Stone Soldiers: City of Bones (3 page)

Cooper
gathered his wits and reached up for his own risers. It was still night in Nigeria, with dawn several hours away. The TTV lightened Cooper's view, the double plastic lenses displaying a green-tinted, augmented reality view of the world in brightened detail.

The ground
was coming up swiftly, their altitude continuing to decrease from their EHALO drop. When the altimeter reading showed one-hundred feet, Cooper released his risers. An automatic breakaway triggered and he was released from the braking chute.

He fell quickl
y, but kept his wits- bracing his legs and holding his arms out in front of him, fists balled tightly just as he'd been taught. When he struck the ground, despite weeks of training, he fell forward. His fists tore up the soft ground, but the tight fists kept any of of his fingers from being broken off.

Cooper quickly got back on his feet and checked his M-60- it had survived the drop unscathed. He quickly transferred the bulky machine gun to a shoulder strap and held it tight against his shoulder. Equipped with a pistol-style front grip under the barrel for stable firing and a side-mounted ammo box full of belted ammo, the machinegun was capable of taking out mass quantities of targets. Turning in place as he checked the surrounding area for hostile targets, Cooper resisted the urge to drop to one knee.

Around him, the rest of the squad was similarly
scanning for hostiles, their M-60s pressed tightly to their stone shoulders. The team was in the middle of a vast savanna- with long, green grass that reached almost to their waists. A sliver of crescent moon hung low in the sky. The only movement was that of the tall grass rustled by a faint breeze. They were alone.

>>FORM UP<<< Colonel Kenslir directed.

The men moved together, this time crouching in a semi circle around their commander. Each saw the beacon on their TTVs marking their destination three miles away.

In addition to the TTVs and their green, black and brown camouflage BDUs, the men all wore combat vests bulging with equipment
and ammunition. They had large sidearms in low slung holsters on their right thighs and over-sized Bowie knives on their left thighs. The stone soldiers also carried several large packs of M-60 ammo on their belts- bulky boxes of belted ammo.

"Wide line, ten meter interval,
" Kenslir said quietly to the men. He was dressed similarly, but carried an auto shotgun with an underbarrel grenade launcher as his main rifle. On his right thigh a small submachine gun rested in a holster, while his left thigh supported magazine carriers and a lethal-looking tomahawk, strapped in, head-down. Two massive Bowie knives hung in sheathes on his back, blades up, the handles just reaching his belt. Where the men carried packs of M-60 ammo the size of large breadboxes, he wore three canteens, lined up in the center back of his belt.

Kenslir rose to his feet and turned, the soldiers fanning out on either side of him, Smith and Cooper to his left, Lawrence and Lee on his right. Satisfied the men were ready, he took off.

***

When they were men of flesh and blood, the four soldiers running alongside Mark Kenslir would never have been able to keep up. Even stripped of the nearly eighty pounds of ammunition and equipment they carried, the pace was far too swift. They were moving slightly faster than a peak Olympic sprinter could manage. And they were maintaining it.

When they were within a half mile of their target, the Colonel slowed the pace.

>>>EASY NOW<<<

Their quick run slowed to a stealthy walk and the men hunkered down in stooped stances as th
ey walked through the tall grass, rifles held tightly to their shoulders, pointed ahead wherever they looked.

After another thousand feet, the Colonel held up his left arm, his fist balled. >>>HOLD!<<<

Each man lowered to one knee, their heads just barely peeking out of the tall grass.

"What the hell?" Lee asked. Just over the top of the grass, he could see that another fifty feet out, the grass disappeared.

Looking back and forth, the men used hand signals to spread their line out and creep forward. When they reached the edge of the grass, they stopped.

Gwasera Oil Field had been discovered in the middle of the savanna- a vast oil deposit far beneath the surface. As construction on the oil field had begun, a boom town had formed- called Gwasera by the
locals. Time, people and trucks had worn the grassland down in and around the small town. But now a ring extended around the site- a zone of destruction devoid of any plant life, right down to the soil.

Lee crept forward, toward the edge of the tall grass
and reached his left hand out, his right still holding his M-60 up, ready to fire. It was as if there was something there- the air seemed thick and almost spongy.

"Something ain't right, Sir," Lee announced quietly.

Colonel Kenslir looked left and right, watching the stone soldiers tentatively touching the edge of the barren circle. Each seemed to be touching something that wasn't there.

Kenslir crept forward and extended his hand. Green light glowed faintly, then quickly faded. The Colonel took another
half step forward and again green light flared then flickered out.

"What the hell?" Lawrence said. He and the others were now moving closer to the Colonel.

"Magic," Kenslir said.

"Is it a ward?" Smith asked, looking back and forth nervously, ready to fi
ght.

"No... something else."

Kenslir gestured for Lee- indicating the stone soldier should push his hand where the Colonel just had.

Lee moved closer and did as he was instructed. Again, his hand felt a slight resistance- like pushing on a pillow. Kensli
r reached out beside him and the air flickered green briefly then seemed to lose all its resistance.

The Colonel reached up and activated a light attached to the end of his rifle- bathing the air in front of him with purplish light.

"What is that?" Lawrence asked as the air glowed purplish-white in the ultra violet light.

The rest of the team activated their own UV rifle lights, revealing a wall of fluorescence surrounding the town. The wall suddenly retreated, racing away from the men and causing a small
breeze to sweep past the team.

"Colonel," Dr. King said over the audio channel of the TTVs. "I believe there is some kind of airborne microbe present- something possessing etheric energy. It would explain why the ghost walker was unable to see the site."

"Well, whoever is in there knows we're coming now," Kenslir grumbled.

>>>STAY ALERT!"<<< he texted over the TTVs, stepping forward and leading the way. The men fell into step behind him, forming a long line behind the Colonel, their rifles aimed to either
side as they watched for any sign of life.

After several minutes they reached the main gate- an opening in the fenceline around Gwasera as wide as the two lane dirt road that connected
Gwasera Oil Field with the highway leading to Kaiama.

Kenslir steppe
d through slowly, switching off his UV aim light as he moved. Just inside the gate the team found a large transport truck stopped, its tires missing. Kenslir knelt by a wheel, running his hand over shining steel belts hanging loosely on the rim. All the rubber from the tire was gone- dissolved away.

Kenslir stood and stumbled for a moment. He looked down at his boots, lifting one foot slowly. The hard rubber sole of the nylon and leather jungle boots was worn away, nearly half gone. As he watched, the sole
continued to dissolve- as did the leather of the boots. Green light crackled, flashing briefly as the boots fell apart, literally dropping off his feet in pieces.

"Sir?" Cooper asked- like the others he too was experiencing his boots dissolving.

"Doc?"

D
r. King appeared as a hologram now beside the men, projected by the TTV. "I believe you have encountered some kind of bacteria, similar to
pseudomonas putida
. Except that it is consuming rubber and plastics instead of oil. And at a much accelerated rate."

"What about the leather?" Smith asked, pulling what was left of his boots off.

"Hmm, that could be a variant of the strain
necrotizing faciitis
- flesh eating bacteria," King guessed. "The two bacteria could have formed some kind of symbiotic relationship- but I've never seen any bacteria that could work so fast."

Kenslir pulled off the remnants of his own boots then pulled off his socks. "Barefoot from here, guys."

"What about our gear?" Lee asked. He was checking over his pouches and vest pockets.

"You sh
ould be all right- most of your equipment is made from nylon and kevlar and other synthetic and semi-synthetic compounds. The bacteria should find them quite unappetizing."

"Colonel- over here!" Lawrence called out. He was crouching beside a Nigerian Army
jeep that was resting on its rims as well. Beside and around the jeep four piles of plastic biohazard suits and helmets were on the ground.

Kenslir crept over, still watching the nearby buildings out of the corner of his eyes. He knelt by one suit, rollin
g a large helmet over. Inside, there was a skull, all the flesh removed.

"What is that on the bone?" Dr. King's hologram asked beside Kenslir.

The Colonel laid his rifle on the ground and opened the mask. When he wiped a finger across the skull, green light flared and a thin coating parted.

"Some kind of film."

Dr. King's hologram disappeared. "I believe that is a kind of biomat... strand-like formations of bacteria. Most peculiar- neither
putida
nor
faciitis
form like this. I'll need to examine the bacteriological database. Just a moment..."

"Why's it keep glowing green when you touch it?" Lawrence asked.

"It's enchanted," Kenslir said. “I'm canceling out the etheric charge in the bacteria- or whatever it is."

He picked up his rifle and started to stan
d. Several gunshots rang out, breaking the pre-dawn silence. Slugs began to slam into Lawrence and on the ground around the two soldiers.

The team instinctively took cover, several moving behind the large transport truck. Kenslir and Lawrence ducked behin
d the jeep.

"See where it's coming from," Kenslir said, frowning at Lawrence.

"Oh, right," Lawrence said, remembering he was now bulletproof.

He stood up from behind the jeep and looked around. Semi automatic gunfire continued, with several rounds slamm
ing into Lawrence again. His TTV popped up glowing red triangles in four positions, tightly clustered across the large, courtyard-like area just inside the main gate.

Kenslir grabbed Lawrence and pulled him back down. "Don't give away you're bulletproof j
ust yet."

"What now, Colonel?" Smith asked over the comm channel. He was crouched by the cab of the large transport truck, peeking out now and again.

The TTVs were now all sharing data and the positions of the enemy determined by triangulating gunfire were marked on all the men's goggles. A colored red bar swept across their field of view as the TTVs synchronized with a spy satellite watching them from orbit. The four glowing triangles now had human silhouettes behind them- crouched down by the corner of a prefab building, using a group of 55 gallon drums for cover.

"Keep them busy- I want to know why they aren't just piles of bones," Kenslir announced. "Command- scan the rest of the area, see if there are any more heat signatures."

Kenslir then faded back into the darkness- even his HUD marker on the rest of the team's TTVs fading away.

"You heard the man," Smith said, leaning out on one knee. "Light these bastards up."

Smith began firing quick bursts from his M-60, riddling the corner of the prefab building. The remainder of the team did likewise, their M-60s flashing bright orange and spitting out streams of 7.62mm bullets.

The red-silhouetted men ducked back for cover as metal sparked and the bullets tore dozens of holes in the metal building. Their gl
owing shapes made it easy for the team to send rounds over their heads or along the ground in front of them, rather than hit them.

This continued for nearly thirty seconds, the stone soldiers firing short bursts, the mysterious gunmen ducking back for cov
er, occasionally firing blind around a corner, only their rifles- identified by the TTVs as AK-47s- extended into view.

Colonel Kenslir's green position indicator came back on- on top of a low metal building behind the men. Then he jumped down behind them
.

***

The gunmen were in a panic now. They could easily retreat- the wide dirt road that ran north, through the town was beside them. But something kept them there, trying to get a clear shot
then ducking back as the concentrated fire of the stone soldiers kept their heads down.

Colonel Kenslir watched them for a second, slinging his USAS-12 autoshotgun around on his back so his hands were free. Then he leapt, barefoot, from the metal roof onto the dirt behind the men. Despite his immense size and the ma
ny pounds of gear he wore, he landed quietly, without detection.