"Danger, carbon monoxide gas…"
"I don't know about carbon monoxide, I thought it just said monoxide?"
"Maybe it's just like… oxygen but…"
"No, because oxygen is uh, like a fucking diatomic molecule, so it always comes in twos."
"...Byrne, you really split it like a pro."
"Are you two really having this conversation right now? Over a sign?" Medina Nunez asked, eyebrow raised under her gas mask.
In the seat in front of her, St. George's shoulders vibrated with silent, mirthful exasperation as he shook his head. "Now you've done it. They wanted to get a reaction to break your shell, now they're gonna spin you up."
Damon Byrne hunched over the steering wheel, cackling loudly as he drove. Sam Klaus, the ruddy Pole, barked out deep laughter as he slapped a meaty hand against the back of Byrne's seat in amusement. "Oh lighten up Nunez! If you spend long enough in one of these, you'll start wishing for something to keep you busy."
As if to punctuate Klaus's statement, the Humvee dipped and shuddered violently as it bounced through a cratered patch in the rough asphalt. St. George shot Byrne a nasty glare through his visor. "And if Byrne doesn't keep his eyes on the road, the two of you'll be keeping busy by changing the tires on this piece of shit, understood?"
"Yes, Corporal!" The pair chorused, going silent for a few moments until Klaus started snickering. Soon, even Nunez held a small smirk behind her mask as the rest of the vehicle devolved into giggles. The Humvee rumbled again, this time over a patch of broken and loose asphalt sliding under the weight of the cruising vehicle. "All right," St. George started, shaking his head. "That's enough, lock it up. Byrne, eyes on the road. Nunez, Klaus, keep your eyes on your sectors."
Medina turned back to her window, a pane of armored plexiglass protecting her from the wind-whipped drizzle of tar-black acid rain outside. Their drive had taken them through miles of twisted, ruined nature, with copses of shrubbery and fields of once knee-high grass mutilated by toxic precipitation, or entire forests burned to poisonous cinders from atomic-fueled wildfires.
Mother Nature was not the only one brutalized by man, as evidenced by the half-dozen ruined remains of small towns their small convoy had passed through. To a large extent, the detritus of a shattered economy was evident, with broken windows boarded up and then the plywood torn down by looters, husks of burnt-out buildings with tell-tale soot stains that licked up walls and ceilings, and vehicles long since torn apart for salvage. As they drove through, Nunez could spot the occasional resident, hollow-eyed and with clothing hanging off their emaciated frames. For the most part, many of them flinched away from the grumbling roar of the convoy, ducking into buildings or alleys, dragging loved ones or their most valued treasures with them. Like stray dogs, the inhabitants of the towns lived in fear of power, no matter the source or form. The reasons for such, as Medina would find out, were displayed in gruesome details in the next town.
The first note of wrongness Nunez noticed wasn't with her surroundings, but with Klaus and St. George shifting in their seats. Both had taken on a harried edge, proverbial hackles rising as they intently scanned the roads and ruins ahead of them. As they crept through the outskirts, Byrne swore up and down in colored tones as the Humvee swayed to and fro over strewn bricks and mangled furniture, grinding over what had been hasty roadblocks. More than once, the driver bit off a curse as he swerved to the left or right, avoiding a piece of debris knocked loose by the vehicle in front of them. "Whatever you do Byrne-boy, don't fucking get us stuck here," Klaus mumbled, knuckles white around his M-280's pistol grip.
As they turned a corner into what had been the center of town, the Humvee's tires spun with an aggressive growl, slipping on the rain-slicked road. "Damnit Byrne, come on man." St. George grumbled, his rifle pointed at the door window, his other hand ready to wrench it open.
As they pulled through the town center, Nunez understood why the more experienced soldiers were so very nervous. Along the sidewalk were burned-out steel skeletons, twisted grease-black metal frames that had once been trucks, and even a pair of Merritt Infantry Fighting Vehicles whose armored carapaces had been turned inside-out. Along the streets was even worse, as the neglected road had been churned into a pebbly mulch by explosions, and the long-rotted corpses of the convoy's passengers hung suspended from the few lamp posts that remained standing.
Swallowing the gorge in her throat, Nunez drew her eyes upward, towards the battered remains of the two and three-story buildings on either side of the street. Despite having lost, the dead of the convoy had put up a ferocious fight. The walls were pockmarked by machine gun fire and more than a few were knocked out entirely. In the lower halves of buildings, she could see where the Merritt's thirty-millimeter autocannons had chewed through brickwork in their anger. Above, many of the higher stories had ceased to exist, their ceilings eviscerated by gunfire and walls broken down into shattered, clawed remains. Still, it seemed for all of the power that the convoy could put out, it didn't save them.
"God damnit!" Byrne shouted, smacking his hand on the steering wheel and drawing Nunez's momentary attention. "These fucking idiots!"
Those 'fucking idiots' were in the vehicle in front of them, a worn and abused seven-ton truck that was older than most of the people in the company. The same truck that had ground to a screeching halt, wheels at the rear of the truck impotently spinning in time with the engine's guttural roar of acceleration. It had gotten high-centered going over what remained of a car, the spine of the truck balanced almost delicately on the mangled steel remains of its more civilized, destroyed cousin.
"Are you fucking kidding me? Of all the stupid bullshit…" St. George grumbled, wrenching a cable from the Humvee's center radio console and plugging it into a slot in his helmet. "Druid 2-2, 2-1. Interrogative, what the fuck? Over." The response was muted, carried through St. George's headset. Whatever the response, St. George looked incredulously at the back of the high-centered truck, gesturing in exasperation to the half-dozen other masked figures huddled in the back. He yanked the cord from his helmet and threw it back into the center console. "Fuck it, Byrne? Give the big bastard a few love taps."
Byrne looked at the Corporal, eyebrow raised behind his visor. "Sir… Are we sure that's a good idea? I mean that-"
"Hey hey hey!" Klaus shouted, ripping open his door window and sticking the muzzle of his belt-fed out of it. "I'm seeing movement here!"
"Shitting fuck fuckity fuck!" Byrne chanted. "Alright, hang on to your fillings, this is gonna suck."
Nunez braced herself as the Humvee lurched forward, engine revving as it pressed forward, its grille coming to rest on the seven-tons rear. With a whining roar, the Humvee pushed, tires digging in and then throwing the loose stone out from under it. Still, the seven-ton didn't move. Again, Byrne brought the Humvee forward, angling its blunt nose to push on the high-centered behemoth, only for both vehicles to groan precariously.
"Aight, fuck it," Byrne mumbled, throwing the Humvee in reverse. He backed up ten, fifteen, then twenty feet before he hit the brakes. "If anyone wants out, now is the time." He asked.
"Oh just fucking get it on," Klaus grumbled, eyes still locked to the ruins outside. St. George planted his foot on the dashboard as Byrne accelerated, closing the distance between the two vehicles in only a few seconds. The Humvee slammed into the back of the seven-ton, drawing yelps and grunts from everyone in the vehicle as it violently shoved the high-centered truck over the obstacle. With a crash, the larger truck rocked forward, its tires grabbing onto the asphalt and pulling it clear of the wrecked car with a screech.
"Ow…. Everyone okay?" St. George asked, rubbing his knee. Byrne and Klaus groaned while Nunez blinked owlishly from the impact. "Okay, let me rephrase that, does anyone need immediate medical attention? No? Good talk. Byrne, follow them but for the love of everything holy, don't get us stuck."
The Humvee rolled forward, barely getting its front wheels over the hood of the crushed car before the seven-ton, firmly on all wheels and steadily rolling away, detonated with a teeth-rattling whump.
"Left! Left!" Klaus shouted before rattling off a chattering staccato from his belt-fed machine gun. Nunez swore, trying to swing her rifle to the left side before St. George punched the side of her helmet. "Watch your side! Watch your fucking si-" He cut off abruptly as a burst of fire stitched up the passenger side of the Humvee, and he replied in kind. Nunez watched stunned as a pair of lumpy, dusty shadows resolved into human beings, pink mist spraying from their bodies as they collapsed lifelessly into the rubble. St. George roared again, leaning back and thumping Nunez in her legs. "My Sister in Christ! Get that Fucking Gun Up!"
Medina stuttered and shakily brought her rifle up, barely remembering to open the window before she started firing. The buildings in front of her, once seeming so lifeless and broken, were alive with activity. Murky, rain-soaked shadows ran between mounds of rubble, snap-flashes of rifle fire cast momentary golden hues on the empty window sills they rested in, and bony-thin walls crumpled from the convoy's return fire. Medina fired as quickly as she dared, centering the fuzzy red chevron of her sight on what she thought were targets and tapping away at the trigger until they disappeared.
Beside her, Klaus mumbled a curse-laden mantra with every burst, the belt-fed spitting out case links across the floor of the Humvee. In front of her, St. George was calm, rifle muzzle snapping towards barely visible ambushers and squeezing out return fire in hammer pairs. From the driver seat, Byrne had abandoned his attempts to reverse the vehicle from its canted position. Instead, he had pulled his rifle from the wheel well and returned fire, his shots measured and steady like the Corporal beside him. Twice, his hand drifted to the second trigger below his handguard, pulling it and sending a forty-millimeter grenade sailing into a building.
The fighting went on for frantic minutes, for what Medina thought were long hours that flashed before her eyes. The sounds of the fighting escalated behind her as the rest of the convoy dismounted, pushing into the ruins. To her and the rest of the team in the Humvee, however, their frantic battle was an island, one that had all of them fighting for their lives.
Medina Nunez sat hunched on the hood of her team's Humvee, rifle cradled in her arms. In front of her, what little remained of the seven-ton was being pushed off the road by another. When Nunez's Humvee shoved the large truck off the car it was stuck on, it had rolled forward a good dozen feet before it hit an IED. After the fighting had finished, Byrne and St. George had taken off out of the truck, dashing forward to the burning vehicle to pull out survivors. Again and again, they clambered into the back of the burning truck to pull out those stuck inside, wounded or dead. Klaus, meanwhile, had taken one look at the burning truck and turned away, his hands flexing anxiously as he joined another team stalking through the buildings, his machine gun howling in rage whenever he found a survivor hidden in the rubble.
St. George slid onto the hood next to her, rifle resting on his thigh as he scratched at the seal around his mask. "First Time?" He asked bluntly. When Nunez mechanically nodded, he continued. "I would say it gets better, or easier, or it doesn't affect you as much, but that's a lie. You just learn to bury it better." He paused as one of the ambushers was dragged screaming out of a building. Clad in torn fatigues and festooned with flopping cloth bandoliers, the belligerent, raucous man was thrown into the street. A handful of soldiers gathered, watching as the man was beaten bloody, his cheap respirator yanked from his neck, and a gun placed to the back of his head.
Medina jumped when they pulled the trigger, while St. George shrugged nonchalantly. "It also helps if you don't think of them as people anymore, just packs of wild fucking animals lashing out at whatever they can catch." He nodded to the now-dead man, his skull blasted into bloody chunks and scattered across the rain-slicked inky pavement. "He was a soldier once, judging by the uniform he was probably one of the early conscripts, back when we were fighting the fucking jungle monkeys in South America. The pair of us probably shared the same battlefields at one point or another." St. George paused, then pointed to his chest. "That doesn't mean shit to me. The difference is that I never turned my back on my country and I stayed true. He didn't. Now he's dead. If he'd stayed, he might have lived."
He paused like he wanted to say more, to impress more of his anger and rage and knowledge onto Nunez. After a moment, however, his shoulders slumped, sagging as if they carried more than the weight of his armor. "Fucking… We're moving out in five. The mission got scrubbed, for now at least. We're stopping at one of the other blue zones instead of heading back, to drop off the wounded. After that, we'll see what higher calls for." He looked at Medina, an eyebrow rising under his visor. "The fuck are you just standing there for? Get loaded back up, we're moving out."