The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2) (8 page)

They
arrived at Desmark late in the evening. They were hustled off the transporter
to find older, more experienced soldiers lining the way and ushering them towards
a large hanger. It was like they were expecting people to run. Just inside the
entrance of the hanger were two men sitting at a fold-away table. Sarah watched
as the teams in front of them were marked off against a list and waved forward.
Dylan appeared out of nowhere and joined their team. Apparently he had been
told what to expect, because he appeared quite comfortable and competent when
he reported them as “Team 32 from Delta compound, present and accounted.” The
man at the desk, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days, simply grunted and
waved them through after a quick head count. The hanger was crammed full of
stretcher beds. Most of these had soldiers lounging on them, some grouped
around a particular bed where a card game was happening. Predictably, the
camp-beds against the walls, which had the most privacy, where all taken. This
left them with the beds smack-bam in the middle. Dylan dumped his bag down.

“Find
a bed, go to sleep,” he said, looking wired.

“What?”
asked Gillie, his voice raising an octave, “you’ve got to be-”

He
was cut off when Dylan reached across and grabbed him by the front of his
shirt, pulling him forward viciously. They were now almost nose-to-nose.
“Don’t,” he snarled, “just don’t. I don’t like this any more than you losers
do, and I know only a bit more. You do what I friggin tell you to do, understand?”

For
a half second Sarah thought that Gillie was going to fight back, but then he
lowered his gaze and nodded.

“Good,”
said Dylan, letting go of Gillie’s shirt and thrusting him back in the same
movement.

Sarah
slumped down onto her own bed, feeling defeated, like she was the one Dylan had
grabbed, and not Gillie. Finn collapsed onto the bed next to hers. Sarah didn’t
bother trying to say anything to him. He had been in a terrible mood all day
and she was sure he was still pissed off at her. It was up to him to bring
himself out of his own funk. Boulder was already sitting on a bed next to Finn,
his expression unreadable as he watched the people in the room. If it wasn’t
for the way he kept on nervously rubbing his hands against each other Sarah
would have almost thought that he was bored. Both Jaz and Hutch were doing
their best to remain stoic, although both their faces were drawn. Jaz kept on
scanning the room intermittently. Sarah thought she remembered something about
Jaz having an older brother in the army stationed somewhere around here, but
she couldn’t muster the effort to ask if that was who Jaz was searching for.
Gillie was repeatedly plumping his pillow with an angry fist. Sarah could have
told him that he had it as plump as it was ever going to get, but she figured
that wasn’t the point. Bettina was lying on her back, staring up at the roof,
her gaze determined. Sometime in the afternoon she had stopped asking why and
had gone all hard. Sarah wished she could do the same. The lights in the room
flickered on and off three times before being turned off completely. Sarah took
this to mean bed time and lay down on her bed slowly, listening to the muffled
curses of people trying to make their way back to their bed in the crowded
room. There were multiple yelps as they banged their shins and tried to lie on
other people. It would almost have been funny if the reason they were there
wasn’t so terrifying. After twenty minutes the hanger was nearly silent. She
thought that Finn was going to say something to her a few times, but he didn’t.
Eventually she heard his bed creak and then felt his presence close to her. She
could only just make out his outline in the dark, his face remaining completely
hidden from her. He hesitated for a moment and then bent down. Sarah moved
over, making room for him on the skinny cot. She did it automatically, as if
they had planned this previously. The only way he could fit was for them to
both lie on their sides, Finn’s arms wrapped around her body.

“I’m
sorry,” he mumbled, his voice barely heard even though his lips brushed her
ear.

“Me
too,” she whispered back.

It
was as if the stress of the day was suddenly wiped from her body, leaving her
only with an intense desire to sleep. Despite the anxiety of tomorrow, she had
never felt more comfortable.

***

The
next thing she knew, she was being woken up by a shrill whistle and the sound
of hundreds of feet getting up and moving.

“What’s
going on?” she mumbled, sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of the
camp bed as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. A giant of a man was moving around
the hanger, urging people towards the main exit where another man was handing
out ration packs, presumably for breakfast on the go.

“Moving
out!” yelled the giant, his hands ushering the room forward like a farmer
herding sheep.

“Don’t
know,” said Hutch, looking much more awake and alert than a person should be at
that time. He didn’t comment about her and Finn being in the same bed. They had
more pressing matters at hand then gossip. The sun was only just peeking over
the horizon. “Dylan has gone to find out.”

Sarah
scanned the chaotic room and made out Dylan heading doggedly towards them. She
saw him slip something into the waist of his pants twenty metres before he made
it to them. His face was drawn but determined.

“There’s
been a breach in the defences,” said Dylan. He didn’t need to speak loudly,
they were all crowded around him, waiting to hear what was going on. “They’ve
changed the plan. They need us out there. Now.”

“I
said move it!” yelled the giant again, only this time much closer. The flow of
people around them suddenly gained a lot more direction, and their group was
hustled along with the tide towards the exit. Sarah found a ration pack being
thrust into her arms as she exited the building.

“Into
your teams!” Yelled another man outside, this one only slightly shorter than
the giant inside. Their team stayed together in a small huddle. A middle-aged,
sturdily built woman with bags under her eyes was walking around, assigning
groups to three different areas. Her eyes hardly lingered on them for a second
before she pointed them off to the far right hand side. She didn’t even bother waiting
for Dylan to announce their team number. Dylan guided them to where the lady
had pointed.

“This
isn’t good,” muttered Boulder under his breath as they approached a small group
of people who had also been assigned to the same area.

“What
do you mean?” asked Sarah.

“Look
at our group,” said Dylan, with a nod to those they were about to join, “and
look at the others.”

Sarah
looked. The group they were joining looked just like theirs. They were a group
of younger people, their uniforms a shade newer than those around them. One of
them was off in the corner, vomiting. She shrugged, not getting it, but looked
at the other groups like Dylan had said to do anyway. Then it hit her. The middle
group was the largest. It had people of all ages and their uniforms looked a
bit more lived in. Most of them looked scared, but they were checking their
weapons and eating breakfast without fuss. The third group, to the far left,
were in their late twenties, looked deadly fit and unconcerned. Some were even
laughing. They wore their uniform and weapons like a second skin. Both the
middle and far team were proper soldiers. Their team were the newbies, the
failures.

Finn
spoke just behind her, making her jump. He must have been thinking the same as
her, because his words sent an icicle of dread down to the pit of her stomach.

“We’re
the spare bodies.”

An
officer with a paunch and a watery nose greeted them as they joined the group.
He encouraged them to take a seat on the grass and eat their breakfast while
they waited for two more groups. They didn’t have to wait for long. The other
two groups, looking equally as green, joined them shortly.

“Alright,
up and moving, ladies and gentlemen,” said the officer after a final head
count.

He
led the group to where a number of trucks were waiting.

“Get
in,” he ordered. Sarah couldn’t help but notice that their group had a number
of seemingly experienced soldiers guarding them. The other groups didn’t have
these. She guessed that they were predicting runners.

A
tall, rotund boy suddenly shot away from the group, making a desperate beeline
towards some buildings fifty metres away. He only got ten metres before he was
noticed. One of the guards yelled out for him to stop. The officer with the
paunch looked over at the noise. He stared at the running boy with almost a
look of satisfaction and then made a hand signal to one of the guards. The
guard raised his gun, and before Sarah could call out a warning to the running
boy, he fired.

It
struck the boy on the shoulder. His yell was cut short as electricity ran
through his body, contracting all his muscles. For a second he seemed to hang
in the air, and then he dropped, convulsing on the ground. They’d used a
stunner. Sarah let out a breath of air she hadn’t realised she had been
holding. He should still be alive. One of the guards trotted over to where the
boy lay as they were once more ushered forward onto the trucks. Their truck
took off at the same time the last person stepped up inside. Sarah glanced back
towards where the boy was. He hadn’t moved. The guard was now next to him, bent
over on one knee, one arm holding his rifle, the other holding the boys wrist,
as if checking for a pulse. She saw the guard look up at the officer with a
paunch, a frown on his face. Then he shook his head. Sarah gasped.

“He’s
dead,” she said, her voice coming out barely above a whisper.

“What?”
asked Finn. He realised where she was looking and swivelled around to also see.

“Shit.”
Finn’s face drained of colour.

“He
must have had a heart defect,” she reasoned out-loud, trying to work out why
the stunner didn’t just immobilise him.

“It
serves him right,” said a third voice, one she didn’t recognise. They spun
around to find a girl with thin lips looking over their shoulders.

“What?”
asked Sarah, flabbergasted.

“He
shouldn’t have run,” said the girl disdainfully. “Look at us,” she said, gesturing
around the truck. “We’re barely friggin trained. If any of us are going to
survive, we’re going to need every last one of us to pull their own weight.”

“That
doesn’t mean he deserved to die,” said Finn, “he was scared.”

“We
all are,” she said, “but we didn’t run.” She spat out the window, in the
direction of the dead boy. “Coward.”

That
was too much. Sarah found herself trying to stand, her anger bubbling to the
surface, but Finn held her arm, keeping her seated.

“Leave
it, Sarah,” he urged her as the other girl walked back to her seat on the other
side of the truck.  

“Are
you kidding me?” asked Sarah, not understanding how he could be so patient.

Finn
squeezed her arm a little. “We have worse things coming up,” he reminded her.
“We need to stay on the ball.”

Sarah
pulled her arm away from his grasp but stayed seated. As much as she hated to
admit it, he was right.

The
truck trundled along in silence for another twenty minutes, no one speaking
much at all. There was a loud squeak through the speaker system in the truck
and then the voice of the officer with the paunch floated out at them from the
speakers.

“Early
this morning the Accord invaded one of the peripheral city blocks. They have
established themselves there yet we are not without hope that we can win it
back. The civilians have all fled or been evacuated. You will be going in on
foot to clear out the area of enemy personnel. Some of you will be thinking
that you don’t have the training yet, but you do. I have faith that you will be
able to complete the task. Remember; do not let yourself be captured. The enemy
will torture you, send you to work in the mines, and experiment on you. If you
are lucky they will kill you. The Covenant is the only way the world will be
able to go forward. You are on the right side. I wish you the best of luck.”
There was a click as transmission ended. The silence in the truck was
deafening. The officer’s words sat heavily around them.

Sarah
turned to Finn.  If they were going to die, she didn’t want to end it in a
fight.

“Finn,
I,” but she was cut short as the truck ground to a halt.

“Everybody
out!” yelled Dylan, his face drawn and white. He had a hearing piece inserted
in his left year, and Sarah assumed he was getting orders through it.

“We’ll
talk after this is all done,” said Finn, reassuringly. Sarah smiled back weakly
as she got to her feet and they stamped out with the others. She could only
hope that there was an after.

They
had exited behind a large concrete apartment block. Every now and then the
blast of a gun would go off. It was close. Too close as far as Sarah was
concerned. The adrenaline was starting to pump now. She felt it running through
her veins and she gripped her rifle close as Dylan drew them into a group. The
others in the truck had similarly gone to join their own groups, presumably to
get different orders, but Sarah hardly spared them a glance. She concentrated
on Dylan’s mouth moving. He was telling them that they had to re-take the next
three city blocks. He said most of the enemy should be down the far end but
there had been reports of others making it closer. They had to be aware that
the enemy was all around them.

“Shoot
whatever moves,” he ordered them, “and don’t surrender, remember? It’s worse
than being killed.” He stood up abruptly. “Let’s move it!” he yelled.

Crouching
low, they circled the concrete apartment block. The sight that greeted them
caused Sarah to falter.

The
place was deserted. She didn’t know what she had been expecting. Huge craters
in the ground? Cars overturned? Instead it looked like a normal city street at
three am in the morning, only now it was light. Stalls from yesterday evening,
set up in preparation for today, were untouched.  A single old abandoned car
sat in the middle of the street. It probably broke down while everyone fled the
city and was just abandoned, Sarah thought. A bit of rubbish floated down the
street. Another Covenant group appeared around the corner of the far end of
their apartment block. They progressed forward slowly, guns raised. Sarah’s
group did the same.

They
made it halfway down the street before the first shot was fired. Sarah hardly
registered the sound of a gunshot before she noticed a member of the other team
collapse, a red spray coating his colleagues.

“Take
cover!” yelled Dylan.

Sarah
crouched, hurrying forward towards a cart just ahead of them like the rest of
her team. They barely moved three steps before the ground in front of them
opened up. Bits of gravel and cement flew through the air as the missile hit
home. Sarah was knocked off her feet, her ears ringing. She stumbled upright,
trying to see around her, but a great pile of dust and dirt had been stirred
into the air with the landing of the missile and she couldn’t make anything
out. Finn. Where was Finn? She turned desperately. Suddenly he loomed out of
the smoke, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her towards the closest building.
She shook her arm free, guarding his back while he checked the doors of the building.
They were all locked. He kicked at one but it didn’t budge. The windows in the
first two floors had metal bars blocking access. There was no getting inside.

“Finn,
Sarah!” yelled Jaz.

They
glanced over. Herself and the rest of the team were lying down in the newly
created crater in the road. They ran over to join them, sliding the last two
metres as bullets hailed down.

“Where
are they?” yelled Finn.

Jaz
shook her head. “We don’t know. I haven’t seen a single one.”

A
scream cut through the air. Sarah didn’t think that she had ever heard
something so terrible. Hutch sneaked a look over the edge of their crater. When
he sat back down his face was white, completely drained of any colour. He
looked at Jaz.

“They
have acid bombs.”

Jaz
didn’t say anything. None of them did. That was a bad way to go.

They
were shocked from their silence as a hail of bullets landed on the wrong side
of their crater.

“Move!
Move! Move!” yelled Dylan, pushing them up and over the crater. “They’re behind
us!”

They
scrambled over the edge, trying to keep low. There was a loud exchange of
gunfire up ahead, one of the other groups obviously having made it further than
they did.

Then
something exploded in Sarah’s face and she was knocked off her feet again. She
screamed. The pain was incredible. It felt like half her face was on fire. She
was only vaguely aware of someone picking her up and running with her. She
wasn’t even aware she was still screaming until someone splashed a bottle-f
of water onto her face and she gagged as some of it made its way down her open
throat. The pain abated a tiny bit, enough to let her focus on her
surroundings. They were crouched behind the abandoned car, now overturned in
one of the bomb explosions. It was black and smoking slightly, hardly
recognisable. Inanely she remembered her thoughts of only twenty minutes ago,
where she wondered where the craters and burnt out cars were. Well, now she
knew. They were waiting for her. Boulder was puffing heavily next to her. Finn
was also panting, holding his shoulder. Blood seeped out between his fingers.

“You’re
shot?” she gasped, horrified.

“I’m
ok,” said Finn. But the blood kept on trickling through his fingers. “But you’re
not. Your face…”

Sarah
raised her hand, cutting him off. She didn’t want to think about it. She sat
up, her head swimming. She took some deep breaths to steady herself.

“Don’t
you faint,” warned Boulder, trying to keep his size as small as possible as he
crouched. “I’m not carrying you everywhere.”

Sarah
could hardly credit it. It was Boulder who had carried her. Without thinking
she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He blinked and then
grunted. Sarah grinned and immediately wished she hadn’t. It hurt her face too
much. She fished around in her pant pockets. They all had a roll of emergency
bandage in case of a scenario like this. After some ineffective fumbling she
finally managed to get the button open and pulled it out. She tore open the
wrapping and crouched next to Finn.

“Let
me see,” she told him.

Finn
winced but slowly took his hand away. His hand was soaked in blood now. The
fabric on his shoulder was a dark, glistening black. Sarah sucked in a deep
breath and started wrapping the bandage around tightly. It needed to be washed
out and sutured, but they didn’t have time or the equipment. Finn gripped the
underside of the car tightly as she worked, his knuckles turning white from the
tension. She finished quickly, tying the ends together. She turned back to
Boulder.

“Where
are the others?”

Boulder
nodded his head towards a street-side stall that had somehow remained standing.
Sarah leaned out to look and then drew her head back in immediately as she
leaned a little too far out and a bullet pinged just past her head. After a few
deep breaths she leaned out again, this time being more careful not to lean too
far. The stall the others were hiding behind had all its windows blown out.
Dylan, Hutch, Bettina and Gillie were crouched there. Gillie had tears running
down his face.

Sarah
frowned. “Where’s Jaz?”

Boulder
stared at her, his eyes empty. “We don’t know.” He blinked. “We think she might
have been hit.”

Sarah
felt as if her gut had been hollowed out. Jaz. The one of them with the most
skill. It wasn’t fair.

“We
need to retreat,” said Sarah. “Let them have the block. Who gives a damn?”

Boulder
shook his head at her. “We can’t.”

“Sure
we can,” said Sarah. “Boulder, we’re fighting for nothing. Both sides are just
as bad as each other. Ours tried to experiment on us, remember? Remember the
Hourglass Group?”

Boulder
shook his head again. “No, you aren’t listening,” he said. “We literally can’t.
We’re surrounded on all sides. We’re ok now, but give it five minutes and the
guys behind us will catch-up and this car’s not going to be much help at all.
There’s no going back, even if we wanted to.”

Sarah
glanced back at Finn. His eyes were closed, his face far whiter than Sarah ever
wanted to see it. He was taking quick, shallow breaths. He didn’t look good.

She
had never felt more desperate in her life. They needed to do something soon,
but there was nothing to be done. She forced her breathing to slow, but it
didn’t help. They were going to die. She looked over at the others again. Dylan
was cupping a hand over his ear, listening intently to whatever orders were
being delivered to him. After a moment his expression hardened and he nodded.
He took his hand away from his ear and drew out the small package Sarah had
seen him pocket before in the hanger. He opened it. Sarah squinted. She
couldn’t make out what it was. Then Dylan’s cupped hand slapped against
Gillie’s thigh and she thought she could seem him pushing down on something
with his thumb. Gillie yelled in surprise and then stopped, his eyes widening.
Suddenly his face went red, the veins popped up on his forehead and arms, his
hands shook violently. He screamed, only this time it wasn’t in fear, it was in
pure, unadulterated rage. He sprung to his feet and, gun held high, and charged
off around the stall, straight towards the enemy. Sarah barely had a moment to
register what had happened before Dylan got to Bettina as well.