Hiroshi Sakurazaka - All You Need Is Kill

As I turned, I cut down another Mimic with a single blow. I ran up to the fallen soldier. He had a wolf wearing a crown painted on his armor—4th Company. If they were here, that meant we’d met up with the main assault force. The line was giving way.

The soldier’s shoulders were trembling. He was in shock. Whether it was the Mimics or my kick that had sent him into it, I couldn’t tell. He was oblivious to the world around him. If I left him there, he’d be a corpse inside of three minutes.

I put my hand on his shoulder plate and established a contact comm.

“You remember how many points we beat you by in that game?”

He didn’t answer. “You know, the one you lost to 17th Company.”

“Wh . . . what?” The words rasped in his throat.

“The rugby game. Don’t you remember? It was some kind of intramural record, so I figure we musta beat you by at least ten, twenty points.”

I realized what I was doing.

“You know, it’s funny, me talkin’ to you like this. Hey, you don’t think she’d charge me for stealin’ her idea, do you? It’s not like she has a patent on it or anything.”

“What? What are you talkin’ about?”

“You’ll be fine.” He was snapping out of it pretty quick—he was no rookie like I’d been. I slapped him on the back. “You owe me, 4th Company. What’s your name?”

“Kogoro Murata, and I don’t owe you shit.”

“Keiji Kiriya.”

“That’s some attitude you got. Not sure I like it.”

“The feeling’s mutual. Let’s hope our luck holds.”

We bumped fists and parted ways.

I swept my head from left to right. I ran. I pulled my trigger. My body had long since passed exhaustion, but a part of me maintained a heightened sense of alertness impossible under normal circumstances. My mind was a conveyer belt sorting good apples from the bad—any piece of information that wasn’t vital to survival was automatically shut out.

I saw Rita Vrataski. The rumble of an explosion heralded her arrival. A laser-guided bomb fell from a plane circling overhead, far out of reach of the enemy. It covered the distance between us in under twenty seconds, detonating precisely where the Valkyrie had called it down.

Rita was headed for the spot the bomb had struck, a shattered mix of debris, equal parts living and dead. Creatures streamed from the crater toward her swinging battle axe.

Even in the midst of battle, seeing Rita’s red Jacket stirred something in me. Her mere presence had breathed new life into our broken line. Her skill was peerless, the product of U.S. Special Forces’ efforts to make a soldier to end all soldiers. But it was more than that. She really was our savior.

Just a glimpse of her Jacket on the battlefield would drive soldiers to give another ten percent, even if they didn’t have it left to spare. I’m sure there were men who’d see her and fall in love, like a man and a woman on a sinking ship spying one another between waves. Death could come at any moment on the battlefield, so why not? The wise guys who’d named her Full Metal Bitch had really fished around for that one.

I didn’t think they had it right. Or maybe I was starting to feel something for Rita Vrataski myself. That suited me fine. Trapped in this fucking loop, I had no hope of falling in love. Even if I found someone who could love me in one short day, she’d be gone the next. The loop robbed me of every moment I spent with someone.

Rita had saved me once, long ago. She had kept me calm with her random talk of green tea. She had told me she’d stay with me until I died. What better target for my unrequited love than our savior herself ?

My OS continued to respond automatically, despite the distraction my emotions were giving it. My body twisted. I planted a foot on the ground. I didn’t have to think about the battle unfolding before my eyes. Thought only got in the way. Deciding which way to move, and how, were things you did in training. If you paused to think in battle, Death would be there waiting, ready to swing his scythe.

I fought on.

It was seventy-two minutes since the battle had started. Tanaka, Maie, Ube, and Nijou were all KIA. Four dead, seven wounded, and zero missing. Nijou had hung the poster of the swimsuit model on the wall. Maie was from somewhere deep inside China. He never said a word. I didn’t know much about the other two. I etched the faces of the men I’d let die deep in my mind. In a few hours their pain would be gone, but I would remember. Like a thorn in my heart it tormented me, toughened me for the next battle.

Somehow our platoon had held together. I could hear the blades of the choppers in the distance. They hadn’t been shot out of the sky. This was the best attempt yet. The platoon leader had no words for the recruit who’d taken matters into his own hands. Every now and then Ferrell would fire a few rounds my way to help out.

And then I saw it—the Mimic I’d fought in the first battle that had trapped me in this fucking loop. I’d fired three pile driver rounds into it that day. I don’t know how, but I knew it was the one. On the outside it was the same bloated frog corpse as all the rest, but here on my 157th pass through the loop, I could still recognize the Mimic that had killed me the first time.

It had to die with extreme prejudice.

Somehow I knew that if I could kill it, I’d pass some sort of boundary. It may not break this loop of battle after battle after battle, but something would change, however small. I was sure of it.

Stay right there. I’m comin’ for ya.

Speaking of crossing boundaries, I still hadn’t read any further in that mystery novel. I don’t know why that occurred to me then, but it did. I’d spent some of my last precious hours reading that book. I’d stopped just as the detective was about to reveal whodunit. I’d been so preoccupied with training I hadn’t given it another thought. It must have been nearly a year now. Maybe it was time I got around to finishing that book. If I killed this Mimic and made it to the next level, I’d start on that last chapter.

I readied my battle axe. Caution to the wind, I charged.

Static crackled in my headphones. Someone was talking to me. A woman. It was our savior, the Full Metal Bitch, Valkyrie reborn, Mad Wargarita—Rita Vrataski.

“How many loops is this for you?”

1

A brilliant sun traced crisp shadows on the ground. The air was so clean you could have gotten a clear sniper shot from kilometers away. Above the field, the 17th Company’s flag snapped in a moist southerly breeze blowing off the Pacific.

The sea air held a scent that snaked its way down your nose and tickled your tongue on its way to your throat. Rita knitted her brow. It wasn’t the stench of a Mimic. More like the slightly fishy fragrance you got from those bowls of nuoc mam sauce.

Wartime tensions and the constant threat of death aside, the Far East really wasn’t so bad. The coastline, so difficult to defend, afforded beautiful sunsets. The air and water were clean. If Rita, who had about one tenth the refinement and culture of an average individual, thought it was wonderful here, an actual tourist might have considered it paradise. If there were one mark against it, it was the cloying humidity.

The weather that night would be perfect for an air strike. Once the sun had set, bombers laden with GPS-guided munitions would take to the sky in swarms to blast the island into a lifeless moonscape before the next morning’s ground assault. The beautiful atoll and the flora and fauna that called it home would all share the same fate as the enemy, if everything went according to plan.