My apologies for the incredibly long delay. College started and I had to put my story on the back burner for quite a while.
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Chapter Two:
"PRAYER!? PRAYER!? You ignorant peasants, the end of days has come and gone!!! Hell has claimed the Earth and we are all damned!!!" A European Preacher's response when asked to lead a prayer service.
"Anderson, Wake up," Sergeant Scott quietly called to the sleeping soldier.
The corporal awoke immediately, but did not move until he had assessed the situation around him. The night was largely quiet, with only the occasional cricket being heard off in the distance. A quick glance around him confirmed all was well and he began moving into a kneeling position. Stiff muscles complained at being put into motion. Another glance, this time through various displays from his implants, put him at ease. Internally though he was still wound tight. The sleep had only taken the edge off of his emotions. Guilt still roiled about in the pit of his stomach, some of it directed at how quickly he had begun to recover, but he had lost many friends and teammates in the never ending stream of battles that this new century spat out.
Anderson was the last soldier to be awoken and they all gathered around the freshly turned earth that covered the graves. Their somber mood was reflected by the world around them. The night was pitch black, with the few lonely stars in the sky being obscured by the tree tops. The cold, wet air around them created a dull ache in their bones and the unnerving silence of a country side nearly devoid of life pressed in around them.
They each spoke a few words about their fallen brother, yet none would remember what was said. They all tossed a handful of dirt over each grave, but none would remember the act. As soldiers they all knew loss, but rarely did they ever have a moment to grieve. Those moments, when tears shown on the faces of the some of the hardest men on Earth, were about more than them. About more than even the two fallen warriors that lay at their feet. All the deaths that they had known, all the loss that they had locked away in their hearts bubbled to the surface. They shared their grief amongst each other, for only the people standing there with them could hope to understand. They were brothers in arms... brothers in life... and brothers in death...
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After the burial, the soldiers took a few moments to compose themselves and they got a closer look at the animals. Decay had set in at an incredibly rapid pace, with the carcasses seeming to have spent a week out in the sun rather than a few short hours in the night time.
"Ugly looking bastards aren't they?" White spoke with a grimace.
"That's for sure, bet you the intel guys will want to study them though. What do you think Sarge?" Anderson asked.
Sergeant Scott had been sitting against a tree while his men looked at the creatures. It took him a few seconds to respond. The way his eyes stared unblinkingly with only an occasional twitch told the men that he was accessing one of the cerebral implant's functions. When he finally moved to stand he began speaking.
"Satellite communications are down," he said with a growl, the irritation clear in his voice. "Until we can contact HQ, our orders stand. Take some pictures and mark these coordinates, we might be ordered to circle back for them."
Anderson saluted and followed the sergeant's orders. He took out a small camera and snapped away. It brought a wry smile to his face that with all the abilities of the implant's, they did not have a record function. The JAFC, Joint Armed Forces Committee, had decided that the memory circuits would take up too much space and so the option was thrown out.
"All set Sir," Corporal Anderson called out to the Sergeant.
"Anderson, you have point on fire team Bravo. Keep the road in sight, there's a village a few miles from here that we've been getting reports of activity from," the sergeant told his men.
"What kind of activity are we talking about Sarge?" Private White butted in.
"Satellite imagery showed the roads clear of debris and a large number of vehicles popping up in different places."
"Damn, whoever controls the area must be pretty well organized," White muttered.
The soldiers' interest in the state of the roads and the movement of vehicles stemmed from the fact that most vehicles outside of the North American continent were inoperable. The same EMP blasts that had disabled the power grids of the world's nations had also damaged the electric systems in most vehicles. The only ones still drivable were heavily shielded military transports, or vehicles in remote areas. Coupled with a complete breakdown in fuel refinement and trade, only a powerful group could gather the parts and fuel needed to maintain them.
"Fire team Alpha on me, lets move out," The Sergeant ordered.
The two teams took to either side of the cracked road and began the trek to their target. They moved silently through desolate fields. Weeds and hardy plants had begun to overtake their weaker, bioengineered cousins. In the distance the remains of farmhouses could be seen as they crumbled away before the onslaught of time. All around the soldiers were signs of nature dissolving and reintegrating the orderly, yet sickly version of itself that mankind had created.
The chilly early morning air hung thick with fog as the squad moved through it. Their fiber optics inlaid body armor did its best mimic the swirling vapors around it making them appear as wandering specters of the dead. Only as they approached their target did the sun finally begin to melt away their white shrouds.
Once the outskirts of the village were in sight, Sergeant Scott issued new orders to the second fire team. "Anderson, we're coming up on the objective. I need your team to break south and set up an over watch position. There is a particular hill on the south side of town that should give you an unobstructed view over most of the area. Tell me what we're dealing with once you get up there."
"Yes Sir," came the Corporal's quick reply.
Anderson and his team moved to obey their new orders and circled around the small town. They continually glanced towards it hoping to catch sight of the enemy. Various bits of unidentifiable debris littered the roads. The buildings had a forlorn look to them with their crumbling facades and shattered windows. The wind blew threw the openings and created a strange keening noise as if the town cried out in grief over its departed denizens.
Eventually they finished circling around and came to the more rugged terrain on the other side of the ruins. Although there were many hills and valleys undulating across the landscape, the one they sought was easy to pick out. There were broken plasteel barriers and twisted expanses of metal, whose purpose was no longer discernable. The side of the hill nearest to them was pockmarked by explosions from some long forgotten battle. The pits they formed colored black and only the occasional weed daring to poke its head from the scarred earth. Anderson suspected the other side would luck much the same.
"Bravo 1-5 to Dagger-1 Actual, position is in sight and we are moving to secure. Break. We are reading bingo hostiles on all sensors, Over," Anderson transmitted to Sergeant Scott.
"Dagger-1 copies all, you are clear to proceed," came back the Sergeant's gruff voice.
Gesturing to his team, Anderson moved them up. They walked carefully so as not to trip any unexploded ordinance that might have been left on the hill. Private White was the first to reach the top and he let out a soft exclamation at what was on the other side. As each soldier reached him their eyes widened slightly at the sight below them. Nearly as far as the eye could see were the burnt out husks of armored vehicles. Foxholes and weapons emplacements littered the open areas between them. The worst part of the scene, however, was how the land and everything on it was burned black. Not a single splash of any other color existed to disrupt the morbid landscape laid out before them.
"There must have been one hell of a battle here," Private White spoke in amazement.
"Looks like someone used one of those Earth Scorcher bombs," Anderson responded.
The Earth Scorcher weapon system had been an experimental missile being developed by some of the European powers before the war. The Asian Superpowers and America had abandoned the project due to its unpredictable nature. The Europeans had continued on it as an answer to the larger nuclear arsenals of China, India, and the United States. The Earth Scorcher essentially did what its named suggested, it created an intense burst of heat that would burn through most objects, including several feet of dirt. The size and power of the explosion could never be certain though, due to the weapon's reliance on environmental factors. In theory, an Earth Scorcher could destroy an area the size Rhode Island and that is what made it so popular amongst smaller powers. Typically though, damage a midsize missile could do was about the size of a small city, as the field in front of the soldiers bore testament.
"Right, well that's enough staring at the scenery, we need to set up our positions and cover Alpha Team," Anderson ordered his men.
