The Crest

The smoke on the Crest today was a thick, purplish impasto. It hung like hazy images of tiny boats in the ocean, the kind that a connoisseur of Monet paintings could appreciate.

Keegan and Margot got together for their morning break on the Crest.

“What happened to Agathe and Emilio? What did you tell the Sergeant?” Margot asked pointedly, upset.

“I didn’t tell him anything. He caught them smoking pot,” he said.

“So, that’s nothing new.”

“I know, the Sergeant moved too hard on them; he was convinced they were the traitors.”

“He’s calling them traitors? I don’t believe it. They may be potheads, but they’re not traitors.”

“I agree.”

“They’ll blame you; you know. You’re the pod boss.”

He thought about Emilio and Agathe rotting away in the brig. “They’re wrong. I didn’t turn them in.”

“Getting high is different from betraying Crefor. It just is.”

“I know. It’s still a dereliction of duty, only less severe.”

Keegan fumed. Now Margot distrusted him. He really tried to convince Wild Bill that he had the wrong people, but he wouldn’t listen.

They were down two defenders on their quadrant until replacements came, if ever.

The pair went back to patrolling. Keegan looked out on the opaqueness. Today you could cut the fog with a knife and despite the heaviness, Keegan saw bombs lighting up the ramparts like lightning strikes.

“Holy shit. This is it,” he screamed.

Off in the distance he caught the ‘dub’ sound of the mortars being shot off—and he knew. “They’ve arrived,” he said to himself. In a way, he was relieved that the final battle was here, the waiting and the rhetoric about the Antisis messed with his head.

He ran to the handheld radio and shouted, “They’re here, I repeat we are under attack.” He received confused chatter and screams on the other end.

Their mortar strikes are hitting us already. Somebody is guiding them in. Keegan thought.

That he helped put Agathe and Emilio in jail bothered him, but he had no time to think about it. He ran down the battlement this time, screaming at his pod.

He ran to Margot. “This is it. Ready?”

“Yep.”

He dashed down the parapet.

“Ben, ready?”

“Hell yes.”

“Lenore, ready?”

“You got it.”

“Beatrice, are you ready?”

Beatrice looked surprised to see Keegan. She seemed unprepared “Yes,” she said abruptly.

“Markus.” No answer. “Markus?” he called again.

“Beatrice, where is Markus?” Keegan yelled.

She looked at him in shock. “I… I don’t know.”

“I think you do know. Tell me,” he shouted.

Frightened, she pointed to the other side of the flanking tower. The pod leader ran to the tower and slowed. A mortar hit just 200 meters away.

“Danger close. Adjust fire,” Markus said.

“Copy that, Scorpio,” the voice on the radio replied.

Another mortar hit closer to the wall, out 400 meters and to the left.

“Add 200, left 150, out,” Markus ordered.

Keegan saw the next round hit the battlement, causing the defenders on top to scatter.

“Fire for effect, over.”

“You’re a dead man, Markus. Come with me.” He motioned with his gun.

Markus smiled. “You can’t stop them now.”

“At least I can stop you.”

“FORC is done. This insidious nursery will soon be wiped off the planet. The Antisis army will prevail, praise the black roses, praise the Nature Liberation Assembly, praise God.”

Those were the last words that Keegan heard as Beatrice’s gun barrel smashed against the back of his head. He crashed to the ground, unconscious.

“Should we kill him?” she asked.

Markus hesitated. “No, let him be. The Antisis will take care of him.”

The pair escaped through the nursery and made their way to their rendezvous point at the Nature Liberation Assembly Church. There, they would welcome the Antisis with open arms and await the rapture.

The next mortar barrage lasted fifteen minutes. The pod leader lay docile; he felt the pounding coming from the cement where he lay. Time elapsed, his head ached, his vision blurred. He staggered to his feet. Beatrice and Markus were gone. The mortars shook the battlement.

“Fucking head.” He swirled.

He staggered back to his station. He saw the last of his pod mates, Margot, Ben, and Lenore positioned up against the curtain wall, firing their weapons.

Thank God, he thought.

He leaned against the curtain wall and saw them coming off in the distance. Not a few, not a hundred, but thousands, like ants swarming out of a nest, they came running at the Crest. Up and down the base of the ridgeline, then suddenly they appeared out of the smoke, scrambling up the Crest.

The mortar strikes began again but with more intensity. The mortar men found their mark, Keegan noted.

From his vantage point, he could see the Antisis and their clothes. Some wore mountain men hides and hats. Others wore old military uniforms. They wore red head scarves with the black rose image on the front. His shock at seeing the ragged Antisis army caused him to forget to shoot his weapon. His head ached.

“Give ’em hell team. This is it,” he screamed to his pod.

The gunfire exploded off quadrant 28 along the general arc of the Antisis fighters. Keegan saw them fall by the dozens but more replaced those killed. Meanwhile, the lightning bursts from the mortar rounds crept closer to quadrant 28.

Soon after, he saw the enemy carrying ladders and grappling hooks. Immediately the machine guns on the flanking towers up and down the battlement exploded in fire. The 50-caliber fire from the quadrant 28 tower continued for several minutes and then stopped.

“What the fuck,” Keegan shouted. He knew that Markus probably sabotaged the gun. It was easy to do, just put old empty casings into the ammo link belts and voila, instant jam.

Spotlights showed the Antisis running toward the Crest. The enemy got so close now that Keegan could see them climbing their ladders and grappling hooks. It was almost surreal, like the siege of a castle. He could see hand-to-hand combat taking place in quadrants 27 and 29.

“Shit,” he said. “We’re finished.”

He saw the valley reinforcements rush to the top of the battlement. They screamed, frightened to death as they ran into the melee, shooting randomly with pistols and M-4s. They were easily killed by the Antisis.

The enemy breached the top of the battlement and like termites spread in all directions. The fighting between the battle hardened Antisis, and the Crefor grew tense. The Crefor fired their rifles and reloaded, crouched in corners waiting for a shot. Behind them, more Antisis came up the rampart and now Quadrant 28 was trapped.

Keegan and Margot defended each other’s back, disciplined with their ammunition. They kept the quadrant flanking tower from being taken over for the time being.