The Last Marine : Book Two (A Dystopian War Novel) Read online

  THE LAST MARINE

  A Dystopian War Novel

  BOOK 2

  of

  THE LAST MARINE SERIES

  T.S. Ransdell

  Copyright © 2019 T.S. RANSDELL.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  For information contact:

  [email protected]

  www.tsransdell.com

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-578-58546-8

  ISBN-10: 0-578-58546-4

  “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

  John 15:18–19

  “The unjust are an abomination to the righteous, but the upright are an abomination to the wicked.”

  Proverbs 29:27

  “The conqueror’s peace of mind requires the death of the conquered.”

  Genghis Khan (attributed)

  Contents

  THE LAST MARINE

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  Book Three of The Last Marine Series

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Waves of the People’s Liberation Army charged through their own artillery barrage to destroy the Marines at Camp Michael Foxtrot. Corporal Edwards had survived a lot of combat over the last six years of his life. Yet he began to think he would not survive this.

  “That’s it for the fifty,” Harris shouted, indicating the last M2 machine gun was out of ammunition. “We’ve got a thousand rounds for the SAW.”

  Edwards was the only surviving squad leader of the TOW section attached to Charlie Company. He kept his fears internalized.

  “Set it up,” he ordered, but Hastings was already doing just that.

  Newton, having abandoned the M2, rapidly popped off rounds from his M5 battle rifle at the incoming Pricks, the Marines’ nickname for the Red soldiers of the People’s Republic of China.

  “Fucking bastards are making their move,” Sergeant Bohanan, seemingly out of nowhere, shouted in a business-as-usual tone. “I saw from the command bunker some hard-ass motherfucker leading them up here. I want to flank that cocksucker.”

  “Let’s go.” Edwards picked up his M5.

  “Edwards, you and Newton cover us,” Bohanan countered. “Harris, Hastings, we’ll haul ass to the right, then charge the sons of bitches.”

  “Sergeant, how are we going to remember that much detail? Keep it simple, will you?” Hastings cracked with his usual sense of humor.

  Edwards had always liked the way the kid could laugh at danger, even when facing death. Harris and Hastings took off like crewmen desperate to save a sinking ship. He stifled the pang of watching the three men he’d survived so much with leave. Edwards never expected to see them again.

  Newton began ripping off rounds on the squad automatic weapon. He was devastatingly effective behind the SAW, but the last drum of two hundred rounds went woefully quick. Edwards, too, focused on killing their enemy. Aiming for faces, he dropped one Red soldier after another. Reflexively, Edwards reached down to his empty magazine pouches when he ran out of rounds.

  “Newt! You got–” He turned and was greeted by Newton’s lifeless eyes staring at the dawning sky. Edwards was smacked to the ground by the explosion of an artillery shell. He fought to catch his breath and clear his head. He was the last man left on this wall. He had to defend it.

  Edwards crawled over to an abandoned twelve-gauge shotgun, used to shoot Prick drones, and pushed himself to his feet. Exploding red flares caught his attention: Captain Shelby’s signal to fall back to the command bunker. He was calling in an air strike on their own position. The Marines at Camp Michael Foxtrot had not had air support for four days; Edwards doubted it would come now. He laughed and hoped it would. He wanted the whole hill blown into oblivion.

  “Kill ’em all! Let God sort us out!” he said to the dead bodies surrounding him.

  Every friend he had left in the world was out in the hell before him. Edwards reached for the pouch of shotgun shells and shoved extra rounds into his pockets. He never considered going back to the bunker.

  Come on, you sons of bitches, Edwards heard his grandfather’s voice in his head, reciting the story of famed Marine Dan Daily, you want to live forever? He jumped over the wall and ran towards the PLA, when his mind consciously realized what he was doing. For a moment he was alone on the battlefield, aside from the dead. A ChiCom soldier emerged to his right and shattered his solitude.

  Edwards turned, aimed, and fired. He ran towards the Prick he’d killed, assuming there was more than one. He jumped down into a nearby crater and found three Red soldiers cowering from the explosions. He shot the nearest one in the face. The Prick to the right of him stared in horror for the instant before Edwards killed him. The Prick at the far end of the crater fired his rifle, but missed. Edwards did not.

  Edwards knelt down and loaded more shells into the shotgun. Then he left the protection of the crater and ran ten yards before he jumped into an empty fighting hole. The earth roared, and mud splattered from another explosion. Edwards was struck by a leg torn from its body.

  At least it’s wearing a Prick uniform, he thought.

  Edwards jumped up and moved on, determined to kill and be killed.

  Twenty yards later, he dropped into another hole. Landing on a severed head, Edwards lost his footing and landed hard on his back. The earthen wall was all that kept him upright. A controlled fear ran like ice through his veins when he noticed the PLA uniform in front of him. Edwards went unnoticed by the Prick, who, engaged in a deathly struggle, was about to kill a US Marine. Without a moment to breathe, Edwards fired his shotgun. The Prick’s head disintegrated. With explosive effort, Edwards was back on his feet.

  The Marine rolled the headless corpse off him and tried to sit up. With more relief than he’d ever admit, Edwards saw that the Marine was Harris.

  “Come on,” Edwards grunted and pulled Harris up by the shoulder harness. Even under all the mud and blood, Harris looked pale; and his eyes were going distant. Edwards fought back nausea from seeing his buddy’s face sliced in half. He wrapped his arm over Harris’s shoulders to haul him out of the hole they were in.

  Edwards bore most of the weight of his friend as they charged out into the hell breaking loose on the battlefield. Edwards stared at the defensive wall, from where he’d come, and pumped his legs. His determination to die fighting was replaced with a desire to save his friend’s life. Within fifteen feet of the wall, Harris’s body went heavy as his feet began to drag.

  “Don’t fucking quit!” Edwards screamed, surging desperately needed adrenaline into his arms and legs. “We’ve come too far through this war to stop now!”

  He slung Harris over his shoulders and fixed his eyes in the direction of the command bunker, running with all the strength he had left.

  “Hang in there, Harris! We
’re going to make it!” Edwards screamed through the explosions as they closed in on the bunker. It was as much for his benefit as Harris’s.

  Two Marines sprinted out of the shelter to help Edwards and Harris into its safety. The bunker was close, only a few seconds away. However, it was at that time Edwards felt more fear than at any other time during the war.

  Two years before, they’d seemed so close to victory. The whole Red Army of China was on the run. It was inconceivable then that the enemy would be allowed to escape. Let alone rebuild, attack, and surround all of First Battalion. Now the Marines were desperate.

  In the bunker, two more Marines helped lay Harris down on a dirt floor crowded with wounded. He could hear one of them yell at Harris if he’d been shot. Harris stared blankly, not responding.

  “Fucking hang in there, Marine,” one of the helpers yelled as he tried to clean and bandage the wound on Harris’s face.

  Edwards looked around at the dead, the dying, and those waiting to be one or the other.

  It didn’t have to be like this, he thought. Edwards’s fear turned to anger. They could have destroyed the PLA if they hadn’t been ordered to halt their attack. The failure didn’t belong to America’s warriors, but to its entrusted leaders.

  Edwards lit a cigarette.

  Why would any American allow this to happen? He exhaled a cloud of smoke and let his anger seethe. Who knows? But there’ll be hell to pay for it.

  Corpsman Pierson stared down at the unbandaged half of Harris’s face and thought it handsome. It always broke her heart to think of the scars American warriors would carry with them for the rest of their lives.

  Harris had been unconscious when he arrived at the naval hospital outside Nanjing forty-eight hours earlier. He suffered from mild hypovolemic shock due to his loss of blood and exhaustion. He had sustained a broken clavicle, three broken ribs, a nasty thigh wound, and a severe laceration on the left side of his face.

  Harris stirred. Pierson leaned over the patient to watch a moment longer to see if he would finally revive. There were orders that the doctor was to be notified immediately when this Marine gained consciousness.

  She smiled and leaned in closer as the red-haired patient slowly opened his eyes.

  “Well, hello. How do you feel?” The question seemed natural enough, although she knew he couldn’t feel too good.

  “I…I hurt…all…over.”

  “I bet…” Pierson said, relieved he gave a cognizant response.

  “Where am I?” Harris asked.

  “You’re in a hospital. You’re safe now,” Pierson answered. Then she excused herself and called the doctor.

  It was the biggest smile she’d seen on the doctor’s face as he rapidly walked over to introduce himself to the Marine.

  “Hello, Corporal Sean Harris,” the doctor greeted him in a fatherly tone.

  “I’m a lance corporal,” Harris grumbled.

  “Not anymore.” Levine beamed with a fatherly pride. “You’ve been promoted. And, by the way, I think Divine Providence has led you here.”

  “How’s that, sir?” Even with half his face bandaged, Harris looked irritated by the conversation.

  “Corporal Harris, I’m Dr. Abraham Levine. I knew your father, Dan Harris. We served together in Mexico.”

  “You knew my father?” The Marine’s affirmation sounded more like a question.

  “Yes, Sean.” Dr. Levine lowered his voice as he bent over and placed his hand on the Marine’s shoulder. “Your father was a good man. He was a friend of mine.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sean Harris was spent. His body ached. His legs and back were stiff from sitting so long. The pain from his first several steps was a nagging reminder of the splintered leg he had suffered decades earlier.

  He began to come down from his momentary high of reliving the past. Reminiscing about his Marine buddies, it felt as if they were again alive and back in the fight. However, reliving their lives led to reliving their deaths. It left him feeling tired and old. Even more so, realizing this possible connection to the past was nothing more than the vain hope of an old man.

  He found himself hoping Joel Levine, the young FedAPS historian interviewing him, was related to Dr. Levine from the war. More than just the name, Harris thought the kid had taken on a grave and thoughtful look that reminded him of Doc Levine. Then Joel Levine clumsily dropped his audio recorder, scattering all his pens and papers in the process. Harris felt disappointed and foolish for trying to resurrect a dead past.

  The prison guard, Reed, began to lead Harris from the prison yard back to his prison cell.

  “Wait!” Levine shouted.

  Harris nearly made a flippant remark about Levine giving himself a paper cut, but the intensity of the younger man’s face froze Harris’s cynical impulse.

  “Mr. Harris, please.” Levine momentarily looked down and then looked Harris directly in the eye. “Tell me everything you know about my grandfather.”

  A kind smile escaped from Harris’s scarred face. His fatigue vanished. No longer the nostalgic fool, the old Marine felt invigorated. He felt back in the fight. “Your grandfather was a good man. He was a friend of mine.”

  ***

  “Corporal Harris–” Dr. Levine looked up from his charts, smiling “–you’re looking much better today.”

  “Yes, sir. I feel a whole lot better today.” Harris tried to sit up a bit in his hospital bed.

  “Relax, Sean–” Dr. Levine paused to correct himself “–Corporal Harris.” Levine had only met the Marine two days earlier, but his friendship with the elder Harris gave him the feeling he’d known the Marine since he was a little boy.

  The name Sean now sounded odd to Harris. Outside of his mother, no one called him by that name anymore. “I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and talk to me. I’d like to hear more about my father, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” Abe Levine smiled and pulled up a chair. “I’ve been looking forward to talking with you for some time. Your father was a good friend. I have a lot of respect for him. I feel like–” the doctor paused “–like an old friend of the family. He enjoyed talking about you, your family. He loved you all very much.

  “I’m sorry for your loss of your father.” Dr. Levine became more somber. The doctor wanted to say more, but at this point in the war he knew there wasn’t much else to say.

  “Thank you, sir.” Sean paused; he wanted to say his father’s death would be vindicated when they won the war. However, he didn’t think President Harmon was trying to win the war. At least, not by the same definition of victory President Clark had used at its start. “I just hope my dad’s death ain’t been for nothing.”

  “Sean”–Levine’s voice was steady, and his eyes were serious–“he died fighting to protect everything he loved, everything that was dear to him. There is not a more noble service, or sacrifice, than that of your father’s.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Sean barely spoke; then his jaw clinched too tight to speak. Tears welled up in his eyes too fast for him to control. His father had taught him to control his emotions and never cry in public, but at that moment the sacrifice from eight years of war, recently gone astray, was too overwhelming.

  Dr. Levine patted Sean on the shoulder. With a graceful casualness to his movements, he moved a box of tissues from the bed table closer to Harris. “You need some rest, my young friend. You’ve got a lot of healing to do. Take the time to do it.” Dr. Levine widened his eyes and summoned buoyancy to his voice. “And that’s an order. After all, I’m a lieutenant commander.” The smiling doctor pointed to the gold oak leaf on his collar. “I should know what I’m talking about.”

  Sean nodded and smiled back the best he could.

  “By the way, there’s a Sergeant Edwards who has stopped by a few times to check up on you. I’ll get word to him that you’re ready for visitors. If you feel up to it.”

  “Edwards!” Harris perked up. “Figures! I should have known that bastard
’s too goddamn mean to die.”

  “Good.” Levine stood up. “Then I’ll get him here as soon as possible. We could all use a bit more of that attitude around here. Now, Corporal Harris, get some rest. We’re going to get you healed up and as good as new.”

  “Yes, sir,” Harris said and attempted to fake a smile.

  Shortly after the doctor walked off, Harris felt a sharp pain in the left side of his face. He gently pressed on the bandage, as if that would make the pain go away. Suddenly, the memory of the Prick with a nasty V-shaped scar, who’d sliced open Harris’s face, invaded his consciousness. The battle at Camp Michael Foxtrot began to work its way back, in bits and pieces, into Harris’s mind. Slowly, his mind played the scene of Billy Hastings’s blood-soaked body after he’d absorbed a hand grenade so Harris could keep fighting.

  Harris doubted the doctor. After eight years of war, he didn’t know how any of them could come out as good as new again.

  “Hell, devil dog, I was starting to think you were going to sleep all afternoon! This hospital lifestyle is making you soft.”

  Harris focused his sleepy eyes on Edwards with an uncharacteristically wide grin on his face.

  “I’ve got to say that bandage over half your face is a big improvement.”

  Waking up from his afternoon nap, Harris was in a lot of pain and not feeling very humorous. Yet he was glad to see Edwards. Having served in the same squad for the last four years, Harris found life hard to imagine without Edwards around.

  “I’m trying to heal here, you bastard.” Harris managed to smile for his old friend.

  “You’d better. After I drug your ass out of Camp Mother Fucker.” Edwards sounded serious, but still smiled. “You die now, I’ll kick your ass all the way to Shanghai.”

  “You mean Camp Michael Foxtrot?” Harris facetiously corrected in an attempt at humor.

  “No, I don’t.” Edwards stopped smiling.

  They sat in awkward silence. Both knew what Harris wanted to ask. Both knew Edwards didn’t want to talk about it.