“Today is the day we retake the west from those ignorant cultists. In and out before they know we’re here.” A heavy sarcasm dripped through Jabs words as he mimicked the general’s speech.

  ‘I know, I know.’ Dane replied. ‘Now shut up and keep going. We need to find a safe location where we can camp out until the morning reinforcements arrive.’

  ‘What’s the latest on casualties, sarge?’ Atis asked.

  ‘Hundred and fifty confirmed out of action, fifty more unaccounted for.’ he sighed. He didn’t even want to think about the number of dead residents and ascenscionists that were surely buried underneath the collapsed buildings and rubble. Too many corpses had already been revealed to them from underneath the thick, brown fog they were fighting through. A toxic mixture of dust and smoke from the fires and destruction caused by the relentless bombardment that had laid a sprawling city area to ruin not even a day ago. The sight of mangled corpses and dead faces, that somehow still had the look of terror imprinted on them long after they had died, was something that wore down the morale of even the hardest of soldiers.

  ‘We move up there.’ He pointed up towards a heavily damaged thirty story building that was one of the few left standing between the smoldering ruins and giant craters.

  ‘Such wanton destruction.’ Atis sighed softly.

  ‘Quiet!’ Ordered Jabs. That building is bound to be hot. We need to stay focused.’

  ‘It’s not like they can hear us talk.’ Atis retorted with a palpable frustration in his voice. ‘Not with our helmets on.’

  ‘Shut up you two!’ He barked at both his subordinates. He knew they were both tense and fatigued, as was he, but this kind of infighting would get them killed in a place like this. They needed to get out of the open and find a place where they could rest.

  He gave them the hand signal to move out and the three of them moved through the debris one at a time, with the other two scouting the environment and providing cover. It was a slow, rhythmic process that they had practiced to perfection.

  ‘Have you signalled our location yet?’ Jabs asked him via a private channel. ‘I’d hate to get caught in friendly fire.’.

  He didn’t directly answer Jabs, but gave him a thumbs up instead. He knew though that he could signal all he wanted, but in the darkness of the night combined with the poor visibility from the lingerie dust and smoke, it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe. As far as he was concerned, they had to avoid encounters of any sort at all cost. Live and let live.

  After several rounds of leap frogging each other, they managed to reach the building safely. ‘Careful’ he warned his men. ‘I bet my left nut that we won’t be the only ones inside there.’. He typed in their exact coordinates and threw a beacon as far away from the building as he could. The beacon was set on a five minute timer before it would broadcast the signal. This way the ascenscionists wouldn’t be able to pinpoint where they were due to the emitting signal.

  Atis continued his habit of talking to himself through their intercoms. ‘Thirty stories, around fifty apartments per story. Fifteen hundred apartments in total. Each one could harbor enemies..’

  Dane interrupted Atis’ flow of thoughts. ‘Buckle up, men. We’re going up to the twenty third floor via the rear stairwell.’

  Both men sighed, but neither protested. Dane couldn’t blame them if they had. He wasn’t too fond about the prospect of climbing all those stairs either. Not with his tired legs and heavy equipment. There was no other way though. They had to get high enough to gain a good vantage point whilst also remaining hidden. The anonymity of some middle floor apartment was exactly what they needed. The twelfth floor would have probably been good enough to provide them with both things as well, but he was banking on the fact that every operative in the area would be too tired to climb all the way up to the twenty third floor. Besides, the higher up you went, the longer it would take to evacuate the premises. Together, those two things meant that each extra floor you went up, you gained a little bit of extra safety.

  Under the circumstances they were in, nobody would be looking for the mayhem of close quarter combat on the top floors of a claustrophobic building. Not even the most bloodthirsty of commanders would be able to persuade the men and women serving under them to break the temporary unspoken truce that hung over the area like a cloud in the dreary darkness of night. The fighting during the day had been too severe. Everyone was spent.

  He pushed open the heavy rusted metal door leading into the main stairwell. It was completely dark inside. Atis turned on his helmet’s flashlight, but Dane signaled for him to turn it off again and switch to infrared. Their infrared visors gave them poor visibility in the cold and damp stairwell, but they couldn’t risk their helmet’s lights dancing around on the walls around them, heralding their approach to whomever might lie in wait. Quietly they ascended floor by floor. It didn’t take long before a light became noticeable. By the time they reached the eighth floor, it became obvious that there were troops above them.

  ‘Damnit’ he cursed through the intercom system. ‘Looks like they’re camped out somewhere around the 12th floor.’

  ‘What’s the plan, sarge?’ Jabs asked.

  ‘We sneak past them.’

  Atis’ voice betrayed fear as he spoke. ‘Sounds risky, sarge. Wouldn’t it be better to engage them whilst we have the element of surprise?’

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  ‘No, our mission is to take the plant. Leave the fighting to the others.’

  ‘How do you want to sneak past them then?. I’m sure they’ve posted sentries.’

  ‘We engage them.’

  ‘What? You’re not making any sense..’

  ‘Exactly. Nobody would be stupid enough to engage the enemy and then trap themselves by fleeing upstairs. We smoke them, throw a few flashbangs, fire a couple of explosive rounds through the smoke and run upstairs before they know what hit them.’

  ‘That’s suicide..’ Atis moaned incredulously. ‘They’ll comb out the entire building until they catch us.’

  Jabs chimed in, backing Atis ‘Shouldn’t we just find a place to rest on one of the lower floors? That would be much safer.’

  ‘No it wouldn’t be. They’re likely to scout the lower stories when they leave this building. When we attack them and then run up, we present them with two options. Either we snuck past them to get upstairs, which means we’d entrap ourselves and would be a very dumb move; or it means we snuck out and are radioing in their location with high command for a good old artillery strike. They’re not going to chase us upstairs if that means risking being on the receiving end of a couple of two thousand pounder shells. They won’t have a choice but to evacuate the building immediately.’

  ‘Sounds logical, sarge.’ Jabs said. Atis knew that without Jabs’ support, he wouldn’t be able to sway Dane away from his plans, so he gave in. ‘Let’s do this then, sarge.’

  The snuck as close to the twelfth floor as they could, sticking to the wall like flies in order to avoid detection. If there had been any question as to which side of the conflict the soldiers on the twelfth floor were on, it became clear when they began hearing the muffled sounds of prayer come through the open door.

  ‘Cultists.’ Atis whispered, completely forgetting that his helmet ensured nobody outside of Dane or Jabs could hear him speak. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to throw a couple of grenades, Dane?’

  ‘And risk the building collapsing?’ Jabs interjected. ‘This building is rickety enough as is after this morning’s bombardments. Let’s not worsen things by blowing up half the twelfth floor.’

  ‘Jabs is right. We stick to the plan. Smokes and flashbangs only and watch out for any tripwires. We go on my count. Three, two, one, go!’

  Atis and Jabs both threw two grenades. One smoke and one flashbang. Bright flashes and loud bangs violently interrupted the chants and prayers. Startled screams and shouts sounded from the other side of the rapidly spreading smoke. The three intruders wasted no time and were on the twelfth floor before anyone could respond. Atis shot a well aimed, yet blind volley through the thick smoke. His volley was followed by both Jabs and Dane who seemed to care much less about how well they aimed and more about the effect the roaring explosions of their guns firing caused in the echoing, narrow confines of the concrete structure. Jabs shots were particularly poorly aimed, with most bullets smashing into the doorpost or floor instead of making their way into the hallway.

  They were halfway up to the thirteenth floor when return fire began to erupt. A mixture of lasers and bullets filled the hallway beneath them. They ignored them and kept running upwards until they reached the sixteenth floor, where exhausted, they fell onto the floor with their back against the wall.

  ‘Quiet now.’ Dane said. ‘Give them time to leave.’

  Orders were shouted below them. The gunfire stopped and silence returned to the darkness of the stairwell. More orders followed and it didn’t take long before the twelfth floor erupted into a ruckus as each soldier hurriedly packed their stuff and got ready to march out. Dozens of boots sounded as the Ascensionists began their nighttime descent in search for a safer place to rest the night. The noise they created provided a perfect cover for the three operatives that were determined to make it to the twenty third floor.

  By the time Dane opened the door into the twenty third floor hallway, the sounds of ascensionist boots had already faded away. The three men quickly and silently scurried forward and made their way into the hallway, carefully scouting for both signs of soldiers and a place to rest. They found several apartments that had their doors unlocked. They swept through each one, making sure they were empty and then settled on one to camp out in.

  ‘Stay away from the windows, men. It’s too dark outside to see anything and we don’t want to get spotted. We’ve got about six hours before daylight breaks and the next wave of reinforcements comes in. I suggest we eat and rest whilst we can. I’ll take first guard.’

  The men removed their helmets for the first time since boarding the Minoutars inside the spaceport; revealing tired, sweaty faces. Atis looked distraught, like a man who wasn’t made for this life.

  ‘Poor lad’ Dane thought to himself. It was clear Atis wasn’t made from the same cloth that Jabs and himself were. He wasn’t a warrior and should never have gotten caught up in a conflict like this. Still, he had done his duty today, as he had done in previous months. Atis wasn’t made to be a soldier, but proved himself as a capable soldier nonetheless.

  Atis shook his head. ‘Sign up for the Fifth, they said. Work on a freighter for forty years and support your family financially, they said. Bunch of scumbag liars.’

  ‘You got a family?’ Jabs asked.

  ‘Careful now, lads. Let’s not break the golden rules of the Fifth. We don’t want to get into trouble again.’

  ‘Screw the Fifth.’ Jabs replied. ‘This might be our final night before we get shot to bits. Besides, how are they ever going to find out anyways?’

  ‘I know, but don’t forget about that nasty business with Moot and Derk. I won’t risk another murder over petty squabbles from a previous life.’

  Jabs shook his head. ‘At this point you could be the murderer of my brother and I’d forgive you. The past is the past. None of that matters anymore. Hell, I’ll go first. Got myself into this mess because I was gang affiliated. Deep south, born and raised. Done horrible things but got imprisoned because of false charges made by corrupt Fourth branch scum after one of the higher ups in my gang wanted to get rid of me. Fifth plucked me out of death row, and now here I am, dealing death and terror on innocent residents once again, only this time in the name of the state.’

  Dane chuckled. ‘Funny we never ran into each other before then. I was a corrupt Fourth brancher stationed in the deep south before I got locked up and the Fifth showed up to offer me the choice.’

  Jabs snorted. ‘You must have been really corrupt for them to go after you.’

  Dane shook his head. ‘I was, but that wasn’t what did me in. They only went after me after I tried to go clean. I underestimated just how deep the rot went. I ratted out about it to the precinct captain, next thing I knew I got ganged up on and beat to a bloody pulp. They’d have killed me if it hadn’t been for the fact an officer of the Fifth happened to visit the precinct to check out another potential recruit that you guys know better as Wago.’

  Jabs laughed. ‘Hah, really? No way! Strange we never met then. Wago and I were in the same gang. Even worked together on a few jobs.’

  ‘Small world, ey?’

  ‘You said it, bossman.’

  ‘Bossman? Haven’t heard that said since we got taken in.’

  ‘Good old South, ey?’

  Both of them turned to Atis, who mumbled for them to wait as he finished his packaged meal.

  Jabs, impatient as ever, began to speculate before Atis could finish his meal. ‘Your accent sounds Northern and you don’t look like the type that belongs here between the likes of us, but that’s all I’m certain of.’

  Atis swallowed his final bite and cleared his throat. ‘Born and raised around the oil docks. Worked myself up to sub-management. Had a family. Worked hard and did well. Then a new manager came in. Some arrogant, talentless citizen. She took an instant dislike to me, proceeded to make my life a living hell for the next eight months. One night she picked a fight with me like she’d done many times before, only this time she got physical. I only tried to defend myself but next thing I knew she tumbled backwards and fell down two flights of stairs. Attempted murder. Eighty years in the can. Fifth moved in. Offered me forty years with pay. I took the offer on the condition they’d pay out to my family. It was the only way I could support them and prevent them from ending up on the streets. Also hoped that it meant I would be able to see them again some day. I didn’t even mind the prospect of spending forty years on boring labor. Next thing you know we’re out here fighting for our lives.’

  Jabs sighed. ‘Damn, that’s rough man. At least sarge and I earned our ticket here with all the bad things we’ve done. You’re just unlucky.

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Atis muttered softly, his eyes going distant and unfocused, too busy to recall the past to notice what his eyes were looking at.

  ‘Alright, men, try to get some rest now and let’s forget this conversation ever happened. We’ve got a dangerous day ahead of us and a water plant to sabotage.’