Cold War 2395, page 25
Right on schedule, just as I’ve relaxed my body in anticipation of the hardest confrontation of my life, the elevator slides into place inside the metal shaft on the opposite end of the room.
Three minutes.
The doors slowly part, revealing the outline of my captain’s battle-tarnished armor, its appearance every bit as worn down as my own. The man inside the suit walks toward me, displaying no signs of overt hostility. Yet.
“Stellar move back there,” he says. “Really, Lieutenant. You’ve done our country a great service today.”
He keeps inching closer.
“Thank you, Captain,” I respond, my tone guarded. The man could nail me to a cross right now if he wanted to. Hell, who’s to say that’s not coming up.
“Now step aside.”
I don’t move.
“That’s an order, Lieutenant.”
“I know, Captain.”
“Move,” he yells, his already intimidating voice amplified by his helmet’s speech modifier as he gets within arm’s reach of me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gourd slowly creep out from his hiding spot, beginning his silent approach toward Grimm. It’s a good move on his part, since we’re on the clock and it’s clear that time is running out . . . for me.
“I’m not with the enemy; that’s not why I’m doing what I’m doing.”
“I don’t care.” He thrusts his arms forward to shove me out of the way.
“You’re not stopping that wipe, Captain.”
I move to counter his attack, but just as the ain in captain leaves my lips, Grimm locks me in a position where I’m crushed beside the control panel, unable to move a muscle. His left hand traps my neck against the monitor’s edge as his right tries to turn my head into mush. The only thing that stops his punch from landing is my best friend. Captain’s reflexes are too good for either of us individually, but maybe not for both of us together.
Gourd tries to get his arms underneath Captain’s shoulders to lock him up, but my ally’s strike isn’t swift enough. Grimm spirals around and backhands him with what sounds like just one notch less than the ACA’s full force, though that’s still easily enough power to knock some teeth out. His retaliation against the sneak attack opens him up for me. While Grimm’s back is turned, I go for a headlock, reaching my remaining exoskeleton-powered arm right around his neck. From there, I kick my suit’s saw blade on so it starts slicing against his helmet’s chin guard with enough force to create some sparks and blind him, the momentary distraction I need to get my other arm around the armor and yank the thing off his head entirely. I rip upward with all the force my biceps can muster, snapping the neck brace’s lock in half and sending the helmet flying off.
That evens the playing field a little, though not enough to stop Grimm from landing an elbow jab right in my gut. The hit locks me up for the fraction of a second he needs to swing around and go for a punch that’ll take my head off, one that I dodge by the length of the stubble on my upper lip. As he recovers from the swing, I rocket-boost my right knee into his contorted chest. My attack sends him into the ceiling, his hefty frame and exposed head slamming into it with knockout-level force before he collapses onto the ground.
Looking at his unmoving body, I’d say I’ve bought myself enough time for a peek over my shoulder.
Two minutes.
I swear, if Grimm will just stay down, the day’s ugliness can finally end—
No time for finishing that thought. He kicks his boots to life and rockets toward my shins, knocking me off my feet and onto the floor behind him. I can’t even roll over before Grimm has my right leg in a lock, my boot’s thruster held above his head so he can dodge my attempts at melting his face off.
Using the combined force of his exoskeleton’s arms, he prepares to put me out of the game. With one hand underneath my thigh and the other squeezing my shin, he forces my right leg backward, pushing it into the air until—SNAP—it’s perfectly straight at a ninety-degree angle against my flat-on-the-ground chest. My thigh muscle splits in half. Connective tissue pulls from the bone inside my whining suit’s sparking, battered shell. I let out an animalistic scream.
The only thing that stops Grimm from ripping the entire limb off is my other leg’s rocket kicking to life just in time for me to spin out of his grip and blast across the floor. I clear the area, and Gourd’s massive fist fills the void where my almost-detached leg just was, landing a blow right across our enemy’s face. He slams the captain’s mug with perfect knuckle-to-nose contact, smashing Grimm through a deactivated monitor and onto the floor with a thud. But as I just found out the hard way, even repeated head trauma won’t do the guy in.
Gourd’s one step ahead of me. Just as Grimm weakly tilts his head back up, my ally drags him out from underneath the shattered monitor and delivers another punch. And another. And another. I know the captain’s out cold for sure by now, but that doesn’t stop Gourd. With each smash, the lieutenant’s knuckles, then arms, then face become more splattered with blood, the red juice doing little to mask my friend’s fury.
It’s only when I hear the crunch of a skull shattering that Gourd’s animalistic rage subsides and I know it’s over. Unwilling to even have the man’s body in our vicinity, Gourd slides him across the room like an oversized curling stone into the corner with the Russians. At least the pile of bodies is consistent—no one in it knew where to draw the line.
Now that the captain’s out of commission, Gourd rushes over to help me, which we quickly realize means simply propping me up against the countdown monitor like a bulky rag doll, since my right leg’s not going to be lending me support anytime soon. Sitting against the monitor, still panting and recovering from the pain of Gourd readjusting my position, I manage to eke out a question.
“How much . . . time?” I ask, barely able to resist the blackness edging into the corners of my vision.
“One minute.”
He slumps down beside me. His cheek, in the whole sixty seconds or so it’s had to flare up since he got smacked, is puffy as hell. No doubt a few teeth are missing, too. Blood trickles down his forehead where he slammed into the ground and reopened his wound from earlier, and the miscellaneous bruises all over his body from the past few days’ worth of suffering haven’t added up nicely. If it weren’t for my own condition, I’d say I’ve never seen someone who’s still breathing look worse.
Neither of us manages a word as we sit next to each other, waiting out the last sixty seconds of our mission. My heavy breaths and constant gasps of pain alternate with Gourd’s grunts, the only bouts of silence between us being those brief few seconds when I’m close to passing out and have to force myself to stay conscious.
Our quietness persists even as the ominous glow emanating from the front of the station disappears and the dark matter’s shadow fades from view, replaced by faint rays of artificial light coming from farther down the colony. In the distance, enemy fighters fall from the sky, their silver jet streams dissolving into thin air as their fuel writes itself out of existence. The robots in the streets below us cease activity as well, becoming lifeless scrap.
The deletion protocol has done its duty to ensure all traces of the station’s greatest experiment are scrubbed from reality in an instant, with every drop of concentrated dark matter heeding the call of the remote dissolution order beckoned by the Spire.
No words need be exchanged. We’ve received the only indications we need to know the wipe has finished.
Even if Gourd and I have only postponed the inevitable, I’m confident it was worth it. That’s the last thought I have in me as my body starts to shut down, but Gourd keeps me awake just a smidgen longer.
“You know . . . you know they’ll be coming for us up here,” he says.
“You’re right . . . and they’ll get us. But . . . but it’s okay, ’cause . . .” I sputter, unable to finish my thought as the world goes black. One last time, my best friend has me covered.
“. . . I’m with you ’til the bitter end.”
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About the Author
Robert Carnevale lives in New York due to his unflinching, patriotic love of high taxes. He is an author, not a Cosmo Marine, and as such, has taken artistic liberties with depictions of the latter’s activities. He thanks you for going on this journey with him and hopes this story has encouraged some thought regarding the nature of war, loyalty, and propaganda. To learn more about Robert and his literary endeavors, including upcoming science fiction novels, visit www.rcarnevale.com.
Robert Carnevale, Cold War 2395
