Only War Lasts Forever

Chapter 9

Bweeeooop! Bweeeooop! Bweeeooop!

An ear-piercing alarm shattered the silence. A formerly darkened concrete corridor was immediately flushed with a deep crimson hue. The rows of bunk beds came to life with the soldiers sleeping on them throwing their covers off and getting dressed as quickly as possible.

As soon as the last soldier managed to stuff his foot into his boot an officer came in through the door on the far end and started giving orders. Men and women immediately formed two unified columns, each facing the officer. With one final shout from the officer the two columns began moving towards the door.

On the other side of the door was an armory. A massive closed door was on the far end, and there were rows upon rows of vehicles, some dirty and broken, others clean and ready to go. The soldiers quickly went to their designated positions—cylindrical indentations on the wall opposite the massive door on either side of the door they had come from. Two other groups of two columns of soldiers came out of doors to the left and right of the first door. These soldiers also began entering the cylindrical indentations on the wall.

As soon as a soldier entered the wall, two sliding doors quickly close around them. A few moments later, they came back out outfitted with the armor and weaponry assigned to them according to their duties and the environment around them.

This time, the armor was scant and did not offer much in the way of protection. Instead, it was designed to add increased flexibility and mobility so that the soldiers could deal with the rough terrain.

After each soldier had been properly equipped, squads of seven began mounting the vehicles near the front of the door. All-in-all, thirty vehicles were mounted.

The large metal door began to slide open. The sunlight crept in and some of the soldiers shielded their eyes until they could adjust. Once the door was fully open, a blue light replaced the red, signaling for the vehicles to take off. Almost all at once, all thirty vehicles lifted off of the platform and took off at various speeds through the opening.

Once outside, it become apparent that the hangar was one of several dozen others, and hundreds of other ships—some transports, such as the first ships, others assault ships, supply ships, recon ships, and many more all flew in unison towards the same object. Looking back, one could see that the hangars had all been built into the side of a small mountain range. Below, a vast, rocky jungle prevented those in the ships from seeing the ground completely; all those who weren’t in the recon ships, of course.

Jaan Reeth stood inside one of the transport ships with his squad. It was a squad composed of three female soldiers, three male soldiers, and a female officer. Of the men, there was himself, Helix, and quiet man named Gurs. Gurs carried the long-range, high-powered communication unit. In theory, seeing as how each soldier carried their own personal communication device built in with their equipment, such a heavy load was useless and burdensome. However, often times the enemy used jamming techniques that would render the smaller equipment useless over long-ranges, and so it was considered a necessity to have one.

As for the women, there was Renfai, Jorza, Diro, and then the squad leader, Kel. Renfai and Jorza were considered standard riflemen, carrying the universally loved and hated Herkon 445. As the largest and strongest member of the squad, Diro had been assigned to carry the RGH-3, a massive weapon that Jaan could barely use, let alone carry around all day. But of course, Diro had simply told Jaan, “This thing only weighs about half of what the fat Lorthys on my gran’s farm used to weigh, an’ I could carry two of ‘em, one on each shoulder.” Needless to say, Jaan’s confidence in his strength as a man died a little that day.

As for Helix, because of his limber movement skills he was given the small D56 and was used as something of a scout and often walked point. In Jaan’s case, he’d been assigned the role of grenadier, being given the YL3 attachment for the Herkon 445. It essentially afforded him a level of versatility that he enjoyed quite a bit.

Their squad leader, Kel, was harsh in combat but very kind when away from the field. Due to her role, she too carried a D56, and on the field often had Gurs sticking to her hip more than Helix stuck to Jaan’s when off.

A yellow light appeared above Jaan’s, indicating that they would be landing soon. He quickly did a visual check of his armor. Really, it was a joke to call it armor. There were some outfits used by the HDGA that could rightfully be called ‘armor’, but this suit was not one. As far actually covering the body went, it did a poor job as there was almost nothing to “wear” besides what looked like to the untrained eye as a few metal braces around the limbs and torso. It offered little in the way of physical protection, and it’s personal ionized shield was paltry when compared to the other kits. But, it was required for the planet they were on.

Yalthoo VII. It was little more than a rock with green on it, but as a strategic position is was invaluable. Or so he had been told. Jaan didn’t honestly care too much. At the moment, he was too focused on the mission immediately in front of him; namely, they had to capture a Yalthian stronghold that had been affectionately dubbed “the goddamn living mountain” by the soldiers trying to capture it. This was the seventh attempt in four months to try and take it, and Jaan, as well as the rest of the soldiers, were growing impatient.

The problem was that the mountain had been designated a high priority target that could not be outright destroyed, so it couldn’t be bombarded from orbit, and because of their exception anti-air capabilities it was suicide to consider outright landing on the mountain. So, they had to land a fair distance away from the mountain and trek towards its base.

However, that was where the real problems began. It wasn’t the miles of hostile plant life and fauna, the traps set by Yalthian dissenters, or the treacherous terrain that held them back. No, every single time nearly every unite made it to the base of the mountain without too many major incidents. The problem was scaling the mountain.

The mountain itself wasn’t actually a mountain, but a gigantic pile of boulders about the size of a human curled up into a ball that were all loosely stacked together and held in place by a mind-bogglingly complex web of vines. Because of the wind and the vines, the pile of rocks was always moving, hence the reason the soldiers called it a living mountain. This was where their equipment was supposed to come into play.

The Ran-Sod Mobility Action Suit was designed with one thing in mind: Mobility. Just the braces alone supplemented the user’s dexterity and endurance enough to the point that he could climb all day quickly and without ever needing to stop. But to top it all off it had a waist-mounted cable launcher that could fire several hundred feet of cable and without fail latch on to whatever you had fired it towards. You could then reel yourself towards the desired spot far more quickly than climbing alone. In theory, it was the ideal armor for the soldiers taking the mountain.

But, again, this was no ordinary mountain. The problem was that you couldn’t climb the mountain; there was no distinct path and the ever-shifting boulders proved to be treacherous and made the climb slow, which only gave the Yalthians waiting from up top an easy target. And unfortunately, the cable launcher was no good, as all it did was pull whatever boulder you had latched on to down on top of you.

The last six attempts had all ended the same way: Retreat. No matter what strategies they had tried, they could never scale far enough up the mountain without either being shot or being forced to jump back down. One soldier in the mess hall had suggested after the fourth attempt that they should just try pulling all of the boulders down with their cable launchers. This was a tactic that was tried on the fifth attempt, but to no avail. Apparently, the vines knew when they were losing too many of their precious rocks, and would start regrowing and retaking the boulders faster than the soldiers could take them down.

Of course, the reason they kept coming was because they needed to keep pressure on the enemy. It wasn’t true siege warfare, as the Yalthians—who were very in-tune with their planet’s environment—were able to remain adequately supplied without needing to ever leave their stronghold. No one was quite sure how they did it, but it was obvious due to the fact that they never left and hadn’t all died yet.

“Reeth! Get your head out of your ass!”

Jaan looked up from looking at his suit to see an angry Kel pointing out of the door. The ship had landed, and the rest of the squad was already heading down the rampart. Shaking his head, Jaan sprinted out of the ship, and on his way out Kel gave him a hefty kick. He didn’t fall, but he did stumble a bit.

“Alright, let’s go! We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.” Kel signaled for the squad to get into their positions, and soon they were lost in the jungle.

*   *   *

Making sure that the soldiers he had transported were on their way, the pilot of the transport ship began lifting off. He called in that squad 57 had reached it’s first destination.

In a modestly sized room with no windows, a group of about a dozen men and women were busy sorting and relaying all of the information that came in to them. Most of the messages were of squads merely relaying their position and status once they had reached certain checkpoints, but occasionally there was a request for artillery or medical evacuation.

Most of the information was automatically sorted and sent to the proper receiver, but it was the job of Andi Reeth and his teammates to analyze the data and look for patterns or specific occurrences that might spell trouble. Then, if they found something particularly worthy of note, it was brought to the special attention of the generals two rooms over who were coordinating the whole event.

Andi was slightly dissatisfied with his job, but it was where the HDGA had decided to place him based on his test scores. He was slightly envious of Jaan, knowing that he was out there seeing the action first-hand and living it, whereas Andi was just sitting in a room watching numbers on a holo-screen.

However, at the same time, Andi was also grateful for his position. Most of the other people in the room had seen combat and had earned their way out of the hot zone. Plus, unlike Jaan, Andi got to see the whole picture and what was going on at all times.

Still, it was the big command position that Andi had dreamed about while back on Hell. Having spent a few months away from the place, he had started to gain a little perspective and had come to realize that most of what they said was probably a whole lot of smoke meant to keep him going. He didn’t do poorly as a combat analyst, but his colleagues were often much better at it than he was. Plith, who tested worse than Andi and had been given the assignment of “assistant combat analyst”, tried to reassure Andi that he was in fact capable and that it was simply the other analysts experience which made them better.

Leaning back in his chair, Andi stretched his arms upwards. This was still the beginning of the day, so he didn’t need to keep an unwavering gaze on the data at the moment. It did catch his eye when he saw the message stating that squad 57 had reached its landing destination. Out of curiosity, he checked the data on the surrounding area. Strangely, it seemed Jaan was slightly off from where he was supposed to land, but Andi chalked that up to the pilot making a last-minute decision that original landing zone was no good and chose a different spot instead. Andi set a watcher program on the data for Jaan’s squad to notify him if there were any major deviations from their planned route. Squad 57 wasn’t essential in today’s maneuver and was going to spend time guarding the rear, but still Andi wanted to keep an eye on Jaan.

*   *   *

Despite being considered a jungle planet, Yalthoo VII was actually slightly chilly. Or at least chillier than Jaan would have assumed. The constant wind always managed to snake it’s way through the trees just right so that the temperature was never warm and the air was never humid, but, because of the tree canopy, the warmth the nearby star never fully reached the ground. Not that Jaan minded too much. Considering how much equipment they were carrying, heat and humidity would have made the trek much worse.

While thinking about the effects weather often plays in combat, Jaan’s squad reached a deep and long but somewhat narrow ravine. Kel ordered a halt.

Kel was not happy, “What the hell is this? This wasn’t on supposed to be on our route.”

Before Kel could ask, Gurs had already pulled out a holo-map and began assessing where they were. “It appears we’re off of our determined route by about three klicks. We’ve followed the route properly, but we were dropped off in the wrong location.”

Kel clicked her tongue. “Alright then. So how do we fix our destination?”

Gurs frowned a little bit. “According to the information from the recon ships, the direct way to our assigned position is impossible. The forest is too thick in that direction. If we backtrack to go around, we’ll lose the main force by about an hour’s worth of time and leave too large of a hole in the rear guard’s defense. It would seem our only option is to head northeast and try to go through the forest there. It appears to be less thick and so we may be able to get through and still be within an acceptable range of the main force.”

Looking at her compass, Kel nodded in assent. “Seems like we don’t have much choice. Listen up! This ravine runs to the northwest, so we’re going to run adjacent to it. Don’t stand too close to the edge or you might fall in. Let’s go!”

Jaan hefted himself up from his kneeling position. Helix took point again and started running. Jorza and Diro went next, followed by Kel and Gurs. Jaan came after them, with Renfai bringing up the rear. Jaan silently thanked the inventor of the armor he wore. He would not be able to run at this speed for the distance that lay ahead of them without the suit. Of course, with the brush being so thick, they were not going to be going very fast.

* * *

Sipping a hot cup of Denre tea, Andi looked at the information screens in front of him with dreary eyes. He had a difficult time keeping himself on his toes at all times. The tea was laced with a drug that the analysts could take if they started to suffer from mental fatigue. Using too much of the stuff in too short of a time led to building up a resistance to it, so Andi tried to only use it when he felt it absolutely necessary.

A small skirmish had broken out on the eastern and northern sides of the mountain’s base. Some of the Yalthians had descended the mountain to fight the soldiers on the ground. Numerous squads had been ordered to reinforce the squads positioned in the east and north. Squads that had been assigned in other locations were placed nearer to the eastern and northern sides, leaving a few potential holes in the south and west. It had been decided to not leave this moment to chance and to place as many soldiers as they could near the fighting. Hopefully, either they would kill enough of the dissenters or force them into a retreat, which could possibly lead to discovering a safe passage up into the mountain.

Andi checked up on squad 57 again. As expected, they had started to deviate from their assigned route due to the fact that they had been placed in the wrong location. It appeared that they were making adjustments to compensate for that fact. However, they were still a fair ways away from the mountain compared to the majority of the other squads. They had not received any orders to head towards the fighting, so they were still on course to reach their original destination.

Sipping his tea again and feeling the drug beginning to take affect, Andi hid the watcher program again and returned to viewing the normal data.

* * *

Nearly an hour had passed since Jaan’s squad had decided to change their direction to get around the forest. They had followed the ravine for quite a ways, and it seemed to continue on straight towards the mountain. Kel had called for a stop to reassess their location and choice of movement.

Taking the opportunity, Jaan ducked behind a tree to relieve himself. The suit was capable of carrying a small amount of waste if necessary, but the idea of lugging that around for the rest of the day did not appeal to him. He chose a tree next to the ravine, when an idea struck him. He wanted to test how deep the ravine was, and saw this as an opportunity. Jaan undid his suit and stood close to the edge.

Before he let go, Jaan glanced downward to make certain that there was nothing sleeping in the ravine that would fly up and kill him. He turned on his suit’s night vision and peered into the black hole. At first, his optics were obscured by the sunlight that did managed to break through the canopy above, but after a few adjustments he could see the floor of the ravine completely.

Jaan froze. At the bottom, there were hundreds of Yalthians moving in a line. And they were carrying crates. There wasn’t enough room to move through the ravine on a vehicle, so all of the crates were being moved by hand. Jaan couldn’t tell what might be inside of the crates, but they were heading directly towards the mountain. When he turned his head in either direction, he saw that the group of Yalthians seemed to be alone. There was no long, continuous line, just this convoy of roughly two or three hundred on foot.

Suddenly, Jaan felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped slightly and turned to see Helix with a hand on his lips, signaling for Jaan to remain quite. Jaan gave a slight nod and covered himself up again. He followed Helix and his creeping pace back to where the rest of their squad was located.

Upon arriving, Kel snapped at Jaan. “What the hell were you doing, Reeth? We need to move!”

“I just needed to empty my bladder, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“That’s one hell of a bladder you’ve got, then. Took you too damn long.”

Helix chimed in before Jaan could explain. “Actually, Jaan found something quite interesting, lieutenant. There are about three hundred Yals walking parallel to us down in that ravine. I didn’t get too good of a look at them, but they didn’t appear to be heavily armed. At best I’d say speed and stealth is the name of their game.”

Kel raised an eyebrow at Helix. “Is that so? Well then, let’s go check this out. Reeth and I will go. That way, if he’s wrong, I can shove him down there for wasting time.”

“And if I’m right, lieutenant?”

“Then we’ll probably call in an airstrike. But not before I shove you down there anyways for that mouth, Reeth.” Kel let out a short laugh. “Gurs, I want you with me too. The rest of you, watch our backs in case they’ve got a rear guard.”

Jaan sighed internally and followed after them. Kel’s idea of humor was to threaten someone with bodily harm; sometimes, she found it funny to go through with it. Although she always took her job seriously and Jaan doubted she would actually throw him over there was always the chance she might.

After coming within a short distance of the ravine, the three of them went prone and crawled over to the edge. Again, their night-vision showed the convoy moving along. Although they had made some progress, it was less than Jaan had expected. Upon closer inspection it became apparent that there seemed to be some rubble slowing them down, and a few of the Yalthians were moving the debris by hand.

Kel quitely slapped Jaan on his shoulder, but gave enough force that he thought maybe she really was going to push him down.

“Reeth, thank you for having such a weak, little bladder.”

“Always glad to help.”

This time Kel elbowed Jaan in the side of his head, and then gave the signal to crawl back.

Once they had returned to where the rest of the squad was waiting, Kel filled them in on what they had seen. Using a holo-map, she explained her theory about where the convoy was heading and its purpose.

“I think they’re using the skirmishes on the other side of the mountain, here and here,” Kel pointed towards the northern and eastern sides of the mountain where the fighting was heaviest, “as a diversion so that this group and probably others can slip by during the confusion and deliver whatever is in those crates.

“We’re going to neutralize them and then continue on toward our objective. The plan is as follows: Reeth will take out their freedom of movement by collapsing the walls of the ravine on both their front and their rear, and the rest of us will open up on them. Remember, the Yalthians are exceptional climbers. Most if not all of them will immediately attempt to scale up the ravine and either kill us or run. Aim for the ones that are the farthest up the wall and we should be fine. Any questions?”

Renfai raised her hand. “Should we not split up and half of us cross the ravine so that we can hit them from both sides?”

Kel shook her head. “No, it’s too risky. If we cross over them here they’ll see us, but if we move too far away from them we risk the convoy getting too close to the mountain and we won’t be able to engage them.”

Gurs ventured a suggestion with a tap on his long-range equipment. “What about notifying command of this? If something goes wrong we’re going to need help, and if no one knows what we’re doing we might end up in serious trouble.”

“Gurs, while I appreciate the idea, you know that’s not going to happen. Command is busy with the bigger battle right now, and getting permission to engage will take too long. For all we know those Yalthians are carrying more ammunition and weapons for their friends fighting in the mountain, something we need them to have less of. Alright, enough talking. We need to move.”

With that, Kel stood up and motioned for the rest to follow her. Everyone else stood up as well and began walking. Jaan checked to make sure his YL3 launcher was set, and followed suit.

* * *

Rivers of information surged forth from the screen in front of Andi. Anything that Andi felt was vital for the commanders to know he forwarded to the command room. But most of it was screened as its importance was negligible, at least in the sense that as a combat analyst it was Andi’s job to process the information so that the commanders did not have to and could instead spend time making tactical decisions.

Out of the corner of his eye, Andi kept watch over Jaan’s squad. They hadn’t moved in nearly 20 minutes, though as of yet nothing seemed to be wrong. Still, Andi knew Jaan well enough that he decided to increase the parameters of the watcher program to collect more detailed information.

The torrent of data did not end, however, and Andi had to return to the larger task at hand. He gulped down a few ounces of drug-laced tea and continued to process information and watch for patterns.

* * *

The Yalthians were trudging through the muck at the bottom of the ravine rather slowly. Jaan wondered why they didn’t spend more time keeping their secret pathways clean and easy to walk through, but Jaan figured that perhaps that was part of made them secret; the pathways looked exactly like no one used them.

Jaan had made his way along the ravine to the front of the convoy, specifically meeting them at a point where the Yalthians’ pathway snaked to the right at about a 45 degree angle. Kel had come up with the idea that the slight turn in their pathway would create just enough of a blind spot for part of the convoy, and would further add to the confusion.

Clicking the safety off, Jaan raised his weapon and held it at the angle his helmet sensors told him was optimal. But upon looking a little more closely, Jaan saw a crack a little father down and aimed it at that spot. Exhaling, Jaan squeezed the trigger and felt the flat but obvious recoil reverberate through his shoulder.

Within less than a second, the explosive round hit its intended target, and the walls of the ravine began to crumble in front of the convoy, a few of the rocks landing on and crushing a few of the armed Yalthians in the lead. The Yalthians below began to scream hysterically, and Jaan took off running, heading for their rear. He hoped he would get there before any—or at least most—of the Yalthians could start running. He needed to create as tight of a pit as possible for them so that they would crawl up and out into the line of fire of the rest of Jaan’s squad. If one or two of them were far out to the point that the pit would be too large, Jaan was supposed to consider them lost and to destroy the walls.

As Jaan sprinted towards his destination, he could feel the pieces of his armor slide and click into place, increasing his speed and reducing the energy he spent. Looking to the side, Jaan glanced at his squad firing down into the ravine. Helix had an unusually grim and determined expression, one Jaan hadn’t seen even during their training back on Hell during the live fire simulations. If Helix could treat those training sessions as a joke yet take actual killing seriously, it was obvious he could differentiate between reality and fiction far better than Jaan could, who was scared both back then and now. He made a mental note of Helix’s expression and decided to bring it up later, if they had the chance.

Everyone else acted no differently than Helix. All of them were simply pointing and shooting, exactly as they were trained to do. So far, none of the Yalthians who had started climbing managed to scramble even half way up the side before they were shot.

Jaan passed by Diro, who was more or less at the rear of the convoy and using her heavier weapon to try and suppress the movements of the Yalthians trying to escape.

“Jaan, hurry! A few of them slipped by! Cut them off before they get too far!”

Quickening his pace, Jaan’s armor quietly whirred faster as he practically bounded over the last bit of distance. Without pause, Jaan steadied his weapon and watched as his helmet again showed him the optimal angle for firing. Since he didn’t have time to search for cracks, Jaan decided to follow the suggestion and squeezed the trigger.

Again, rubble began to fall after the explosive round hit its target. Only this time there wasn’t enough. Two Yalthians began to straddle the meager obstacle when Jaan opened fire again. This time enough rubble fell that Jaan was satisfied with the result.

Looking past where the debris had landed, Jaan noticed a lone figure running through the ravine. Jaan swore loudly. Just a little farther and the Yalthian would be hidden behind a curve. Acting as quickly as he could, Jaan switched his weapon’s attachment off and placed the Yalthian in his sights. A long, thin stream of blue ripped through the air and hit the Yalthian square in its back, causing it to immediately keel over. Jaan watched as it fell heavily to the ground. It appeared to still be alive, but it wasn’t going to be that way for long.

For a moment, Jaan considered firing again and putting it out of its misery, but turned back towards the remaining Yalthians trying to climb out of the pit. Roughly a third of them were dead, but they were now reaching well past the halfway mark before being killed. The bulk of the Yalthians was in the middle of the pit, about where Helix and Renfai were standing. Jaan decided to help push them back there.

“Diro! Behind you! I’m going over towards the center!”

“Understood, Jaan boy’o. Enjoy the target practice.”

As Diro shifted to change her direction of fire, Jaan began running towards Helix and Renfai. In the suit he was wearing, crossing the distance would take only a few moments, but it still felt like an eternity.

Time seemed to slow down even further when a Yalthian leapt up from out of the ravine. At first, it jumped towards Helix, but he managed to bring his weapon up and shoot before it reached him. Immediately after, a second Yalthian leapt up and landed directly on top of Renfai, pinning her and her weapon on the ground. Unfortunately, Helix was too busy trying to deal with three Yalthians that had nearly reached the top to help her. Jaan ran as quickly as he could, raising his weapon and squeezing the trigger.

Nothing.

Panic enveloped Jaan faster than the speed of light. Was his weapon jammed? It had worked just moments ago.

It didn’t matter. Something was wrong, but Jaan still needed to act. Dropping his weapon without stopping, Jaan reached for his knife. It was the most basic, most ancient, and most primitive tool and weapon humans had used after the rock and the stick, but it was effective for what Jaan was about to do.

It would have taken Jaan nearly thirty seconds to sprint across the remaining distance, but with his armor it was reduced to a mere three.

At the fastest speed he could manage, Jaan crashed into the unsuspecting Yalthian, smashing it off of his comrade. The sheer momentum of their collision carried both himself and the Yalthian across the ravine to the other side, where they both tumbled and rolled in the foliage for several feet.

Struggling to his feet, Jaan shoved his enemy away and stood up. In truth, Jaan had never seen a Yalthian up close before. It was humanoid, more or less bipedal, but it was slightly hunched over. It had a noticeably long and flat skull. Overall, it was smaller and weaker than a normal human—though naturally much, much more agile—but it had a thick, dark, leathery, hide-like skin covering its body, not entirely unlike an exoskeleton.

Of course, because of its skin Jaan’s knife did not do much in the way of hurting it. Jaan brandished the knife in front of him all the same, however. The Yalthian screamed at Jaan, uttering a language Jaan was sure he would never understand. He decided to make a preemptive attack, but before he could shift his feet the Yalthian leapt at him. This time, the force from the Yalthian’s charge took both it and Jaan tumbling, but not over the ravine. Thus, the two of them tumbled down into it.

“JAAN!”

Jaan glanced up during his fall to see Helix expressing nothing but desperation. To the side, he saw Renfai also staring at him, but in her case her face was little more than utter shock and disbelief. Which was strange, considering that Renfai otherwise was pretty emotionless.

The Yalthian’s claws tore into Jaan’s shoulder, and he cried out in pain before hitting the bottom.

* * *

Three and a half empty cups sat on a desk in front of a holo-screen that to normal eyes would have appeared to be a flurry of nonsensical digits. To Andi, however, the digits were unrefined art, and he was the artist who made sense of them.

In truth, the drug had been more powerful than Andi had anticipated. At one point he had felt a little overwhelmed and chose to drink a few large mouthfuls of the tea at once. After that, his ability to think rationally diminished and he drank far more than he should have. By now he was operating at a level of efficiency far higher than the other analysts in the room, but it was coming at the cost of his grip on reality. If he drank too much, he risked building a tolerance to the stuff and thus reducing his usefulness as a combat analyst. However, at this point he was beginning to feel the effects wear off, and he debated whether or not to drink more.

Before Andi could do decide anything, a small blip in the corner screen notified him of new data streaming. The watcher program he had set to watch Jaan’s squad had new information for him. Quickly sorting out a few last pieces of data from other squads, Andi opened up the program to see what was happening.

The air in Andi’s lungs stopped moving and his blood ran cold. According to the sensors on squad 57’s equipment, every single soldier in Jaan’s squad was engaged in combat. Except Jaan. His weapon was not firing, and his armor could not be detected. Even more disturbing was the fact that squad 57 was far away from the major battle. Too far away. The only answer Andi could come up with was that they were ambushed by either the enemy or the local wildlife. In either case, Andi wanted to see what was going on.

Scrambling, Andi input commands for a nearby recon ship to sweep the area around squad 57 and use a full-power scan. While it technically was within Andi’s privileges to do that, he was only supposed to do so when he felt it absolutely necessary. Reallocating resources away from the center of conflict—even if it was to potentially save the lives of an entire squad—was not going to be an easy thing to sell.

After a few short moments, a fuzzy, incomplete picture began forming in front of Andi. It seemed that the canopy was particularly thick in that area, to the point that even when on full-power the scanners had difficulty retrieving all of the necessary data.

Without pause, Andi immediately called for another scan, only this time it was to go from directly north of squad 57’s position all the way to the base of the mountain.

The scene playing out in front of Andi told him everything he needed to know. Though he could not find Jaan, Andi knew that if Jaan were alive it was imperative that he move now.

Andi double-checked the data from the scan. Everything was as he predicted. There was a long, nearly invisible pathway hidden under the quintuple canopy lead all the way to the base of the mountain, possibly leading directly inside of it. And squad 57 had accidentally found it.

Gathering all of the data he had found, Andi stood up from his chair. None of the other analysts stopped working to look, but Plith did momentarily glance up at Andi and gave him a small nod.

Andi briskly left the room and strode down the hallway to the door where the command room was located. He gave the special knock; twice quickly, once heavily. A few moments later a junior aide to one of the generals opened the door. His intimidation factor lay almost entirely in his eyes. For a brief moment, Andi was too scared to speak.

“State your business.”

“Er, Corporal Reeth, reporting. I have collected some data the commanders need to see immediately.”

The junior aide’s expression softened slightly. “Ah, the rookie analyst. Fine. Let me have it.”

“With all due respect sir, I need to show it to them myself. Quite possibly this could the information we need to change this operation from a waste of resources to a success.”

The junior aide looked skeptically at Andi and the file he was holding. After considering his words for a moment, he spoke. “With that tone, I don’t think you’re going to do as I ask, huh? You must have something pretty big. Come in, stand right here and prepare for a quick inspection.”

The room Andi entered was much larger and brighter than the room he had been working in. A massive hologram of the mountain was in the center, with smaller holo-maps scattered around in various places. Small dots and lines of various colors faded in an out all over the top and around the base of the mountain. Aides, senior analysts, and communications officers were all around the edge of the room. Some were examining smaller maps and discussing them, others were busy relaying orders, and in the center of it all stood three generals, quietly talking amongst themselves.

The junior aide who had let Andi in motioned for him to stand still, and two heavily armed and armored soldiers appeared and began inspecting Andi. The junior aide walked over to a senior aide and spoke with him, who in turn walked up to the nearest general. The aging figure nodded and the senior aide began approaching Andi.

After the two soldiers had finished their search and were satisfied that Andi posed no threat, the senior aide motioned for Andi to approach. He followed in as dignified a manner as he possibly could, but the drug was still running its course in his body and so he could not quite stand up as erectly as he wanted.

The senior aide stood next to the general, who turned to the side to acknowledge him.

“Sir, this is the combat analyst. He says he has something of vital importance for us.”

* * *

The ringing was intense. It muffled all other sounds. Not only could he not hear, but he could not move, either. Something was on top of him. Or maybe something of his was broken.

The pain was too intense for words. Perhaps he was screaming out because of it. Perhaps we wasn’t. He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t hear anything other than the infernal ringing. Nor could he see. Part of his helmet had been crushed by whatever was on top of him, and it was obscuring his vision.

Jaan was pretty sure he was alive. The fact that he was in pain was a testament to that. It was something that they had crammed into his brain along with everything else back on Hell. Pain is good, it means your body is working. It means your spine isn’t damaged. It means you still have the chance to fight your way out of it.

Taking those words to heart, Jaan began pushing the lump on top of him to the side. He had been wrong about his helmet being broken; it was just pitch black at the bottom of the pit. Instinctively, Jaan reached for the night vision settings on his helmet. The world around him lit up at the push of a button.

Reality hit him like a flash flood. Everything that had happened to him up until he hit the ground came back to him. Jaan knew he was in deep trouble if he continued lying down.

Remembering his opponent, Jaan quickly turned his head to find a dead Yalthian with a knife sticking out of its neck. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to do it, but he had, and now he needed to get out. Unfortunately, the remaining Yalthians hadn’t been completely oblivious to the whole event and a few had already started closing in on him. Two of them had energy weapons, probably given to them by whoever was in charge of making sure the HDGA didn’t capture the planet.

Jaan slowly began to stand up. He didn’t dare reach for the knife, even though he wanted nothing more than to do so. Still, the options before him were limited. He could either try to grapple with the dozen or so Yalthians surrounding him, attempt to fire his cable launcher up and out of the ravine, or he could surrender and become their prisoner. Perhaps they’d use him as a bargaining chip for escaping unscathed.

No, Jaan wasn’t going to let that happen. The battle is bigger than one man’s life, or so his instructors used to say. If you have to sacrifice two to save one, don’t do it. Of course, there were exceptions. If an officer was captured carrying sensitive intel that might lead to the death of millions if the enemy extracted it, it was considered the right thing to do to sacrifice possibly thousands of lives in retrieving the one of the officer. Sadly, Jaan was no such officer. He was little more than a single pair of boots.

The Yalthians who had surrounded Jaan began whispering to each other. The ones with the weapons seemed to be the smartest, and so they were probably more or less in charge. There seemed to be some debate over what they should do with him. Or at least that was how Jaan perceived their conversation. But their discussion did not last long. Jaan’s night vision was beginning to fade, perhaps due to damage, but he could see that their attention moved away from him.

Following their line of sight, Jaan could see three silhouettes descending on top of them, all of them firing weapons in their direction repeatedly. The two Yalthians with weapons began shooting back, while the rest of them scattered. Seizing the opportunity, Jaan decided to go on the offensive and tackled one of the armed Yalthians. He grappled for the weapon, using every ounce of strength he could muster, but the shooting pain in his left arm prevented him from prevailing. A swift kick to the gut knocked most of the wind out of him, followed by a claw digging into his side which removed his will to move, and he collapsed onto the ground. The floor hitting his helmet was the final straw and his vision went black.

The struggle to stand up was halted when Jaan felt a foot press against his back. A shrill cry came out from the Yalthian standing above him, and Jaan braced himself for the shock of being shot.

But the trigger was never pulled. Before Jaan’s life could end, one of the descended figures leapt into action. The abyss in which they were all fighting lit up in a storm of blues and greens thanks to the weapons of both sides. The foot pressing against Jaan’s back was knocked off by a heavy punch from one of the figures, followed by more blue light. A hand firmly but gently grabbed the framing of Jaan’s armor and began dragging him away.

“We can’t stay down here! We need to move! Helix, see if you can carry him up with you…”

Not wanting to be a burden, Jaan marshaled his remaining willpower and rose to his feet. The dark figure that carried him to safety—who he assumed to be Helix—gave Jaan a firm shake on his right shoulder.

“I can do it. Just point the way. My night vision is dead.”

The figure proceeded to push Jaan up against the wall, indicating his proximity to it. Taking a few steps back, Jaan launched his grappling cable upward. The vibration of a snag and a firm pull was all Jaan needed to know that he was ready to go. He pressed the retract button and was swiftly lifted up into the air. The figures behind him continued shouting and shooting as Jaan was hoisted back up to the surface.

Upon reaching the top, Jorza grabbed Jaan and pulled him away from the shooting. She began administering brief first-aid.

“You goddamn fool. You could have been injured far worse than this.”

“Nope, I’m pretty sure all of you are going to that for me.”

“It’s good to see you alive, Jaan.”

“Whatever.”

The pain-relieving drug Jorza administered began to take effect, and Jaan felt his muscles loosen.

“Thanks. I’m good now.”

“No, you’re not. We don’t know how extensive your injuries might be. Just stay there.”

Jorza stood back up and head back over to where Gurs and Diro were firing into the ravine. Before long, the three people who had rescued him were up and out as well. Kel was yelling to finish off the remaining few. Jaan looked around for his weapon, and found it lying exactly where he had left it. It wasn’t actually too far from where he was laying. He decided to at least make the effort to grab it and see what the hell happened.

Once reaching the weapon, it became immediately obvious what went wrong. In his rush, Jaan had knocked the selector switch half way between the settings for firing explosive rounds and standard energy rounds. If he had taken the split second to look, he could have avoided the entire mess.

The only thing Jaan could do at this point was wait and stew in his own stupidity.

* * *

“This,” the aged general spoke,”is fantastic, lad. This is exactly what we need. Excellent work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Andi had just finished reviewing everything he had found to the commanding staff. Or at least to the staff that wasn’t too busy to listen. The general in front of him, Rank E General Obvos Nerkelli, was surprised that such a thing had been found.

“We’ve been here for months and yet we’ve never found these pathways. I’m amazed you were able to find them.”

It was hard to contain the pride Andi felt welling up inside of him. Rationally, he knew he hardly deserved it. If he hadn’t had a cousin out on the ground—and more importantly, had Jaan not been assigned to squad 57—Andi would have never even noticed it. Still, the praise from such a high ranking officer stoked his ego quite a bit.

“You have done well, Corporal. Return to your station, but, please, when this is over, leave yourself available as best you can. I’d like to hear more about how you came about finding this information. Dismissed.”

Andi saluted and did his most professional about-face. Some of the junior aides snickered at Andi’s formality, but he did not care.

After the door had shut, the three generals began discussing what to do with the new intel, whispering amongst themselves so that only they would hear the conversation.

“I say we disregard the information and continue pressing the attack. We can’t use this! All of the credit would go to that rookie! Our victory would be a disgrace.”

“If you’re going to mention disgrace, as it stands this current strategy will only garner us losses. That will reflect on us more poorly than simply being unaware of the terrain.”

“The both of you need to stop your petty squabbling. He is a soldier under our command. He did his duty right and proper. His efforts and successes are likewise our efforts and successes. So what if he gets a promotion or medal? Do you really think that means we’ll be out of a job?”

“Oh, you can shut it. You’re not the one whose career is on thin ice with high command. You can afford to let others take the credit.”

“Isn’t it? I thought that’s why there were three of us here instead of just one; they don’t trust us like they used to.”

“Well, I guess you’re right. But we still need to decide what to do.”

“I’m sticking by what I said. Our current strategies will only bring more failure and more backwater assignments. At the very least, we need to win however we possibly can. We can sort out who gets what credit later.”

After a brief pause, the other two generals nodded in agreement. They turned back towards the hologram in the center of the room and began discussing strategy.

“Fine, let’s use this to our advantage. Let’s let the dissenters think that they still have us distracted, and keep the engaging forces where they are. Do we have any units in the area?”

“It appears that squads seventy-four through eighty-nine are within thirty klicks of the entry point. Also, squad fifty-seven is nearby. According to the corporal’s data, they’re directly on top of the pathway. Perhaps we should send them in to assess the area on foot.”

“Just the one squad? And it says here one of them has sustained injuries.”

“We’ll give them explicit orders not to engage. But we do need eyes down there. Reports show hazy, unreliable scans of the forest floor. We’ll need a unit to give us intel the old fashion way.”

* * *

A single scream pierced the air. It was the death cry of the last Yalthian Jaan’s squad had been fighting. All-in-all they had killed 217 Yalthians. Jaan admitted to himself that had the Yalthians been armed and not stuck in a hole, there was no chance his squad would have survived, let alone kill so many.

Kel had told everyone to rest. Though they weren’t physically fatigued, the mental strain from the fight had left most of them drained. Kel admitted that the ambush wasn’t a good idea after all, and that they had earned a breather.

While everyone else rested, Jorza took a closer look at Jaan’s wounds, and Renfai assisted her.

“This isn’t as bad as I had feared. It seems your armor took the brunt of the impact, but you still have a few very deep bruises along your back. The gash in your arm is also fairly mild, little more than a flesh wound. But this hole in the side of your stomach… This requires more treatment than I can give. You don’t need to be immediately evacuated, but the risk of serious infection will rise as the hours pass.”

“I’m telling you, it’s fine. I can still go on.”

“Ultimately it is your decision, but if you can’t perform at the necessary level I’m telling Kel to order you to stop.”

“I understand. But I promise, I feel great.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the medicine.”

“No, I think it’s being fawned over by two beautiful women that’s making me feel better. Actually, now that you mention it, I think I’m hurting a little down here…”

A sharp pain suddenly arose on Jaan’s forehead, and he could feel the blood rushing to the spot where Jorza had slapped him. If he hadn’t already been lying down, he might have been knocked over by the force of the hit. Looking at Jorza’s expression made Jaan laugh.

“You’re feeling just fine, then. I’m going to check on everyone else and see if they need any help. After all, they might be keeping quiet because they want the big baby to be tended to first. Renfai, keep an on him and make sure he stays lying down for the time being.”

Jorza stood up and walked away, leaving Jaan alone with Renfai. In truth, she had always made him a bit uncomfortable, because she did not speak much nor was she very expressive. According to Kel, Renfai was from a planet in a distant quadrant of the galaxy, one of the farthest human civilizations from Earth. The language spoken by the HDGA was not her first language, and as such whenever she did speak it was usually very stiff and formal.

“Are you truly still in pain?”

“Ah, no.”

Obviously, there was a bit of a culture gap between himself and Renfai. Still, she was his comrade, and so he wished to try and bridge that gap. Perhaps he might start by explaining his joke first.

“You know, I was just joking—“

“Thank you for saving my life.”

“What?”

Renfai looked at Jaan directly. Her stare was slightly unnerving. “Apologies, is my accent too strong?”

“Oh, no, I understand what you said, I just don’t understand why you’d say it.”

The stare continued to bore into his skull. “You do not understand the concept of thanks?”

“I understand what thank you means, I just don’t understand why you are saying it. I mean, you would have done the same for me, right?”

“No.”

“What? I mean, why not?”

“I would not have had the courage to do what you did. You acted without thought, disregarding your own self for the sake of another. You are noble, Jaan. Reckless, but noble.”

Before he could reply and disagree, Renfai reached behind her and produced a knife. Though all of the knives carried by the soldiers were standard issue, Jaan could tell it was his.

“This is the knife that saved my life, and yours. I think that perhaps you may save more lives with it. Keep it with you.”

This time, Jaan had nothing to say in return. Wordlessly, he took the knife from Renfai and placed it in its sheath on his belt.

“Thank you.”

“Ah, so you do understand the concept of thanks.”

“I never said otherwise.”

Approaching with a bandage forearm, Helix shouted greetings to Jaan and Renfai.

“Ah, the valiant but stupid warrior-fool, Jaan! And the lovely and stoic Renfai! I am glad to see both of you alive. Especially you, Jaan. Your plummet frightened me to the point that I felt I was on the very brink of death myself! After all, your form was terrible. At least try to go for a swan dive or something on the way down!”

Helix knelt beside Jaan patted him on the shoulder, and Jaan returned the favor.

“It’s good to see you too, Helix. But I didn’t know you were injured. What happened?”

“One of those blasted beasts bit my arm during that scuffle in the ravine. I fear I may not be the same man once the light of the full moon shines upon me.”

Jaan let out a small chuckle. “We can only hope so!”

Helix looked at Jaan blankly for a moment, and then burst into laughter. “Poor Helix! Whether dealt by friend or by foe, he can never escape the deprecation for even a moment! Even his good friend Jaan, incapacitated as he is, can still find ammunition to use against him. I am glad you are well, Jaan.”

After Helix finished speaking, Kel and Gurs approached the trio.

“Reeth, we’ve just received orders to head towards the mountain by following this path all the way up to it. We’re not going to fight, just scout out the area. However, Jorza’s told me of your condition. She said it was up to you, but I’m not having it. I’ve called for a medivac and that’s final.”

Jaan tried to sit up, but Renfai put a hand on his shoulder. “Please, accept this chance to rest. You have done enough for this day.”

“Yeah,” Kel said, “enough to give me a goddamn headache.”

Letting himself relax, Jaan sighed. “Alright, fine. I’ll do as you ask.”

Before long, Jaan’s eyelids began to feel like lead. Finally letting go of worrying about his surroundings caused Jaan to feel all of the built up fatigue. The wind blowing through the trees and the distant whir of a transport ship heading towards them created a soothing sound that began lulling him into sleep.

The last thing Jaan saw before closing his eyes was the smallest bit of sunlight peeking through an impossibly brief gap in the canopy above him. Jaan smiled, and finally fell asleep.