Wizardness

His knees were screaming in pain. His breath was ragged. Sgt. Ali was scared. He could hear the energy beams slam into the dirt just above their foxhole.
They’d been fighting over this stupid patch of ground for weeks now. Upper command never explained why this hill was so damned important for the colonial marines to hold. But here they were.
Ali turned back on the music. The loudspeakers jumped to life. Dozens of energy beams lanced towards the speakers. Ali grinned, his family would be proud. He’d learned this from his own family’s history. Apparently during the United States of America’s Late hegemonic period, the country invaded his homeland of Iraq and used this sort of music to abuse the locals.
Ali found the music fitting. This one was Metallica’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, which describes the hopelessness of fighting for a hill that had no real strategic value. The narrator dies a pointless death.
It wasn’t even their most anti-war song, that was One, which does a fantastic job driving the Novines into a frenzy. That one had caused the grunts to turn on some of their leaders.
Heavy metal was doing a lot of work. His men needed the break. His squad was shrinking. He’d lost a trooper yesterday. Another was barely hanging on. Their arm had been blown off during a short counter attack.
Ali radioed to another foxhole, “What’s the situation?”
There was a crackle as an energy beam distorted the response, “Repeat, we’re under heavy fire. Command is sending reinforcements. Over.”
“Acknowledge. When are we getting relieved. Over.”
A dry laugh was his only answer as the transmission was cut.
Ali popped his head up. The enemy was preparing another bombardment. They were setting up their low altitude artillery. It was an interesting weapon. On old Earth, they would have been something similar to Hot Air Balloons. Here, they were anti-grav with some serious shielding. The weapon wasn’t intended to survive for long. Just long enough to fire a few shots, then drop on the enemy position. It was a bunker buster itself.
Ali took a few potshots at the device. He switched to a grenade.
He sighed and dropped back into his foxhole. He set his back against the embankment and sobbed. There was nothing his small armament could do against that weapon. He was getting no air support. Ali knew that weapon was to distract from weaponless troop transport. More men to be ground into burger on this fucking hill.
None of it made sense. The marines were making this position look important, so the Novines were treating it like it was important. It was the most worthless hill within 60 kilometers.
Ali keyed the speakers to move to another location. He stopped the worthless autonomous guns from firing. They weren’t doing any damage anyway.
He pushed Pvt. Alderman down into the hill. They’d dug out a small room inside the hill to store food and sleep. It helped a lot when things were getting spicy or you were spent.
Ali waited. The anti-grav artillery took off. He could hear it. It blasted the gun positions. They were fine, just like if he’d fired his guns at it. Nothing but wasted energy.
Ali played dead. He used his suit to lower his body temperature. With Alderman in the hill, it looked like there were two corpses in the foxhole.
Ali watched the anti-grav weapon scan his position. It hovered for a while. Collecting whatever data it felt was important. One of the other foxholes must have taken a potshot, because it swung away and suddenly dropped on another location.
He could hear the foxhole’s shields repel the buster. He swore. That damn hole was lucky. His shields went out a week ago.
He must have fallen asleep because he started awake. He heard ships making planet fall. The Novine’s energy weapons were firing like crazy.
Ali started up the music, he keyed in One by Metallica. He flashed up the silenced guns and sent them to fire at any position firing at the incoming ships.
He could hear the chaos from the enemy lines. He popped his head up. He smelled burning flesh. He found himself sliding back into the foxhole. He glanced down. His right shoulder was gone. Part of his chest was burned away too.
Ali began to fade to black as he saw a ship land at his foxhole. With his last breath he cursed he couldn’t see the skies above Iraq again. He couldn’t even see it here, just the belly of another troop transport.