by Auri Blest
The taller one took his helmet off. “No, we will stay here.”
“General Cain,” said Dawn.
There wasn’t much that surprised Dawn, but this did. “You can’t fight them alone.”
There was a confused look on his face. “You knew that I was coming?”
“No, I knew that He would make a way—create a way of escape.”
Cain looked back at the entrance to the roof.
“You are risking your life to help us. Why?” she asked.
The helicopter began to lift off. “Because I remember!” Cain yelled. “I remember my part in setting all of this into motion!”
“There’s more!” she yelled as the helicopter lifted away.
From the helicopter, Dawn watched as they reached the roof.
Cain stood firm as they approached him. He had never seen them in person before. They were quite daunting.
He held his hand up to the other pilot. “Don’t move.”
As they began to surround them, the pilot panicked and drew his pistol. He was quickly overtaken. Their leader came forward and eyed the IMO patch on Cain’s black jumpsuit. Cain noticed that the leader was not walking, but almost gliding in.
“We had a deal!”
Cain flinched. He was taken aback by the two voices that came from the leader.
Confused, he asked, “Who?”
“Your ruler. Where is the child?” the leader asked. The others repeated in a whispered chant, “Where is the child? She is chosen.”
I have no idea what this thing is talking about, Cain thought. Has the Director been negotiating with Legion X? Did she set me up? Cain slowly began to back up toward the edge of the roof. “I don’t know anything about a child,” he said. As he spoke, his mind flashed to the little girl that the IMO has footage of Dawn saving.
The leader let out a deathly scream. Cain stood firm, accepting his fate. Just as they began to swarm toward him, Cain heard gunfire. Dawn had brought the helicopter back round, and they were firing around Cain at those on the roof.
This Chinook helicopter had been equipped with two door-mounted M60D 7.62mm machine guns, and Jade was in the cargo area on the ramp-mounted machine gun.
Cain ducked and watched as each of them stepped in front of the leader as he descended back through the door so that they would catch the brunt of the bullets. They’re sacrificing themselves for him, he thought.
Dawn jumped down from the helicopter onto the roof. She handed Cain a rifle. He aimed it towards the roof entrance and fired. He wasn’t sure what Dawn was doing behind him, but she grabbed him. Before he knew what was happening, they were falling over the side of the building. Cain screamed, but Dawn had him. He didn’t understand how she could support his weight, but they landed on top of the tenth-floor ventilation box.
“Could you have warned me first?!”
“No.”
“How did you know where we were?” Dawn asked.
“I didn’t. We followed them. They gave off a blue glow on my radar. We could see that they had this building surrounded. Something told me that’s where we needed to land.”
“Hmmm… Something, huh?”
Cain looked over the edge. They were still ten floors up from the ground. “They’re everywhere.”
“Not for much longer,” Dawn replied.
The Chinook came down between buildings shooting at those on the ground. Dawn grabbed Cain again, without notice, and jumped over the side of the ventilation opening. Cain screamed. They landed, and Dawn yelled, “Stay behind me!”
Without giving him a chance to get his bearings, she ran forward twirling her sword so fast that it looked like a propeller. Cain couldn’t number how many of them she had slashed through. He followed close behind. They made it to the IMO truck that Raymond had left out front.
“Get in,” Dawn yelled.
Cain watched in awe as she jumped on top of the truck.
“The keys are still inside. Go. Quickly!”
Cain started the truck and floored the gas. Dawn held fast on top until the helicopter was above the truck. She grabbed onto the cable, and the helicopter lifted off. From the back cargo area of the helicopter, Jade opened fire behind the truck to make sure that Cain had a clean getaway.
21
At the military base, the lights flickered, then went out. “What’s going on?” the Director asked from her quarters. The lights flicked back on.
“We are losing power, Director.”
“The emergency power supply was checked earlier. Why is this happening?”
Her quarters went dark. She looked out of the window and saw that the whole base was dark.
“Director, we’re picking up something on radar. There is something closing in fast, and it’s huge.”
“Whatever it is, we are not facing it in the dark. Send instruction to end the blackout.” The Emperor is coming for me because I hacked into his system, she thought.
Cain drove along in the dark. He was glad for the items that had been left in the truck. He reached for the compass. The city was still dark, but he had made his way outside of the city and was heading towards the base. He slammed his fist on the dash. At this rate, it would take him another hour to get to Hanover. He had to warn them somehow. If his theory was correct, Legion X was headed right for them.
At the top of the cable, Dawn flipped up into the helicopter. She looked at Jade, who was still standing in the cargo bay area holding onto the machine gun.
“Well done,” said Dawn
Jade smiled. “I make it do what it do.”
Red seats lined the length of both sides of the helicopter. A single walkway ran down the center. Every seat was filled. Ray and Seth stood near the doorway. It seemed that everyone had been holding their breath and was finally able to breathe.
Dawn walked down the aisle. She stopped in front of the young soldier, turned, and faced him. Oh no, Seth thought. Here we go again.
His head was down. When he looked up the whites of his eyes were bright blue. Seth gasped. The soldier jumped up and grabbed Dawn by the throat. Jade yelled out. Seth, Ray and several others leaped toward them and tried to break his grasp. Jade aimed a pistol at him but couldn’t get a clear shot.
“You are mine,” the two voices said. They weren’t talking to Dawn. They were talking to the soldier.
The blue glow drained from his eyes, and he squealed, “No.”
Dawn brought her arms down and up through the center of his arms but didn’t break his grasp. She then lifted, her left arm over his and turned to the right, breaking his grip and sending him flying back against his seat from an elbow to the face. Everyone backed up and drew their pistols on the young soldier.
Dawn held him against his seat. “I see you,” she said.
Seth and Ray looked at each other. They were both thinking the same thing. What does she see?
Dawn wasn’t talking to the soldier, but to the power that held him. “Release him!”
He yelled out in pain.
This time she spoke to the young soldier. “This is warfare. You have to fight.”
A tear fell from his eye. The blue of his eyes grew brighter as he tried to fight Dawn, but he couldn’t move. Dawn had him pinned there. The two voices yelled out in protest.
“Fight!” Dawn yelled.
The soldier stopped struggling, and Dawn let go of him. He slid to the ground. She stepped back from him and watched. He slowly stood up with his eyes glowing strong again and stepped towards Dawn. She could tell that there was a fight going on inside of him.
Dawn held her hand up to signal that no one shoot. “You are not a coward,” she told him.
The soldier looked up at her. With tears flowing, he turned, ran, and leaped from the open cargo bay. Jade gasped and looked wide-eyed out of the helicopter into the night sky. Some of the others screamed. Dawn stood, eyes closed.
She opened her eyes and looked at Seth, “Get them to safety. Ray, get up there to the crew if you don’t want
to end up across the border. They have no idea where they are going.” She then turned to Jade, smiled and winked at her. Before anyone could move, Dawn ran and jumped off the back of the helicopter into the darkness.
Dawn shot through the air like a bullet, with arms and legs straight behind her. A force propelled her faster than she should have been able to excel.
The young soldier was screaming and free falling with limbs flailing about. The sound of wind filled his ears as he tumbled below. He felt a bump and opened his eyes. Dawn had caught him, but they continued falling.
The young soldier grabbed hold of Dawn and watched as her coat began to cause air resistance as it transformed into a parachute and slowed the speed of their descent. He held on tighter as he realized that he was smelling sea water. The ocean! We’re going to crash into the ocean!
They landed with a thud on a dock surrounded by warehouses. The young soldier watched as Dawn’s parachute coat began to pull back in and form its original shape. I’ve got to get me one of those coats, he thought. Who are you? He sat up, threw his fists in the air and screamed out as if his favorite football team had just made a touchdown. “Yeah! We just jumped out of a freaking helicopter without a parachute, and we are still alive!”
He grabbed his head in disbelief. It was almost as if he were laughing and crying at the same time. He was in shock. Dawn watched him fall back on the ground, his chest heaving.
It took a few minutes for him to regain his composure. He looked over at Dawn. He had forgotten that she was there. She had stood in silence the whole time that he lay there with his hands covering his face. He leaned up on his elbow and asked, “Why did you save me? I just tried to kill you.”
“You could not have killed me. My assignment is not yet complete.”
She walked toward him. “…and for the record, it wasn’t you that tried to kill me.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“You will never win the war by running away from the battle. You are being given a chance to fight.
He shook his head, “Jade never trusted me. She was right not to.”
“Jade was only doing what she had been trained to do. It wasn’t personal.”
His voice cracked, “I can handle a lot of things, but I’m not strong enough for this.”
“No? You’ve had many opportunities to kill any one of us, but you chose to jump out of a helicopter rather than harm us. You had to fight to overpower his control to do that.”
The soldier stood and faced the ocean. “It could happen again. I don’t know if I can fight him again.”
“This is true. It could very well happen again. When the enemy has had you once, he thinks that he can keep coming back. He will try to find some way in or weakness to get back in.”
“What do I do?”
“Persevere.”
“That’s it?! That’s all you have for me?! Perse-freakin-vere?!”
His reaction amused her. “Follow me. I’m going to take you to a safe place. You don’t have the tools to fight him. It’s time you learn who we are and what we believe.”
“What about them?”
“They’re the IMO’s problem now.”
22
Cain slowed down as he pulled up to the gates of Hanover Base. Where is everyone? Where is base security? There was no one in sight. The entrance was dark, resembling an amusement park that had been shut down for the night.
He drove through the open gate and turned left at the first intersection that he approached. After passing several aircraft hangars, he came to a stop. He could see fire and explosions in the distance ahead. At this point, he was less concerned about the condition of the base and more concerned with finding the Director alive. He hoped that he wasn’t too late. She held the answers to his past that he needed.
The Director could hear gunfire and blasts from grenades outside. They had been overtaken too quickly to send out a call for help. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. No one could have reached them in time.
She had the courage of the hardest men in the IMO, but she was no match for these things. They ignited a fear in her that she had never felt before, and the two voices coming out of the leader horrified her. She realized that whatever they had thought Legion X was, they were wrong.
“Where is the child? We had an agreement,” he said as he glared down at her. He held the Director by her hair as she was knelt on the ground with blood dripping from her mouth. Her guards had been powerless against them.
She remembered Dawn’s words, “Your army will fail you.”
Legion X had swarmed the base a half hour earlier. The Director didn’t know that they were an organized force. They used military tactics to surround the base, conquer each station and force those that remained to the center of the base. It left them nowhere to run. Her guards were outnumbered fifty to one. It was clear that their goal was to subdue the base and find whoever was in charge.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she cried out.
“Oh, but he does.” The leader pointed a thin, long nailed finger at Dr. Voight who stood frozen in the corner of the room.
The Director feared that the Legion X leader would snap her neck if he didn’t receive the answers that he was looking for.
Dr. Voight stuttered, “Wha- what agreement?” One of them grabbed him and lunged him toward the leader. He fell to the floor in front of the Director.
“Tell her!” Their leader demanded.
“The Emperor—he’s infected. He’s a carrier of the virus. He-he is one of them.”
“How is that possible? He doesn’t exhibit—“
“It’s an additional mutation, but they are one and the same,”
She glared at him.
“I had no choice. The Emperor wants your research, and he has promised them the child.”
“What child? For what?” she demanded from Dr. Voight.
“The Emperor promised him the child in exchange for drawing her out.”
“Drawing who out?”
“The only one who can defeat him.”
He wants Her, she thought.
The Legion X leader tightened his grip on her hair.
“I swear to you!” she cried out. “I don’t know anything about a child. The Emperor betrayed you.”
The Director shook with fear as the Legion X leader yelled out in rage. His free hand rose, and just as it came down to deliver a lethal blow to her head, General Cain’s truck crashed through the wall. The ceiling caved in knocking the Legion X leader forward.
Cain jumped out of the truck and grabbed a rifle and grenade off one of the Director’s guards that lay in the debris next to the truck. He threw the grenade out of the opening that the truck had just barreled through and ducked down on the side of the vehicle.
Dr. Voight helped the Director up, put her arm over his shoulder and grabbed her around the waist half carrying-half dragging her to the passenger side of the truck. Cain reversed the truck out of the building at the same speed that he had entered. He handed Voight a pistol.
“Do you know how to use it?”
Voight stared at the gun.
“We don’t have time for a lesson. Just point and shoot.”
“We’re surrounded. How did you get through them?” asked Dr. Voight.
“I floored it and plowed through.”
“You’ve made more intelligent decisions. You should have saved yourself.” The Director whispered.
She was injured. Her head bobbled along the seat of the truck in response to the bumps and debris in the road. Dr. Voight sat facing her but turned back every five seconds to make sure that they were in the clear. They would have a few minutes’ head start while Legion X made certain the safety of their leader.
The Director’s head fell back. “Why did you come back here?”
Cain was determined that at whatever cost, he would get the missing links to his puzzle. That is why he returned, for information. For the last few years of his caree
r, he had reported solely to the Director. Therefore, she was the key to his blocked memories; she would have to have given the command.
Cain glanced over at her. Had he ever seen her this helpless? His mind drifted back to a time when they were both climbing the ranks, a time when she wasn’t so driven to rule the world, a time before she developed this “god complex.” Her family had been priming her for political office but she was against it. After completing her stint in the military, she became a doctor of microbiology and biochemistry working for the government.
Something was happening to the once kind, compassionate girl whose goal was to save the world. There was a disconnect. He had asked her to choose. She chose this life and he transferred to the European base.
As much as he hated to admit it, he still felt a bit of an emotional connection to her. Could he call it a romance? Of course not. It was just something that happened a very long time ago. She had become calloused and corrupt and—She was cheating on him with the Emperor.
Cain slammed on the brakes almost flipping the vehicle. He remembered their affair. Why had that been blocked?
“What are you doing?” Voight yelled while looking back behind them.
Cain shook his head trying to get clarity. “We are getting out of here. They’ve blown up the hangars but there is one place that they couldn’t have gotten to and can’t possibly know about.”
“No, we need to keep driving,” Dr. Voight yelled. He pointed the pistol at Cain.
“You’re going to shoot me?”
“I will if I have to.”
“Listen, I left the city before they did and they still got here a half hour before me. We cannot outrun them.”
As Dr. Voight began to lower the pistol, Cain punched him in the nose. “If you ever point a gun at me again I will kill you and I don’t make threats, I make promises.”
Cain jumped out of the truck. He was glad that he had studied the entire layout of the base before arriving. That was something that he did before visiting any new location. He picked up the Director and Dr. Voight ran after him, following him into one of the administrative buildings.