The Eden Created, and the Hell to Create it

Chapter 3: Blood in the Sand

Jack reacted as fast as his body could move. time seemed to slow down as adrenaline hit his system. He wasn't fast enough, That fat merc's grin was lit up with the muzzle flash. Patrick never saw it coming. The back of his head erupted as the projectile entered in through the back, and exited out his right eye. Jack's vision turned red as he brought his rifle up to the smiling merc's face that upon noticing stopped smiling. Jack pulled the trigger and the merc's face caved in from the force of the rifle round splattering blood onto Jack's face. "Open fire!" he screamed as he moved his sights over to the merc right next to him
As he brought the rifle over the second merc struggled to pull the charging handle on his rifle. The merc grabbed the barrel of Jack's rifle and attempted to one-arm his rifle into Jack's body only for its sling to get snagged on his pistol holster. Jack quickly transitioned to his pistol pulling it from its holster and letting 3 shots off into his target. one in his left leg, one into his gut, and the last into the right kneecap. Jack knew he couldn't engage a third merc in time so he bear-hugged the second merc and lept forwards. into a nearby creek.
His ears were ringing. His face was wet with blood. gunpowder tainted the air. Jack was lying on his back facing up in a ditch. He saw tracers fly overhead. A body wearing black combat armor lay on top of him. Was he Dead? No, he was dying. His first shot pierced his femoral artery. Jack still had a hand on his pistol as he saw a retreating merc laying down fire against his men. He raised it and shot several shots hitting the merc in the arm, helmet, and face.
Jack pushed the limp body off and looked in front of him. Three mercs were using the creek he leaped into as cover against his men's Automatic guns. Jack took his rifle up and sighted in on the first merc and squeezed two shots off into their neck and face. An explosion of blood and gore wetted the face of the merc who was unfortunately standing next to Jack's target. fear washed over his face like a tsunami and he froze up as Jack switched targets onto him. Letting loose another volley the merc's eye exploded out of his head as he fell to the ground. A final merc began to clamber out of the creek in a panic ignoring the guns that had been waiting for someone to act so foolishly and was quickly cut down by their machine guns.
Jack began to stand up "Blue Blue Blue!" he shouted to prevent his men from cutting him down.
"Holy shit," Kachima shouted. "Staff Sarge made it! You ok?" Jack brushed himself off, noticing the poor guy he jumped in the creak with bled a lot more on him than he had originally noticed.
"I'm fine," responded Jack, before jogging to the lieutenant lying face down in the dirt. "Where is the corpsman?" He called rolling Patrick over. His eye was liquified and drooped out of the hole that used to be his right eye. He put the crystal of his watch up to his nose and mouth and watched to see if it would fog up. nothing. he then placed his pointer and middle finger around his carotid artery. nothing. no pulse, no breathing.
"Kachima, get over here!" Kachima nervously, adrenaline still rushing through his system. Jack took out several bandages and gauze pads and began to try and stop the bleeding coming from Patrick's eye wound. "Keep pressure here. I'm starting compressions." Jack moved quickly, removing Patrick's body armor, placing both hands on Patrick's sternum, and began his compressions. "Corpsman Walters, where the hell are you!" He shouted. Jessica jumped up from her trench, blood on her gloves, and began to assess Patrick's condition.
"Jack, Stop," She stated. "He's gone, and we have other wounded." The words knocked Jack out of his trance-like state. He was so focused on the wounded in front of him, that he didn't stop to consider any other wounded.
"Who else is wounded?" he asked cautiously. Jessica pulled out a black zippered bag and began to open it.
"Dillion took one to the shoulder," She started. "Daniels got grazed on the cheek, and Howitz got hit in the plate."
"Is Dillion alright?" Jack asked as he assisted Patrick into the black body bag.
"He wouldn't stop going on about 'you should've seen the other guy.'" Jessica zipped the bag almost shut before it caught Jack's hand. "What are you?" Jack jerked his hand back up, carrying his Patrick's service patch, and ID tags.
"Old tradition," he stated, as he broke one of the two tags off and placed it lightly inside Patrick's mouth. He then took a small container, no bigger than a pencil case, out of the cargo pocket of his pants, and opened it. inside were dozens and dozens of similar patches. some coated with blood, some with soot, and even some singed to be illegible. Jack placed Patrick's patch inside the case and replaced the case into his cargo pocket before making the sign of the Trinity.
Dillion clambered out of his hole and made his way to Jessica finished packing up Patrick's corpse. "I take it he didn't make it," Dillion said more as a statement than a question. He too made the sign of the trinity before standing next to Jessica. "While his back was turned. What bastards."
"Not very smart bastards," Jessica stated. "Had they wanted to kill us all why do something so stupid?"
"Because they're amateurs!" Jack yelled, throwing the body of the lead merc down aggressively as he took their patch. the patch was poorly made. lowest bidder quality, reading 'Hell's Guardians.' Looking out at the other men it was apparent they weren't combat capable. some were grossly overweight, while others were so skinny their uniforms looked to weigh more than them. The weapons were chosen out of a desire to have the newest high-caliber shooter, and not out of a desire for reliability or practicality. The first merc's hand cannon had jammed after the first shot while the second merc that Jack shot hadn't even chambered a round. The third had at least a chambered weapon but he had fumbled with his weapon's hefty safety.
As he walked amongst the dead it was more of the same. Flashy big calibers that jammed, failed, or the individuals who were shooting them were simply not trained enough. Jack found a trail of blood leading further out into the open field. Following the trail, he found a merc slowly crawling away. the holes in his vest gushing out blood showing that he wasn't even wearing armor plates inside of his vest. Jack kicked the merc over onto his back, and he groaned in pain.
"Corpsman! We got a live one hear!" Jack called out before crouching down looking at the pained face of the pale merc. His helmet was cracked from hitting his head revealing it to be more akin to a bicycle helmet than an actual combat helmet, his vest was bloodied and he carried no personal first aid gear with him. "Who hired you?" asked Jack politely. The man, who looked no older than 24 began to cry softly. Jack aggressively grabbed the man by his vest's collar, pulling it so that they were inches away from one another. "Who. Hired. You." Jack spoke more clearly and firmly. The merc turned his face away to spit out a mouth full of blood.
"d... d-d.... Don't kill me...." He begged, blood pouring out his mouth.
"Who hired you!" Jack yelled. Jessica ran up and began to attempt to stop the merc's bleeding.
"w... we... we're..." He started before coughing up even more blood. "Government... Contractors..." The man's eyes rolled behind his head and he went limp. Jack dropped him onto the ground. he couldn't believe what he heard. He didn't want to believe. The Government hired a cheap mercenary group to kill Jack and his men. Why? Jack's mind was racing before he looked up and saw Dillion on the radio.
"That's an A-Firm," Dillion told the radio operator.  "I got 1 friendly KIA and multiple EKIA. two wounded. Need immidiate Evac." He said.
"Roger. Are you still at your last known position?" the operator asked.
"Yes sir!" He responded. We'll dig in. Be advised, there may be more in the surrounding tree line."
"Roger. Birds up. Standby." Dillion placed the radio down by his side and looked over. Jack looked pale and dropped the now limp body of one of the mercs. Corporal Chadwick stood next to his sergeant before looking upwards as a loud booming sound could be heard from the west.
"Is that thunder, Sarge?" Dillion looked up to the west and saw that there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and then his heart sank as he heard an eerie screeching noise.
"Everyone run!" Jack screamed as loud as his lungs would allow. "Get back into the forest!" He grabbed Jessica by the arm hoisting her to her feet as they both began to sprint back into the forest.
A loud boom came beside them, sending splinters and dirt flying every which way. Another not far from that one directly inside a group of four of his marines. another took out 3 more as they were attempting to run for it. Jack ran over to the nearest one. his entire lower half was gone. Dead. He ran to the next who was screaming. He had lost his leg at the knee and was in complete shock. Jack squatted down grabbed him under his shoulders and began to drag him back before another explosion launched him back.
ears ringing and head throbbing he looked up to see the marine he had been carrying dead. wood splinters gauged into his head and face. Jack quickly got back up and saw that Jessica was carrying a marine in a fireman's carry before an explosion sent her flying face-first into the dirt. Jack ran over to assist only to see that she had lost both legs below the knee and she was unconscious. Jack grabbed her, hoisted her onto his shoulders grabbed the still-screaming marine by the back of his vest, and dragged him too. He didn't know how many had died at this point. he could barely hear the explosions around him. he took a moment and looked behind him before his world went back into slow motion.
He heard above all the explosions, screaming, and death a metallic whirring noise, like a metal cylinder spinning at breakneck speeds. the sound sent a shiver to his core as he saw it. A metallic tube, spinning overhead. He knew what it was by reputation alone.
The apotheosis of incendiary weaponry. normal fire would burn but couldn't stick. with gasoline it would stick but would burn too quickly, with napalm it would stick but you could put it out, with phosphorous it couldn't be put out, but it could be carved off the victim's skin, but with this; the liquid thermite incendiary canister, or L-TIC, you could burn a man down through the bone. you couldn't hide in water as it would still burn. you couldn't carve it off because your blade would melt. the only way to survive it was to let it take what it wanted, and it always wanted more.
The canister spun to finalize the mixture. to make it stable for transport and loading they required a programmed release, and to expedite the release and detonation they had it spin making a hellish whirrling noise when fired. Jack remembered seeing the after-effects of such weapons. bodies, vehicles, weapons, and bunkers melted like plastics in an oven and the smell of cooked flesh was in the air. The victims were either trapped in the molten slag that was their bunker or tank or were eaten and burned alive by the liquid fire as it melted through them leaving nothing but bloodied ash.
The canister exploded overhead a large group of Jack's marines who were attempting to help one of their buddies who was injured by an artillery round out of a hole. they weren't fast enough. the canister exploded overhead sending white liquid all over the forest. Most foliage immediately burst into flames from the heat. One of the marines was lucky enough to get splashed on the neck. The searing liquid quickly burns through his flesh and bone decapitating him with the power of fire. the other two weren't so lucky. They had only caught a few trace droplets that scattered all over their face and slowly burned their way down into them. Through body armor, flesh, bone, and sinue, they felt every burning sensation as it ate its way through until they either passed out from the pain, or it burnt their brain out.
The forest quickly filled with black smoke and fire. Jack, carrying Jessica and one other marine, finally found a place to stop roughly 2 miles from the barrage. Of the 22 marines that initially were with him only 8 remained. 4 were wounded, 3 too wounded to walk. The look of pure terror and adrenaline shared all their faces.
"Who could've done this?" shouted Kachima trembling as he spoke.
"I don't know," answered Dillion. "The pyramid people, maybe?"
"No," Jack said. Everyone turned their attention to him and Dillion. "It was our own God Damned people." a wave of gasps and disbelief erupted from the group.
"Impossible!" Dillion said. "Why?" Jack pondered this point for a moment before speaking.
"I don't know," he admitted. "It could be to blame it on whoever owns that pyramid and declare war on them." Jack shakily reached into one of his pockets pulled out another cigarette from its case and lit it as he began to treat the wounded men before him, wrapping tourniquets, and applying bandages where he could with the assistance of those who could still walk. 
"No!" Dillion said. "Maybe it's somethin' else."
"What else could it be, Dillion!" Jack asked
"Maybe the pyramid people sent their goons out, and when they failed to check in, intercepted our coms and sent in the artillery!" he said, clearly reaching to find some reason other than cold-hearted betrayal for their situation."
"Those artillery shots came from the west," Jack pointed behind him towards the small inferno burning in the distance. "The only thing west of here is our command. Not only that, but those mercs claimed to be government contractors. they knew the location to meet, they had the call and response, and they knew what time to be there." Dillion stopped for a moment still in disbelief. they never did voice their call and response over the coms. They heard a helicopter fly over them, and they all instinctively ducked down.
"Maybe that's the rescue team I called for," Dillion said.
"Don't..." Jack responded.
"You two," Dillion said pointing at CPL Cathwick and LCPL Kachima. "Let's track down that bird and get help for our wounded." Jack stood up and intercepted Dillion stopping him by placing a hand on his left non-injured shoulder.
"Don't do this. Please." Jack pleaded. "We've lost too many so far." Dillion threw Jack's hand off aggressively. He had made up his mind.
"What else do we have, Jack?" He responded. Jack watched as the three men walked towards the sound of a helicopter. He had a point. Where else is there to go? They had no food, they had no water, and they were trapped and being actively hunted. Jack returned to stabilizing the wounded. The thought rang in his head like a gong. What next, where do we go, who can we turn to? The nearest civilian city was a several days' walk away, weeks seeing as how they also needed to carry the wounded. The answer was uncomfortable, but it was the only other option.
Suddenly the sound of shots rang out. Machine gun fire, small arms, explosions. Jack stood up and turned to the remaining walking marines. "Go to the beach, fast. The pyramid." He then grabbed his rifle and began to run towards the sound of the gunshots.  Half a mile into the forest he saw Cathwick and Kachima running back with Dillion hot on their tail. Jack jumped forward and found a spot to dig in. "Run! to the beach! Find the pyramid!" he said as they passed. Dillion jumped beside Jack in their position. "Are you hit?" Jack asked Dillion as they both slowly retreated.
"I'm sorry," he cried "You were right." Jack grabbed his collar and shook him lightly.
"Snap out of it!" he yelled. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," Dillion began. "There were a few survivors at the old rally point. they began executing them one by one. When they saw us they shot grenade launchers at us." Just as Jack turned back west to see if there were any of them coming a shot whizzed by his head. Both Jack and Dillion ducked down behind a fallen tree and began to engage. These guys weren't the untrained contractors that they dealt with before. These were trained soldiers.
Jack and Dillion began to take turns popping out from cover to engage, firing a small volley of fire before ducking down allowing the other to do the same. Volley after volley, magazine after magazine they exchanged fire with these truly professional killers, not giving them more than a second to engage them in return. Bullets whizzed and whirred by their head grazing clothes, splintering trees, and impacting dirt. the other soldiers that had accompanied Dillion had finally gained their composure and set themselves up on a small ridge overlooking the firefight and began to assist in the defense of their comrades letting loose with a full volley from their belt-fed automatic, the roar of it allowing a few moments of reprieve for Jack and Dillion.
Just as it had seemed that Jack had caught his breath he had heard a familiar whistle followed by a deafening crack as he was then lifted off of his feet and tossed rearward. shaking the splinters off of him his body became almost overwhelmed with pain. As he looked down he saw he had become riddled with splinters of varying size. The troops engaging them had decided to deal with this defensive stance with a grenade launcher. realizing his luck had now quickly run into remission he dragged himself over looking for Dillion when another whistle pierced through the numb lull that had overtaken his hearing. he looked over to his marines just in time to see a flash of light overpower his vision and for them to become reduced into a pink mix of blood, gore, and limbs.
Jack then heard a cry of pain behind him. He crawled on his stomach over to where he saw Dillion lying on his back with several large splinters sticking out of his chest. Jack transitioned to a crawl toward his friend, grabbing him by his plate carrier and dragging him back as more explosions began to erupt around him. Jack tried to get to his feet only for the pain in his legs to cause his knees to buckle, and for him to collapse to the ground. He continued to crawl as fast as his arms and knees could take him, Dillion, barely maintaining consciousness drew his sidearm and attempted to suppress the encroaching enemies behind them.
Bullets continued to fly over him, striking him in his vest's strike face, his helmet, his arms, back, and legs. every impact knocking him to the floor and freezing his body up with pain and agony, only for him to force himself back upward and continue to crawl away. He looked ahead and saw his remaining wounded troops begin to engage. roused by the sounds of chaos they quickly, as quickly as their injuries would permit, strapped their gear on and moved to assist. Jack took no respite from this momentary assistance and continued to crawl as fast as he could to the beach, not stopping until he felt the sands burning his degloved hand's skin.
Dropping Dillion against the pyramid he drew his sidearm and began to assist in the repulsion of their new assailants, who were now, surprised by the sudden ambush, taken off guard and organizing a tactical retreat. Spitting up blood Jack took a moment to look over himself. his helmet was destroyed. Any further impacts would have killed him. his strike faces were more powder than plate and had now several nonlethal penetrations, he had multiple bullet wounds along his arms and legs that by a miracle missed his arteries by mere inches, and splinters ran up and down the front of his body, the largest of them was stuck in his calf and measured roughly 6 inches, and another stuck in the side of his throat, just enough to leave a nasty flesh wound, but not enough to be life-threatening. If he had run out of luck in that last engagement, he was now eternally indebted to whoever he borrowed from.
Jack's self-assessment was interrupted when Dillion began to cough and vomit up blood. "Dillion!" he shouted, dragging himself to his side. Dillion had lurched forward barely conscious from blood loss, and shock. "C'mon, Dillion, Stay awake. Look at me!" Dillion vomited another mouthful of blood before looking Jack in the eyes.
"who hired the first group?" he chuckled. He was pale and his eyes became glossy and tear-filled.
"You know how bad nepotism is these days. they were probably hired because they knew a general or something." Jack responded, chuckling. There was nothing he could do. He was powerless to help him. All their medical supplies were either damaged, used up, or required a specialist to use them, and their only corpsman was unconscious on a stretcher. Dillion looked over to his rifle. Its muzzle was buried in the dirt, and its action was now clogged with sand.
"Could you hand me my rifle, Staff Sargeant?" He asked weakly. Jack reached down and positioned the rifle into his hands, and Dillion began to fish into his pocket for something. "gotta get this... thing all cleaned..." he began. he pulled a rag and oil from his pocket and began to dust the sand out of the action. "Can't let... the others see me with... a dirty... rifle..." he wheezed. Jack held back tears as much as he could as he helped his friend dislodge a rock from the chamber. "Gotta... set th... example... for them..." he nodded over to the group of marines that were now focused on each other's injuries bandaging, cleaning, or contructing crude crutches to walk on. Dillion smiled as the light faded from his eyes and he exhaled. his hands went limp as he dropped the rifle back into the sand.
Jack's tears began to flow without his knowledge. he sat back as the tide crashed up, lightly soaking his hand in the water, cleaning the blood from the sands. He reached back up taking Dillion's patch from his plate carrier and with shaking hands pulled the box from his pocket. He looked up to the five remaining troops. only five. He stood back up onto his only good leg, placed the patch in the box, and put it back into his pocket. He then tested his leg to see if he could put any weight on it, only for him to buckle and fall against something hard and metallic. He opened his eyes and noticed he wasn't against the pyramid. he looked at what he was leaning against and saw nothing but the shimmers from before.
the air he leaned against was like a cloth wrapped. the shimmers were the light folds in the fabric. He looked up underneath one of the blankets and saw a metallic, lifeless head with one eye staring down at him. Fear gripped him tightly as he threw himself off of the being, accidentally snagging one of the cloths ripping it from its chest, and causing the remaining fabrics to deactivate their cloak. The being was tall. at least 7 feet in height. the cloths draped around him like a ghillie suit, its head draped over like a bride's veil. Frozen in fear Jack said nothing. The being remained motionless staring down at Jack.
"Please..." Jack began, finally forcing words out of dry throat. The iris on the beast's eye seemed to widen upon hearing his voice. "Help us..." Jack said. The being then looked straight ahead before a light above his eye blinked blue and green. suddenly, the being became invisible once again, as if a group of people wearing the same cloaks surrounded him. Jack stood back up on his knees. "Please!" he began to scream, "Please, help us!" He began to grab wildly into the air, throwing sand, flailing his arms trying to grab one of their cloaks to no avail "Please!" he cried. His troops finally took notice, and one of the last remaining able-bodied marines began to rush over to him.
"Staff Sargeant?" came the voice of Lance Corporal Davis, a young lance corporal only senior to Kachima by a few months, dropping to his knees in front of Jack. "What's going on? What happened?" Davis' hands clapped the sides of Jack's face as Davis attempted to force the eyes of his platoon sergeant to look upon his own. Jack pushed away his hands still realing from whatever he just saw gripping the cloth he had torn unintentionally from the strange being tight in hand. Kachima quickly transitioned to a hug and began pushing back. "Stop! What's going on?" he shouted
Jack ceased his struggle finally noticing Davis. "I Saw... You mean you didn't see the ..." He rambled before sitting back landing at eye level with Davis. He began to question his sanity. Had he seen a tall one-eyed robot, concealed by the vale of invisibility, or had he finally snapped from the weight of this betrayal?
"We didn't see anything. What are you talking about?" Davis pushed his back against the pyramid. Jack Eyes began to quickly scan the area, searching for another sign they were there. A shimmer, footprints, anything. There was nothing. Davis began to treat the wounds on Jack's throat by carefully removing the large chunk of wood quickly applying a gauss pad to stop any bleeding, and taping it in place.
Jack leaned back, holding the gauss pad in place, and helping Kachima where he could. "It must've been a hallucination." he lied to himself as he began to slowly remove the large splinter in his calf. the pain was excruciating. he whinced and groaned as he slowly removed it nearly passing out. Clenching his eyes shut he let out a final cry as he yanked the splinter out, blood splattering against the sand in dark red hues. Jack threw the bloodied splinter in front of him which landed with a metallic clank startling Jack.
Looking closely he noticed the blood splatter seemed to float several inches above the sand. Jack began to hoist himself to his feet as Davis tried to coax him back to the ground. "Staff Sargeant, please, I'm not..." Jack shook him off and gestured to the floating blood stains 3 feet in front of them. Davis went silent and began to lift his rifle only for Jack to catch it.
"Don't," Jack said calmly. "I need you to trust me," he said. Davis, though terrified, followed the instructions of his platoon sergeant. Jack limped forward slowly, not putting too much pressure on his wounded leg. surprisingly the being deactivated whatever cloaking field he had on before, the veils curling up and folding away like a curtain revealing the full body of the robot.
"Please," Jack began more calmly. "We need help. So many of us have already been killed." The light above the robot's eye flashed red and green again for several seconds.
"Why should we?" it responded with a strangely human yet augmented voice, startling Jack and finally grabbing the attention of the rest of the Marines that remained up and mobile who quickly made for their weapons.
"Put your weapons down!" Jack screamed to his men who, though startled and unsettled by the presence of the 7-foot robot's overwhelming presence dwarfing their platoon sergeant by a full foot, relented. "Look, I won't make it seem like we traveled all this way with good intentions all along. Yea, the second we found your base I tried breaking in," Jack said gesturing towards the pyramid, "but if you wish to place blame on someone for such actions blame me. Please, help my men."
"That's not our base." it responded, "that is a weather station." It walked over to the group of marines lying on the floor, too wounded to walk. One of the able-bodied marines, LCPL Brown, intercepted the robot on its path weary of the robot's intentions. "Please, I wish you and your comrades no harm," it said. Lance corporal brown looked back over at Jack, who nodded. Brown took a few steps back and let the Robot look upon the injured marines. "multiple amputations, severe blood loss, gunshot wounds, and burns. Prepare ICUs 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. Have security ready as well, and prepare a debriefing room." it said as if talking to someone else.
"Does this mean you'll help us?" Jack asked, waddling to the robot's side only for him to feel a sharp pain in his neck. reaching up he pulled a strange syringe device out and noticed it had emptied its contents.
"help you, yes. but that doesn't mean we trust you just yet." Jack began to lose consciousness, seeing similar devices impact Brown and Davis similarly, as more robots appeared out of thin air and began to pick up the limp bodies of Jessica, Dillion, and Cpl James. Jack didn't even impact the sand before he was caught and hoisted onto another robot's back as he drifted into unconsciousness