Exodus: The Orion War Read online

“Tell me why, lieutenant?”

  “Charlie’s faltering at the center.”

  “Should we cover your move?”

  “No. Keep tight over here ‘till I get back.”

  “I’ll hold the wedge on this side.”

  “Where’s the lieutenant going?”

  “Don’t worry about her, boy. Keep moving.”

  “Sergeant, where’s she going?”

  “She’s gone to fix Charlie. She’ll be right back!”

  Click-clack, click-clack. The signature sound of pink-crystal infantry masers.

  Poom, poom, poom. Frag grenades exploding in quick succession.

  Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. Hissss, hissss. Poom, poom, poom.

  Screams. Groans. Pleas. Low moanings. Sharp cries of pain. The sounds of men and boys dying in bushels. Then silence. The silence of the dead that will deafen wailing mothers.

  Snick! Slice! The sounds of Madjenik’s pent up rage and hate cutting into corpses lying inert as the adrenal platoons pass them by. They just can’t leave them be. The dead are always giving offense.

  Back on the far right flank of the charge Jan lopes over to find out what the hold-up is He signals ahead while moving under and past Dog, before bringing Easy into visual contact.

  “Move it Easy!”

  “Watch your reds!”

  “You’re falling behind.”

  Easy has trouble sealing a large bunker and takes several casualties from RIK men it left alive too long, giving them time to recover and shoot back. It’s slowing down under the burden of helping five of its walking wounded who are failing badly to keep pace. It’s also struggling to carry two severely burned women and four dead. That means Easy platoon is effectively down more than a dozen fighters. Jan sees it all inside a moment as he arrives.

  “Hipper! Move ahead with all able-bodied Easy fighters. Assign a squad of ten to help your seven wounded keep up, but move on with the rest of Easy.”

  “Sir, my wounded …”

  “Reestablish left flank contact with Dog.”

  “But sir, you said we never leave any …”

  “Corporal, do as you’re ordered.”

  “Yes sir.” Tom still hesitates to leave his wounded. Jan better explain fast and get control of Easy or he’ll lose Tom and the flank. Easy could come apart right here in the middle of a fight.

  “Look Tom, we can’t break pace with the wedge. Easy has to hold its place in the main assault line or you open up the whole right flank to enfilade. These bâtards will not stay down and out forever. We have to get all Madjenik out of this kill zone. Easy is vital to that end.”

  “Got it. You’re right of course, captain.”

  “I’ll see to your wounded.”

  “Thank you, captain.”

  “Now move your fucking platoon.”

  “First Squad, fall out and help the wounded.”

  “Second and Third Squads, stretch the line.”

  “Fourth Squad, find Dog’s flank and stick to it like fleas.”

  Tom grins at his own unintended wit, as does all of Fourth Squad.

  “Everyone not in First Squad, on my tail right now!”

  Most of Easy is back on the move, securing the far right flank and stretching out an arm to find and stay in contact with Dog.

  Jan turns to the wounded seven and to First Squad. Two helpers already have strong arms around the burn cases, raising them to the company of the other walking wounded. Eight more are about to pick up four litters of dead fighters, two-by-two. Everyone is scared shitless.

  “We won’t leave without you. I promise.”

  “Thank you, captain.”

  “One thing. You stretcher bearers, get the worst of the wounded on those litters. Start with that boy with the thigh wound. He’s trying to keep up but slowing you all down. It’ll be faster to carry him. The girl, too.”

  “We don’t have enough litters. What about our dead?”

  “Leave our dead fighters where they lie.”

  “Captain?”

  “The dead won’t mind.”

  “But captain, leave them after coming all this way, so close to the end?

  “It’s what they’d want. Let that bâtard Death have them, if he even dares to be in the company of any Wrecker from Easy of Madjenik. Death will live to regret the invitation!”

  It’s a truly corny boast, but in the heat of combat they love him for it. They need just such a reason to leave their dead friends behind, to choose instead to live and fight on for them.

  When he vowed to himself to leave no one behind ever again he meant no one living. Only a fool of a commander orders good live fighters to risk all to retrieve or carry out dead ones in the middle of an intense fight. And Jan Wysocki is neither a fool nor a bad officer.

  “You just keep moving as best you can. We’ll cut a path through these locust for you. Stay in HUD range. Follow our blue. We won’t leave any red behind us. But if you do get pinned down, sit tight. I’ll come back for you personally with all Madjenik.”

  They know he means it and that the Wreckers would do it. They nod to him gratefully. He doesn’t see their gratitude. He’s already zag-gliding at max speed, back to the center of a wedge that’s threatening to dissolve. Looking now to goad and reposition wandering Charlie.

  ‘My damn snow geese idea’s not looking so good right now. The big Vic is stalling.’

  He’s blaming himself again, as he always does. In fact, the combat friction that’s badly slowing down Madjenik’s flying wedge on the right flank would have caterpillared, to further slow and discombobulate its whole line, if he’d stayed in the general’s single formation.

  Watching the little battle for the crater unfold on viewscreens and live out her high tower window, General Amiya Constance reaches the very same conclusion. ‘Is this Ghost of the Wood really the one?’

  More movement. More shooting. More funk holes turned into death traps. More pitiless killing. Grenades tossed into ripped open apertures on the fly, smashing apart startled faces peering up and out. Officers are astonished to see fighters in oakish weaves flashing so close, then to feel sudden hot glaring lasers scoring the inner bunker wall behind their heads. Before they can react, incoming gas and frag grenades end all their life-long arrogance and ambition.

  Private Jarred Whitmore cries out “Got him!” as he fires his maser right into the face of a looming, tanned-looking man with pleasant features and close-cropped black hair. Now the pleasant-looking man has no face at all. Or hair. Or head. It’s Jarred’s first ever kill shot.

  Zofia moves in a whirling blur, thumping Jarred hard on the back to get him going, back into line with his mates in Charlie. “Whitmore! He was already dead. Try to hit a live one next time. And keep moving, there aren’t any fucking flowers out here!”

  ‘Why does she always have to shout at me?’

  Jan joins Zofia at the center, where both urge Charlie to speed up. Then they look back to the flanks, where things are going poorly, but for different reasons.

  “Charlie is fucking everything up by stalling out. You go back to the left and take direct charge. Something’s happening with Able and Baker over there. They’re moving out ahead of Charlie, much faster than they should be moving. Find out what’s going on.”

  “Where will you be?” Zofia asks it as she’s already combat-gliding left, fast.

  “I’ll take the right, and I’ll push Charlie. If we don’t move faster here at the center our wedge will become a bent bow instead. It’s already happening: the flanks are now in front.”

  Jan accelerates Charlie’s pace so that it moves ahead of Dog at least, but sees Easy struggle to stay in the line, staggering in its echelon position then accelerating until it badly overshoots the mark and takes the lead. He calls angrily over the HUD command link.

  “Damn it, Hipper, you gotta watch your speed and position. You’ve got Easy ahead of Dog. Hell, you’re also ahead of Charlie at the center now.”

  “Easy, thr
ottle back.”

  “Adjust glide boots to half speed, on my mark … mark!”

  “Tom Hipper here, sir. My fault. It won’t happen again.”

  “It better not. We can’t have gaps. I know you’re short 20 fighters, Tom. All the more reason to keep Easy locked in the big ‘V.’ Re-form. Keep pace with Dog. Stay 20 glides back, hard on its flank. Don’t straighten the line. Dog, you keep pace with Charlie here in the middle, also 20 glides back. Everyone stay in contact, but I want a fucking wedge, not a line! Move it!”

  The big, black-haired sergeant in charge of Dog lost his out-voice coms to a glancing hit to his helmet right at the start. He hears his captain but can’t voice back. Luckily Jan’s in visual range. So he gives him a thumb-and-index circle sign instead: Understood.

  The terrain is becoming an issue, but that’s not what forces a change on the left flank, ragging the vital wedge that Jan so wants to maintain. Over there, Able and Baker race ahead on the other side of Charlie, 250 meters to its left. Fighters are shooting, cursing, raging, out of control. One howls “Remember the Old Forest Road!” and all the others howl back and shoot.

  They’re all in hot blood. They give no quarter to crying boys and wounded men with arms held up, beseeching them for mercy. They murder everyone. Armed and unarmed.

  Prone wounded too hurt to pray or protest. Terrified crawlers tugging at wheat leggings standing over them before a hot muzzle pressed to their temple blows them apart, pleading with big eyes in upturned faces that disappear in a microwave blast of red chunks and cheekbone. Older men kneeling with folded, praying hands, lying to young women who don't give a shit.

  “I have three children, please!”

  Click-clack, poom, poom.

  “Fuck you and your children!”

  Frightened boys from Yokohama and Nagoya hold arms high and palms out, crying “gomenasai! gomenasai!” No one in Madjenik listens to their cries of “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  Not after the armtrak ‘grindings’ of KRA prisoners at the MDL. Not after all the firefights in Pilsudski Wood. Not after the bombing and burning of the Gold Oak Forest. Not after the stark gray, silent and faceless statues and cone piles of ash on the Old Forest Road.

  Resistance evaporates in face of primal ferocity and madness. Terrified officers and men slam armored shutters on exposed bunkers positioned all around the outer rim, hoping the furia Krevia will pass without pausing to kill them. Men caught in the open drop weps and run.

  “That’s enough! Get back in formation, godsdamn you!” Jan hears Zofia struggling to regain control over Able and Baker, now in danger of running amok.

  Hears her calling “Stop!” over the company HUD as a pillbox erupts in leaping flames and dying screams, but troopers keep on shooting into clouds of dark smoke and fire.

  “They’re all dead you idiots. If you want kill RIK, follow me to the next target.”

  It’s getting dangerous, this rising lust and combat rage. Jan realizes Zofia is putting herself in front of it, in order to lead Able and Baker back to discipline on the far left flank. He must do something else. Charlie and the right flank of Dog and Easy have reached the middle of the blast zone. Jan steps in with an open broadcast sent to the whole company.

  “All platoons. Halt the advance and check your IFFs! We’re at the rendezvous line. Relief One will be on our HUDs in seconds. Put up your weapons, now!”

  Jan watches fighters from Dog finish off two kneeling and begging men just paces away. He hasn’t time to try to stop it, and isn’t sure he wants to. He repeats the order:

  “IFF all-company check. Check!”

  “Positive ID. Here they come!”

  It’s Relief One, right on time.

  “All platoons, halt movement and cease fire!”

  It’s a triple order. He gives it in a flash message over all HUDs, shouts it into the auditory channel, and whirls his left hand over his head, physically signaling: rally point!

  “Huzzzahhh!” echoes in his ears.

  It’s one of the ex-privates, a breveted NCO still flushed with combat lust. He sees Jan’s almost lethal look and stops cold, then stops his squad.

  “Must’ve forgotten he’s on the command link.”

  It’s Zofia in his ear. She’s back beside him at the rally point, with Able and Baker halted. He looks down and sees the bottoms of her weaves are burned black. She grins back at him from inside a dark visor.

  “Enough chatter!”

  Jan temporarily cuts everyone out of the all-company link, even Zofia. “All platoons halt in place right now. Hold up! Cease firing.”

  Intermittent, individual firing is still coming from all down Madjenik’s line. “Stop shooting! Check your fucking IFFs! That’s Relief One over there!”

  A half-platoon of leaderless RIK breaks cover and makes a sudden dash for it, running right across the firing sights of Dog’s stopped masers. Eighteen kids drop like broken dolls as blue-white bolts sear them bloody from behind. Three lie howling, wounded on the ground.

  “Dog, godsdamn it! Cease firing!”

  “Jablonski, get that platoon back under control.”

  Dog’s too eager shooters reluctantly go into a defensive-circle crouch. They stare like birders at the three thrashing, wounded youths they want to retrieve, to kill. They look slyly back at Jan and Zofia, like excited, chastised, well ... dogs.

  “Easy, hold position right where you are. You’re undermanned. Hipper, take two squads, one from Charlie, one from Dog. Go back and get the rest of Easy up here on the double. Get the wounded. Carry them yourself if you have to. No one gets left behind.”

  Hipper cuts out two squads and a medic and doubles back to escort Easy’s wounded. Other platoons have taken casualties, too. Zofia does a quick tally.

  “Thirty-five, captain.”

  Out of safe shooting range, two more Fahnleins of RIK combat-virgins, more than 80 Nagoyan youths, race madly away from Madjenik. Not knowing it has stopped to close up its ragged wedge and wait for Relief One to meet it in the middle of the battlefield. They run hard, panicking and utterly unaware of direction, desperate only to gain distance from the dreadful enemy behind them, from the tan terror they think is still gliding remorselessly after them.

  Blood and bone is all around Jan. Luckily, none of it belongs to friendlies approaching fast and now clear blue in his visor, closing on the jagged and running reds. He watches all 80 youths die seconds later, in real time and vision, running heedlessly onto the oncoming masers of Relief One. They’re shot down screaming “gomenasai!” There’s no pity left in this war.

  ‘As virgins we lived but bloody we died.

  We never once asked whether they lied.’

  It comes back as a half-memory. Something about an innocent teenage queen sacrificed to High Court politics. He turns it into an epitaph for all frail youth he’s helping to kill out here.

  Over on the far right of Relief One the same fate befalls over 200 ‘Purity’ volunteers from Schwyz. They throw down all weapons to raise their arms high, shouting “we surrender!” or “quarter! quarter!” Their enemies arriving from the Gate are not so different from Madjenik. They, too, have hot masers and months of built-up hatred humming in their hands. No RIK who begs for quarter in the shadow of the berm receives it. It’s a merciless slaughter.

  A few minutes more and all resistance ceases in and around the crater. Shooting stops, except for an intermittent pop, pop as some wounded or hiding man or boy in green is finished off. Madjenik visor checks show only blue active IFFs left within 1,500 meters on either flank, As Easy’s wounded catch up to the main body it’s just as Jan promised: no reds are left alive.

  ***

  Two fresh and unbloodied RIK battalions stand ready in attack position on those far flanks. They watch murderous scenes unfold in and around the crater without moving to aid or save dying comrades. Then they let Madjenik and Relief One leave.

  They want nothing to do with this terrible, deadly force, with hundreds of
pitiless killers marching the short distance back to the yawning Gate. Madjenik moves upright and defiant across a scorched battlefield, as if on parade. It’s weapons are warm and ready. Hot murder is on its hands and in its flashing eyes.

  RIK officers gaze in mute awe at once mocked Gelben. These are no “yellow” cowards moving to the city. They’re trailing pikes of exhaustion but all are walking upright, or carrying carbon-fiber litters of their wounded.

  Walking, not running.

  Walking, not gliding.

  Not hurrying at all.