Chris Randolph - Stars Rain Down

Then the sun came up. The air turned hot and dry, but unlike Al Saif where the ground was a single shade of beige, the land near Gaza was fertile. Bountiful even. There was ample farmland full of fresh but abandoned crops, separated by pockets of damaged-but-standing buildings, while a scorch mark that used to be a city loomed off toward the coast.

The Bravos found one of the sturdier bombed-out and partially fallen buildings, and made camp for the day. Chunks had been taken out of it, but all three levels remained, and it made a good observation post, offering shady hiding spots and a bit of altitude in one crumbling package.

Then the cuttlefish started to pass overhead. The air wasn’t filled with them, but they went by often enough to remove any thoughts of stepping outside. There were a few patches of cover out there, but only separated by long stretches of open terrain. Without anti-vehicle weapons, getting caught would equal a swift death. It was simple math.

Jack busied himself studying maps of the area, trying to make some connection between the drawings and the wreckage all around, but he wasn’t having much luck. The maps were the old folding paper style, which had hardly been used in more than fifty years. They were relics from a time before global wireless and teraflop pocket computers, and these particular specimens were woefully out of date.

Despite being awkward to fold and more wrong than right, Jack still kind of liked them. There was something tactile that was missing in the digital versions, and since he didn’t have anything else to do, trying to understand the maps made for an acceptable pass-time.

The others found ways to occupy themselves as well. Albright inventoried her first aid kit and ammunition, and Nikitin kept watch through the scope of his marksman rifle. Chase was playing some incomprehensible card game with Nick McGrath, who preferred to be called Trash for some reason he wouldn’t explain. Rebecca Hartnell and Keith Cozar were staked out downstairs, where they could watch the northern corridor.

Their hideout was silent for hours.

“Hot damn, those things are fast,” Nikitin said sometime before noon. “Hey Jack, how fast do you think that’s going?”

Jack looked up from his maps and out over the farms. On the horizon, one of the four-legged alien walkers was galloping by like some kind of monstrous Chernobyl gazelle. “I don’t know. How long do you reckon the legs are? Twenty meters?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Five, maybe six hundred KPH.”

Nikitin let out a dry laugh. “I love the pause. Made it sound like you did some serious arithmetic before making a blind guess.”

“You know me too well,” Jack said, and folded his map.

Chase and Trash snickered over their cards.

Another moment later, four more walkers appeared in the distance. They were enemy vehicles, each carrying foot troops to parts unknown, but Jack couldn’t escape the feeling of being out on safari, watching a herd of wild animals cross the plain. There was a lot of traffic, and he wondered if it was always like that.

At 11:42 AM, things started to go wrong.

Cozar came bounding up the stairwell. “Incoming from the North. Walkers. Four or five.”

The enemy vehicles had impressive straight line speed, but they were slow and ponderous in close quarters. Compared to the cuttlefish, they were lightly armed and armored, with only a set of anti-infantry guns to keep interlopers out from under them.

The real threat was the two full extermination squads hidden within. A squad typically included four of the rhinos, heavy shock troops with autocannons and mobile artillery, and another five of the jackrabbits armed with long-rifles, who acted as fast scouts and snipers.

“ETA?” Jack asked.

“Three minutes. Maybe less.”

Their building was at the northern end of its pocket of ruins, with the rest of the buildings stretching to the South and West. To the East lay fields full of tall crops, beyond those another small group of ruins and then the rock outcropping where their four-wheeler was stashed.

Jack made the only decision he could in the face of overwhelming odds. “Disperse and hide. Stay on the upper floors, keep your damn heads down, and hold your fire unless there’s no other choice. The second you pull that trigger, we’re all dead. Cozar, get Hartnell and take up position across the street.”

“Roger,” Cozar said, and took off back down the stairs.

“Chase, Trash, cross that field and lay low in the next group of buildings, then head to the jeep the first chance you get. If things heat up around here, get the hell out of dodge.” Then they were off and running as well.

“Nik, stay here and keep an eye on those two. If anything gets near ‘em, take it down. The jeep is our top priority. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Albright, you’re with me.”

She acknowledged with a duck of her and shouldered her rifle. The weapon looked to be fully half her size.

Down below, Trash and Chase emerged from the building and then disappeared into the tall rows of green crops. Their heads popped out every couple of steps, but Jack couldn’t have seen them if he weren’t looking for them. Once he was sure those two were safe and on their way, he grabbed a couple empty drink bottles from the floor and tossed them in his pack. Then he waved Albright on and went up the final flight of stairs to the roof.

The air above was clear. No cuttlefish or clouds. Just blue sky and bright sun. The walkers were approaching in the distance, still a few kilometers out, and raising a hell of a dust cloud behind them.

Jack and Albright were four stories up, looking out across a strip of closely packed buildings. The gap between any of them was never more than two meters.

He scanned the other roofs and spotted his target quickly—a building abandoned while under construction—and he took off running. He chose Albright because they’d done some mountain ops together, and of anyone on his team, he knew damn well she could keep up. She was small but fast, and he figured she’d been into gymnastics as a kid. She had that bouncing, energetic quality, and he could easily picture her whipping out a few somersaults and flips.

Jack took a deep breath and he was off and running. His legs pounded across the dusty roof, then he was airborne for one long stride and landed on the next roof. He heard Albright’s boots keep pace behind him.

No time to stop and look. His breathing was falling into rhythm, and with another few strides, he was up in the air and then down again. This roof was lower, and he rolled with the landing, then was back to his feet and on the move.

There was only one to go. With his final leap, Jack sailed through the open air and collided with the wall. In another second, he had his leg up on the ledge, and he clambered over. Albright was only a step behind.

He hit the deck and took a moment to catch his breath. The tiny woman beside him was hardly warmed up, and Jack shook his head. “Doesn’t anything wear you out,” he asked.

“Only one thing I can think of,” she said. “So, what’s so great about this place?”

“You’ll see,” he said. His breath came back under control and he hopped back up to a low crouch, then hurried across the half-completed roof and dropped down into the top floor. He was glad to be back out of direct sunlight. Back under cover.

A quick scan of the room revealed two things: enough unused ducting and lumber to hide in, and a pile of painting supplies in the corner. The supplies were what he was after. He’d seen the scaffolding outside when they first arrived, and it came to mind the moment he heard they had company. “Bingo.”

He sat down with his back against the wall, where he could keep an eye on the window, then brought the drink bottles back out of his pack. He lined them up, three in total, grabbed a can of paint thinner from the pile and filled them one by one.