correct what has occured. We already know of the truth and the gray areas. We are here just to outline a path to redemption and get you ready for combat again.”
Drean nodded, “What are we to do with him?”
Uewno, rubbed his head and drank more coffee, “Well, Abreon, you questioned the validity of direct orders from your superior officer. Then you disobeyed them. We can’t have our officers doing that of course. If we did we would not have a unified army, would we? We cannot fight coherently if everyone ran separate ways.”
Maven looked over at Drean and Uewno, “The death you caused by your actions was high, never mind the fact that you did save just as many with his heroism, fighting Sis Xelon Dru, pouring into that tunnel number 33.”
Uewno, “Well your actions so some wisdom and yet much foolishness. Maybe you have learned too much, but it has not been tempered with a heavy enough weight of responsibility.”
Drean thinking, “Are you thinking of another work duty?”
Uewno: “Something different perhaps.”
Maven to them, as he was leaning over their table, “He has a fighter’s spirit. He has a will to survive and from what you have told me Drean, he has the ability to drive others to surpass what was previously their limit.”
Drean: “I believe he needs to be corrected in a way which will benefit all of us in a greater way.”
Uewno, “What, Drean do you suggest?”
Abreon looked back at the guards, at the inquiry board, then at Drean who looked back at him and at the other Majors, “We could promote him.”
Abreon surprised though hushed, “What?”
Drean smiling, “He is a unifier or divider depending on how we cull him. If we place him in charge of ten or twenty he might strike at a most crucial vanguard. Our soldiers would benefit and of course we would benefit.”
Abreon subsequently was promoted to level B2 or a commander of ten and sent to the front lines for the last main Nenthar Corporation’s assault against the Xelon Dru. Abreon had the feeling deep down that he would surely die.
Four
Abreon clutched his weapon with fifty men in suits with helmets on in order to protect them from possible gas, behind him. Grasping their weapons tightly, their plasma rifles with their light packs strapped over them, they were ready to fight. No pack was preferable to wearing one and so Abreon did not wear one for he knew his imminent death was at hand. He was a commander of ten among the fifty there. He knew that those in that the army crossing the river Zitar Nuo were going to perish. He knew that his corporation was going to dissolve in that still swollen river. Abreon was sure of it that as they sat crowded in their landing boat.
The A8 commander stood, as other crouched, “We will be landing any moment now.”
Abreon lowered himself to another solider, “When we land, if I die please carry out my orders, Gavcon.”
Gavcon nodded, “Yes, Commander.”
The A8 commander continued, “When we land and the door open,” the ship bucking violently skipping across the water, “draw your weapons tightly, and maintain a low profile against the Xelon Dru territory. When I yell go we charge the beach!”
Abreon looked up at the night blue sky, the stars out and bright. They flickered as the clouds broke their glow, seemingly a trillion miles away. The moon ascended shining its pale brilliance upon them. The moonlit glow apparent on the shadows of all those men trapped inside their boats of steel, set among other boats of steel, among still more boats made of steel, each one of them rushing to hit the banks of the Xelon Dru, the Zitar Nuo clawing them back until they could not do it any longer. The earth had made a decision that divided them such that the river could not be traversed without a claim on life.
The skimmer crashed, with a metallic whine atop the shoreline and ground into the banks of Dru territory. The doors of the skimmer dropping quickly and heavily as the loyal Nenthar’s gasped for fresh air. They ducked as the Commanders yelled for their soldiers to charge up through the beach with their teeth clenched and their bodies hunched low. Their visors fogging temporarily as they hyperventilated from the fear of death, until their suit mechanics took over and evaporated the moisture. Abreon, motioned for his ten to follow him out of the skimmer, as they did so, Abreon looking about in the night, thousands upon thousands of other skimmers landing, in a reverberation, long and violent, substantial and sustained.
The columns of men, soldiers of the Nenthar Corporation, pouring out from their skimmers, in gray and brown earth tone suits, they crawled along the barren wasteland as waves of precision bombardments hit them. The Dru launched mortars towards them. The Dru being pushed rearward in retreat back into another territory, the advancing Nenthar’s unimpeded, for each corporation was in entity nearly separate from another, and technology isolated, so that it was varied in implementation. The Nenthar were technically superior, but only for moments, as moments are brief.
The Nenthar artillery shells returning the strike back at the Dru emplacements. The Xelon Dru’s bombardment had not weakened the Nenthar’s push up the shoreline and through the Dru’s first line of defense. The Xelon poured gas upon their whole territory, the green mist whispering about as Abreon motioned at his platoon, speaking to them from his helmet, the laser fire now apparent as they cleared the Dru embankments and headed to their front line trenches, “Keep low! Keep silent!”
The Nenthar began to be picked from the trenches, as they stood upon platforms, to fire red over the breakwaters, Abreon climbing, keeping low, as he had commanded his troops, “Fire!”
His Nenthar did, their plasma rifles held up returning fire, a plasma shot hitting one head of one Xelon, the shoulder of another, a third peeking up from his bunker to fire upon them hit through his visor, his visor cracking, the soldier dying instantly. Abreon listened to the screams of men hurt, yelling or crying out. Abreon wanted to run, he wanted to escape but he could not. He wanted to close off the world and stop the noise, but he could not. Abreon was forced to fight, be corporate, be a good employee, “Have faith!” Abreon and his men climbing over the first embankment, into the main trenches, the gas everywhere, as he shot one, then turning to shoot another a second Nenthar killing him with plasma, “Thank you!”
“Yes, commander!”
Abreon was indeed now a commander. He shot again turning his rifle to pulse, firing one plasma shot after another killing as many enemies as he could while avoiding crossfire from his own troops running along that trench. One Nenthar found Abreon shooting a bolt of laser at him, Abreon falling, the laser hitting a second Dru in the chest, destroying him. Abreon shooting the first, a second Nenthar removing the blade from his weapon, “Commander!” stabbing a Xelon Dru in the shoulder and again in the back, as Abreon stood, “Thank you!”
Abreon running into another trench, the Nenthar’s working deeper into the heart of the Xelon stronghold, Abreon diving under a Dru, cutting her from her booted feet, falling, Abreon rising firing before him, the line of plasma burning one than another as the first Dru rose from his behind him. One soldier from his company, yelling to him, through his helmet, “Escape, duck commander!” Abreon dropping to the dirt, as that Nenthar shot the Dru, her tense body crumbling weak, Abreon firing as he went, their army working deeper into Dru territory. After an hour, the resistance from the Dru began to fade. Abreon paused and began to rejoice to the seven remaining soldiers under his command, “We have done it!”
A Nenthar from his company, “Yes, we have Commander!”
A second, “Yes!”
Then it was quiet. Suddenly, there were no more fighting Xelon’s. They were left with to themselves with just the corpses beneath their boots, and those rotting from wounds or disease from before the strong offensive. Abreon tapped his helmet and then snapped it off his head. He strained his ears for a moment. Then he looked out far ahead of him and ached to hear what he could not, “Listen, everyone, silent!”
The soldier’s under his command began to listen. Abreon could hear his breath.
He looked up into the night sky, watching the darkness, watching the trenches, watching the far out ahead of them. The man/machines were coming he could hear them, “Shit, fall back! Return to the skimmers!” Abreon and others running through the tunnels, as the man/machines hurried toward them. The Xelon Dru soldiers were inside, the machines covered them, each draped in black metal plated and rubber jointed machines. The machines each were equipped with two pulse cannon lasers. The suits had their packs sealed to the backs of the machines, each with vents, fans and their motors, whining. The mechanized Dru with their black helmets, black visors looking out at the fleeing Nenthar. They could be heard through their vents, fans, and motors. They made a faint whine, filtering the surrounding air.
The machine encased Dru began to overtake the fleeing Nenthar’s, Abreon yelling as he snapped his helmet back on, “Escape to the skimmers.”
Others fighting, shooting at the machine Nenthar’s, their rifle shots hitting the Xelon Dru suits, some falling, their metal plates damaged, burned from the plasma but most not yielding. The Dru returned fire. The laser cannons of the Dru machines rolled out through the territories. Their double turret cannons sending high powered, targeted, rapid laser bursts at their enemies. The machines were effective and efficient. The feeling