Outlanders Page #3

A short story I intend to build into something bigger. It details my experiences, as well as the experiences of others I served with, during our tours in Iraq.

• Science fiction

								


Buried below the surface of Mars a labyrinth of caves tied together multiple massive chambers.  Those chambers were giant fungal pods, a storage place for Death Eaters, ready to spread their spores and sprout upon disturbance.  Turns out the constant fighting and warfare was enough of a disturbance to wake them up.  The Squatters had battled the Death Eaters once, and from what Griff and the other soldiers could tell, it just didn’t go well for them.  It got bad enough that the Squatters scorched the shit out of the surface of the planet, fucked the atmosphere, and found ways to hide and go into stasis.  

Just like Earth, thought Griff, staring thoughtfully at his cards.

“Your play, Griff,” Dobner’s voice cut through the silence of the building, and blew Griff’s thoughts up like a giant bomb.  

He looked to Dobner, an athletic man a few years Griff’s senior, then back to his cards.  Griff tossed one down, his mind only half on the game.

“Where do you think they came from?” Griff asked.  He stared at his cards, then looked to the other three men at the table.

“Does it matter?  Federation says they gotta go, so they gotta go.  Plus they struck first.  F*ck ‘em,” Gamble answered.  He was a bear of a man, and his wide ass barely fit on the small stool it was perched upon.  He looked like he could have been 12, if it weren’t for the massive bulk and height of his body.  He and Griff went to boot together, and then ended up stuck on fucking Mars together.

Back to silence as a few more cards were tossed on the table.  The game continued for a few more minutes, no one saying anything, but hands tossing and picking up cards.  Even on Mars, even in the future, cards were a perfect time-killer.  

Anything to fight the fucking boredom, Griff thought.

“You think they’ll send someone to look for this one?”  Griff asked, nodding toward a thick steel door off to his left.  The building was just a large cube, with an entrance and a storage closet.  Not the best place for a squad to hole-up, but it wasn’t the worst.  The four men sat inside playing cards, while four more were positioned on guard duty.  Twelve on, twelve off.  Worst rotations ever.

“Maybe.  Who cares?  At least we figured out the comms situation.  Having that god-damn voice in your head is the worst.  I’m more worried about the Squatters than the fucking death eaters.  Those bastards figure out we got a death eater alive, they’ll come straight for us.  And they won’t be taking prisoners.”  Dobner spat towards the door containing the prisoner, “Kill em all.”

“Squatters are people, though, Sergeant.”  Griff said.  

“Not my people.  Bastards.  Barely look human any more.  You know, you seen ‘em.  Griff here survived the very first attack, ain’t it right, Griff?”  Dobner tossed his cards down and leaned back in his chair.  He had a crooked smile and a look of malice gleamed in his eye.

Before Griff could do or say anything, shouts interrupted the conversation.  The words couldn’t be understood, but they could be heard through the thick martian concrete.  Dobner immediately hopped up and reflexively grabbed his radio and rifle.  The rest of the men dropped their cards, knocking stools over as they rushed for their weapons as well.

“Sergeant.  Got a couple Squatters coming towards the building.  They don’t appear to be armed, but they aren’t halting.”  A voice on the radio said.  Benson’s voice.

Dobner screamed obscenities for a second, his rage almost instant.  

“If they get within fifty feet of the building f*ck ‘em up!” Dobner yelled into his radio.

The rest of the soldiers were gearing up, locking and loading magazines, and preparing for the worst.

“Fuckin’ told you, Griff.  They must have found out.” Dobner said, the weird smile coming back to his face.  

Griff slapped the magazine into the well on his rifle.  And he considered that this could be an attack.  Killing Death Eaters was easy.  They didn’t look human.  Hell, they barely looked sentient.  They were hideous, terrifying, and they looked like something that deserved to die.  The Squatters, though.  They were different.  They looked like humans.  Their faces were close, their bodies were similar.  For all intents and purposes they WERE people. 

It didn’t take the Squatters long to learn that humans viewed children, and even some women, as Non-Coms, or non-combatants.  Armed with that knowledge the Squatters started wiring up anything they could with explosives.  Pets, kids, women, anything that would elicit an emotional response that wasn’t rage, with explosives and send it right into Federation bases.  Everywhere soldiers went was threatening, and the hyper-vigilance could strip a person of their humanity.

A person like Dobner.  It was clear that he was slipping.  Shreds of his humanity oozing out of him like water from a fist, and Griff saw that the darkness was closing in.

“Too late, Sarge,” the words clicked through the radio, but they also arrived too late.  Dobner had pulled the door open, rifle in hand and at the ready, only to have found himself staring into the eyes of two teenage girls, both of them Squatters.

Dobner reflexively raised his rifle and screamed.  He barked orders at his men, and at the girls.  He screamed for them to get back.  They knew the girls couldn’t understand the words, but surely they could understand the context.  The soldiers were scrambling frantically.  Most of them were wearing half a suit of armor at this point, some of them were still strapping on their helmets.  Griff had knocked over the card table as he scrambled to get the rest of his gear on.

Christ.. They can’t be older than 15, he thought.

He looked at them briefly while he fastened his helmet.  They looked just like people, but they were stretched and thin.  The lighter gravity really distorted them, but Griff swore they were simply people.  He went back to fixing his armor, and securing his rifle.

Two shots barked out, Pop. Pop.  The sound echoed through the empty concrete room.  The sound of a body hitting the floor followed.  Griff looked up in time to see the flash from the muzzle, followed by a spray of blood erupting from the back of one of the girls.  As she fell Dobner’s voice screamed above the commotion and confusion.

“Little Bitch!” he screamed, shoving the other  girl with his rifle and stomping at the corpse with booted feet.  

He continued kicking at the corpse of the girl.  The corpse of a sister, a daughter, the corpse of a young woman that had so much more life to live.  Griff watched in horror as his squad leader seemed to lose control.  He held on to what humanity was left in him as he watched his sergeant crush bits of the dead girl beneath his boot.  He struggled to remind himself that no matter what, they were just protecting their home.  They were people.  From what Griff had seen, war ended two ways.  Either you die, or you live long enough to become Dobner.

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