“You don’t have to call me sir either, at least not outside the confines of this mission.”
Ash was about to say ‘yes sir’ but nodded instead.
Peel sensed something troubled the man, but he couldn’t guess and probed. “You lost that arm in Somalia?”
Ash laughed without humor. “Nothing so grand, an accident back home in Stirling North. You know where that is? Up near Port Augusta in South Australia?”
“Never been there,” said Peel.
“I was showing off to a girl, on a tractor, and fell under the towed harvester. The army became my life.”
“Did you impress the girl?” Peel asked.
The man half-laughed, half-frowned. “Not for long enough.”
Peel nodded, convinced there was more than Ash let on. “You ready for this mission?”
The cyber-analyst shrugged. “As ready as you can be. I mean, we don’t really know what we’re up against.”
“No, we don’t,” reflected Peel. “But that’s why we’re along for the ride. We’re the Intel boys. Of everyone on the mission, when the shit hits the fan, we’re the ones they’ll turn to for answers.”
“I guess so.”
Peel turned to prep himself, then paused. “Ash, for the record, you’re Code-89 cleared now. Those files you wanted to access yesterday? Well, now you can.”
Ash hesitated. “You knew about that? And how I lost my arm?”
“Yes. I wanted to see what you’d tell me.”
Peel didn’t say he’d known Ash’s girlfriend, Amye, was only a short-lived relationship because she had died under unusual and horrific circumstances. Even in the civvy world, Code-89 events happened.
As Peel walked from the former sergeant, he hoped Ash could hold it together long enough to see this mission through. If he did he might find some closure.
The Humvees rumbled south. Beyond the confines of the base and demilitarized zones it started to rain and Emerson spotted opium crops mixed with farming plots, donkeys and camels in and around the fields. It was not at all how he imagined Afghanistan would be: lush and green with few trees.
The terrain became mountainous until they were close to their target karez entry point, and approached farmers with donkeys. But the farmers pulled assault rifles and hand-held rocket launchers from behind their cloaks and beasts of burden. They engaged the first Humvee, but none hit.
In automatic response the Marine gunners let loose with their M134 Miniguns, hundreds of 7.62 mm rounds expelled from the six-barreled machine guns in under a minute, and made quick work of the enemy. The insurgents’ dance of death was disturbing and short lived, and painted with the red splashes of their final blood.
The lead Humvee seemed to melt into a brown discoloration and then disintegrated into rust. Bones of soldiers and fragmented uniforms fell with the crumbling chassis. Half their team lost to a single attack.
“Out of the vehicle!” Peel commanded. “Spread out, defensive positions and return fire.”
The Marines and Aussie soldiers moved quickly as ordered. On his feet and moving fast, Emerson couldn’t see the weapon that had hit the other truck, and he half expected to age suddenly and die an old man. Instead he found himself disorientated in a field of three or so meter-high grass. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. He couldn’t see more than a couple of meters in any direction.
He heard gunfire, the high-pitched calls of the insurgents, and then… grunting?
Emerson raised his Steyr and advanced cautiously. He stumbled onto a clearing. In its midst were three men, a woman and a couple of children, each with a hairy body, sloping skull, and muscles over a dense body frame. He’d never seen their physiology. They had a fire lit and were cooking a large slab of meat. They grunted wildly at him, raised primitive spears at him. He was about to shoot, but changed his mind. They were terrified and confused, and protective of their infants. These weren’t insurgents.
Emerson disappeared back into the grass.
“This is Ash.” He spoke quickly into his comms piece. “Civvies in the grass, repeat, civvies in the grass.” He gave their numbers and coordinates.
“Copy that,” echoed Peel. “All teams move backward along these coordinates.” He provided a compass bearing. “The insurgents can’t see us. We have cover.”
“Copy that,” said Warrant Officer Gary Kudjic over the comms. “Where did the grass come from, sir?”
“Don’t know, but it’s just saved our lives.”
Emerson moved quickly along the path Peel had provided. Within a few hundred meters he stepped out into open rocky ground. The line between grass and rock was sudden and abrupt, and not at all natural. Three Marines and two SOTG soldiers were congregating with Peel, moving to higher ground to secure cover behind the higher rocky outcrops.
An insurgent emerged from the grass and fired his AK-47 wide. Warrant Officer Kudjic stepped out and returned fire. The insurgent was hit, rolled down the slope toward Ash, and lay, still conscious, in a pool of his own blood. He tried to raise his Russian assault rifle and fire it again.
“Put him out of his misery, Ash.”
“I can’t.” He didn’t know why, but since his accident, and the loss of Amye, the reminder of what he’d lost overwhelmed him. “I’m a civilian,” he offered by way of explanation.
Kudjic aimed his rifle and put a bullet into the insurgent’s head. He leaned close.
Ash could smell his foul breath, and see the man needed his eyebrows plucked.
“Want to die, Mister Ash?”
“No, sir.”
“Then use your weapon when commanded. I know you’re still current with a Steyr.”
Ash nodded; it was true that he’d fired the weapon recently before he’d left the military. “I’m a non-combatant.”
“Yep, right you are, Mister Ash, but when the insurgents come down this valley, I don’t think they’ll care what you are. You on the inactive reserve list?”
Ash nodded; he had three more years to give them.
“Then consider yourself back in the military, and we might still get out of this alive.”
Ash readied his weapon, as if he’d never left the military: he checked the weapon’s safety, cocked it, locked the working parts, and twisted the barrel assembly off.
The man picked up the expelled round and brushed off the sand on his uniform. “No need for a safety check, Mister Ash, but well done. You’ll want a round in the chamber at all times.”
Ash closed his eyes and nodded for a brief moment, but when he opened them the Australian and Marine troops were striding forward up the hill with their weapons aimed.
They were about fifty meters above the valley, protected by a rocky outcrop, and Emerson looked down into the ambush site they’d left. It resembled a dollar coin: a large circular patch of tall grass perhaps half a kilometer across had materialized from nowhere around the Humvees. The insurgents were in the thick of it and had discovered the good Humvee. They wasted no time and destroyed it with homemade bombs.
“Take them out, Corporal Riker,” Peel commanded their Marine sniper.
Riker lined up his USMC Designated Marksman Rifle on the rock, and one by one put a bullet in all the insurgents. In less than thirty seconds the enemy was dead.
Emerson noticed a confused group of men, women and children, emerging from the grasslands on the far side, fifteen hairy individuals in total not including toddlers, of which there were half a dozen. All wore animals skins, were stocky and hardy-looking. They brandished spears and appeared to be completely lost and bewildered. They didn’t move like normal humans would.
“Ten o’clock, sir,” Riker reported the group to Peel. “Do I take them out too?”
“Wait!” yelled Emerson. “They aren’t our enemy.”
Peel lifted binoculars, took a closer look. “Maybe not, Ash, but I have no idea who they might be.”
“I do,” said Emerson. He felt odd disclosing the impossibility. “They’re Neanderthals.”
The USMC-SOTG descended again into the valley, and the grass and Neanderthals vanished without them noticing the transition. It was as if they had never been.
They were more exposed now, but so too would any insurgents be. Peel saw no signs of survivors but he ordered a quick recon of the immediate area.
Ash stepped forward. “Sir, what’s going on?”
Peel shrugged, suspecting far more than he was willing to share. “Some kind of time weapon. Whoever used it, the output in this instance was to project a moment of history from tens of thousands of years ago. But it didn’t stick.”
“The same kind of weapon that took down the Strike Eagle? It has more capabilities than I thought.”
Peel grinned, but he didn’t feel good about the situation. “That’s the problem with ‘special threats’, they never make any sense.”
Corporal Riker returned, snapped off a salute. “Sir, we found an entry into the aqueduct. We think that is where the insurgents disappear into.”
“Good work, Corporal. Prep the men to enter.”
“Sir, what about potential insurgents still up here?” asked Riker.
“You’re right. You and your team form a perimeter around this aqueduct. Nobody goes in or out until we return. You deal with the insurgents, but this is too important.”
“The super-weapon—”
“—will have returned with its operator into the underground,” Peel finished Riker’s sentence for him, then glanced at Emerson. “Sergeant Ash, you’re with me. You too, Warrant Officer Kudjic and Corporal Suleiman.” He turned and strode toward the dark aqueduct, stooped, and then marched in with his Steyr ready.
The tunnel was dark and long, shaped like an inverted V and cut from the rock by hand. He switched on his magi light, a small LED torch, and proceeded cautiously. Within a hundred meters they were knee-deep in chilly water, and the tunnels were very narrow, making it near impossible to move past each other should they need to. There was no option but to proceed.
Hundreds of meters in, and trying not to be obvious, Peel glanced back to ensure Ash, Kudjic and Suleiman were still with him. The thought of being down here alone was not a comforting one.
A flash-charged stream of iridescent bubbles sped along the tunnel right at them. It moved just slow enough for Peel to duck, but behind him, Ash caught the beam weapon straight in the face.
“Morning, Emerson, my love, beautiful day out.”
Emerson frowned. “Amye?” He sat up in the warm bed and admired her short, racy red negligee. “What are you doing here?”
She frowned back at him and then laughed. “Forgotten already? It’s the day after our wedding.” She held up her hand and admired the diamond ring next to her wedding band. “Mrs. Amye Ash, at last,” she said. “Will you ever stop teasing me?”
He glanced down at the wedding band on his finger and his heart leapt—the ring was on the finger of his left hand. He held it up, clenched his hand into a fist. How was his hand and arm normal again? He frowned at her. “This is a dream.”
She laughed again. “Sorry, you’re stuck with me!”
“But you died … the Chthonians …”
She pouted and walked over to the bed. “No, I’m here. Touch me again, I’m real enough.”
Emerson closed his eyes with joy. Had the other thoughts been PTSD? Had there ever been an Afghanistan, a crippled arm, and a fight at the Horn? Had he never raced Damien on the tractor and fallen? Hearing Amye laugh, he opened his eyes to ask her.
But instead she faded from view—
—He was drenched, in the dark, smothered by cold water splashing on his face and filling his mouth. He was wrenched upward, disorientated. Beams of light spilled everywhere, turned in circles over and over again. He heard gunfire, the controlled burst from a Steyr. The noise was deafening in this confined space.
Suleiman had him in his arms and lifted him up.
“What happened?” he finally spurted.
“We were attacked,” said Corporal Suleiman. “The major and warrant officer are returning fire.”
On his feet, steady again, Ash readied his weapon, certain he would use it any moment now.
He realized how easily he gripped his weapon, and how seeing Amye again had given him renewed confidence.
The arm, the cybernetic attachment, had changed. Fused with his flesh, it had more moving parts —like it was forged from metallic muscle. He flexed his fingers, opened and closed his fist. The arm was metal: chrome, and circuits ran along his skin like electronic veins. The point where metal and flesh merged was blurred, and the interface screen was as flexible as the rest of his new attachment. It looked as if it was made from liquid mercury, but upon touching it, he realized the artificial arm was solid enough.
Ash had no idea how this had happened.
Words flashed up on the screen: Time weapon accelerated your arm into a future version of itself.
An upgrade? Ash mentally asked.
Yes. An upgrade, replied the screen.
The gunfire ceased. Ash looked up to see Kudjic pounding down the tunnel toward them, back from where Peel had disappeared. “All clear,” he reported through panted breath. “The major is waiting for us, in a cave opening.”
“What’s he found?” asked Suleiman.
“You won’t fucking believe it, and I can’t find the words to describe it.”
The vast chamber was cut square from ancient stone. Disfigured and decapitated icons of Buddha lined many alcoves on the western and eastern walls, the faces replaced with new stone blocks of roughly carved animalistic gods. One was an eyeless, tentacled face resembling an octopus. Another was nothing more than a vast tongue. Another, a wriggling mass of tentacles and teeth arranged chaotically. Peel knew where he was, Emerson Ash’s Temple of Yog-Sothoth. These effigies were the war gods of men, found in the alien dimensions that intersected the human universe, and as real as he was.
The ground too was unsettling, a quilt work mosaic of corpses, the legacy of the temporal weapon abuse from a bygone era. A bloody battle had occurred here perhaps a thousand years ago, during the Crusades. Templar knights and their horses lay butchered and bloody in equal number amongst fallen Oriental foot soldiers with their broken spears and split round shields. All were dead, and freshly killed. It seemed they had only finished their battle minutes before Peel had arrived.
But the statues and the medieval corpses were the least of Peel’s problems. He switched over a fresh clip into his Steyr and advanced upon the one living man in the temple, Ahmad Komdani. The insurgent had suffered a bullet wound in his leg that was slowly bleeding out, but that was not his most alarming feature. He looked to have been splashed with paint, but one colored with old age. Like zebra stripes, half his face was thirty-something, the other ninety-something.
Around Komdani’s left forearm a conglomerate of bubbles had coalesced, colored like oil on water. They rose and popped, all of different sizes but they never burst fast enough to reveal the arm beneath, if an arm still remained. Some bubbles floated away, but not very far before they vanished.
“Beware, infidel,” the man spoke in Arabic, “for I am the High Priest of Yog-Sothoth, the Keeper and Renderer of the Gate between time and…”
He raised his arm like a weapon toward Peel.
Peel immediately applied the Mozambique drill, a double-tap in the chest followed by a single bullet to the head, and Komdani went down as his blood sprayed everywhere.
Peel half-expected the insurgent to stand again, with the temporal weapon still alive and functional on his arm. But he never moved.
He recognized the men enter the temple behind him.
“What the fuck happened here?” raged Suleiman. One of the crusaders twitched, so the soldier put a bullet into him.
“We found the weapon.” Peel pointed to the oozing bubbles affixed to the dead insurgent’s arm.
“What do we do with it?” asked Ash, beside Peel.
Peel smiled because Ash’s face was filled
with awe and wonder. He looked like he had finally found his confidence.
“Look what it did to my arm!” he shouted in an elated tone. “And it took me back to Amye. If we can work out how to use it, well, who knows what is possible?”
Furious, Peel gripped Ash and dragged him closer to Komdani. “But see what it did to him. He couldn’t control it. Never, even when he was taking down our Strike Eagle and Humvees.”
Ash shuddered. “Sorry sir, you’re right. It’s just…”
“You saw a way to go back, right? And you wanted it?”
Emerson Ash nodded. He had turned pale again. Relief was only ever short-lived.
“It’s a false hope, Emerson. Now that you are one of us, Code-89, I can only give you one piece of advice if you want to survive for the long haul. Don’t embrace any of this. It will consume you, control you, even end your life.”
“I saw Amye, and the life we could have had.”
Peel gripped Ash by the arm, shaking him so he would focus on what Peel was about to say. “I want to go back too. This week, I realized how much I missed being in the Army, and how betrayed I felt when they dishonorably discharged me. I’m going to regret going home, knowing that I’m likely never to put on this uniform again. But I can’t change any of that. I just have to accept it, and move on.”
Emerson massaged his temple. He looked distraught, which was not surprising for a man who had held in so much hurt for so long.
“You’re right, Peel, and I’m sorry. I lost it there for a moment.”
“We all do, from time to time. We just have to remember who we are, and what we’re fighting.”
Ash released himself from Peel’s grip. “It won’t happen again, sir.”
“Good to hear.” Peel turned to Kudjic and Suleiman. “I want charges laid at all the structural points. I want to bring this temple down, bury it forever. Set them for five minutes.”
“Yes sir,” they responded in unison, and got to work.
Above ground, they identified the sinkhole where there had once been a cave, a temple, and an alien weapon of mass destruction. Peel hoped that it would remain buried for his lifetime at least.
Lovecraft Ezine Mega-Issue 4 Rev1 Page 37