Caterpillar Without A Callsign (2 page)

And so it went.

We eventually reached the tribal village, which was really just a bunch of dwellings carved into the rock of the mountain. Caves with curtains.

TJ
sent out three HS3s—hover squad support system drones. The basketball-sized robots floated from dwelling to dwelling, slowly mapping out the place for our HUD (heads-up-display) maps. A HUD was overlaid onto every squad member's vision courtesy of the aforementioned Implants we had in our heads. My squad brothers appeared as green dots on that map, while the HS3s marked out civilians in blue and hostiles in red, though none of the latter had been detected yet. There wasn't too fine a line between a civilian and a hostile—basically anyone who carried a gun was marked in red. Of course, usually the people in those houses, civilians and hostiles alike, hid themselves pretty good when the HS3s came in, so we always had to follow up with a manual sweep.

We didn't have any of the
AI-driven infantry robots known as Centurions with us, so we had to go in and do the sweep ourselves. We split up into two five-person fire teams, with one ATLAS mech per team. While the mech took up a position outside one of the dwellings (they were too big to fit the diminutive doorways, which were actually perfect for my height), the rest of the fire team ducked inside and cleared the dwelling.

We'd been going from dwelling to dwelling for an hour so far,
and other than a lot of frightened residents, we found no insurgents.

How could you tell an insurgent from
a normal villager, you might ask?

Well,
besides the fact that they shot first and asked questions later, they'd have a stash of weapons in their dwelling. And they dressed differently. Usually in black and gray digital camos with dark boots and headgear. This in stark contrast to the traditional garb of the tribesmen: white cloaks, fur sheepskin hats, Yak boots. Some of the fanatics had gotten smart lately though, and started wearing the same cloaks and hats as the locals. So we were forced to give a thorough pat-down to any residents we encountered, which got us some nasty looks from the women-folk and their mothers.

So yeah
, my fire team finally made contact a little into the second hour.

We were standing
beside a dwelling near the outskirts of the village, at the top of a sharp cliff. To our right was a steep escarpment—one misstep and we'd plummet right off that mountain. Good thing we all had jetpacks. The dwelling itself didn't look much different from any of the others. A plain gray curtain hung over the doorway carved into the rock, with another curtain higher up on the second story "window." On the top, smoke from a chimney vented out. Well, "chimney" was a bit of a misnomer—it was just a hole in the rock ceiling. Usually the dwellings had a small room known as a "smoke" room set aside for wood burning. The residents would use the room to generate warmth and cook meals. Sometimes those rooms served as sweat lodges, and were these wide-spaced areas with benches carved into the rock around the firepit. I guess when you lived in a cold environment, you thought up all these creative ways to keep warm.

Facehopper,
the leading petty officer of my fire team (and the platoon itself), always went in first. This guy was your basic ladykiller—good looking, twinkling blue eyes, slight British accent. He was the kind of guy who could charm his way out of anything. Rumor had it he had five girlfriends back home, plus another one among the Marines on deployment here. You ask me, that was far more trouble than it was worth. The Marine girlfriend I mean.

You
definitely didn't want to piss the Marines off.

Anyway, Facehopper
slid aside the curtain of this particular dwelling and did a quick "pie" scan of the doorway with his rifle raised (that's where you step away from the wall in a circle or "pie" pattern, slowly increasing your angle of exposure to whatever trouble might be waiting inside). Then he went in. Fret followed behind him. I went in third.

The gunfire started when I stepped inside. I caught a brief glimpse of a staircase hewn into the rock, leading to a second floor with a wooden handrail, before I dropped and rolled for cover. I ended up behind a wooden table. Fret was right beside me. Facehopper
had taken cover on the far side of the chamber, near the doorway to another room—the smoke room, judging from the steaming firepit I could see from here.

T
wo attackers on the second floor
, Facehopper sent via his Implant, on the fire team comm line.

Indeed, t
wo red dots had appeared on the map overlaid on my HUD (heads-up-display), because one of us had spotted the attackers, and the Implant transmitted the locations to everyone else. Those dots were situated on the second floor of the 3D wireframe map that represented the house.

What about the room beside you?
Fret sent. The Implants only informed us of enemy contacts we (or the drones) had actually seen. If there was anyone in the smoke room, they hadn't been spotted yet.

We'll
deal with it after. Suppressive fire if you please.

Fret and I started
unloading our rifles at the balcony. Our ordinary vision was augmented so that the attackers themselves were highlighted in red, and even if the light was dim or they hid behind some object, we'd see a bright outline around those parts that were visible.

I saw a
part of that red outline right now, behind what looked like a toppled hutch upstairs, and I fired at it. The red quickly vanished from view.

Gatling gunfire poured from the
front entrance as Lui joined in. Though he might not be able to squeeze his mech inside, his gun sure could fit. Those bullets, coming in at a rate of 6,000 RPM, literally chewed up the balcony. Wood chips fell everywhere.

Facehopper lifted
from cover slightly.
Cease fire,
he transmitted.

Fret
and I stopped firing and ducked back behind the table. Lui withdrew his gatling (and his mech's hand) from sight.

Facehopper fired off two quick shots.

I heard two thuds upstairs, and the red dots vanished from my map.

Facehopper turned toward the doorway
of the smoke room beside him.

A grenade tumbled out
from that room and rolled along the floor toward me.

I grabbed Fret, threw him to the
dwelling's floor, and jumped on top of him.

The grenade went off.

My jumpsuit absorbed most of the blow, but I tell you, the back of my leg really hurt in that moment: A piece of shrapnel had embedded just above and behind my knee.

I was bleeding pretty bad.

Facehopper started to get up. "Guys, are you—"

G
unfire erupted from the doorway, cutting him off.

Fret rolled me off of him. I didn't resist because I was feeling
pretty nauseous. Fret dragged me to the other side of the table, where we were shielded from the gunfire coming from that doorway.

"You okay, Mason?"
he said.

"Yup."
Nauseous? To hell with it. I'd experienced worse in training.

As Fret applied a tourniquet
around the leg of my jumpsuit, I aimed my M4 over the edge of the table and fired off three rounds through the doorway, mostly for a suppressive fire effect because I didn't see anyone. There weren't even any red dots on the HUD map, which meant that none of us had seen the attacker yet.

You guys need a hand in there?
Lui sent on the comm.

Negative
, Facehopper sent. He was camped out just to the right of the doorway, against the rock wall
. The angle's too steep.
You'll end up hitting me if you try that front door stunt again.

Facehopper
grabbed a grenade from his belt and rolled it into the smoke room.

I ducked behind the table and felt t
he explosion from here.

I noticed movement upstairs—
Something poked my face real hard, and forced my head right down.

At first I thought
it was Fret, trying to protect me with his arm or something. But then I felt a sharp, excruciating burning in my cheek, and a simultaneous burning in the back of my head behind my ear. I could feel hot blood pouring down my face and back.

I
'd been shot clean through the face.

I felt a wave of panic, which quickly passed.

I'd been shot before, in training.

We all had.

We knew what it was like.

Still, I was shot
in the face
.

That wasn't good.

I guess I
'd never reach Facehopper's legendary status with the women now.

This was weird
though. I was still conscious. I felt weak, and nauseous, but I could still fight.

And I would.

Till my dying breath.

Fret was returning fire
at the balcony. Facehopper was transmitting something about being pinned down again.

I forced
my head up and aimed my rifle at where I thought the upstairs attacker was. There were no red dots on my map or outlines augmenting my vision.

"You okay, Mason?" Fret said.

"Ain't ever been better."

"You look like shit, bro."

I smiled. "Glad I could give y'all an early Halloween."

"Can't believe we missed one of the
m bastards upstairs," Fret said.

I n
ever let my eyes drift from the rifle sites the whole time. That's why when the enemy peeked around the hutch I saw him immediately.

I
fired.

G
ot him.

But
not before he let off an armor-piercing round.

Fret collapsed. He had a
gunshot wound right in the chest. Blood poured out of his jumpsuit.

I
pried out the medkit he carried in his right leg pouch, then ripped open his vest and started stabilizing him.

Behind me, Facehopper was shooting into the
opposite room, which still hadn't been cleared apparently. I saw a red dot appear on my HUD map inside the wireframe representation of that room.

The dot vanished pretty quick as Facehopper took
the enemy down.

You guys good for now?
Facehopper sent to me.

Yup, stabilizing Fret,
I sent back.

Big Dog
, get in here,
Facehopper sent on the fire team comm.
Help me clear the place.

Big Dog was the final member of
our fire team (besides Lui). One of the more muscular members of the platoon, he was never the type to hold back. Facehopper must have given him specific orders to wait outside until now.

Big Dog came plowing in, and he and
Facehopper proceeded to secure both floors of the dwelling. Then the two of them hurried over to Fret and me.

"How
is he?" Facehopper said.

"Good." I had just finished
stabilizing Fret.

"Jesus, what about you?" Facehopper
snatched the medkit from my leg pouch and started working on me.

"No no," I said. "
We have to get Fret out of here. Forget about me. I'm fine."

"
You're not fine." Facehopper applied a skin patch to my face. I flinched as the hundred thousand microscopic needles sucked to my wound, suturing it.

"Where else does it hurt?" he said.

"On my head you mean? Behind the right ear. Exit wound, I think."

He put another painful suture there.

Big Dog helped Fret to his feet. "I'll get Fret to the corpsman."

Facehopper
helped me shrug off the rucksack that contained the commo equipment and then put it on himself. He wanted to take off my jetpack too, but I wouldn't let him.

H
e thrust one shoulder under my armpit and hoisted me upright. "Come on, let's get you out of here."

Leaning heavily on Facehopper, I limped forward
—there was still shrapnel in the back of my leg—and we parted the curtain to leave the cave dwelling.

Lui was waiting in his ATLAS 5.

I guess my face must have looked pretty bad, because the front of the mech immediately opened up and Lui climbed out. He was crying.

"Lui!"
Facehopper said as the ATLAS pilot came rushing up to me. "Don't leave the mech!"

"
You take the mech, Facehopper!" Lui said, his voice choking up. "You take it." He shoved his shoulder under my other armpit. "I got you Mason. We're gonna get you through this, bro, I promise."

I don't why, maybe
because of some premonition, or some sixth sense, but for some reason I glanced over the top of the mech. Behind the three-meter-tall ATLAS, positioned all along the top of the escarpment, maybe seven meters from us, I saw men dressed in black and gray digital camos. They had long thick beards and black headgear, and they all had AK-105s aimed down at us.