Marine Defenders

by Isaac Stone

  “You tell me right now!” Krodha screamed at her. “My friends are dying out there because of what you did. Answer me!” He began to advance on her.

  “Please,” she tried to tell him. “I don’t remember much before you found me in the street. I was supposed to help you. That’s all I can recall. You need me!” She brought her frightened hands up to her face.

  “Why the hell would we need you?” he growled after taking another step closer. “Don’t give me that Kushmanda shit! Who are you really? Who sent you in here with that story to scare the idiots who’ll grab and any strand? Do you think I’ll fall for that ruse? I’ve heard the stories too and I never believed them! This isn’t some temple in candlelight, sweetie, we’re under attack and you better tell me what I want to know!”

  “Please listen!” she appealed to him. “I don’t….” She never finished her sentence as Krodha’s hand struck her face, sending Kushmanda flying to the nearest corner.

  She felt the sting of the blow and placed one hand on it. There was no blood. At least he hadn’t broken any surface vessels. She looked up at him.

  “Bitch!” he screamed at her. “Patcha thevidya! Confess and die an honest woman!”

  Shocked, she watched as his hand brought up the pistol and aimed it at her.

  The screams died down outside. The last firefight ended with the Synarchists unable to take the atrium, as far as she could tell. The moans of the wounded echoed through the office as she watched Krodha take aim at her head with the pistol. There was nothing more she could do in her current state.

  From behind Krodha, she saw a first fly out with a knife in its hand. Another hand grabbed him by the head and pulled it back. Before he could say anything, the blade sliced his neck all the way to the spinal column. Krodha fell to the floor in a spray of blood. His gun struck the floor and spun across the room.

  Where Krodha once stood was a tall man in grey body armor. He wore a helm made out of the same material. Over the armor was a blue surcoat with the image of a rose embossed into it. She saw a white belt girded around his waist where several utility packs and at least one pistol dangled. Blood dripped from the knife he’d used to slit Krodha’s throat. He leaned down and carefully wiped the blood on the Krodha’s uniform.

  She hadn’t even seen him enter the room behind the Jyotish marine.

  The angel of death carefully placed the knife in its own holster, but not before he inspected the blade to make sure the blood was removed. She heard him sigh when he noticed the blood on his surcoat.

  One gloved hand unlocked and flipped up the visor on his helm. She looked at a pair of steel blue eyes surrounded by a face which appeared have been chiseled out of white marble.

  “Had to clean it off,” he explained to her. “Blood rusts the blade. Hard to scrub out if you let it happen. I’ll need to soak it in oil later just to be safe.”

  She didn’t say a word to him.

  “Nagashi,” he told her. “Sir Anthony Nagashi, Royal Order of the Queen’s Corset. And who might you be?” He stood still as if he demanded an answer.

  “Kushmanda,” she told him. “That’s all I know.”

  “Kushmanda,” he repeated her name. His eyes closed for a second.

  There were no more gunshots from the outside. A strange sort of peace had fallen over the floor.

  “I think you’re one of my objectives,” he told her. “But not right this minute. Plenty of time for it later and you don’t seem to understand who you are. I’ll give you some time to come up to speed. You can thank me later for saving your life.” The knight dropped the visor on his helm and locked it on place.

  He walked over the wall and retrieved the rifle he’d propped on it before he snuck up behind the marine. With one final nod to Kushmanda, he turned and left the room.

  That wasn’t difficult at all, he thought to himself.He did seem a little surprised when I slit his throat. It’s what happens when you forget about what’s going on at the periphery. I probably could have taken care of the little one too, but she’ll be a better challenge later. No reason to use all the opportunities at once.

  After he left, Kushmanda walked over and picked up the gun Krodha dropped when he fell.

  Chapter 7

  The moment Kushmanda picked up the pistol, the gunfire resumed from the atrium. It wasn’t the massive firefight that took place earlier. This time the sounds were sporadic and controlled. Whoever was shooting it out did so with care and precise control of their weapons.

  She peered out of the office and saw a pile of Synarchist bodies in the floor surrounded by over-turned tables and chairs. Men in the marine uniforms of the Jyotish Federal Army were shooting at the group that slowly came up the stairs. A body was pushed out of their way as they moved toward their objective in the atrium. Although the JFA marines were outnumbered, they had the edge over the Synarchists in skill.

  She watched as Commander Sura returned fire from behind a stack of tables and furniture as the Synarchists shot at them. Next to Sura were four other marines, the only ones who survived the firefight at top of the stairs. Kushmanda noted the woman who’d rescued her from the street with them. She wondered whom this woman would react to the news that the man she worked with was dead.

  She glanced back at the body of Krodha on the floor. There was a pool of blood forming around his cut neck. Nothing she or anyone could do for him now would make a difference. She hoped his soul would return in a better form. These things weren’t for her to speculate and she had other duties to attend.

  The Synarchists were at the top of the stairs. Behind the troopers, pushing them onward was a huge man in the ornate robes of a Proconsul. This had to be their leader. If she could line up a good shot, it would be easy to take him down.

  Kushmanda felt the hormones race out there in the atrium. It was a deadly brew of pheromones she could sense. How was it she knew so much about what motivated people, even better than they did? She couldn’t remember, although there were a few glimpses in her mind of people in white coats who told her very important things.

  She looked down at her arm and noted the cuts. They would all heal swiftly enough. All she had to do was make certain the right amount of white blood cells were dispatched around the wounds. To speed up the healing process was a bit of a trick, but she could do it. Too bad, she couldn’t make it happen right away, but such things were beyond her abilities.

  She looked down at the gun and made sure it was loaded. Full clip too. This model held twelve rounds, a lot for a standard piece, but very useful in these situations. Time to get out there and put it to work. She checked it to make sure there were no signs of misuse or corrosion on it. There wasn’t. He’d taken very good care of it.

  Kushmanda looked out across the atrium to see another marine begin to concentrate his fire on the Synarchists. This had to be someone she’d seen earlier. She peered across the atrium and saw the form of Commander Sura’s second, Tripada, who held a large pistol and fired at the group on the stairs. He was barricaded ten feet behind her. One of his bullets found a target and a Synarchist trooper went over the stairs. Tripada ducked behind a piece of furniture.

  For some reason, the Synarchists didn’t try to shoot through the furniture. Kushmanda decided it had to do with their inability to understand how flimsy the construction was on it. She watched a Synarchist trooper hold his fire and try to find where Tripada had hidden. Didn’t the man realize all he had to do was unload a full clip on that office table and he’d kill everything behind it? Perhaps he didn’t know how light it really was. The furniture maker tried to make it appear to be a lot heavier than reality.

  Tripada panted heavily as he crouched behind the table and waited. He couldn’t see the commander from where he was, but the gunfire had stopped. There was a movement to his left and he spun in its direction, gun raised.

  “I’m on your side,” a voice whispered to him. He looked over the barrel and saw a marine named Shardhula, who came from an isolated mountain vall
ey, with a rifle cradled in this arm. The man was barely in his twenties and a bit of a rube, but he could shoot better than most of the men in the brigade. He felt a little bit of relief to be near him.

  “How many are out there?” he asked Shardhula. “Can you see?”

  “Not from where I’m at now. There could be as many as thirty coming up those stairs. I want that damn proconsul. He’s killed more people in the last month than all the plagues in the past. Just let him step into range and his ass is mine.”

  “Give him some time to get up into our field,” Tripada said to him. “They tend to be over-confident. So long as we control the end of the stairway, they can’t do much. All we have to do is block it until they decide to do something stupid.”

  Tripada heard another sound and looked, expecting it to be another marine. Instead, his eyes focused on a pair of shiny boots in front of him that belonged to a Synarchist trooper. The man was alone, somehow he’d found a way up to the atrium level by himself.

  Before he could sound a warning, one of the boots kicked him hard in the chest and sent Tripada flying into the wall behind him. He dropped his pistol and scrambled to the floor to retrieve it.

  The Synarchist trooper swung his rifle in the direction of Shardhula and began to squeeze the trigger when he stopped. He turned to see the face of a lovely young woman next to his. The trooper hesitated long enough for Kushmanda to shove her gun in his face and fire. His head erupted into several sections and painted the wall behind him.

  Kushmanda walked over to Tripada’s prone form and picked up the gun that was out of his reach. She helped him off the ground and handed it to him. Both of them were out of visual range of the rest of the atrium and no further gunfire could be heard around the corner.

  While Tripada looked at her in amazement, she walked over to some open doors that lead down to a service elevator. She put one finger to her lips for silence and stood at one side of the open elevator. A little puzzled, Tripada stood quietly to see what she wanted to do. The lone cable, which descended down the elevator shaft, began to shake.

  A few seconds later, another Synarchist trooper emerged at the entrance to the elevator shaft. He’d managed to climb up the cable with a full pack of equipment on his back. He stuck out one boot and steadied himself on the entrance. With grace, he pushed himself away from the cable and landed on the second floor.

  Very pleased, the trooper pulled out his pistol and cocked it back as he looked for the first target he could find. Tripada was impressed. He almost looked as good as any hero from a Wotan action video. Even Shardhula, his rifle aimed and ready, seemed impressed by this move.

  The trooper turned to one side and saw Kushmanda. She smiled her pretty face at him. They could see the surprise on his face.

  This wasn’t half the surprise he showed when she shot him three times in the chest.

  Before he fell down the shaft, she grabbed the pistol out of his hand. Then she slid the elevator doors shut and locked them.

  Kushmanda strode back to Tripada and looked at the cut on his arm. “Not too bad, make sure you but some cream on it later,” she informed him. “All manner of infections floating around this level and you don’t want to pick up one of them.”

  She walked up to Shardhula and handed him the pistol she’d retrieved from the trooper after she’d shot him. “I think it’s better suited to you,” she told him with a glassy look in her eyes. “I don’t like the recoil on this caliber.”

  Shardhula took the gun from her and admired it. One of the heavier Synarchist makes. It had plenty of stopping power, but she was right, if you didn’t know how to handle it, the recoil could rip your arm out of the socket.

  “Thank you,” he told her. “How do you know so much about guns?”

  “I don’t,” she told him.

  Suddenly the gunfire resumed from the other side of the atrium.

  “Pardon me,” Kushmanda told her. “I think the commander needs some help.”

  She walked around the other side of the partition.

  “That’s Basepholon,” Commander Sura told Shamsana as she fired off two more shots in the proconsul’s direction. “Bastard knows how to dodge the bullets; I’ll give him that credit. Watch out!” Another slug sang overhead from the direction of the group of Synarchists.

  “Why is he so important?” Shamsana asked as she heard the slug imbed in a couch next to her. “Other than the fancy robes, he doesn’t look very impressive.” She tried to sight on him with her rifle, but he moved too fast for her.

  “That pig is in charge of all the Synarchist troops in this city,” Sura explained. “Take him out and we can breathe easy for a few weeks. I think they have more like him all over the planet, but the Synarch will have a difficult time replacing him. Watch out for the man to his right with a pistol!” Another bullet flew by her head and it was too close.

  While they and the other marines concentrated their attention on the Synarchist detachment, they were oblivious to their rear. The rear of their barricade opened up on the staircase and they didn’t worry about someone in their backfield since all the Synarchists were to the front.

  Unfortunately, there were more enemies than the Synarchists.

  Very quietly, the door to the staircase opened. It happened so slowly, an observer would not have noticed. Even a security camera feed would make it appear to take place in slow motion. When the door had opened far enough, Sir Nagashi slipped through it and emerged into their backfield. As he’d planned, no one noticed he was there.

  Nagashi stood there and watched the marines shoot it out with the Synarchists. This he found amusing for all the wrong reasons. It was a huge waste of resources and skills. He could already tell who would triumph in end, given the JFA marines and their lack of enough ammunition. As he cocked his head to watch the other side at work, he noted they didn’t have the right skills to attempt this maneuver. Both sides would eventually kill each other at this rate. One person might survive in the end, but he doubted more than that would go the distance.

  Then he saw Basepholon.

  Well, well, he thought.Now I have a suitable opponent.This will be fun!

  He walked up behind the marines and started to move around their makeshift furniture and table collection. It was almost ground down to the splinter level by the Synarchist gunfire. He moved to the right to get by them, hoping they wouldn’t notice and slow him down. Nagashi propped his rifle out of the way. This was a job for a pistol and knife.

  However, the moment he started to move in the direction of the other side, Shamsana turned around and saw him. She swung her gun up to his level, but her reaction time wasn’t fast enough.

  He sighed and shot her right in the face.Such a waste of ammunition, Nagashi thought as she fell to the ground.Good thing I had my silencer mounted.

  In three leaps, which would have impressed any professional dancer, Sir Nagashi was across the perimeter between the two groups and directly in front of the Synarchists. The gunfire ceased when both sides noticed he was there.

  Commander Sura stopped and lowered her rifle. “Buckwass!” Sura swore. “That’s a Jacobite knight! Where the hell did he come from? Did you see that?” She turned to say something to Shamsana, but found her dead body on the floor next to her.

  It only took one bullet each to eliminate the rest of the squad of Synarchist troopers. Of the entire group who’d entered the building, only seven remained with Basepholon when the Jacobite appeared. Basepholon immediately moved the rear of the group once he saw who it was. By the time Nagashi was finished with the troopers, Basepholon had his pistol out and loaded. He reached down and made certain there was a knife in the holster strapped to his knee. His eyes still on Nagashi, he slipped the blade out of it. Now he was ready.

  “I expected to meet you here at some point,” Basepholon said to him, his massive weight balanced on the balls of his feet. “You’ve been looking for me this whole time, haven’t you?’

  “Found you three days ago an
d followed your group into the city,” The Jacobite grinned. “I used that idiotic preacher for some practice. As you can see, I was a little rusty dispatching your men. Took me six seconds. That doesn’t come close to my record of three for a group of the same size. You want to dance?”

  “I’d turn down a tribune position to go against you,” Basepholon growled and leaped at the Jacobite knight.

  Sura grabbed the marine next to her and held him before he could rush at them. “Don’t even try, kid,” she told him. “You’ll just get yourself killed. Those two are so far above anyone else’s level all we can do is watch and learn.”

  “One of them will win,” he said to her. “What do we do when that happens?”

  “Kill him. If we can. Because he’ll kill us all if we don’t.”

  The two fighters were too close together to begin shooting, so they resorted to knives. Basepholon drove his blade at Sir Nagashi, only to watch it be deflected off the armor he wore. Nagashi held back and then flew at the proconsul with a severe lunge to the neck. Basepholon rolled out of the way and spun in the direction of an open door. Soon, they’d left the atrium. Both sides were fighting it out in a large conference room located next to it. Neither one had managed to land a strike with his knife, but it only took one good cut to kill the opponent.

  From behind an alcove emerged one final Synarchist. He was a new recruit that managed to survive the slaughter when he was buried by the bodies around him in the first wave of troopers on the alcove floor. He emerged from the pile while everyone else focused on the gun battle between Commander Sura and Proconsul Basepholon. He managed to stay quiet long enough to find a working gun among the bodies. The smell made him retch a few times, but he kept his mind together long enough to hang on to sanity.

  He was young, a petty thief in the street who survived by fleecing tourists and government workers in the capital. He didn’t know his parents and could have cared less who they were. For him it was a daily struggle to continue to exist, so the invasion offered him some new opportunities. He knew where the good things to steal were kept and managed to pile up quite a bit of loot when the Synarchists entered the city. He knew about the deadly man in black armor who prowled the city and shot anything that got in their way.