Earth Awakens (The First Formic War 3)

"It will, Captain. It will. Try again."

He tried again. Nothing happened. He wanted to sleep. That's what he needed now more than anything, to sleep, to close his eyes and rest. Sucking in air was so difficult now. He didn't have the strength for that, let alone the strength to turn a wheel.

"You can do this, Captain."

"No ... I can't."

His voice didn't sound like his own. It sounded like an old man. A dying old man--raspy and phlegmy, with rattling in the lungs.

"Try again," Victor said.

I am trying, Wit wanted to scream. I'm giving it all I have. There just isn't anything left anymore.

He pushed and turned. He changed his grip and tried again. It felt as if his gloves were filled with shards of glass. The tiniest amount of pressure on his fingers and palms sent lightning bolts of pain up his arm.

And still the wheel didn't move.

"I ... can't. Nothing ... left in me."

"Give me the holopad," a voice said. "Captain, it's Deen. Can you hear me?"

Deen. He knew that name. A friend's name. There were memories attached to that name swirling around in the soup of his mind. He tried reaching for one, but it ran through his fingers like water. Deen. A name he knew. He tried to say it aloud, to give it meaning, to define it more in his head. But when he opened his lips, no words came out, only the softest exhalation of breath.

Then the world faded. Blackness crept in from all sides. For a moment he thought he was dead. But no, he could still feel the heat, he could still hear his own wheezy, labored breaths. His eyes had stopped working. That was all. There was a word for this condition, this blackness. A simple word. He knew it. It was right there in front of him. He blinked and squinted and blinked again--an action that took enormous effort--but he still saw only darkness.

"His blood pressure is dropping fast," said a voice.

"Captain, it's Deen. We're going to sing you a cadence. That's what moves a soldier. Isn't that what you always said, sir? The beat moves the feet. The feet moves the man. The man moves the world."

Yes, thought Wit. He had said that. Many times. A marching cadence. Yes, that's what he needed.

"It's a cadence you taught us, sir. One you learned in the SEALs."

The SEALs, thought Wit. I am a SEAL. Before I became a MOP I trained as a SEAL. The memory made him smile.

Deen began, leading the group, shouting each line alone in the singsongy rhythm of the cadence. The others echoed him, shouting as one.

"Heyyyyyy there, Army!"

"Backpacking Army!"

"Pick up your packs and follow me!"

"We are the Sons of UDT!"

Wit smiled and gripped the wheel. He had sung those words a thousand times during Hell Week, the most rigorous, painful, five and half days of his SEAL training. He had thought he would die at the time. He had never experienced such physical exertion, such pain, such relentless battering to his body. But the song, the song had steeled him. The song, sung by brothers, had carried him through. It had carried them all through. For twenty-four months of backbreaking training, it had carried them through.

The Sons of UDT. That's what the SEALs were. The Underwater Demolition Team was the precursor special commando unit to the SEALs. The UDT had been the crazy ones, the pioneers of combat swimming, from World War II through Vietnam. The cadence was a message to every other branch of the military. Come. Run alongside us, fight with us, whatever you can do, we can do as well. Sea, land, air. We are the sons of the UDT.

Deen didn't stop. He knew every verse. Sing, Deen, Wit wanted to say. Sing for me.

« Prev Chapter Next »