by Chris Lowry
“He has to drink a lot of water,” she said as he spewed liquid out of his mouth, coughing.
“And when he wakes, he needs fruit.”
“Don’t choke him,” said Darwin.
Reanna glared at him.
“I will care for this warrior,” she growled.
“He is worthy of my attention.”
“Tell me where to get the fruit,” Pip said.
“I need some fruit too,” Bruce called from the corner.
“I thought you were in a coma,” said Darwin.
“I was, but I’m okay now.”
Pip kicked his legs.
“Are you okay enough to hunt with me?”
Bruce tried to look pathetic. It was easy.
“I don’t know if I have the strength.”
“I’ll go slow,” she reassured him.
“You need the exercise.”
She helped him up and they walked out the door
“I wish I knew what to do,” Robe said, rubbing the barrel of his rifle.
“We wait,” Reanna answered.
Darwin stared at the magnificent giant man cradled in the arms of the smaller woman. He measured each laborious breath, holding his own in time.
“I can’t wait,” gasped Darren as the car flew meters above the churning ocean.
Harry sat beside him, driving the car.
“It would have been better if they gave us the vial,” he said.
“But they want to be sure it’s him before they use it.”
Darren squirmed in his seat.
“When we find him,” I’m gonna-”
He squealed as the car hit turbulence, slamming against the cockpit like a hand. Harry fought to hold it up, as if his will alone would give strength to the engine.
“Let’s get there first,” he said.
Darren looked over his shoulder at the men strapped in the back. Six pasty white faces watched him closely.
“It’s okay boys,” he shouted.
“We have to fly this low to avoid being spotted. They can’t pick us up on radar. We’ll sneak in right on top of them.”
Another hand slammed into the bottom of them, shoving them up and ramming them down again, like a mutated roller coaster ride.
“Hold it straight, Harry,” Darren yelled.
“I’m trying,” he growled.
“This wind is terrific.”
Darren didn’t think he meant it in the good sense.
The island appeared on the horizon, just out of the edge of vision.
“Storm clouds, starboard,” Harry pointed out.
“Let’s get in before it hits them. I’ll circle around, you find me something.”
Darren’s fingers went to work on the Terminal, flying over the keys in an advanced two finger method.
“Got them,” he pointed out of the window.
“Three kilometers through there.”
“Get ready boys,” Harry shouted.
He aimed the car at the hidden village and fired the thrusters.
Pip almost had to drag Bruce through the forest. His arms were full of fruits, a shirt stretched from one thin forearm to the other, bulging with bounty.
“I can’t carry this,” he whined.
Her arms were full too, with twice as much fruit as him.
“If you say one more word,” she warned.
“I’ll blow your head off.”
But she had made that threat before and it just wasn’t working.
“Can we go back? Please.”
She stayed her course on the path. It looked familiar to her, but she couldn’t be sure. She chided herself for not paying closer attention when the Corsairs led them in.
“I want to go to the car and get a processing unit for the Templar. It’ll tell us what’s wrong with him.”
“Him? What about me? Weak from a coma, shot and now I’m on a forced march through the jungle. I don’t think I can take it.”
“You can sit here,” she started and almost before the sentence was out of her mouth, he was down.
“But I’m not too sure of the way, and I may not use this trail to get back.”
She kept walking.
After a few moments, she heard footsteps behind her and was glad he was saving his breath for walking.
“We’re almost there,” she said.
“Ready boys! We’re almost there!” Darren yelled and unbuckled his safety restraint.
He carefully picked his way over his men’s legs to position himself at the sliding side door. He sealed his helmet against the wind pressure and rested against the door. The Com link in his ear chimed.
“How we doing?” Harry asked.
“All units, sound in.”
Each man responded when he came on line. Darren double checked the LED readouts that were projected on the inside of his faceplate. The Computer link up was running over a million calculations per second, accounting for every possibility in the upcoming attack.
Darren felt confident all aspects were covered.
There was only the one small problem of the Templar, but against eight Suits, he wouldn’t stand a chance. He hoped.
“Five seconds to drop,” Harry forecast as he darted over the trees. His Computer told him no activity in the camp was electrical.
That meant Robe and Pip were off line or not there.
He really didn’t care which.
“Three, two- Now!!” he screamed.
An electromagnetic concussion bomb erupted below them, just in case anything wanted to come on line and fire at them.
Darren hit the release button and launched himself from the sleek transport. His retro rockets kicked in seconds later and he drifted to the ground.
Soft thuds behind him let him know the other Troops joined him. His Computer readout confirmed it so he didn’t have to look.
The village stood just on the other side of a small stream, with a three log bridge spanning it. He moved for the bridge, rifle held ready.
Harry landed beside him.
“Stun three?” Darren asked.
“Stun four!” Harry growled and sprinted for the bridge.
The concussion bomb knocked them all to the floor of the hut.
“What?” Banger crawled for the door.
“Troops!”
Robe tried to power up, but his Suit wouldn’t respond.
“I can’t get on line.”
The Templar sat up, pushed Reanna away from him.
“I heard the cannon roar,” he screamed.
“Bring me my sword!”
“Keep him quiet,” Darwin grumbled.
“Too late,” Banger sighed.
“They heard him.”
Robe peeked out of the doorway. He spied eight shiny Troopers converging on the hut.
“My Suit won’t fight,” yelled Robe.
“We have to hide,” Reanna scrambled for a trapdoor in the floor. “They’re too many.”
“I thought you fought anything?”
“I’m a smart fighter,” she said.
The Templar shoved between them, jerked Robe’s gun from his hands. He leaned against the doorjamb and fired three rounds into the approaching Suits.
They scattered and returned fire.
“You dare challenge me!”
Robe dragged him back in the hut, pushed him to the floor.
“Keep him safe. They’ll kill him!”
He struggled to take the rifle from the Templar’s one good hand. He jerked it away and sprawled in the doorway, taking careful aim and squeezing off shot after shot.
The return fire was an almost solid wall of plasma.
“We can get out of here,” Banger crawled across the floor to the trapdoor.
“I will not run,” the Templar slurred, stumbling into Reanna’s arms.
“We’re not running,” she dropped him through the hole in the floor.
“We’re changing locations.”
She jumped on top of him. Banger followed.
“Go with them Darwin!” Robe screamed.
“You can’t stay here alone.”
“I’m right behind you. Go! Go!”
Darwin leaped down the hole.
Robe kicked the trapdoor shut and pulled a mat across it to cover it up.
He lodged himself in the doorway and blasted away until his power pack ran out.
An explosion shook the air, knocked the fruit from their arms.
“What was that?” Bruce picked himself up and stared at the woods in wonder.
“Concussion bomb,” Pip yelled.
She scrambled up and ran through the woods.
“What?” Bruce screamed, following close.
“The Troops found us!”
She didn’t notice him stop and hide.
Reanna hid the Templar in a mudhole, covered him with grime and muck and held him down. He struggled against her, but he was weak from fever and infection, and his efforts were just that, efforts. He was too weak to cry out, though she feared he might and kept a hand poised over his mouth.
Darwin watched over the edge of the hole.
“Your father is leading them away from us,” he whispered down to her.
“Father . . .”
She longed to run to him, fight by his side, along with the villagers that attacked from hidden fortifications and from behind trees.
They were no match for the Troopers, whose computers sought them out and volleyed showers of plasma bolts.
A blast slammed into Banger, he slid into two pirates slumped over a wall.
Bodies were scattered everywhere, fallen in different patterns.
“Their stun is set too high,” Darwin yelled down to her.
He scrambled over the edge of the pit and ran pell mell for the Troops, scooping up a small stick.
Reanna shifted her weight off of the Templar and peered over the edge.
Darwin ran into the middle of the clearing, dodging blasts and bolts. A Trooper ran up to him, rifle butt raised to smash him down.
Robe hurtled out of nowhere, tackling the Trooper.
He ripped and tore at the Suit, trying to dislodge a vital hose, or find a chink in the armor.
Too late, a plasma bolt caught him in the back.
He flipped over, landing face down.
A Trooper scooped him to his shoulder and rocketed into the sky.
A second Trooper grabbed Darwin by the arm and dragged him into the air.
“Robe!” the Templar crawled out of the pit and collapsed.
Reanna wrapped her hand around his leg and pulled him back, shoved him deep into the mud.
“You have to stay here,” she whispered in his ear, stroking his burning forehead.
His arm was bleeding through the dressing, dripping and mixing with the mud. She held her hand against it, applying pressure.
Outside the pit, she could hear the whine of the plasma blasts tapering off.
She didn’t dare look, but the dawning quiet was driving her crazy. She could hear voices, but didn’t recognize them and couldn’t make out what they said.
Every fiber of her being burned for fight, to avenge her father and the village.
Then, there was silence. She could hear retro rockets gearing down, and a hover car roaring through the sky, nose pointed to the Mainland. Still, she didn’t move.
She held the Templar in her arms, rocking him slowly back and forth and wishing he had been well enough to fight for her village.
She wondered who was left among the bodies.
Pip burst from the tree line, her rifle held high. She swept the clearing with her eyes, noting the bodies here and there.
She stuck to the trees and made her way around to the hut, finally having to expose herself for a fast sprint to the doorway.
It was empty. The village was still.
“Robe!”
“Here,” someone called from the far side of the village.
Pip ran to a mudhole where pigs were kept. She advanced to the edge, her rifle to her shoulder, ready.
Reanna cradled the Templar in her lap in the filth and muck.
“Where’s Robe?”
“Troops,” Reanna spit.
“Why didn’t you help him?” Pip accused.
“It was his wish that I care for this one.”
She lugged the Templar out of the pit and handed him off to Pip.
“I would rather have fought for my people.”
Reanna began searching the bodies.
“They’re not breathing.”
Pip lay the Templar on the ground and went to search with her.
“Their stun setting was too high,” she explained, examined the bodies.
“Three or four, I think. Anyone weak wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
“They kill Corsairs for fun,” Reannas voice was dead, she was so angry.
“We’re not supposed to. This was a peaceful village, as much as they knew. Even if you were housing a traitor, they wouldn’t kill.”
“They did!” Reanna screamed.
She picked up the body of a small boy, barely twelve.
He hung limp in her arms.
“Look! See what they did!”
Pip had no answer. Reanna glared at her with hooded eyes.
“This will not go unanswered.”
Reanna stormed among the bodies, searching for any that would be alive.
Pip followed, numb.
Whenever they found a live one, she would carry them to a large fire in the clearing, to be administered to later.
“Trooper!” Reanna screamed for her.
Pip ran to her side.
“My father is there,” she pointed to a small pile of three bodies.
“I cannot-”
Pip hurried to the bodies.
Reanna turned away.
Banger was burned from the flash fire of the plasma bolt. His clothes were smoldering where he had been hit.
Pip had seen men shot before, had studied vid after vid of the horrors of battle. She still felt a small tingle of dread dance up her spine as she reached to turn him over.
“He’s breathing,” she called to Reanna.
The warrior girl ran up beside her and held her father.
“He’s hurt bad,” she said.
“I’ve got a Computer in the car. We need it for anyone left.”
Reanna nodded.
“You’ll have to gather the rest by yourself.”
“I can.”
“And watch the Templar.”
“He brought this on us,” she stated simply.
Pip nodded, no argument adequate to counter the claim.
“He could have stopped it if he was well.”
“I should kill him while he sleeps.”
“I don’t think you would be able to,” Pip said.
“He’s got an instinct for survival.”
She rose to go to the car.
“And if you did, I would kill you.”
She jogged into the woods.
Reanna watched her go, sure she meant her words. but still not ready to give up the notion of killing the Templar.
Maybe she would after she cared for her villagers.
“Computer,” Harry dictated to his terminal. “Contact the Commander. Inform her our mission was a partial success. We are returning with the traitor and the Doctor. They report to us that the prisoner and the other Trooper were drowned when their car was shot down by Corsairs.”
Darren pinched Darwin’s cheek.
“Anything you want to add to that?”
“I’ll lodge a formal protest. You attacked a peaceful farming community and slaughtered its occupants.”
Darren shoved his head against the steel bulkhead.
“That was a pirate base of operations. We did not return fire until we were fired upon,” Harry called from the controls.
“You used a concussion bomb,” Darwin yelled.
Darren slapped him hard, busted his bottom lip.
“Who do yo
u think the Computer will believe?”
He walked to his terminal to key in a report.
“There was every indication that this area was hot, and we would encounter heavy resistance. We did everything by the book.”
The Computer chimed when the report was filed.
“Lodge your complaint, old man,” Harry laughed from his seat.
“We’ve got it taken care of.”
“Everything’s taken care of,” Bram assured her.
They were going over security arrangements for the fundraiser that would take place in three days.
Nova had begun spot inspections twice a day, meeting with every head of any department imaginable, worrying about the event.
“You’re worried for nothing,” Bram consoled her, following dutifully, taking notes of the changes she dictated and giving his opinion when asked.
“You’re very sure about this,” she told him.
“We’ve planned for everything. That’s part of our code. Nothing can go wrong.”
She nodded, but still nursed her misgivings and kept up the inspection.
“I’ve got word from Harry,” he said.
She stopped, not sure what answer she wanted to hear.
“They got Robe and Darwin. They’re bringing them in.”
“And the Templar?”
Bram smiled.
“Darwin said the prisoner and Pip drowned when the plane was shot down.”
She felt like someone kicked her in the stomach. She couldn’t breath, hoped her legs would hold her up. She hoped it didn’t show.
“Dead?”
“Nothing we can confirm. But I ran the scenario through my Terminal access, and it concurred with ninety eight percent accuracy.”
Nova nodded and turned back to the inspection.
“That’s a good thing,” Bram said, noting her reaction.
“I know,” she offered lamely.
“We can inform the fund-raisers of his demise at our hands via the Corsairs. We drove him into them and it paid off.”
Again she nodded.
“Are you alright?”
“I just need to finish this so I can go rest. The prisoner may be . . . gone, but the Mob is still a viable threat.”
“Not according to the Computer.”