Sigma (War for New Terra, Book 1) Read online

  Sergeant Parkins and Private Jackson joined them. Behind them, another tank rumbled towards the front line.

  “Good to see you, guys.” Ginger noticed who was missing and rolled her eyes. “Where’s Private Bradley?”

  “I’ve no idea where he is,” Parkins replied, shrugging. “As soon as he saw those bugs, he ran.”

  “Of course he did.” Ginger craned her neck to look past all the other fireteams rushing forward to hold off the bugs. “I need to find Staff Sergeant Baker. He wasn’t responding on comms. Anyone seen him?”

  Duke jabbed a thumb back in the direction of the bridge. Ginger spotted Baker trying to radio Command from behind a temporarily-erected defensive wall. She sprinted over to him with Sigma and Tau in tow.

  “Baker, sir. What are our orders? What should we do?”

  “Sergeant Rogers?” Baker replied brusquely. “Why aren’t you holding the north-west tower as ordered?”

  “Well, there’s not much tower left to hold, sir.”

  Baker zoomed in on the bridge with his binoculars and cursed in surprise.

  “Command’s going to be pissed.” He ducked back into cover and shook his head. “Apologies for the radio silence, but there’ve been no new orders to report. I can’t reach anyone up the chain. This is f—”

  A bug sac blew a crater in the earth a few dozen metres from them. They winced as dirt thumped against their helmets.

  “Well, this is not exactly going how anyone planned,” Baker finished. He looked a lot older than he had earlier that morning.

  Two new fireteams marched past them towards the front of the bridge. They were dressed head to toe in black, fire-retardant hazmat suits. Large tanks of gasoline were strapped to their backs. Rifles and rotary cannons were keeping most of the incoming roaches at bay – a few made it past the front line and were quickly eliminated by the reserve forces behind – but magazines were starting to run dry. The new fireteams stopped just short of the towers and ignited their flamethrowers, spraying a wall of flame hot enough to roast any bugs stupid enough to scurry through.

  Orders barked through Baker’s headset. Ginger couldn’t hear the words, but the person speaking sounded mad. Baker listened intensely, his face grave, nodding every couple of seconds.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He turned to Ginger. “Finally. Good thing you and your team got out of there when you did. They’re about to blow the bridge.”

  “Blow it up? But don’t we need this bridge to reach the city?”

  “There won’t be any of us left to reach the city if we don’t stop those bugs from getting over!”

  The tanks to the left and right of the ravine aimed their turrets at the bridge’s foundations on the opposite side. Some of the artillery cannons also took time out from bombarding the horde of roaches to take aim at the weakest points of the structure. They fired one after the other in a thunderous applause.

  A moment later, the opposite end of the bridge erupted in a cacophony of bright orange explosions. The north-east tower, alone amongst a sea of roach bodies, toppled like its western sister. Ginger swore she saw the whole bridge buckle as the arched foundations collapsed. Everything but the street of the bridge itself rained down into the abyss.

  The bridge groaned. Without its supports in place, its northern side sank beneath the edge of the ravine… and then grunted to a stop.

  “Bollocks.” Ginger’s skin turned cold as more roaches leapt across the wreckage. “What the hell happened?”

  “The supports on our side are still intact,” said Baker, listening to the chatter over his comms. “The foundations are too strong. They’re stopping the bridge from falling any further.”

  “Goddamn alien engineering,” replied Ginger. “Can’t we blast the supports on this side too?”

  Baker looked each way down the ravine.

  “Doubt it. The angle’s all wrong. There’s nowhere for our tanks to shoot them from.”

  “We have gunships. Can’t we request a bombing run?”

  “Sure, but they’re about eight minutes out. And even once they get here they might have to abort, what with all those bug cannons going off.”

  “So we’re screwed, then?”

  “Looks that way, Sergeant Rogers.” Baker’s patience was wearing thin. “I don’t know what else to tell you. Just try and hold them off for as long as you can.”

  Ginger swallowed hard. Her fireteam looked at her expectantly. Despite the flamethrowers, bugs were starting to break through the firewall ahead of them. Suddenly, she had an idea.

  “Duke, do you still have that C-4 on you?”

  “Of course.” He shrugged. “Never leave camp without it.”

  “Enough to bring down a bridge?”

  Duke sucked air through his teeth.

  “Maybe.”

  “That’ll have to do. Sergeant Parkins – take Ghost and Jackson and help defend the frontline. Duke and I will head down to the supports on this side and plant the charges.”

  “You got it,” said Parkins.

  “Good luck,” said Ghost.

  The three of them advanced to another temporary barrier set up closer to the bridge. Baker grabbed Ginger by the arm.

  “This isn’t approved by Command,” he said, his eyes sharp and cold. “They might have other plans.”

  “No offence, but I’d rather live going against orders than die following them,” she replied. “Command can thank me afterwards.”

  Baker reluctantly let go.

  “Make sure you come back alive so they can.”

  Ginger and Duke ran to the edge of the chasm with their heads low. More flying roaches swept in from around the bridge to pick off soldiers behind the flamethrower-troopers. One of the marines who was snatched got dropped onto a tank’s cannon – their spine snapped with a sickening crunch.

  “Erm, where are we going?” yelled Duke.

  “There,” Ginger panted. She pointed to a narrow path that ran down the cliffside of the ravine. “The supports are down there.”

  “Jesus, Ginger. That path’s barely two feet across.”

  “Really?” Ginger climbed down first. “We’re minutes from being slaughtered by bugs and that’s your biggest concern?”

  Duke gently lowered himself onto the path. They inched along it with their chests pressed against the rock. It sloped down at about a twenty-degree angle. Most of the path was dust and dirt, and their boots kicked plenty of pebbles into the chasm below. Ginger refused to look down and instead concentrated on burrowing her fingers into cracks in the old rock as if they were climbing hooks. At least the ravine largely protected them from the wind and rain.

  Despite Duke’s reservations, they reached the bottom of the path without incident. The slope widened and levelled out where the bridge’s grand, bronze arches jutted out from the rock. Ginger steadied herself and tried not to stare into the dark abyss mere metres from her feet.

  “Okay, you’re the expert.” She gestured to the supports. “How do we take them out?”

  Duke inspected the structure closely. Ginger could hear more gunfire and explosions up top. Screams, too. She suppressed her gnawing anxiety – was Ghost still alive? what about Parkins and Jackson? – and let Duke do his work.

  “There, there and there,” he said, pointing at the two central beams in front of them and a third support above their heads. “You know how to set a charge?”

  “Erm… I think so?”

  “Show me.”

  “Duke, we—”

  “Show me.”

  Ginger quickly rattled off what little she remembered from her admittedly limited training. Duke corrected a few basic points and then handed her one of the three charges. He would set two charges down where the central beams became embedded in the rock. It was Ginger’s task to climb up the face of the ravine and plant the third.

  It was only five metres up from the path, but Ginger couldn’t remember a harder or more terrifying climb in her whole life. It wasn’t hard enough knowing that
a loose stone or a weak grip might send her plummeting to her death. She had to do it whilst clutching a block of plastic explosives, too.

  “You finished yet?” Duke whispered from below.

  Jesus Christ. The lummox really knew what he was doing.

  “Kinda got my work cut out for me here,” she replied.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll catch you if you fall. Probably.”

  Ginger reached the upper foundations and stuffed her explosives in between the rock wall and the copper-coloured beam. She followed Duke’s instructions to the letter and set the charge. They’d decided on a remote detonation rather than a timer. Yes, they ran the risk of dying before Duke could press the detonator, which would render the whole mission pointless. But they also liked the idea of climbing back up the slope before their bombs went off.

  “Okay, done.” Ginger hurriedly climbed back down. “Now go.” She gestured up the path. “Move!”

  The ascent went a little quicker than coming down. Perhaps it was the knowledge that every second of delay meant the loss of another marine’s life; perhaps it was simply knowing that if a tank or gunship did take a shot at the bridge, they might very well lose their own. Duke reached the top of the ravine first. He reached down and dragged Ginger up to safety.

  Safety. Yeah, right.

  The flying roaches had grown into a foreboding swarm in a sky already darkened by rain clouds. Heavy tank-bugs were starting their trepidatious journey across the creaking, listing bridge. And regular roaches had finally broken through the ranks of marines, clambering over tanks and cutting off heads. Ginger sat up and grabbed Duke’s shoulder.

  “Blow it!”

  Duke pulled out the detonator, flipped open the safety case and slammed his thumb down on the button. For a second, nothing happened. Ginger felt white-cold dread wash over her. Then suddenly the whole bridge seemed to explode. Chunks of rock and metal hurtled into the sky as the foundations tore themselves free from the earth. The central walkway buckled and warped from the force. Some of the bugs scuttled back the way they came. Others were tossed over the edge.

  Everything, from the bridge to the towers to the guardhouses, went crashing down into oblivion. Duke whistled.

  “Yeah, that’ll do it.”

  He rose to his feet and ran off in search of their fireteam. Ginger wanted to join him, but her body wouldn’t listen. She simply sat there in the mud, watching the bridge fall and fall and fall.

  She should have felt relieved. Maybe even triumphant. She was still alive. Many of them were still alive. But instead, all she felt was an icy, hollow despair.

  Despair for everyone they’d lost on the way to take that bridge. Private Jessie, Private Hitch. For the thousands of soldiers whose names she’d never know.

  Because with the bridge gone, it sure seemed like all their deaths had been for nothing.

  Part Two

  The Road to Rhinegarde

  ✪

  Chapter Eleven

  Ginger lay on her collapsable bunk and wrote in her journal. It was the only form of escape she had left.

  Ten days. As of today, it’s been ten goddamn days since we blew up that stupid bridge. And how much closer to this Rhinegarde city are we, you ask? Not an inch. The great chasm separating our side from the other has grown no less wide, no less deep, and there are no other bridges to cross. Our only option is to walk the whole way round as if nothing up until this point even mattered.

  Did any of it matter? Honestly, I don’t know. Really. This is my first war, and it’s not exactly like any war humanity’s ever waged before. Did soldiers back home believe their lives were well-spent dying to capture some hill nobody normally gave two craps about, a hill that was probably lost again less than a week later? Or is this pointlessness unique to New Terra?

  It’s not as if I don’t know what I’m fighting for, or anything. I think humanity’s shared goal is more clear than ever. I’m just not sure any of us think we’ll make it. And I’m not talking about us as individuals. What I mean is, I think humanity might be as good as extinct.

  Oh well. If it weren’t for the UEC and this war, I’d probably be dead already. In a weird way, risking death and dismemberment for a new Earth is the only thing that’s kept me alive. Isn’t that just super?

  Okay, I’ll admit it. The sunshine and fresh air haven’t been completely terrible. I’ve never felt heat like the midday sun on my face before, never tasted air that hasn’t first been pumped through half a dozen diesel engines. After weeks of feeling like a pack of frozen popsicles aboard the Invincible with nothing except crusty, grey wall-panels to admire, New Terra’s wide open vistas are pretty beautiful. And probably the nearest thing to a vacation I’ll ever get. Lucky, lucky me.

  But my legs are sore. My feet are blistered. And of course, Private Bradley has developed hay fever. Of-bloody-course.

  Nah, sod trying to look for positives. I’m downright sick of this.

  Screw this planet. And screw the UEC for sending me here.

  Ginger watched as a pair of spotty marines who’d barely outgrown their teenage years struggled to carry an ammunition crate from one supply tent to another. Even after the battalion stopped marching for the night, its work continued. Not her work, though. She kept her head down and continued writing.

  I wish we could just fly to the city. But the fields on the other side of the bridge are littered with those bug-cannons. It would be a repeat of our first night all over again. Quite frankly, I don’t fancy my odds a second time.

  She paused and chewed the end of her pencil.

  Hell, I don’t reckon my odds of surviving this mess are all that high anyway. How anyone in my fireteam is still alive under my watch, I don’t know…

  It’s a good thing nobody else will ever read these pages. Not until after I’m dead, at least. And if anyone from Sigma is reading this after I’m gone, you have my permission to be as demoralised as you want.

  P.S. Why the hell didn’t you save my sorry ass?

  Ginger laid her journal face down across her stomach, its pages spread like paper wings, and studied the stars that were just beginning to creep into the evening sky. When night fell, it would be like standing amongst the great cosmos itself. No city lights to spoil the view. Some floodlights around the perimeter of the camp, sure, but nothing like the light pollution back home. If the clouds were kind, there’d be whole nebulas of reds and purples to fall asleep under.

  She wondered which star her father was visiting right now, and, not for the first time since the Bridge of Etmark fell, whether she’d been stupid not to join Jack on board his ship, the Adeona. Yes, she had a duty to the UEC, not to mention her fireteam… but it wasn’t as if any human besides her father had a ship that could have ever tracked them down. And unlike Ginger, he was free – free to explore the galaxy, free to settle down wherever he pleased, free to not die on some godforsaken bug planet with his innards wrapped around a roach’s mandibles.

  She almost hated him for it. But then again, it was hard to form a normal relationship with a father who’d been missing for her whole life only to turn up on an alien planet looking the same age of her. She knew it wasn’t hate, really. Just jealousy. Jealousy and a detached sense of abandonment – even though she’d never felt abandoned before.

  Because despite what any DNA test might say, to Ginger he was nothing but a stranger lost in time (rather than in space, like everyone else). She would have pitied him if he hadn’t been the only human not stuck on or above a planet in dire need of fumigation.

  Lucky bastard.

  She opened her journal to finish her entry.

  Command is adamant that we’ll reach the end of this ravine in another few days, and then the city is another couple of days’ march from that. My gut tells me they’re talking bollocks, but my legs insist that—

  “Hey, Ginger.” Duke’s shadow fell over her bunk. “Whatcha writing?”

  Ginger snapped the journal shut and hastily stuffed it back into her ru
cksack. The big oaf was still beaming down at her when she finally looked up.

  “A list of all the ways we might die before this mission is up,” she said. “In alphabetical order. I just reached dysentery.”

  “Oh, lovely. Nasty one, that.” He nodded at her rucksack. “I’ve been meaning to ask you – why do you write in that old thing, anyway? You know a data pad would be lighter. More space for entries, too.”

  Ginger sighed and shrugged.

  “I dunno. Feels more real. Better for getting my thoughts down. Anyway, what are you over here for? I thought you and Ghost were busy drinking over by the mess tent.”

  “You’re welcome to join us, you know. You can’t still be nursing that hangover from the night before we dropped in.”

  Ginger cracked a smile. This time it was genuine.

  “Thankfully not. Nah, I just know that the one night I get drunk will be followed by the day we get ambushed by roaches. I don’t want to be sluggish when it comes time to fight off a bug horde. Come on, spill. What’s up?”

  “Oh, yeah. Right. So, you know we always invite Private Bradley to drink with us, right? Make him feel part of the squad and all that. Well, he finally took us up on the offer. Now he’s… well, he’s sobbing about not being cut out to be a marine, or something. Hard to make out some of the words.”

  “Oh, for…” Ginger pinched the bridge of her nose. “Can’t somebody just give the poor sod a slap?”

  “I believe that’s your job, Sergeant.” Duke cleared his throat. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  Ginger rose to her feet. Half an hour lying down had done nothing to stop their aching.

  “Right. Lead the way.”

  It wasn’t far. Each platoon kept to themselves when it came to setting up their bunks in case they had to get moving again in a hurry. And each mess hall – a hurriedly erected gazebo full of fold-out benches and industrial soup kegs – was close to the centre of the camp so the food never had to travel further than necessary. It would all need to be packed up quickly come the dawn.