CHAPTER 7
Noah stared out at the jungle. His entire body was sweating in the humidity and his Flanker uniform was cooling him just enough to stave off heat exhaustion. Despite sweltering inside his helmet, his eyes did not want to stay open.
He lost focus and gazed out to the distant clouds. He closed his eyes and his head bobbed forward. The drone of the truck along the road filled the darkness and for a moment, a single glorious moment, there was sleep.
A sharp poke to the thinner part of his armor under his shoulder snapped him back to semi-alertness.
“Huh, wha’?” Noah looked from side to side.
“We’re in hostile territory. No sleeping,” Mason said next to him.
“I wasn’t—I mean—sorry. I don’t remember the last time I slept, and things are sort of . . . blurry.” Noah slapped a palm against his thigh plates.
“Why didn’t you sleep when the Izmir was stuck in orbit for hours? Like I told you to,” Mason said. “Docs were handing out z-pills.”
“Because I wanted to see the planet from orbit and I had to re-check my gear. Again,” Noah said.
“I told you to get some sleep before we hit atmo. There a reason you didn’t listen to me?” Mason asked. “Here I am, your older brother who’s been deployed before and who had to swear up and down to Mom, Dad, aunts, uncles, cousins and the grans that I’d take care of you and I tell you to do something—especially when I’m your Saint-damned section leader—and you think I’m kidding or something?”
“Okay, okay!” Noah adjusted his seat. “I just don’t understand why all this is happening so fast. When we were training back home, the officers kept telling us how well we’d be taken care of when fighting for the Hegemony.”
“You believed the recruiter and not the veterans who told you differently. How’s that working out for you?” Mason said.
“I can’t believe we signed up for two years of this,” Noah said.
“Two years, ‘needs of the service depending,’” Mason laughed. “Which means the Hegemony can keep us all on as long as it needs to. They normally won’t, as the last time they tried that half the Deseret sector almost revolted.”
“Oh . . . God,” Noah said.
“It’s fine. You’re young and have the time and health to bounce back from this stint. Just stay awake. I let you sleep and everyone’ll assume I’m letting it slide because you’re my brother,” Mason said.
“You could. Then I’d tell Mom and everyone what good care you’re taking of me.”
“Home is a hundred-and-eighty-four lightyears and two months in hyper away. Our chain of command is in this convoy and a lot less forgiving of any bullshit, Noah. The only easy day was yesterday.”
“That’s the thing, I don’t know when yesterday even was. I should’ve bought some caffeine pills.” Noah yawned.
“Want a nicotine strip? First one will put some juice in your boots.” Mason tapped a pouch on his chest harness.
“No, those things will kill—”
The first explosion came from the front of the convoy. The blast hit Noah across his entire body, a gust of pain and pressure from out of a clear blue sky. Soldiers in the truck bed cried out in fright and surprise.
Noah flinched down as the blast reverberated through the trees, sending flocks of bats into the air.
“What . . . was that?” he asked. A bit of ice formed in his chest, growing into a fist of fear that coursed through his entire body with each beat of his heart.
Mason stood atop the bench, peering forward.
“G-get down!” Noah reached for his brother’s belt only to have his hand swatted away. A priority transmission flashed on Noah’s visor. An image of a scorched security vehicle on its side hung in front of his vision, a red border pulsing around it. KIA notifications pinged from inside the vehicle and a burning lump half in, half out, of the jungle.
“Look alive!” Amos swung the turret to the left and lifted up an olive drab baton. He slammed the bottom against the cab and a small drone ejected with a ploomp. The Dagger drone’s repulse rings snapped out and the device flew in a loose spiral away from the truck. He pointed a knife hand at Donan. “Eyes up. There ain’t never just one—”
The crack and hiss of a rocket-propelled grenade launching caught Noah’s ear. He glanced through the holo screen on the side of the truck and saw a bright orange warhead screaming at him.
Noah froze, unable to even groan out a warning.
The projectile shot between his truck and the one ahead of them and careened off trees on the other side of the road.
Amos opened fire, the rapid pulse from the muzzle clapped against Noah’s helmet as the rounds chopped an arc through the green where the RPG had come from.
“Dismount. Action left!” Mason grabbed Noah by the carry handle on the back of his shoulders and chucked his brother over the side rail. Noah went head over heels and landed hard on his side, the armor plates and his Flanker frame taking the brunt of the impact, but not all.
Noah fought to breathe, his diaphragm stunned and refusing to cooperate. Bullets snapped through bushes and cracked over his head as it felt like every tree in the jungle had opened fire. Noah looked back at the truck and realized it was a giant target. Mason vaulted over the side and landed on two feet, firing off half a magazine on full auto. He moved at a half crouch and seized Noah by the carry handle again.
“Take fucking cover, you idiot!” Mason dragged Noah toward the jungle. He turned back to the truck where Donan moved spastically trying to get over the side rail, like his limbs had turned to rubber and he was trying to go two places at once.
Amos tilted the barrel of his turret-mounted machine gun up and yanked the spent magazine from one side. He did a double take at the jungle and opened his mouth to scream.
Noah didn’t see what hit the cab, but the driver’s door shook and the bullet-resistant glass on the window went cloudy as millions of cracks suddenly appeared. Amos looked down, his jaw open.
The front of the truck exploded into fire. The armored plating became flaming shrapnel that gouged out a hunk of the road right in front of Noah’s face. The overpressure slapped him against the quickcrete and his hearing became nothing but a persistent whine.
Noah laid there in shock, frozen as the dead body of the driver, his entire corpse burning, slumped out of the inferno and onto the road in pieces.
Mason kicked Noah in the side, then dragged him down the side of the road and into the low bushes flanking the road.
“Are you hit?” Mason put his face plate against Noah’s. “Are. You. Hit?”
“N-no.” Noah found the strap that kept his carbine attached to his chest rig and gripped his weapon.
“Then do your job!” Mason held his carbine up and let off a burst.
Noah rolled to his knees and elbows. The sound of the ambush came to him, explosions and gunfire sounded around him. He put one foot against the ground and stood up.
He didn’t see the insurgent who shot him, but he saw the muzzle flash from deep in the jungle. Bullets struck his chest plate like hammer blows. He reeled back and landed half on the road. His chest burned and breathing was a struggle.
“Mom?” He touched his chest and a hot spot stung his fingers through his gloves. He tilted his head up and saw two smoking divots in his chest plate. He managed a deep breath and didn’t feel any sharp pain, nor did he cough up any blood on his exhale.
“Noah?” Mason shouted as he tossed a grenade into the jungle. More Flankers milled around the tree line, some firing, others crouching behind tight-branched bushes.
“Mmm okay. I’m okay!” Noah sat up. Adrenaline replaced the fear and he scrambled into the edge of the jungle.
A drone zipped overhead and burst into hundreds of fléchettes near the enemy. Screams of pain and shouts of warning in a language Noah had never heard before reached him. He lifted his carbine to his shoulder and fired a burst at his best guess where the enemy was.
His first shots in anger knocked something loose inside of him. He noticed his HUD again, heard the orders shouted by his brother and other sergeants. A target ID flashed on his visor. Noah lined up the optics from his carbine and set his carbine to full auto. He emptied his magazine, fighting to keep the muzzle from rising as the butt stock pushed hard against his shoulder.
“Down! Everyone down!” Mason shouted. He tackled his brother and covered him with his own body.
The whine of rotary cannons came from the trucks carrying the Cataphract suits. A stream of bullets with white hot tracer shells tore through the jungle, cutting through tree trunks and launching branches into the air. They arced downward into the fusillade and were shredded before they could hit the ground.
“Get off of me!” Noah squirmed out from under Mason, but the sergeant kept one hand tight on his shoulder.
“Mortar strike coming, stay down,” Mason growled.
True to his word, the crump of shells and tremors through the ground came from the jungle. The barrage continued for almost a minute, the sound lessening as the line of impact walked further and further from the road.
“Drones got us clear,” Mason said. “Don’t trust ’em, though. Keep your head on a swivel.”
“Got it.” Noah shrugged his shoulder away as Mason bent his head forward, listening to orders from someone. He looked back at the truck; the vehicle had slumped forward at an angle, the tires still burning. “Where . . . where’s Donan?”
Noah touched a thumb to his forearm computer and a small cover popped up.
“I’m going to ping Donan,” Noah said. “I don’t see him anywhere.”
“Don’t.” Mason shook his head.
“He’s my battle buddy and I’ve lost him!” Noah began to panic. “Donan? Donan come in . . .”
He sent an IR pulse that wouldn’t travel more than ten meters in the high humidity and an icon appeared on his visor, pointing to tall grass a few strides from the road.
“Why is nothing else coming through? I’m going for him.” Noah slipped away before Mason could stop him. Bits of dried grass smoldered around metal fragments that had sliced through the off-gray blades.
Noah slapped a thin hedge aside and found Donan. The soldier was on his back, his visor shattered. Donan’s dead eyes stared at the sky, his face cut up and still oozing blood. One arm was missing at the shoulder, the jagged ends of his Flanker frame still there, ending at the elbow. His legs were charred black, the white of the bones in his feet jutting out from melted boots.
Noah was still, not even breathing, as he refused to believe his friend was dead.
“Donan . . . battle brother, can you hear me?” Noah inched closer to the body. The world was as silent as Donan. He choked down a sob as his friend would never answer him again.
“I’ve got this.” Sergeant Corre set a heavy Cataphract’s mitt of a hand on Noah’s shoulder. Smoke wafted from the barrels of his rotary cannon. The mortar tube on his back was stained black from use and the smell of propellant stung Noah’s senses. “You’ve taken some hits. Go see the medic, son.”
“Sarge, he . . . he was right next to me just a few minutes ago,” Noah said.
“I’m the platoon ferryman,” Corre said. “He was your friend, but he was my soldier. It’s my job to take care of him. Go see the medic. Now.”
“But his—” Noah pointed back to the smoking truck in shock, “—all his stuff.”
The truck tipped onto the left-side tires with a groan, then fell over and rolled off the road with cracks of plastic side rails and sputters of flames and sparks from the front in-wheel engines. Noah flinched back and took cover behind the cab of the nearest truck.
The three Cataphracts that had flipped the damaged truck away put their metal-shod palms against the side-turned bottom of the truck and shoved as one, sending the wreck and the bodies still in the cab off the road and clearing it.
“There’s still . . .” He raised a hand and let it fall to his side.
“Second squad Flankers, cross level to First squad’s truck. We’re not staying here and waiting for the enemy to regroup,” Corre said over the squad net.
“Hey, buddy.” A Flanker with a red cross on his chest and arm-plate tapped Noah on the side of the head. “Looks like you took some hits. Let’s get you in the back of this truck so I can give you a once over, yeah?”
“My stuff’s in there,” Noah said, his tone dejected.
“It’s just stuff.” The medic pulled Noah up into the back of a truck and sat him down. There was a hiss against his neck and Noah suddenly felt much lighter.
“Whoa . . .” He wobbled from side to side.
“Easy there, champ, the Float will keep your blood pressure up while I check you out. Any spike of adrenaline and the happy feelings go bye bye. Stay calm and enjoy it.” The medic snapped his fingers open and his palm glowed.
Noah floated along in the chemically induced bliss. Glimpses of the fight flashed in his mind as the truck rumbled forward. He nodded off for just a second when there was a sharp pain against his chest.
“No sleeping.” The medic rubbed his knuckles up and down Noah’s sternum. He wasn’t sure when his body armor had been opened, but he looked down at bare skin and two bleeding welts. Star-shaped scars the size of his pinky nail dotted his skin.
“I get shot and I still can’t sleep?” Noah slurred.
“I haven’t checked you for a concussion yet,” the medic said. “You had the pox pretty bad, eh? Lucky you survived.”
“Didn’t feel that way when I was stuck in bed for months.” Noah tried to swipe his hand across his mouth to wipe a bit of drool away but managed to bump his knuckles against his closed helmet instead. He pawed at the release under his chin when a hand grabbed him by the wrist and pushed his arm down.
Mason was beside him, the opacity of his face plate turned off so Noah could see his face. His eyes were heavy with emotion, his brow tense and his lips thin. Two packs with char marks were between his knees.
“He gonna be okay, doc?” Mason asked.
“Contusions look worse than they really are. Vitals are fine. I’ll cc you his file so you can file a Broken Star medal,” the medic said. “Go ahead and button up, champ. Meds will wear off in a couple minutes, then you’re on ibuprofen and water.”
“Is anyone else hurt?” Noah asked.
“Sergeant Rochelle’s section’s fine. Cataphracts lost ammo and that’s it,” Mason said. “Don’t know about the rest of the battalion. Don’t do this to me again, Noah. Christ, I should never have fought to keep you in my section. I can’t think straight when you’re in trouble.”
“It’s Mom’s fault . . . I get hurt and you’re a dead man when you get home,” Noah slurred. “Hey, this stuff ain’t so bad. Maybe I’ll get shot in the plates again.”
“Don’t.” Mason rolled his eyes. “No more getting shot. You’ll get a medal eventually, but getting you new armor plates before the next fight is going to be a pain.”
“I wasn’t trying to get shot, you understand . . . Donan. Where is he?” Noah winced as the medication wore off.
“Don’t worry about him. He doesn’t have any problems,” Mason said. “Button up. Still got a way to go.”
Noah slapped his vest back together. Fragments of the broken plate in the front pouch rubbed against each other and his onboard systems struggled to automatically adjust the fit against him.
He slumped back against the bench and closed his eyes. No one protested as he fell asleep and leaned against his brother’s shoulder.
Mason kept his carbine in his hands, tightening and loosening his grip on the handle.