"GET DOWN!!!"
I yelled at the top of my lungs and then ducked my head into my chest, closed my eyes, and prayed to God.
I felt the whole earth shake and toss me before I heard the explosion. I didn't panic. Hell, I was fucking used to this by now. The artillery rained down on me for the third time today, and I knew if I was still alive after five minutes, I would be OK. That was as long as they shelled our position every time. But five minutes was a long time under this type of bombardment.
The ground felt like it would give away, fall apart and swallow me whole. The artillery deafened me. I felt my skull rattle in my brain. I didn't even look at my watch. I couldn't tear my hands off my weapon. My fingers were gripped to the rifle. Dust and dirt screamed around me, making it hard to breathe. I couldn't even hear my men. If they were hurt or worse, I'd have to wait until after the shelling to get to them. You didn't dare move out of your trench during the hell coming down on you.
Five minutes of shelling. On and on it went... and then forever ended. The last shell fell, and the ground stopped shaking. I could hear myself breathing into my armour, the modular chest plates rising and falling with my lungs. The battle suit, a powered exoskeleton that gave me added mobility, strength and protection and was standard gear as an infantryman, was boiling hot inside thanks to all the plates, mechanical parts, the uniform and the humidity in the jungle.
"Fuck," I groaned as I leaned forward in the trench. My head was still shaking. I adjusted my helmet, checked the chin strap, and then looked to my left and right. My squad was all there, most still braced and ducked down, a couple slowly starting to get up. No one looked injured or hurt, just shaken up.
"Sound off!" I yelled.
"Walker!"
"Kirkland!"
"Lee!"
My squad consisted of nineteen men and me at this point. It wasn't even my squad until a month ago. Our former sergeant had taken a hit in the shoulder, a chunk the size of an apple blown out of his upper arm. He was back at the forward hospital with others injured over this whole period of action. We had yet to be relieved. Four weeks on the frontlines in the deadliest engagements yet. The war carried on.
My squad stopped sounding off, and I nodded. Everyone was OK. No one was missing.
"Inventory check." I gave the order. "Wilson, get on comms. See if it's finally time."
"Yes, Sarge!"
They'd been promising that we would take the fight back at the enemy for the last week. Instead, we'd been sitting here, repelling advances and trying not to get blown up. Our air coverage was gone. The enemy was advancing and pushing on all fronts, but we held. We'd given no quarter.
Nine months. Nine months of fighting. I'd only received one month of training before I'd been thrown into the mix, a gun in my hand and an exoskeleton on my back and was fighting for the very survival of Australasia. All available men that could fight were doing their part. Our enemies outnumbered us three to one.
But we were holding our own.
Wilson began calling command as I leaned back against the dirt of the trench, looking up at the clear blue sky. The sweat poured down my back in the intense heat. The jungle was quiet; the animals had long since left.
The enemy wanted our resources. Our technology.
Our women.
We were the only country that had a birthrate that wasn't declining, thanks to our free-use policies. No other country had employed our drastic measures, and so they were failing and falling apart. They had riots, dictatorships, genocides. We had none of that.
Our people were happier and more fulfilled. Free Use worked.
This was the last-ditch effort from dying countries, allied together, to take what was ours, what we had accomplished. And they weren't going to win. Not if I had anything to say about it.
"Command says hold." Wilson turned to me. His radio backpack was a huge, tall attachment to the power pack on the back of his suit. "Further orders coming soon. The 54th Air Wing is scheduled and is awaiting orders. Reckon they took out the AA if they are calling them in?"
"Fuck they better have." Anti-air had prevented any air support for weeks. Without it, no side could push. "Sit tight, lads! Maybe we'll finally get out of this shit hole."
"What? But I love it here." Richards chuckled. We had been together since boot camp.
"Maybe we'll get relieved and pulled off the front lines?" James, a newer private, piped up.
"Shut the fuck up kid." Richards laughed at him. "We're the baddest mother fuckers in the jungle. We ain't being pulled back."
"All this is for free use, and I haven't had a woman to free use in months." Lee groaned.