[GZG] [GZG Fiction] Night Fight

G'day,

Sorry its been a while and I was in the process of trying to get the Jock
reports together for a lulu effort, but its taking a long time so might as
well send out some instalments here in the mean time. Starting off with night
fight, which I think I already posted here a year or so back, but what the
heck here it is again;)

Beth

> [quoted text omitted]

Night Fight

The 2/34 is finally returning to the front line. A few weeks doesn’t
seem long to be away from the fight, but it feels like a life time ago that we
were in the midst of constant action. We’re all rested and mostly recovered.
Those who won’t be coming with us have largely shipped out to their new
training regimes. Although Turps was there to wave us off, the contact points
for his new legs glinting in gunmetal grey as he sat on his hoverchair.

We’ve also picked up some replacements. They have been dribbling in over the
last week, some of them only touched down to join us as we were about to fly
out, so not all of them are fully settled in yet. Most are green recruits, but
we have also picked up a unit of native pilots who are from a unit now too
deeply in Kra’Vak held ground to join up with
them just now. Even for the ‘refined young things’ in the 2/34 these
old guys have come as a bit of a rude shock. To a man they are all older
than Baxter. All lined, bronzed, weathered skin, silver or salt-n-pepper
hair. They all have old style Martian gills. The flaps that flutter just above
their collarbone are hardly noticeable once the initial novelty has worn off
and their whistling lilt is quite light on the ear, but getting used to the
spitting takes a while longer. You have to give it
to the original gene-engineers who came up with the design though. For
the cost of needing to hawk up a mucus pellet of fine sand a few times a day
you are completely freed from being dependent on a filter mask. I must admit
when I first got to Mars I found the spittoons a quirky touch. While we
don’t have any spittoons with us, most members of this crew are good about
being discrete and not firing a pellet at your feet. Moreover between them
these guys have an unbelievable and invaluable amount of accumulated
experience of flying on Mars. They’ve literally been flying here longer than
I’ve been alive. They also know the area exceedingly well and will be a
critical asset, even if their personal habits take a little getting used to.

We flew from Camp Henna to the forward airbase at Aureum and there we sat
waiting for our ride down to San Juan and our return to the Tokalau Isthmus.
This is typical of the bipolar nature of war on Mars. It continues to amaze me
how quickly conditions change through space and time in this conflict,
extremes of action and inaction separated by only tens of kilometres or a few
hours.

While we were waiting for our troop transport slot, there was a fighter
scramble. The northern VR link had gone down and infantry to the west of San
Juan needed immediate support. The pilots and groundcrew all bolted for the
field as soon as the first clanging of the sirens began. They
were wheels-up in under 3 minutes and there was confirmation they were
on station in under 10 minutes.

It was deep night before our transports arrived. Most would be going in by
airship, but I had a place on the VTOL escort. There were 8 gunships in total.
The first four came in low over the sea, descending so quickly I feared at
least one would crash. Pastel yellow and blue lights marked their landing
zone. The lights weren’t the best for your night vision, but apparently they
were less visible to the Kra’Vak and that was most important in this war.

The VTOLs whipped the fine dust of Mars into thick clouds, which actually hid
the other 4 gunships from site as they hovered above. I searched the sky for
any hint of their presence, but even the low light enhancers (or BUGS, as in
bug eyes, as they were affectionately known) in my specs couldn’t pick them
out. The dark and dust had let them melt away. That was quickly reversed
however as they lowered down through the cold, dry dirty cloud to the ground.
As soon as they were enveloped in it their decent was lit by a light show that
created an eerie halo glow. The lift planes glittered as if coated in
phosphorescence and the closer to the ground they got the brighter it seemed
to grow, even activating the light shield in my specs. My skin
tingled and the sound meter on my spec-cam indicated that the night was
actually alive with crackling and popping, though the noise of the VTOL
engines and my earplugs meant I didn’t hear the static charges arcing
through the night.

We were on board and secure in a matter of minutes and then the VTOLs were
lifting off again. They did not immediately turn into the dark night, but
instead roamed the perimeter of the field. They kept their running lights on,
washing back and forth across the field as the airship loading was also
finalised. It took about 15 minutes for the airship to be ready and then it
slowly lumbered into the sky too and we were on our way back to the frontline.

The VTOL ahead of us kept its lights on as it swept across the
semi-sleeping base. As soon as it cleared the seaward perimeter however,
the lights flicked off, suddenly, as if they’d passed through a
light-absorbing veil. My head was on a swivel trying to take in all the
action going on around me, the pilot seemingly flying completely in the dark,
though in reality his specs would lighten the scene to an image like a dull
day back home. Likewise the gunners sat in apparent darkness, but were
scanning their arcs, looking for threats and targets. The Kra’Vak small arms
weren’t as visible in the dark as ours, there was less strobing muzzle flash
and they used tracers less frequently. Nevertheless an experienced eye could
still pick them up and the
motion-AI in the specs helped. The gunners’ hands never left their
guns and I was confident the they would be able to put considerable volumes of
fire down on a ground target within seconds of anything getting started.

Progress across the Pyrrhae Sea was quiet and even a little long for my
liking, time seeming to drag. We saw some action off in the distance,
explosions, lasers and lights flickering off the low cloud along the horizon
toward Ariza and Ordunna and I figured the Kra’Vak must be counter attacking
there tonight. Our flight was undisturbed however, even as we flew in low over
the western shoreline of the tip of the peninsular.

The gunships dropped in low over the chill desert and I watched as the land
speed past below me, trying to pick out features and land marks. We followed a
meandering river valley into the barren inland. Looking up the streams and
tributaries I noted most disappeared under the sand fairly quickly. Tokalau
hadn’t become any more inviting in our absence.

The fairground ride quickly came to end though as the pilot warned of a ground
contact up ahead. Six of the other gunships peeled off, banking back up to the
airship, flocking around it like chicks around a hen. We stayed low and
through my specs a bizarre light show began to dance
across the rushing landscape. Lances of laser light criss-crossed below
us, some in random collections others concentrated on specific locations. I
switched my specs to mesh mode so I could discern our infantry from the
Kra’Vak, it looked like a small Kra’Vak force had run into one of our
roving patrols.

Off to the left a ring of light indicated a squad cut-off and signalling
to the UAVs circling out of sight for support. A drone suddenly dived down
past us, answering the call, I was less aware of its dark rushing body than
the solid rod of light it appeared to ride down to the ground, before it
fired, banked and disappeared into the night now running dark again.

My specs made the scene below fairly clear and you could hardly call it dark,
it was much clearer than even the fullest of moons on Earth. Nevertheless it
felt odd, foreshortened, like it was in 2.5D and didn’t run all the way to
the horizons. I knew it was a trick of the technology and much better than
acting in the dark, but it was a feeling I had never managed to shake.

We cleared the combat in under a minute and after about another quarter hour
we were on our final approach. The gunship came in low and fast, again. It
didn’t slow until the last second when it just came straight down, the
gunner talking the pilot down. The sensors could have done it solo, all the
UAVs did without issue, but even after centuries of flight human pilots tend
to trust themselves over the instruments alone.

Unbuckling I followed the two Lieutenants I’d been travelling with out onto
the ground. Dawn was coming, but the light was still dim enough to need the
spec’s augmentation. I followed the Lt’s to the waving Lumestick where I
was greeted by Rurik, one of the Martian pilots who’d joined us back in
Aureum. I hadn’t realised that a prep force had been dispatched, but there
was no other explanation for him getting here ahead of us. He tapped my
shoulder and rotated his index finger, indicating I should turn away from the
gunship. As it lifted off I was glad of his reminder, the exposed regolith
kicking up and peppering my back with sandy debris.

We wound away back through the dark to a higher step in the plateau. The area
was a hive of activity as the airship came in and started to off
load the main body of the 2/34. We spent much of the rest of the morning
unloading crates and getting vehicles ready. The next phase of the 2/34
deployment was to be a roving patrol, simultaneously patrolling the northern
sector of the peninsular and harassing any Kra’Vak doing likewise.

***

I spent much of the next few days with Rurik. The making and breaking of camps
became second nature, as did the cleaning of kit and the stream of rough
Slavic humour. Rurik was quiet when in a group, particularly
around the younger men of the 2/34, but as the numbers dwindled he
opened up. At 83 he was perhaps the oldest member of the Armed Forces I’d
encountered on Mars. Age was hard to judge when there was such a mix of
naturals, splicers and juicers about. There was enough variation in the
naturals as it was and some people responded to the rejuvenation treatments
more or less effectively than others. Hardly anyone but those form the urban
ghettos went for the knife or the needle anymore so they stood out as starkly
as those who had opted for cybernetic implants.
Juicers used a nano-delivered cocktail of synthetic hormones and other
treatments to slow aging, while the splicers used gene-tech. Both aged
more naturally than those who’d opted for more physical interventions,
though those in the know suggested the extra cost of the gene-tech paid
off in the end. Maximum age had not increase by much on the naturally defined
upper end, maybe extended it from 120 to 150, but the difference was the
quality of life and independence lasted until the end. I had picked Rurik as a
juicer, I doubted he’d have had the money for splicing, at least from an
early enough age for it to really pay off. Although who could tell on Mars
where a family could sequester itself away and slowly accumulate a fortune
they chose not to put on display. At first I felt it rude to ask, but in the
end I succumbed to my curiosity and was greeted by a hearty laugh from Rurik.

“Nyet! What yoo see ees what you get. One hundred percaynt Slavic
goodness!”

It turned out he was a great grandfather who had lived on Mars his entire
life. He’d been born in the industrial town of Vologansk, south of Eos
Chasma. He had got his pilots licence ay 17, he’d taken lunch time flying
lessons over the course of six months while working in a fabricating plant run
by his Uncle. In his twenties he’d agreed to be
one of the first company-sponsored pilots to get gills and nano-hemes so
he could do the long haul equatorial routes they were opening up. He’d been
repeatedly decorated for bravery during the First Solar War though his most
remembered event of that time was meeting the prophets Taletha and Bemun
before they were martyred in 2137. Influenced by his experiences he joined the
Ashacithra after the war and led a largely peaceful life. Marrying twice and
having three children he spent much of his life shipping materials around Mars
watching life slowly creep further and more strongly across its surface. When
two of his great grandsons had died during the turmoil of the Kra’vak
landing in 2194 Rurik had enlisted with the UN led forces.

“Ee feegoored ee coould still contriboot. Ee am tsar of Mars sand and vind.
Beseedes my leefe iz done. Better for me to reesk than for yoong men.” Hard
to argue with that logic. During the next few days I asked the rest of the
pilots if that’s why they’d also joined up. While some had led a less
peaceful life than Rurik in recent decades and had admitted to almost drifting
into the role, all had felt drawn to using their decades of experience to
baluster the fight against the Kra’Vak.

“I know I don’t run so fast anymore, but I figured I could give then a
darn good shellackin’ with me walkin’ stick” joked the baby of the unit
64 year old Ryce Jones.

***

Rurik had spent the evening trying to teach me the Russian names for the most
common constellations, or at least the ones we could pick out between the
skittering clouds that randomly blotted out patches of our vista. The Milky
Way painted across the sky in breathtaking, but fitful brilliance. Off to the
south explosions created a low rumbling accompaniment to our lesson. About
midnight I called it quits and turned in. It felt like I’d just closed my
eyes when Rurik came bustling into our shared pod and shook me.

“Come Jock, you come see zees. Big leet show.”

Rurik grabbed his rifle and headed back out of the pod. Guessing by light show
Rurik meant an attack. I stopped to pull on my combat rig before heading
outside.

My BUGS kicked in and I could make out troops moving to defensive positions.
Some were climbing up into vehicle mounts, others dispersing
to points around the perimeter. I activated my spec-cam and called on
its greater sensor power to try and see further out on to the plain. Still to
little avail, the specialised image enhancers helped, but their depth of
visibility was still limited on such a dark night.

A string of flares arced from the edge of the convoy-come-caravan into
the Martian night, raising the ambient light levels to the point the BUGS
phased out. There are many strange things about night fights and this is yet
another one. When illume rounds go up they create enough light for your specs
to grade out the enhancers, but as soon as the rounds dim the BUGS kick in
again. I used to find this oscillation quite unsettling – the first time I
felt sick to my stomach and about fell flat on my face. Now however it is old
hat and squinting just as you anticipate the shift is just another battlefield
trick to call upon.

My eyes quickly located the mortar crew tucked in between two of the
big-wheeled transports firing the illumination rounds out over the
on-coming Kra’Vak. Each shot went up as a pinprick of light, like an
old style firecracker, but instead of ending in a flowery explosion it
blossomed into a glowing balloon of pastel yellow light that drifted in the
light Martian breeze. The flickering preternatural light cast long, but sharp
shadows that ran long distances toward the edge of the light field. Even I
could see the Kra’Vak infantry caught in the open ground closing on our
position. Fire opened up on them from soldiers in the vehicle weapon mounts or
kneeling tucked in behind the vehicles for protection.

Right on the edge of the light I saw a Kra’Vak support team set-up a
firing position. Some were attaching mortar tubes to stabilisation plates,
others were working on pads probably dialling in the strike, while still
others loaded the munitions. Once I realised what was coming I sprinted for
the cover of some ration crates, the armoured positions in the vehicles were
more inviting, but people with a purpose needed those. I only just made it to
my bolthole before mortars were tracing lazy parabolas through the night sky.
The Kra’Vak weapons weren’t as lit up as ours, but they still left a
glowing trail on your vision.

The Kra’Vak tracers were green, red or violet-tinged blue whereas ours
tended to be more orange and yellow. It made it easier to identify who was who
as the shots laced across the night toward targets on either side. Suddenly I
was the target. Kra’Vak fire snapped across the ground beside the crates and
up over the boxes. Pulling my head down I hoped the body of the crates would
be as safe as they’d looked from the pod door. Small rocks and sand flicked
up by the shots whipped into my legs and I could see the tracer rounds thud
into the dirt within arms reach. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one tracer
slug puncture a mesh cage of water bottles, ricocheting twice before settling
in the wreckage and making the whole thing glow a dull but fading green.

As the cold of the night folded in around me I heard a Mantis VTOL fly in and
take up position overhead. It stabbed fired down onto the Kra’Vak mortar
team, its rockets streaking in on dead straight vectors. Then the pilot tipped
the VTOL and slid off to the left of our position, firing again. I guessed the
pilot must be working with our FST. Bruce was most likely on the counter
battery radar, his little “ball catcher”. He’d have placed his ring of
little dishes around him and would be using them to perform electromagnetic
sweeps of the sky, looking for the black comets that marked an incoming round.
From there it was up to the AI to locate points of origin and feed them to the
Mantis’ targeting list.

The Mantis hit twice more with rockets before opening up with its MG across
the Kra’Vak in the open to our southeast. BARRRP, BARRRP, BARP, BRP, BRP.
The Mantis then slid off into the dark, I found out at the debrief the next
day that the VTOL had been returning from a mission in the south and had had
limited ammunition and fuel so couldn’t stay with us for long.

“Rocket!”

I pulled in tight against the crates, crouching, curling up over my feet, arms
over my head. The rocket whooshed overhead and struck the rear of the camp.
Showering me with small stones, but doing little real damage. I felt exposed
and really wanted to find somewhere with more cover. I rose onto the balls of
my feet and peeked over the crates, looking about for a more secure position.
I spotted a wombat with its tail down. I could duck in there and use the wall
of the APC for cover and with the ramp down I’d still have a fairly
unimpeded view. With a deep breath I took off at a sprint for the Wombat, a
couple of Kra’Vak
bullets kicking up sand as I hurdled a stool-sized rock. I don’t think
they’d intentionally been targeting me, more likely just random strikes in
what was a chaotic firefight. Nevertheless my heart was pounding as I thudded
up the ramp breathing hard.

Inside I found Reg and another medic trying desperately to patch up a young
Corporal. It didn’t look good however as her right leg was saturated with a
spreading pool of blood that had made the floor of the vehicle slick.

“Friend!” I declared breathlessly as the other medic pulled his sidearm.

“Jesus Jock!” Reg said placing a hand on the gun and pushing its muzzle
toward the floor.

“Sorry guys, it was getting a little hairy out there. Need any
help?”

“No, but you can cover the door.” Reg said tossing me a rifle. I sat on
the rearmost sit and wedged myself with my back to the wall, scanning for
anything threatening to head our way. Every few seconds my eyes would flick to
the little tactical insert projection (“tac screen”) on my specs. There
was still a mass of Kra’Vak out there.

“Friendly birds inbound. Cleared hot and danger close.” Baxter declared
over my earbud, warning everyone to keep their heads down.

Two phoenix strike fighters thundered overhead. Doing a first pass they picked
up the enemy on their sensors and began a live feed down to our
tac screens. They were probably double-checking their visuals with
Baxter, making sure they were targeting the right bodies. Any mistakes with
the Kra’Vak this close could spell big trouble for us. I noticed that
someone had set a string of pastel blue flares along the perimeter under most
direct attack, marking out our position.

The fighters circled out and around behind the camp, before going into shallow
dives down over the camp. As they cleared our position they opened fire with
their nose mounted cannons, strafing the approaching Kra’Vak with thousands
of rounds. The tracer fire was coming so thick and fast, it looked like a
constant stream of cadmium yellow flame. The volume of fire was deafening,
drowning out the chattering of rifles and small arms. Then a mighty WHOMP
rolled across the battlefield and pushed at my ears and chest. One of the
Phoenix had fired a missile, destroying half the Kra’Vak advance with a
single devastating strike.

Concentrating on my spec’s tac screen I countered about 35 Kra’Vak
remaining. We easily outnumbered them. They had lost their mortar support, but
may still have had some heavy slug throwers with them. The ground contact
obviously had a bit to run, but I was feeling better than when Rurik dragged
me out of bed.

***

The firefight had lasted another half hour before the last of the Kra’Vak
launched one of those suicide beserker charges of theirs. Most were cut down
before they reached our defensive line amongst the vehicles, but three got in.
They seemed to be on some kind of adrenaline high, swinging, slashing,
dismembering and hardly pausing under the blows they sustained until they
finally fell dead from the cumulative fire. It was a costly contact though.
They brought down seven of the
2/34. The casevac has already taken them out, including the body bags
containing the rendered remains of Privates Kit McKinley and Cal Rogers.

I’ve witness a few such charges now and I’ve seen more mowed down by
disciplined fire than I’ve seen close. Still every charge I see unnerves me
and I’m supremely glad I’ve never had to personally repulse one. There
maybe plenty of jokes about my Highland beserker ancestors, naked except for
the woad, lurking in the mist claymore swinging, but a roaring Kra’Vak bull
charging weapons pulled is the stuff of my nightmares.

With the action over, two squads had been sent to clear the perimeter and four
others kept watch. The body of the force however was occupied breaking camp.
Dawn was just starting to light the far horizon by the time we were all done.
Rurik made my day by pushing a steaming mug into my hands before swinging into
the cab and pulling down his hatch.

I settled back into the passenger seat, harnessed up at Rurik’s behest,
boots up on the bulkhead under the windscreen. I munched my way through a
ration bar, nursing my coffee as long as my gritty eyes would allow. Then
despite the jostling ride I dozed. When I woke the sun was up and we were out
amongst the rocky ground of the plains between San Juan and Marin, west of the
coastal highway.

I don’t know how Rurik was managing as thick dust obscured the view of the
truck in front of us. Leaning down I switched on the external viewers and
looked around, the heavy dust also blocked the view of the vehicle behind us.
The shape of the big flatbed loomed out of the dust, barely missing our tail,
a collision barely avoided.

My sharp intake of breath, betrayed the narrow miss and Rurik chuckled.

“Been zat way all morneeng.”

“Why don’t we spread out some more, run in a few columns?” I asked
Rurik, looking at him and nodding to the vehicle ahead of us. “Zat is why”
he said wrapping his knuckle on a projection of the terrain around us. It
showed our path marked in green with the terrain around us marked in various
hues of yellow and orange. There were deep drifts and hidden drop offs and
embankments to either side of us. There were also ominous blinking red dots,
the detectors mounted on the flanks of the vehicles marking them as suspicious
objects. It was likely the Kra’Vak had laid mines in the sand on either side
of the road.

We crawled across the plain for nearly an hour before the inevitable happened
and one of the big trucks slipped off the road ahead of us. It slid and sunk
down into the sand, bogging to the chassis. Just as it seemed to settle its
rear kicked up explosively. It had hit a mine. The concussive blast and rain
of debris suddenly cascading down the windscreen startled Rurik, who
instinctively ducked away, dragging the controls of the truck with him. We
headed off the embankment too. Unconsciously I sucked in a deep breath and
threw my hands against the frame of the door and ceiling, pushing back against
my seat and bracing. The truck slewed left and right, Rurik fighting the
wheel, somehow slaloming between the biggest mine markers. The side glanced
off some buried boulders and we began to totter, I was convinced we would tip.
Throwing us roughly the other way Rurik pulled us back upright, but the tail
swung wide. I was thrown hard forward as the whole body of the truck jerked
violently. We were airborne and I could see sand and sky spinning around us
out the window as we flipped. We’d hit a mine, we’d either miraculously
missed the main force of the blast or it had been a smaller device, not a
truck killer. If we could land softly we might stand a chance. The seat
bracing was digging into my thighs and shoulders and my head was whipped one
way and then another, as we bounced back up the embankment. With a sickening
crunch we rammed into one of the smaller jeeps.

Once the world was still I gingerly poked at my aching thighs and ran a hand
over my face checking for anything more than superficial cuts. Relief,
disbelief and awe swept through me as the probing suggested I was intact.
Rurik was groaning beside me.

“You ok?”

“Da. Da. ” He said, though there was the hint of pain in his voice and he
had a nasty gash across the bridge of his nose, his eyes already blackening
and swelling.

I was hanging in my harness and looked about for some handholds. I was after
the easiest way to hold on so that when I released the clasp I wouldn’t just
drop and crack my head. I had been concentrating on holds around the harness
mounts, but dropped my eyes to see if there were any on the bulkhead when my
eyes finally caught the grisly tableau framed by the windscreen. The frame of
the jeep was bent sharply in front of us and blood and tissue was splattered
and smeared up across the plexiglass. I could see part of an arm and a pulpy
mass was snagged on the lower edge of the port. My attention was riveted to
the gore. I couldn’t force myself to look away. With furrowed brow I tried
to resolve what I was looking at. My stomach plummeted as I realised it was a
maimed cranium, brain and hair all combined. I started gasping, retching.

Rurik looked up and then shot out an arm to me. Where had he found a sick bag?
How could he be retaining his composure?

“Jock?! Jock?!” A sharp rapping on the side window finally drew my
attention back from the carnage and my roiling stomach. I could see the
CSM’s big dusty face mask, his hand swiping at the dust on the window trying
to see in. Seeing his mouth move outside the window, but hearing his voice in
my earbuds added to the surreal feeling overwhelming me.

“Are you ok?” The CSM asked both through the earbuds and using an odd mix
of hand gestures through the window.

I nodded weakly.

“Rurik?”

Rurik also nodded and then rattled off the status of everything he could
inventory from his current location. How could he do that when someone’s
brain was smeared up the windscreen? The whole thing seemed too real. I knew I
had seen worse in Marin, I had watched Reg hold a man’s heart together! I
don’t know whether it was the fatigue or accumulated stress or being fresh
back in the field, but this time I was distraught and felt lost as to how to
deal with it, to regain my equilibrium.

“Ok. The boys will help you and then we’ll roll her and salvage what we
can.” The CSM said, rapping the door before moving off down the road.

I forced myself to turn my attention on the harness clasps. Fumbling with
them. I was trying to focus, but my brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton
wool. A draft of cold air betrayed the door cracking open beside me. I looked
up to see Pancho’s concerned face.

“Careful Jock. I’m going to give the door a tug.”

Straining Pancho and Nic wrenched open the door. The metal of the door grated
penetratingly as it was dragged through the rocky sand. Cold air swirled round
me, clearing my head a little. Irresistibly my eyes swivelled back to the
windscreen. The blood remained, but someone had mercifully covered the body.

Pancho reached in and helped release the harness. I swung down onto the cabin
roof and crawled out onto the sand. From the noise behind me Rurik must have
also been climbing out. Men were labouring all around us. Wrestling vehicles,
crates, wounded.

I rested against a boulder. I was shaking and sweaty despite the cold and I
felt disconnected like I was swimming through molasses. Rurik dropped down
beside me, handing me a small flask.

“Here. Dreenk. Pajalsta”

The syrupy liquid burnt on the way down. Rurik sat talking to me for what may
have been hours. The recovery of the truck was a long slow process. There must
have been Kra’Vak somewhere not too far away too as their jammers had cut
out radios, making it necessary to dispatch runners when communicating along
the length of the convoy.

Initially I just sat there slumped on the roadside, out of the way amongst the
sand. I didn’t want to talk, but Rurik kept rambling away,
encouraging me to pitch in and help with re-crating the cargo. The
contact eventually coaxing me out until I too started talking, it all came
spilling out. It helped, relieving the pressure and easing the queasy knot in
my stomach. As we were loading up the last crate, Rurik looked at me and said
“Een 2141 ee vas grunt vith Souz Yevrazia Solnychniy. At Eedaeus Massacre ee
lost tree brozers. Ee zought ee vould never be vysyliy… vhat yoo say?
Cheerfool?” He went quiet and looked out across the plain. “Ee deeg deep,
got zrough. Many nyet so good.” Shaking himself, Rurik turned and clapped me
roughly on the back, a big grin across his face. “Come, ve eat!”

***

It was just before nightfall when the engineers set the charges amongst the
debris of the wrecked trucks. The explosions lit up the desert around us,
playing highlights along the sides of the trucks and blending with the orangey
twilight. My nerves tightened again as the light seemed like beacons
broadcasting our presence, but we couldn’t repair or free them enough to tow
them, so it was important to make sure the enemy wouldn’t benefit from their
hulks. Intellectually the photographer in me revelled in the light and
mentally concocted shots of the scene, but my heart wasn’t in it. I felt
tired, leaden. It felt asinine to catch myself even thinking of photographing
a funeral pyre.

We rolled off into the night, the convoy continuing its circuitous route to
its next campsite. This time I sat in the back of a Wombat, tucked in with
some of the recon platoon and Rurik, who was snoring diagonally across from
me. It wasn’t as spacious as the cab of the truck had been and I couldn’t
see out, but right at that moment it felt strangely comforting, like being
hidden away.

The night stretched on, the convoy only managing to creep along as it twisted
through the Martian landscape, replete with treacherous terrain and darkened
minefields. We stopped twice to allow us to stretch our legs and relieve
ourselves. There was no light or other sign of habitation in the desolate
surrounds.

Normally I can fall asleep anywhere, amongst anything. A trick I had picked up
quickly after becoming an embed, you’re never sure when the next good sleep
is coming. Tonight however sleep eluded me and I sat there deflated, listening
to the sounds of the vehicle and troops in her; the snores, grunts, whispered
conversations and crass jokes. As the night inched toward dawn my legs began
to cramp and I had to rub my calves and wiggle my toes to relieve the pain.

I must have finally slept as I was jerked awake when the Wombat shuddered to a
halt. Briefly disoriented it took me a moment to locate myself, before I
started gathering my gear together. It felt good to get out and stretch my
cramped limbs. Looking around there were many tousled heads and dark eyes.
Everyone was tired and most were filthy. What struck me most was that despite
the adversity people were joking as they pitched camp, morale was high. The
FST were setting up mortars in the centre of the position, Jess McDougall
scanning the horizon through binoculars, noting marks and ranges on a pad.
Chris and Jeff pulled a gun case from the back of a transport truck and
floated it past. They took it to a set of boulders on the western edge of the
camp and cracked it, pulling out an MG. On the eastern edge of the camp Cathy
and Nic set up an AI driven sentry gun. Rurik tossed a duffel into my arms,
looking inside I found a camouflage screen.

“Nyet rayst for veeked” he chucked. I helped him put up a string of
screens over the dorm pods and vehicles.

***

Around midday Baxter came over to where I was playing round robin chess with
Rurik and another of the Martian pilots, Tobias Whittaker.

“Heard you found yesterday pretty rough.”

Looking up into his rugged face I replied, “I’ve had better days.”

“There’s a VTOL coming, ETA fifteen minutes. There’s room for you if you
want a ride out of here.”

My throat was suddenly tight and my gut felt like a butterfly ballet recital
had broken out. I knew I couldn’t leave though, not with the
2/34 likely heading into some of the thickest fighting of the war.