PREVIOUS CHAPTER    INDEX    NEXT CHAPTER

Dark Crimson By Nick P.
Chapter XI

It was the way we had over here of living with ourselves. We’d cut them in half with a machine gun and slap a Band-Aid on them. It was a lie, everything was a lie, and the more I saw of them, the more I hated lies. After that, I knew that those boys would never look at me the same way again. I couldn’t tell whether it was for better or for worse. War is no flowery garden. War is war, and that’s that. In war, there are lies, and lies lead up to naivete. People knew little. But I felt I knew one or two things about Kurt that weren’t in his dossier.

            I thought I knew a lot. I was wrong. This was evident as soon as we neared the Vagga Canyon Bridge. ComSec had never told us just how bad the situation there was. In fact, they hadn’t told anyone. I bet there were Coalition executives who didn’t know what a shithole this place was. It was beyond war, it was almost as bad as the slaughter in the outpost we had just left. And they had covered that up too. It seemed that there was no truth left wherever my eyes fell.

            The Vagga Canyon Bridge was the last army outpost before our run northward towards Kurt. It was the last checkpoint. It was what remained of civilisation and beyond only lay insanity. Beyond only lay Kurt.

            It was a damned fireworks show, that’s what crossed through my mind. The bridge itself was a structural wonder that had somehow survived numerous attacks. It was a very valuable outpost because the Vagga Canyon ran into Karoggon’s limits. Any convoys that needed to circle around to the other side or rescue teams dispatched northward to save downed bombardiers had to somehow cross it, and so the bridge was built. There were no more outposts north, however. Anyone who crossed it usually was on a mission, working for Kurt, or senselessly insane. I hoped we wouldn’t fall into the third category before we arrived.

            The bridge had two peaks joined by downward-sloping wires. The wires fell down into the base and the two sides that joined the canyon walls. There was a cabin built on top of one of these towers while two cabins on either side were below. On the south side, the cabin was supplemented by a small building where soldiers that guarded the bridge slept, ate, and then slept again all before returning to duty. In recent days, however, the Stroggs had realised how important the bridge was strategically and had attacked it. It had been under attack for the last seventy-two hours and the Coalition was continuously pumping additional units into the area. The sleeping quarters had been deserted due to the resilient fighting outside. Only the cowards and intelligent soldiers remained there. Ones who knew that outside lay only death. Not that hiding would spare them of their horrid fate. Fortunately, we were simply passing by.

            Night had set in and the lights that ran across the bridge seemed dim as brilliant explosions lit up the darkness. People screamed and shouted and machinegun fire could be heard, all remaining unseen in the black of night. An explosion shattered against the bridge, sending a beam and torn wires flying through the air and crashing into the deep canyon below. Small figures dashed around the bridge. Some fell on the ground. Grenades flew, as did ammunition and blaster charges. It was a dazzling and rather beautiful array of destruction and death. After the rumble of a periodical explosion passed away, the metallic screeching of the twisting bridge that was inches from collapse could be heard.

            The bridge had been built to withstand the occasional strong Stroggos winds and moderate enemy fire. The Stroggs knew this and were giving it absolute hell, to the point that it became a miracle that the bridge had yet to fall. It screeched again as it swung and some more beams bent under extreme pressure. Human yells and screams moulded along with the screech and filled the night, moments before another series of explosions echoed in the darkness, throwing clouds of red and black smoke and dirt into the would-be still night air.

            “Hey, hey Lance,” Chef yelled over the commotion, the light from the explosions playing across his face. “What do you think?”

            “It’s beautiful,” he answered

            Chef turned to him with an odd expression. “What the hell’s the matter with you? You’re acting really weird.”

            “I just used my last Valium.”

            “Far out,” said Chef, shaking his head and walking away.

            Supplies: discarded cartridges, metal beams and tubes, as well as torn clothing and other materials soon began to encircle the road. And soon, there came human bodies. They were in uniform and armour, most of which was shattered and broken, contorted into odd and unnatural poses, some empty and dry eyes scanning emptily into the sky while dried blood wrapped around their mouths. Many had gaping holes in their stomachs. Others had no legs, they were simply a torso. Some had intestines that spilled down the gully on the other side of the hill. There were severed limbs and indefinite remains of human carcasses. There were some without heads, without those dry and empty eyes, but they all shared one thing in common. They were dead. Dirt and dust covered them, and they reeked. Along with the smoke in the air came a cloud of thick, heavy Stroggos flies that had been kicked up by our buggy. There were few Strogg bodies. The Stroggs always recovered remains to recycle them into new monsters.

            Soon, living bodies were mixed with the dead ones. Under piles of death came movement. Some stirred, barely able to move, while others jumped up and started crowding around our buggy. Some were dragging suitcases, others helplessly clawing at our transport. Some crawled on the ground towards us. But they all wanted a ride, a way home. They screamed and cried in unison, begging for a way hope, for a way to escape the nightmare.

            An explosion went off overhead, illuminating the eerie scene.

            “Is there a Captain Willard on board?”

            I turned around to see a soldier that was not clawing at our buggy but rather tidily looking up at us. He seemed rather composed in the extreme situation, though a flicker of fright lit up in his eyes.

            “Yeah, who are you?”

            “Lieutenant Carlson, sir.”

            Clean spun one of the spotlights and focused it on the lieutenant. Behind him, the writhing wall of nearly dead human beings could be seen, a mixture of red blood, brown dirt, and human skin and uniform.

            “Get that light off me,” protested Carlson, annoyed. Clean did as told. “I was sent here from the KCP outpost on a flight to this bridge here, sir, sent three days ago. I expected you here a little sooner. What it is, well, is that you have mail. Mail for the buggy.” He offered a soiled and torn sack he was carrying. “You have no idea how happy this makes me, sir.”

            “Why?”

            “Now I can get out of here, I’m free to leave. That is, if I can find a way…” He paused and looked around somewhat helplessly. Explosions lit up his desperate face while the wall of fallen soldiers continued to churn lightly. One soldier moved behind him, wandering without a reason, without destination. Simply wandering, strolling besides the wall of death and wondering if he would ever be an addition to its soiled and bloodied barrier.

            “You’re in the asshole of the world, Captain!” Lieutenant Carlson proclaimed, and then he too wandered down the road from which we came. The night swallowed him.

            I jumped off the buggy.

            “Captain, where’re you going?” the Chief asked.

            I looked ahead where the battle was taking place. “I’ve got to find somebody, to get some information. Just drive through, I’ll meet you on the other side of the bridge.”

            The Chief gazed back at the others. “Somebody go with him.”

            “I’ll go. I want to.” Lance answered simply. He quickly placed the puppy into the living quarters and shut the latch behind him. With a quick pull, he made sure that it was secure, then jumped off the side and landed on the red dust with a thud. Another explosion went off as he ran to catch up with me. Behind us, the buggy slowly lumbered forward, its hydrogen engine’s whirr lost in the screams and sounds of exploding grenades and rockets. Lance and I edged to the right, towards the side where the buildings and living quarters of the outpost were situated.

            We climbed over the rise that marked road from wild territory and over the side we found something rather disturbing. Into the flat land that stretched from the road to the barracks was a labyrinth of trenches, some reinforced with bags of sand, others rough and unfinished, but all joining together into a sort of coil of hell’s bowels. The field itself was a good size and there were lots of trenches. There was no way around, only through. This was, of course, intentionally done in hopes of stopping and Strogg army from reaching the buildings. It was a rather futile effort. Lance and I descended into the ravine.

            On both sides was dirt. Sand. And mud, made so by blood rather than water. What had looked like irregularities in the ground or simply rocks, we soon found to be frozen and pale human faces, the bodies covered in the earth. Numb limbs and outstretched fingers protruded from the walls, reaching out but not grasping for all life had left their veins and arteries. All inside them was still while the outside raged in a crazy torrent. The ground was littered with discarded cartridges and shells, set atop the hundreds of boot imprints on the dirt.

            And explosion went off nearby, sending a cloud of dust that rained down on us.

            Ahead, we could see soldiers. One was alive, hunched over his rail gun. Next to him was a limp, pale body of a seemingly dead soldier. Both their eyes stared into emptiness, but the one behind the rain gun still saw. He could see, but only so far. His human conscience had been taken from him so all he saw was images and no deeper meaning. Anything that moved was enemy. Anything that made sounds was enemy. Anything that smelled was enemy or simply dead. And in either case, he would shoot it.

            He fired a single shot that left a pale red streak in the night before he settled back again.

            I edged towards him. “Where can I find your commanding officer?”

            “That’s right, you son of a bitch,” he spoke softly, not taking his eyes off of the distant horizon. “You came right to it… Walked right into it…” All of the sudden, he screamed out maniacally at the top of his lungs and started emptying his weapon into the darkness yet again. “Ha! Ha!” he screamed, his yells punctuated every two or three seconds while the rail gun reloaded itself with high-energy lead.

            Lance rose to examine just what the soldier was shooting at.         

            “Lance, get down here! At least you still have a commanding officer.” I turned back to the other man. “Where’s your CO?”

            “Straight up this street here is a concrete bunker, call it Detroit. Where the fuck else could it be?”

            We moved away and climbed over a rise in the ditch, crawling over the other man’s limp body. As Lance made his way up, the man stirred. Lance jumped in fright and threw himself forward. The man slowly and painfully pushed himself up and twisted around to look at Lance angrily.

            “Goddamn it, you stepped on my face!”

            “I thought you were dead,” replied Lance, his usual distant calmness returning.

            “Well you thought wrong, damn it!”

            The man threw one last angry look and slowly drifted into his previous seemingly unconscious state. His eyes were wide and body limp. He was away from the war and in it at the same time. It was not he that decided or fought or somehow brought some event around the corner. He was in just for the ride. He was sitting back, as were many other soldiers, and letting the war play itself out rather than winning it.

            We moved on.

            And there we found another soldier lodged in the trench, this time with a more lively companion. They were both looking off in the distance. The one soldier stood behind a heavy machinegun and suddenly exploded.

            “I told you to stop fucking with me! That’s right, you good-for-nothing sons of bitches…!” He started firing wildly. “You think you’re bad!” He fired again, the rhythmic thumping echoing through the darkness. A rocket fell ten metres or so from our ravine and a wall of dirt fell on us. Meanwhile, more rockets whizzed overhead. As if to answer this, the soldier fired another quick succession of bullets.

            “What are you shooting at, soldier?” I asked.

            “Bogeys. What the fuck do you think I would be shooting at? What else is there to fucking shoot? I’m sorry sir, but bogeys are here by the wire.” He smiled somewhat triumphantly and proudly at me. “But I think I killed them all. Every single goddamned one!”

            His companion stirred.

            “You ain’t killed shit. Listen.”

            He raised a finger in the air and an awkward and unnatural silence followed that was only broken by the screeching cries of some Strogg that was near death. It spoke in an alien tongue, parts of its yells lost in a sickening whisper. Then another bomb fell from the sky and the silence passed. Human cries could be heard, but they were distant. The Strogg was close, they could all feel it.

            “Shit, he’s trying to call his friends. Send a flare. Oh, you think you’re bad…”

            The other soldier glanced down. “There’s one somewhere under them bodies.”

            I turned to them. “Who’s the commanding officer here?”

            The first soldier turned to me with a rather confused expression. “Ain’t you?” He turned back and gazed into the darkness at his invisible target. “Go get Roach. Get him over here! Get Roach!”

            “He’s down by the wires, wait a sec.”

            The second soldier turned towards the continuing trench and waved his hands. Soon, another figure limped towards them. Under his arm, he carried a standard-issue Coalition specified grenade launcher. The man had taken the liberty of painting the entire thing brown and striping it with orange paint. The old, rusty and soiled thing looked futile, especially in the near darkness.

            “Yeah?”

            The second soldier raised his finger in the exact manner as before and the screeching Strogg could be heard again.

            Roach raised his launcher and carefully trained it on the sky. His eyes scanned around intently and focused where he wanted his explosive to go. His fingers edged around the gun and squeezed the trigger. The grenade sailed through the night and soon, an explosion was heard. Everyone stood still, waiting for silence to settle in. Dirt falling from the sky was the only sound, moments before absolute silence followed. The enemy was no longer crying.

            I turned to Roach. “Do you know who the CO here is?”

            His eyes pierced into me. “Yeah,” he said and simply walked away.

*          *          *

With that, I saw little point in staying there any longer. While the wild firing, explosions, and unconfined cries rung out behind us, Lance and I slowly crawled up the ravine walls that were made of dirt, dead soldiers, and their clothing, armour, and other accessories. We had only been down there for a few minutes, and yet the openness we found on top was striking. The light lit up and we could see the Vagga Bridge swaying violently to and fro while rockets trailed overhead. It was evident that the poor work of suspensions, beams, and tarmac couldn’t last much longer. I waved to Lance and we both took off running towards the swaying bridge.

            As it drew near, I could see the separate bolts and crossbeams that supported it. Many had fallen, others were charged while besides them lay gaping holes. The road itself that passed through was scarred and torn up. Patches were missing, and in places the crumbling concrete revealed the black void of the seemingly bottomless canyon below. We walked through the bridge while it screeched and waved. The ground moved under our feet while the top swayed. Several times we had to stop and balance ourselves before we proceeded.

            Behind us, another beam fell our from the metal structure as the cords that binded it snapped. It fell with a crash that sent a wave that echoed through the bridge’s structure. Lance and I tripped and nearly fell. More wires sprung out and several flew at us. The thick, heavy cable was fortunately imprecise in its aim and flew over our heads harmlessly, though ducking was still in order. They swished through the air heavily and hit the ground while few rolled off and dangled over the canyon. The entire bridge gently and yet ominously leaned to the left and several more cables snapped.

            After what seemed hours of torture, anxiety, and sweat, we made it to the other side. The bridge continued to screech and moan behind us. And ahead, parked lightly off to the side of the road, the buggy was waiting for us. As if we were still walking across the rattling, shaking bridge, we sped up and raced to our transport.

            Questioning faces gazed at me.

            “There were no fuel cells, there was nothing. Let’s just move on out.”

            “What about a CO, captain?” the Chief asked me.

            I looked back across the bridge and then to Phillips. “There’s no fucking CO here. Let’s just get going.”

            He didn’t move. “Which way, captain?”

            “You know which way, Chief.”

            He shook his head. “You’re on your own, captain. You want to go on? Fine, go on! But why? It’s all like this here bridge. We build it every night, and then these freaks blow it right back up again. And why? So the generals can say that the road’s open. Think about that. Who cares?”

            “Just go north, damn it!”

            After that, he said no more. The Chief simply turned to his controls and the hydrogen engine rumbled to life. “Chef, I want you up on bow, keep a lookout. Clean, you’re on the sixty.”

            I sat there until the sun started breaking the horizon and others stirred. With the sunlight back in, Chef found himself on deck, handing out the mail delivered by Lieutenant Carlson the night before. He held the battered sack over his knee and dug through it, setting aside his own, then passing out the others.

            “Shit, Clean, you got another one,” he said, pulling out a second package.

            “No shit? Is that it?”

            He pulled it away and moved to one corner to open it.

            “Here’s what you get, Lance. There you go, Mr. L. B. Johnson…”

            “About time, been waiting for this!”

            “Captain? Captain Willard? There’s a package for you too. Here you go, captain.”

            I pulled the metallic envelope from Chef and moved away from the others, opening it as I did. Inside was a stack of assorted papers, including several new photographs, one being of the area. On top was a single letter that summarised everything I was to know.

            And below lay new developments in my mission.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER    INDEX    NEXT CHAPTER

All content and images are copyright © Quake 4 Portal / Quake IV Portal 2002-2006
or their respective owners, and cannot be reproduced without prior consent.