First Strike

With a loud thud, the escape pod struck the ground. The parachutes automatically let go of the craft to prevent it from being dragged across the ground in a high wind. Inside, the lights switched from red to white.

  Cole was the first to move. He undid his safety harness and moved over to a panel on the wall beside the closed door. He studied it for a second and then announced, “It’s a little cool outside, but it’s okay. We didn’t land near anything toxic.” With that, he pressed a button and opened the door.

  A cold wind whipped inside.

  “Everyone out,” ordered Cole.

  When the last man stepped out of the pod, Cole looked over at Sheridan, who was looking around, trying to get his bearings. With dark clouds covering the sky, it was impossible to determine which way he was looking.

  They had come down beside a lake in a heavily wooded area. For as far as they could see, tall pine trees extended to the horizon.

  “Sir, check your GPS,” suggested Agnar.

  “Private Agnar, my GPS, like yours, is useless,” replied Sheridan. “The first thing the Kurgans did was disable all of the satellites above the planet. Our comms gear will be equally useless. Until we make it to the capital, we’re well and truly on our own.”

  “Sir, my first name is Agnar,” pointed out the blonde-haired Marine. “My last name is Freyenlund.”

  “Like the officer said, Private Agnar, nothing is gonna work,” said Cole. “It’s old school from here on out; navigation will be via the stars and the sun. You’d better hope that we get it right and aren’t walking away from the capital instead of toward it.”

  “Where’s the rest of the crew?” asked the crewman, shivering in the cool breeze.

  “I don’t know,” replied Sheridan honestly. “In these woods, they could be ten meters away and we’d never know it.”

  “What’s your name?” Cole asked the man.

  “Crewman Hailu Shawul,” answered the man. He was slender with East African features.

  “Okay, Crewman Shawul, there’s a spare rifle in the pod; it’s yours from now on.”

  Shawul unenthusiastically nodded.

  “Sir, what are your orders?” Cole asked Sheridan.

  “We can’t stay here. No one in the capital will know what happened to the Churchill. However, it’ll be dark soon, so I say we establish a camp here for the night and then hope that we can get our bearings in the morning. I don’t relish the idea of being out here any longer than we have to.”

  “Why’s that, sir?” asked Garcia.

  “This planet is a lot like Earth. The indigenous species are quite similar to the ones back home with one small difference.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They’re huge. The bears here are over ten meters in length with four, not two, arms. There’s a breed of giant saber-toothed cats in these parts that have been known to track people for days before killing them. Also, the spiders here grow as large as a dog back home. So I wouldn’t wander too far from the camp tonight.”

  Agnar clenched his rifle in his hands and peered into the impenetrable forest. “I don’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.”

  Cole looked at Agnar. “Turn off the pod’s homing beacon. We don’t want the enemy to use it to find us.”

  A half hour later, with a fire going, Cole sat down beside Sheridan and handed him a ration pack.

  “Thanks,” said Sheridan as he checked out his meal. It was beef stew, not his favorite, but in their situation, something was better than nothing.

  “Sir, we’ve got plenty of food and water. Each one of us has a rifle, and Garcia has her med kit with her, so we’re okay in that regard. If we don’t bump into any Kurgan patrols between here and the capital, we should be able to get there in one piece.”

  “What about Tartov?”

  “I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. I’ve teamed him up with Agnar. I did the same for Garcia and Shawul. It’s not that I don’t trust the crewman, it’s just that he’s not a soldier.”

  “I think you’re right not to trust Tartov,” said Sheridan as he dug a spoon into his ration pack. “Sergeant, do you think it will be clear tonight?”

  Cole looked up. “It’s hard to tell. It might snow on us, knowing our luck.”

  “God, I hope not. We don’t have any winter clothing on us. Dying of hypothermia in the middle of nowhere is not how I figured I’d die.”

  Cole grinned. “Well then, sir, you’d better get us to shelter before we die out here.”

  “Marvelous,” said Sheridan under his breath.

  A hand shook Sheridan. Instantly awake, he reached for his rifle and looked up. Cole was standing above him.

  “Sir, you need to see this,” said Cole.

  Sheridan checked his watch. It was just after three in the morning. He took a deep breath to clear the cobwebs from his mind as he pulled his thermal blanket off his body and stood up.

  “What’s up, Sergeant?”

  “That,” replied Cole pointing up at the night sky. Sheridan looked up as hundreds of lights streaked across the heavens and then began to descend behind a tall mountain in the distance.

  “I guess we just figured out where the capital is,” offered Sheridan as he watched the first wave of Kurgan forces drop from the sky.

  “You know what this means, don’t you, sir?”

  “I sure do, Sergeant. We are now behind enemy lines and our only hope of salvation leads directly through who knows how many tens of thousands of enemy soldiers.”

  The next morning snow began to fall from the sky, quickly blanketing everything.

  After briefing the four other members of the group about the Kurgan invasion forces, Sheridan asked Cole to divvy up the food, ammunition, and survival gear. He was not surprised to learn that Cole had already split up their supplies. Agnar, because of his size, ended up carrying more than his fair share of equipment.

  Sheridan picked a point on the mountain range in the far distance and used that as his bearing. With him in the lead, they left behind what they could not carry and left a message in case any of the Churchill’s survivors stumbled across their escape pod. The two Marines with the naval ratings followed close behind while Cole brought up the rear.

  The lack of warm clothing wasn’t a problem while they were walking. As soon as they stopped, the cold seeped into their clothes, making all but Agnar shiver. The weather seemed to be having absolutely no effect at all on the tall Dane. After a short pause for lunch, they pushed on through the day. An hour before last light, Cole suggested that they stop and set up camp. Sheridan picked a spot that was covered by a rocky outcropping. It wasn’t much, but as he pointed out they would at least be dry.

  As soon as they stopped, Cole put the survivors to work. Shawul was placed in charge of cooking the rations. Garcia built a fire and melted some snow to replace the water they had drunk during the day. Tartov and Cole set up a small collapsible shelter while Agnar stood sentry.

  A short while later, the food was handed around. Sheridan didn’t even bother to see what he had been given; he hungrily ate his meal while he recorded the day’s events in a journal.

  “A little premature to be writing your memoirs, wouldn’t you say, sir?” said Cole, taking a seat beside Sheridan.

  Sheridan smiled. “Without a map or functional GPS, we’re going to have to record the details as we go along and hope that it’s of some use to the intelligence section when we finally reach the capital. How far do you think we walked today?”

  “No more than fifteen kilometers. The woods are thicker than any I have ever seen back home. The longer we go on, the slower Tartov and Shawul will become. They’re not used to hiking for hours over broken terrain.”

  Sheridan looked over at Tartov. The man was asleep, sitting up. His food lay uneaten on the ground beside him.

  “Someone wake up Tartov,” ordered Cole. “He can sleep after he’s eaten all of his food.”

  Garcia reached over and gave Tartov a shove. Startled awake, he look
ed around, wondering what had just happened to him.

  “How do you plan to divide up the sentry roster?” Sheridan asked Cole.

  “Two-hour shifts should work. Tartov and Shawul can take the first ones. I’ll stay up with them to keep an eye on things. After that, it’s over to you, Garcia and Agnar. I’ll take the last shift. I like to be up before everyone else in the morning.”

  “Fair enough. Sergeant, I think at the pace we’re going that it’s going to take us five days to reach the mountains. If there isn’t an obvious way around, I’m afraid that we’re going to have to go up and over them. After that, your guess is as good as mine as to how much further it will be to the capital.”

  “We should be okay. We have enough rations to last for about ten days. Once they’re gone, we can live off the land.”

  “Do you think we should start to conserve the rations so we can make them last longer?”

  Cole shook his head. “Not for the first few days. As we get closer to the mountains, we can revisit this issue. Until then, I think our bodies need all of the nutrients we can give them.”

  “Sergeant, I’ve been thinking about what Tartov told us back on the Churchill. Since Kurgans can’t pass for human beings, we have to face that fact that there could be a fifth column inside the fleet working for the enemy. Why, I have no idea, but the thought is a chilling one, humans and Kurgans working together.”

  Cole looked over at Tartov as he dejectedly shoveled his food in his mouth. “I still don’t trust the man. However, he’s the one person alive who has at least seen what the Kurgans or whoever were doing on board the California. If you’re right about traitors working with the Kurgans, and I believe that you are, Tartov just became indispensable.”

  For three days, their routine never changed. Roused from their sleep just before first light, the survivors would eat breakfast, pack up their camp, and begin the long march to the snow-capped mountains.

  It didn’t take long for Shawul to fall sick. Coughing loudly, his pace slowed. Instead of making fifteen kilometers, they were lucky to make ten. Garcia saw to him and gave him what she could, but with the temperature dropping and more snow on the horizon, Sheridan knew that he was going to get much sicker before too long.

  “Sir, he’s got a mild case of hypothermia,” reported Garcia to Sheridan.

  “He’s all skin and bones,” observed Cole. “There’s no meat on the man.”

  “Do you have anything in your med kit to help him?” asked Sheridan.

  Garcia shook her head. “He needs fluids, heat, and rest. Lots of rest to counteract the symptoms.”

  “We can rehydrate him and warm him up, but time is not on our side,” said Sheridan. “We need to keep moving.”

  Cole suggested, “Sir, perhaps a late start tomorrow might help things. We could kick off again at noon. The extra time should give Shawul the rest he needs.”

  Sheridan nodded.

  Garcia left to look after her patient.

  Sheridan turned and looked into Cole’s eyes. “Sergeant, what if this doesn’t help and he continues to fall behind? I can’t jeopardize the rest of the group for one man.”

  “Sir, if it comes to that you’ll be forced to make a decision whether to leave him behind or not.”

  For the first time in days, Sheridan felt the weight of his responsibilities pressing down on him. “I guess I’ll make that decision when the time comes.”

  “He might surprise us yet and make a full recovery.”

  The next day, Agnar walked back into the camp, his face ashen as if he had just seen a ghost.

  Cole saw the look and walked over to the big Marine. “What’s that look for, Agnar?”

  Agnar tried to speak but found that his mouth had turned dry from fear. A second or two later, he found his voice. “Sergeant, I think one of Mister Sheridan’s bears has been checking out the camp.”

  “Show me!”

  Agnar led Cole to a game path that ran past their shelter. Massive bear tracks filled the trail. Cole wasn’t an accomplished tracker, but he could tell that the bear had walked back and forth several times during the night. He knelt down and placed his hand alongside one of the tracks. It dwarfed his hand.

  Agnar was right; they were being stalked.

  Cole looked out into the forest. He couldn’t see more than a few meters through the thick, dark woods. A feeling of primal dread ran down his spine. The bear could be watching him and he’d never know it until it was too late. He stood, checked that he had a high-explosive grenade loaded into his grenade launcher, and then followed Agnar back to their camp.

  When noon arrived, Sheridan ordered their shelter to be struck and everything made ready to leave regardless of how Shawul was feeling. Although he had rested an extra six hours and had drunk plenty of warm liquids, Shawul was no better. To help him keep up with the remainder of the group, Garcia and Agnar had taken all of the sick man’s equipment and carried it on their backs. Struggling through the knee-deep snow, everyone soon became tired. Agnar took point and bashed a path through the forest for everyone else to follow.

  Sheridan’s throat was parched. He couldn’t believe how thirsty he became in the cold. He reached down for his water bottle and saw that it was nearly all gone. Without realizing it, he had been chugging water all afternoon. He called out for Agnar to stop where he was while everyone else caught up with him. Sheridan undid his shirt to let out the trapped hot air. Steam rose from his chest. He was about to ask Shawul how he was doing when all hell broke loose.

  With a monstrous bellowing cry, the bear that had been stalking them charged straight out of the forest. In seconds, it was less than a couple of meters away and closing fast.

  Sheridan tried to bring up his weapon to fire but was too slow.

  With a horrified scream on his lips, Shawul was struck by one of the bear’s four arms. His bloodied and mangled body flew up into the air, landing in a heap beside a snow-covered tree.

  Tartov panicked and blindly ran backward, colliding with Cole and knocking him off his feet.

  Garcia spun about and tried to raise her rifle to fire, but was hit in the side by the bear as it charged by. Tumbling to the ground, Garcia blacked out.

  It had taken mere seconds for the bear to strike. With a loud growl from deep inside its chest, the animal’s powerful jaws clamped down on Shawul’s neck. With a loud snap of cracking bones, the bear shook its victim from side to side, killing him. It had what it wanted and ignored the others. The bear slowly turned around and dragged Shawul’s body into the forest, leaving behind a crimson streak of blood on the snow.

  “Fuck,” mumbled Sheridan as he watched the bear and Shawul vanish from sight.

  Agnar ran past Sheridan and fired off two quick bursts of automatic gunfire into the woods, trying to hit the beast.

  “Is everyone alright?” asked Cole as he pushed a terrified Tartov out of the way.

  “Shawul is gone,” answered Agnar, still staring wide-eyed into the darkened woods.

  “Where’s Garcia?” asked Sheridan when he couldn’t see her.

  A second later, she sat up covered in snow. “Here, sir,” she replied, rubbing her aching neck.

  “We have to help Shawul,” said Agnar.

  “He’s dead,” said Cole.

  “We’re Marines God damn it!” shouted Agnar. “We don’t ever leave a man behind.”

  Sheridan shook his head. “Agnar, there’s nothing we can do. Staff Sergeant Cole is right. Shawul is dead. If we go into the woods looking for his body, there’s a good chance one or more of us will also end up dead. You saw what it could do. We have to keep moving.”

  Agnar shook his head, dropped to his knees, and then looked over at Garcia for support.

  Garcia stood up, brushed the snow off her uniform and walked over beside Agnar. “It’s okay, big fella, there’s nothing we can do for the man. Come on, Marine, we have a job to do. Now up on your feet.”

  With a nod, Agnar got up and resumed his post.
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  Cole walked over to Sheridan. In a hushed voice, he said, “That friggin bear will be back. Once an animal has a taste for human flesh, it’ll keep coming after us.”

  “I know. What do you suggest?”

  “I bet we’ve got a day or two before it comes looking for its next meal. We’ll have to make some improvised explosive devices and ring them around the camp at night and hope that we get a shot off next time, or we’re all doomed.”

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