they tell us otherwise.”
The division had become an ad hoc grouping with a Militia battalion, a regular Infantry battalion, a company of mortars and a missile platoon, meaning three missile-carriers. It wasn’t much to hold the line. But it had finally begun, the careful withdrawal of select units in order to build a reserve in the shrinking area of Army Group SoCal.
Paul figured the reserve was meant to hurl against the Chinese in order to drive to LA. They had to break out soon or the Army Group was going to succumb to a lack of ammo and supplies.
“We’re exposed here, Lieutenant,” the forty-something Militia private whined.
The Lieutenant stared at the man. The young Lieutenant had aged since La Mesa. He’d lost the four young kids of the platoon Paul and Romo had joined. They had died fighting, holding their post.
The forty-something squirmed uncomfortably. Yet he still managed to say, “We have to preserve ourselves so we have soldiers to keep the Chinese at bay.”
“The Lieutenant still doesn’t understand,” Romo whispered. “But I will show him.” The Mexican assassin rose from where he couched beside Paul. They had their own .50 caliber to serve and several RPGs, the last ones.
Romo sauntered beside the Lieutenant. “Can I speak to him, sir?”
The Lieutenant eyed Romo, finally nodding.
Romo crouched beside the wary, forty-something private. He began whispering, going so far as to pull out a knife and show it to the private. The older man paled, and he would no longer look in Romo’s eyes.
“Si?” Romo asked him.
The forty-something private nodded quickly.
Romo rose, touched his helmet in respect to the Lieutenant and then sauntered back beside Paul.
“What did you tell him?” Paul asked.
“If he runs during combat I will feed him his balls.”
“You showed him the knife you’re going to do it with?”
“It always helps to show them the knife.”
“I’m sure it does,” Paul said. “Oh-oh, you hear that.”
“Incoming!” Romo shouted.
“Everyone down!” the Lieutenant shouted. “And don’t get up until you hear my whistle.”
Paul crawled into a narrow slit trench. Seconds later, shells went screaming in and blew up rubble, dust, men and weapons. Concussions washed over Paul. Debris flew everywhere. The enemy pounded their position and likely all along the line and the mortar and artillery sites. No doubt drones buzzed up there, helping the enemy sight them.
Screwing his eyes shut, Paul endured. He hated artillery. It was so impersonal. It was just stupid fate and luck. Someday, his luck would run out, just as it had for Maria Valdez. Colonel Valdez should never have sent his daughter along.
Then an arty shell landed too close. The blast hurled Paul against the side of his trench. Hot shrapnel flew over him. He began shivering uncontrollably.
“God!” he screamed, although he couldn’t hear a word. “Let me live! Let me be with my wife again! God! Are you listening?”
Another shell came down. The explosion hurled Paul against the other side of his slit trench. He wore armor, a mesh vest. He wore a helmet, tough pants and heavy-duty boots. It would be like wet toilet paper if a piece of shrapnel caught him.
Suddenly, the artillery barrage ended.
Paul knew what it meant. The Chinese did these things like machines. Their attack procedure never varied. The trouble with him was that he just wanted to lie there. The peace of no shells coming in…he couldn’t take any more of this. He didn’t want to face yet another Chinese wave assault. He wanted—
Gritting his teeth, Paul rose to his knees. He was the first up. With ringing ears and moisture in his eyes, he crawled to the .50 caliber and set it back up. It had survived, although there were dings in it. He put it on the tripod mount and manhandled it to a position behind a smoking piece of rubble.
“Lieutenant!” Paul shouted. “The artillery prep is over. They’re going to be coming soon.”
Romo appeared beside him. The lean face looked more hollowed-out than ever and dirt smeared the assassin’s face. The eyes lacked their normal wolfishness. The artillery shelling had shaken Romo. Who wouldn’t be shaken by that?
A whistle blew. A turn of his head showed Paul the Lieutenant was up. The officer began kicking prone and shaking soldiers. The Lieutenant bent down, yanked a kid up and screamed in his face.
“Mother Mary,” Romo whispered.
Something about the way Romo spoke made the hairs on the back of Paul’s neck rise up. He didn’t want to look, but he did. What he saw…
“No,” Paul whispered. “They can’t do that.”
Except these Chinese were doing it. Soldiers herded civilians, American women and children straight at them. The enemy poked bayonets at the civilians. One of the soldiers drove his bayonet into a young woman, between her shoulder blades so the point jutted out of her chest. Her scream was paralyzing. Paul had never seen something like this, such gruesome barbarity.
“They’re going to stumble over the minefield,” the Lieutenant said.
Paul could feel the officer’s hand on his right shoulder as the Lieutenant crouched behind him.
“This is murder,” Paul heard himself say.
Romo cursed in Spanish. He turned to Paul, and there was fire in his eyes. “We cannot let them approach.”
Paul felt the heart go out of him. “What are you suggesting?”
“Start firing, amigo. We must stop the Chinese.”
“We can’t fire on women and children,” the Lieutenant said.
Paul found himself agreeing internally.
“Let’s get out of here,” the forty-something private said.
Romo cursed again. Using his elbows for propulsion, he slithered across shale, one of the dislodged stones tumbling into a shell-hole. Romo reached a forward observer. He grabbed the man’s speaker and shouted into it. After he was done, Romo slithered back to them behind the low wall of rubble.
“What did you report?” the dazed Lieutenant asked.
Seconds later, the answer came in a hail of mortar rounds.
“No,” Paul said, staring at Romo.
The Mexican assassin stared hard at the wall of rubble. He seemed to be in another world right then.
The mortar rounds howled down, and soon the sounds of the wounded, dying and screaming civilians drove Paul to madness.
He went to the .50 caliber, to the butterfly button triggers. He aimed at the dinylon-armored Chinese and he fired at the enemy. He also hit American civilians, putting many out of their misery. All along the line, other Americans opened up. The Chinese climbed to their feet and they kept coming. Far behind them watched robots or at least they looked like robots.
“Battle suits,” Paul said. He aimed his machine gun at them, but after a single burst, they moved out of his line of sight.
The other Chinese refused to break, firing assault rifles and grenade launchers in a suicidal frenzy. One by one, the defending Americans hiding in the rubble died, killed by bomb, lobbed grenade and bullet. In return, the few survivors reaped a dreadful harvest of Chinese penal soldiers.
Then all at once, even though they had worked far forward, the remaining wave assaulters threw themselves flat.
“Incoming!” Paul screamed in a raw throat. He fell flat, too, and a missile barrage thundered upon them. He felt himself lift and slam back against the ground. It left him limp, and then he lay still as one dead.
Soon, he heard the march of enemy feet. He heard Chinese curses and then he heard them crunching over rubble and climbing into their positions. Some Americans farther away took potshots at the enemy.
Harsh Chinese commands boomed nearby. It must have come from the battle-suited soldiers, the officers,
