Germline: The Subterrene War: Book 1 Read Online Free Page A

indicated that whoever these men were, they
really
wanted to kill us. What had we ever done to them?
    “I think I’m going to puke,” I said.
    “Well,” said Ox, “then let’s get this over with.
Burger.
”
    Loud pops sounded from my right as Burger worked his grenade launcher up and down, left and right, arcing deadly eggs toward the oncoming shapes. Posts on our flanks must have opened up at the same time, because brilliant flashes blossomed over the snow several hundred meters away, toward the Irtysh River, and then from theopposite direction.
Big push,
I thought. There were thousands of them. Burger’s grenades—alternating between thermal gel and fléchettes—melted or punctured anything they hit, and the Russians reacted immediately; advance troops rose from their crawl and sprinted forward, firing at our bunker so that all we saw were lines of tracers leaping out of thin air.
    “Right about… Ox said, “now.”
    Sentry robots beeped to life at the appearance of moving targets. Metallic columns popped up from buried tubes across the entire front and sprayed explosive fléchettes, strafing and mowing like avenging angels as they sucked ammunition from bunker magazines far below.
    “Crank up, Scout!” said Snyder.
“What are you waiting for, man?”
    I didn’t have time to think, not even like,
Wait a second, I’m about to wipe someone I don’t even know.
Didn’t happen. Those thoughts came only later, in nightmares. Daymares. As soon as my finger touched the trigger, a green sighting reticle appeared on my goggles, and I heard the tinkling of fléchettes as they fell through the flexi-belt and into the carbine. I didn’t feel a thing. No kick. The barrel magnets launched the fléchettes down and out so that all I saw was a line of red streaks—each one the tiny fleck of phosphorus that lit up when a fléchette hit air. I had time to think then. Time to think that it was beautiful, like fireworks, but just a few seconds later, there were no more targets and the sentries lowered slowly into their holes to leave me gasping for air and searching the horizon for something, anything, that might be trying to kill me.
    “Grid clear,” said Ox.
    Burger pulled his launcher in and slapped a new clip into its base. He probably thought it was over; we all did.
    “Man,” I said. My finger ached. I didn’t realize I had been squeezing so hard, and smelled the sweat, the awful smell of terror and salt, inside my suit.
    Suddenly a salvo of enemy grenades arced toward us. They came unexpectedly, and from the popping of their launchers, I guessed that some Russian troops had remained in the rear, motionless. The grenades hit directly on our position, most of them concentrated on Burger’s section, and thermal gel smoked as it tried to burn through the glass. I heard them then; the Russians screamed and it seemed like an entire army charged at us.
    “Oooo-rah! Pobieda!”
    “What the fuck does that mean?” I asked.
    “
Oooo-rah
means ‘kill,’ ” said Ox. “
Pobieda
means ‘victory.’ ”
    A second wave rose from the rubble, and the sentries again sprang from their holes, picking them off easily. Windblown snow fell in gentle swirls as once more the front became quiet.
    We didn’t say anything.
    Our relief showed up later, and it took us about two hours to get down. Burger had bought it. One direct hit on his port burned through the tiny alloy door, and then a fléchette grenade followed to send a bunch of needles through his chest and out the back, opening a quarter-sized hole on either side, and I wondered if from the right angle you could look clear through. It took us longer than normal to descend, because it was hard to fit into the elevators with a corpse.
    When we got back to the tunnels, I yanked off my helmetand threw up, my body trying to rid itself of the tobacco and drugs, but it was the
memory
I wanted to vomit out. We hadn’t even known that Burger had bought it—not until someone