The Last Hero (15 page)

The link severed before Trent could respond.

“Sweetie, ping Sergeants Roth and Gabriel to see me.”

Roth and Gabriel listened while Trent laid out their challenging task. Like all good soldiers given stupid orders, they didn’t say a thing or move until asked.

“Any questions?” Trent hated himself for putting them in this situation, but they were the best ones for the job.

“Let me get this straight, Colonel.” Roth spoke in a perfectly respectful, matter of fact tone. “You want our twenty troops, just us, to scout this mess.” She waved into the labyrinth below. “For the entire Legion?”

“Yes.”

Gabriel said, “Well okay then, no biggy. Just wanted to make sure I understood.”

“Look,” Trent said. “I know this is shitty. I had to fight to have any scouts ahead of the main body. Hell, if it were up to me, I’d have the entire 1st Cohort out there with you. The best I can do is two squads, so I’m sending my two best squads.”

Trent placed a hand on each of their shoulders.

“I’m counting on you...we’re all counting on you.”

Roth said, “Don’t worry, Colonel. We won’t let you down.”

“That possibility never entered my mind.”

***

The column of five thousand legionnaires sliced along the black wasteland at a wicked pace, covering fifty kilometers of rugged terrain in a day and a half. They moved fast, too fast for Roth and Gabriel to do a proper scouting job. Those twenty weary soldiers ran themselves ragged, trying to cover as much ground as possible. The endless field of large rocks produced too many points demanding attention.

A kilometer ahead of the main force, Gabriel climbed atop a boulder five meters high to gain a better view of the surrounding area.

“Got anything up there, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Wendy Krist. If not for the suit, she would have appeared as a dark skinned East African woman.

“All kinds of stuff.” He tossed an arm to each side. “We have black rocks on both flanks as well as in front and behind us, Corporal.”

“Um...sounds like we’re surrounded. Maybe we should surrender.”

“Yeah, well—” Gabriel intended to continue the smart-ass banter but movement caught his eye as he stared into the space separating him from the column. “Go to max zoom, Hottie.”

Krist asked, “You got something?”

He ignored the corporal and focused on a large rock, about thirty meters high with a flat top. It was about two hundred meters to the side of the column. Nothing appeared there, but he swore that he’d seen movement just a second ago.

“Get up here, Corporal. I want another set of eyes on this thing.” He pointed at the intended target while Krist clambered up.

They stared helplessly as forty Bearcat rifle barrels slowly crept out from under a black camouflaged tarp.

“Jesus Christ!” Gabriel shouted as the first salvo blasted into the unsuspecting troops.

Dozens of legionnaires disappeared when the massive projectiles tore into his comrades. Blood, body parts, and pieces of green deactivated nano fabric flew across the landscape. The gore added gruesome color to the black canvass while the air filled with cries of pain and terror.

“Hottie, highlight enemy position on all tactical maps. Sergeant Roth, what’s your situation? We need to hit that spot ASAP.”

“Read’ya Gab.” Roth wove through rocks at a full sprint. “We’re a kilo and half to the northeast of the enemy. Close in on them and lay down fire. Keep’em busy, and we’ll take them out.”

***

A private’s head exploded right in front of Trent, a victim of the surprise attack. The red blood barely landed on his suit before he dove for cover behind a jagged rock. There among the thunderous noise of the Bearcat’s rifle shots echoing off the stone, he discovered another private, this one unconscious with his left arm missing. He rolled the wounded soldier onto his back.

“Sweetie, med report?”

Sweetie’s calm voice seemed odd, given the chaos. “Private Michaels is missing a right arm and has a concussion. He is stable.”

Letting the private remain where he was, he slowly moved the barrel of his MRG over the rock surveying the carnage.

Shells thundered all around him. Most slammed into the ground or knocked chunks of black rock into the air. Despite the cover, some still found flesh. Using the map point relayed from Gabriel, Trent guided the barrel of his weapon to the cliff the Bearcats had fired from. Switching to full auto, he pulled the trigger. Flakes of black flew about, soon followed by splashes of blue. Yet another new color added to this bleak world.

“Colonel, report. What’s happening?” General Banks demanded.

We’re dying because of you, asshole. That’s what’s happening.

Withdrawing the MRG, Trent turned to lean against the rock.

“Ambush, sir. Several KIAs. I’m putting fire on the position Sergeant Gabriel highlighted. He and Roth pinged me to tell me they’re closing in on the enemy from behind. We just need to hold on and keep them busy.”

The general continued the conversation, but Trent didn’t hear him. Something stole his attention. Looking from side to side, he saw something of grave concern, Legion soldiers cowering. They hugged the safety of cover as if it were their mother’s breast.

“Sir,” Trent abruptly cut the general off, “I have to go. Sweetie, open a channel to the entire 1st Cohort.”

“It is open.”

“Listen up, 1st Cohort! I know a lot of you are scared right now, but you can’t let that control you. We have men advancing on the enemy’s rear. They’re counting on us to keep the bastards busy. Get your weapons pointed at the enemy and
fire
!”

Trent fired a grenade to detonate over the Bearcats, but their tarp protected them from the blast. It couldn’t however help against the dozens of new MRGs hurling rounds at them.

The pressure created by the counter fire, both from the main force and Gabriel’s squad now in position, told the Bearcat snipers it was time to leave.

***

Roth’s squad flowed through the rocks in a spread out formation to increase speed, paying no attention to concealment. If the Bearcats themselves weren’t in such a rush to repel down the backside of the large rock they launched their attack from, they might have noticed the black river moving toward them.

A couple of hundred meters from the rock’s face, Roth spotted them. Fire continued to rain down from the summit, either from a suicide rearguard or an automated turret. The enemy force retreated in Roth’s direction.

“Cover now.” Her command sent the squad diving behind rocks of all kinds and creating a long defensive line. “Hold your fire until I give the order, then kill them all!”

The nano camouflage was most effective when the wearer stood still. Combined with the rapidness of enemy movement meant the Bearcats never witnessed death coming.

The lead Bearcat advanced to thirty meters. Roth held her fire.

At twenty meters, she placed a finger on the trigger, but still held.

When he came to within ten meters, a nervous corporal expressed fear by simply saying, “Umm, Sergeant,” over the squad channel. She ignored him.

The massive black armor and leather clad creature reached a mere five meters.

Roth yelled, “
Fire
!”   

The lead Bearcat melted from the cold metal striking his body at supersonic speeds. After his remains fell to the ground, Roth continued holding the trigger down, spraying her shots in an indiscriminate pattern at the retreating forces general direction. Nine other soldiers did the same after their initial targets exploded. The result of such fire from several angles annihilated the enemy force after only a few seconds.

Roth allowed the bloodthirsty squad to spit venom longer than necessary. When she ordered a cease-fire, nothing of the enemy remained but piles of blue stained gear.

Shots no longer rained down from the large rock’s summit.

***

Trent watched the medics do what they could for the wounded. That entailed getting them ready to move as the nanos and suit took care of most everything else. The dead, all one hundred and two, laid lined up against the side of the rock that harbored their destruction.

Burial wasn’t an option on the solid rock surface. Their bodies would have to wait until victory allowed for a proper ceremony.

General Banks lurched toward Trent from behind. In a solemn voice he said, “It doesn’t mean a damn thing, Colonel...but you were right. I should have listened to you. Maybe...maybe we could have avoided this mess.”

Trent knew the moral burden weighing down all commanders and took pity on the general.

“Who knows if it would have made a difference, sir? They were pretty well hidden up there. That tarp concealed their body heat and electromagnetic signature just like our suits do.”

“Maybe, but I know the benefit those two advanced squads played. Good call, Colonel. Let’s get ready to move out. Your way this time.”

“Already have the 3rd out ahead in force.”

“Good, good. Let’s take this fight to these sons-of-bitches.”

Chapter 20: Battle for Passage

A
shot ricocheted off a boulder behind Trent, pelting the back of his helmet with sharp fragments. This latest near death experience barely registered as he lunged forward, dropping to a knee and firing his MRG on full auto. The visor’s crosshair danced from enemy soldier to enemy soldier. The outflanked opponent crumbled before the swift movements of the 1st Cohort. When the firing ceased, another dead group of Bearcat skirmishers lay in a pile of blue blood, gore, and shattered black armor.

Every step closer to the base brought increased resistance in the form of hit and run attacks by small, highly mobile teams. This time, they fell by the sword they lived by when speed was utilized against them with equal efficiency.

“Report, Colonel,” General Banks ordered.

Trent deployed the squad under his command to search the area with hand signals and responded, “Threat eliminated, pushing forward.”

“That’s good, but I think we just found their main roadblock. Senior officers briefing in twenty. CAL will show you where.”

***

General Banks stood in the middle of a circle made up of the ten cohort commanders as Black Marble’s sun slowly set in the east.

“There’s the problem,” the general commented. A tactical map of the area popped into view on the assembled groups’ visors. “The enemy has placed a significant force directly in front of us. And they’re dug in.”

“Change course and go around them,” Lt. Colonel Brent Eisenhower, a descendant of a former U.S. President and war hero, suggested. “Then we can hit the base.”

“I said they were dug in. Not immobile.”

Trent said, “We can’t afford to leave a large enemy force in our rear. We need to deal with them and should consider this a great opportunity.”

“Opportunity?” Lt. Colonel Cutter wondered.

“The enemy has stuck an arm out from behind the safety of his walls. I intended to cut it off.”

“Exactly!” Banks threw a low punch.

Cutter asked, “What’s the size of the force?”

The visor image shifted to a zoomed in satellite representation of the fortifications.

“Three to four thousand. They’ve pushed the rocks around them to create a circular perimeter.”

Eisenhower said, “There isn’t a weak point. How the hell are we going to crack that?”

“We don’t,” Trent said. “That’s what they want. I don’t fight battles on the enemy’s terms.”

Banks asked, “What do you purpose?”

“Sweetie, zoom the image out.” Trent looked right at the general. “We do exactly what Genghis Khan did.”

***

Thirty minutes prior to sunset the next day, Trent led four cohorts against the south and southwest sections of the makeshift Bearcat fort. The walls, constructed by stacking and pushing the black rocks together then sealing them with some type of polymer, measured a little over a kilometer and a half in diameter and presented a formable barrier.

Their suits couldn’t hide two thousand legionnaires swarming through the rocks for long. At three hundred meters out, the Bearcats opened up with mortar fire.

Shells slammed into the unforgiving rock all around the advancing troops. Some landed on top of boulders, sending deadly chunks flying while others fell among groups of attackers, flinging lifeless and mangled bodies into the air.

An equally lethal barrage of rifle fire followed. The rounds separated limbs from their owners, and disintegrated bodies with direct hits.

Regardless of their losses, the cohorts advanced, returning fire as best they could.

The attack stalled forty meters from the wall. The defenders had cleared this final distance. Any assault would have to cross open ground. From the last available cover, the legionnaires picked off Bearcat soldiers at the ramparts, and fired grenade after grenade into the circle. 

The death Trent witnessed from the relative safety of the forward command post weighed heavily on his soul. His plan had sent so many to their deaths. Nor did he share directly in the danger. The burden multiplied tenfold, for if the enemy did what he fully expected, what he needed them to do, more would die.

The Bearcats didn’t disappoint.

Any well-organized Legion defensive position would have had the surrounding area pre-ranged by the artillery to increase its effectiveness. The assumption that the Bearcats would be no different proved correct as a wide section of the attacking line exploded from highly accurate mortar rounds.

“
Retreat! Run!
” Trent shouted to the attackers.

The survivors retreated, not as a well-disciplined force, but like a routed mad mob fleeing for their lives. Their direction of retreat, southeast, meant wherever they did stop to reform, the enemy advance force would no longer stand between them and the main base.

These dual facts convinced the enemy commander to send his soldiers over their own walls in pursuit of the frightened prey.

The Bearcat’s beastly legs carried them fast enough to nip at the heels of the humans, who were slowed by their wounded. Rifle shots, fired at a run, mostly traveled harmlessly high or plowed into rocks or the ground. Some found their mark.

Running in the middle of the pack, Trent did his best to provide some order to the designed chaos by monitoring the mass’ progression on the visor’s tactical display and shouting orders to unit commanders. A bullet zipped past his head on its way to striking a soldier in front of him in the right arm. Not wanting a delay, Trent scooped up the wounded soldier, threw him over a shoulder, and continued with the retreat. Even with his vantage point, the fatigue of the operation took its toll as his lungs heaved to take in enough oxygen.  

Two kilometers southeast of the failed attack, Trent hurdled over a small mound. This placed him over an apparently arbitrary line on the tactical display. He kept running as he gave an order, “Phase two is...a go!”

With the order given, three cohorts to the north of the line and three to the south advanced.

***

“That’s us, move out!” Major Jones yelled.

With the light of the setting sun diminishing each second, the 1st Cohort ran under a thick cover of darkness and nano fabric painted a matching shade. Bearcat biology greatly aided their attempt to conceal their maneuvers.

On Earth, animals serving the role of prey had eyes placed further apart so as to provide a wide angle view of the environment, in order to alert the target animal of impending danger. In contrast, predatory animal’s eyes are closer together so they could focus on their next meal. A side effect of this advantage was that in the moments of a chase, the predator suffered from tunnel vision. This simple, and apparently universal, biological fact prevented the pursuing Bearcats from noticing they were in fact the prey, not the predator.

“
Hold!
” Jones commanded the cohort. “This section is our responsibility. Spread out according to the tac map and get ready for the fun.”

***

Before Jones reached her assigned position, the four retreating cohorts came to an abrupt stop to form an organized defensive line.

After depositing the wounded soldier behind cover and no longer able to resist the urge to join the fight, Trent found a comfy spot and pointed his MRG at the soon to be surprised enemy.

The sun disappeared over the eastern horizon as the first Bearcat ran into view of the trap. He would never know the extent to which he and his comrades had been fooled.

According to Sweetie, sixteen-hundred and three legionnaires opened up almost exactly at the same time.

Trent made one-way intimate eye contact with his first victim. The massive black armor and leather clad mane-less lion unknowingly charged around a boulder directly in front of his barrel. The large cat eyes bulged out. The shock and terror in those eyes was as clear as in any man. A burst from the MRG came close to cutting him in two.

Within seconds, hundreds of the enemy laid scattered across the battlefield. The remaining attackers quickly took cover but found that wanting.

A target dove behind a low laying rock, just tall enough to cover his large body. Undeterred, Trent ranged the distance and sent a grenade to explode a meter past.

The round sent a small billow of smoke followed by a short-lived scream and flying blue blood. In rapid succession, Trent repeated the process.

The enemy force fell apart into a haphazard retreat heading in all directions, desperately seeking safety.

***

“Here they come!” Jones yelled. The 1st Cohort opened fire before the first words escaped her mouth.

The frantic Bearcats fell easily to Jones’ well-placed shots, providing her with much less sport than hoped. The number of enemy soldiers venturing toward the line slowed to a trickle, and then stopped. Jones grew disappointed, but her sprit lifted when Colonel Maxwell ordered, “Move in.”

Firing a grenade beyond her destination for good measure, Jones held her MRG high as she stalked carefully forward through the darkness, clearing possible hiding places. The enemy had fallen back, leaving none to find in the first series of boulders. The easy victories ceased when a volley of rifle rounds peppered around Jones and her squad during their attempt to climb over a line of waist high rocks. While some of the shots bounced off the hard barrier, three in her squad collapsed in the face of the terrible fire. Throwing herself to the ground, she counted herself lucky, for more than one reason.

They have some fight left in them after all.

Like many others in the Legion, Jones was made for war. By no means was she a death-loving monster who craved blood. If given the choice between the comforts of home and the hardships of battle, home would win. Even still, something about combat seemed as natural as breathing to her.

Growing up the middle child with two brothers and a lovingly, yet harsh, single father in south London allowed Jones to develop a strong constitution at an early age. Her strong personality proved a necessity for a girl who was taller and broader than most boys were. The lack of a mother left her ill equipped to relate with girls her own age, who already viewed Nina as an oddity at best, a freak more often than not.

Finding herself with only male friends, she continued to grow up with a rough and tumble demeanor. Unfortunately, when she was old enough to become interested in boys beyond their ability to play soccer, they wouldn’t see her as anything other than one of the guys.

Feeling like an outcast of both sexes, she spent much of her teen years reading and working out. Jones did find a degree of acceptance through athletic achievement, but it was too little too late.

After graduating from the university, she entered the only profession that felt right, the British Army. There her physical ability and masculine personality had found a welcoming home for the first time.

National accolades came after a young Captain Nina Jones led her company of British regulars out of Nigeria during a brief campaign to dispose a brutal dictatorial regime. Cut off and surrounded for days, she rallied her troops and kept them alive against all odds.

The day of her discharge was the saddest of her life. The day she joined the Legion ranked among the happiest.

Now, crouching behind precious cover on a distant alien world while under fire from a mighty enemy, Jones felt at peace.

She consulted her tac map to find a way around her current obstacle as shells pounded her cover.

“Captain Thomas, can you push forward and flank these bloody cats? They’re ruining my day.”

“Roger that, Major. Can you help us out with some cover fire?”

A smile came across her face. “Our pleasure.”

Jones and the rest in her squad poked their barrels over the top and laid down an awesome barrage of grenade and MRG fire. The night sky lit up with explosions and muzzle flashes from Bearcat rifles. Whether or not this exchange harmed any enemy soldiers was of no consequence, as it firmly held their attention while Captain Thomas rushed forward with several squads deep into the enemy line. The penetrating legionnaires swarmed, wielding their weapons in all directions, cutting down an untold number of Bearcats.

Sensing a critical moment at hand, Jones, eager to cease the initiative, jumped over the rock to push forward, leading the entire 1st Cohort’s advance.

“All units advance!”

Sporadic enemy fire claimed a life from time to time, but it proved as effective as fighting a raging forest fire with a squirt gun.

Darting from point to point, Jones shredded her way through the collapsing enemy position. Stepping around a boulder, she discovered a wounded Bearcat, a product of her skill. She stood a safe distance with her weapon trained on the combatant, unsure what to do next. They stared at each other for a few seconds when he solved the problem for her.

With a loud pop, the suicide device in his brain detonated. Jones put a burst into its chest to make certain before moving onto the next target.   

Soon the battle disintegrated into a turkey shoot as the speed and lethality of the 1st’s charge caught the remaining enemy by surprise.

Adrenaline flooding her veins, Jones leaped onto the top of a rock and mowed down a dozen Bearcats with their backs to her as they fired on other Legion elements. Hundreds more died in a similar fashion.