Into the Fire

by Mark Tufo

  I thought about it for a second. “Well, we sure as shit would go out in a blaze of glory.”

  “We would, but that is not my intention. The risk is there, but the only other option would be to run, and I’m done with that particular mode of defense.”

  “What about the Stryver mother ship? Will they be joining us in this offensive?” Captain Anders asked.

  Paul shook his head. “They will not risk it. They are more than happy to supply technology and arms, but do not wish to show their hand just yet. The Progs don’t know they’re here and they want to keep it that way.”

  “They’re just like the good old US of A, used to be, back in her heyday, we would supply the enemies of her enemies with weapons to defeat the bigger opponent, and then we were always surprised when those same weapons were turned back on her. Just like we’re going to do.”

  “One thing at a time, Mike. We need them for now, and they need us.”

  The meeting went for another twenty minutes or so. I’d begun to tune out, as there really wasn’t much for a foot soldier like me to do in a space war. Then I began to think on all manner of ways to get back on terra firma. When Paul finally dismissed the meeting, I stayed behind.

  “Can we talk for a minute?” I asked him, before he had the chance to leave. Even then he was looking towards the doorway.

  “Yeah, what, Mike? I’m a little busy right now.”

  “When you pop out of the buckle I would like to take a shuttle and head back to Earth.”

  Tracy, who I had thought had left with everyone else, was the first to deliver the “No way” response I’d been expecting from Paul.

  “Are you insane?” she asked.

  “Debatable I suppose. Just hear me out, Paul, before you dismiss it as well. When you come out of the buckle and you hit that ship with everything we have, the last thing they’re going to be doing is looking for a shuttle with all that ordinance coming their way.”

  Paul sighed. “If we are detected on our approach, fighters as thick as black flies will be waiting for us, along with more incoming than I think we can handle.”

  “Okay, so what’s the difference if I die on a shuttle or this ship?”

  Paul was staring at me intently.

  “The other way, I have a chance to get boots on the ground. I’m not going to lie…my first responsibility is going to be the safety of my son. But as soon as that is taken care of, you have my word, I will lead whatever resistance I can to that hell that is being wrought down there.” I could see Paul’s tongue moving up to the roof of his mouth to deliver that NO. “It’s my son, Paul.”

  “Mike, if we’re successful on our gambit and you get that shuttle out in time, I have to leave as quickly as we show up. You will have no support and be a sitting duck for when they rally, which they will.”

  “Then you’d better do enough damage to give me enough time to get away.”

  Paul’s head sagged.

  “Come on, man. I got you a present,” I told him, urging him to follow me.

  “Mike, you realize that I’ve got important shit to do, right? I don’t have time to see your homemade bong.”

  “Hey, that’s a good idea, but I promise you, this is something you’re really going to want to see.”

  Paul and I were silent as we walked. Tracy had gone up ahead to make sure everything was alright and that her men were still in control. Although it wouldn’t take too long for people on the ship to realize a renegade Stryver was on the loose, if that was the case. Paul slowed as we got to my room and saw that there was an armed guard standing outside.

  “What’s going on, Mike?” I could tell he was thinking about extricating himself from this particular situation. Given the way we’d been recently, I could see why.

  “This isn’t a coup, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I wasn’t until you just brought it up.”

  “What were you thinking then?”

  “Nothing, forget it.”

  “Wait...not murder?” I could see in Paul’s eyes I may have struck a kernel of truth. “We may never be friends again, Paul, but I would never stoop to killing you.” I let the sting of that hang out there in all its accusatory glory. “Come on.” Paul followed, albeit reluctantly.

  BT’s door opened just as I was about to walk into mine. “Are you under arrest?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “You should be.” Then he closed his door.

  “Thanks for the support,” I called out to him.

  Chapter 9

  CHAPTER NINE – DRABABAN

  Travis was crying as his grandfather tried to calm him down. Drababan was moving quickly about the small cabin, packing various articles.

  “Drababan, is this necessary?” Tony asked him as he rocked the small boy in his arms.

  “There is the possibility troops will be launched soon. We will need to be prepared to move quickly.”

  “This is Searsport, hardly a military point of importance.”

  Dee stopped what he was doing to look at Tony. “The Progerians know this place as a locale that your son, my friend, has frequented. They will do all in their power to ensure his capture, therefore, we cannot be here when they arrive.”

  “I can see the logic in that.” Travis had finally calmed down enough so that Tony could put him down and assist in the packing up process.

  “You can?” Dee stopped to look at Tony.

  “What’s so unusual about that?”

  “In and of itself nothing, but that your off-spring is so lacking in that department I would have logically believed that you did not have the capability to possess any as well.”

  “Mike told me about your humor, it still amazes me to experience it in person.” Tony was smiling.

  “Humor was not my intention,” Dee told him. “I will pack the food, and we will move as soon as the bombing stops.”

  “Should I go warm the car up?”

  “We cannot take the vehicle.”

  “Drababan, it’s ten degrees outside, and it’s going to get colder, plus they’re calling for snow. I’m fairly hardy, but I have no desire to go out into that, especially with my grandson.”

  “The vehicle will draw attention and fire. This has to be done on foot.”

  “And where are we going?”

  “We need to get back to Indian Hill.”

  “When you came here, you told me you had to avoid that place at all costs.”

  “The events that are transpiring now have superseded those from the past.”

  “What about Mike?”

  “I will have to leave him a message.” Dee thought about it for a few seconds. “Do you have the means to cut down trees?”

  “Like a chainsaw?”

  “Yes, a chainsaw would work. Do you have one of those?”

  “I live in Maine, Dee. That would be like asking if I had a snow shovel.”

  Dee just kept staring at Tony.

  “I guess it’s safe to see that you don’t have similes down just yet. Yes, I have a chainsaw.”

  Dee kept looking at him.

  “I also have a snow shovel. I’ll show you where the chainsaw is.”

  Tony brought Dee into the garage and showed him the where the tool was hanging up on a heavy-duty peg. As Dee grabbed it, Tony thought it looked like a hacksaw in the large Genogerian’s hands.

  “Wait, wait, I’ll start it. You’re likely to pull the entire motor out of its housing.” Tony primed the engine and pulled three times. The well-taken care of saw started right up. “Just pull this trigger when you want to engage the blade. You going to be able to fit your finger in the trigger guard?”

  Dee snapped the round guard completely off.

  “It’s only six years old!” Tony exclaimed. “Right, right, it’s just a tool. Dammit, spent good money on that thing.”

  “Keep packing, we will leave shortly.” Dee opened the large garage door and went out into the blustery weather. A half hour later he stood back
from his handiwork. “That will do. I have left a clue that even you, Michael, will be able to decipher, so hurry up and get here.” With that, Dee went back into the house. He watched as Tony slowly moved around the house, his hand trailing along pictures of long gone good times with family and friends, most no longer living.

  Tony had not turned to see Dee yet but had heard him come in. “I’ve got a feeling I’ll never see this place again.”

  “Is that a premonition?” Dee asked.

  “Gut feeling, premonition, same thing I suppose. Do your people believe in that?”

  “As a spiritual being, I must believe in such things. We are all meant for a higher purpose, whether we choose it or not is the responsibility of each being as we travel along our path. Many times, we are given an easier trail in the hopes that we will deviate from the one that will lead to enlightenment. Right now you are being shown this fork in your story. How much easier would it be for you to stay here? To hope that evil does not find you. It is obscure and sinister in its simplicity, making you melancholy for something that holds no true meaning in the grand design. Evil is devious—it will strike hardest at your weakest points. It has no mercy, nor soul to care about losing. What matters the most is that you fight for the lives of your grandson and your own.”

  “Mike was right to befriend you,” Tony told him.

  “I know this.”

  “As big as you are and humble as well.”

  Dee looked at Tony. “I know what sarcasm is, old man.”

  Tony had a retort all lined up but was cut short by a series of explosions happening not more than four miles from the cabin.

  “Grab Travis, we must leave.” Dee had a look of alarm on his face.

  Chapter 10

  CHAPTER TEN – MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 6

  “Under arrest? For wha…motherfucker, sweet Jesus, what the fuck is going on?!” Paul had rounded the corner to go into my room and immediately backed up so he was nearly on the other side of the hallway.

  “This is Uut, he was sent here to kill me. Looks like I won.”

  “It’s…it’s alive?”

  “Say something, Uut.”

  Uut was silent.

  “Uut let’s not play this game. I’ll stick a knife hilt deep into your mid-section.”

  “I am indeed alive.”

  “Mike, what the hell are you doing? The Stryvers are going to flip out when they realize we have one of them captive.”

  “Actually, they’re not. My buddy Ham sent this guy without orders from the higher-ups in order to terminate my existence. Besides Ham and Uut here, no other Stryvers know about his disappearance. Maybe his blow-up arachnid doll will care but nobody else.”

  “That’s just gross,” Tracy said, coming back out of the room.

  “Ham? Uut?” Paul looked at me questioningly.

  “I made the name Ham up. And it’s Uut like boot. I’m not even sure they understand names like we do because they’re all interlinked, they wouldn’t see a need for that distinction. The names have more to do with their function for the particular jobs they perform.”

  “Mike, what do you want me to do with him?”

  “I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture. We know very little about these beings other than they want us dead slightly less than they do the Progerians. Although I think they want me dead slightly more, it’s that po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to type of thing.”

  “Mike, you’re straying.” Tracy nudged me.

  “Oh yeah, we…well…I mean you and your scientists and doctors need to figure out unique and lethal ways to deal with them. I’d start with somehow interrupting their ability to communicate. Who knows—it might just be a jamming frequency. Can you imagine the devastation we could do to them on the battlefield if they couldn’t communicate?”

  “What the hell is the tinfoil all about?”

  “I’ve seen enough crazy people wearing it who say it stops government radio waves from entering their head.”

  “So you thought to try it on a Stryver?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I shoot shit, Paul. How much thought do you think I put into it?”

  “You will release me.” Uut was attempting to subliminally pass his message along.

  “Shut up, Uut. I promise no one is going to let you go,” I told him.

  “That’s weird.” Paul shook his head. “I was just thinking about that, I mean not that I would, it was just a thought that flitted across my mind.”

  “That’s because he put it there.”

  “And you heard it?”

  “I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the chemical composition of my brain, or maybe it’s all the chemicals I’ve dumped into it…or shit, man, maybe it’s even from cracking my skull going through your windshield. Who knows? All I do know for sure is that they speak on many levels and I can pick them up.”

  “That’s one more reason you need to stay here.”

  “I’m not babysitting this nightmare, get some of your smart people up here and figure out its comm-link.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, we’re a little light staffed.”

  “I know you’ve got a couple of doctors and engineers on board. If anyone can figure it out it’ll be those guys, and if he misbehaves, hit him where you think his chest is. That really fucks him up.” I could feel fear emanate from Uut.

  “I wish you dead.”

  “Same, buddy.”

  “What’d he say?” Paul asked.

  “He wanted me to find an airlock and let myself off into the vacuum of space.”

  “Corporal,” Paul motioned to the guard, “discreetly bring Doctor Baker and the engineer Major Adair here.”

  “Yes, sir.” The guard looked back to Uut and left. You didn’t need to read minds to know he was happy to leave.

  Within ten minutes, the men were there and after their initial surprise, the doc immediately went into curiosity mode. The engineer was more reluctant but still left to grab a wheeled toolbox worth of test gear that Doc Baker told him might be of use. Fifteen minutes after that, the doctor, under Paul’s orders, had some of the guards attach electrodes to various parts of Uut’s anatomy. Machines came to life with blips and beeps that monitored various life-support systems.

  “This should work nicely,” Doc Baker muttered and began humming. I don’t even know if he realized he had spoken out loud.

  “What should, doctor?” Paul asked.

  “Hmm, what?” He looked up from the machine. “Oh, sorry, I’ve hooked up an EEG machine to our friend here.”

  “The doc sometimes has problems with English,” I told Paul. I’d had to deal with the man when I’d first come back on board to make sure I wasn’t carrying all manner of disease from the Stryvers. “Doc, maybe speak so the rest of us that didn’t go to school for thirty-seven years can understand.”

  “Of course. I hooked him up to an electroencephalogram. It measures brain wave activity. Ah, there you are.” He tapped the monitor to show the line rising and falling.

  “If you hooked this up to Mike, would it show anything?” Tracy asked as a joke.

  “Unless he were brain dead, yes, it most certainly would,” he answered dryly, like he was speaking to a child who didn’t understand such complex things as opposed to someone who was trying to make light of the situation.

  “Didn’t get out much when you were in school did ya’ Doc?” I asked.

  “I went out every day to class or to study and certainly to eat.”

  “Forget it, just tell us what you’re seeing here,” I told him. Humor had been an easier emotion for Dee to grasp hold of than it had for Doc.

  “This shows the activity in his brain. His thoughts are electrical impulses and this machine has the capability to convert that signal onto the screen here.”

  “Could you potentially intercept his thoughts, like what he’s saying on the levels that we can’t actually hear?” Paul asked.

  The engineer spoke up. “If he emits some sort of frequency, then witho
ut a doubt. There is equipment on this ship so powerful that I cannot imagine there is any type of energy it cannot detect.”

  “Doc?”

  He placed his hand to his chin. “Well, ultimately everything he does, sees, hears, and says is merely electrical impulses in his brain. We could certainly perceive that, but deciphering it with this set-up may be beyond our limitations. And with the time and amount of data we would need to measure and reveal that would be prohibitive. Not to mention that the electrical fields are so minute that it is possible the signal could get lost.”

  “You said with this set-up. What’s that mean?” Paul had heard something in the doc’s words I had not.

  “If we attached the electrodes directly into the brain, we should be able to determine which part is responsible for their communication. It would make things incredibly easier.”

  “You willing to operate on him?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Doc said in his usual detached manner. This would be no different for him than if he were sewing up a cut on a kid’s arm. Doctoring was doctoring.

  “What is going on?!” Uut demanded when three men approached him, one with a needle I think was more fitting for a T-Rex.

  “Well, buddy, it looks like you’re going to be the world’s largest guinea pig,” I told him. He had no idea what I was talking about.

  They had strapped Uut to a large table and were now wheeling him out and to the ship’s hospital. Doc had assembled a team; he had two nurses on board and a couple of guys who had been EMTs once upon a time, and for some reason, he’d grabbed a welder. Beats me. It was two hours later when they came and got me. I was getting ready with BT and Tracy for our flight for life.

  “Sir, Doctor Baker and General Ginson would like you down at the surgery viewing room. The prisoner is ready,” a private informed me.

  “Sure thing, be right there. You coming?” I asked Tracy.

  “No, I’ve seen all I want to of Stryvers.”

  “I wish I had that option.” I followed the private out.