Hell Heart

by Robert E. Vardeman

  “But we don’t know what kind of damage that creature can do in the meantime,” José said warily.

  “Colonel!” BJ called urgently from her position at the battle console, and Diego went quickly over to where she stood.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?” he asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

  “We’ve got some new power readings coming from the ship.” She looked up at him, her expression filled with dread. “I think it’s powering up the laser cannons. At this range, those weapons could rip all the way through the jungle and cut us down where we stand. We haven’t got anything that can stand up to that kind of power.”

  Diego cursed again. “All right. Immediate evac!” he called, and the clearing erupted with a swirl of activity. “We’ve got to get out of range before those lasers reach full power.”

  “We’ll never make it, sir,” BJ said quietly.

  Diego turned to her, and their eyes met with complete understanding. “I know,” he said in an undertone. “But we have to try.”

  He whirled and strode toward the Hydra, shooing soldiers and guerrillas in front of him as he went. He had just gone through the doorway when he heard the whine of ag lifters coming from one of the Aztecs. He spun, ready to rush back out, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Consuela standing just inside the door, tears running down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong? Where’s José?”

  “He told me to give you this,” she said shakily, holding out José’s crucifix. “He asked that you keep it for him until he comes back.”

  Slowly, Diego reached out and took the crucifix, then looped it around his neck where it rested atop his own. The chain felt cool against his skin. He listened hard as the ag whine died away. José was headed directly for the alien ship, the final cylinder of green goo undoubtedly loaded on the back of the Aztec.

  “He shouldn’t have gone off alone,” Diego said, then pushed past Consuela to the battle display so he could follow his brother’s progress. José piloted audaciously, but there was so little time. The power emissions from the ship were rising at an alarming rate. The alien could fire at almost any moment.

  Behind him, the bustle of a hurried evacuation continued, but Diego was oblivious to it, all his being concentrated on the tiny blip that represented his brother—the blip that represented their only real hope of survival.

  28

  * * *

  José Villalobos drove the Aztec with reckless abandon. He had always been a hot-rodder, the one to risk everything on a single throw of the dice. Unlike his little brother.

  Now José felt that not only the lives of his remaining guerrillas—including his beloved Consuela—and his brother hung in the balance, but the fate of the Earth as well. This monster could not be allowed to live. More would surely follow, and Chiapas, Mexico, the Union, the entire planet would be at risk. He had already lost far too many of his people to the undead creature—he wasn’t going to let it finish the job.

  José slewed the Aztec to one side to avoid a giant jacaranda tree, and the cylinder lashed hastily to the back of the ag cycle slid precariously. José ignored it. So what if it went off prematurely? It would take several minutes before it could eat through enough metal to disable the cycle, and he was within seconds of the clearing that held the alien spacecraft.

  Veering to one side, he scraped past a mahogany tree, then rebounded and emerged into the burned-out area around the ship. He could see the initial burn marks of its landing in the center of the clearing, lit clearly by the bright lights streaming from the ship. The alien had enlarged the area—undoubtedly to provide space to repair its craft.

  It had used campesinos murdered and enslaved by its evil technology. He could see their corpses now, lying scattered like leaves around the ship, their life tanks melted and destroyed by the Neo-Soviet bioweapon. Among them lay one of the alien creatures. One mammoth arm was still outstretched as if reaching for the safety of the ship, but its beautiful engraved back tank had disintegrated, the hoses still pumping the tank’s obscene fluids into the packed earth around the ship.

  José could see that the ship itself was beginning to disintegrate. Green moss sprouted everywhere, and holes were beginning to appear in the craft’s formerly shiny surface as the goo slowly ate through the skin of the hull.

  José skidded to a stop near the ship’s tailfin. He cut the ag lifters, and the cycle fell heavily the last few centimeters to the ground. He jumped off the seat and fumbled with the cylinder, working to attach the sprayer-nozzle assembly to the cylinder. Already he was choking on the fumes released by the goo as it dissolved the alien metals.

  Hefting the heavy cylinder and breathing as shallowly as he could, José began circling the ship, looking for a way in. He passed under several of the laser cannons, their throaty whine lending extra incentive to his search. Soon, he knew, they would fire, and when they did, his brother and all his remaining guerrillas would die.

  He would not let that happen.

  There. Above him was an airlock. He could tell it had once been sealed, but the goo had eaten a hole in the doors that was large enough to admit him. He clambered up onto the ship with some difficulty, still lugging the heavy cylinder, and gingerly entered the airlock. Green tendrils brushed along his face and shoulders as he ducked through the hole, and he shuddered at their clammy touch. But they found no purchase on his clothing, and their questing tendrils sought out and then ignored the plastic cylinder.

  José had scarcely taken two steps inside the foul darkness when a sudden shift in the air currents warned him of an imminent attack. He ducked just as a razor-sharp knife cut the air where his head had been an instant before. His finger tightened reflexively on the spray trigger, and the green goo began spewing forth onto the attacking slaves. As it settled over their shoddy life-support units, they began keeling over. José kept his finger on the trigger until the last of them had collapsed to the floor.

  “I do not kill you, my amigos, my countrymen,” he said softly. “You are dead. I am only restoring grace after you have lost it.”

  He finally released the trigger and stepped gingerly over their devastated corpses, the floor underfoot made slippery by the fluids spewing from their ruptured tanks. He was in a narrow corridor with barely enough light to see. The junctures of ceiling, wall, and floor all seemed slightly off. There wasn’t a single right angle in the place. That and the dim lighting made progress extremely difficult, and he had to concentrate on placing his feet carefully with each step.

  Another slave attacked as he passed a side corridor, and he took a nasty slice on his upper arm before he could respond with the sprayer. His attacker collapsed and died like the others, and he continued deeper into the ship.

  The assaults by slaves grew more frequent as he grew closer to what must be the heart of the ship. Everywhere he saw evidence of hasty repairs: bare wires sticking out of walls, patches on the inner hull, empty places where equipment had been cannibalized to effect repairs elsewhere.

  The stench of death, which had seemed overpowering when José had entered the ship, now clustered so thickly that he could feel it burning at the back of his throat. He had to be close now.

  He ducked as he caught a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye, and barely missed having his head taken off by a wickedly sharp scythe. But the sudden movement overbalanced him on the dangerously slick floor, and he tumbled heavily to the deck. Only a last-minute twist saved him from falling on the cylinder and rupturing it.

  Dazed, he looked up and saw the emaciated form of Mary Stephenson—or what remained of her—standing over him, her weapon raised for a killing blow. José braced himself for the impact, cursing himself for a failure.

  The blow never came. Barely seen in the gloom of the alien ship, her lips moved, forming words he could hardly make out.

  “Please, José,” the sorry remains of his faithful lieutenant breathed, the words emerging with difficulty from decayed vocal cords.

 
Slowly, José got to his feet, and Mary lowered her weapon until they stood face-to-face.

  “There is one thing more I have to do, Mary,” he said gently.

  She stared at him a moment longer, then lifted a ravaged hand and pointed to a dim corridor behind him. “There,” she whispered, and José nodded his understanding. Then he lifted the nozzle of the cylinder and pulled back on the trigger.

  Mary Stephenson seemed to collapse inward on herself as the greenish mist ate into the tank sustaining her unnatural life. She looked up at him from ruined eyes, speech beyond her capability, and struggled to form one last word. But then the light faded from her eyes, and she dropped to the floor with a sigh, her thoughts forever beyond his knowing.

  “Rest in peace, my friend,” José said softly, then turned to enter the corridor she had indicated. Somewhere in its depths, he knew, was the monster he had come to kill.

  * * *

  José emerged, panting, into a huge space that he instinctively knew was the control center of the ship. He was bleeding from half a dozen wounds sustained while battling his way past what seemed like an endless horde of zombies infesting the place. Every square centimeter of surface was covered by display screens and control consoles, manned by yet more slaves. And in the center of the room, in a thronelike chair, sat the being responsible for the deaths of so many of his countrymen.

  José had seen it at the crater, of course, but never this close up. As it turned to glare at him and rose slowly from its seat, José could see clearly the dead gray color of its skin and the greasy, filthy bandages wrapping its body, contrasting horribly with the beauty of its golden armor. It was taller than he had thought.

  Then he was too busy to study it further, as the creature snapped out a word in some alien tongue, and its undead crew attacked. José fended them off almost absently, all his attention concentrated on the monster commanding them. Step by step, he fought his way toward the monster. He dimly felt the sharp pain as the slaves’ weapons sliced into his flesh, but he ignored it and his growing weakness as he battled his way across the control room, slaves collapsing in his wake as he hosed them with the green goo. The cylinder cradled in his arms felt alarmingly light, its contents almost depleted.

  But there was enough left to do what he had come for. As the last slaves fell, their lives gurgling away onto a floor awash in fluids, the alien creature unsheathed the long scythes hung at its waist with a lethal whisper. José circled it warily, wanting to make sure he had a clear shot at the elaborate life-support tank on its back. He dodged one slash from the scythes and then another, each time getting a little closer. Blood ran in a dozen rivulets from his wounds, but he ignored it as he finally saw his opening.

  José pressed the trigger, and the deadly spray misted out and enveloped the tank. The monstrous creature roared as the mist began eating away at its life-support system. Fluids began to leak from a half dozen holes, and José could see in the monster’s small, dark eyes the knowledge of its death.

  With the last of its strength, the creature made one desperate lunge at the man who had killed it, and José looked down in dim surprise at the razor edge of the scythe that had sliced cleanly all the way through his chest. Then his knees gave way, and he and the monster collapsed together to the floor. He felt his vision going dim, and the last thing he saw as he slipped into the darkness was the unseeing eye of the alien as it accompanied him into death.

  Epilogue

  * * *

  How do you explain it, Colonel?” asked Lieutenant Travis.

  “I don’t,” Diego said as the two of them left the command and control building and walked slowly across the garrison. “I leave the explanations to the scientists.”

  “Well, have they figured anything out yet?” BJ grumbled.

  “Not that I know of,” Diego admitted, as they strolled along, enjoying the pleasantly warm day. Chiapas had never seen this much attention from their masters up north. The goo had barely finished eating its way through the alien spaceship two weeks ago before Union scientists had begun swarming over it, taking samples of everything. The remains of the two aliens had been removed for further study up at Union HQ in Cheyenne Mountain, as had the strange crystalline fragment Captain Alex Allen had found at the crater and the remains of the Ares suits destroyed by José’s bioweapon. Diego had learned that the Neo-Sovs were making a new incursion farther north, using the goo and something that looked like the Cyclops. Naturally, the Union was eager to find a counteragent to the deadly stuff.

  The only thing the scientists hadn’t carried away was the cause of the whole thing: the glowing meteorite that had fallen to earth and brought with it so much destruction. The Hell Heart, as Consuela had dubbed it, sat hovering in midair among the melted ruins of the alien ship, entirely encased in a sphere of force beams. It had been the only thing to survive the destruction José and Diego had wreaked on the ship. The scientists and military were still circling it gingerly, afraid to do anything to it for fear of destroying the force field and unleashing its terrible power. The potential that lay within that glowing orb was tremendous, but Diego personally doubted they would ever find a way to harness its energy without destroying themselves—and most of the planet—along with it.

  He and BJ walked past a knot of soldiers working to make repairs to one of the Hydras. Most of his soldiers were busy on maintenance in one way or another, working to get the San Cristóbal base back into operational condition. Those who had survived, anyway—nearly twenty percent of his soldiers had been killed.

  One-fifth. For a few days, the commlink to MCF headquarters in Mexico City had hummed with denunciations of his command abilities. But even General Ramirez quieted down after Union Command let it be known that they considered Diego Villalobos the hero of the hour. Diego had not yet seen their official report, but rumor had it he had been recommended for a medal—even, perhaps, a promotion. He had lost 20 percent of his command, true, but he had also saved 80 percent, when the potential for total devastation throughout Chiapas had been extreme. He had held off a Cyclops invasion of El Manguito, protected the Revancha reactor, fought off an alien incursion, and broken the back of the Zapatista movement.

  Which was not to say the Zapatistas were gone entirely. Diego had received several informal reports from Consuela, who had taken over after José’s death. Their relationship remained tense, but he had hopes that perhaps they would be able to work together on the problems facing the people of Chiapas, rather than wasting their energies fighting an unwinnable war. She was not a bad sort, and she was extraordinarily competent. He could see why José had valued her so highly. Lieutenant Suarez was serving as his liaison to the guerrillas, and if he was reading correctly between the lines in Suarez’s reports, the young officer liked Consuela even better than he did.

  “If you’ll excuse me, sir,” BJ said, interrupting his reverie, “there are some things I should see to.”

  “By all means, Lieutenant,” Diego said. “Dismissed.” He watched the stocky officer fondly as she hurried off, already barking orders into her commlink. Her promotion to captain should come through soon. If it didn’t, he could always threaten to resign—that carried some weight now.

  Diego strolled slowly toward the main gate, saluted the sentries on duty, and walked out into the ravaged countryside.

  The jungle would take years to heal. Huge black gashes showed where various indignities had been heaped on the land. Worse, from his perspective, were the graves that stretched across the denuded fields. He had tried to get a head count of those who were still alive, and had failed. Their best estimate was more than a thousand dead, including the sad corpses of the people the mummy creatures had enslaved. Diego’s squads had worked overtime finding the bodies, which were scattered over kilometers of jungle, and had given them a proper burial. Among those interred in the earth was Captain Alex Allen—in one final irony, laid to rest in the land he had so despised.

  Once the toxic goo had finished eating its way throug
h the alien spaceship, they had done the same for the dead there, including José. Diego’s fingers traced the outline of the single crucifix hanging around his neck. He had given its twin to Consuela. She would bear José’s legacy well.

  His steps carried him through the raw graves dug into the ground to a two-meter-tall concrete pylon towering in the center of the makeshift cemetery. The pillar held only a brass plaque with a single name engraved on it: José Villalobos. As the Maw sank into the west, its white light touched the plaque and made the name glow.

  It was a cruel irony that José had been taken from Diego so soon after they had found each other again. But Diego knew his brother had died doing what he wanted most: saving his people. The Hell Heart had brought so much death and destruction to Chiapas. It was a piece of the Maw that hung over the Earth like a deadly sword. But this time they had triumphed over it—he and José, together at last. The way it was meant to be.

  Diego Villalobos turned and walked back to his post in the setting light of the Maw, renewed in body and soul for the long, hard task ahead of him.

  ROBERT E. VARDEMAN is the author of forty fantasy novels and eighteen science fiction novels, in addition to numerous westerns under various pen names, three mysteries, spy books and a high-tech thriller. Recent titles include the fantasy Dark Legacy, an original novel set in the MAGIC: The Gathering “Dark” era. Short fiction includes “Dragon Debt” in Fred Saberhagen’s Armory of Swords anthology. Currently being serialized at http://crimsonskies.com is The Great Helium War, flying in the dangerously exciting skies of FASA’s Crimson Skies.

  Vardeman was born in Mineral Wells, Texas, down the street from the Crazy Water Hotel, and is a longtime resident of Albuquerque, graduating from the University of New Mexico with a B.S. in Physics and an M.S. in Materials Engineering. He worked for Sandia National Laboratories in the Solid State Physics Research Department, tended bar, and sold fish heads before becoming a full-time writer.