Chapter 4: The Wastelands of Baston Forest
"The laws of thermodynamics forbid the existence of perpetual motion. Yet, no one realizes that it's always been here. It's called war. The scary thing is that war is too fast these days." – Lillian Izzo, Oured Post Gazette
August 21, 2037
Above the Bastok Coast
0150 hrs
The C-800s were built specifically for Power Recon. Some questioned the need to update the C-130 Hercules. I guess in the age of upgraded military technology, such a plane seemed outdated. Then again, some probably thought that making the JANE models were excessive. Of course, this was in the infancy of the Ultimate Warrior program. We didn't complain. They were incredibly fast. The seats were a bit narrow. But we didn't complain. No, we had other concerns…like the fact we were going to a goddamn war we didn't start in these sleek, B-2 looking cargo planes that cost the taxpayers a fortune.
The narrow seats were a problem though. We sat with our equipment packs and our guns draped to our sides. We'd become like the kids going to kindergarten for the first time. Only, we didn't have enough time to say goodbye to our parents, have sex with our girlfriends, hug our wives or kiss our kids. There was no dress rehearsal; no easy day at school. This was it.
Our entire Regiment would be the first to touch boots in Yuktobania. The next day, the second regiment and the reserves, finally we'd followed in three days by our non-Recon comrades in the 1st Marine Division. President Shelley's new Mercurial Doctrine was to have every military division, should things go crazy, be anywhere in the world in 18 hours, give or take. Unfortunately, the best laid plans sometimes go wrong. It would 8,000 to 10,000 of us against god-knew-how-many Soma insurgents in three days.
I was in the back area of the 04 plane, dozing off as we were only a few minutes from jumping. We were going into the Dresdene-Duga-Baston Triangle as command put it. Our orders: defend Bethlehem Park from the Soma group. What we faced? We then knew the Soma attacked Ocktabursk to kill off the remaining leaders of the Loyalist Army and the country itself. The entire Yuke army was in disarray. Now, the entire Soma army was saying: forget the cease fire…we were going to bring down vengeance and furious anger upon Southern Yuktobania; Drought be damned.
In my sleep, I thought about the first day I went to school. I was put in a different class than Tasha and it was extremely awkward to not have her near me. Every minute I kept looking across the hall trying to see if she too was a nervous wreck. I'm not sure if that was the reason I became sick and threw up all over Mary Sherbet's shoes, but who knew? At the end of the day, I found Tasha again and she was bursting from the seams in excitement over her day. But no amount of hugs from my parents or chewable medicines could boost my shattered ego.
I woke back up in the middle of conversation between some of the guys. Everything was green, the illumination from the night vision goggles underneath the UWS's helmet. Brilliant inventions to have a button switch lower a pair of lightweight NVGs over your eyes beneath the black visors we wore.
I felt like I was on that first day of school. But I was not a five to six year old. As Cameron talked about his embarrassing run in with a drag queen, I realized that it was all the same...and yet so different from back then. I was a nineteen year old with a semiautomatic rifle, C4 charges and a license to kill. Our first war was our first day of school. You could come back alive from school. War was always a question mark.
"How long do you think we're going to be here?" asked Eric; not the crazy, hooker aficionado Eric Martin, but Eric Christensen.
"I'd say three weeks max." said Walt.
"You're crazy. Nothing ever takes three weeks in the Corps." Cameron said.
"Well, at least we'll be the first ones back." I said, a little groggy.
"That is true." Walt replied.
One officer in the front got up and started motioning with his hands. We knew that was our cue to get read.
"Green Light! Recon…up, up!" I heard Lieutenant Dickerson say. The last part of Blue Phase in Recon training was the Airborne training. It took only a week, because technology had so unsophisticated the simple job of jumping out of an airplane. With the new fast release, we could clear a plane in seconds. The exit was to the back, which meant that we'd be the first to jump along with Lieutenant Dickerson, who was in the very back. The officer was always the first out of the plane.
"Hook up!" he shouted.
We stood up and attached our hooks to the line.
"TAC up and sound off!"
To TAC up meant one thing: press the button on our helmets to turn on the Tactical Assessment System; the unit which made the awesome UWS work. TAC also meant that whatever information command was viewing on its GPS and radar scopes. Or it meant to just put the damn suit on, as Moute so eloquently put it. Ironic that he was the Company S-2 at the time. The door began to open and then…
"What the hell!?" I heard someone say.
I saw something white flash past our door. I thought we were under fire. The JANEs were built to withstand heavy impacts from surface to air missiles. In training, we were taught to engage the emergency breakaway system in case of a problem. We'd press the panic button, detach the lines, file out and jump like a normal parachutist would. And just when we started sounding off, God took a giant, imaginary sledgehammer into the wing of our airplane. Thrown into disarray, everyone was falling over each other, cursing and screaming all the way. I was too. The alarms were like screams. I had to pick myself off the floor as Dickerson tried to give his orders…but we already knew.
"Emergency breakaway! Bail out! Bail out!" he shouted.
"Go, go, go! Get out! Go! Move!"
I detached the line and Walt was pushing against me. Another impact shook us as everyone began bailing out. I was afraid we'd flip completely as we listed down and to the left.
"What the hell did they hit us with?!" Walt shouted.
"Forget it Walt! Just get your ass out of the plane!" shouted Sheck.
It was the last thing I heard before I made my lunge for the door. My heart rate slowed slightly before got there. Maybe my brain tricked itself into believing that the ground was safer than a damaged airplane. In some perverse sense, one could make an argument for either said. Micho was next, then me. For a moment, everything swirled inside my head; my mother, my father, my friends, Tasha, Astrid…Dulcinea and Sueltana, both missing in that vast unknown land. The only answer to all those question marks was down. Then, the plane impacted again and I was thrown out into the darkness of night.
***
The fall was filled with twists and turns before I leveled out. It wasn't the HALO jumps Special Forces did. We were at least 10,000 feet when it began, but when we jumped it was more like something out of a bad action movie. We opened our chutes when we could. There was no element of surprise anymore. All along the sky, I saw the strange white streams and red tracers. But they weren't below us. They came from the western horizon as I drifted down into the valley below. The darkness above made it impossible to see what the ground was like, even with the lights of death all around me. However, as I fell further, I thought I saw the tops of trees. I pulled the cord and my chute opened like clockwork.
As I floated to the surface, I began to see the ground better through the night vision and I saw no trees at all. There was nothing but white lines. I then realized there were no living trees below. We still had no information on this mysterious deforestation, famine and drought that had ravaged this country. The country was too wrapped up in its own war to even properly investigate it. Or at least that's what we were told by the media, the officers, and the companies.
I landed with a thud and my helmet cracked up against thick roots. I got up and checked my equipment. The screen was not cracked, but the TAC was off. The ground seemed harder than I thought it would be. I quickly gathered the parachute and ducked low behind a dead tree. I took a quick look around to see if any friendlies were there. However, my TAC system was acting screwy; it would turn on, but the screen was blurry. It was still "roaming". It was not a good way to start a combat action. I packed the parachute in the side ruck we had. The parachutes acted as spare infrared and camouflage shields for fighting holes or company areas. I took two steps…and it was like I was stepping on glass.
Then the full experience hit me. Within the glass facial shield and helmet, I couldn't smell anything but my own air. I'd landed on a hill, and beneath my feet was a massive valley. I didn't have my night vision on since my TAC was screwy, but it could see that I wasn't in the Alaska District anymore. The moon was high overhead with a million stars that littered the heavens with their incandescence. This was Yuktobania. This was the land where Sueltana, my sister lived in peace long before this Soma mess. This was the land where the first girl I loved, Dulcinea, came to abandon home and hearth to help its struggling people.
"Whoa…" was all I could say. As I took it in, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I didn't hear the footsteps. I turned around to see Sheck and Micho along with Walt. I nearly jumped ten feet in the air.
"Oh crap! I didn't see you."
"Stay calm, man." The Sheck said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
We were soon joined by Wash, part of the sniper team. Then there was Kell, Cameron, Cpl. Jenks, Sgt. Walsh, Alphonso, and PFC Willard. We were all crouching, waiting for orders. But after a period of silence, I figured my TAC wasn't the only one on the fritz.
"What the hell hit us?" Walt asked.
"That was no surface to air missile. That was something else…" Alphonso said.
Then, we finally started to pick up radio noise. "Werewolf White One-Seven to any units on the net! Do you copy? I repeat, this Werewolf…"
Sheck knew who it was. "Werewolf Easy Seven-Seven, here. Seventeen calm down. The Yukes don't need to hear you breathing like you're nailing your girlfriend."
Walt apparently did as well. "I've heard enough of that off-base. I mean he was going at it with…"
"Cut it out, Walt. Check your TAC everyone."
The digital display on the helmet screen was like being in a video game. The shield was made out of special poly-glass and other opaque…material to prevent the enemy from seeing where we were. When someone spoke, their name showed up briefly on the screen. And how did we hear inside the noise contained helmet? The sensors outside the helmet alerted our ears. It was like wearing a hearing aid.
"I can't access anyone's location." Cameron said.
"Okay, well, let's move east." Sheck motioned in hand signals for us to line up single file. Jenks was on point and Sheck and I were in the rear as we began the walk to our objective.
If I did know it was a forest originally, I wouldn't have been able to tell. The entire place, except our own voices, was dead silent. There was no life at all. None. There were no insects chirping, no creature scurrying beneath leaves that weren't even there. I touched the side of a tree and it felt like stone than bark. The branches and trunks were only spider webs of the dead, wooden hulks that were frozen in nature's version of rigor mortis. As we left the tree line, we emerged into a valley that was completely void of life. There was only long stretch of nearly nothing. The only identifying landmark was a large opening in the ground some hundred yards in front of us. The ground beneath us went into a gentle descent and then we heard the distant explosions. We heard scattered communications on our net, but oddly none from our own company. We turned and there were flashes around us. Apparently, the hills in the distance were still there. Having seen the barren landscape…I doubted the maps were even right. Sheck said we actually were closer to our objective than we thought.
"Goddamn…this place is a dead zone. This is like being in one of those horror movies." Micho said quietly.
"There's no almost no cover at all." Jenks said.
Finally, we received some orders from above, but it wasn't our company.
"This is Big Bear One to all units. We're continuing the mission as planned. All units, keep moving north towards the Bayori Ridge at Section 12, Grid 4. TAC's showing Yuke Loyalist units in the area near the bridge. Watch your fire."
"This is Werewolf Alpha One. Team Two, keep moving in your current direction. Werewolf Easy 77, head due east and link up with Werewolf Beta One at Section 15. Watch out for friendlies on the way. Our objective is the town of Tsun." Captain Morrison said.
"Wilco, sir," Sgt. Sheckenhousen said. "Guys, we got two klicks to cover and daylight on the move. Let's go to work."
We stepped into the ditch, which was actually a former river. I could tell since there was a boat in the middle of the plain. I could see a few skeletons there as well. Then I stepped on one, the dry bones crushing beneath my feet. I stopped, almost horrified. I just looked around before Sheck nudged me on. Forget it, he said. I couldn't believe it. This was the land my sister called home? This was the land where Dulcinea came to atone?
This was probably my mother's worst nightmare. Her dream world was turned into this barren, twisted landscape. It was a place of death.
***
We walked for a mile before we finally hooked back up with Dickerson and the other members of Team One. The hard landings had scattered us all over the place. There were minor skirmishes around the area as Team 2 found that Soma had wheeled up what was apparently some new type of AA gun. They were ordered to destroy it and move on; that was just one. There'd be more. Some town called Tsun was our target. Tsun, for we knew, was some old town that was abandoned two decades ago when we stuck out noses into this country the first time. After clearing the plain, we reached a series of hills and to the our west was the main dirt road up to Tsun.
"Werewolf White 77," the Lieutenant said, "Take your fire team east. TAC's showing some probable friendly units in the area. Check them out and head back to the town. Team 3's already reached the area."
Our Belkan sergeant replied, "Okay, sir."
We turned and began walking in a pair of bunched groups on the way through the dead trees and dust.
Cameron Craft was walking along side Micho and I. Cameron was a short blonde kid with as many tiny red specks on his body as there were grains of sand on the beach. He was the only other guy besides Walt and Micho that was in my boot camp platoon. My father said he reminded him of someone. I knew who he was speaking of. My mother described him very clearly:
September 28, 2010 – "…and I am impressed with this Grimm character. Our new Belkan-blooded Wardog 4 has a humble look to him. His hair is like the white grains of the Kansas District Plains. But like a child, he asks us 908 questions a day. However, I see something in his eyes. It is the same spark I see in my wingmate's eyes. I even see it in Chopper's eyes, for all his ridiculous antics. Grimm is the child in this sudden war. Is this what war has become…a series of quick body blows? Is it going to get to the point where every war is declared and fought in a single day? Maybe we'll all be children in war…"
Cameron was different from Grimm because our friend came from Hollywood, the most overrated city in Osea. I thought it was a land of stars and glitz and it was in a few areas. But most of Hollywood was an old town that needed a major makeover. Not to mention that it's overhyped areas like Savile and Soho Row did not justify its absurd prices.
"Your sister used to live in this place?" Cameron asked.
Keep talking Hollywood boy, I thought. Inexpensive coffee, my ass; Eleven dollars for a small, are you kidding me?
"No, she visited it with my mom. She lived in Ciudad." I finally replied.
"Really? Did she live downtown?"
"Why does that matter?" I asked, "She…she lived in D'Enfante Palisades."
"Wow, she must have been loaded…huh?"
"It's a bullshit name. It's a lower income part of Ciudad, but it's actually the best lowest income place in the country. But you put a lace curtain on a pig…it's still a pig." I said. I had plenty to scoff about the D'Enfante Palisades. If Hollywood was the most overrated part of Osea, then the D'Enfante was the most overrated place in the history of human freaking kind.
I continued, "The whole thing's a wash really. Rachel's father said that there's not a single place in this country that's over middle class. I thought he was exaggerating but…"
I stopped; I looked up and saw something. It was the shape of a man and it appeared to be holding something up in the air. "Hold up. There's someone out there."
"I saw it too. Line up." Sheck said.
We ducked low with our weapons in front. We had no cover in front or behind and whoever it was could have been Soma, civilian or loyalist. We had no idea. Sheckhousen, still crouching, took a few steps in front of us. It probably wasn't Soma. The intelligence reports stated the Soma didn't screw around. They were real quick to shoot at anything that wasn't on their side. I wondered if this person, whoever he was, spoke good or decent Osean. I really didn't feel like translating.
"Loyalists." Alphonso said. "Or one."
"How do you know?" Jenks asked.
"Just the way they move." Alphonso replied tersely.
"Good, Black, we might need you on this one." Sheck said, looking straight at me.
"I'm pretty sure they speak Osean too." I said bitterly.
"Quiet." Sheck snapped back.
"Hold." The figure said.
The figure came with a gun high in the air, a usual symbol meaning they were not an enemy. He placed it on the ground as he walked over.
"Welcome to Hell, friends." the figure continued in perfect Osean. It was strange though, he was short for a soldier and wasn't even in a regular uniform. Well, at least the ones we were told about in the briefings. He looked more like a wilderness expert a soldier. "Well, now I've seen everything."
"What in the world?" I said.
He looked no older than Micho's younger brother, though he probably could have passed for his sister. He had a rather, feminine look to him with the slick parted hair and waif form to him. His voice was as nasal as Micho's sis. Every step was like some kind of fancy tip toe. He wore some kind of uniform.
"Is there a problem?" he asked.
"Are you kidding me? How old is this kid?" Walt said.
"Sixteen, I think. My mother never counted birthdays but I knew when I was born…and right now, when I was born is the least of our concerns." The boy said.
"Wow, this is really strange." Sheckenhousen said.
The teenager laughed. "Strange? If anything's strange, I'd place a few dollars on you guys. You people look like rejects from a space movie."
"What are you doing out here?" Cameron asked.
"I'm your liaison…sort of. I'm actually a member of the Les Oubliés, well think of it was a kind of Special Forces of sorts. But…times have been tough. The recent attacks have split us all up. Supplies are low and things are not looking up."
"Is this a joke?" Sheckenhousen said.
"Well, I'm hardly the only kid fighting in this war." The kid said.
"You mean to tell me…you're in a group of child soldiers?" I said.
The idea of child soldiers was sort of a new concept to me. My mother did tell me a story about the brief time she was held captive in Versua. Some of the White Crow regime soldiers couldn't have been older than teenagers. Perhaps some of their deposed supporters were here in Yuktobania, I thought, but a group of Yuktobanian child soldiers? That made no sense at all to me. Sure things were bad, but were things this bad to have twelve and fifteen year olds fighting in this struggle?
"Hmm…now that I think about it, Suzie was supposed to meet up with the others to east. She's awesome. You got to meet her; she tore apart a whole group of Soma troops last week." He said. It was so nonchalant.
We Oseans got nervous about women in combat to not even allow them on the line. I was scared for Tasha being a goddamn Transportation company for crying out loud…and she just drove the truck! Here, people younger than me were killing on a daily basis, much less girls…
"This is Werewolf Lima, um…we've run into an unusual situation. We have this kid claiming to be a member of the Loyalist army. Um…hell she could be someone's daughter, goddamn."
"Hmm…I guess it's not so farfetched." Sheckenhousen said.
"It's amazing what people will do when they're desperate, eh?" the kid said.
"Who are you?" Alphonso asked.
"Name's Seto. Seto Dashnaya." He said, shaking Alphonso's hand.
"Well, um…okay. Well, if that's the case, la Paix du seigneur, friend." Alphonso said.
I wasn't sure what language he was speaking. It wasn't Yuke that was for sure. And what was this Les Oubliés? But whatever he said, this Seto knew as he merely nodded his head.
Walt was not impressed. "Way to go Mr. Ambassador, spreading peace to a fruitcake."
Alphonso shot him a poisonous look with merely his head. "Walt! Shut up."
"Sir, you got this? What do we do with him?" Sheck asked, looking like he'd lost his dog.
"Well, let's keep him with us." Dickerson said.
"What?! Sir, this kid's a liability! He's going to get killed." Rico said, finally speaking up.
"I've survived far worse. Trust me, death would be a release." Seto said, holding two fingers to his head in the shape of a gun.
I looked at him again, and he did look slightly emaciated. He then reached in his pocket and started eating something, but I couldn't tell at first. I heard the crunch and figured it was an apple. How he found an apple in this desolate place was beyond me. He didn't seem like a suicidal person at first. What really happened here, I wondered. But I had no time to ask him; we still had an objective to get to.
"I'd say he's useful. He knows the area pretty good it seems." The Lieutenant says.
"You think Command's going to let that fly, sir?" said Sgt. Adams.
"Actually, Command's ordering us to let him link up with us. But, I think they're more concerned with us stopping the Soma." Lieutenant Dickerson said, "Okay, kid, you stay in the back, everyone else TAC up. We're behind schedule. Move out."
He picked up his gun from the side of his foot and began walking between me and Walt, a wise decision given the circumstances. It was bizarre, us just blindly trust some kid. But Command said it was okay, and he followed.
"Better watch yourself or going to trip over that gun, kid." Walt said. Seto didn't even look at him.
"I've killed my fair share of Soma rebels. They thought the same thing. How many have you killed?"
"Zing." I said.
"Knock it off. Let's go." Micho said.
For the first time, Micho actually acted like he was my superior. It wasn't much. He was only a lance corporal, but it was clear that Micho's attitude to take charge came on its own there. Then I thought it was a reminder to me that we were in a war zone. It was a reminder that I could die anytime. Or maybe it was because Micho was just tired of clowning around with us; ironic, since he'd done plenty of it himself. Then again, Micho could be a bit of a hypocrite at times…just like his dad.
We walked along the sandy trail until we reached the crest in the hill. Down from our position, we heard noises up ahead. We were almost to the town of Tsun. But leave it to Walt to ask the dumb question…
"How much farther we got?" he said.
"Till Lieutenant tells us to stop, what do you think?" Micho said.
"I wish we had the LARAs…but no." I said, stretching out my last word. "Damn Soma having itchy trigger fingers."
We walked up the road…and there it was. Tsun. It seemed almost too easy to simply walk up into a foreign town and chill.
Going into Tsun was like entering a ghost town from the old westerns I watched when I was a kid. The clearing was surrounded by a mass of dead trees and the dry branches were all over the place. Beneath us was a paved road that was split and cracked to hell. I actually looked down a few times just in case I was stepping on bones again. It was about 0300 and everyone had cleared the Ridge was little or no resistance. Team 3 was standing guard, digging defensive positions and policing the general area.
Funny thing about Power Recon; as advanced as it was and as skilled as we were, there were simply things at the fundamental core of the Marines that would not change. Recon or not, digging those fighting holes was just another tradition that wouldn't go away. I knew this was going to de difficult as the ground was crappy and unstable from all the degradation over the past eight to ten months. I could tell that using E-tools on this surface was a brutal task.
I didn't know much about biology, but I had one question…as did all of us: what kind of chemical weapon caused the entire ecosystem of the Central Highlands to die in such a short amount of time? Things like famine were nothing new. It happened in Estovakia once, but that took at least a year. There was no simple explanation. All we knew was that we were here to fight this war for the struggling Yukes. Ironic that we almost defeated them nearly 30 years ago and we were bailing them out of this problem. No wonder that guys like Walter Snow were bitter. He was paying for the "sins" of his father, Swordsman, and dedicated his entire trip here to stewing about this fact, forgetting the fact his father helped save the country!
We all entered into the company HQ to meet with the Lieutenant and receive our orders. Seto then vanished into one of the rooms, probably hunting around for something to eat. I imagined he'd eat anything, though. This was reality of life in the Baston; ruthless and cruel. Then again, maybe it had always been that way from the bugs to the deer…none of which were around anymore it seemed.
This place was once a makeshift headquarters for the Yuke Army. Or at least, it had that feel to it. Everything was in disarray due to the ravages of time and war. This building had to be from the 2010 war. The aqua paint was still peeling off the wall. Flashlights and computer screens poked through the dust clouds as the Werewolf S-2 and S-3 people set up their stations. Everywhere there were pieces of linoleum and sheet rock strewn about the floor. Part of the upper floor and ceiling had collapsed, exposing the roof and stars above. Mix that with the chippings from the roof and I knew this place could collapse any second. Then again, I knew enough about Yuke buildings that if the ancient school stood for another twenty years…it wouldn't have surprised me.
By now, Dickerson had long since arrived and had received a briefing from the Captain. We gathered inside one of the downstairs meeting rooms, part of which had collapsed into the floor. He gathered us around the table and went through a mock up of the city. It was drawn by some computer. The town consisted of this school, a road which led into two splits, a farm near the left fork, a hill near the right fork, one near our objective, the bridge over the tiny Arus river. It was big enough to support armor attacks and they'd be leading the attack on Bethlehem Park. I kept looking at a picture of Dulcinea folded into my hand while the Lieutenant spoke. I was in the back though and no one paid attention. She was who I was fighting for at the moment. But no anger filled me though. I wasn't sure why at the moment; even more so when Dickerson spoke.
"Okay, boys. Here's the situation. The enemy has stopped its advance for now. But they'll be on their way soon. Intelligence says there's a tank company on the way backed up by mechanized infantry, full strength unknown."
Unknown was always a suspect word in the military. That usually meant a lot of tanks were on the way. One thing I kept forgetting was how young a company we were. Most of us were in our early twenties. It was quite unbalanced. In fact, Sheck was overdue for a promotion to Staff Sgt. I was also long due to receive my Lance Corporal rank ever since I'd lost it punching Walt in the face. Tristan was also due to make Sergeant. At the briefing, we were there to go to the gun line.
We were among the married young, the foolish criminals, or the remnants of the Osean teenage wasteland.
"A tank company? How big is it?" asked Sheckenhousen.
"It could be up to ten tanks, possibly T-78 models but assume they're T-90s and T-100s thrown in. They're coming and we're in their way."
I'd never heard of a T-100 tank before now. I gulped.
"Teams Two and Three will be on the right flank. Raptor Company will be to our left and our Team's shotgun. Sheck, Adams, I want three OPs up twenty to thirty meters from our line. OP 1 will be on the road at the left fork near the farm. OP 2 will be in the middle at the water tower between one and three. OP 3 is at the hill by the bridge. If they do attack, Vampire group will collapse in to support. Any other questions?" he said.
Silence.
"Okay, we're on. Dig those holes boys. We're on Code No Doze for awhile."
Code No Doze was rather simple. We weren't going to be sleeping for a few days.
"Okay, Chambers, Wilson, and Kell will be on OP 1 with Vitor. Marion," Sheck said calling Sgt. Adams by his first name, "you take Rico, Cameron, Ling, and Walt on two. I'll take Black, Alphonso, Micho, and Tristan on OP 3."
So the game had begun. It was kill or be killed for me. It was coming back alive to Dulcinea and my parents, Tasha...or in a body bag.
***
It took quite awhile, but we dug our holes along the top of the hill overlooking the bridge below. The mortar team had the bridge dialed in if we needed support. However, we weren't sure if our superiors got our artillery to us before we started digging. No one above the Captain knew. As such, we dug in anyway. It was one of the moments where you just had to dig your hole with the hands your parents taught you how to use. You dug and dug and waited. You waited with your weapon in your hand for the enemy that was too stupid to show up and let you use your trigger finger. You waited because you knew the enemy was coming and you knew they were shaking in their boots.
And you were going to kill them.
It was rare to have five guys in an OP unless the heavy weapons were involved. Usually it was two or three, or even four if the need called for it. However, in a combat situation you could never be too careful. Sheck figured they'd come by the bridge first. It was the only logical way for an enemy troop column to get through. Of course, Sheck always took too much credit for everything. Everyone figured that command had the idea in place when they saw the reports.
It was 0430. An hour and half of waiting was nothing in the corps. It was after four hours where your mind began to wander and you'd talk about ridiculous things. However, in Recon, you'd usually end up talking about anything after five minutes.
The entire regiment was now aligned along the Arus River. We heard all kinds of communications between different groups. Tristan was unusually chatty about that stuff. That was a bit odd considering Tristan was everything Rico wasn't. Tristan was the silent type who did his job and moved on. Rico was getting to be like Walt. He was becoming moody and snappish. But Tristan, much like Alphonso or Chapman, was not like anybody. He was his own man. Tristan was the other heavy weapons guy. However, his AT-100 rocket launcher only had four rounds. Alphonso was helping him with those heavy rounds since Marko, his usual helper, was needed back at the Sparrow position, the units that would move up to support us in case of an enemy attack.
And as they talked…I thought about how the heck this one river survived all this devastation.
"What are you going to name the kid, Micho?" asked the medium built Estovakian.
"I'm not talking about my family. I'm not getting messed up because of you."
"Though I'm sure Kate wants like seven kids with her Catholic upbringing and all that jazz. I mean she's attractive, but you know how those girls are. Those I-don't-believe-in-abortion- chicks." Sheck said while laughing. He nudged Alphonso in the shoulder.
"That's real cute, Sheck. I'm very impressed." Alphonso said in a rare sarcastic tone.
"Oh come on, I'm just busting you. Anyway, I don't see why not. You Verusans breed like goddamn rabbits." Sheckenhousen said, pointing back at Micho.
"My parents raised seven of us. Hell, Brandon's got a pretty good size family of his own. It's not anything new."
He was right. I thought about my dead sister Catherine for a minute. I always wanted to ask my father what his first born was like. I never got around to it though. But given my mother's constant references to children she'd like to have in her diary, I would assume that her death all but crushed them. No wonder they sacrificed everything to get revenge on the Versuans. Though, I wondered if the deaths of their old friends Archer and Swordsman still weighed on them after two decades. They said it didn't, but when I thought about it I didn't believe them. They had no reason to though; after all, they went to war supporting them to the bitter end and paid the ultimate price for it. Then again, if they hadn't…millions more people would have died. Osean history conveniently forgot the over 500,000 Versan civilians who died in that terrible war, from not only the electromagnetic weapon, but landmines left behind, disease, and so on.
"Well, if my other sister was still alive, I'd have four sisters." I said.
Would have. Maybe that was what caused me to be scared earlier. It was what ticked me off about Walt. There was no reverence about this wasteland of a place my mother once called a beautiful place. There was nothing here but death and there'd be more death if the enemy came.
"That's a lot of estrogen for one family. But why do you count her? She's not your real family." Tristan continued.
"Go tell that to my mother's face. Sueltana's as much a part of our family as anyone else."
"You never did finish telling me about her." Tristan said.
"She's a writer for a newspaper, or was at one point. When the Soma attacked Cinigrad, the Palisades were easy pickings. She and her family managed to get out of the city and we got word from her that everything was okay. She went back to the city during that brief stretch when the Loyalists retook the Eastern part of the city. However, when part of the army defected to the Soma, it was the last I'd heard from her." I said.
"My parents, the year I still in my mother's womb, fled Emmeria after…"
"Whoa, I thought you said you were from Estovakia." I said.
"My parents were. They left that place behind years before I was born. When Gracemeria was overrun, my parents got the hell out of Emmeria and didn't look back. They wound up in Yuktobania…which wasn't much better. It was worse actually. They drifted from one shelter to another. We don't even remember the exact day I was born because we were moving so much. I was born in the back of a truck or something on the way to Bastok…or at least that's what my parents said at the time. Many of the people they fled with didn't make it. They starved, or got lost and were never seen again, or killed in the crossfire between the Loyalists and Communists…or even that brief time when the Verusans invaded." He concluded.
"Enough stories, I think I see something out there." Sheck interrupted.
I saw the shapes in the distance. They were moving down the hill some ways away. Distance estimation was not my strongest suit, but the shadows looked at least 600 yards away. This was in the pitch black of early morning. However, I wasn't the only one to see them.
"That's too close. TAC should have picked them up." Alphonso said.
"What's going on?" I heard Chambers say from OP 1.
He couldn't see what I saw, but everyone in OP3 did when he said that. The silhouettes continued to move down from the ridge and into the dead tree line. There was almost a strange shine to their movements.
"Lieutenant, we got company." Sgt. Sheckenhousen said, "OP 2, this is 77. You're seeing this?"
"Roger, we already primed. They're probably using those old infrared blankets or something." Sgt. Adams said.
"This is Werewolf Alpha. TAC's picked up an advance unit moving for 2 and 3; mechanized infantry with additional fighting vehicles moving south to the bridge. They are confirmed hostile, you're cleared hot. Hold until support arrives." Captain Morrison said.
Sheck turned to us, smiling beneath the helmet's glass. "Okay. Gentleman, let's turn their fucking lights off!"
A large stream of enemy soldiers came out of the western side of the dead trees blindly firing their weapons at us. We didn't even say anything. We merely fired on the column as the other OPs opened fire in support. One BMP came up and Rico knocked it out from the top of the tower with one shot. I wasn't sure if my bullets were hitting anything at the moment, but our entire volley of fire obviously stopping the enemy. It only took two clips before we'd mowed down the entire enemy concentration. It was almost too easy.
"Is that the best they can do?" Tristan said, unusually cocky.
In the distance, I could hear the blasts of distant combat. Teams Two and Three were involved in their own furious combat further down the river. I guessed the entire length of the river was being attacked. At the moment, we were okay as long as the flanks didn't collapse. We heard the deafening fire as the sounds screamed into our ears from the modules on our helmets.
TAC then signaled enemy vehicles were on the way. I wondered how they got so close. Were they waiting on us the entire time? Just as we began to fire again, we heard several impacts along the river. White splashes mixed with red and white tracers over the banks of the river. I was caught up in the cadence of my own duties. Fire, fire, reload, fire, fire, and reload. After that, I wondered if we were even shooting at targets anymore. TAC was showing the figures in the forest, but we couldn't quite get any sure shots. They were some 200 to 350 yards from us. It should have been easy, but the cursing coming from the others told me we weren't getting anything.
And in one second, the shooting stopped from the other side. By now, the Sparrow teams had moved up to support us, and snipers from the school and the woods had joined in. the mortar teams had dropped two dozen rounds on the area to the left and the right of the kill zone. The fight had lasted nearly twenty minutes before everything went quiet. There was nothing but smoke coming from the mass of dying and dead trees.
"I think they've fallen back." Alphonso said.
Then, twelve almost simultaneous bursts of water and mud tore our field of vision apart. We all ducked low as we exactly what was attacking us. They'd replied in kind to our mortar fire.
"We got mortars falling near the river, sir! Do we hold?" Sheckenhousen said.
Just as he asked that, part of the dead tree line erupted about 100 yards from us. The line curved down a hill, giving us good sight on that part of the area below. It was just only a few yards from our allies' positions. Then, one more round erupted some fifty yards from us. They were getting closer. My heart sped up to mach speed. Sheck repeated his sitrep.
"Negative. Fall back! Fall back!" Captain Morrison shouted. "OP 1 and 2 move to Fallback Position 1. OP 3, provide covering fire until the other positions are withdrawn. Fall back to Position 3."
"Werewolf White Eight to Alpha. I'm pushing the balance of Team 3 up to the river." Lieutenant Riba shouted.
"Vampire is en route; ETA, six minutes." Morrison said. "All OP units, fall back to Position 1."
I certainly wasn't going to argue with that. There was nothing we could do to stop the mortar fire. We had no contact with artillery and the mortar crews had lost some of their rounds when their plane was hit.
"Werewolf Unit, this is G1. Rescind current order. All Over-watch Positions will remain in defensive position." said a mysterious female voice.
"What? Who the hell is G1?" Dickerson shouted.
We knew all the significant call signs we needed. We knew the Recon ones by heart. Our company's call signs were these: Werewolf White, one Red, and one Blue and the number based on what group you were with. Team call signs had double digits in the 60s, 70s, or 80s. Command had single digits. However, every military group had a similar style, but different names. For example, in the regular Army, our Team's (or platoon's) call sign would probably either be anything from Echo to Super.
We had no idea what the hell G1 was. It couldn't be the big brass from Central Command. Battalion HQ went by Godfather. Regiment was Big Bear. Most of us didn't even know Regiment or Division call signs, but none of them would have been G1!
"Um…what is this? Who is this on our net, Captain? Request identification!"
"This is G1 from Central Command. I repeat, rescind current order and remain in defensive position."
That probably meant us dying. We'd only been in Yuke-land for four hours max and we were going to die at the hands of mortar fire. For all our training, there were only two things we couldn't stop: air power and artillery. And we knew enough about the Yukes to know they weren't shy about using artillery at all. I remembered a story in training about a group of the Osean Army's 101st Airborne running into this problem during the 2010 Operation Desert Blitz. Easy company only sustained a few light casualties despite heavy fighting to the oil refinery in Jilachi. They lost a quarter of their company in three minutes. The Yukes had wheeled up MLRS launchers, Paladins, and freaking battleship guns. We were scared out of our minds. Or least I was.
How the hell was I going to make it back alive when some call sign I didn't even know was giving me orders that countermanded common sense?!
More explosions were heard and I knew I was going to die.
"I'm clarifying with Godfather…they're a little confused too. Stand by." Captain Morrison said.
"They better hurry up, those mortars aren't waiting!" Sheck said.
Fear overtook me. I was going to die. My parents were going to lose their second child. I would be a generic gravestone in Arlington. I'd never see Dulcinea, Astrid, Tasha or Sueltana again. They'd never see me. I'd be forgotten forever and there was nothing worse than being forgotten. I dropped my weapon and fell inside my fighting hole. I wanted it all to go away. I wanted it to end and the fear could be finished. I crawled into myself and I was trapped in a black hole where not even light could escape…and then…
Silence.
"They've stopped." Tristian said. His voice and his breathing was shaky.
"Guns up, boys." Sheck ordered us.
"What I want to know is…what is this G1? Sounded like a computer or something." Alphonso said, struggling to put a clip inside his X-88.
"No, she wasn't a computer. I bet she's probably some nerdy chick from the Regiment staff or something." Sheck added.
And just when I thought we were in the clear…those strange white tracers came back. They exploded in small pools of fire all around the area.
"Oh, shit!" I shouted.
"What are they shooting at us!?" I heard Rico shout.
Fate was a cruel mistress. And just as we thought we were done, "G1 to OP 3. Maintain your position. Be calm. Assistance is on the way. Enemy tanks and mobile artillery confirmed at Grid 17, point 135-XE395. Threat level at 98 percent; initiating Combat Mode. Targeting support, on, activating Golgotha System. Switching to Manual override. Support in 3…2…1."
There was a sound in the air, the sound of a zooming and a scream. Next, there was a pool of fire and it erupted all across the kill zone in front of us. The table turned in one action. But there were no planes in the sky!
"Holy shit! Yeah! Woo!" said Sheckenhousen.
"What in the world is this?" Micho said.
TAC then confirmed our worst fears. There were more of them out there moving toward us. They were a group of them moving along the road near the west side of the bank.
"Tristian! The left! More of them!" Alphonso screamed.
"They're history!" said Tristan, gaining his confidence back.
However, G1 was not finished yet. "This is G1, additional enemy detected. Manual Override engaged. Economy Switch enabled. Targeting additional enemies with artillery support in 5…4…"
Tristan was confused. He had a sure lock on the enemy tank in front…and it wouldn't do anything. "What in…my weapon! It won't fire!"
"2…1…impact."
Then, a series of seven blasts occurred. Each one was bright with a white burst of sun. It was the familiar sound of artillery fire. The tanks were gone.
"What in blazes is this?!" Sheck said, confused.
But something triggered in me and I became confident again. I'd see my loved ones again. "Wow, did you see that!"
As the dust cleared, there was a silence save the hollering of the others who'd witnessed the massacre of the enemy T-90s or whatever they were. Then, almost like clockwork, the female voice came back. "Threat level is now at 38 percent; G1 cancelling support. Freelance command returned to Werewolf Alpha. Continue your mission. Have a nice day."
Have a nice day, I thought. What was this woman thinking? Could anyone in command have been so nonchalant about the possibility of us being run over by tanks?
"All units, this Werewolf Alpha. All enemy units are in retreat. Just reinforce your positions and stand by."
We were stunned. We sat there for a long minute taking in what we just saw. If this was the new face of war, I thought, I'd signed up for the right war. I knew at that time the Hephaestus Project was probably the greatest invention in the history of mankind. Whoever G1 was, she'd won us the battle we started.
Total battlefield control indeed.
"Did you see that man? That was incredible!" I said, jubilant.
But the Sheck was not convinced. "See what? That was…almost…inhuman."
"What are you talking about?" Micho said. Micho had been quite silent for some time. Was he too shocked by this?
"Those Soma tanks…did you see the way they were taken out? Did we even drop with the artillery support?!" Sheck said. He was almost ready to jump out of his fighting hole.
"I don't think we did. Where did the howitzers come from?" I said.
"I'm not saying we did or didn't. I mean…just the accuracy alone! It took out one at a time. I've never, in the history of warfare, heard of an artillery unit that knocked out seven tanks in a row without a miss!"
"We got the best guys in Corps, Sheck." Micho added.
"Dude, I know. My brother is in the Kings Company for the Arty units attached to Raptor. His guys are good, but they're not that good. They're not scarily accurate good. Artillery's not supposed to be deadly accurate anyway just enough so it doesn't hit us or civilians."
Alphonso, with his face rather icy, then put on a smile and put his arm around his Sergeant.
"We're alive, Sarge. That's all that matters." He said. Sheck cracked a smile.
I was still smiling. I was alive. I'd earned my first combat ribbon. But most importantly, I was alive. At the moment, I didn't care about G1 or the Soma. Micho was pumping his fist. He was glad to be alive. I sat back down in my dusty fighting hole, took off my mask, ignored the absolutely horrible smell of the outside world…and kissed the wrinkled up picture of Dulcinea.
I was alive. That was all that mattered.
***
For six hours, we waited as the fires still burned with choking smoke from the enemy armor attack. We had to change positions from the right to the left of the bridge, which meant digging another hole and setting up once again. Walt had joined us and once again, he was complaining. It was getting to be a pain in the ass. We still had no answers as to this mysterious G1. It was strange that we'd question something that saved our bacon; but truth be told, to not question the technique was madness. I imagine that was how my father felt the first time he took to the air in close air support. How could the Osean soldiers back then, some of them as young as me, not look at the skies and wonder what angel had saved them?
We were due to be relieved by Riba's guys soon and the only thing we could do was wait for another attack. We did get lucky though. We didn't lose a single man in the frenzy of combat. However, there was no time for souvenir gathering. Although that contest was still in the trust, we still had all kinds of problems. We were still waiting on intelligence on this ecological disaster that had taken this beautiful land and turned it into a nightmare wasteland. As day came on, I saw the Baston Forest for what it really was. It was just another desert. The wind could blow and every tree would fall into dust.
We were eating our MREs when, all of the sudden, I saw Seto walking up to our position with an SKS rifle strapped to his side. He had a few grenades strapped on and once again he was eating an apple. I wanted to know where the hell he was getting all these apples from.
"Beautiful…isn't it?" he said with a smile the size of Saturn's rings.
"Hey, what are you doing here!?" I said.
"Checking out the damage. It's amazing. It's almost erotic. Kind of like your friend there." He said, nudging his head towards Micho.
"Yeah, it is…whoa, what the hell are you talking about?" Micho said, having heard us. Seto did this wink at me, and then I started to laugh. I got the message.
"I think he likes you Micho." I said.
Micho arched an eyebrow…then recoiled in horror as Micho came up and touched him on the shoulder.
"Dude! Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Micho said, pulling away from Seto. "Dude, I don't roll that way. I got a wife."
Seto laughed and fell to the ground, rolling around. "I was just kidding with you. Oh well, that's too bad."
"We got dragged around the world for an ecological nightmare, some mysterious woman called G1 changing orders, and the only loyalist run into is a fruity sixteen year old kid with an Ak…something. In country almost ten hours and I've already seen everything." Sheckenhousen said.
However, Seto wasn't even looking at him. He was looking straight at me. I'd taken off my helment for a minute to clear out some dust when Seto was staring.
"Wait a minute…oh…I see. Oh…I get it. Now I see…"
"What the hell are you talking about? Why are you staring at me?" I said.
Seto cackled. "Wow, no…now I've seen everything. You're the one aren't you? You're the one in all her photographs."
"What?" I asked.
"Sueltana. Hell, I lived in her building in the Palisades for months. And that girlfriend of yours…you sure know how to pick 'em." Seto said, finishing with a whistle.
I just stood there like my feet were stuck in a frozen lake and with a confused look on my face, I just looked at him with a thousand mile stare.
Next Chapter: Les Enfants Oubliés