Off With Their Heads by Dhar Mainak

Author:Dhar, Mainak [Dhar, Mainak]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction, Novels
ISBN: 9781477556320
Publisher: Createspace
Published: 2012-07-01T06:00:00+00:00

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‘Blow the bridge.’

Chen watched as the explosive charges were triggered and the bridge went down, taking with it several dozen Biters. It was now almost dark and they had retreated well into the residential areas of Beijing. Any further and the Biters would be among the millions of civilians now cowering inside the city.

There was no counting how many Biters had been destroyed in the fighting that day but they kept coming. Many Army units had been overrun, further adding to the ranks of the Biters, and finally Chen had received orders to retreat, destroying all bridges and mining all approach roads along the way. A row of tanks in the distance were heading out to meet the Biters, but he doubted they would achieve much. He had already heard tales of tanks that had destroyed hundreds of Biters, then run out of ammunition and gotten bogged down. Heavy armor was of little use against a seemingly never-ending sea of Biters. Once the tanks ran out of ammunition or got bogged down, the Biters would just bypass them and carry on.

The Biters did not seem to feel tiredness, fear or pain. They kept coming, and several more cities had fallen. Beijing, Shanghai and a handful of other cities were still intact, but he had already heard that with Beijing under greater threat, the government had been flown out to Shanghai. His men were dead tired, and terrified. Many of them just wanted to get home to their families, and Chen thought of his own wife. Yet he knew that he could not allow them to leave their posts. One or two units further to the East had scattered and Chen had heard about several desperate last stands by small units. A dozen men could not hope to last long against the Biters.

Chen had managed to keep his men operating as a cohesive unit, and other than four men who had died when one of their RPGs misfired, he had suffered no other deaths. Most of his men were however dehydrated, and many of them had swollen and bloodied fingers from the constant firing. More than a dozen were wounded due to misfirings and weapons that had overheated, and in more than one case, exploded. Chen had tended to some of the wounded himself, and his uniform was soaked in blood.

For all that, Chen looked at his boys with pride. They had not broken and run as had so many units. For all their misgivings about the regime and their role in Tiananmen Square, they had done their duty to the people of China. They had fought the battle of their lives, not for a flag, not for politicians, but for the millions of ordinary people who counted on them. So, despite every muscle in his body screaming in protest, Chen walked among his men, whispering words of encouragement to each one.

When he was done, he sat down heavily and looked across the river. The horizon was dark with Biters. It

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