This Forsaken World

This Forsaken World Chapter 4

This Forsaken World Chapter 4

Sergeant Victor Grimm

Running several miles in full combat gear with a headache was not the highlight of my life. We had covered roughly half the distance, everyone throwing curse words in Higguns direction, when near deafening sirens began to ring out along the city walls.

Glancing about in confusion, my squad instinctively turned around and ran back towards the barracks. Sirens normally meant the infected humans were about to breach the wall or had begun amassing in force.

Normally infected were eliminated before a breach could occur due to our defenses. The walls were over twenty feet tall with plenty of defenses in the form of automated and manned turrets, thousands of defense force troopers, wall slots for ground level flame throwers, and titanium spikes. Only once since the construction of the walls had the infected breached and it was due to overwhelming numbers at one specific point.

As soldiers, technicians, medical staff and officers ran back and forth in different directions, heading towards there stations, my squad picked up speed and we ran past the barracks towards the armory. The thick metal building was built to the right of the main gate, the massive ten foot thick steel doors both comforting and intimidating at the same time.

An MP was in the progress of handing out weapons to soldiers as they formed a line and I noticed the Staff Sergeant from earlier taking note of who was geared up, indicating with a hand gesture as to where they should report. As I approached the man, my squad lining up for armaments, I moved close enough that he could hear over the loud sirens above.

"Staffs, whats going on?" I asked, waiting impatiently for a reply as he waved another group of troopers towards a defensive bunker some twenty feet away. "There was a sighting of what is believed to be a strange battle ship in space. Fleet has issued a code red and put the U.E.D.F. On high alert. We're being mobilized to cover the entire compound in case there hostile. Have your squad report to the western battlements and wait for further orders."

While I was seriously skeptical about how effective a defense would be, I nodded my head and moved towards the MP raising a hand and accepting my assault rifle as it was tossed to me. I moved behind the man and snagged two grenades and a handful of fully loaded magazines. Slotting my gear into there appropriate places, I directed my squad towards our posting.

As we moved together, I chambered a round in my rifle and flipped the safety on so I wouldn't accidentally let off a round while running. "Sarge, whats going on?" Higguns asked, trying desperately to keep up with my longer stride. "Possible sighting of an alien fleet in space, we're being deployed in case it turns out to be bad." I more or less gave a broken down version of the Staff Sergeants briefing, keeping it simple.

Another man moved up to my right, his name was Gavo one of my machine-gunners, "Boss, there aren't enough Defense Troopers to cover this entire city. It would take a ridiculous amount of men to watch everything, we barely have enough to respond to breach threats, let alone an invasion force of ET's."

Nodding my head in agreement, I couldn't help but feel pride for my soldiers. While we lived in strange times, no one batted an eye at the possibility of an alien fleet from another world. We had space ships and zombies, why not another civilization capable of space flight? This world and time was like one of the old science fiction stories from fifty years ago.

"I'm aware of that, lets just focus on our part of the wall and leave the rest to the brass. We've got a mile of wall to cover and only twelve troopers to cover it." I dearly hoped it wasn't some invasion, we had enough to deal with. Humanity was just recovering from a zombie invasion, I didn't think we could take much more. If in fact it was some hostile alien fleet, it was up to the Spacers to handle it. The Defense Force was ill prepared for such an attack, we had been assembled for wall defense, space ships could land inside of that wall defeating the purpose.