by D.C. Clemens
Chapter Twenty-Four
Decisions
I was dwelling in a dream reliving a memory, just like I had been doing for many a night, but I momentarily recognized that this particular remembrance was different from the others. I found myself standing in Neves’ living room, surrounded by the large open windows stamped to the ivory colored walls, making the influx of sunlight whitewash anything outside the room. Neves’ antique longcase clock was in front of me, a family heirloom Neves was heartbroken to leave behind. The only family relic he could bring was an aged wristwatch belonging to his late father. I heard the ticking of the robust mechanical timekeeper, but I saw that its hands and numbers were missing. What I saw next gave me my first real inkling that something was off in what my mind was conjuring, that perhaps this was no memory after all. In the corner of the room was Mr. Tillar’s chair. It was a bulky lounge chair made from the expensive hide of the thick-skinned bi-bi species that no one else would ever sit on. I remembered him sitting on the red-stained seat the first time I went to visit Siena’s family. The chair itself was improperly placed beside the stairs of the Tillar home, where I observed, with no small amount of foreboding, the dead kite’s sprawled out body, looking as if I had just blown off its brains.
Adding to the assorted imagery, a sound I could not exactly label sprang up behind me. The enigmatic sound was fleeting, broken, deep, and more than enough for me to impulsively turn around. The room was suddenly cast into a dim twilight, but it was still bright enough for me not to mistaken the womanly outline standing (or was she hovering?) no more than a yard away from me, a figure who made my heart beat back to life. Lizeth. While her facial features were what I had always known them to be, her eyes were changed somehow. They were fuller and uncompromising. I next noticed another mistake. She was dressed in a familiar green nightgown, but it was the nightgown Siena wore on the night we were engaged. I was about to say something, but Liz pressed a bony finger to her lips. She lowered it when she saw I had complied with her bidding.
Then, in a muzzled tone not belonging to any voice known to me, she asked smoothly and firmly, “Do you want your son to live another day?”
I languidly nodded. I began to make out my name being called from high up in the sky, but my focused remained steadfastly on the form of my wife, who continued with, “Then don’t board the ships-” The echo-like voice was cut off from saying anymore by the voice in the sky shouting my name in a swiftly rising pitch.
Another split second had the spell vanish completely and replaced by my mother shaking me awake and proclaiming, “Roym! Roym! Get up! They’re attacking!”
I rose my head to see Neves and Bervin desperately packing a few items to leave. I distinguished a crackling voice coming from the radio Yitro was holding. It was loud enough for me to hear every term being said. There was Injector activity to the east of us, which was the opposite side of the port; a fact I found odd. After I bent down to grab my backpack, I felt my leg become seized just as I rose. I looked down to find Dayce.
He stated with a combination of purpose and anxiety, “Daddy, I don’t want to go.”
His small voice was no louder than a whisper, but it staggered me more than any jolt from a lightning bolt. It prompted a flash of my recent reverie. I knelled down and, with much reluctance, he let go of my leg.
“Why don’t you want to go?” I asked of him.
He did not want to look me in the eye. Not a letter more he spoke. He merely hugged me with an emotion I had not felt in such a long time. He started sobbing. Was it possible? Was he brought a dream similar to my own? And from whom? It seemed incredible to fathom, yet, so did everything else taking place.
“We have to go,” said my mother urgently.
My thoughts raced faster than I could process them. Before I knew it, the sentence, “I’m not going,” was blurted out.
“What?!” my mother cried hysterically, detaining the attention of everyone in the room. “You’re not going?! Why not?!”
While my mother was fuming in disbelief and catching her breath, Siena asked, with a tone in stark contrast to the former speaker, “Roym?”
I stood up, lifting Dayce with me. Tears were still running down his cheeks, but he stopped being audibly distressed. “Something’s wrong,” I answered. “I-I can’t really explain it, but the ships… they aren’t safe.”
“And we’re safe here?” Yitro alluded.
“I believe we’re safer, yes,” I replied, perhaps not as convincingly as I would have liked, but, then again, I had not fully swayed myself to the decision. “I guess I think the enemy will concentrate at the port.”
“Are you sure about this?” Bervin asked me, gazing at me with the same expression of concern everyone else used.
“I wish I was… The rest of you can go. I can’t stop you, but… I don’t know. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
No one flapped their tongues as my company stared dumbfounded at me, attempting to judge how cracked I was. I couldn’t fault them, of course. After all, I was advising for them to do the one thing that was against all nature for them to do; not run.
A sizzled voice broke the stillness of the hardening air. It came from the radio and it stated, “Those in the barracks have one minute before we go!”
“I can’t leave you,” said my mother as she embraced me, sounding resolute, which by itself wasn’t novel, but the softness in her voice was. There was also something in her eyes, something I knew only came out when she thought about my father.
“I’ll stay too,” Siena was the next to say.
“Well, I wouldn’t be much of a grandfather if I left my only grandson,” said Neves firmly.
Delphnia didn’t say anything, although, by the look she gave Neves, it made me believe she wasn’t as committed to staying as we were, but considering she didn’t say anything to challenge our decree, I assumed she thought persuading her husband to leave their last connection to their lost daughter would have proved fruitless.
Bervin couldn’t contain his laugh, which was hearty and brief. He then professed, “Dammit! We’re all officially crazy! Spirits guide us!”
“You all serious?” asked Yitro. “What do you think?” he went on to ask Eloram.
“I think we’re screwed either way,” she amiably replied.
“Couldn’t have said it any better,” Yitro responded with a smile meant mostly for her, but also given to everybody else. “Shit, you better be right about this, old-timer.”
We only had each other’s company in the entire building by the end of the minute. The rumble of the engines of the evacuating vehicles dwindling farther into the distance made it official; there was no turning back. The gunfire came next, along with eruptions from the tanks as the defensive line provided the convoy with cover fire. We still had the radio, or the inside of building would have been perfectly silent. It was bursting with several voices either issuing out commands or asking for assistance.
The doubt started to creep deeper into our minds. Everyone avoided eye contact with one another, particularly with me. Each new revolution of the tires outside took me closer to total lunacy. My dream was probably not a message at all, but a delusion of a weary mind that wanted to see its other half again, so much so that I let it induce me to accept whatever form she came in and execute anything she demanded. The radio continued on in the background until I heard a dispatch that placed it back at the forefront.
The man’s tone sent a biting chill through all of our bodies when he said with an agonized tone, “The propulsion system has failed!”
Before we could comprehend what was just expressed, we heard another voice, even more vexed than the last, say, “We’re dead in the water, sir!”
Additional desperate assertions packed the line.
“…on board! Get everyone below deck!”
“We request immediate pickup!”
“That is a negative on the pickup. LZ too hot.”
A miserable f
eeling wrapped over me like a heavy winter cloak during a heat wave. I was correct to avoid the ships, but at the cost of thousands being wrong. The declarations in the radio only became graver and more horrific. I couldn’t help feeling guilty, but it was a new form of it, for I knew I couldn’t have done anything differently. Even so, the contemplations of what might have been buried all others. I could not allow Dayce to listen to this increasingly ill-fated situation, and neither did I, for that matter, so I ferried Dayce into an adjoining room. The lights were left on in the rush and I paced the room with him still in my arms.
In an inquisitive tone that surprised me, Dayce asked, “Dad, what happened to Mommy?”
“I don’t know,” I answered gently, knowing it was time to stop pretending to him. “I don’t know where she is, Dayce.”
“I saw her, but I don’t think it was all of her,” he said with great delicateness, forcing my heart to catch its breath.
I sat Dayce down on a bed and asked, I’m assuming not at all steadily, “You saw her?”
He nodded, seemingly not surprised at my bewilderment. “I was sleeping and she told me not to get on the boat. I don’t think it was really Mommy, but I believed her.”
Before I could even begin to comprehend the meaning of my son’s confession, my mother walked in. Without so much as an inspection, she informed me, “We’re moving to the third floor.”
I nodded my acknowledgement and mechanically followed her and the others upstairs. Any meditation of my son’s words and their implication had to be reserved for another time. Bervin, Yitro, and Neves listened to the radio in a room separate from the rest of us. The rooms we chose faced out to the setting eastern sun, or they were supposed to be, for its brilliance was blighted by a vast opaque smoke cloud rising wildly in the distance. The oil reserves on the eastern shore must have been ignited and were now aflame. For twenty grueling minutes we couldn’t elude the accustomed sounds of the battle enclosing us, and the sky once again began to envelope itself in a cycle of darkness.
“Get away from the window,” my mother anxiously told Siena.
“A group of soldiers just entered the building,” Siena replied. “I’ll go see what they know.”
“I’ll go with you,” I automatically decided. “Eloram, take care of Dayce. We’ll only be a minute.”
Siena and I went downstairs, cautiously, but not necessarily slowly. We soon stepped into the first floor of the living area where we found three young soldiers (younger than we were, in any event) crouched together behind some of the pillars. One of the two women saw us at the stairs entrance and motioned us to remain quiet and stationary. All of us were as still as sculptures from an antique age for a minute or so before the female soldier gave another signal to release her group from their inertness, allowing them to come toward us. As for Siena and I, we stayed in our sculptured state, though it was not something we fastidiously planned. The soldier, the one who had signaled up until now and whom I assumed was the superior of the others, was the first to speak.
“Sorry for the silent treatment, but we just had to be sure we weren’t being chased.”
“You mean by an Injector?” I asked.
“You went to college, I see. As far as I know, there’s only one reason we shook off an Injector-”
“They went after somebody else,” keenly finished the male soldier.
“You’re learning well, corporal.” Her gaze returned to us. “What about you guys? Did you oversleep or something?”
“Something didn’t feel right about the ships, so we stayed behind, lieutenant,” said Siena.
“Good instincts, but now comes the most expensive question of our lives. Now what, right? Well, never fear, your humble saviors are here.” The last statement was not said without her share of sardonic gallantry. “Those of us who can are heading for the northern shore where some boats can float us out of here. Care to join us?”
“That’s our best option?” I inquired.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she responded, with feigned disappointment. “The real port is fucked and any available aircraft can only be used if the mission is deemed critical. Now, while I’m very willing to deem myself critical, the rest of the military sees differently. So, let me ask again, you in or out?”
“Could you give us some time to ask the others?” requested Siena.
“Others? Sure, go ahead. Tell you what, while my corporal here claims a transport for us, you can go have your little meeting.”
In a necessarily concise discussion, Siena and I were disclosing to the rest of the interested party the opportunity that presented itself. Deciding we had to take a chance on this prospect was not a challenging verdict, however, that did not mean I was any less edgy. This was not something I could sleep on in the hope I received another visit from the apparition and expect her to offer more guidance. Two blinks later and we were all downstairs standing before the lieutenant and the private, who were waiting by the western entrance. We waited unmoving for a few minutes alongside them. Taking us out of our petrification was the sound of our means of exodus, coming from the rumble of a potent engine heading for us. The lieutenant signaled for us to go meet our emancipator.
In the blurred glow of the smoke-veiled moons and stars, I felt the touch of an unusually warm breeze hit my face. I expected to find a truck or jeep waiting for us, but the corporal brought what I would later learn was an armored personnel carrier, or what others conveniently call an APC, instead. There was easily enough space in the rugged, tracked vehicle to hold all of us. Even before we settled in and the rear doors were able to fully shut, we had already moved a few yards away from our parked position. I couldn’t see much of anything at first, exempting the night sky visible through the open roof, which was uncovered to allow the stand of a .50 caliber machine gun to rotate in any direction. The private procured this weapon. The rapidly revolving tracks churning against the gravel of the road made me feel safer than I had felt in many other places. The warm wind I had first met became much cooler as the vehicle moved with more strength, replacing it with air not fed by flames. It wasn’t necessarily the cool breeze or the streaking stars above us that comforted me. It was what they represented. They were signs we were doing what I believed was the safest enterprise imaginable; moving as fast as possible.
I held this solace for as long as I could, knowing it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t. The APC was losing some of its haste when I felt the tracks move over the uneven ground as we went off road. Some stars became concealed by the leaves and branches of the tallest parasol trees. Our transport eventually came to a complete stop. Everything became quiet enough so that I could faintly hear the breathing of the effervescent ocean close by. The lieutenant stood up onto her seat to survey the area. Bervin and I did the same. We were alongside a line of halted military vehicles, situated near a strip of trees with broad leaves larger than the branches they were attached to. I expected they came from the refugee defensive line, as there was nothing else to presently defend.
“Why did we stop?” Bervin asked.
“There are mines on the beach,” said the irked lieutenant. “They have to be cleared out before we can move.”
“How?” inquired Delphnia, shifting nervously in her seat, though she could not move much between Neves and Siena. “Won’t that take too long?”
“Just give it a minute,” the lieutenant replied with the same impatience.
The stretched moments that passed us by had trouble moving through the stagnant slush the air had been converted to. The pacifying breaking of the ocean waves on the shore changed into fuming and writhing swells.
“Fuck, where are they?” wondered the private in a whisper, as if she did not want to completely disturb the stillness.
As those words were being articulated, the calm was snapped by the sharp hissing sounds that could only originate from the expelled projectile needles of the enemy. Succeeding the despairing yelps that came from the unfortunate souls
who couldn’t escape the enemy’s strike, the unyielding and frenzied onset of weapons fire vibrated the night. It was directly afterward when I heard the screeches of jets zooming over us. Taking a glance above me, I was able to see their silhouettes blending with the night sky, but the starry black ceiling soon distorted and became interlaced with hues of crimson, yellow, and auburn. The roars of the bombs impact temporarily dominated the effects of all other weapons. The beach was briefly buried in flames brilliant enough to rival the command of the sun in her highest splendor.
“Finally!” announced the lieutenant. “Move us out, corporal!” I knew she had said it loudly, but it was meager compared with the ensuing battle, the newly shaped fire crackling, and the tumultuous waves of the ocean governing much of my hearing.
It was as if the entire line of vehicles obeyed her command. Each transport in the ensemble lurched toward the beach. Night enshrouded us yet again as the flames in the distance fizzled out just as quickly as they were created. The roar of the ocean seethed through the line of forest as we moved closer to her call. The APC next came into contact with the sand as we traversed the beach, leaving all trace of the trees and their shadows behind, instantly revealing the true image of the island’s majestic coastline. The moons at once came out of their hiding over the placid sea, forming a panorama only conceived in gladder tidings, beckoning us to the bosom of the shore. The sea was its own lighthouse as the lustrous yellowish rays of the moons reflected their light across the coast, rendering it clearer than crystal itself. The convoy journeyed thirty or forty yards before we came to a sudden standstill, immediately bringing back the reason we were there.
“Where are the boats!?” asked the corporal from within the APC’s cabin.
“Turn the APC parallel to the water,” ordered the lieutenant. “Then everyone off and get behind it! We’re easy pickings in here!”
We did what was desired of us. I found myself crouched behind the APC only a couple of feet away from my toes being submerged in water. In my peripheral vision, I saw a jeep, not distinct from the other military jeeps, pull up next to us and the four soldier passengers mimicked our movements, though I’m sure we did not look as composed as they did.
“Major!” I heard the lieutenant say to one of the newcomers.
“Lieutenant Crosst,” one of the men responded in a raspy voice. He looked to be my age and did not strike me as someone who could carry such a high rank. “Glad to see you made it this far.”
“I would like to get a little farther,” said the lieutenant. “Where’s our ride?”
“They won’t come until the threat is neutralized,” regretfully explained the major.
“Okay, I’ll just start swimming then.”
“I’m sorry, but they won’t risk becoming the likely targets if they get close.”
“Is there a plan?” my mother asked the major.
“Just give me a minute, ma’am,” he told her.
“I can at least do this,” said Yitro, lifting his arms just enough for me to notice that he did. A wall of sand and rocks rose about five feet from the ground, surrounding everyone in the group and leaving open the view of the rolling sea behind us.
“You’re a spirit warrior?” the lieutenant asked, the other newcomers remaining in speculative silence. “And I thought you looked good before.”
Whether anyone else said another word or not, I didn’t notice. Grabbing my whole attention was one of the recently arrived soldiers maneuvering himself for an enhanced position within the sand wall. As he moved to stand near me, I saw him step into the water as it swelled onto the shore. He created a small splash, but the gentle ripple in the water created a tidal wave in my mind. Seeing the indent of his foot gradually fading with the ebb, an idea coyly circled around in my brain and exited my lips.
“Yitro, how large a wall can you create?” I asked him, sounding as eager as I felt. “I mean, do you think you can make one like this, but big enough to surround the APC?”
“Probably,” he answered, sounding as perplexed as I was sure he felt, but he didn’t seem at all tentative. “What do you have in mind, old-timer?”
Ignoring him for the moment, I turned to the major and asked, “Can you order all vehicles to group up in front of this APC, especially tanks, and get soldiers on foot to us here?”
“I suppose,” he said with the same perplexity as Yitro. “What are you getting at?”
This was one of those times I wished they all could just read my mind so I wouldn’t have to explain, so I expounded as hastily as I could. “The biggest advantage the Injectors have are their invisibility, but they’re not ghosts, they still affect the area they’re in. So if they step in water or wet sand, we should still see the ripples and their footprints.”
“I see,” the major responded. “You want them to flank us, to force them in the water so we can see them.” He looked at me with a sort of excitement, but it transmuted into shrewdness. “But then what? Those things don’t fall easy and we have no idea how many there are.”
“I don’t think any plan will work if more than one comes at us,” I said, using a tone to assure him I had thought ahead, “but they’re not stupid and they’re not too afraid of our weapons. I think they’ll only send one to flank us and see what we’re doing, but when we see where it is, that’s when we can get it stuck. And by ‘we’ I mean Yitro.” I turned to him, as did everyone else who knew his name.
“Me?” he said, almost as if he was lost in his own thoughts before coming back to what was in ours. “Oh, you mean sink it in the sand?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you think if you knew where it was you could hold it down for a little while?”
“No, guarantees,” he said plainly. “It depends on how strong that thing is.”
“It would only need to be long enough to get every tank and jet the chance to have a few shots at it. Do you think that’s possible?” I generally asked the soldiers.
None of them seemed all that enthusiastic or especially confident with what I was saying. I wasn’t expecting it, but a little affirmative reaction would have been helpful. It was quiet in our compact group for several seconds before the lieutenant spoke her mind.
“We can laser target it. That usually doesn’t work, but if we can get enough of us to do it and if it’s immobilized-”
“Fuck it,” brashly interjected the major. “It’s not like we have a shit load of options. I’m on board.”
Once he gave his orders over the radio, every capable vehicle began to gather in front of and alongside our APC to construct an impassable, at least to us, barricade of metal. The imposing wall of steel, stretching halfway to the forest, fortified my confidence in my plan. About forty to fifty soldiers then joined us behind the metal hurdle that many of them had some part in forming. With them following orders that undoubtedly made little sense, and seeing the wall of sand and rock around us that looked to have taken hours to gather, it was no wonder to see many donning a befuddled look on their faces, as no one had time to clarify the strategy.
Their confusion soon changed to absolute amazement when they all saw Yitro taking his command of the beach’s sand and began warping the ground around us to formally begin the arduous undertaking. I began to detect the preceding confusion the soldiers carried had all but disappeared, almost as if everything now made sense to them, even if nothing had become any clearer. I watched the stimulated sand and rocks start to tremble between our APC and the tank in front of it. Faster than I thought possible, thousands of pounds of Evon amassed and rose to an impressive fifteen feet into the air. I was ready to believe the seashore wall was going to keep rising until it reached the company of the stars, but I was soon reminded of its true charge when I saw it began to curve around the APC. The bulging beach embraced our group from either side, and the mass tapered toward the seawater behind us, decreasing its size significantly when it stretched beyond the APC until it completely shrank away into the soothing bearings of the ocean.
The barrier, and the first phase, was complete.
Even being so close to the riotous blasts of weapons fire stemming from the artilleries in front of us, I could still hear the heavy breathing of Yitro, the effect of what was indisputably a strenuous feat. Eloram was holding on to his shoulder while he struggled not to meet the ground, but I could not say he shared her concern for himself, for all I saw was a pleased smile that could not be abated, gazing at his work in much the same way an artist might regard his masterpiece. It could be assumed that this was the most he had ever warped thus far, but I didn’t put it behind me that there was more yet to come. The tanks and vehicles that were so gracious as to join us were commanded to continually fire into the thin forest. It didn’t matter if there wasn’t any sound to be heard or movement to be seen from the enemy. It must be made certain the Injector, or Injectors, would not simply climb the blockade. I prayed that there was only one to contend with. The unbridled shells were raging incessantly, shaking the beach and Yitro’s arresting creation, but nearly every grain of sand and granule of stone held on to its trifling place in the vital structure.
All there was left for us to do was to wait for whatever shape the future melded into. There was no use anymore to pray for the best and there was no preparing for the worst. We wanted to face our enemy. If we were going to die, then it was going to be fighting. I had heard what many commanders did when many of their underlings became infected. They would order airstrikes on their positions if their army became overwhelmed, preferring fiery death to living as sullied creatures. I felt easy knowing I could die in a swathe of flame rather than turn into one of them. All eyes stared intently into the ocean, waiting for a sign to see if the bait was taken. I was squatting at the right side of the wall, up to my hips in water, scanning the surface with everyone else. The waves came and went, sheathing my legs for a moment before they drew back to the sea, ensnaring me in their endless cycle. I did not know exactly what I was anticipating, but I did understand that, when it happened, I would know.
Suddenly, all colors developed into a grayish hue, except for what I noticed to my right no more than fifteen yards away. Between the crests of the illuminated waves, I saw something on the water’s surface that I knew not to be of nature’s creation. To call it a splash or ripple would be inaccurate, for all I saw was a strange shimmer on the water’s surface. I waved over Yitro as soon as I perceived it and pointed it out to him. He turned to me, with no mark of surprise or horror on his face, but one of conviction, understanding our next step.
“Major,” I called in as loud a whisper as I could make it, apparently afraid the Injector could hear and understand what I was saying. “Can you have your men fire there?”
He nodded as he glanced in the direction I had pointed out to him and composed hand gestures that only soldiers could recognize. He then yelled, “Open fire!”
Without delay, a hail of metal struck where not one eye was deviated from, revealing the colorless being’s misty outline. Before it could take another step forward, it appeared to have clumsily staggered backward. I turned to Yitro to see his arms extended and aimed at the Injector’s slice of the ocean, wearing the most focused look his face could ever fashion. Eloram was still by his side, lest he would need her to catch him. Whirling back at our foe, I saw it continue to skirmish against the whirling sand beneath its feet, sinking a little deeper with almost every movement. There were numerous red laser dots coming from the soldier’s guns placed on the besieged machine. The laser beams scattered much of their light when they reached the cloak of the Injector, much like how regular light bounced off a mirror. I hoped the quantity offset the quality. Through all of this, I would occasionally see the Injector free itself from Yitro’s grasp, which made my heart reach my teeth each time, but the spirit warrior always managed to reclaim his hold.
“Target designated!” howled the major into his radio. “All forces fire at will!”
Every one of my senses were bombarded by the storm of weapons fire from all the armaments within reach—assault rifles, grenade launchers, machine guns, and tanks—causing my adrenaline to skyrocket to its utmost point and blurring my surroundings. At some point, massive pillars and cavalcades of water engulfed the Injector’s scrawny frame as aircraft missiles struck its position at the brink of the coast.
Once this cascade of water settled, I thought to have caught a glimpse of the demon’s true form, its cloak ripping open in places to reveal sections of its alien visage. From what I was able to surmise, the Injector was of a pearly white shade in nearly every portion of its main body. Flailing in disarray at the ends of its two gaunt arms were dozens of cable-like apparatuses, the same ones I had seen dexterously bind my wife. These were of a metallic hue of silver and were probably as thick as the needles they likely fired. The last feature I caught was a featureless face at the end of a long, flexible neck of silver. There were no discernible eyes, sensors, indentations, or markings of any kind on the triangular-shaped head, which didn’t have any sharp corners or sides. It was merely an unsympathetic, bleached blankness staring at us for the split moment before another curtain of water rose up to shroud it from view. Its features, or lack thereof, reinforced the idea that these were machines, but the life-filled aura I experienced from before was not so easily shrugged off.
Two more stampedes of airborne projectiles collided with the partly entombed target, concealing it longer than I liked. Virtually all weapons ceased shooting at once, leaving the ringing in my ears as the only sound I could perceive. The major must have ordered the cessation, but I never heard it expressed. The waves created by the blasts continued to lap on those standing in the water. Progressively, the water stabilized to what nature had intended. Yitro was exhausted from his toil and he couldn’t stop himself from collapsing on his knees this time. Eloram was on her knees alongside him, but their sights were at the same spot, brightened by the light from the moons and stars. It was difficult to make out, but there was something resembling metallic crumbs resting lifelessly on the surface, rising and dropping with the waves.
“Designate it again!” instructed the major. “No chances!”
However, before more than two laser dots supplanted themselves on the remains, the Injector submerged. Whether if it was by its own choice or not, we didn’t know, but that did not stop us from mindlessly taking a few steps back from the water’s edge. I did not hear anything for a long minute. No ruffle of clothing on the wind, not the dwindling ringing in my ears, not my heart beating, and certainly not the waves meeting the shore.
With nothing occurring after that minute, the major said to his radio, “Pickup team, the target was successfully repelled. No sign of multiple targets. Requesting immediate pickup.”