Tarnus calls on his radio, “Command, Command, we have the target painted!”
“Roger that Love, support inbound, Command out.” The smoke begins to clear and the screeching engine of an A-10 pierces their ears. The metal body of the aircraft becomes visible for a moment as it soars over the caved in rooftops. Its rapid nose cannon and rockets shake the earth as it pounds the painted targets. The Herculean fire stops, they cheer. All of them wiped out in one go—amazing!
Tarnus confirms overkill with glee to Command. Bravo Sergeant lies against the blown out shop wall, holding a red damp bandage against his side. They learn that his wound was hardly but a glorified scratch. Love jabs insults at him for being such a dramatist about it. Isaac asks if he replaced his Buzz dose with bitch juice.
“On me!” says Tarnus. “Move down the street and clear the area!” He disappears around the corner and Easy follows behind. Bravo and Golf dart around their corner, paralleling Easy down their side of the street. The building Blake had targeted at the end of the road lies demolished with smoke rising from within.
“Stay frosty,” says Blake. They move at a slow pace down the sidewalk, sidestepping debris and scanning the numerous buildings and outlets. The other unit mimics in a similar fashion across the street. They are on full alert, restless towards any provocation. They come closer to the blast area. Smoldering piles of rubble cover the once contested intersection.
BANG!
Everyone drops for cover, aiming weapons at imaginable targets.
“Where!” says Blake.
“No contact!” says Vick, “I, I accidentally pulled my trigger.”
“Christ sakes,” says Isaac.
Blake gives the OK signal to Tarnus and the unit across the street. “Misfire!” They all move onwards once more, laughing at the expense of Vick.
Unintelligible gurgles break the fresh silence from a collapsed building on the other side of the street. Bravo and Golf pause. Golf’s Corporal raises his hand in a fist. Everyone halts and crouches, aiming riles at the torn down wall where the noises are coming from. The Corporal tip-toes close to the building and peeks in. “Everyone check this out!”
“Private Tommy, Vick, wait here and keep alert,” says Blake. The rest of Easy hurries across the street to see the discovery.
“It’s an injured Herc,” says the Corporal. In the blown out building, lies a Herculean slumped against rubble, the creature’s cries of pain screeching the air. It tries to cover the exposed tear on its exo-suit with its pronged hands, alternating to slapping it hellishly.
“What do we do?” says Alex.
“We were told to ignore Herculean injured, and just report them to Command,” says Blake.
“Fuck that, these Herc’s shot Phillip back there,” says the Corporal, “let’s pop it and move on.”
“It looks gone to me,” says Tarnus in agreement, a grin forming on his lips. The Herculean’s torso wound is fried and gored, and its blood stained rags lie to the side where the exo-suit had undone itself.
“Grab its weapon and try it out on him,” says someone from Bravo. One of the men steps into the building, and picks up the elegant alien weapon from the rubble. It is smooth borne and some parts appear chrome.
“It’s got a trigger like ours, and really light guys,” reports the marine. He lifts it up for everyone to view, and poses with the weapon like a war hero poster boy. The marines laugh in response. Next, he aims it at the Herculean, where the dying creature raises its arms in protest.
“Wait,” says Julian. Love looks at him in surprise. He continues, “It has no armor like the others. Isn’t that kind of weird?”
“You’re right,” says Tarnus pointing at a dead Herculean nearby. The other one is fully cloaked in heavy looking armor, while the injured one only has its exo-suit. “But I don’t know what difference that makes here. It’s probably a less important one, like an equipment carrier maybe.”
“So are we going to finish it off or not?” says the marine impatiently with the alien weapon.
“Yeah, see what its own shit does against its self,” says Tarnus. The marine looks at the Herculean with bloodlust pulling the trigger—the weapon explodes in his grasp. He falls backwards with both of his hands blown off up to the forearms. The rest of Love is hit by shrapnel, and they hit the dirt.
“What the fuck!” says Golf Corporeal.
“Christ, get him out of there!” says Tarnus. Some marines grab the injured man under his armpits and lift him to the street. His forearm bones protrude where the flesh has been burnt back a few inches towards the elbows.
“We need an evac!” says Blake.
Tarnus turns to his radio, “Requesting medevac on my location! Smoke is up, green. Man in chronic state, repeat, needs immediate dustoff!”
“Copy, medevac on the move, Command out,” says the radio. Tarnus turns to Golf Corporal to drop smoke, and a green canister is tossed into the street.
The injured man lies against the wall, pale as winter. Marines cover his stumps in gauze and they inject him with a syringe gun of morphine. They’re all restless. In their Buzz rage they just want something to fight—like those deceiving Herculeans that booby-trap their weapons instead of accepting defeat.
“We killed them all!” says Tommy. “They shouldn’t have been able to get back at us!” He slumps against the sidewalk. Alex joins him and pulls out a handful of jerky, sharing it with him.
One of the marines walks into the building raising his rifle to the hip, and switches to full auto ripping apart the squealing Herculean. He loads another magazine and starts up again. “Hold fire!” says Blake. The man shoots away. “Get your unit under control!” says Blake to Golf Corporal.
Instead, Tarnus walks in grabbing his rifle, and fires the last of the rounds into the Herculean himself. He hands the exhausted rifle back to the marine, talking through the rising exhaust wisp of the barrel. “Shut the fuck up with this noise and watch the streets! We’ll get revenge later.”
“What do we do?” says Julian anxiously, more marines gather around their injured brother.
“Just wait for the evac,” says Blake sitting down on the sidewalk curve, his head in his hands.
The green smoke fills the street.
Soon a Pave helicopter hums overhead; making a circular swoop that clears the smoke and then hovers above the street. Two nylon ropes roll off the sides of the Pave, and there is a whine as two Pararescue commandos zip down the ropes with buckled harnesses.
“What’s his condition?” says one of the commandos, while releasing his buckles to receive the injured marine. He grabs the causality and secures him with the harness against the other commando’s chest.
“Fucking Herc trap of some sort,” says Tarnus “took his hands right off!”
An IV and backup forearm pad are dropped down the rope. The commandos inject the IV, and fasten the forearm pad around his bicep while connecting its cord to his chemsack. The commando holding him checks his vitals from the pad, shaking his head to the other.
One of the marines from Golf picks up the clue, “What do you mean! Is he going to make it?”
“I don’t know,” says the lead commando reattaching his harness to the second rope. “I’ll do everything I can.” He pulls on his rope and they lift away to the sky.
The Pave ascends upwards and disappears over the destroyed buildings and smoke. The marine that asked the question sits down on the sidewalk edge, shaking his arms about in front of him as if trying to shrug something off. Peter watches as others move around the man, some began to hit their vapsticks, all of them quiet and solemn. Another from Golf grabs the left behind helmet of the injured marine, and carries it over to a Herculean corpse smacking the body with it.