Quickly, the five men exited the captain’s quarters and made their way to the jeeps. Orisan made a quick headcount of 4 Troop. There were significant casualties. Eight light and heavy wounded and three killed in action out of the twenty-eight men. He assigned the bodies to be sent in first before everyone else, and because of the limited space (along with jeeps destroyed by enemy fire), not everybody could get on the vehicles. Smitty, who was wounded, was quickly mounted on one of the jeeps. Kyrgiakos and the others volunteered to go on foot. Smitty wanted to go with them but was quickly refused. Kyrgiakos didn’t want to worsen the wound on his leg, which had started bleeding again. As much as he hated leaving his mates, it was an order, and Smitty was obliged to follow it.
The POW–surrendered enemy spacers, officers, and Marines–were also taken on the jeeps. They were to be brought in for interrogation and eventual internment in one of the Alliance’s high-security prisons located all over Hrasvleg or Stahlven territory.
Sitting on the front seat of the jeep, Smitty was greeted by Bray, who brought in a wide grin with him. “You slimy bastard, got a quick way home didn’t you?”
Smitty chuckled. “See you back at the compound, mate.”
“I’ll race you there.” Bray said. The two laughed at the jest. “I’d hate to admit it, but I’m quite jealous.”
“I’m hating myself. Shouldn’t have gotten shot up over there…”
“Nah, mate. You did good. Get well soon.” Bray said.
“Hey, Bray, you were a DJ before all this, yeah? When this is all over-“
“I’ll hold a fuckin’ show, mate. Drugs, booze, weed, all the good stuff, yeah?”
Orisan and Kyrgiakos came in front of the jeeps. Orisan nodded at the driver. “Alright, get moving, lads!” he said, and banged the hood of the car three times.
“Seems like that’s my queue.” Smitty said. The two exchanged a brotherly handshake. “You better fuckin’ visit me, you fuckcunt.”
“Yeah, yeah, just fix your fucking leg up first, yeah?”
The engines roared. The jeeps started and went up the bumpy hillside and onto the road. Not much longer, the convoy of jeeps cleared the area and as they made final preparations for their long walk to the compound, the five heard a loud roar coming from behind them. Emerging from the AFU-combat area, an Arcturian ARC-TM-34 ARCLIGHT AFU flew overhead at high-speed, and headed to the compound. Upon hearing the high, vibrant whistle of the fusion engines, 3 Section quickly hit the deck.
Orisan swore. “Shit!”
“Whatthehellwasthat?!” Jonesy exclaimed.
“Enemy fighter!” Yelled Bray. “It’s heading to the compound!”
“Jonesy, get the VAIMS ready.” Orisan said.
“Roger, sergeant!” Jonesy yelled. He went on one knee and unslung the hefty missile system from his back. The enemy, although zooming fast, was still trackable using the infrared locking-on system. Jonesy quickly dropped his rifle and put the VAIMS on his shoulder.
Orisan did the same. As one of the VAIMS-trained specialists in the troop, he had brought along one of the missile systems on one of the jeeps, which he quickly took to provide space for the wounded and POWs. The two went on their knees. They went under the targeting visor. The rest quickly formed a perimeter to secure the area, in case there were any stragglers.
“You fire first, Jonesy. I’ll follow up. He must’ve used up some of his flares.”
The pilot flew in a straight line, making it much easier to lock-on and fire. Turning on a switch on the side of the launcher, they fixed their sights at the enemy AFU. The VAIMS launcher started beeping.
“Comeoncomeoncomeon!” Jonesy said. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The beeps went faster. The locking on system was almost fixing itself to the target, the circle locking onto the fast-moving AFU. “A little more…” Jonesy said.
Beeeeeeeeeep. “Firing!”
There was a large blast from the rear of the missile launcher. The missile went up high into the sky, white trails of smoke going behind it. The projectile followed the Arclight until the last moment, when the Arclight managed to maneuver and discharge flares. The missile missed, taking one of the flares instead.
Orisan then fired. In the same procedure, the missile launched fast, and followed the Arclight. This time, however, he seemed to be out of flares. The enemy tried to maneuver but wasn’t fast enough. The missiles caught one of its arms, triggering a large explosion in the sky. The unit fell just outside the compound’s outer walls in a cloud of smoke and sand.
However, when the cloud cleared up, the enemy unit was still standing, albeit missing one arm.
“Jesus Christ, they got a bit tougher didn’t they?” said Jonesy.
Much to their delight, the whole compound suddenly lit up with small-arms fire. The large tracers of the 12.7mm rounds, accompanied by a hail of machinegun and rifle fire, came at the Arclight without giving a time for the pilot to breathe a sense of relief. Then it came again, another missile. It flew at the unit and struck him right at the center. The Arclight fell to the ground. Another missile was fired. It hit the center once again, putting it in a furious, flaming frenzy. Then, it ignited. Bam. The fusion core exploded, lighting up the night sky.
“Fucking-A, mate.” Said Bray. “We got them good, didn’t we, sar-“
Shots were fired. Loud, fully-automatic fire came from the breach behind them. Bray fell to the ground, his chest and rear neck struck by enemy rounds. Orisan quickly rolled away into cover. Kyrgiakos turned around to the breach, but before he could fire, he was struck by two bursts of automatic assault rifle fire. He fell on the ground with a heavy thump.
Jonesy and Orisan went to cover. Jonesy had dropped his weapon, so he was unarmed and had no means of fighting. Orisan was the only man with a gun. He peeked over cover. A wounded man, it was, in a white naval officer’s outfit. He had the Arcturian insignia of three stripes and a golden star on his shoulders. He was, none other than the ship’s captain. He was limping as he walked, with blood all over his right leg. “Come out, you bastards!”
Orisan released his magazine and replaced it with a new one. He went out of cover and, firing from the hip like a crazed Hollywood action movie hero, emptied his magazine on the enemy commander. He fell with more than a dozen holes in his body, bleeding profusely. A round struck him in his throat, and he choked as the life slowly slipped out of him.
Orisan dropped his weapon and went straight at the downed man. He went on his knees, and, looking at the dying man in the eyes, he hit him as hard as he could. The man still managed to give a satisfactory smile as he was beaten to death. Orisan hit him, and hit him again, ignoring the fact that his face was already deformed, and blood was all over Orisan’s own khaki overalls.
Meanwhile, Jonesy called in the jeeps back using his PRR. Kyrgiakos laid there with a holed vest and a blood coming from his mouth, having a hard time to breathe. Bray, on the other hand, laid lifelessly. Jonesy opened the corporal’s vest and checked that there were two rounds lodged in his torso, and one of them straight at the gut. He applied pressure to the ones he could.
“I’m fucked up, Jonesy.”
“You’re going to make it, corp, don’t you fucking worry!”
The corporal coughed. Blood sprouted onto his open chest, which was itself leaking with liters of blood. “Shit.”
“You’ll be fine, yeah? Come on, big boy, you can get through!”
Orisan, bloodied and dirty, went to Bray. His eyes open but empty, he checked his pulse. His neck was still warm, but there was no sign of life. He closed Bray’s eyes with his bloodied gloves. He uttered a low prayer and ripped the dogtags from his neck.
Orisan took what medical first aid he had and tried to patch up Kyrgiakos’ wounds. Much to his relief, one of the jeeps came, stopping right in front of them with a drift. Caylie, the medic, jumped off the jeep and dealt with Kyrgiakos’ wounds. “Get out of the way, out of the fucking way!” she said to the two other Marines.
The driver took his rifle and dismounted. It was the jeep with the bodies of the dead. “What about him, boss?”
“Dead.”
Stabilized, Kyrgiakos was put on a stretcher and was tied down on the jeep’s hood. Jonesy picked up Bray’s body and set it on the back of the jeep, where the two other bodies lay. He recognized that they were blokes from 2 Section. He looked at the lifeless body of Brayford. He could only imagine how Smitty would feel, having lost his best friend. He swore inside. Fuck.
Orisan and Jonesy mounted the jeep, and, with the wounded Kyrgiakos on the hood, they rushed up the hill as fast as they could, taking hard turns and bad roads as if they were an experienced rally team.
As they rode up hill, not far behind them in the dark, infinite plains of the desert, blue fusion engine tails danced. The two remaining pilots of the night engaged each other in the night sky, with no obvious winner in sight.
***
ns 15.158.61.48da2
