Soldiers Two - Warriors of Courage Page 3
“You left your probe down there,” Mirsa pointed down into the water.
“Leave it!” panic filled his voice, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“We have our protection suits,” Jeb pointed out.
“Yeah, and when you have to get out of your suit, how you going to do that, soldier boy? The micros stick permanently to anything it touches.” Walter sounded close to losing it. My computer guru had finally realized how dangerous this mission really was. He paced up and down, in short steps turning and pacing again. He kept looking at his tabloid wristband and shaking his head. “Once it gets on something, nothing can detach it. This is way beyond me, I’m out of my league, we need to turn around!”
I grabbed onto him, shaking him violently. “You need to get ahold of yourself. You’ll die just as quickly as we will, so get ahold of yourself.”
I heard him sob and then settle down to just hiccups. I’d seen this before with untested troops. Now I had to see if he could get himself together. I’d been assured he was the best the Federation had for beating this wizard. He may be good at high tech stuff but at being a soldier he sucked.
“Okay, flank out, make a line, take out your wire ropes, attach a sand hook,” I told them all, which they immediately did. “Attach them to your power guns, aim straight, we have to make a crossover. On my count: three, two, one - fire.”
Twelve thick wires spanned above the stream. Almost all were straight and next to each other, only one was a little off causing a slight open space. We had a wire bridge, as Special Operations soldiers we were trained to cross it.
Jamal went first, crawling on all fours as he crossed. His thick heavy duty pants squeaked as he progressed across. The bridge swayed but he compensated for it by counter swaying. He reached the other side in less than a minute. Each team member followed with no problems. Then came Walter, he refused to follow between Les and Caleb.
“I can’t do this!” he protested backing away from the wire-roped bridge.
“If we leave you, you’ll die anyways, you stupid bastard. You signed up for this, the lives of my team depend on you!”
To make matters worse Salris motioned to the sky and pointed. My eyes followed her direction and saw the gray cloud was moving toward us. Just great. “Move it!” I yelled at the cowering computer geek.
To my surprise Les and Caleb grabbed either side of Walter. At first, he struggled and screamed but Caleb knocked him aside the head and he went silent. They both ran over the bridge with him in between. It took three hops and they made it. They threw him on the ground. I heard a “umphf” as he landed.
I took the bridge in two hops, balancing precariously over the contaminated stream. I landed and kept going as my team followed my lead. Caleb and Les had the computer guy between them, making him hurry with the butt of their rifles.
“Walt, tell us when we have to shut off our intake air filter ducts. Do you understand?”
To my surprise he answered me, “Yes Sir, it’s Walter, Sir.”
I just shook my head just glad he was coherent again.
“Do not run yet, forced march only, steady as we go,” I ordered not wanting them to run until the blasted cloud was upon us. “Don’t look at it, keep going.”
I, however, did glance and saw it getting lower. Walter was now being carried by Caleb and Les as he was concentrating on his wristband tabloid. “Get ready, shut down your filtering system now.” He actually screamed it into our helmets. Every helmet was shut down except Calvin to the right of me.
“Calvin shut your system!” I yelled at him.
“It’s not shutting down, Sir,” his panicked voice came over loud and clear.
I reached over and smacked his helmet hard. So hard he stumbled but I caught him dragging him along with me. I saw my helmet display register his shut down. I didn’t have time for relief as the cloud came rolling in. “Run close to each other, don’t get lost,” I told them and shut up, as talking would use up my air.
We ran full out. The milky white fog surrounded us. Even through our temperature controlled suit, it felt cold. We ran, following our helmet’s sensors that we were heading in a straight line. We ran full out. I couldn’t see Caleb or Les with Walter between them but my helmet said they were in the group. We ran and ran until I heard the grunts of exhaustion as everyone’s air thinned. “Hold on!” I managed to get out, knowing it was costing me breath. I could feel my air was going to run out. I kept going.
“I’m running out of air!” Mila gasped.
I couldn’t reply as my air was going. I pushed whoever was in front of me. I felt the darkness about to overtake me. Shit! We weren’t going to make it.
Suddenly sunlight hit my facemask. I felt myself fall to my knees. I hit my filtered air button. I hugged the ground, noticing that I was lying on actual grass. I struggled to my knees crawling over several of my unconscious soldiers and pressing their air filtering systems.
I looked around; we were on a grassy knoll. I looked up to see the cloud drifting away.
“We are in his compound area, the cloud won’t go there,” Walter announced, his voice hoarse and cracking. “We’ve made it! Back off the grass.” He motioned us to return to the desert.
As we felt the crunch of the large pebbled sand, I glanced skyward. “Walt we can’t stay here, the cloud is returning.”
“I know,” he sounded like I was wasting my breath. “Each of theses blades of grass is a sensor sending info back to his security system. I need to confuse this grassland that surrounds his entire fortress. I’m overloading it. He knows we are here though!”
I had dragged my soldiers to the edge of the wasteland, away from the beginning of the wizard’s savanna. The damn grass even smelled sweet and pungent, like it had just been mowed.
Most of the team was up and alert, a few were shaking their heads, trying to get fully conscious. Wally worked frantically, punching his wrist tabloid with sweat coming down.
“We won’t get far before the acid rain will come,” he informed me.
“Alright folks, you heard what he said. We have about fifteen minutes of protection. Run like hell to the stone fortress. Keep to our plan. Most of you will penetrate the compound through the balconies and windows along the sides, remember the layout we were shown.”
“YES SIR!” filled my helmet.
“Mirsa, Saltris, Wally and I will assault the front door.” I got nods. The team had practiced the drill over and over again - I did not need to say anything else. I saw my computer expert give the thumbs up.
“Walter, Sir,” my computer geek dryly reminded me.
For god’s sake we were probably heading into our deaths and that was all he could say. “This is it folks, we’ve trained hard to get this bastard. Remember those that have come before us!” I heard a few prayers being said. They were ready to go.
“Remember Gloosa!” Mirsa shouted in our helmets. “And Coos and Lartch! We do it for them!” A roar from the rest of the team filled our helmets. Even Walter joined in.
“Okay, ready - set – go.” I took the lead running full out. “Lower protection shields.” I touched my helmet and the face cover slid down. It was harder to see, it was thick and opaque but it was the only face protection they could come up with to protect us from the acid rain. Once we cleared the small knoll a vague big blob cut into the horizon - his fortress. It lay about half a mile away. We were going all out. Caleb and Les had Walt between them.
Sure enough, just as the intelligence reports told us, the rain came. At first it was light, then became heavier. We ran even faster as we could hear it hit our helmets and sizzle. Soon it would do the same to our panoply suits. Our facemasks started to streak, making seeing even harder. “Run!” I yelled.
We were coming near the fortress, the rain came down even harder. I saw most o
f the team split off including Caleb and Les. Walter was my responsibility now. I heard the gun ropes shoot up the side of the building. “We are going in!” Grenades were going off. I heard the smashing of glass
Dragging my computer expert, I headed to the heavy wooden door. It looked like an antique castle’s door; fancy ornate carvings with a high polish covered the thick entranceway. “Open it!” I yelled at my tech expert.
“I’m trying!” he screamed in my ear. ‘It’s not working!”
“Shit,” both Mirsa and I said together. The acid rain was starting to go deeper into our suits. We could see puncture holes. Suddenly, I heard Mirsa grunt. It was starting to get through. She held her arm.
“Hurry, for god’s sake hurry!’ I yelled at Walter.
The door started to slowly open. I pushed Mirsa in first as soon as the crack was big enough, then I shoved Walter followed by Saltris. I felt my arm sting as the acid was getting through and plunged into the opening myself. Man, that was close.
“Run,” Mirsa shouted. “The walls are closing.
Sure enough the hallway was sliding inwards. We ran, even Walter kept up with us. It was two people wide when we saw the opening to another hallway. It was closing on one person wide when Mirsa jumped through dragging our computer guy. I dove through and scraped the sides. Saltris almost made it through. Her foot got caught. Both Mirsa and I ran over and pulled. Her boot crunched as her foot came clear. I looked at the squashed