The Soldier Read online

  “Neither are you,” Matt retorted calmly.

  Akim opened his encrypted comms channel again and raised his forearm closer to his lips. “Warlord Omni, this is Pale Rider Four. Requesting extraction on my position. Ah… grid reference unknown, but we are located southwest of our DLZ. Our beacon locater is active and transmitting. How copy?”

  Akim’s request was met with a sharp blast of fuzzy static. No response.

  The others scoffed.

  Without saying a word, Jackson unzipped his haversack and pulled out a small handheld comms device that looked like a slim tablet. He turned it on, waited for it to connect to his helmet’s HUD, then slipped it into a supply pouch on his left shoulder. He then stood and proceeded to walk off. “To hell with this. See you soon.”

  Matt started after him. “Jackson, be reasonable. Don’t do this.”

  O’Donnell now trailed about ten feet behind Matt like a loyal sentinel. “Forget him, dude. If he wants to be a hero, let him.”

  “I’m not asking any of you to come with me, O’Donnell. You’re all welcome to sit here and wait.”

  “You’re crazy, man,” O’Donnell replied.

  “Just keep eyes on my six for as long as you can. I’ll be fine.”

  Matt was right behind him now, resisting the urge to yank him back and pin him to the ground. “Come on, Jackson. Hold up a minute.”

  But Jackson kept walking and did not turn to acknowledge Matt’s plea.

  “Jackson, will you stop and let me talk to you!”

  Jackson just kept on walking. When they were about thirty meters away from the pod, he turned around to see Matt only a few steps behind him. “Go back, Reeves. I’ve got this.”

  That’s when the contrail of a plasma round hissed through the air and obliterated Jackson, puncturing his chest. The hydrostatic shock caused by the impact of the alien projectile was powerful enough to balloon the air in front of Matt, sending him flying backward. As the echo of the shot reached his ears, shards of rock peppered his helmet visor as he disappeared in a wave of ash and dust. It spun him like a frisbee before plowing him into the ground.

  Stunned and confused from what they just witnessed, the others immediately dropped to the ground and began barking orders, sensory overload threatening to override their training and paralyze them with panic.

  “Sniper!” Wilson screamed, the blood draining from his face.

  Maynard rose to her knee and returned fire. “Suppressing fire!” she roared, her rifle chugging like a Jackhammer.

  “Jackson?” Lopez screamed.

  But there was nothing left of him except a small mortar crater.

  Even though Lopez’s training had prepared her for this, she was still having trouble processing what she was seeing. Jackson was no longer there. He no longer existed. He was gone. Within a split-second, he had been reduced to a vivid memory. “They just… holy shit, they just killed Jackson!”

  O’Donnell was already on his belly, crab-walking towards Matt.

  Who was still sprawled out on his back, in shock, wondering what the hell had just hit him.

  “Reeves, we’ve got a sniper! Keep your head down!” O’Donnell yelled.

  O’Donnell’s words sounded like they were underwater as Matt fought to stay conscious from the concussive wallop, aimlessly groping for his rifle like he was drunk.

  As Davis, Lee, Akim, and the others frantically slithered back to the pod to take cover behind their exojackets, Maynard began to inch backward, continuing to spray fire in the direction she thought the shot had come from.

  “Where’s the target?” Wilson screamed, unsure of where he was supposed to be aiming.

  “I don’t know!” Maynard screamed back over the deafening thunder of her rifle. “Shot came from somewhere in front of us! Maybe our one o ‘clock!”

  Prone on his stomach, Davis gingerly peered out from behind the right leg of his exojacket to scan the desert expanse. “Anyone got some binocs or a spotting scope?”

  Beckett looked at him, unsure if he was joking or not. “A spotting scope? Dude, are you for real? We’re greenies. We’re not even supposed to be out here.”

  “I hear that,” Davis whispered grimly to himself, lifting his rifle scope to his right eye.

  His crosshairs steadily tracked over sun-blasted rocks and sulfur deposits. Aside from some patches of withered shrubs, it was flat and seemingly devoid of life. Unlike Earth, Epsilon’s native vegetation was not green, but rather dark red, almost rustic in color. On a planetary scale, there was little of it, even in the cooler highland regions near the northern pole.

  “Sun is behind us now… but I don’t see anything,” Wilson whispered again to himself, panning his rifle slightly. He dialed up the scope’s magnification, maxing out its range.

  His crosshairs orbited mile-wide sweeps as it searched for targets, but it was unable to locate one.

  “Maynard, you’re shooting at nothing!” he yelled. “Get your ass back here! You’re exposed!”

  Maynard ignored him and kept firing, running down her rounds, her entire body vibrating from the relentless recoil.

  “Think I saw a blue flash. It came from the northeast,” Akim said, crouched behind the leg of an exojacket next to Davis, also peering out to track O’Donnell slithering his way to Matt.

  Lee unloaded one last rattle of fire himself before ducking down and reloading, fishing out a fresh cartridge from his pouch. “I thought I had something too – maybe thirty-nine-hundred yards out. Not sure.”

  Davis lowered his rifle and wiggled back into position. “Probably the heat-haze playing tricks with your eyes,” he said. “This guy has to be further out. Way out.”

  “How the fuck you know that?” hissed Lopez.

  “The crack-bang of the shot reached us about four seconds after Jackson fell. The guy’s a long way away. Must be working with some heavy optics.”

  Keeping his head low, O’Donnell finally reached Matt and remained on his stomach, partially crawling on top of him to reach his helmet. “Matt, can you run?” He had to yell over the deafening crack of Maynard’s rifle. “Matt, can you hear me?”

  Matt was conscious, but he was still shaking off the daze. “Yeah— I’m good—"

  “Shooter has eyes on us. We’re gonna haul ass back to the pod and take cover!”

  “I— I heard one shot.”

  “Copy that. Large caliber." O’Donnell spun around to Maynard. “Hey, Maynard – can you hear me? Maynard! I can’t hear myself think… Maynard!”

  “Yeah, what?” she finally responded while continuing to blast at nothing in front of her.

  “Chill on the suppressing fire. You’re gonna end up clapping me and Reeves.”

  “Roger that.” She ceased firing and swung her molten-hot barrel around. The silence that suddenly hit everyone was equally deafening. She quickly waddled back towards the pod, staying low, coiled in a sort of mobile crouch.

  When she reached the others, she dove to her stomach and crawled in behind Wilson. The pod’s powerful dampening thrusters had created a shallow crater before it touched down, offering a slight trench of cover. They were still exposed, but some cover was better than none. “We can’t stay here forever,” she said. “That sniper has us clocked. Only a matter of time until he calls in a strike on our position, assuming he hasn’t already.”

  “What if there’s more of ‘em out there? We’re outnumbered. What’re we gonna do?” Wilson was starting to succumb to his fear. This is not how he wanted to die. The faint digital glow of his visor HUD revealed a terrified face beaded with sweat, on the verge of panicking.

  “Anything that’s not human shows up, you keep that trigger fully depressed,” Davis replied. “You don’t stop until either it’s dead, or you are.” Davis brought his rifle sights up to his eye again. “Still no movement out there, though… no visual on this guy. No thermal lock on his heat-sig either. Oh, this prick… he’s good. He’s a pro.”

  “How’s that comms channel of
yours looking, Akim?” Lopez asked.

  Akim glanced at his forearm plate, then shot Lopez a grim look that answered her question.

  “Yup, we’re fucked,” she quipped, bringing her left eye up to her scope’s glass to sight Matt and O’Donnell. “Well and truly fucked.”

  Keeping low with his back hunched, O’Donnell got to his feet, grabbed Matt by his haversack straps, and began dragging him in the direction of the pod. “Come on, time to move. On your feet, bud. Stay low.”

  As Matt staggered to his feet, there was a taut whistle in the air.

  O’Donnell’s entire leg disappeared in a puff of red mist. Then came the strangely discordant echo of the crack-bang. It all happened so quickly, there was no reaction from O’Donnell. He simply dropped to the ground like he’d just been unplugged, his stump spraying warm viscera over the hot sand.

  Matt was blown across the ground from another hydrostatic shock, nano-armored plates being the only thing stopping his bones from shattering like sticks of chalk. He rag-dolled across the ground, his head pounding inside his helmet like a brass gong.

  Slack-jawed and paled, O’Donnell stared vacantly at the mess of blood, muscle, and exposed bone protruding from his hip. He could not form the words needed to articulate the horror his eyes were seeing. And before his mind had a chance to process the pain signals his body was sending him, another round struck him in the neck, vaporizing him instantly.

  When the next crack-bang echoed, everyone in the pod broke cover and started firing in the direction of the shot. It was another knee-jerk response.

  “Reeves!” Davis shouted over the booming symphony of rifle fire. “Get your ass moving, boy! Come on, Reeves get moving! Go!”

  Still fighting off the concussion from the previous hypersonic round hitting next to him, Matt tried to get to his feet but stumbled and fell to the ground. He could hear the screams of his teammates, egging him on to get up and start moving again, but they sounded even more wobbly and distorted. As the world came rushing back to him, he wiggled free of his cumbersome haversack, abandoning his rifle momentarily as he crawled out of his Velcro straps and doggedly got to his feet again.

  When another round smashed into the ground behind him, a geyser of rock and sand vomited into the air, causing him to lurch forward like he’d just been kicked in the back by a horse. He skidded across the ground on his belly and began writhing as if trying to escape a bed of thorns he’d accidentally fallen into, dragging his rifle along with him by its strap.

  The others could see it was only a matter of time until the sniper found its mark. Matt’s constant stumbling and tripping was the only thing keeping him alive.

  “He needs help!” Akim shouted, ducking down to pry a fresh ammo cartridge from a pouch on his vest. “Someone has to go out there and bring him in.”

  No one heard Akim because they were all too busy yelling over each other at once, in between bursts of fire.

  Another round cracked into the ground near Matt, showering him with a fountain of rock. Ears ringing like a symphony of church bells, he could feel the searing heat from the impact wash over him. There was a chance the sniper would not even need to strike him directly. If close enough, the shockwave from a well-placed round could end him. He knew he had to keep moving, but he decided to be more erratic and started rolling across the ground in the opposite direction. The moment another round hit behind him, painting the wind with dust and grit, he ignored the pain and sprung to his feet. Half-blinded and still dazed, he took off like a rocket, hauling ass towards the pod in an unpredictable, almost comical-looking zig-zag motion.

  Peering between the metal shins of his exojacket, Akim watched as Matt approached. Despite not knowing the exact location of the sniper, he decided to offer him some covering fire. “I’m laying down some suppressive fire overhead.”

  “Conserve your ammo, kid!” Davis yelled. “You’ll be shooting at nothing.”

  Akim ignored Davis and popped out from behind his cover and took off towards Matt, keeping low as he began to fire. “Covering fire!” His gunfire echoed across the desolate basin like a thunderclap, only to end as quickly as it began. Akim’s visor exploded as the sniper’s round penetrated his skull, vaporizing it into a scarlet puff of mist. The force of the shot blew him ten feet into the air, clearing the pod’s rim of exojackets. By the time Akim had hit the ground, he was already a meaty heap of sizzling black ash.

  “Akim!” Beckett screamed, ashen and unable to believe his own eyes. “Akim? Oh, shit!”

  Lee started dry-heaving, trying to suppress his panic, his eyes welled with tears. Not necessarily for Akim, but for himself. “I’m gonna die out here… I’m gonna die, I know it,” he stammered.

  “Lock that up, greenie!” Davis barked angrily at Lee. “Now is not the time to lose your shit.”

  Lee was unable to focus on the moment, whimpering from the fear of certain death. It had now gripped him, and he felt powerless against it, wanting nothing more than to curl into a fetal position and somehow transport himself back to Earth.

  “Hey, Lee!” Davis pointed directly at him. “Kid, look at me!”

  Lee wearily raised his head to Davis, the faint electronic glow of his HUD revealing streaks of tears down his cheeks, reflecting like neon rain.

  “You’re gonna be OK. Just keep your head down. We’re not done yet. Now, I want you to watch our twelve-to-three. You see a speck of dust moving out there that doesn’t look Kosher, I want you to call it. Understood?”

  Finally, Lee blinked out of his stupor and exhaled with an exhausted sigh, summoning the resolve needed to get back into the fight, and willing himself to move. “Roger that.” He rolled onto his stomach and took position between the fixed legs of his exojacket, raising the scope of his rifle to his right eye.

  Maynard dropped her head as Matt clumsily lurched up to her position and dived over her, a small dust cloud billowing in his wake.

  He hit the ground and frantically scrambled in behind her for cover. His chest was pounding so hard, he could barely get the air needed to take a breath. “Oh, shit… he got Akim too…? Oh, no… that bastard…” Matt tried to regulate his breathing, but he was almost delirious. That was the longest and hardest thirty meters he had ever ran in his life.

  “Glad you made it, Reeves,” Maynard said, slapping his arm with comradery before turning back to her scope. “Welcome to the Bog, huh.”

  Davis broke from his sights and turned to Matt. He was a few jackets along from him. “Still haven’t got eyes on this fucker’s position. Figure he must be at least three miles away.”

  Matt was sprawled out on his back, still sucking down the soupy air. “No… he’s closer…” he panted. “He’s much closer…”

  Davis glared at Matt with a frown. “I doubt it. Each crack-bang had about a four-second delay.”

  Still struggling with his breath, Matt furiously shook his head. “The delay… it doesn’t work like it does on Earth…”

  “Those rounds are hypersonic, Reeves,” Davis replied, still skeptical of Matt’s claims. “You know how fast they travel?”

  “Yeah, but the air’s a lot thicker here… takes longer for sound to reach us… makes it seem like the delay is further away. It’s not.”

  Davis huddled there, realizing he may be on the wrong end of this. “Then where is he?”

  “There’s some type of abandoned facility to our one o’clock - about a mile or so out. Looks like a row of old grain silos. His nest has gotta be in there somewhere.”

  “Way too obvious,” Lopez said. “Not where I’d be.”

  Matt sucked on the straw inside his helmet before attempting to answer her. Using his elbows, he wiggled himself upright and pressed his shoulders against the left leg of Maynard’s exojacket. “Lopez, that position would give him a full three-sixty view, with good shade and plenty of concealment… that’s where I’d be.”

  Lopez scoffed and went back to panning across her field of cover. “We just scanned that area
and didn’t pick up anything like that,” she added. “Nothing out there but sand and rocks.”

  “Yeah, but from this distance, the heat makes it almost look like a mirage, like it’s another rock formation. I had to keep my scope on it for a long time before it came into focus.”

  Wilson pivoted his gaze from Matt to stare out at the barren vista before them. “If we can’t see him, how the hell can he see us?”

  “It must be our angle and position,” Matt said. “Gotta be some weird optics in play. He knows that too. He wants us to think he’s further out. That way he can keep us in a blind spot.”

  Davis worked his jaw, keeping his eyes on the rocky expanse. “Sneaky little prick has us boxed in.”

  The others kept silent as they continued scanning for targets. With the sun now much lower as dusk approached, it had thrown enormous shadows across their position, making everything look and feel even more malevolent.

  Wilson suddenly dropped his head and huffed out a sigh. “I feel like a rabbit that’s just hopped into a stew pot. If we can’t even see him, the fuck are we supposed to do?”

  With growing frustration, Beckett smacked the leg of the exojacket he was taking cover behind with Lee. “Damn it! Akim had the fucking radio too.”

  “Comms are useless out here, Beckett,” Lopez snapped, keeping her eye glued to her scope. “You already know that.” She seemed annoyed by her own response. It was just another reminder of how screwed they were out here; pinned down and dropping like flies.

  Beckett looked at her and shook his head with a grin. The audacity of the situation he found himself in was almost comically morbid. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Thanks for reminding me.”

  “My pleasure,” she replied, deflecting his sarcasm. “And stop being a pussy.”

  “You know what, Lopez, you’re right. Hey, maybe we can send up some smoke signals. Maybe that’ll get the USCs attention. Maybe they can drop us a supply crate. Of course, that’s assuming we’re still alive by the time it reaches us.”

  Matt’s head tilted slightly upon hearing that, a lightbulb in his mind beginning to take root. Maybe there was something to that idea. He turned to Davis, the idea still forming as he spoke. “The USC has a whole fleet of recon satellites and drones orbiting this planet, right?”