Peter watches as Alex and Tommy heave Julian and carry his body with the leaving unit. “How is he?”
Alex mutters quickly as they pass, “Dead.”
“No, he was just talking to me.” The others solemnly break away from the firefight and begin running down the street. Herculean fire continues to zap through the smoke. Peter grabs Alex by his chest collar and stares at him, only seeing regret and anger in his eyes.
He really is dead. Those Herculeans! Peter’s body pulses with raised temperature, his muscles expanding outside of their figure. “We need to kill them! All of them!”
“Then we will all die!” says Blake. “There are too many of them, get the fuck in line and move out!”
The unit follows Blake, Peter stands idly by in the rear holding the little girl. Isaac stays back with him too. “Come on Peter, let’s get out of here, they’ll be down the avenue any minute.” He pushes Peter and he follows reluctantly. The little girl quiet in his arms.
Peter rubs the underneath of his helmet to clear the sweat. “Shit man, I almost forgot about her.”
Sorties of jets zoom over them, and they feel the ground shake with their air strike against the encountered Herculeans. Isaac grabs Peter’s shoulder as they sprint away, “Let me see the girl.”
Peter stops. “Why are you asking that?”
“I think she’s dead, bud.”
“What are you talking about?” Shock rises through Peter’s throat, chocking his breathing. He extend his arms out, the girl is limp. Her dress is tattered and bloody. A dark gore stain stands out on Peter’s chest. He turns her head to see the bold spot from the plasma fire. There is a large burnt depression in her scalp. His knees lose strength, and he falls to them holding the girl out to Isaac. He takes her and Peter collapses onto the ground.
Pull yourself together warrior.
“My head! Fuck! Fuck! Stop!” Peter slams his fist into the ground and tosses his helmet off. He tries to rip his vest off too. “Why does it hurt!”
“What the hell is going on marine!” says Blake.
“She’s gone! They must of hit her, I didn’t, but,” I forget how to speak. The world rushes pass me and I can’t take it all in. And the bullet Alex showed me, it was friendly fire. They stopped me from saving Julian!
Isaac places her down on the street. I feel water on my cheeks and the world is blurry. I try wiping away the tears, but blood mixes in with it from my gory sleeve.
It’s her blood.
It’s too much! Mucus and bile form in my mouth. I cough it out against the pavement as I crawl to the wall for support.
“Alright, get up, you’re a Marine,” says Blake kneeling beside me. “We got to be strong here. We got to keep moving.”
I spit out the fluids in my mouth, a stringy mess that sticks against my lips and chin. Blake hands me a handkerchief and I wipe my face. I look over at the dead girl. The other guys fidget around anxiously to get moving away from the Herculeans, or towards them to fight.
Can’t they see they are not themselves?
I take Blake and Isaac’s hand, and get up. My stomach is about to explode as more bile rises up my throat. Alex and Tommy lower Julian onto the ground while they wait, his head slumps to the side, blood trickling out.
He said keep her safe.
Who will tell Julian’s family? His wife and daughter. How he really died?
Who will tell my family when I die?
I feel high and calm. God, I love DT.
“Maria!” says a voice. We pause and look for the caller. A raggedy filthy local appears on the street. She runs over towards us, kneeling by the dead body of the girl. “Did she die quickly?” she says, while feeling her body about. She finds a piece of loaf bread. “Zeta! Come!” Another young kid runs out from where she came, this one looking the age of the dead girl.
Blake walks up to the teenage woman. “I am so sorry about your loss lady, you should head our direction though, it’s not safe—”
“Yes, she died quickly?” she says again.
Blake looks at me, I wait for him to make a response—does it matter anymore? “Yes,” says Blake.
The lady whispers to the young boy, “We have more food now. Here eat this.” The boy looks at the dead girl. The lady snaps his attention away. He runs off with the loaf. She turns back to us, “Have any food?”
Blake hands her an MRE, “You boil it in water—”
“I know. Been in this war longer than you, grabbed food off many dead soldiers.”
She runs off after the boy
“What about her!” says Blake.
The lady pauses, “What about it?” They disappear into the rubble of a building.
Blake stands for a moment, gazing at Julian and the dead girl left behind. He uses the handkerchief he gave me to wipe his face, then cusses while throwing it onto the ground—must have remembered it has all that shit on it from me still. He tries again with his sleeve, and turns to us, his nose and cheeks red. He leads us the other direction towards friendly lines. I follow Tommy before me who’s carrying Julian with Alex. Julian’s head leans to the side and bounces up and down with each step. His face drawn out into a long exaggerated expression. His mouth stretched open beyond natural limits like he is trying to say something extremely important.
He said to keep her safe.
War didn’t. Get used to it.
XIII
We reach a square after walking for a couple hours, dropping Julian off at an ambulance on our way here. Hundreds of carriers and other spacecraft descend through the atmosphere, red circles engulfing them, as they land near the liberated city. The center we enter is covered in injured Carthaginian soldiers and piles of dead. “This is where they were held their last stand,” says Blake, “Almost all of their army wiped out.”
“Jesus,” mutters Vick.
“Something like thirty thousand killed,” says Alex. We look back at him. “I heard officers talking about it earlier.”
“Thirty eight to be exact,” says a man sitting against a broken marble statue in the demolished center plaza. He rests in a hunched demeanor and his clothes are ripped and soaked with dirt and blood, “all in two weeks, completely annihilated. That doesn’t even include the defense forces and militias from the city itself that stayed to help. And I would bet they were all wiped out too.”
“Are you a Carthaginian soldier?” says Vance.
“Of the army sent here to defend the city? I was.”
“Was?” says Vick.
“There’s no more army of Carthage here, Private, we just explained that it was eradicated.”
“What are you doing here then, soldier?” says Blake irritated. The rest of us sit down against the chipped steps leading up to the ruined statue where the Carthaginian is. Elsewhere other troops from the Coalition began dropping their equipment to rest, and start mixing about with the injured Carthaginian remnants waiting to be relieved. Some civilians show themselves for the first time to view the United Nations Peace Keepers and ask for supplies.
The Carthaginian replies, “Waiting for the last relief helicopter to pick me up, and here it is.” A chopper hovering above comes to the ground, from it exits General Jack.
“Who sees their General twice in one day?” says Isaac.
The Carthaginian removes himself from the statue and walks towards Jack. They instantly get onto the chopper, and it lifts off as fast as it landed.
“I wonder who he was for the General to go get him his self,” says Vance. The others shrug in agreement too.
“Alright men, go ahead and relax till further orders,” says Blake.