Battle Earth: 12 (12 page)

"Okay. Then we hit these targets and that's it. When do we go?"

"Forty-eight hours," replied White.

Taylor looked unimpressed.

"Why wait?"

"Come on, Colonel, you need some time to rest, as does everyone else. Equipment needs repairs and maintenance. New crews must have additional training time to get acquainted with crewmembers and equipment. We simply all need time."

He looked back to the fight arena still displayed.

"It's the one thing we don't have a lot of, General."

"That's where you're wrong. We've got a solid base here. We do have the time. What we don't have are the manpower and resources to throw away. Most of all, we need men and equipment on the top of the line. You think you are going to kill Erdogan?"

"Damn right," he snapped.

"Yeah, well how do you think you'd fare against him if you left in a few hours’ time and met him on this mission? How do you think that would pan out?"

Taylor was silenced.

"We need you at your best, Colonel. We need everyone at their best. Forty-eight hours. We'll meet at 0900 hours to discuss operational details. Until then, get some R&R. You deserve it."

He left and strode out with Jafar and Morris close at his side.

"You are going to accept this?"

Taylor looked at Jafar in surprise.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you always do what you want."

Taylor laughed, an experience that had been all too infrequent lately.

"I don't like what we have to do, leaving those people there, but it doesn't change the fact that you are right, and so is Irala. We must look at the bigger picture."

"And you're okay with that?" Morris asked.

"Not really, but we can't always have what we want. Let's get the mission done right, and we'll be a step closer to getting them back."

They continued on to a covered staging ground where they found their Regiment all sitting about casually, cleaning their weapons and doing other maintenance. King sat at the head of them with his rifle half stripped on the table and his body armour in a heap on the ground nearby.

Not one of them moved when they saw Taylor approaching. They were all too intimately familiar with each other now that none of them cared for formality. Taylor knew they'd do anything he asked, and they knew he'd do anything for them.

"We got a job?" King asked.

"You make it sound like we're gonna hit a bank," Morris grinned.

"Bank? What the hell would we do with money?"

Morris shrugged, realising it was a fair point.

"Listen up!" Taylor called out to everyone.

No one got up, but they all turned their attention to the Colonel.

"Well done on that last mission. I know it didn't really go to plan, but you kept it together, and we got back home. Or what is home right now. We have been given a forty-eight hour respite. I will hold an operational briefing at 1200 hours tomorrow. Sergeant Major, I'd like you to oversee recruit training, and see if you can find a few replacements that meet our standards and can be brought in. The rest of you, aside from tomorrow’s briefing, your time is your own!"

Cheers rang out around the shelter.

"Easy to please this lot," King said.

"They earned it, and it's easy to forget what good a little time off can do."

"Yeah. Not sure you'd know, Sir."

Taylor was stunned by the Captain’s tone, but before he could get a word in, King continued.

"Join us. You haven't taken time out since Parker died. I know it sucks, believe me, I know," he said, holding up his hand that showed his wedding ring.

He'd never spoken of his wife, and Taylor had never thought to ask. He felt ashamed for not having ever inquired. He sat down before the Captain, and Jafar and Morris flanked them.

"You're right, and I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For your loss."

"Yeah, well shit happens to all of us. But she'll never be gone. Parker. She'll always be up here if you want her to be," he said, pointing to his head.

"I'd like to think so," replied Taylor, "So your wife, what happened?"

King took a deep breath. It was obviously a difficult subject for him.

"Killed in the first war. You know we were in Rome when the first invasion came, on vacation. By the time we knew what was going on and tried to make it back home, it was chaos. After a few days, I managed to get a ride on a civilian transport heading for South America. Cargo of expensive cars aboard and heading for some billionaire in Brazil, can you believe it? Pilot said the guy wanted to get them out before the war really got going, as if it was never going to reach him that side of the water."

"Not so crazy when you think about it. When has a war ever consumed the world quite like this?"

King shrugged, and they all listened intently as he continued to tell the story.

"I put a gun to that pilot’s head and told him to dump the cars on the strip. Loaded up almost a hundred Americans who were trying to get back home like us, me and my wife. Lots of them had come from the embassy there. We got out of there before any of the fighting reached the country, and we thought we'd made it."

He paused for a moment as he had visions of it flooding back into his mind, and he came close to tears.

"We were over the Atlantic and on the home run when we were hit. First impact took out two of the engines. Second blew a hole right through the fuselage. We lost a few dozen through that breach before we lost enough altitude. Some friendlies engaged whatever attacked us, and we never saw either again. We thought even then that we might make it. But the power to the remaining engines soon failed and flight controls were fucked."

He reached for a canteen of water and sipped from it as they all hung on to his every word.

"Pilot put us down best he could, but we pretty much dropped out of the sky. Flotation pods kept the wreck up for about fifteen minutes, but she was a goner. The crash killed the pilot and maybe another thirty or so aboard. Eighteen of us made it on the rafts. Distress signal was put out, and we just had to wait, couple of hundred miles off the coast at least. It was then I realised the clamminess of my hands as I held her - Catherine, my wife. Blood, pouring out quicker than I could stop. A piece of debris had punctured her back and gone right through. All the training in the world, but there was nothing I could do to safe her. Couple of minutes was all we had left together."

"You can't blame yourself for that," said Morris.

"Believe me, I don't," he replied confidently, “I know exactly who was to blame for it, just as you all do. But we can't go on living in a perpetual state of misery. I'm gonna get revenge for Catherine's death. I've had a fair share of it already, and I'm gonna go on living as she'd want me to do as well. So believe me, when I say I know how you feel, and I know how to deal with it."

Taylor nodded in agreement, and he felt humbled.

"So will you take some time to relax with us, and enjoy the time we have?"

He knew he couldn't refuse, no matter how he felt.

"You have any children, you and your wife?" he asked.

"We had a son. Signed up to be a Ranger on his eighteenth birthday. That was two years before the invasion. After the war started, I only ever saw him twice more. He died defending New York."

"Hard fighting there," Taylor said quietly.

"Hard fighting all over. If it weren't, we wouldn't be out here. We've all lost a lot. Not one of us here who hasn't lost a loved one. Plenty of us have lost everyone we share blood with. Ain't nothing we can do but pick up a rifle and go forward. Keep living, keep fighting."

"Do you think we can win?" Morris asked him.

"Of course we can. If we don't think we can, then we have no hope."

"It's one thing to know you have to believe in winning to achieve it, another thing entirely to believe in what you preach."

"I don't believe it is," said Taylor, "You either believe it or you don't."

"So we're gonna win?"

"I can't tell you when or how, but yes, we're gonna win," said King confidently.

"And say we do. What will we do when this is over? What will any of us do?"

Nobody answered Morris’ question. It was hard to imagine a world without war now.

"I'm just not sure what any of us have got to go home to. I have no idea if anyone I knew back home is still alive, not even my ex-wife, who I'd actually be happy to see now. What have any of us got?" asked Morris, "No family, no home, nothing. Not for any of us."

"We have our lives," said King, "It's the only thing that hasn't been taken from us yet."

"And we have Earth, the home that we can take back," Taylor said.

"But will it be the Earth you knew? The Earth you fought to defend? Or will it be a barren wasteland?"

"What do you mean?" King asked.

"Say we can beat Erdogan, you think he's gonna leave our world as he found it? And what about his armies? We can never go back to the way it was."

"We never can. We can never go back to yesterday, last week or last year, no matter how good or bad it was. Times change, people change, life goes on," Taylor said.

Taylor finally relaxed properly for the first time in weeks, and he knew he had Captain King to thank for that. He rested back in his chair and sighed in relief, feeling everything was going to be okay, but his mind soon wandered back to the mission they were due to undertake. He looked to Jafar. He sat motionless across the table from him as if waiting for something interesting to occur.

"Tell me more about these arenas."

"You are no stranger to the arena," replied Jafar.

"No, but I've never seen a Krys one before."

"It is the same, just more violent."

"So they fight to the death?"

"Often. Little to no armour and using blades."

"Blades? Just metal blades?"

Jafar nodded.

"It is a tradition many thousands of years old. Sometimes the fighters fight to kill, or until only one still stands. Sometimes it is an execution."

"Sounds all too familiar," he replied.

"What do you mean?" Morris asked.

"Just sounds a little too close to our own history, don't you think?"

"Yeah, but we gave it up a long time ago. We evolved beyond barbaric entertainment," Morris retorted.

"Until recently, anyway," added Taylor.

"But your arena fights weren't assassinations."

"Weren't they? Put me in a ring with your average Mech without any heavy weapons, how fair is that? Might as well leave them shackled and have me take their heads off with an axe."

"That was a mistake. Those shows," said King.

"I know," Taylor said wearily, "I knew then, and I still know now. They were bad times."

"What, and these are better?"

King shook his head.

"What?"

"You're still missing the point, Morris. We can't change what has been and gone. All we can do is go forward. Right now we’ve got a little respite with friends, enjoy it for what it is. You want to change the world? Start going about it, and get your head out of the past."

Taylor smiled when Morris was brought to silence and pondered King's words, and he himself heeded them also. He rested back and put his feet up on the table. Just as he was getting comfortable, he heard a voice calling.

"Colonel Taylor!"

Ah, fuck!

He recognised the accent and looked up to see Coco approaching. He'd not seen her since the funeral service for all they had lost. Her face was taut, and she walked with intent as if on an important mission. She was heavily pregnant, but that wasn't going to stop her.