The Cloudy Skulls (Cloudy Sandbox Book 1) (2 page)

'They weren't locked,' I said.

‘
How can you tell? They were busted open,’ Parker said, swinging the second gate to and fro with his foot, until it came loose from its hinge and fell with a loud clatter to the ground.

I pointed to the locking mechanism. ‘It’s not broken. If it had been locked the metal bar would have been across and would have got snapped, but it’s all in there. It wasn’t locked.’

‘
Well of course it wasn’t locked,’ said a harried voice from behind us.

I pulled my gun from its holster at my hip and aimed at his head. ‘Who are you?’

‘
Whoa, easy,’ Parker said, placing a large dark hand on top of my gun and pushing it down, away from the man that had appeared from behind a stack of tyres and debris from the construction work. ‘He’s one of ours, check out the tags.’

Dog tags had gone out of fashion when wars had stopped being fought by foot soldiers, but now they were a necessity again. Now that soldiers were the main weapons in the fight against the victims. Too often the only way to identify a mauled corpse was by the metal tags around his neck. My own suddenly felt cold around my neck, a weight that reminded me of what I was.

‘
Hands where I can see them,’ I said. There were no civilians left alive inside the dead zones, so I'd known without the tags he was military. There was just something shifty about hiding away like that, and I had to wonder if he was the figure I had seen from the airslicer.

The man was average height and skinny, and wore dark trousers with a filthy white shirt. His red tie was loose about his neck and his shoulder length wavy brown hair was dishevelled. ‘I…I’m an engineer. Thomas Keswick.’ He fumbled around his neck to hold up his dog tags. ‘I’m UR, I was brought here to help with the set up.’

‘
What were you doing by the gates?’ I asked, still gripping the gun in my hands even if it was aimed at the ground. ‘Why weren’t they open for us?’

Keswick stepped nervously toward us. The closer he got the easier it was to make out the sweat patches under his arms and the trembling of the hands he held up as if he were being arrested. ‘The gates were open at first. We opened them about ten minutes ago to let you in, but then…the victims. They were waiting. As soon as the gates were opened half a dozen of them flocked in. They killed most of the team, Sanderson wanted to close the gates but I knew you were coming, so I tried to stop him. We started fighting, then a victim attacked him while we were distracted. I was lucky. I guess the victims must have run when they heard the airslicer coming.’

Parker was nodding along at the story, but in my experience victims weren’t deterred by anything since they had lost most of their cognitive function. ‘So trained soldiers died, but you’re here without even a broken nail to show for it?’ I asked.

‘
W-well, I think I twisted my ankle a bit. But it wasn’t really bravery on my part at all. I kind of just stayed out of the way while the fighting was going on, I only came out to stop Sanderson closing the gates up.’

I frowned. ‘But why would he close the gates when the victims were already inside-’

Parker laughed and slung an arm over my shoulders in an entirely too informal way for my liking. ‘Jeez, Komatsu, enough with the interrogation already. The guy looks like he’s about to pass out, he’s just seen his entire team torn to pieces and been face to face with a pack of victims. Let’s get him a drink, I think we could all use one after that. And let’s be thankful that he did survive and manage to keep the gate unlocked.’

‘
What if the victims come back? The gate is totalled,’ I said, turning back to look at the wreckage even though Parker was steering me to the airslicer.

‘
We’ll post a watch out here, don’t worry,’ Parker said. ‘And we’ll make getting them fixed a priority. If I were you I’d worry less about gates and more about how I was going to survive out here. Looks like ground zero victims are tougher than regular ones.’

My squadron doctor was coming over with the soldiers in a later aircarrier, so there was no clinician to do an autopsy and no official confirmations of death for the pilot and soldiers. The airslicer pilot had been zipped up in a body bag and placed in the infirmary, but the soldiers that had been attacked by victims were burned and their remains were tossed outside the fence since it was possible they'd been bitten by victims, and we couldn't risk them reanimating in the middle of the night. I watched the flames crackle, charring the remains of the soldiers and burning away their clothes until they were nothing but cooked meat clinging to bones. I knew it was protocol but it felt like a disrespectful end.

‘
Would you want to come back as a mindless drone?’ Parker asked when he caught me frowning.

I didn't even bother to answer, it was an obvious choice and it helped get me through the little funeral we held for them. How many times was I going to have to go through this in the coming months? How many of my men would be attacked out on missions and manage to drag themselves back to base, only to be killed and burned anyway in case they were infected?

As soon as the funeral was over we started clearing away the debris of the airslicer from the runway. Some parts were salvageable, but the restoration would take awhile as we'd need a brand new windscreen and left wing.

Parker sighed and wiped sweat from his eyes. Despite it being winter, the sun still beat down, and it was heavy work. ‘Looks like the officers are having their first taste of physical labour in a long time.’

I looked up to see two female officers who were still wearing their navy skirts and nice blouses. I had long since abandoned my dress uniform for a pair of black cargo pants and a black tank top, which was a bit big for my ramrod thin frame. ‘Are you guys going to leave on the aircarrier?’ I asked as I tossed aside an unidentifiable panel of metal that had come free from somewhere. All we needed to do was make sure that the runway was clear, the aircarrier that was bringing the rest of my team over was en route and we didn't want a second crash.

‘
Yeah,’ Parker said, grabbing a brush and sweeping up glass shards. ‘We’ll do a nice handover presentation when your team is all here, take some promo photos for the spin doctors and all that and then we’ll hitch a ride on the aircarrier back home when we're sure you're all settled. Be warned; they're going to want lots of photos since we've got Major Cartell with us. She was the one that championed the whole dead zone reclamation project, so they won't get enough pictures of her by the base and with you and your soldiers.’

‘
I'll make sure my hair looks nice,’ I said.

He ruffled my shoulder length black hair and grinned. 'You'll look like a model,' he said, just as another officer came jogging over.

‘
Ten minutes to landing, thought you might want to come inside and guide the aircarrier, Sir,’ the officer said.

Parker nodded and handed me the broom he had been using. ‘Duty calls. It’s tough being in charge, you’ll find out soon enough.’

I didn’t think telling an aircarrier where to land was particularly demanding, but there were other aspects I wasn’t looking forward to. I swept away the last of the metal bolts and wondered who would get the honour of informing the relatives of the deaths of the pilot and soldiers.

-

The sun was beginning to set when the aircarrier gently coasted to a stop in the hangar, thankfully their arrival was significantly less eventful than my own. I stood shoulder to shoulder with the other officers as my squadron disembarked, and my eyes focused on each one for a few seconds before moving on to the next as they stepped down the metal staircase and formed neat rows. Each of them wore the black uniform of cargo pants and a t-shirt, and each had a tactical vest over this. The belts at their waists held no weapons for now, but that would change as soon as they were officially welcomed onto the base. You never knew when an attack would come so it paid to always be armed in some way. The new soldiers were a complete mix; from tall, heavily muscled men that stood tall and proud, to a red haired girl that stood with her hands clasped behind her back and her lips drawn tightly together. Some were happy to be here, most were not. Recruitment was mandatory, though; one child from each family was sent to join the UR army so they ended up with a lot of unsuitable candidates, but at least they made up the numbers. Even the most nervy of soldiers could be taught to squeeze a trigger if required. When you’re in a battle instincts usually take over anyway.

My gaze fell on a small blonde boy that barely looked old enough to be there and I sighed. The age limit had been dropped recently because there simply weren’t enough soldiers and the new government plans to take back dead zones required a lot of man power. And sacrifices. So they needed bodies to replace those that fell.

Parker was addressing them now, welcoming them to the base and thanking them for joining the war effort as if they’d been given a choice. Half of them were probably dragged away from their homes kicking and screaming. As I scanned the faces old and young, male and female, short and tall, my gaze locked on a pair of eyes similar to my own. The guy should have been looking forward, giving Parker his full attention, but he was watching me with those eyes. Devil eyes, they’re called. When you enter the army you’re given a genetic test and if you have a specific gene then they’ll consider you as a candidate for the Enhancement Project. That involves taking a modified form of the virus that causes humans to turn into flesh eating victims, as giving diluted virus to someone with a specific gene can unlock a lot of hidden potential. The side effect is that it gives you eyes as red as a victim, and a lot of people are scared of that. Most people in the world have lost someone to a victim attack and they don’t want to be reminded of it all by staring into our eyes. It was a human rights activist that went on the headlines to preach against the project, and first dubbed us as having devil eyes. The term stuck and now it’s considered extremely derogatory.

There were a few project subjects in my group but not many, and the tall dark guy that had caught my gaze had turned back to what Parker was saying. I was too busy admiring him to do the same; the guy stood ramrod straight and held himself with such a dignified air, despite what he was going to do in the coming months. I should have been listening to Parker, though, and suddenly he was nudging my shoulder with his elbow.

‘Does Second Lieutenant Komatsu wish to say a few words?’

I could tell by the terse tone of his voice and the few snickers from the audience that this wasn’t the first time he’d asked this question, I’d just been too deep in thought to hear it. There seemed to be twice as many people as before as I took a step forward and cleared my throat, feeling their gazes burning into me. My hands clasped tightly behind my back and I took a steadying breath to centre myself.

'I’m Rin Komatsu, and I will be in command here at the base for the squadron Cloudy Skulls. The coming months will be tough, and I know that most of you would rather be anywhere but here, but I hope that together we can get through this and make a real difference to the war effort. I look forward to getting to know you all.’ Then I ran out of words as I so often do when making speeches; I’m not a sociable person by nature. ‘No point standing out here in the cold, let’s get your stuff inside, okay?’

That got everyone moving and speaking again, my words effectively a command. My first command. I kind of wished I’d made it more official sounding, but when the officers left us tomorrow I was going to be alone with these people and I wondered what kind of relationship we’d have. It would feel weird to be too strict with them, but at the same time I didn’t want to be too friendly and get walked all over. Finding a balance was going to be tough, but I looked forward to the challenge.

While my new soldiers went to fetch their bags I walked back to the base. Two female officers were speaking in hurried tones and one beckoned me over when she noticed me. She was a middle aged lady with greying hair pulled into a tight bun. The applets on her shoulders marked her as a Major and the name tag as Alice Cartell. I remembered her; she had been one of the project leaders in building bases in dead zones to reclaim the resources. ‘We didn’t want to disturb you while you were addressing the new soldiers, but there was a power cut,’ she said, her voice so low it was almost masculine.

I hate it when people only give you the start of a story, and expect you to have to ask for more. The other officer, a younger woman with a blonde ponytail, picked up where she’d left off. ‘Just before the aircarrier arrived the power went out for nearly four minutes. Luckily the backup generators kicked in so we were able to guide the aircarrier in safely. Landing an airslicer without guidance is one thing, but guiding a carrier into the hangar without ground assistance would have been disastrous.’

‘Has anyone checked the generators? Was it a fault in the system?’ I asked, and almost sighed at their blank faces. ‘Has anyone investigated?’

‘We haven’t had time,’ said the woman with the bun. ‘We’ll get Keswick to look into it, fortunately the engineer survived the victim attack.’

‘Very fortunate,’ I said, doubting the authenticity of the engineer’s words with every minute that passed. I don’t like it when everything is so damn convenient. And Keswick had a smarmy smile, too.

My help wasn’t really needed after that, the soldiers were more than capable of hauling their bags down to the dormitories and from then on the noise of fifty soldiers unpacking and getting to know each other and their new environment took over. Despite there still being senior officers on base the excitement of the situation won them over and they were acting like lunatics as they argued for the prime bunk beds and sets of drawers for the few personal belongings they were allowed. I made a token appearance to make sure everything was proceeding in an orderly fashion and when I saw that it wasn’t I decided to just let them get on with it and wandered off to find Keswick and see how far he’d got with diagnostics. If indeed he’d even started yet.

My judgement of him was harsh, possibly; I found him hard at work in one of the corridors, sat cross legged on the floor with one of the wall panels removed, and poking around inside testing connections and tapping away at a larger version of our PCDs that he had plugged in to the mainframe.

I crouched down beside him but he didn’t look at me or even acknowledge me. ‘How is it going?’

‘Fine,’ he said.

Okay. Well "fine" was better than horrific, I supposed. ‘I’m in charge of this base, I’m going to need a little more to go on. If this is a fault then I’m not letting you go until it’s fixed. I can’t compromise the safety of my squadron if the power fails and we have nobody qualified to fix it on site.’

‘Well might I suggest then, Komatsu, that you put in a requisition for an engineer to be stationed here. Because things like this happen, it’s a fact of life. These bases are built quickly and cheaply and the parts fry, or the wiring isn’t quite right, or the soldering metal isn’t of good enough quality. If something goes wrong you call Central UR and they’ll assign an engineer to you, but you wait patiently like everyone else.’

He still wouldn’t look up at me and I wondered if it was because he didn’t like me, or because he didn’t want to face my red eyes. If he’d just been attacked by victims I supposed the eyes would have been an unwelcome reminder, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. ‘But you can’t find a fault at the moment?’

‘So far no, it seems to be an isolated incident.’

‘Thank you,’ I said as sincerely as possible. He ignored me.

I walked down the corridor and out of the front entrance, into the chilly night air. The sky was pitch black and a blanket of stars shone down on me. In the safe zones city lights are on all hours of the day so the sky never really gets dark at all, and you never really get to see actual stars because of the smog and light pollution. Out here in Japan, where virtually the entire country is plunged into darkness, you can see everything clearly. It wasn’t total darkness, though, there were little luma panels spaced evenly around the outside walls of the base, so I was able to see the shadow Parker cast just before he turned the corner and greeted me.

‘Thought I heard footsteps,' he said as he nodded back the way I had come. ‘Walk with me?’

I fell into step beside him, and we began a slow walk past a store house. The wind whipped at my clothes and I wished I’d thought to wear a warmer jacket, but I hadn’t really intended to come outside. Something had just drawn me there, but now I was with Parker whatever feeling I'd had was gone.

‘How are your kids settling in?’ he asked suddenly, breaking the stillness.

‘My kids?’

‘Kids. Your soldiers. Trust me, give it a week and you’ll feel like a single parent. They’ll fight, they’ll mess around, they’ll be untidy, they won’t do as you say.’

‘You’re really selling this position.’

Parker chuckled and placed his hand on my shoulder as we walked. I stiffened but said nothing; it wasn’t him at all, I’m just not overly fond of contact.

‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you in private,’ I began, trying to find the words I needed. ‘About Thomas Keswick. The soldiers he was stationed with didn’t seem to have many injuries, but victims are berserkers, they strip flesh from bone-’

Parker sighed. ‘Rin, let it go. Nobody knows why victims do what they do, or what drives them. Maybe they didn't have enough time to do so much damage as usual, maybe they really did get spooked by the airslicer.’