you know this?”
“First I listen and am aware. Second, I may be a 27 here, but I am a commander in the Nenthar militia. Before them is another five divisions and there pushing the Tarnar toward us. The Tarnar have to launch an assault soon or they will be crushed from the rear. When they do it will be to the west of us, hitting the Nenthars and then I assume they will arch in a pincer movement toward our west flank. The Xelon Dru are strong enough to launch a full frontal attack and the pincer will close destroying us all. The Xelon Dru as the vanguard, the Tanar attaching our westward flank, while the small Nenthar army moves from out west and in front around near our eastward flank.”
“What do you recommend?”
Abreon looked up at the commander, “We have to eliminate the Nenther forces,” and then Abreon knew he was nothing. He felt like nothing.
Dulo now eager, “Yes, we shall attack the Nenthars!”
FOURTY-EIGHT
Abreon was crawling in the mud, his rifle cradled in arms as he dug into the wall of the trench pulling himself up from over the pit, up and over the sandbags. He glared out at a quarter-division before him, two after him, Abreon in the front rushing the enemy lines while the remaining forces in the rear, sustained shelling from both plasma and solid shell cannons. Abreon pushing himself forward, past the incoming shells blowing people to shreds around him, Gatling guns peppering the surrounding air with hot plasma rounds, “We have to go!”
A plasma burst hitting some twenty meters away from Abreon, the impact destroying six soldiers, the ground up-heaving spraying clots of mud and rock onto Abreon and others. The impact left its pit and scattered bits of bone and tissue behind. Abreon crawling but even fast, another shell, a metal shell hit the ground right in front of him, a hundred meters sway, then another sixty-five meters to his side, the ground churning, kicking and then swallowing soldiers in whole or in part, Abreon screaming, “Get me the hell out of here!”
But no one would listen to his cries. Abreon scurrying, another blast volleyed over, hitting the land between the two trench lines some two hundred meters away from him, then one east of him, another even closer, fifty meters away from him, Abreon hearing screaming as waves of soldiers to the rear of him pushed onward rushing as they neared the trendies of the Nenthar. The Nenther began to poke their helmeted heads up from the sand bags with automatic weapons ready, firing bolts of plasma up upon them and into no mans land. Abreon heard silence, then the whine of shells, as they were slung into the air, the plasma bombarding those still in the fields, the earth shaking, the earth turning to liquid behind him, hundreds dying as the total assault began.
Abreon began to return semi-automatic rifle blasts at the Nenthar outmatched by their automatic weapons, as they were at a disadvantage in the exchange impeding there progress, costing Srax lives. Abreon crawled closer, firing his rifle killing a Nenther from within his trench. Abreon and the others firing as fast as their rifles let them. Up and then over, they went, Abreon shooting a Nenthar in the head, turning shooting another in the chest, running, stopping shooting another. Abreon fell, kicked another, shooting her as she was down, more Srax coming, more over the trenches, more into them, more killing the Nenthar soldiers while taking their weaponry until the Nenthars were utterly consumed and not one was left. Abreon ran as best he could in the muck over to a large gun leaning over its turret vomiting repeatedly. He felt ill for what he had done to his own people. Did he even have a choice?
FOURTY
The guns of the Nenthar, now in the Srax hands were swung about to face the two Tanar divisions or about two thousand men. From the assault on the Nenthar and from the still limited engagements with the Tarnar about four hundred Srax men were lost from their own three divisions leaving twenty-six hundred men and woman, now spread from the north-west, to the lower east across the plain which held the town of Cantor. The Tamar continued their shelling of the Srax. Both the Tanar and Srax armies began to increase their bombardment of each other, if that was possible. It had rained again and everything had turned to muck. A deeper, thicker brown mire, one that he had remembered from a long time ago. He began to hate his 27 rank, but he had to stay with it. Abreon could ultimately win.
THIRTY
Abreon watched as the Tarnar army, forced by the first wave of the Xelon Dru to began to be pushed toward the positions of the Srax, close into the killing filled and then through it. The killing field consisting of a large semi-circle of land, which arched about the bridge. The Xelon Dru now within the zone of conflict began to surge from behind the Srax into their army and toward the Tarnar’s positions. Abreon pulled his rifle and fearfully waited as they were shelled from both the Xeion Dru and the Srax, creating a deadly crossfire with Abreon and the Srax in the middle. Abreon cried as he saw the slaughter around him. The crossfire killed many of the Tarnar in the conflict though half were managing to making out of no man’s land alive, near the trenches west of them. They were firing at Abreon from only fifteen meters away.
Abreon aimed, pulling the trigger on his rifle, the blast killing a solider right in front of him. He fired upon another, then another and another, blood everywhere, ducking as a wave of machine fire sprayed out above the sandbags before him. Abreon fortunate that they had no remaining needle guns or the rounds would slice right through the bags. Abreon looking up, shooting again, and gain, his gun heating up from the explosion of powder. Another Srax yanking at him, “We have them!”
Abreon pulling away from him, “Don’t think you’re correct!”
Abreon shooting again, as they began to get closer, swarms of them, ten meters, five meters, and then one was on top of him, as Abreon pushed him off, as he shot him, Abreon turning as another leapt toward him. Abreon hit him with the butt of his weapon, yelling out, “Commander!”
The commander in hand to hand combat, “Fight boy!” for now all the Srax who had made it through the crossfire of the killing field had entered the Tanar trenches.
Abreon attempted to make his way to the Major in time, but he did not as he was killed before Abreon could get to him. Abreon killing the woman who killed his commander. Abreon pulling the headset from his dead commanders helmet, putting the headset on, listening, removing the unit he had shown Neice many days before from his suit, pressing the switch, the headsets communications cutting out and turning to static hiss. Abreon scurried and pulled his way out from the trench, clumps of mud in his hands as he climbed. Abreon heaved himself out of the Tanar trench and over their sandbags, running but in a crouch heading to the town, heading for the factory.
Twelve
TWENTY
By then, the battle between the remaining Srax and the first invading divisions of the Xelon Dru had wasted their manpower. Over the last ten days the Srax defenses had degraded to such a point that their line of defense no longer existed, instead the remaining Srax had filtered back into the burned out town and were using it as a stop gap new defensive zone. The remaining Srax forces had taken refuge inside the ruined collapsed buildings and were using them to fight an urban door to door type of war. This resistance was here and there but effective in slowing down the oncoming Xelon Dru’s offence considerably. Again it had rained and was now raining hard and heavy. Some of the remaining Srax were in the base camp to the west of there as well, while some were hiding deep in the forest. Abreon estimated that there were less than a thousand left of them, about seven hundred to the Xelon Dru’s nine hundred men.
Most of the heavy equipment was left where it was abandoned. A few attempts to haul it to the bridge were tried most of them ended in frustration. The rain and bombardment of the area had made the dirt turn to mud too thick to move anything over a couple tons successfully. Although the bridge had been avoided in the conflict the incessant shelling had managed to strip much of the concrete away from the bridges moorings and main girders. However, the bridge was still quite strong. Abreon thought that it must have been made from some polymer steel
not manufactured in the region and built from some unknown people long gone. Abreon had made his way through the sporadic fighting, skirmishes and heavy rain to the town’s warehouse. Although the warehouse itself had burned down, the basement levels were still intact. He had been inside, below ground for more than four days. He waited for the Tanar to arrive but they did not. The rain flooding the town and swelled the river. Abreon continued to listen for the sounds of soldiers but he did not hear them. He expected Loss to be dead, but Nece was of a different sort, they would have taken her back to the base camp. They could use her technical skills. Nece could have made it through the fighting.
Abreon was not alone; seven other Srax were with him. They had made it into the underground sanctuary shortly after Abreon had. All of them were still armed and in uniform. He had told them that he was a conscript in their army and if they could to look for a woman of such and such height and such and such build. He was sitting with two of them upon a piece of floor that had not burned through, drips of water splashing down on them from the above floors upon the ash. Abreon sat next to a pile of that ash, which he had scraped away from where he sat into a pile. Abreon was full of frustration