by Summer Lane
I am about to take a shot at one of the shadows in the darkness when a thundering, piercing detonation rocks the entire cave. It throws me forward. I land on my chest, face scraping against the rock. Pieces of ice and rock fall all around me, and I hear a loud rushing, cracking noise. Panic grips me – is the glacier collapsing on us? What exploded?
I scramble to my hands and knees, head spinning, and try to get a grip. I flick on the flashlight of my rifle and beam it backward. Behind me, there is a solid wall of freshly crumbled ice, cutting me off completely from Cheng, Father Kareem and Andrew.
No, no, no, no.
I hear a snap, a crack. Red, hellish light illuminates the cavern, and I see them: all six of them, Omega soldiers with their visors pulled back. The red light is coming from flares that they have thrown on the ground. Someone screams bloody murder, and I see Bravo latched onto the arm of the trooper on the far right, standing guard over Elle.
The girl’s hands are tied in front of her, and she is bleeding from her forehead. She is screaming commands at Bravo. A trooper raises his gun and aims at me, shock flashing across his face. I don’t think that I am supposed to be on this side of the collapsed ice. I roll aside, missing his shot. I raise my rifle into my shoulder and squeeze the trigger, hitting him in the shoulder. He stumbles backward, and as he is falling to the ground, I shoot him once more – permanent.
That takes out one. Five more to go.
I kneel and take aim at the trooper who is heading toward Bravo with a knife. I shoot him, and he falls dead.
Four more.
Elle suddenly springs upward and lands a perfect, powerful roundhouse kick to the face of one of the troopers. She hits the ground on her side, teeth gritted, and then Bravo jumps up and takes a slicing bite out of his shoulder, between his neck and the body armor. He screams and tries to scramble away, but Bravo’s grip is as strong as iron. I sling the rifle over my shoulder and pull the knife from my belt.
I am afraid to do any more shooting in this room – I don’t want to get buried down here under tons of ice. I sprint forward and come up behind the trooper who is currently being used at Bravo’s chew toy. I slip the blade of my knife between his ribs. He gasps, and then slowly goes still, blood bubbling from his mouth.
“Out, out, Bravo!” Elle yells.
Bravo releases the dead man, blood dripping from his jowls. He is scary.
Only two more. I turn around, and I see that the two remaining Omega troopers are fleeing. One of them lays down a long burst of cover fire as his comrade turns tail, heading toward a tiny crevice twisting away from this ice room.
I quickly cut the ties on Elle’s wrists and hand her my knife. She flashes a dangerous smile and springs forward. “GET HIM, BRAVO!” she shouts.
And just like that, the dog is gone, springing toward the first trooper. Bravo runs, jumps, and clamps his sharp teeth onto his arm. The Omega trooper stumbles, yelling, using the butt of his rifle to try and beat Bravo off his arm. But Elle is there, and she makes quick work of him with the knife. With a single swipe of her arm, she cuts his throat open, and he hits the ground, dead.
Just one more left.
I look at Elle.
“Take care of the last one,” I say.
She nods, and she and Bravo vanish into the small tunnel. I catch my breath then kneel down, talking into my radio. “Shadow One, this is Yankee Leader. Do you read me?” I ask.
Static.
Then, “Yankee Leader, this is Blade Two, I read you. Where are you?”
Uriah.
“We’re in the glacier,” I reply. “I’m cut off from the rest of team, there was an explosion. The ice caved in, and we’re sealed off.”
“You’re stuck in the glacier?” he replies.
“Yeah.”
More static. Then I hear Andrew’s voice, “Yankee Leader, what’s your status? Are you guys okay?”
“Troopers are down, package has been retrieved,” I reply. “But we’re stuck here.”
“Are there any other exit points from the space you’re in?”
“There’s a tunnel that winds north.”
“Take it. Find a hole and get to the surface.”
“Roger that.”
“Yankee Leader, this is Blade Two again,” Uriah replies. “Don’t take any chances. The glacier is dangerous. Find an exit point and we’ll meet you there.”
“What’s the status of the base?” I ask instead, moving forward, ignoring his advice.
“We’ve taken it,” Uriah replies. “But everybody on the comm island has pretty much made a clean exit.”
I exhale. At least we still have the hostages in the compound with Manny’s platoon.
I cut down the tunnel, where Elle is crouched over the dead body of the last Omega trooper. She glances at me just as Bravo does, their eyes both flashing in the beam of my flashlight. In that moment, I’m almost afraid of her, but then I shake myself and say, “Good work.”
She slowly stands up, wipes the blood from her cheek and says, “Thanks for coming after me.”“We don’t leave anybody behind,” I reply, simply. “And neither does your dog.”
Elle smiles.
“Bravo is the best friend I’ve ever had,” she tells me.
“Well, hopefully I am, too.” I raise my eyebrows. “Ready to get out of here?”
“Totally ready.”
We move forward, through the endless curves and twists of the ice cavern. My platoon checks in with me via the radio. They are going back up to the surface to see if they can find a way to get to us.
“They just grabbed me at the last second,” Elle says. “I was fighting, and I think they got desperate. They knew the base was falling, so they took off and abandoned the rest of their troops fighting our militia. Cowards.” She spits on the ground. “There was just too many of them, and I got separated from Cheng and the rest of the platoon during the firefight.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I say.
“Me too.” She looks up. “This place is kind of eerie.”
“Beautiful, but eerie, yes.”
“Wow, look.” She points up ahead. We come to another ice chamber, but the inside of this one is filled with a frozen pool of water. Droplets of water are dripping from the ceiling in staccato rhythm, like rainfall.
“It’s melting?” Elle says, puzzled. “It’s the dead of winter.”
“It’s warmer down here than it is up there,” I point out. “Also, yeah, it probably melts a little bit every year.”
“How long do you think this glacier has been here?” She looks at me, and I see a spark of childlike curiosity in her eyes. It’s the first time I’ve seen a flash of that in Elle – usually she is so contained, so wise beyond her years.
“Probably centuries,” I shrug. “I mean, this was water before it froze.”
“Maybe it was the flood.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe it was an ice age.”
“Could have been.”
She holds her hand out and the water touches her skin. She takes handfuls of it and washes the blood off her face. “I like it down here,” she says. “Too bad we can’t stay.”
“Living in a glacier doesn’t really appeal to me,” I say. “Come on.”
We keep moving, tunneling through every free space beneath the glacier. Several times, we run into a dead end or a passageway too narrow to squeeze through, which forces us to reroute and try a different tunnel.
I stop and turn around, seeing ice all around me. I close my eyes, forcing myself to take a deep breath. “We’re lost,” I say.
“We’re not lost,” Elle replies. “We’re just turned around. It’s impossible to know where these passageways go. There’s got to be another opening somewhere.”
“There better be.”
I chew on my lower lip, irritated. Every second I stay under this glacier is another second that I can’t be out on the base, overseeing the progression of our takeover. I know that Uriah, Vera and Manny can
handle it, but still. I need to be back, as soon as possible.
“Commander,” Elle says as we walk, ducking under another ice ceiling. “I want you to know that I’m sorry about what happened in Yukon City. At the Mess Hall.” She lowers her voice. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that. I started the fight – I caused the whole problem with President Bacardi.”
“You were acting on instinct,” I say. “I can’t fault you for that.”
“But I knew better.”
“Elle,” I reply. “You’re a fighter, just like me. Sometimes, people push us too far and things happen. It’s not your fault – it’s in the past, now. Don’t worry about it.”
She goes silent for a little while, then says, “I’m glad I joined the militias. Before, it was just me and Bravo, surviving. Now we have a purpose, a reason to keep going.”
“I know the feeling,” I admit.
“There’s something about being with you guys. The comradery, I guess.”
“It keeps us alive. It gives us hope.”
“If we lose this war, I’ll still be glad that I stood up and fought.”
I smile sadly.
“Me too,” I say. “We are the last fighters.”
She whispers, “We are fear itself.”
And then the moment is broken, because Bravo barks softly and begins trotting down the tunnel.
I’ve found something! he seems to say.
Elle perks up and jogs behind him. I follow, and then I see why Bravo is so excited. I smell the rush of cold air from the outside world, and I see a small crevice in the glacier, leading up to the top of the ice.
“Score,” Elle says. “We’re out.”
Chapter Eleven
When we come back to the surface, I take a breath of cold, pure air. I climb carefully to the top of the glacier, Bravo and Elle clambering up behind me. We leave the alien, frozen world of ice behind us and I peer into the distance. Across the lake, I see the communications island writhing in orange flames. The radio waves are jumbled with frenzied dialogue and call signs.
“Shadow One,” I say. “Shadow One, this is Yankee Leader. Come in.”
Nothing.
Elle and I share a worried glance, then head across the glacier as quickly as we can, watching for crevices and potholes. It takes us half an hour to make it to the sheer rocks propped up against the ice wall. I can see that Andrew, Cheng and Father Kareem are at the bottom, looking worn and weary.
“You made it,” Andrew says. “Good.”
I don’t reply. I’m too busy concentrating on getting good handholds on the rock face as I climb down. My boots slip against the slick granite and slushy moss a few times, but I manage to make it all the way to the bottom without breaking my neck.
“What happened in there?” Andrew asks as my feet hit the dirt.
“I think they detonated a grenade,” I say. “They caused a cave-in.”
“That was stupid,” Andrew replies. “They could have caused a massive shift inside the glacier and killed all of us.”
“Nobody ever accused the Omega grunts of being smart.”
“True that.”
Elle and Bravo arrive next. Cheng wraps Elle into a tight, desperate embrace. She hugs him back and I see the traces of a smile on her lips.
“Worried about me, eh?” she asks.
“I was worried about the dog, obviously,” Cheng replies, taking a step back. He pats Bravo on the head. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Elle rolls her eyes.
“Commander, something is wrong on base,” Father Kareem. “We must return at once.”
“Working on it,” I reply.
We sweep forward, limping, bloody, tired. I try making radio contact with my men on the base, but nobody is answering their call signs. Something dark and fearful settles in my stomach. We move faster, fear and dread giving us the adrenaline rush we need to make it back to the base.
At last, after an eternity of walking and fighting our way through trails and shrubbery, we arrive onsite again. Cars are turned upside down, and the dead bodies of dozens of Omega troopers lay in the streets. There is so much blood – it literally pools on the asphalt and runs into the gutters, staining the snow.
The power of my militia and the Mad Monks almost frightens me.
Almost.
The compound is locked down by the Angels of Death. My earpiece is still nothing but loud, screeching static, so I remove it from my ear and let it hang on my vest. At the lookout point near the compound, I spot Uriah standing with his boot on the railing. I approach, slowly, and say, “Uriah.”
He turns quickly, surprised. And then he springs forward and embraces me, smelling like blood and smoke. “You’re okay,” he breathes. “Thank God.”
I squeeze him and pull back, looking at his face.
“Yeah,” I say. “We made it. We got Elle.”
“Good.”
“What’s going on here? The radios aren’t working.”
Uriah grimaces.
“Nobody’s radio is working,” he replies. “They self-destructed the communications island, and they detonated some kind of frequency disrupter. Our radios are down.”
I mutter a curse under my breath.
“And the hostages?” I ask.
“Tied and packaged up with a nice little bow.”
“Casualties?”
Here, he smiles. “This time, we have none on our side.”
I exhale.
“Wow,” I say. “We did good.”
“But we lost the island.”
“That’s not so good. What about the Ship Killers – the rockets?”
“We’re assuming they’re in the armory.”
“Crap, I really didn’t want to lose the island.”
I feel a pang of bitter disappointment. Whatever was on that island was important enough to Omega for them to destroy the entire building before we got our hands on it. What secrets did it hold? Could it have changed the course of the war for us?
Don’t think about that now. You’ve taken the base. Good job!
I look to Father Kareem.
“I want you and your men to do a full sweep of this area,” I say. “Check for any Omega stragglers or survivors. If you find anyone, bring them back for questioning. If they fire on you, kill them.”
“As you wish, Commander Hart,” Father Kareem says, bowing slightly.
He retreats with several members of the Mad Monks to carry out my orders.
“Elle,” I say. “Find a medic and get cleaned up. Uriah, come with me.”
Elle and Cheng head across the road with Bravo, toward the medivac teams who are picking their way through the base, looking for wounded militiamen who may need assistance.
“You need medical attention, too,” Uriah points out as we walk toward the compound. “What happened to your leg?”
“I fell down a hole.”
He smirks. “That sounds like something you’d do.”
“Ha. Ha.”
We reach the compound, and Vera is standing outside, reloading her gun. She looks up at me, irritation flickering across her face.
“Where’s Andrew?” she asks, simply.
I jerk my thumb over my shoulder, indicating that he is still staring at the communications island, festering in flames.
“Did you get Elle?” she says.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Good.” She slings her gun over her shoulder. “The hostages upstairs are going crazy.”
“Define crazy.”
“A few of them started putting curses on us,” she goes on. “Witchcraft and all that crap.”
I make a face.
“That’s weird.”
“You should go see for yourself.”
“Thanks, I will.”
I go back inside the compound, into the first level. The strategy room has been cleared of the thick, acrid smoke. I step over the dead bodies of fallen Omega troopers as I study the boards again, filled with pictures of me, Chris
and dozens of other militia leaders. I raise a hand to my mouth.
“Uriah,” I say, “look!”
He follows my line of sight and his eyebrows go up.
“Wow,” he mutters.
It’s not just us Omega has been monitoring. Each wall has the main militia leaders from every state in the country, from California to Boston, Massachusetts. I breathlessly filter through the names and the face – young, old, male, female. I see pictures of different militia uniforms and names: The Rattlers in Texas, The Killers in Arizona, The Bloodhounds in Georgia, The Gators in Florida, The Brigadiers in Pennsylvania. Hot tears form in my eyes.
For the first time since we started fighting in the mountains – since Omega came and we took a stand – I know, without a doubt, that we are not alone. There are other militias, all across the country. There are so many listed on the walls that I lose count.
And not only that, but many of the militia locations correspond with the information logged away in my head concerning the nuclear weapons that Arlene told me about.
These militias are not just rebelling – they’re armed.
“People are fighting back,” I say, looking at Uriah. “They’re fighting back.”
He nods, slowly, as shocked as I am.
This could change everything. Imagine if all of us were to unite? A massive, united force against the biggest global invasion army of all time. It would be the battle of the century – perhaps the gateway to World War Three…if we’re not already in the midst of it.
I place my hand on the wall, leaning over my father’s picture at the top of the board. I remove it from the wall and hold it in my hands, studying the wrinkles around his eyes and the careless smile on his face.
I miss you, Daddy.
I fold the picture and slip it into my pocket. Uriah and I move upstairs, overwhelmed with this new knowledge – the knowledge that the West Coast is not alone in fighting Omega – and that we never were.
Chris, I wish you were here! You should know this – it would change everything!
We reach the third level, where Manny is in the hallway with some men. He is bathed in sweat but his eyes sparkle with energy.