Through the Looking Glass
Author's Note/Disclaimer: Same as before. Any references to the Colonial Legion, read my ongoing fic, Legio Patria Nostra.
We are gearing up for yet another advance. New replacements have arrived, weapons are being checked, and supplies are being rushed to the front from depots in El Agheila and Tunisia. We are almost halfway through Libya and our belief is Egypt will lay open before us for Christmas. The Egyptian soldiers of the 3rd Egyptian Armored are especially eager, for their home state has been hit hard. A line less than twelve kilometers from the Nile is being held at a great cost by Egyptian, Syrian, Saudi and Israeli ground forces.
We have been reinforced by the 13e DBLE, the 13th Half Brigade of the Colonial Legion, men who have been fighting this Biohazard in our Interstellar Colonies for nearly two years. They are hard, jaundiced veterans, even more so than we are. They are fatalistic; I see two of them taping their blood types to their boots before going into action. After facing nearly two years of overwhelming defeats despite valiant stands, anyone would become a fatalist.
Two of them are teaching Wiersbowski how to shoot his Wraith cannon from the hip. Their shooting instructor is instructing an intensive marksmanship course, together with Sergeant Burton. Their armorer has just created a better grip for Wiersbowski's Wraith cannon.
As for the rest of us, we receive an impromptu course in close quarter fighting, for the fighting at Derna, our next objective, is expected to be fierce. Also a team of Special Forces soldiers is among our ranks, teaching us how to conduct reconnaissance raids. As light infantry, this is one of our missions and the Special Forces are experts in this art of warfare.
Build up phases are almost like being rotated off the frontlines except with the Special Forces and Legionnaires training us in what they think is an overlooked part of our mission, we are busier than usual.
I lay uneasily against the wall of the bunker as I write a letter home. I know Kat is still holding on to my two farewell letters should I not make it back from this mission. One of the Special Forces men, Sergeant First Class Seitz taps me on my shoulder and I place the unfinished letter to Andi in my pack. I carry only my rifle, a bandolier with six extra magazines, and my holstered pistol, attached on a lanyard. Wiersbowski carries four grenades, and two four 20 round magazine pouches for his Wraith cannon. I join Wiersbowski, Pilgrim, Kat and Bronsky as Seitz lines us up, checks over our gear, which are very light loads as our mission is reconnaissance and observation, we are to break contact if we are discovered. Sergeant Seitz has us remove any unit identification patches from our blouses. We remove the prominent shield bearing a red 15 against a white background with a knight's helmet and crossed lances below it, the crest of the 15th Light Infantry Division from one sleeve, the USM seal from the other sleeve and any other unit markings.
We creep silently past the wire of our encampments, the sounds of the artillery rumbling off their nightly rounds at known enemy positions. We hear an OA-17 observation aircraft flying overhead, spotting targets for the artillery. Our scientists want live specimens of the creatures we fight in order to better study them and the effects of the virus.
We pass through the no man's land and Wiersbowski trips over the outstretched hand of the corpse of an Egyptian soldier. I look down and even by the moonlight I can see definite signs of mutilation. Sergeant Seitz removes the one of the man's dog tags and stuffs it in a pocket. I feel horror and revulsion as well as a grim resolve, if I'm ever trapped behind enemy lines, the last round in my pistol is going into my head, no questions asked.
Zombies are relatively easy to capture and ogres have a tendency to abandon their wounded during an attack so we have several prisoners of this type. Gollums are rarer finds because they usually kill their wounded to prevent capture. Apparently our superiors deem that these creatures must have some kind of intelligence greater than the other biohazard mutations. In any case we are supposed to capture one of these creatures.
Sergeant Seitz gives us the signal to halt, he sees a lone Gollum trekking across the no-man's land, possibly to make a nuisance raid upon us. Throughout the campaign, Gollums sneak into our encampments, sniping individual soldiers with crude, telescope sighted weapons that fire barbed quarrels that are a nightmare to remove, strangling sleeping men, or stealing weapons.
We flank around the creature with me and Wiersbowski cutting off its line of retreat. As it stalks through a wadi, Kat sneaks in at its flanks and then fires off a burst at its feet. With an alarmed 'gollum' in its throat it tries to retreat only to encounter Wiersbowski and I. Wiersbowski wrestles the creature for about five minutes, for such a stringy, flatfooted thing that resembles something from the pages of Tolkein it is surprisingly strong. All seems to have gone well after we have secured our prisoner and are heading back to our own lines when a barrage crashes across the no-man's land. I attempt to crawl towards a shallow wadi to my left but the concussion from a blast hits very close and I black out.
As I slowly come the barrage is still going on. I duck in the shell crater, finding it a better refuge than none. I hear movement above me, and glance upward, it is a group of ogres with one or two Gollums mixed among them, no doubt forming a probing attack on our lines. I silently switch off the safety on my pistol, my hand pressed against the grip in case they spot me. I lie on one side, pretending to be dead. The enemy patrol passes and they come under heavy fire from mortars and machinegun nests at the edge of our lines. I see three ogres reduced from green skinned humanoids into scraps of flesh and bone as a mortar round detonates the explosives they were carrying. The probe is broken before it gets underway and I pull my pistol in case they take cover in my shell crater. A Gollum jumps in and upon seeing me alive is upon me and in seconds its long fingers are around my throat. I fire my pistol twice into its chest. The creature lets go and a gurgling and sucking sound can be heard from its wounds as I am sprayed with arterial blood.
The creature keeps gurgling and sputtering, its life fading. As I lie in the shell crater, unable to move because a fierce artillery duel is still going on above my head, I watch in horrified fascination as I see how slowly it takes a creature to die. I cannot bring myself to kill it, though I have killed many times before in the last six months. The more I kill the further away from home I feel.
Finally, starring into those lamp like eyes, watching red blood gush out over the black, leathery skin of the creature I find it in myself to go through the small pack it was carrying. I find small trinkets it has looted from both soldier and civilian alike. In the ragged pair of trousers it wears I discover a work visa, I have just killed Mahmud Al-Akhbar, a construction laborer from Derna. Before he was afflicted by this virus, Mahmud was just an ordinary man.
Finally the Gollum that was Mahmud dies. For some insane reason I feel compelled to remember that name, despite the irrationality of the act. I take the ID card and stick it in my trouser pocket. As I look above the crater's lip, I can see the barrage has lifted, going back to the rear areas. I take my bearings from the rising sun, and by my watch have found out that I was gone for nearly twelve hours. I creep back towards our lines and when I reach visual distance I shout, "Thunder!"
"Flash!" a sentry shouts.
I make it back to my unit and Kat informs me that I was reported missing and believed dead. As soon as I make it back, my platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Keck, a mustachioed Southerner from Mississippi takes me over to where we have our satellite phone uplink ready. I make two calls, one to my family and the other to Andi, letting them know, to their great relief, I am still alive and to disregard any death notices.
My thoughts drift back through the looking glass, were it not for Andi I would have lost my faith in the ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and love long before I joined the army. I do not intend to tell Kat and the others about my killing of Mahmud Al-Akhbar. The guilty feeling is overwhelmed by the feeling of gratitude that I am alive. I vow that I will cling to these ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and most importantly love despite all the chaos and death around me. I vow this as I go to sleep.
I am awakened after dark by Pilgrim; I have guard duty at an observation post just overlooking our route into Derna. I can see the coastal Libyan city to the rear of the enemy lines as I scan the front with an infrared telescope. I look up at the stars, beautifully placed across a dark sky with a crescent moon. For a brief moment I am taken away from the vivid horrors and violence I witness daily in our rapid advance through Africa. Andi loved staring up at the stars from the roof of her house. Nutwood didn't have as many city lights as Boston, so Andi particularly loved it when she got to visit us for a whole summer, being able to gaze at the stars. Lying face up in a grass field just down the road from where I lived, we would stare up at the heavens and just talk. The stars also bring memories of a fairly passionate kiss I shared with her the night before I was sent to Sicily before my unit was sent to North Africa. The feeling of her warm lips, the sheltering embrace, and her eyes glistening with unshed tears of worry is what this sight also brings me. That kiss was all I could give in the way of reassurance. It has been little over six months since that day. That night was her high school prom; she shouldn't have been saddled with worrying about me. But this crisis in North Africa was calling me forth.
I am brought back into reality by the realization that a crescent moon and less moonlight means more raids are likely. My observation post has a small squad radio I can use to contact other posts and the command post for any trouble I witness. There is also a Javelin 89mm anti-tank rocket launcher in an individual wooden packing crate by my feet. This is in case we get attacked by technicals, trucks with stolen .50 caliber machineguns or with small energy orb projectors mounted on them driven by Gollums or ogres. I open the crate and place the Javelin atop the lid beside my feet. It is a short, compact tube with a bulbous rocket propelled shaped explosive charge in the front and a flip up sight. It is perfect for knocking out giant scorpions or spiders and even better against technicals.
I hear an engine and put the small infrared scope to my eye. I see a Toyota pickup truck with several Gollums riding in it. These technicals either do long range reconnaissance or nuisance raids. Its heading straight for my position, so I lift the Javelin, flip up the small fiber optic night vision sight, aim and fire. The charge explodes and blows the Gollum driver and passenger out the back window. Two secondary explosions of fuel and ammunition light up the night sky in a bright flash and the burning vehicle spins into a dune. Gunfire from up and down the trenches begins to sound; I see a machinegun nest to my right engaging a group of ogres trying to rush their position.
I reload another grenade into the launcher from the six shells in the crate and flip down the optical sight. The night turns quiet again and lets me once again peer through the looking glass. Artillery rumbles behind me, smashing against enemy positions our reconnaissance has detected.
For nearly six days we have bombarded Derna with artillery and air strikes, now we take positions and prepare to advance. The attack starts tomorrow morning, as the barrage continues rolling from forward to rear enemy positions. The tanks begin their movement and we follow close behind.
The creatures are smart enough to have tank fighting squads left as either stay behind groups or integrated into their defenses. It is up to the infantry to stop their momentum before they can damage the tanks. The tanks fire round after round as they advance, crushing over dead and wounded zombies as they go.
It is truly grotesque to lay eyes upon a zombie, they lurch about, inhuman smells and moans emanating from them, and the sight of the living or corpses induce their desire to feed. A line of zombies comes bursting between the tanks towards us. We open fire and I see Wiersbowski saw a trio of zombies in half with a burst of 20mm explosive rounds.
Kat gets the machinegun firing in short bursts, conserving ammo. I have about 250 extra machinegun rounds in a pouch on my belt so I must stick close to Kat if he needs extra ammo. He rarely does. Using rifle and pistol I fight the zombie mob closing in on our ranks. Kat taps my helmet and I feed him the extra rounds. He has more belts in his pack so as he is shooting I open it up and feed him more.
Both Pilgrim and Wiersbowski pull grenades and throw them. Pilgrim is by far the best, able to throw forty meters down range with Wiersbowski able to through thirty-seven meters. The grenades explode in the midst of zombie ranks, blowing the undead apart. Still those blown apart but not quite dead keep advancing. It takes so much to kill a zombie without shooting its head; the other effective ways to kill them is setting them on fire or blowing them apart. I see Wiersbowski slam another clip home and shoot in short controlled bursts. I pull my pistol and start shooting those getting closest to me. Fairly soon it becomes hand to hand with Wiersbowski pulling a spade and burying it in the neck of a zombie.
Within minutes there are no zombies left, just broken bodies lying about the desert sands. The rapid advance into Derna gives us little time for thought. Our squad breaks into a shelter on the outskirts of the city. It is in shambles, no survivors remain. The building has several large rooms for medical treatment and numerous places for soldiers and police officer to defend the survivors. Kat sets up his machinegun at the back entrance. With Bronsky on point, Wiersbowski right behind him and me and Pilgrim lingering in the rear, we give Wiersbowski three extra grenades. Bronsky's electric gun sweeps across the lobby, where the desiccated corpses of three police officers lie sprawled in death around a downed barricade.
"Thunder! Thunder or we will fire on you!" Bronsky shouts, aiming into the next room.
No answer, just shuffling feet and an inhuman moan. Wiersbowski takes one of his grenades and times it. He throws it into the room and Bronsky follows a half second later with another. After two explosions, we wait for the smoke to clear. I see one of the police officers move and try to get to his feet. I shoot the zombified officer point blank with my rifle, splattering blood into my face.
In the next room, even if it weren't violently torn apart by explosives, the scene is pure carnage. We see three dead zombies, killed by our grenades. We also see several dead patients, wounded by the zombie attacks that overwhelmed Derna six months ago. The room stinks of gangrene, death, and spilt chemicals lingering in the air.
A Gollum leaps from a ceiling vent towards us and Bronsky barely has time to zap it with a fatal dose of electricity. The creature convulses for a couple of seconds in an expanding pool of blood before it dies.
We hear a machinegun open up, Kat and two replacements he tasked with being his backup gunners must've spotted a group of creatures fleeing out the back. We continue our house clearing, with Pilgrim kicking down the door of a room only to be overpowered by the stink of several dead bodies piled inside. A zombie lurches inches from where he stands and Pilgrim shoots it at point blank range, obliterating its head.
Wiersbowski shoots a burst into the pile of bodies, "You never know if they're zombies or not anymore."
Another creature runs out then, a zombie, hunched over with red skin and breathing gaseous green fumes that are noxious. It bares long claws that it prepares to swoop into Bronsky just as Wiersbowski rips it apart with a short burst from the Wraith cannon. It keeps coming, pieces flying off, until Wiersbowski empties the entire clip of 20mm ammunition into it. Even after it falls, Bronsky puts a charge through it.
Crimson heads are rarer zombie mutations but they are twice as deadly as normal zombies because of their claws, speed, and noxious breath. We announce the building is clear and a team of engineers with flamethrowers starts its own grisly work, destroying the bodies contaminated by the plague.
Within four days, Derna falls to our advance. We advance at a breakneck speed, having gone from Tripoli to Derna in less than six months. We are close to the Egyptian frontier and are preparing to advance on Gazala and Tobruk.
As we march forth yet again, towards Gazala we are reaching closer to Egypt. I continue to strengthen my resolve; despite the horrors I see I will remain steadfastly committed to truth, beauty, freedom and love. Yet I have changed greatly from the young idealistic Bohemian I was on the other side of the looking glass. The pastoral serenity of Nutwood forest, the beauty of Andi's smile and her welcoming embrace, and my old life at ACME are all through the looking glass. I wonder, will I return. For certain if I do return to the other side of the looking glass I will have been changed in some manner. As an ACME detective I didn't know what close quarter battle was, or how to take cover in a barrage, or even how to switch on and be aware of my animal instincts for they are all that keep me alive on the front.
At our night encampment I watch as a supply truck with mail and reinforcements stops by with a water truck beside it. After receiving my mail and water ration I see a burial detail loading twenty black body bags of our casualties from four days of fighting at Derna. We receive ten reinforcements for them.
These reinforcements often fail to listen to their animal instinct. Time and again I have seen them bunch up during artillery attacks only to be blown to bits. I am nineteen years old and I have seen nothing but death, destruction and mayhem for months. Will my ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and love hold value in my heart despite the brutality I live with. I pull my helmet from my head as I sit down on my field pack to read my latest letter. It's Andi again, it is one filled with worry and relief at the same time. I was on the casualty list as missing and presumed dead but the call I have six hours later was the most reassuring thing she had heard. I can see streaks in the ink where she must have been crying while writing this. I write a letter and as I wait in the mail queue the next day for outgoing mail I hope that I do not lose my faith in the Bohemian ideals I cherish so dearly under the baking desert sun. I peer tenderly at Andi's picture, gazing upon her smiling face, recapturing momentarily a lost moment through the looking glass.
Author's Note/Disclaimer: Same as before. Any references to the Colonial Legion, read my ongoing fic, Legio Patria Nostra.
We are gearing up for yet another advance. New replacements have arrived, weapons are being checked, and supplies are being rushed to the front from depots in El Agheila and Tunisia. We are almost halfway through Libya and our belief is Egypt will lay open before us for Christmas. The Egyptian soldiers of the 3rd Egyptian Armored are especially eager, for their home state has been hit hard. A line less than twelve kilometers from the Nile is being held at a great cost by Egyptian, Syrian, Saudi and Israeli ground forces.
We have been reinforced by the 13e DBLE, the 13th Half Brigade of the Colonial Legion, men who have been fighting this Biohazard in our Interstellar Colonies for nearly two years. They are hard, jaundiced veterans, even more so than we are. They are fatalistic; I see two of them taping their blood types to their boots before going into action. After facing nearly two years of overwhelming defeats despite valiant stands, anyone would become a fatalist.
Two of them are teaching Wiersbowski how to shoot his Wraith cannon from the hip. Their shooting instructor is instructing an intensive marksmanship course, together with Sergeant Burton. Their armorer has just created a better grip for Wiersbowski's Wraith cannon.
As for the rest of us, we receive an impromptu course in close quarter fighting, for the fighting at Derna, our next objective, is expected to be fierce. Also a team of Special Forces soldiers is among our ranks, teaching us how to conduct reconnaissance raids. As light infantry, this is one of our missions and the Special Forces are experts in this art of warfare.
Build up phases are almost like being rotated off the frontlines except with the Special Forces and Legionnaires training us in what they think is an overlooked part of our mission, we are busier than usual.
I lay uneasily against the wall of the bunker as I write a letter home. I know Kat is still holding on to my two farewell letters should I not make it back from this mission. One of the Special Forces men, Sergeant First Class Seitz taps me on my shoulder and I place the unfinished letter to Andi in my pack. I carry only my rifle, a bandolier with six extra magazines, and my holstered pistol, attached on a lanyard. Wiersbowski carries four grenades, and two four 20 round magazine pouches for his Wraith cannon. I join Wiersbowski, Pilgrim, Kat and Bronsky as Seitz lines us up, checks over our gear, which are very light loads as our mission is reconnaissance and observation, we are to break contact if we are discovered. Sergeant Seitz has us remove any unit identification patches from our blouses. We remove the prominent shield bearing a red 15 against a white background with a knight's helmet and crossed lances below it, the crest of the 15th Light Infantry Division from one sleeve, the USM seal from the other sleeve and any other unit markings.
We creep silently past the wire of our encampments, the sounds of the artillery rumbling off their nightly rounds at known enemy positions. We hear an OA-17 observation aircraft flying overhead, spotting targets for the artillery. Our scientists want live specimens of the creatures we fight in order to better study them and the effects of the virus.
We pass through the no man's land and Wiersbowski trips over the outstretched hand of the corpse of an Egyptian soldier. I look down and even by the moonlight I can see definite signs of mutilation. Sergeant Seitz removes the one of the man's dog tags and stuffs it in a pocket. I feel horror and revulsion as well as a grim resolve, if I'm ever trapped behind enemy lines, the last round in my pistol is going into my head, no questions asked.
Zombies are relatively easy to capture and ogres have a tendency to abandon their wounded during an attack so we have several prisoners of this type. Gollums are rarer finds because they usually kill their wounded to prevent capture. Apparently our superiors deem that these creatures must have some kind of intelligence greater than the other biohazard mutations. In any case we are supposed to capture one of these creatures.
Sergeant Seitz gives us the signal to halt, he sees a lone Gollum trekking across the no-man's land, possibly to make a nuisance raid upon us. Throughout the campaign, Gollums sneak into our encampments, sniping individual soldiers with crude, telescope sighted weapons that fire barbed quarrels that are a nightmare to remove, strangling sleeping men, or stealing weapons.
We flank around the creature with me and Wiersbowski cutting off its line of retreat. As it stalks through a wadi, Kat sneaks in at its flanks and then fires off a burst at its feet. With an alarmed 'gollum' in its throat it tries to retreat only to encounter Wiersbowski and I. Wiersbowski wrestles the creature for about five minutes, for such a stringy, flatfooted thing that resembles something from the pages of Tolkein it is surprisingly strong. All seems to have gone well after we have secured our prisoner and are heading back to our own lines when a barrage crashes across the no-man's land. I attempt to crawl towards a shallow wadi to my left but the concussion from a blast hits very close and I black out.
As I slowly come the barrage is still going on. I duck in the shell crater, finding it a better refuge than none. I hear movement above me, and glance upward, it is a group of ogres with one or two Gollums mixed among them, no doubt forming a probing attack on our lines. I silently switch off the safety on my pistol, my hand pressed against the grip in case they spot me. I lie on one side, pretending to be dead. The enemy patrol passes and they come under heavy fire from mortars and machinegun nests at the edge of our lines. I see three ogres reduced from green skinned humanoids into scraps of flesh and bone as a mortar round detonates the explosives they were carrying. The probe is broken before it gets underway and I pull my pistol in case they take cover in my shell crater. A Gollum jumps in and upon seeing me alive is upon me and in seconds its long fingers are around my throat. I fire my pistol twice into its chest. The creature lets go and a gurgling and sucking sound can be heard from its wounds as I am sprayed with arterial blood.
The creature keeps gurgling and sputtering, its life fading. As I lie in the shell crater, unable to move because a fierce artillery duel is still going on above my head, I watch in horrified fascination as I see how slowly it takes a creature to die. I cannot bring myself to kill it, though I have killed many times before in the last six months. The more I kill the further away from home I feel.
Finally, starring into those lamp like eyes, watching red blood gush out over the black, leathery skin of the creature I find it in myself to go through the small pack it was carrying. I find small trinkets it has looted from both soldier and civilian alike. In the ragged pair of trousers it wears I discover a work visa, I have just killed Mahmud Al-Akhbar, a construction laborer from Derna. Before he was afflicted by this virus, Mahmud was just an ordinary man.
Finally the Gollum that was Mahmud dies. For some insane reason I feel compelled to remember that name, despite the irrationality of the act. I take the ID card and stick it in my trouser pocket. As I look above the crater's lip, I can see the barrage has lifted, going back to the rear areas. I take my bearings from the rising sun, and by my watch have found out that I was gone for nearly twelve hours. I creep back towards our lines and when I reach visual distance I shout, "Thunder!"
"Flash!" a sentry shouts.
I make it back to my unit and Kat informs me that I was reported missing and believed dead. As soon as I make it back, my platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Keck, a mustachioed Southerner from Mississippi takes me over to where we have our satellite phone uplink ready. I make two calls, one to my family and the other to Andi, letting them know, to their great relief, I am still alive and to disregard any death notices.
My thoughts drift back through the looking glass, were it not for Andi I would have lost my faith in the ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and love long before I joined the army. I do not intend to tell Kat and the others about my killing of Mahmud Al-Akhbar. The guilty feeling is overwhelmed by the feeling of gratitude that I am alive. I vow that I will cling to these ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and most importantly love despite all the chaos and death around me. I vow this as I go to sleep.
I am awakened after dark by Pilgrim; I have guard duty at an observation post just overlooking our route into Derna. I can see the coastal Libyan city to the rear of the enemy lines as I scan the front with an infrared telescope. I look up at the stars, beautifully placed across a dark sky with a crescent moon. For a brief moment I am taken away from the vivid horrors and violence I witness daily in our rapid advance through Africa. Andi loved staring up at the stars from the roof of her house. Nutwood didn't have as many city lights as Boston, so Andi particularly loved it when she got to visit us for a whole summer, being able to gaze at the stars. Lying face up in a grass field just down the road from where I lived, we would stare up at the heavens and just talk. The stars also bring memories of a fairly passionate kiss I shared with her the night before I was sent to Sicily before my unit was sent to North Africa. The feeling of her warm lips, the sheltering embrace, and her eyes glistening with unshed tears of worry is what this sight also brings me. That kiss was all I could give in the way of reassurance. It has been little over six months since that day. That night was her high school prom; she shouldn't have been saddled with worrying about me. But this crisis in North Africa was calling me forth.
I am brought back into reality by the realization that a crescent moon and less moonlight means more raids are likely. My observation post has a small squad radio I can use to contact other posts and the command post for any trouble I witness. There is also a Javelin 89mm anti-tank rocket launcher in an individual wooden packing crate by my feet. This is in case we get attacked by technicals, trucks with stolen .50 caliber machineguns or with small energy orb projectors mounted on them driven by Gollums or ogres. I open the crate and place the Javelin atop the lid beside my feet. It is a short, compact tube with a bulbous rocket propelled shaped explosive charge in the front and a flip up sight. It is perfect for knocking out giant scorpions or spiders and even better against technicals.
I hear an engine and put the small infrared scope to my eye. I see a Toyota pickup truck with several Gollums riding in it. These technicals either do long range reconnaissance or nuisance raids. Its heading straight for my position, so I lift the Javelin, flip up the small fiber optic night vision sight, aim and fire. The charge explodes and blows the Gollum driver and passenger out the back window. Two secondary explosions of fuel and ammunition light up the night sky in a bright flash and the burning vehicle spins into a dune. Gunfire from up and down the trenches begins to sound; I see a machinegun nest to my right engaging a group of ogres trying to rush their position.
I reload another grenade into the launcher from the six shells in the crate and flip down the optical sight. The night turns quiet again and lets me once again peer through the looking glass. Artillery rumbles behind me, smashing against enemy positions our reconnaissance has detected.
For nearly six days we have bombarded Derna with artillery and air strikes, now we take positions and prepare to advance. The attack starts tomorrow morning, as the barrage continues rolling from forward to rear enemy positions. The tanks begin their movement and we follow close behind.
The creatures are smart enough to have tank fighting squads left as either stay behind groups or integrated into their defenses. It is up to the infantry to stop their momentum before they can damage the tanks. The tanks fire round after round as they advance, crushing over dead and wounded zombies as they go.
It is truly grotesque to lay eyes upon a zombie, they lurch about, inhuman smells and moans emanating from them, and the sight of the living or corpses induce their desire to feed. A line of zombies comes bursting between the tanks towards us. We open fire and I see Wiersbowski saw a trio of zombies in half with a burst of 20mm explosive rounds.
Kat gets the machinegun firing in short bursts, conserving ammo. I have about 250 extra machinegun rounds in a pouch on my belt so I must stick close to Kat if he needs extra ammo. He rarely does. Using rifle and pistol I fight the zombie mob closing in on our ranks. Kat taps my helmet and I feed him the extra rounds. He has more belts in his pack so as he is shooting I open it up and feed him more.
Both Pilgrim and Wiersbowski pull grenades and throw them. Pilgrim is by far the best, able to throw forty meters down range with Wiersbowski able to through thirty-seven meters. The grenades explode in the midst of zombie ranks, blowing the undead apart. Still those blown apart but not quite dead keep advancing. It takes so much to kill a zombie without shooting its head; the other effective ways to kill them is setting them on fire or blowing them apart. I see Wiersbowski slam another clip home and shoot in short controlled bursts. I pull my pistol and start shooting those getting closest to me. Fairly soon it becomes hand to hand with Wiersbowski pulling a spade and burying it in the neck of a zombie.
Within minutes there are no zombies left, just broken bodies lying about the desert sands. The rapid advance into Derna gives us little time for thought. Our squad breaks into a shelter on the outskirts of the city. It is in shambles, no survivors remain. The building has several large rooms for medical treatment and numerous places for soldiers and police officer to defend the survivors. Kat sets up his machinegun at the back entrance. With Bronsky on point, Wiersbowski right behind him and me and Pilgrim lingering in the rear, we give Wiersbowski three extra grenades. Bronsky's electric gun sweeps across the lobby, where the desiccated corpses of three police officers lie sprawled in death around a downed barricade.
"Thunder! Thunder or we will fire on you!" Bronsky shouts, aiming into the next room.
No answer, just shuffling feet and an inhuman moan. Wiersbowski takes one of his grenades and times it. He throws it into the room and Bronsky follows a half second later with another. After two explosions, we wait for the smoke to clear. I see one of the police officers move and try to get to his feet. I shoot the zombified officer point blank with my rifle, splattering blood into my face.
In the next room, even if it weren't violently torn apart by explosives, the scene is pure carnage. We see three dead zombies, killed by our grenades. We also see several dead patients, wounded by the zombie attacks that overwhelmed Derna six months ago. The room stinks of gangrene, death, and spilt chemicals lingering in the air.
A Gollum leaps from a ceiling vent towards us and Bronsky barely has time to zap it with a fatal dose of electricity. The creature convulses for a couple of seconds in an expanding pool of blood before it dies.
We hear a machinegun open up, Kat and two replacements he tasked with being his backup gunners must've spotted a group of creatures fleeing out the back. We continue our house clearing, with Pilgrim kicking down the door of a room only to be overpowered by the stink of several dead bodies piled inside. A zombie lurches inches from where he stands and Pilgrim shoots it at point blank range, obliterating its head.
Wiersbowski shoots a burst into the pile of bodies, "You never know if they're zombies or not anymore."
Another creature runs out then, a zombie, hunched over with red skin and breathing gaseous green fumes that are noxious. It bares long claws that it prepares to swoop into Bronsky just as Wiersbowski rips it apart with a short burst from the Wraith cannon. It keeps coming, pieces flying off, until Wiersbowski empties the entire clip of 20mm ammunition into it. Even after it falls, Bronsky puts a charge through it.
Crimson heads are rarer zombie mutations but they are twice as deadly as normal zombies because of their claws, speed, and noxious breath. We announce the building is clear and a team of engineers with flamethrowers starts its own grisly work, destroying the bodies contaminated by the plague.
Within four days, Derna falls to our advance. We advance at a breakneck speed, having gone from Tripoli to Derna in less than six months. We are close to the Egyptian frontier and are preparing to advance on Gazala and Tobruk.
As we march forth yet again, towards Gazala we are reaching closer to Egypt. I continue to strengthen my resolve; despite the horrors I see I will remain steadfastly committed to truth, beauty, freedom and love. Yet I have changed greatly from the young idealistic Bohemian I was on the other side of the looking glass. The pastoral serenity of Nutwood forest, the beauty of Andi's smile and her welcoming embrace, and my old life at ACME are all through the looking glass. I wonder, will I return. For certain if I do return to the other side of the looking glass I will have been changed in some manner. As an ACME detective I didn't know what close quarter battle was, or how to take cover in a barrage, or even how to switch on and be aware of my animal instincts for they are all that keep me alive on the front.
At our night encampment I watch as a supply truck with mail and reinforcements stops by with a water truck beside it. After receiving my mail and water ration I see a burial detail loading twenty black body bags of our casualties from four days of fighting at Derna. We receive ten reinforcements for them.
These reinforcements often fail to listen to their animal instinct. Time and again I have seen them bunch up during artillery attacks only to be blown to bits. I am nineteen years old and I have seen nothing but death, destruction and mayhem for months. Will my ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and love hold value in my heart despite the brutality I live with. I pull my helmet from my head as I sit down on my field pack to read my latest letter. It's Andi again, it is one filled with worry and relief at the same time. I was on the casualty list as missing and presumed dead but the call I have six hours later was the most reassuring thing she had heard. I can see streaks in the ink where she must have been crying while writing this. I write a letter and as I wait in the mail queue the next day for outgoing mail I hope that I do not lose my faith in the Bohemian ideals I cherish so dearly under the baking desert sun. I peer tenderly at Andi's picture, gazing upon her smiling face, recapturing momentarily a lost moment through the looking glass.