Harper's War

HARPER’S WAR

Emily Hart

WARRIORS PUBLISHING GROUP

NORTH HILLS, CALIFORNIA

HARPER’S WAR

A Warriors Publishing Group book/published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Warriors Publishing Group edition/January 2017

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Copyright © 2017 by Warriors Publishing Group

Cover art copyright © 2017 by Gerry Kissell (gerrykissell.com)

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10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

To my father, who taught me to believe

Chapter 1

A hundred years had passed since we made landing, even though the sun hadn't yet set. Didn't matter much, on Phobos. I charged out of a landing craft, kicking up dust, seeing nothing but the feet and elbows of the soldier running just ahead. An impression of fresh air—after all the bodies crammed together, dripping fear. Even the alien atmosphere seemed fresh, but after only a few heartbeats the realization that it was all the same recycled shit hit the nose again. We didn't know much about what we were going to kill. Didn't really matter. Once we spotted them, they'd be toast.

I kept the official mission at the front of my mind, right next to my personal mission: Stay alive, keep the fire team alive, stop putting yourself in hopeless situations.

Charlie Three, Charlie Three, Six, over.

As a fire team leader, I was tuned in to our platoon's comm band. My team had its own freq that I could monitor simultaneously. I heard Sergeant Gillis respond, Six, Charlie Three, ready to punch it, over.

Three, Six, we have you on-line. Move ʼem into position, Three. Foxtrot Four is getting hit hard; charge seventeen for support now, over.

Charlie Three moving, out.

Gillis switched to inter-unit band to talk to his fire team leaders. I relayed my orders to my troops, the 1st Fire Team, watching the compactly built squad leader run in that weird, hunched-over skating motion necessary in this low gravity.

Corporal, be ready to consolidate! said Gillis, still moving into position. First Fire Team, make a right envelopment. Fourth Team, bring it over.

Moving outward, wider and wider, ripples through the sharp, orange light. Each of us looking like ripples, too, as our suits tried to adjust camo colors to match the landscape. Ground of grey and black, sky of orange, flipping colors as we moved between heaven and rock. Thin atmosphere means no gradients of light, just boom, dark pitch black, then boom, orange electricity. The suits fairly scrambled to keep up as the landing crafts vomited out more and more Technicolor fighters.

Explosions punctuated the movement. Not my problem, nothing personal. Keep moving.

Farther out, and farther apart, until maybe 15 meters separated each of us, the space growing as we moved, skating like a battalion of Grouchos in an exploding paint warehouse.

The extra space brought mixed blessings. I lost the sense of the mob rush which had propelled me this far. I kept on, pushing down the growing desire to return to the landing craft and its nice steel walls. How easily we change; ten minutes earlier I'd have given you all I own for a chance to get out of that claustrophobic crate.

More space, more room, and I could see more details of the battle. Corpses of other soldiers, dead on the spot as I rushed past, trying not to look twice. An occasional rainbow-hued puddle breaking up the monotony. A whole lot more dead us, though.

Second team, move up on Fox Four.

Just got to move, don't got to think.

My foot went chunk, caught on a dusty rock, as somebody's arm smacked my thigh. I turned; no somebody attached any more. I tried to catch myself but got a gravity trick and started down, three arms, two legs, and two left feet.

Got your six, Harper.

Gwynn. Moving up behind me, covering my ass like always. What'll I do if I'm ever alone? Get yourself up, get moving.

I stood. Something wrong. I couldn't get to the wrong, couldn't stop my mind. Something's wrong, supposed to be moving, Gwynn, out, out, come on, Gwynn, like spokes on a wheel, ripples in the pond, Gwynn, come on, move it. Still running, running in my head as the hole in his chest grew wider.

A scream echoed in my helmet, as if in response to the order. First man down—Gwynn, one of mine. I saw him, melted in the gut from some strange weapon I couldn't place, but the sight of his plastic armor melted into his open belly made me want to retch. I screamed, Corpsman! but Doc was already on the scene as I arrived. Even though by every rule I'd ever learned Gwynn was a dead man, I moved to him, wanting to help put him back together, until Doc tore me physically away. Stunned, confused, not even sure which way to run, I stumbled away. Then clarity—a flash of light, a booming noise felt in the depths of my chest—and I knew exactly where the landing craft was. Right where the smoking crater fumed. Oh, stupid me. We're supposed to move away from there. I pushed on.

Not more than 20 feet away I saw the unbearable rainbow beauty that meant the enemy was there. It's that weird color scheme that gave them the nickname The Clash. In this battle, the name had more than one meaning. We didn't know what caused the colors, or even if they had vision like we did. Shorter than humans, they made up for it in their stocky bulk and strength.

They were lovely. Although they were only two or three meters tall, and hunched over like an aged dowager, their chitinous exoskeleton glowed like a Japanese beetle, like oil on a puddle, like anodized titanium in rippling geometric patterns. Like an armadillo’s plates on psychedelics. Hands and facial features were delicate, a pointy head and chin—and big teeth in the middle.

I blew it away. They even die pretty, multi-colored gore splattering over the rock face. Immediately, I vomited in my suit; there's a joy. Technicolor all around. I remembered the suit recycler—oh great, now I get to drink it back up. Made me want to puke again.

As I stood up, the man in front of me jerked backwards and fell full on me, knocking me back to the ground. I struggled up again, pushing him aside. Carnesac, drilled through. Funny little man. No time to think about it; soldiers were dying on all sides. The firing intensified and to reach cover, I had to step on him. The imagined squishy sensation was going to stay with me for a long, long time.

I knew we had softened them up with pre-assault fire from above before we landed but I couldn't see that it made much difference. Of course, our mission, to rescue the base and get them the hell off our real estate would have been seriously compromised if we just toasted everything. No base, no point.

I moved to a defensible position, my suit changing to automatically camouflage into the surroundings and the weird orange light from Mars. The suits were supposed to absorb radar and infrared signatures, too. Not that it seemed to do much good; the Clash must have had some other way of sensing us.

In position and under cover, I saw one of the drones roll by looking to do some damage. These little robot drones could gather intelligence, detect chemical or biological weapons, and do some limited damage once they were sure they weren't killing one of us. Once captured, they transformed into a powerful bomb. A blast hit it and it sputtered and froze. Shit. They must have HERF weapons. The only thing that could quickly pick them off was High Energy Radio Frequency. Blows out all the electrical equipment. I hoped our suits had enough grounding.

The realization came slowly—we were toast. No way we could get out—the situation was incompatible with life. Their weapons were amazing. The only random shots in the air were our own. Their methods: one shot, one kill. No matter what cover we found, ping, ping, two more gone. They moved like shadows and it was just dumb luck when we nailed one of them. The best we could hope for was getting some information back so the next attack force would be better prepared. Hell, maybe we'd all get fucking medals.

After a lull in the attack lasted long enough for me to think, I couldn't figure out why on earth I was even alive. Melted body parts all around me. Screams died down, leaving an eerie silence that was somehow worse. My rifle was still hot, but I couldn't find a target. Then, a most surprising sound—they were retreating. It made no sense! We were decimated (worse than that. Goddamn trouble with the hypnotic methods used to cram military history in the brain—stupid useless facts come to mind when totally unnecessary—distracting. Decimated came from Roman times - means 1 in 10 were killed. We were at better than 70% casualties, from what I could see around me.) Where were they going? Clear the area and then supporting arms from above? Should we follow them or get the hell out? And were there ships to pick us up, even if we wanted to leave?