by J. N. Chaney
“John, get out of here!” I yelled as he exited his smoking suit. “Get back!”
John saw what was coming for us a second later and sprinted behind a massive trunk that had been cut down by our rounds.
The creatures slammed into us. I managed to catch one through the skull with my blade as another took me in the torso. I was slammed onto my back. The screen in front of me flickered, threatening to go out.
The alien beast slammed my chest with its hooves. It continued to gore me and rip at the steel plating of my chest with its three horns.
I saw madness in its eyes. Legion was there, and if animals could smirk this one did.
“I can’t get up, I’m down!” Tong shouted.
It was his panicked voice that reminded me of my resolve.
I grabbed onto the beast’s horns, remembering how I had killed the alien beasts before this one. Each time, I had gone for the head.
I wrestled the beast from on top of me, gaining the position over him. My suit sparked and smoked from the inflicted damage. With a closed fist, I summoned the blade in my right vambrace. I drove the sharp blade through the creature’s right eye and deep into its brain, pinning it to the ground.
The creature thrashed a moment more then went still.
I looked up to see Stacy standing over two more dead alien beasts, also apparently having gone for the head. Tong’s unit was missing a left leg. He was sitting slumped dejectedly against a large rock that protruded from the jungle floor.
In minutes, we were reduced to two mobile armor suits. John was also somewhere out in the open. I searched for a solution to our problem in vain as incoming grenades and missiles batted me from side to side.
“I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up,” Stacy shouted over the sounds of her shoulder cannons. “Dean, I—”
A deep rumbling reached our ears. It was the sound of not just one but many vehicles. Legion must have heard it too. All weapon fire ceased. The scene that a moment before had been hell quieted as if everyone were eager to hear someone speak.
“Is that…” I asked.
“Behind us!” Tong yelled from his downed unit in pure relief. “It can’t be.”
I turned, not even knowing what to expect. An armada of predators raced across the fields toward the jungle.
I squinted, trying to see who or what was driving the vehicles. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I caught sight of Remboshi warriors decked out in their white armor and armed to the teeth.
There were dozens of the vehicles, led by one that had a smiling Jezra in the passenger seat.
“How?” I asked, not able to finish my sentence.
“Jezra took off right after you did,” Ricky’s voice sounded over our comms. “She said she had to do something. Took all the predators with her too. She’s woken the Remboshi from their hyper sleep.”
I looked over to the wall to see the Orion gates open. Civil Authority Officers, a loping great dog I recognized as Mutt, and others streamed out of the encampment.
“Hold on,” Elon said. “We’re on our way.”
“I’m establishing a link with Jezra and the rest of my people,” Tong said excitedly. “It has been a long time since the Remboshi have been awakened. Longer still since we have mobilized for war. I—”
“Check out the satellite,” Stacy warned. “We have something big coming in from the east!”
I obeyed, looking down at my screen. She was right. Something large was bearing down on us fast. I moved to defend against this new threat when I realized it wasn’t coming at us from the ground but rather the air.
I looked up, shading my eyes against the bright twin suns. A flying craft I had only seen an outline of before raced through the sky, carrying four power armor units below it on cables.
“The Rung!” Tong shouted. “The Rung have arrived!”
21
“Sorry we couldn’t bring more help,” Dama’s voice crackled over the channel. “We took back the craft from the rest of the Legion infected in the bunker, but the ship can only carry four suits at a time.”
“They’re with us!” I could hear Tong shouting, not through the comms but out loud through his suit’s exterior speakers. “The Rung fight with us!”
Immediately, I could see the incident Tong was trying to sidestep. The Rung and the Remboshi had a hate-filled past. If the newly awakened Remboshi still harbored the same hate toward the Rung, all could be lost. They had to be headed off before the Remboshi attacked them.
Tong exited his suit, springing over to his people with his arms in the air. The Remboshi in the predators turned their weapons toward the Rung craft.
My heart sank in my chest. Here on the brink of defeat, we were given a glimmer of hope, only to have it ripped from us by infighting on our own side. The past would kill us faster than our present.
“Dean, you have to talk to them,” Stacy said through her channel. “You’re the Chosen One. They’ll listen to you.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew she was right. If anyone had the opportunity to stop the coming fight from our own allies, it was me. I had to step up and use my “chosen” abilities.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said.
“Speak and they will listen,” Jezra’s voice came over the comms. “They know my prophecy. They trusted it enough to sleep for so many years. They will follow you now.”
The Rung ship descended on our right flank, unhooking the thick cables from the four new armor suits so that they landed hard on the ground.
The moment was so tense, you could cut it with a blade. All the weapons the Remboshi had were pointed not at Legion, who had retreated into the jungle’s cover, but at the descended Rung.
“Stop!” I shouted, moving my suit in between the two factions. I opened the hatch to the armor and sprang out onto the scarred ground of the jungle, all the while keeping a wary eye on the infected, who had retreated a few hundred meters into the denser section of the jungle. I could imagine Legion was hoping for the exact opposite outcome that I was. “If you want to live, then you need to stop!”
All eyes were on me. Those of the Remboshi to my left, the Orion colonists around me, and the Rung to my right.
The only reason he wasn’t attacking was that he anticipated the Rung and the Remboshi’s long time hate for one another would play out now. If that was the case, he would wait until one side slaughtered the other then raise the dead soldiers and use them to wipe out the winning side.
I had to act fast. But before I did, I had to believe that I was the Chosen One.
“Whatever differences you have had in the past, whatever sins you’ve committed against one another, none of that matters now,” I yelled. “If you don’t put the past aside and look to the future, there will be no tomorrow for any of us.”
Mutt barked and sprinted to my side as if he were showing support for the cause.
Jezra moved from her spot in the lead predator and stood on the hood of the vehicle. She interpreted for me to the rest of her people only recently woken from their long sleep.
One of the Rung, a scarred figure with narrow eyes and a wrinkled brow, shouted something to me.
Jezra answered in their tongue. All eyes widened and they looked at me with a reverence I wasn’t sure I deserved.
“That is one of our leaders,” Tong interpreted for me. “He asks why they should trust you. Jezra told them you are the Chosen One, a child of the light.”
“I know you have no reason to trust me besides your prophecy,” I said, not sure where I was going but understanding this was the deciding point in my speech. “But your prophecy, the prophecy you have chosen to place your hope in, has proven true up until this point. Don’t stop trusting me now. Put your faith in my direction and I swear to you I will not let your people fall!”
A hushed silence raced over the crowd. I had to stop from smiling for a second. I didn’t know I had it in me, but I didn’t think I’d done half bad. They seemed to have bought it.
The Remboshi spoke amongst themselves for a moment. The same scarred figure who had spoken to Jezra before now exited his predator. He knelt in his white armor and pounded the dirt in front of him, unleashing a string of alien words.
“He says they will not stop hoping in the prophecy now,” Tong translated in a rush of excited words. “They will stand with you and the Rung to defeat Legion.”
I looked over to the Rung. Dama opened the chest piece in her power armor and said first in her own tongue then to me.
“We are with the Remboshi and the Chosen One and his people,” Dama shouted. “Together!”
A cheer went up from all factions: Rung, Remboshi, and human. “As one! As one! As one! As one!” The chant started by Ricky ripped through the humans gathered and was soon picked up by the Rung and the Remboshi alike, once as the meaning had been translated for them.
Goosebumps raced across my skin. Where once four of us stood against an army of infected, now we had our own army. Although still outnumbered, we had the edge in weaponry and technology.
I turned back to look at the infected just inside the jungle. For the first time since I had seen Legion, he looked anything but confident. The infected moved from foot to foot, confused and uncertain.
“We push for the lightning stone in the heart of the jungle!” I roared. “Kill them all! Burn every plant with spores that you see along the way!”
Mutt howled.
I don’t know what kind of imposing figure it made me, but I couldn’t help but kneel and give Mutt a good scratching around his face and neck. He’d been with me since the beginning. He never asked why or for anything in return but my friendship. We’d spilt blood together and we were about to do so again.
Thousands of humans, Remboshi, and the Rung present didn’t seem to care that I was on a knee petting a dog. If anything, it made them cheer louder.
When the shouting died, I gave Mutt one final ruffle of his ears and climbed into my suit.
“Seek See Nay!” Jezra shouted.
“Seek See Nay!” the Remboshi army answered.
“Seek See Nay,” Jezra screamed again.
“Seek See Nay!” the Remboshi and Rung returned.
“It means ‘as one,’” Tong interpreted over the comm unit in our suits.
The human survivors from the Orion soon joined in, filling the air with the alien war chant.
I turned my gaze on Legion now, who shifted from one foot to the other. All hope for the Remboshi and Rung to turn on one another was gone. He understood there was only one way this was going to end.
I started a light jog forward with Stacy on my right along with the four new Rung armor units. The craft that had dropped them off was already on its way back to get four more suits. The battle would be over before it could return, but at least the Rung were doing everything they could to help.
To my left, the Remboshi advanced with their convoy of predators, and behind me the survivors of the Orion prepared to do battle once more, hopefully for the last time.
My jog turned into a full sprint as I planned to hit Legion as hard as I could in my armor. I was going to get through to that lightning rock and the main plant that held the spores if it cost me my life. In that moment, I was ready to sacrifice everything. In that moment, I believed I was the Chosen One and that this was why I was here. I was going to fulfill that prophecy. Otherwise, everything that happened up to this point had meant nothing.
Weapons fire ripped forward from Legion. Rockets and grenades streaked through the air at the power armor units while smaller caliber fire was aimed at the Remboshi and humans.
On our side, we let loose with a volley of laser fire so intense, hundreds of infected fell by the second.
I didn’t bother trying to run and shoot the blasters on my shoulders. I was of a single mind. Get to the lightning rock.
A rocket streaked by my head, and a grenade went to my right, causing me to stumble but not fall. Then I was among them. Infected grabbed for me, those with bladed weapons or clubs striking my armor.
I ignored them all, swiping the long blade on my right arm like a scythe through wheat. I made the mental decision to separate what I was actually doing, which was cutting down the bodies, to nothing more than a simple task.
Get to the rock, I told myself. Get to the rock. All you’re doing is getting to the rock.
Warning lights flickered on and off in my armor suit. I wasn’t familiar enough with the tech to tell what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t good.
“Dean, watch out!” Stacy screamed through the comm unit.
I was fast enough to see another massive alien beast with the three horns approaching like a laser beam from my right. It trampled other infected as it made a beeline for my location.
Oh, this is going to suck, I thought as I lifted my arms up to defend myself too late.
Right before impact, a Rung piloted suit slammed into the beast, changing its trajectory just enough to send it past me. It reeled into the infected horde, trampling many of them flat.
The suit opened fire on the beast, making mush out of it.
“Thought you could use a hand,” Dama’s voice said through the comms. “Come on. We can’t be far now.”
“Thank you,” I said, letting a long exhale of air escape my lungs. “I owe you one.”
“You owe us a few power armor suits as well.” Dama chuckled. “We can talk about it after we defeat Legion.”
I didn’t argue with her there. For what felt like an eternity, we waded through the mass of infected. Legion threw everything at us, from infected Rung and humans to various animals of the planet Genesis.
The Remboshi on the predators to my left were experts with the vehicles. While half of them maintained a steady line moving forward, the other half commenced destroying the infected, both running over them and cutting them down with the high-powered Blood Shots on the rear of the vehicles.
The way they maneuvered the predators through the lines of infected was amazing. I had no idea a predator could move so quickly. I would have to get a lesson from them after this was over.
Elon led the humans behind us as a sort of a cleanup crew from the wreckage the six power armor suits left in their wake.
Before long, I could see the lightning bolt shaped rock appear above the dense jungle treetops. Legion’s brain was within striking distance now. Only a bit farther.
The distance wasn’t the problem at the moment, but rather the level of damage my power armor suit had taken. Apparently, I was hard on my toys. Half the screen in front of me was blacked out, thanks to some kind of injury sustained to the cameras on the exterior of the suit. My left leg dragged behind me and a shower of sparks cascaded down my vision from where the helmet of the suit sat on top of the chest.
“Keep moving forward!” I yelled as my own suit shut down on me. “He’s desperate now. We’re almost there!”
I opened the hatch on my suit to jump down. Just because I wasn’t piloting a suit anymore didn’t mean I was out of the fight.
Legion must have sensed we were on the verge of overrunning his position because a scream straight out of a nightmare ripped from the collective throats of the infected. With one final push, they came at us in a wave of bodies.
22
Nightmarish images of the dead missing legs and arms advanced on our position. Early in the fight, the word had been passed down to either attempt headshots or induce so much brain trauma that it was rendered useless.
We didn’t expect to see what Legion did next.
“What’s that?” Elon asked via the earpiece I still wore. “Behind the latest push of infected, others are carrying something black.”
“The spores,” Jezra warned. “They’re the Legion spores. Don’t let them come near you!”
I went down to a knee, grabbing the Judge that rested on my hip. I pulled the trigger in rapid succession, tearing into the newest wave of attackers.
Elon and Jezra were right. In a last-dit
ch effort to win the battle, Legion was sacrificing the first wave of infected while the second wave ran toward us, carrying armfuls of thick black vegetation that gave off tiny puffs of ebony powder with every step.
I took one infected down with a series of shots to the chest before working my way up to its head. Another I had to spend two missed rounds on before a third found its skull.
“Going to have to work on that aim sooner or later,” Boss Creed said, coming up on my left. He carried a heavy blaster and unloaded on a group of infected sprinting at us with arm loads of the black spores.
“Dean,” Ricky said, joining us. He handed me a canister with a hose on the front. “Take it. You’ll need it to kill Legion.”
I knew what the flamethrower was. I nodded, strapping the canister on my back. The hose itself I slung over my shoulder. I was ready to do some damage.
“We have to make a move now!” Stacy shouted over the comm. “Legion’s raising the dead!”
All around the battlefield, reports started flooding in through the channel. Legion’s tactic wasn’t only to infect the living but to infect our own dead to rise and fight on his side.
Humans and Remboshi were being brought back via the virus to fight for Legion once more.
To my left, a Rung power armor unit went down under a volley of rocket fire. Another stumbled and fell, only to be swarmed by dozens of infected carrying the spores. They shook the plant, trying to get it into the power armor unit’s cracks and crevices and infect the pilot inside.
“No! Sulk!” Dama screamed as the power armored suit went down like a larger insect under a swarm of ants. “Sulk!”
“Keep fighting!” Sulk said as though he was being strangled from inside his suit. “Never give up! Never—”
Sulk’s voice disappeared. It didn’t take a mind reader to figure out what had happened to him.
“We have to do something now.” Jezra’s voice was calm and clear amidst a cacophony of screaming panic. “Dean, it’s time.”
I had no idea what the crazy old bat was talking about. I had given it my best shot and I wasn’t going to give up, but the way she worded it was like I was supposed to know what she meant.