They understood. It also meant the other opening would be exposed. With trepidation Tee signaled for Lain to cover the other tunnel opening. They had no choice. She lay down low and had her gun aimed at anything coming that way. Dust began to stir and the noise increased and they could just make out the machine coming. Tee said, “Hold off for now. It’s too far away. Wait until it’s closer. Let’s all aim at the center top one half - meter down. That’s where the driver will be located.” Tee worried his bottom lip. He noticed the men fidget and shift as their tendons and muscles moved them with nervous twitching.
The machine bit into the walls and the floor, eating everything in its path. It was a monster built for nothing except destruction. Behind it was probably a marching unit of drooling psychopaths. They waited and kept looking at Tee to give the command. He had some experience with melting the skin of the spaceship. He did distance against time calculations in his mind. It was all guesswork and their lives depended on it. At thirty meters he screamed, “Now!”
Sixteen pistols focused on the exact same spot, wavering from nerves and weight and tension by only a fraction. The effect was immediate. The metal melted away and soon they had punched a hole the size of dinner plate through the machine and its advance stopped. Two of the men ran forward and aimed their pistols through the void and began firing in every possible angle. They heard screams and running on the far side of the machine. They shot until their guns were dead. Tee gave one of them another gun and told him to stay on watch and keep an eye on the hole.
He then motioned the other men to follow him as he pushed past Lain and they moved in shadows down the other entrance toward whatever threat still remained. The last thing they needed was to rest. He limped and looked down to see his foot was no longer bleeding. The cream was repairing his damaged foot. He felt it improve but he was extremely thirsty. Like a miracle come true the two engineers who had left earlier came around the corner with energy bars and water. Tee drank until he felt bloated. In no time he began to feel a surge in energy. The men talked about what they had seen and heard.
“The Zellhigh are frantic. When they heard your announcement they went ballistic and started shooting at birds and tree leaves when the wind moved them. They seemed to have lost some orientation and hearing that they had a chemical residue on their skin it made them start to wipe the scum off their own flesh,” the younger of the two said.
“Then we saw them consult some kind of handheld device and point to where your guys were making the announcement from. They called for the big piece of machinery and it came from behind one of the buildings. They guided it into the loading dock under building seven and smashed through the walls into the tunnel. We watched them for a while and came around this other entrance to warn you but they must have been moving faster than we thought.”
One of the electrical crew said, “It’s only a matter of time before they come at us through this tunnel.”
Tee said, “I agree.”
Lain grabbed Lacy and followed the group of men from the back as they moved out of the dark room. She heard one of the engineers ask, “How many men went into the tunnel following the machine?” The younger of the two answered, “We saw at least twenty.” They discussed the number as they moved deeper into the tunnel system. The men estimated that that number had been reduced by half. They told the two from the electrical team what they had done to stop the destruction from the piece of machinery. They explained how they had shot through the opening and caught the Zellhigh by surprise.
The two men from the electrical team suggested that they head to where those soldiers had fallen and retrieve their guns. Tee said, “That’s a good idea. We’re beginning to run low on charge and quantity.” They stopped at an intersection and guessed at the direction of the other entrance.
Chapter 12
It was Lain who warned them from the back. Perhaps women can detect odor better than men. It wasn’t up for debate; they believed her. “I smell them,” she whispered. They found cover and as they did they too were assaulted by the stench. Perhaps they had been lost in thought. Maybe they had dreamed of better days to come. Some were thinking of their loved ones huddled and anxious and tense inside Wind Mountain. Each in his own world tried to control his breathing. Tried to hone in on the moment and not waste their laser charges shooting at shadows.
They saw the Zellhigh believers as something wild, untamed and reeking. They were low creatures moving with speed and taking cover as they approached. They too could smell their enemy. They were close. Everyone was being reduced to animals. Raw instincts vibrated at their core. These approaching creatures were going to lose and Tee knew it. He understood that one day Triolux North would march the streets of Zellhigh and gloat. He thought he might not be there but the premonition was strong and felt real. They would strut in front of the conquered Zellhigh swollen in pride. They would prance like the male species in splendor vying for the attention of a new mate. They were as boastful as a wild animal strutting into the den with its dead prey hanging from its jaws.
This saddened Tee as he aimed his gun and showed the others his raised finger. It signaled them not to shoot until he did. He waited. He waited until the ones in the front were very close and the ones in the rear were easy targets. He dropped his hand and fired into the face of a Zellhigh youth. His brown hair singed, his face bore a black hole where moments earlier there had been eyes and a nose and a mouth and a muted brain under the influence of a cult. All gone, wrong team: bad intentions have consequences. They fired until they’d suppressed the enemy, which meant they were dead. They didn’t understand retreat, these Zellhigh. It wasn’t programmed into their mad minds.
The group collected the weapons of their enemies and moved further into the tunnel. They were solemn, this educated clump of newly commissioned warriors. They were raised in the Triolux North fashion. Their pride, once rested in their belief system of helping mankind move toward improvement, now shifted to death and destruction. What else could happen? They were forced into kill or be killed. It wasn’t them that brought the change. It had been forced upon them and now they had a new source of pride, the tally of the dead.
They eventually found the remnants of the earlier skirmish and the ruined machine and a scattered group of Zellhigh. They added more weapons to their growing collection. The thought of multiple weapons aimed at one small target worked in their collective minds. It opened up areas of response. They decided to return to the speaker system and pass on this information. They knew this would once again bring the Zellhigh to them. They used the time of the return walk to discuss a defense. They studied the walls and the ceiling of the tunnel outside of the large room.
Men were dispersed along the way in strategic hiding places. They smeared the cream of the dead on their skin and hid in dark places. They were becoming killing aficionados. Tee worried the overdose of the gas would wear off and at some reduced stage the blood of the Zellhigh would be at maximum efficiency. He believed the Triolux would soon experience resurgence from the remaining Zellhigh. If they improved after the Triolux had experienced limited success they might be lulled into a false sense of security. He picked up the microphone and talked to his citizens about the threat of such resurgence. He explained the multiple fixing of the lasers on one precise target no matter how hardened, including the shell of the ships. He also said that after each of his messages expect a reaction from the beasts known as the Zellhigh believers. They will go berserk because they are deprived of reason. He wished the citizens luck and told them to remain strong and vigilant. He guessed and thought it would do no harm - he told them they were winning and a full rout was imminent.
Now they waited in the destroyed room at the entrance to the tunnel. Two men were sent above ground at the end of the entrance to do some reconnaissance work and come back and report on the outside conditions. Tee moved from the room toward the tunnel when a rumbling from a wall on the left stopped him. He began running away from the noise. Lain had Lac
y in front of him and scrambled to find shelter in the tunnel. An army of soldiers came pouring down the tunnel. Tee and Lain gathered as many of the pistols as they could carry and lay on their stomachs facing the back wall.
Behind them the men were fighting for their lives as Zellhigh charged like lunatics in the dimly - lit circular area of the entrance. They were having some help as the two electrical engineers were behind the soldiers, pinning the invaders down and forcing them to fight on two fronts. Lain and Tee gathered metal rods and were able to pass the rods through six guns each. The barrels of the pistols could not be forced to shoot at the same exact spot but they thought given enough time they would burn through the machine. The outside wall was beginning to crack and Lain tucked Lacy into a crevice.
Behind them the screams were deafening and Tee kept turning around expecting to see a horde of marauders breach the defense. What he saw was the engineers were injured and others were dead, but the advancing believers were dwindling. It was now up to Lain and himself to protect them. The nose of the machine, a grinding wheel laden with spikes, poked through the wall and its mad spinning was tossing up dust and clouding the entire tunnel with debris. Lain fastened a cloth over Lacy’s face. The child was beginning to stir and Lain needed to stop her concentration on the advancing madness and mix a special concoction of sedative for the child. It was surreal.
Tee waited until he could see above the rotating wheel to the more vulnerable cab of the vehicle. It was hard for his eyes to pierce the dust. He saw flashes of metal in the maelstrom of the dim lit room and decided he needed to be closer. He sprang from the floor and charged the mindless contraption with all the zeal of a blind predator. He moved to the right of the spinning apparatus and climbed on a heap of debris giving him a clear shot at the sealed cage of the driver. He stayed still as he began his fixed blast from the six guns. The machine was moving forward and he was now at an angle unable to keep his guns concentrated on the same spot.
Then he saw Lain on his left take aim and begin firing her weapons at the same spot he had been working on. He ran from his rubble pile and stood beside her as the wheel gained speed once it broke through the wall and found the open room. It was coming so fast that if they didn’t move it would run them over. Tee pushed Lain to his left out of the way as he rolled to his right only to look up and see a marching herd of Zellhigh shoulder to shoulder through the opening. He opened fire with his six guns and began sweeping left to right in the confined space and watched in disbelief as they were cut like a knife in half. Their stunned faces looked at their fixed feet as their torsos tumbled toward their boots.
Meanwhile Lain had run to the side of the monster machine and pressed all six guns along the door. She jogged alongside it keeping the guns on full power as they slowly ate into the metal. By the time the driver noticed anything the laser light of six guns filled the cabin. Superheated beams scorched everything in sight. They ricocheted off all the surfaces and the machine stopped moving forward. Its wheel continued spinning in place and it slowly sank into the floor, digging its own grave. Lain walked around the front of the machine avoiding its mad wheel and looked right down the tunnel. The men had stopped shooting and were waiting for the next advance. From the depth of the tunnel at the far end one of the engineers yelled to the men, “I think it’s over. I don’t see any more of them.”
Tee crawled, reluctantly, cautiously forward to look at the fresh opening. The machine was losing some of its volume as it dug straight down with the rear track sticking up in the air as it dove into the soil. When will it stop? He glanced around the corner and saw what the six guns had done. The smell of the burnt meat filled his nostrils and the gore that he saw horrified him. Nothing moved. This little scene was not his doing, it was theirs. Yet, it was something he helped create. The odor clung to his skin and burned into his psyche. This memory was seared into him, tattooed into his dreams.
He spun from it. Unwanted tears came to his face and Lain wiped them from his eyes. He held her and took deep breaths. She was an oasis. Then they heard the groans of their own and separated with a knowing glance: duty calls. We are all patriots and our common blood is binding. They gathered the wounded and moved them under some light and dressed their wounds. Lain squirted rejuvenation cream into their lacerations and pried with small pliers and a knife to dig out bits of metal embedded into their various parts. There were three that were down for now and they left them with two guards as they crawled over the soldiers cut in half and walked the new entrance through the dirt and into the basement of one of the tall apartment buildings.
They sent two men up the steps to make sure it wasn’t a trap and one came back and waved them up. It was getting late and the sun was setting on the longest day of their lives. From the shattered windows in the lobby they could see the damaged Zellhigh ship and through its portals they saw light and figures moving inside. There was very little in the way of noise. In the great distance they saw smoke from the chemical plant on the outskirts of town. The fire was orange to the east and the sun was dying red in the west. The first moon was being dragged into the sky and the early appearance of Triolux South was making itself known. They began speaking about a plot to get the crew of the spaceship to surrender and then there was much discussion about a secure place to house the prisoners.
As Tee looked over his fellow fighters he noticed the younger men had reinforced their bravado and belief in invincibility. The older men like him looked stunned. Lain was covered in dust and she cradled Lacy and rocked the sleeping child back and forth. One day Lain may tell her something about this day or she may have the history read to her by Alex in a quiet reflective moment. They would need to once again rebuild, first and foremost restoring their defenses. They needed information from the captured crew as soon as possible. Was there another armada of ships heading their way?
They separated and decided to come back in an hour. Lain was in their apartment and putting Lacy in her crib. Tee kissed her, cleaned up and returned to the men before the hour was up. They had everything they needed to set up a system large enough to communicate with the occupants of the ship. Two speakers were placed within ten meters of the damaged delivery box. Tee spoke to the crew with a hand held microphone. “Citizens of Zellhigh, we guarantee you a safe exit if you surrender to us now. We are the representatives of Triolux North and wish you no bodily harm. If you persist in staying where you are we will be forced to destroy your ship as we fear further communication with your home planet. The choice is yours, a choice you never afforded us in any way. We are not you and we will never be you. We are disgusted by everything you represent. So you have ten minutes to come out or face a certain death.”
A heavy silence fell from above them in the ship. Then a small and strong speaker was lowered by a wire into the void between the delivery box and belly of the ship. “We have a system built into all our ships. It is a failsafe device that will destroy your planet with the press of a button. The choice is yours, attack and all you know and love and care about will cease to exist.”
Tee turned to the men surrounding him. He made sure the microphone was off. “We have the ship from Triolux South. There was no such device and he said on “all” their ships. What say you?”
They nodded and concurred - the believers lacked integrity and were lying. Tee turned back to the ship and spoke calmly and with assurance. “You now have four minutes remaining. You have been drugged by your leaders and deprived of free will. Your days of wreaking havoc on the universe are over. There’s not a planet on any galaxy to turn to other than your own. My wish is you find the light on the other side.”
With that Tee turned the microphone off and he and the others began to assemble a multitude of laser pistols and discussed the best place to concentrate on the ship. They decided on a portal located in the stern near the energy source. In the debris of the ruined apartment they grabbed a chair and used it as a prop. They lined the guns in a row and began firing approximately twenty lasers in
to the ship. They could tell the occupants were saying something from the speaker but the high pitch noise of the lasers and the cracking of the metal drowned them out. They had made their choice and the Triolux were keepers of their word.
The inside of the ship filled with smoke and sparks bounced in all directions. A large explosion occurred and Zellhigh began to clamor out of the opening where the box full of soldiers came from. Two men were pointed in that direction. Tee said to them, “Wound them and we will get them to give us information.”
It wasn’t long before the ship and anything in it was destroyed. There were nine captives and they were each in some degree of agony. The captain was not among them. But there were enough officers to know what the plans of the Zellhigh would be and Tee and his men were going to extract that information in a hurry. They dragged the wounded men into the lobby and had the three who could stand pressed against a wall. All were roughly searched. These men didn’t have the sheen of scum on their skin. They showed a greater understanding of realty. The younger Triolux men spat in their faces and kicked the standing few until the older men pulled them away.
Some of the Zellhigh struggled to claim some kind of dignity but the underlying look was that of fear. They had lied and been caught. Everything they had tried to do to Triolux North had failed. Tee believed their biggest mistake was the overdosing of the soldiers, but he felt even without that the Zellhigh would have lost. The drug dulled the response of the Zellhigh. Before the Triolux were unarmed and caught unaware. The tide had turned and the Triolux were thinkers and doers. The Zellhigh were a lost tribe caught in the snare of mass hypnosis. Nations have fallen into this trend but in order to sustain the illusion the elite realized they needed to keep their population sedated.
Ths Sacking of Triolux North Page 8