Grunt Traitor (29 page)

“We’re worried about your loyalty to OMBRA.”

And there it was.

“What about it?”

“We’re concerned that Major Dewhurst is actively trying to compromise you.”

“You’re mistaken.”

He sighed. “We have a record of your conversation with Major Dewhurst this morning.”

I felt myself getting mad. “You listened in on our private conversation?”

Mr. Pink shrugged. “We were concerned.”

“Fuck your concern. That was private.”

“Not as long as you’re in an OMBRA EXO, it’s not.”

I thought of a dozen things to say, including some ideas he could try out with his own mother, but kept my mouth shut. Instead, there was something I wanted to make perfectly clear. “You’re still mistaken.”

“Didn’t you hear me? We know what you said. We have a transcript, if you want to read it.”

“Not about that. You said you were worried about my loyalty to OMBRA. I’ve never been loyal to OMBRA.” I let that sink in for a moment, then added, “I’m loyal to the men and women around me. I’m loyal to the grunts.”

“But we assumed...” He shook his head.

“You’re a company looking to make a profit at the expense of the world. That you’re forcing Dewhurst’s hand and asking for three states in exchange for this breakthrough sickens me. It’s embarrassing to wear the OMBRA logo.”

“That’s a little dramatic, now, isn’t it?”

“Is it? That farce of a hearing we had the other day established that HMIDs were human. When Peter Salinas broke the code, was he doing it as a human or an HMID?”

“I see where you’re going, Mason. It’s always been the right of companies to own the intellectual property of its employees when created during paid hours.”

I paused for a second at the legal mumbo jumbo, then changed courses. “Regardless, OMBRA is a means to an end. It has the biggest and best military and gives me the greatest ability to kill as many aliens as I can.”

“But you’re not loyal.”

“Hell, no! Do you want to know who I’m loyal to? Ohirra, for one. I’m loyal to her because she had my back. Want to know who else? Thompson. That’s right. HMID Thompson, who you’ve parked with Sebring’s God’s New Army.”

I realized I was standing and shouting when the door opened and the secretary asked, “Is everything all right in here?”

Mr. Pink waved her away. “You can have your seat back, now, Lieutenant.”

I sat slowly, aware that my blood pressure was through the roof. Even so, I wasn’t about to apologize for my beliefs.

Mr. Pink brought his thumb to his mouth and chewed on the nail for a moment. “It’s good to see that you’re loyal to
someone
. This New United States of North America is something you could be loyal to.”

“It could be. I don’t know enough about it. My country ceased to exist. Even if it didn’t, I was never really fighting for a flag, or a bald eagle, or a president. I was fighting for grunts.”

“We’re concerned that Major Dewhurst might do something he can’t recover from.”

“I’m not worried about that at all. We have a mission to take down two hives, and by God we’re going to complete that mission.”

Mr. Pink regarded me for a time, then nodded. “That will be all, lieutenant.”

I was clearly dismissed. I stood but didn’t move. Finally, Mr. Pink looked up at me.

“Is there something else, lieutenant?”

“You mentioned that we go way back. We do, indeed. I want to tell you that I appreciate you saving my life. I’m thankful you locked me up in that Godforsaken cell to help me learn how to better fight the aliens, and to make me realize that there’s something good about my PTSD-fueled existence. I want to thank you for letting me fight, when all I wanted was to die.”

He blinked at me, clearly unprepared for my words.

“I also want you to know that I’m loyal to
you
, as a person. Not to OMBRA, not to a company, but to Mr. Wilson. The man who I call Mr. Pink just to fuck with him. In a way, you’re a grunt just like the rest of us. Just like Thompson, Ohirra, and my new team. I fight for you as well.”

Then I turned and strode out of the room.

Let him chew on that for awhile.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

William Shakespeare

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

T
HE NEXT MORNING
we waited outside of the mock village Ertebat Shar, ready to attack. Originally built to represent an Afghan village, it was all my team had to allow us to practice moving and shooting in an urban environment. OMBRA didn’t have any mock-up Cray, but they did have the ability to program images into our HUDs, so the targets we were going to fire on were completely digital. The challenge of simultaneously representing an attacking alien to six different HUD feeds turned out to be easy enough for HMID Salinas. His assistance allowed the OMBRA techs to create realistic independently operating three-dimensional representations of the winged aliens. Even so, we were still using live fire, just to get the hang of the noise, reloading, and recoil.

There was little doubt that we were going to destroy the village¸ so Tarantula Team Two was standing by the other mock-up village, ready to go in and do the same thing when their turn came.

I checked everyone’s vitals and flipped through their feeds. We were full ammo and ready to rock and roll.

As I waited, I couldn’t help but replay the conversation I’d had last night with Dewhurst. He’d spent several hours communicating with the new government through AM channels. When he was done, he found me where I was conducting last minute checks on my team’s EXOs.

“I heard Mr. Pink called you in,” he’d said.

I’d decided not to tell Dewhurst that not only were they were listening in on our private channels, they’d also heard us talking about walking away from OMBRA. I said, “He just wants to make sure I’m one hundred percent ready for the mission. My body and mind have been through a lot.”

“Have you thought about what we discussed? I spoke with my representatives. We need heroes like you and Olivares in the new government.”

“They need me here, too.”

“Being here and being part of the New United States of North America aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“So you’d want me to spy for you?”

He laughed. “Nothing like that. But as a government we operate on behalf of the people. As a military we ensure the safety of the people. We’d be concerned if OMBRA were doing anything that could harm the safety of our citizenry.”

“I’m not really a joiner,” I’d said.

“Do you realize why they took Fort Irwin? This backwater, Godforsaken military post on the ass-end of the Mojave Desert? China Lake Weapons Center, that’s why. Where the nukes are kept and the Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex is located. As of now, OMBRA owns all of seven of our W84s, as well as several prototype missiles and associated technologies, as well as all of our deep space radio antennas. How do you think they’re able to tap into the aliens’ communications so easily? They own Goldstone. They also own the one in Madrid. The only one we don’t know anything about is Australia, because absolutely no one knows what’s going on Down Under.

“So they have our best offensive capabilities, along with our best way to communicate and track the invading force, and are holding them over our heads like the fucking sword of Damocles if we don’t cough up enough land to pay for it. Do you think that’s fair?”

“Fair hasn’t been a part of our universe since the planet was taken from us.”

And then he’d walked away.

He’d been largely silent this morning, except for the occasional glare. He might as well get used to it. I wasn’t the sort to be forced to join. I normally did things because I wanted to, and right now I didn’t want to do anything other than this mission.

“Tarantula One, this is control. Prepare for telemetry to snap in. On my count: five, four, three, two,
one
.”

Our HUDs suddenly lit up with fake telemetry of several hundred Cray swirling in a mass above the village. I spent the first several seconds agog at the seamless integration of the real and the digital. Had I not known that they didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Across the top of my HUD were five small boxes representing each of my team. From left to right they were Dewhurst, Ohirra, Stranz, Mal, and Sula. I quickly selected and flipped through each one to check their vitals, their weapons and ammo status, and their view through their own HUDs. Everything checked out.

Our goal from this exercise, other than to throw a shit-ton of ammo into the sky, was to converge on the village center and hold it. I snapped my minigun in place, comforted by the weight and heft of it in my Kevlar-gloved hands, even though most of it was held by the support arm. I depressed the firing lever and let the barrels spin several cycles as I began to scan the village and the sky, marveling at the realism of the digital Cray.

“Listen, grunts,” I said, “this is an exercise. I know it, you know it. But don’t be fucking around. I need to evaluate your ability to shoot, move, and communicate, as well as to follow orders. I say something once, I expect it done. If I repeat myself, you’ll answer for it. Are there any questions?”

Silence said it all.

“If you let enough of the Cray get close enough to do damage, your suit will shut down and you’ll fall over. That will mean you’re dead. None of you better end up dead. Tarantula One-Two and One-Three, move out.”

Ohirra and Stranz ran full speed towards the center of the village,

“Tarantula One-Four and One-Five, move out.”

Mal and Sula moved out behind them. When Ohirra and Stranz got to the first buildings on the edge of the village, they put their backs to the walls and opened fire, bullets zipping into the sky from their miniguns. I watched as Cray winked out of the HUD.

“Tarantula One-Six, move with me.”

Dewhurst and I ran full speed towards Ohirra and Stranz’s position.

Mal and Sula ran right by them, moving an additional thirty yards into the village. When they stopped, they put their backs to a building and opened fire as well.

Both Dewhurst and I fired several rockets from our shoulder-mounted Hydra units. As I passed Ohirra and Stranz, I saw the missiles seek and find non-existent Cray and explode. Then we passed Mal and Sula, penetrating thirty more yards into the village. When we stopped, we switched to miniguns and laid out a line of rounds into the descending Cray.

As soon as we stopped, Ohirra and Stranz moved.

I kept one eye on everyone’s vitals.

As Ohirra ran by, the number of Cray in the air tripled and they all dove for our location at once. I fired through an entire magazine and spent a precious five seconds with the auto-loader rearming.

Dewhurst took twice as long, after failing to realize he was no longer firing.

Once Ohirra and Stranz found their position, Sula and Mal moved out.

Cray were falling at a great rate. Our rate of fire was working well, as were our interlocking fields of fire. In real life the battlefield would be filled with Cray corpses.

I watched as Mal tripped and stumbled into Sula. She lost her balance and fell, her minigun still firing in our direction.

I dove to the ground.

Dewhurst hadn’t even seen what happened. He took sixteen rounds across the front of his EXO and promptly fell over.

“Cease fire!” I screamed across the net. “Cease fire!”

As I got to my feet and ran over to Dewhurst, I checked his vitals. His heart rate was still high, but there was nothing else wrong. I fell to my knees beside him and checked his armor. Luckily for him, it didn’t look like any of the bullets had pierced it.

“Tarantula One-Six, how do you feel?”

“None penetrated,” he said, his breathing quick.

“Then why did you fall?”

“Seemed like the best thing to do at the time.”

I was relieved that he wasn’t actually hurt. I wasn’t really upset at Mal or Sula either. This was why we practiced, to get through things like this. Then I noticed that my HUD was blinking red all over. Ohirra, Sula, Stranz, Mal, and now me. We were all dying. Correct that. We were at zero power. My suit was breached. I was dead.

I tried to move and couldn’t. My suit was locked. In my rush to see if Dewhurst was actually hurt, I forgot to tell Exercise Control to stop the exercise. The Cray had kept coming. In our first foray into Ertebat Shar I’d gotten everyone killed. On the bright side, there was nowhere to go but up.

The water is rising. Constant tremors have been reported from ham operators in Chile and other areas of South America. Streaks of light litter the night skies at the bottom of the world. If the aliens are trying to put us underwater, then they have a grand plan. Scientists believe that if the Antarctica Ice Sheet melts, it would result in about a two-hundred-and-thirty-foot rise in sea level worldwide, surely swamping most of the world’s cities. How could they do that, we ask? Some say they’re bombarding us with small comets spread over a large area to do the most damage. Two years ago I never would have believed it. But now...