“We should all huddle together for warmth,” she whispered to him.
August in the Alps shouldn’t have been bad, but the weather felt more like April or even March. He never would have come this high in the mountains as ill prepared as he was at that time of year. He thought about it all through the preparation and consumption of their meal, a quiet dinner.
“Can I see the map?” he asked Sergeant Goetze after he finished eating. The man handed it to him without a word.
Wolfgang carefully unfolded it and reviewed their location and the proposed path. They planned on approaching the target from the east, shielded from alien patrols by a steep ridge. They would cross along the slope of the mountains, several hundred meters below the ridge, for almost three kilometers. It was the perfect approach with the highest probability of success.
He had no idea how infantry units were going to reach the target undetected, but that was their problem, not his.
The issue was climbing two mountains to get into the shelter of that three kilometer long ridge. The mountain they were on and the one in front of it. Just under six kilometers on the map. But all the trails lay buried under snow and ice and Wolfgang didn’t always know the best way to lead them. Once on a slope of ice falling away hundreds of meters, there was no way down, only up and forward.
He was going to lead them all to their deaths.
Studying the map gave him an idea. A militarily poor idea if the weather were normal, but something that might work in the winter.
He showed Goetze a road that circled the mountain in front of them and led to their objective. They could leave it at the right spot and still approach in the shelter of the overlooking ridge. The road would be heavily traveled in good weather, but was probably useless now, muddy from snow and ice melt. They could hike in the trees alongside and stay out of sight of aerial reconnaissance.
“We won’t be able to climb this second mountain,” Goetze admitted wearily. “We’ll die if we try. We might as well go along this way.”
A day later, ankle deep in mud, he regretted his words.
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