by J. N. Chaney
“Our people have been at war for centuries,” Dama said in a sad tone. “Perhaps, as dark as this time is, this is what needed to happen. It’s time to place our differences aside and put an end to Legion. The ground will soak in his blood from now on. We have spilt enough of our own.”
The blood-soaked ground metaphor is a little dark, but at least she’s on our side, I thought to myself. Let’s hope it’s not too late.
Tong jumped off the predator, extending a three-fingered hand.
“If everything you say is as it is, then you shall have allies in the Remboshi,” Tong said, trying to hide a goofy almost bashful smile. “To peace.”
“Peace, and the death of Legion,” Dama said, shaking his hand.
“That’s it?” I asked Stacy out of the side of my mouth. “Tong was full of piss and vinegar when it came to the Rung a few days ago. What changed?”
“I guess a female touch translates into their culture as well,” Stacy said with a confident smile. “Never underestimate the power of a woman.”
I looked back at Tong, who was all googly-eyed at Dama as they spoke to one another in their own tongue.
“Son of a biscuit,” John said, joining us. “I guess some things are universal.”
“If you would please follow me,” Dama said in her clipped English. “We have food brought for you, but I fear rest will have to wait. We need to go over the plan to reclaim our armor and weapons before we can go on the offensive.”
I nodded, standing from the predator and stretching. A yawn escaped my lips. All the traveling during the night and sleeping during the day was playing havoc on my sleep schedule. Still, this apparently wasn’t the time to ask for a nap.
I followed Dama from the elevator shaft along with the others. We entered the brightly lit chamber where the other Rung guards stood at attention. They were more organized than I had thought, like a true militia.
Hard eyes returned my stares, as if they were looking for a fight.
Dama led us from the open room to a smaller one off to the right. She pressed her hand to a control panel that opened a door and allowed us inside.
The room was nothing special, small and a bit unevenly shaped. A large screen sat on a wall to the left, and there was a table of food to the right with chairs that were a little too small to be considered normal. They had openings in the back, presumably to allow for occupants that possessed tails.
“Please eat,” Dama said, motioning to the food.
John looked at me for consensus, hesitating but hungry.
“If they were going to poison us, they could have done so by now ten times over,” I said, heading to the table. My stomach reminded me of how long it had been since we had eaten our last meal. “If I’m going to die, I’m going to die full.”
I wasn’t sure what the food was, but it was by far the best thing I had put into my mouth since we’d left Earth. There was bright green stuff that tasted like cheese and enough spicy meat to make my stomach dance with joy.
“Hey, how come you don’t have food like this?” Stacy asked Tong as she smacked her lips with delight. “I mean, so far, the Rung have a legit army, awesome food, and—”
Stacy let the rest of her words trail off as she caught Tong’s deadpan stare.
“I mean your food, okay?” Stacy tried to save face. “You have the Cerberus Installation and all that.”
While we ate, Sulk joined us again. This time, he wore a similar necklace to Dama’s. When he spoke, his words came out in English. His voice was a bit higher pitched than I would have imagined.
“Now that I can communicate in your tongue, it will make things so much easier,” Sulk said, helping himself to a plate of food. “I am sorry for what happened to your friend. He died a glorious death. I can only hope that when it comes my time to drown in my own blood on the battlefield, I will be as brave.”
Stacy was mid-bite as Sulk went on and on about dying in graphic detail. She put her food down, suddenly not hungry at all.
“I had no idea what a warrior race the Rung were,” John said, probably to make conversation as he shoved another handful of food into his mouth and licked his fingers clean. “I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
“Oh yes,” Sulk said with an emphatic nod. “One of the main reasons the Rung broke off from the Remboshi was our love for weapons and warfare. Most of us have implants enhancing our fighting ability. Dean, I should also apologize to you.”
“Me?” I asked, placing my empty plate on the table. “Why?”
“When we first met, you tried to grab me. I defeated you and injured your shoulder when it was all over,” Sulk said, shaking his head. “I know how fragile your species is. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”
I blinked a few times, trying to figure out if this guy was messing with me. I decided to err on the side of caution and figured he was probably dead serious.
“We took you down,” I told him. “No reason to be sorry.”
“Yes, but the way you screamed like an infant when three of you had to restrain me and I crushed your shoulder.” Sulk looked at me with unblinking eyes and a deadpan stare. “That had to be painful.”
“Like an infant?” I asked incredulously. “Listen, gecko, I—”
My next words were cut off as a siren blared through the room, causing me to jump. Shouting from the outer room could be heard.
“They come!” Dama said, running for the door. “We must brace the gate!”
11
Thoughts of food and verbally sparring with Sulk fled my mind as we hurried after Dama. Along with the alarm blaring overhead and the shouting, a heavy clanging and pounding could be heard, as if someone was taking a battering ram to a steel door.
We crossed the large open room where the standing army held position. On the opposite side, a large hall opened up to a set of steel double doors, which had been barricaded with everything from large containers to weapons wedged with one end on the door and the other in the ground. A dozen Rung were leaning against it, bracing it for impact as something large struck it from the opposite side. They were doing a great job of holding off whatever it was for the moment, but who knew how long they would be able to keep it at bay?
“Legion has overtaken a large part of our underground network,” Dama explained. “He’s been trying to break down these doors for the last few days with no luck. I fear his frustration will lead him to do something rash very soon.”
The booming from the other end of the door sent my sternum quivering in my chest as my heart slammed against it.
“What’s on the other end hitting it so hard?” John asked. “They have a vehicle or something?”
“We’re not sure,” Dama said, shaking her head. “The door has been holding, but how long it will hold is another question. Every few hours, Legion takes a new approach to getting in. He is patient and persistent if nothing else. Sooner or later, he will find a way inside.”
“Then we have to make our move before he does,” I said. “What’s the plan?”
A smile tugged at Dama’s lips. She waved us over back the way we came to the room with the screen and food.
She placed a hand on the screen and an aerial view of a diagram appeared. It showed our chamber, the adjacent larger room, and the hall leading to the closed doors.
“This is where we currently are.” Dama pointed to our section of the underground base. She moved her hand through the closed doors in the hall and down toward another chamber on a different level. “And this is where our power armor is waiting for us.”
I was still trying to get my head wrapped around how large the place was. The underground bunker was massive and that was putting it lightly. Levels upon levels of the place opened into long halls and sprawling passageways. They had to easily house thousands of Rung here, maybe more.
“How many warriors do you still have?” Stacy asked.
“The ones you see in this outer chamber are all we have left,” Dama said, clearing her throat
with a sad expression on her face. “Forty combatants and another ten if you include our children who have taken shelter with us here.”
“Children?” I repeated the word as if it were the first time I was hearing it. “You make your children fight?”
“If it is fighting or death, I would see that our children make account of themselves.” Dama answered as if that were the most logical line of reasoning. “I would rather have them die on their feet than cowering in a corner.”
“Forty soldiers, plus us,” Tong mused out loud. “What is this power armor you speak of?”
Dama adjusted the screen in front of us so it moved to show exactly what I imagined. A bulky suit of armor appeared as if it stood eight to ten feet tall. It was armed on the outside, complete with weapons on its forearms and backs.
“You created these weapons to fight us, didn’t you?” Tong asked.
“We did, but history has united us and we have a common enemy now,” Dama said, not missing a beat. “We will pilot them together against Legion and usher in a new era for our people. This is not the time to argue over the past. After we defeat our common enemy, we will engage in peace talks.”
“How far is it from us to the power armor?” I asked. “I’m bad with telling distances on maps.”
“What would be your equivalent to two kilometers if I understand the way you judge distance,” Dama said. “Two kilometers and a level down.”
Two kilometers doesn’t sound like a whole heck of a lot, but when you have infected breathing down your neck, it might as well be a world away, I thought to myself. It’s going to be one heck of a fight.
“How many infected do you think are between us and the power armor?” Tong asked.
“Hundreds, at least,” Sulk said with a wide grin. “It will be a chance at a glorious death.”
We all looked at him sideways. He sure loved the thought of death in battle, and although I wanted him to fulfill his hopes and dreams, I was becoming fond of the little guy, despite his putdown of my “fragile” race, and didn’t want him to leave us yet.
“I think I liked him more when he was all ticks and S’s,” John said, making a valid point.
“Agreed,” I added. “Who would have thought the Rung were so morbid? I thought they were supposed to be smarter than the Remboshi with all their tech.”
“We are,” Dama said.
“No, they’re not,” Tong answered at the same time.
Dama and Tong looked to each other, surprised, then exchanged a smile. Oh boy.
“Well, before this gets awkward and they start flirting again, let’s come up with a plan,” Stacy said. “We know where we need to go. The most direct path is closed, with those double doors Legion is trying to get through. Is there another way around?”
“Yes,” Dama said, either missing her remark about flirting with Tong or choosing to ignore it. “Out the rear of the main chamber is a narrow maintenance hall that would lead you around Legion. That way would be twice as long, however.”
“Well, I vote we take the predator straight up the gut,” John said, crossing his arms in a belligerent stance. “I didn’t come all this way to avoid a fight. I’ve got some aggression built up if you haven’t noticed.”
“Whatever Legion has on the other side of those doors trying to break it down could give even the predator a run for its money,” Stacy thought out loud. “I’m not sure that’s the right move.”
John looked at me.
“Hey, don’t look at me. She’s the boss,” I said, pointing at Stacy. “For what it’s worth, I don’t like the idea of sneaking around either. But if it’s our best shot, we owe it to Lou to do just that. We can’t fail here. Not for him, not for anyone we’ve lost along the way or can save by defeating Legion. We have to succeed. There’s no choice there.”
A moment of quiet fell over the room as human, Remboshi, and Rung all thought about those we would never see again. Worse perhaps, those we would still see, only now infected by the Legion virus.
“And you’re sure these power armor suits will be enough to defeat Legion?” Tong asked, looking to Sulk then Dama. “This is the end for him?”
“Each power armor suit is a tank.” Dama motioned to the image on the armor suit on the screen. “We’ll be able to travel four times as fast at a run. The steel is four inches thick. Flamethrowers and blades on the forearms while dual plasma cannons rest on the shoulders. We have hundreds of the prototypes ready. Legion doesn’t have anything that will be able to stand against us. We just need pilots.”
“We go through the rear shaft and around,” Stacy said, biting her lower lip. “I don’t want children with us.”
Dama opened her mouth to argue.
“I get that it’s your culture,” Stacy cut her off. “I get that, trust me. I’d rather see children fighting than dying, but only if it comes to that with no other choice. What we do right now gives them a chance. You leave half your forces here and we take the other half. Taking all forty warriors will be too many to sneak around quietly anyway. Take your fiercest twenty. If we can’t do it with twenty, we won’t be able to do it with forty.”
Dama held Stacy’s eyes a moment longer as if she were weighing her words in her mind. Eventually, the Rung decided not to argue and accepted Stacy’s demands.
“Sulk, our fiercest twenty,” Dama said with hard, determined eyes. “We leave in eight hours. Enough time for the blood rite and to rest.”
“Immediately,” Sulk said, leaving the room.
“Do we even want to know what the blood rite is?” I asked.
“A sacred tradition passed down from generation to generation,” Dama said. “It’ll put the warriors in the right mind.”
“Your people?” Tong asked. “This is all that remains in only just this installation, correct? This can’t be all the Rung. You have other underground bunkers throughout the wasteland?”
“We do, but we have lost communication with them.” Dama lowered her large yellow eyes to the ground. “I have faith others have survived Legion’s attacks, but we do not know for certain.”
“If they’re out there, we will find them,” Tong assured her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She looked over at him, smiling. He smiled back at her as the two shared a moment.
I raised my eyes to the ceiling and cleared my throat awkwardly to get their attention. “And in the meantime, we have more than enough humans to pilot these suits of power armor,” I answered. “We’ll end Legion once and for all.”
“Dama?” Stacy asked from her position next to the large screen on the wall. She had walked to the screen, going back to the map of the underground bunker. She pointed to a massive room on the opposite side of the bunker. “What’s this room? More importantly, what is this craft?”
Stacy piqued my interest. “Craft?” I asked. “Like a spacecraft?”
John and I joined Stacy at the screen. She wasn’t wrong. What looked like a small four-person spacecraft sat in a hangar.
“It’s untested and only a prototype, but we are hoping that it will evolve into us being able to explore the stars and worlds beyond our own,” Dama said. “We put the Nebula Project on hold to work on the suits of power armor years ago.”
My mind was having a difficult time processing what I saw on the map. Our entire time on Genesis had been filled with trying to survive. In the back of my mind, I always thought we’d be able to eventually begin work on creating a spaceship capable of leaving the planet.
Seeing it here already in front of me was something else entirely. Surely between what the Rung had already done and our own scientists’ knowledge of the stars, we could leave. If the Rung would allow us to use their transport.
“I understand what this might mean to you,” Dama said as the three of us stared at the image without speaking. “A coalition of our people to begin work on an initiative to travel space is a conversation the Rung are willing to have, but only after we defeat Legion.”
“Agreed,” I said, tearing
my eyes away from the ship. “We kill Legion first.”
12
While the Rung chose their warriors and prepared to perform their blood rite, we were left to rest, thankfully. I slept in the side room with the screen and the food. You’d think with everything going on that I’d have a hard time falling asleep. Not so much, really. As soon as my head hit the rolled-up blanket I used as a pillow, I was out.
As I had instructed him to, Tong woke me a few hours later when the time for our departure neared.
“The blood rite is about to begin,” Tong told me, motioning to the large outer chamber. “Once it is complete, we will be ready to depart.”
“Right, right,” I said, sitting up while rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
John and Stacy were already up and arming themselves. What the Rung lacked in manpower, they more than made up for in a vast assortment of weapons. I was surprised to see two racks of bladed weapons that had been wheeled in while I slept. I went over to inspect them, feeling almost like a kid in a candy shop, having adapted to using weapons in addition to my fighting skills since we left Earth and gaining an interest in the various types and forms.
The racks reminded me of something you’d find in clothing store on Earth. Long blades, axes, and short blades occupied one side, with hand blasters and rifles on the other.
I still had the Judge on my hip, but I couldn’t help but hold one of the Rung axes in my hands. It was slightly small with a bladed axe on one end and a hammer head on the other.
“You fancy the skull splitter?” Sulk asked, joining me. “It is a good and effective weapon. While blasters will eventually run dry, bladed weapons rely on your strength. They’ll keep working for you as long as you don’t give up.”
“You know, I think I liked you more when I couldn’t understand what you were saying,” I told Sulk with a raised eyebrow, kind of messing with him because I did agree with the logic of what he was telling me. “Is everything death with you?”