Dying Soldiers
"The funny thing about humans is, they make terrible enemies, and terrifying allies. They will kill a hundred thousand enemies and die a hundred million times over ideology, but will pause, just shy of cutting the throat of their enemies, when they feel that death would serve no more lesson. They are terrible and awesome, they are your worst nightmares, feverish dreams of terror and fear, and they are wonderful friends, allies, and, in some cases, lovers..." Norlat - Speech to the graduating center during final teaching night on the eve of the Battle of Tetranekon
I lay in pain.
My body burned from groin to throat, and my guts churned with the pieces of shrapnel that carved crimson paths into my torso, through my anatomy and into the most sensitive parts of my body. I lay in pain, breathing the chalky dust and feeling blood splatter from my lips - my armor shredded by the force of the impacted mine which I had been fool enough to be near when it detonated beneath the crawling tanks. I hurt, and in a wave of nausea that sent the world spinning, I forced myself to roll to my side, and gripped the shard that stuck from my bellybutton and yanked it out - intestines pulling with it in as a screaming flame of agony. And in that moment I passed into a grey shock where nothing felt real, and everything was so distant away from me. The falling bombs, the rumble of metallic steps, the thrum of battle that flit around me from trench and high field outcroppings that had been the ancient face of a timeless wall.
I heaved myself up and cast aside the jagged steel, looking in horror at the torn insides before the morphine of the suit kicked in, fueled then by a second dose of antiseptic, the automatic systems beginning to work on slowing down my bloodloss. I sat, a bolt-round whizzing beside my face and my breathing slowing. Everything slowed, time dilated, and I pulled myself up to my feet, holding my insides within my body with a bloodied hand. I pulled myself away, towards the cover of a downed building and threw myself out of the way of another blast - screaming despite the spires of pain that shot through me. Again, the world went grey on me.
"Report, report, the T'gileni are entering the city, I repeat, the T'gileni are infiltrating the city, please help, please help!" The panicked voice carried over the radio, and I pulled myself up. The rest of my squad were dead, I felt the blood upon my thin armor and turned, making my way towards the gates of the city - past the onrush of the swarming horde and leaping over a fallen body. My rifle slapped my back as I pulled myself through the gateway over the bridge and ducked out of sight, into the waiting gaze of a green squad. They gazed on me in horror, one blanched and went rather green at his gills. Their medic had the foresight to inject me with a quick-acting nano-seal and sprayed my gut with a liquid bandage - it would hold long enough for the battle to turn, or for me to get impaled by one of the squamous beasts out there. "Tetranekon is being over-run!"
"Secure the gate, they will choke on the bridge." I gasped, turning their attention out the door, the many soldiers, most not human, having never had the horror of a battle before. These aliens, four legged and two armed - boneless appendages and other, they that looked like a mix of cockroach and preying mantis whom were mortally terrified, but they would do well enough in a pinch. The pain began to fade away with a third dose of morphine, as well as a running surge of adrenaline that was being triggered by the burnt nerves in my insides. I wouldn't live through this battle, I was certain. Didn't bother me though. "There are pre-rigged charges that can be blown in the event they will make it past. Detonate if you have to."
I sagged down against the wall and held the rifle beside me, trying to catch my breath as wave after wave of pain shot through me. My heart beat was pained - every thump a rhythm of stygian torment, and every pulse of the organ making my brain throb inside. I hated the feeling, the sensation as much as any creature had right to. My medical system could not keep up with the signals and I ignored it - listening to the beats of the guns that roared over head - the sounds of the tanks on field, just outside the trench hastily dug around the city. It wouldn't hold off a sustained assault but it would buy us time. Time for what, I didn't know, but time.
"They are coming! They are coming!" Terror wafted up, the scent of burnt oranges and offal, and I pulled myself up with a grip on an old vehicle, which had been wrecked beside the gate and not cleared away. I signaled them to take cover behind it and open fire, as I pulled myself up - towering a full shoulder above their largest and began to fire away, aiming with a breath, squeeze, and exhale. The motion was ingrained in me, learned and remembered and used without thought. Squeeze, fire, the inner core whining as it released a super-heated, super-conducted micro-slag of sand at four times the speed of sound, giving loud pops as it discharged. The gun was near weightless compared to what I'd trained with, and held quite a large clip. I'd never hold them off with it.
I reached and directed my body down, setting up the inbuilt tripod on the weapon and pushing it to full automatic - ten thousand shots were contained inside and the cell could fire them all off, even be used as small weapons themselves if I had to. I prayed I did not, I did not look forward to being that close to the enemy. My attack drove the nearest squad to dive for cover, their weapons firing off and missing terribly - for their numbers, they were a terrible shot. Amazing what a small quirk of technology could do, or not do, for a civilization. I continued to fire, then paused to let the weapon cool as I had no desire to melt the barrel of the gun. The squad beside me huddled down as the shots increased towards us. I pitied them for the moment. But two weeks ago, they had been farmers, engineers, those whom knew not of the terrors of war.
A bolt fell and slammed into my shoulder, knocking me back, and the medic crawled over me, beginning to treat me through a blind fervor - I could see traces of an overdosed narcotic that would, by itself, render him a hint more effective in this fight - by blocking everything out except his objective. I felt the warmth of the inborn anesthetic as he bit my neck, and the injection made me feel a bit woozy. I would have panicked but didn't, I knew, it would be for the best. I pushed him off after a few moments and he huddled behind the wall, ducked low and with wide eyes, lost in the comatose state of half being.
I began to fire again - artillery falling shorter and shorter to keep up with the wave of bodies that approached this position. From the great tower of the central keep, of the central governments position of authority in this continent, the fire began to return anew - the building perhaps twenty stories tall, but overshadowing anything else made by Dra'nar hands. Well, appendages, really. My fire continued in three-second bursts, a dozen shots going off in tight grouped squares during that time, to repeat with a newer section of targets. My radio blared with further calls for reinforcements. The city was being taken by a heavy force.
"Blow the bridge." I ordered the corporeal and drew myself and my gun down, away from the radius of what was about to become a large blast. My body drew and covered the squad - their exoskeletons may have held more resistance to the sharp, piercing damage of a dagger or a sword, but the concussive force would have given them all embolisms. The heat that radiated out from the blown bridge cooked my hair - we were well within the blast zone but for the vehicle shielding us from direct fire. The screams of the charging squads became roars of agony - as they plummeted twenty feet down into the trench below. I'd glow on the radiation charts, but at least this squad wouldn't. Pulling up, my head fuzzy, I stood on woozy legs and gestured for them to follow - it'd take at least an hour for them to bridge the gap left and across the cooked earth.
One of them did not rise - not the drugged medic, but a rather lovely plated female of jeweled carapace, one I'd met before the battle. I said a word of prayer and hefted her breathless body over my shoulder, and carried her as we made our way to a position of retreat. They followed at a run as I jogged - my rifle held in arm as I saw another squad join up with us. They were horrified to look upon me, but our group of four became a group of nine - and our position was a previously fortified school - a position of low strategic value but high worth - for it held those unable to fight. A makeshift field hospital and a shelter for the young.
It was not lightly guarded as the school was engaged by the northern front, and I gently laid the body of the female down, and said a word of prayer over her again. Putting her to a position out of the way I took her rifle and continued on - reinforcing the north as my squad followed me, knowing that with a human, their chances of survival were far higher. We had the experience, we had the technology. The medic hugged my side like my retriever back home would have - and we pushed to the line that was steadily being driven back from the makeshift first position to the last position. Gunfire fell around us - an exchange of weaponry that made my ears ring. I switched off the full auto and raised the scope up, taking it to three-round bursts as the rest of the Dra'nar repeated the process. Following my lead, we opened fire - and I refused to be driven back another step by the haughty bastards whom had taken this planet as easy prey.
A scream turned my attention and I grabbed and jerked backwards one of the males of the squad - whom had lost two limbs n a brushing blast. Their weapons struck harder and used a form of chemical laser which burned like a bitch on a human, but was quite harmful on my friends. He writhed and I slammed my palm between his antennae, shutting his brain down for the duration before he self-expired due to stress. It was crude and I received looks of horror, but I believed they understood, deep down. Re-focusing on the approaching horde, I took fire, again and again and again. Grenades fell and rolled nearby, but the heat did little to throw my already burnt body off its course. One landed nearby and I flung it back with the same ease of throwing a softball. A satisfying wash of blood and ichors pleased me in a basic way.
"Captain!" The corporeal asked, her eyes gazing up at me with a look of dread, if I had read my body-language infovids right. Her antennae cocked back at sixty degrees and her forelimbs were crossed against her sternum - she was about to panic and break if I didn't do something. I felt the pain starting to waver back, it putting a red haze on everything around me. "Captain! We are receiving orders to fall back to the school, we cannot hold off! Do we obey?"
If they hit the school, they could take it - there were only six fire teams, that I could see, holding this rough position. Six teams and the line that had fallen a hundred feet back - back into the shelter of building and stone. I looked backwards as the nausea began to resurface, and the medic did not seem to notice - or perhaps, did not have the ability to. The drugs had a fast affect, certainly, on their systems, but they could over-dose in a heart beat on our differing vital systems. I took a pained breath and looked at her, then shook my head. "No, Norlat, no retreat. We buy our brothers a chance to get into better position to protect your young. We do not retreat."
They were thirty feet away from us now - their line had broken into staggered clumps of warriors, their guns replaced with an onrush of bladed weaponry, and a frenzied need to do battle up close and personal. It was characteristic and instinctive, the desire to rip and tear and crush and maim - what we humans had once had, not less than seven generations ago on our lonely planet. It's not that we lacked it, but it's that we channeled it into slightly less destructive means. But how easy it came back to us - the need for war. I would have been philosophical about it, but didn't have the brain power. No, my stomach, what was left of it, began to hurt.
"We stay and fight! Today is a good day to die!" I returned to full firing mode, my rifle switching to it's full auto and I began a quick wide to side sweep, cutting a swath into the onrushing forces, as my squad, the brave souls so alien and different, returned to action, firing with shots that were wild, disgraceful, but at the least, effective. I turned, watching one of the great warriors rushing me and its blade lifted high, and it swept to sever my head from my shoulders, when the front of its face exploded into a rather messy shower of gore and blood. Or, well, what they had inside. I could taste it on the air, the moment of freeze breaking as I saw Norlat switch targets. She was a natural soldier - I could probably find warrior caste genes in her ancestry.
And then i felt a wet pain run through me, and looked to the side, one of the bastards having snuck up when I wasn't paying attention. Stupid of me. I felt the pain radiate through bowels and armor - and it ripped upwards, severing some rather delicate organs. The pain was too much as I staggered back and my knees gave - my gun lifting of its own accord and I firing full into the stomach and spleen of this bastard. Did they have stomachs? I didn't know. I fired, and I fired, the barrel starting to waver the air as I lay, gasping, a lung severed and the arm still twitching inside of me. And I felt cold - the medic could do nothing, as its head was severed. My squad had bought the defenders a few more moments to set up and I was proud of them. I saw Norlat, her look of horror disappearing into a look of rage and I felt pride.
I felt baseball in the summer time, the smell of cotton candy and gunships firing across the vid as mother called to me to get out of Norlat was a pretty female, she had met me the first night we had made contact has been confirmed captain they are a sentient species of herbivores, a species of animal that eats vegetative matter is a term for the basic building blocks of the universe Latin uni one verse word...