Page 21 of Senseless
“Keep pressing in on them, perimeter teams,” I said into my radio when I came back to my own body. “We’ll take no prisoners today.”
“Some of Blakeworth’s injured got tossed onto the medic truck,” Davis said.
“That’s fine. We’ll give them a chance to recover and see how much better they’d have it if they were loyal to us.”
“And if they try anything?”
I smiled. “I’ll leave that up to the governor and my president.”
Sudden movement caught my eye behind the dirt mound I’d just jumped off of. A head poked out from behind the hill and I pointed my rifle in that direction, but they ducked down and threw something from where they hid.
“Run!” I screamed, realizing immediately what it was. “Everybody move!”
Davis and his soldiers took off, but it was too late. The grenade bounced once, rolled a few feet, and detonated with an ear splitting boom.
The force sent me flying, and I knew other bodies had been launched in the air too. Ringing filled my head and I landed hard, pain shooting up my shoulder. Grinding my teeth against the pain of the beating I took, I rolled and climbed shakily to my feet. My legs wobbled unsteadily beneath me as I made my way back to my unit.
“Guys,” I rasped, nearly falling to my knees. “I got you guys, don’t worry.”
A shallow crater had formed at the base of the hill I had jumped from. A few members of my unit lay motionless, but Lieutenant Davis and half a dozen others still moved. Some rolling in pain, others screaming. “Don’t worry.” My hands shook as I reached for the nearest man. “I got you guys.”
I was in shock, most likely. Speaking nonsense to myself, as well as the men. It wasn’t until a hand clasped my arm that I realized a fine rain of dirt and gravel had continued to fall down on us.
“It’s gonna collapse,” Davis told me with a strangled cough as he shoved me away weakly. “Run, captain.”
“No, no. Come on.” I tried to tug him toward me. “I gotta get you guys to the truck. Can you walk?”
“Go, captain! Anyone who can move, go!” He shoved me more forcefully, and I was already so unsteady that I fell back, landing on my ass. “The hillside won’t hold any more weight! You have to get away now!”
It dawned on me only then what he was saying, as pebbles and dirt began falling in earnest, rolling down the hillside in bigger chunks.
“No,” I whispered. “No, come on! You’ll be trapped!”
“So will you if you come any closer!”
I grabbed my radio receiver with a shaking hand. “Any available units, we need assistance at the southeastern side—“
“Negate that!” Davis yelled. “More bodies will mean a bigger landslide…”
His voice was drowned out by a low rumbling sound. It reminded me of the avalanches I’d seen at my father’s ski resorts when I was young. But this time it was made by an avalanche of mud, loose earth, and rocks.
“No, fuck!” I scrambled forward, trying to get my useless legs underneath me, but it was already too late. They were getting buried faster than I could run, the soft bottom of the crater giving way so they sunk even deeper.
“I need men!” I shouted into my radio. “All available men and shovels! They got buried.”
A crackling, heartbreaking reply came over the speaker. “We have our hands tied here, Gunner! Will assist when we can, but we can’t spare anyone at the moment.”
“Fuck!”
I crawled forward and started shoveling loose dirt away with my hands, my movements feeling heavy and too damn slow. My shoulders and arms cried out with fatigue and probably a few injuries from the blast as I dug like a dog in search of a prized bone. None of it seemed effective, I only found more dirt as I dug. Panic spurred me on. They probably couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move with the weight of a small hillside on top of them. Fuck, what if I was compacting the dirt and making it worse? But what else could I do, stop?
It was awful and probably hopeless. But no way in hell was I about to just sit on my ass and wait for help to come.
A screech from the air somehow reached through the ringing in my ears and I looked up, spotting my falcon circling overhead.
“Horus!” I cried out. “Get Mari and other medics! The blast caved it in and they’re trapped!”
I didn’t know if he heard me or if he even could do as I asked, but I was out of options. Help wasn’t coming from the other units. I couldn’t reach Reaper or General Bray from here. These people were dying, if not already dead. If that turned out to be because I couldn’t reach them in time, I’d work that out with myself later. I just had to try, I had to put everything into getting them out.
