The war at the river Zitar Nuo

The War at the River Zitar Nuo

  By Morgan La Femina

  Copyright 2013 Morgan La Femina

  One

  The Zitar Nuo was the great river set winding between a valley and two mountain ranges. It sat strategically between the battle-lines of two corporations whom lusted after it. Each company’s employees were set to fight the other, their machines grinding through the dirt of the riverbanks while sinking ever deeper into its muck and mire. The soldier’s boots sinking into the mud, sucking on them as they struggled to break free. Each company’s soldiers running from the massive machines pounding the muddy ground even more. The men of the Nenthar Corporation set against the Xelon Dru Company. One must hold the land, power, and only one. The Xelon Dru Corporation slung fire right in the water of the Nuo pounding the Nenthar Corporation’s loyal soldiers with heavy mortars, fire mortars and then the gas bombs. The Nenthar’s shrunk from the withering fire, digging into the mud forming a deep defensive trench line using machines and monster equipment's straight from the factories, the silicon and steel machine factories.

  The Nenthar soldiers sucked precious filtered air in their sealed suits, their air conditioners strapped to each of their backs, their helmets protecting their face and lungs from the noxious gases. Their suits also tapped with computer electronics and antenna. Another wave of gas streamed from the splintering shells as they sank into the muck, plasma shooters and rifles, useless as they dangled from straps about the Nenthar soldier’s shoulders. Abreon in his suit was a trained Nenthar buried deep into the pits riding upon the platform of a machine which task was to drill forward and underneath their defensive line and under no man’s land. The machines drilling auger was steaming hot punching vertically down under the muddy ground. Abreon turned the machine about, the machine bogging in the thick mud, as he spoke into a helmet speaker, “Drean, the driller is choking in the muck, it’s not drilling down any further.”

  A mortar flew overhead reaching the location of another Nenthar trench, blowing up soldiers and equipment. The commander of the corporate unit of 1 Beta, Drean swearing at the blast and yelling at the struggling Abreon, the driller and Abreon caked in thick brown mud, “Keep drilling! We need the trench deeper to prepare for the final assault,” referring to an assault over the Zitar Nuo, which would later prove to be fruitless.

  Abreon yanking at the driller controls, but the driller seizing up completely consumed by mud packed in all around it. He struggled, breathing heavily, sweat pouring down his face, behind his mask as a mortar hit the ground nearby, throwing muck up everywhere. Most of the Nenthar soldiers began to pull back from the unfinished forward trenches to rearward previous dug in older and deeper bunkers. They scurried back timidly awaiting the offensive cease-fire that still had yet to occur. Abreon cursing to himself, giving up on the driller, jumping off as his suit warned him that it was now running off emergency power. Abreon leaped off the machine into the mud, forcing himself back, through perpendicular front line tunnels, like a sewer rat. Abreon struggled as a display within his helmet began flailing red as he pulled himself along, past others and their suits, the mist of poison gas thick. Abreon yelling to his commander, “Drean help me, damn you!”

  Drean hiding in a well-placed bunker, the guns of the Nenthar in the distance and rear of their positions, barking back into his suit microphone, “Abreon, I’m in authority over you!”

  Abreon pushing himself through the mud, screaming, “I'm going to die!”

  Drean, “l am your superior officer! Hold your position, dig!”

  Abreon falling into the mud, standing as the flashing red helmet indicator grew even more urgent. Once power shut off he would not be able to filter the poisoned air. He would suffocate to death. Abreon wiped his mask off with a muddy forehand, soaked in thick, brown mud, water from the river seeping into the corporations defensive line trenches. Abreon struggled into still another trench, the computer within his suit whispering more subtle warnings:

  “Warning, you have twenty seconds of remaining power.”

  Abreon screaming to his commander, “You used me and you’re going to let me die!”

  Drean, “No! You wasted yourself! You're a Nenthar solder!”

  “You have ten seconds of remaining power.”

  Abreon finding a bunker, “Come on!” pulling the airlock door open and grinding it closed behind him. Abreon punched in the detox codes on its key panel the airlock drawing any residual air remaining inside then refilling it with a fog of cleansers.

  Abreon, “Please!”

  The airlock cycled through the cleansing procedure, pulling back out the cleansers, finally depressurizing the unit with clean purified oxygen.

  Abreon’s suit shut down, now without power. He gasped for breath while snapping his helmet off. He fell back to the floor of the airlock chocking but recovering as he took deep breaths of fresh air. Through those gasps, he spoke into his helmet, “Drean?” You deserve all the hell you get! You know that! I'm alive, damn you!” He pulled himself up, opening the second internal door open as he looked at the outside door's portal window. He could see several other men, outside clawing at the door. He closed the second door behind him, as one of the eight men grabbing Abreon and his helmet. One yelled into it, “Save us! Save us! There is no food or water here!”

  Another one snatching the helmet, as Abreon stood, then fell back to a bunker wall, the other one screaming into his helmet microphone, “We're all going to die! The gas is thick outside! The mortars push us down further, every day!”

  Finally, Drean speaking through Abreon’s helmet, “I am your commander. You will speak to me with respect! Have patience, your time will come.”

  Abreon standing there amongst them, shaking, “Let me see that!” stumbling over, taking the helmet back, the words of Drean reverberating as the bunker shuttered and as a mortar impacted the ground nearby, Drean continuing “Listen to me! We need new tranches and shafts under the 23rd quadrant… HQ wants us…” Abreon turned the communicator off line, shaking his head in disgust. He looked at those around him, a rag bunch. He sat down next to the closed air lock noticing they were in shambles and the fact that they still had their plasma rifles over their shoulders, “We need to conserve the battery life of the helmet transceiver. My suit is out, but my helmet has its own draw.”

  All eight of them sat on the floor of the bunker. They looked like a morally and physically destroyed group of men most with their suites half off or simply naked. They seemed hungry and thirsty but at the ready to murder, with their guns slung. One of them who was sitting, hunched over, “Your name?”

  “Abreon is my name. I need the helmet switched off because we need to know when the gas and mortars have stopped, so that we can continue through the trenches. We will send out a communique every six hours.”

  A second: “Do you have any water?”

  “I have some water rations hooked into my suit.”

  A third looking up, “Do you have any food?”

  “I have none.”

  They hunkered down near the airlock, waiting.

  The second night of Abreon’s imprisonment within the bunker the fire light flashes from the gun battery’s outside launching mortars no longer streamed through the six-inch acrylic plate that formed the internal and external airlock windows. He looked around, now just the pale overhead lights illuminating the inside of their bunker. One of the surrounding eight began to shake, then after a few more hours he broke, screaming out to them all, “Let me out! Let me out! I’m going to die! We are going to die in here!”

  Abreon pulling him away from the airlock, “If you leave we’ll all die!”

  The bunker shaken by another mortar and another c
ausing the internal lights to flicker off, putting them in near total darkness.

  Another one screaming, “I can't see! I'm blind!”

  A second naked soldier, “Shut up! Shut up!”

  Abreon struggling with them, “Listen! Stop it, all of you!”

  “I can’t see!”

  The second soldier grabbing the one who could not see, “Shut up!”

  The first “Let me out! Let me out!”

  The soldier who grabbed the third soldier beating the one who could not see, “Shut up!” punching the poor man, “I’ll show you about seeing!”

  Abreon letting the soldier he detained slump to the ground pulling the third soldier off the second, punching him then shaking him in a bear hug till he was exhausted and finally dropping him to the ground. The soldier slunk back into a corner and began to cry. Abreon wiped the sweat from his head