by Summer Lane
Hanale grabs her hand and pulls her along, terror etched on his expression.
I race after Manny, followed closely by Haku and the other POWs. They are men and women I do not know, but we’re all in this together now.
Bam, bam, bam!
Return fire.
“THEY’RE HERE!” I yell.
I know instantly the sound of the militia’s weaponry. I follow the sound of the gunfire and we come to a spot in the trees where the Angels of Death are arranged in the trees, hanging in the shadows. I see Father Kareem, and then I see Chris.
I run to him, and he kisses me roughly.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” he breathes. “There’s Ku everywhere. The whole city is up in arms.”
“We have to get out of here before we get pinned in!” I say.
“Working on it.”
I crouch down, and someone throws a rifle into my arms, snapping the chains from my wrists. I smile—back in my element. I look toward the airport, and I am horrified at the sheer number of Ku pouring forth. There are easily a hundred men coming at us—and here we have maybe forty.
“Pull back!” I scream. “We have to get out!”
Father Kareem bellows, “She is right! We’re outnumbered!”
Chris nods, and he gives the command. We pull back and dive into the forest. Somewhere in the madness, I see Uriah flash by and Elle slip into the shadows with Bravo.
“We have vehicles just outside the city!” Chris yells.
“If we can get there in time!” Lani replies. “The whole city will close in around us!”
She is panicked.
There are at least two thousand Ku here in Hilo. We could be surrounded at any moment.
And yet we run—we run like mad through the streets, cutting through the densest part of the overgrown jungle, darting through alleys and avoiding the city center. I follow Chris and Father Kareem because only they know the location of the vehicles.
We climb steadily uphill, and I make the mistake of looking back.
I see Hilo, the city as a whole, and it is swarming with people.
They scurry through the streets like red ants, moving in a wave up the hills. Voices boom over connected intercoms on the buildings—a city-wide call to arms, the Prophet’s commands echoing through the hills.
What have we done?
We run for an eternity. My legs burn so badly that I trip and stumble halfway up the final stretch of hillside. The adrenaline in my veins is the only thing that keeps me on my feet. It gives me the strength to charge ahead, even as fatigue seizes my muscles.
Finally, we burst through one last wall of trees, and a convoy is waiting in a neat line on the asphalt, guarded by Hawaiian militia. The engines in every vehicle are hot and running, ready for a hasty departure.
“Go, go, go!” Chris commands.
We pile into the vehicles as quickly as we can. I climb into the front seat of a Humvee with Chris. Haku barely gets the door closed as Chris floors the accelerator, and we are off.
“They’re not going to stop!” I tell Chris, wiping the sweat from my forehead. “They’ll keep pushing over the island, toward the fort.”
“We’ll be ready for them,” Chris replies. “We finish this once and for all.”
“Thank you!” Haku gasps. “You risked your lives to save us. You shouldn’t have.”
“That’s what we do,” I tell him. “We fight for family.”
He nods, a smile touching his lips.
“I didn’t kill the Prophet,” I say, leaning back into the seat. “I missed my chance.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Chris assures me. “He’ll get what’s coming to him.”
I hope so.
“We have a situation,” Chris continues. “The Athena Fleet is moving east. They’re closing in on the island. Admiral Boyd thinks they’re getting ready to take it.”
“What about Ohana Base?” I ask.
“Good to go. The weapons are off the island.”
“Thank God.”
“We have to evacuate. Get out while we can.”
“What about the people left on this island? We can’t just leave them to suffer at the hands of the Ku!”
Chris doesn’t respond.
“Chris! We can’t!”
“We have to.”
We drive back toward the fort, the thundering approach of the Ku right on our tail.
This isn’t over yet. Not by a longshot.
Chapter Nineteen
The Ku keep coming.
We make it back to the fort with little time to spare. The Ku are lagging behind us, perhaps no more than twenty minutes from reaching the fort.
The fort itself is in chaos. Ku fighters are approaching us from all sides—hundreds of them, armed and crazed with a passionate thirst for revenge. The storm clouds that have darkened the horizon all day have drawn to the edges of the island, and insanely strong winds are bending palm trees backward, blowing trash and debris across the ground.
Three hundred Hawaiian militiamen are fortifying our defenses.
When I climb out of the Humvee, the first thing I notice is the absence of the seamen.
“Where’s the Admiral?” I say.
Chris’s expression darkens.
“Apparently, he evacuated,” he replies.
“He’s leaving us here to die?” I yell. “Is he crazy?”
“He said he would leave without us if it got too dangerous.”
“That coward!”
“He’s protecting the weapons—and the fleet!” Uriah tells me. “He did what he had to do.”
I grip my rifle, angry with the Admiral for abandoning us—yet understanding of his duty to preserve his fleet, no matter the costs. With Omega moving their fleet east, it can only mean—
Harry Lydell appears through the swarm of fighters.
“They’ll destroy the island,” he tells me. “Veronica will burn it, just to kill all of you. She’ll do it to teach us a lesson, and to eradicate whatever you’re hiding here.”
I chew on my lower lip.
He’s right. Veronica will destroy this island.
I can only thank God that the nukes are safely removed from this place. I pray that Admiral Boyd can protect them. All of them.
“We stand and fight,” I say.
Lani replies, “At the airport in Kona there are a few planes that we should be able to use to get out of here, to evacuate. Hanale and his men have been working on them since the EMP. It was our hope to use them to eventually get the people of this island to the mainland …”
“It was your hope,” Hanale interjects.
There is a tinge of bitterness in his voice, and for the first time since before our initial mission to find the nukes, I see his anger toward Lani. Her departure to join our operation—and Haku’s—must have been infuriating to him. And in that instant, I also understand that Hanale loves Lani, but it is a love that she does not return equally.
Such unnecessary pain amidst an already painful world.
Lani says nothing.
“Grab every weapon you can,” I advise, breaking the stalemate. “We’re going to need it.”
***
I have been in many fights, but none like this.
We stand on top of the HQ building at Fort Pohokuloa watching the Ku approach. They come in waves, hundreds upon hundreds of bodies closing in a tight circle around the fort, crawling over the open fields, armed with everything from automatic weapons to scythes.
The afternoon light is beginning to wane. Darkness is coming.
The storm is closing over the island like a black canopy, and the wind whips my hair into wild circles.
“We’re going to die,” Lani whispers. “The Ku are merciless.”
“But largely untrained,” Chris replies firmly. “They’re not all carrying guns.”
The front lines of the approaching Ku forces are braced with lunatics who are practically foaming at the mouth, clutching guns.
“They’ll be pumped up
on drugs,” Lani warns. “Remember, head or heart shots.”
I nod.
Our three hundred-man force left at the fort has spread out throughout the compound. We have barricaded ourselves here in the center of the small hills. Our only advantage is that the enemy has to approach us openly to reach the fort, giving us a chance to shoot them down as they move.
“They’ll eventually get people through,” Hanale says weakly. “They’ll break down the barriers and take the fort. We’re dead, then.”
“Not if we can diminish their numbers enough so that when they get inside the walls, we can pick them off,” Vera volunteers. “Makes sense, right?”
Andrew quickly agrees, pointing out, “It’s our best chance.”
“Don’t hold back,” Uriah says. “Show them no mercy. They’re not going to be showing us any.”
No one disagrees there. The Ku on the frontlines are running for the fort now, and it is perhaps the eeriest sight I have ever beheld in battle. They are eager to shed blood, pumped up on narcotics, and yet they will be the first to die.
We spread out across the roof of the building, and as they draw closer, I count down under my breath. This will be our last stand in Hawaii, and whatever happens here will determine if we live to see the next chapter in this war.
The front line is no more than a hundred yards away from the barriers.
So it begins.
The earth around the fort itself is laced with landmines, and as the initial wave of Ku fighters triggers the bombs, they explode all around us, shaking the ground, sending sprays of dirt and rocks through the air. The Ku scream, yet through the smoke, some of them keep coming. They are bleeding. One man’s arm is missing, but he fanatically pushes on, pouring blood.
Headshot or heart-shot,I repeat.
I aim for his heart, and he slams backward, dead.
Lani wasn’t kidding.
The landmines continue to explode as the Ku advance toward the fort—no doubt this is the Prophet’s strategy, to sacrifice the least effective fighters so that he can get his best fighters through the front door.
We hold them off for a while. For a moment, I even think that we have beaten them back enough to scare them home—there are already nearly one hundred dead Ku on the ground, mostly casualties of landmines and sniper fire. The smoke is akin to black fog, making it almost impossible to see what’s coming next.
Moments pass, and I hold my breath.
The smoke is blown aside by the strong winds coming off the Pacific, and I see the Ku. They are assembled, standing there, knowing that they have carved a pathway through the fields of landmines.
“It’s not over yet,” Chris mutters.
I don’t see the Prophet, but I know he is here, somewhere.
“GIVE THEM EVERYTHING!” I yell.
It’s now or never.
The Ku charge. They run towards the barriers. Some of them crash through with vehicles. One driver screeches a pickup to the front gate of the fort, only to detonate the truck, killing himself. The explosion rips a hole in the fence.
“Hold the fence!” Chris commands.
Below, Hanale is rushing to block the gaping wound in our defenses with Hawaiian militiamen. They gather around the hole and open a steady barrage of gunfire.
If only we had Black Hawks,I think bitterly, angry with Boyd for deserting us. We could end this from the air.
I take shot after shot, my hands and body slick with sweat. I never dare move, taking down as many Ku as I possibly can, loading and reloading, never breaking my focus.
There is another explosion on the far end of camp, and I turn to see what it is.
Another truck, another tear in the fence. The Ku are opening the fort up from all sides.
This is when we get desperate,I realize.
Ku pour in through the east side of the fort, from the north side, and now through the south. They are filling the compound up, flooding over us like a tidal wave.
“Maintain your positions on the roofs!” I say into my earpiece. “Don’t move—keep shooting. Pick off as many heads as you can!”
I roll to my side and shout, “We’ve got to get down there!”
Chris nods, hesitant. Vera, Andrew, Uriah, and Manny stay on the rooftop. Elle is already below with Bravo. Both she and Cheng are boxed into a corner of the camp. I see something I have never seen before in this fight: Cheng expertly twirls two swords, cutting and slicing necks and heads as they approach him. Elle holds her own sword, showing the same incredible finesse and skill as they both hold their own against the Ku thirsting for their blood.
Hanale, Lani, and Haku are gathered with their militia on the south side of the camp, and it has turned into an all-out skirmish. The compound is so densely packed with bodies that there is hardly room to use a gun on the ground. Militiamen and Ku collide, ripping and clawing at each other, killing one another with bare hands and knives.
Here, on the ground, I see no end to the sea of Ku bodies pressing in around the fort. I shoot several Ku point-blank in the forehead. One grabs me from behind and Chris drives a knife through the back of his skull. We fight our way through hordes of Ku. The approaching darkness and the close proximity of the fight is a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare.
I can barely tell which fighters are ours and which ones are the enemy’s.
I twist and turn, taking close shots with my handgun, driving my knife into chests, necks, and foreheads. I am soaked with the blood of my enemies, consumed with mechanical survival instincts: shoot, block, stab, kick, shoot, slice, duck … again, and again, and again until I am so fluid with the flow of the fight that it’s almost as if I can anticipate the moves of the enemies behind my back. I sense them, and I am always faster than they are.
Together, Chris and I are joined by a group of thirty militiamen packed into a protective ring, pushing outward, driving the Ku back. And yet, no matter how long we stay there, cutting the enemy down, there are always more. Their troops are infinite, it seems, in comparison to the small fort and the limited weaponry we have here.
The snipers have not moved from their positions on the rooftops, shooting everyone they can who gets through the gate. Ku continually fall around Chris and me, and I know without a doubt that it is Uriah covering us, keeping us safe.
I don’t allow myself to think about the odds against us or the seemingly endless flow of Ku pouring into the fort. I focus on the Ku directly in front of me, taking it one man at a time, one movement at a time.
Vaguely, I hear Lani screaming through the din of distant gunfire on the edge of camp. I look to find her, but she is lost somewhere in the mass of bodies. When I break my focus, a Ku man takes a swipe at me with a knife. He slices the skin of my arm open. The pain is white-hot, and the blood immediately pours from the wound, warm and runny.
His eyes are glazed red, and his skin is flushed.
I drive my own knife into the skin above his collarbone, but he hardly flinches. I jerk the knife free, stumble backward, and barely swing my gun out to get a shot off. The bullet hits his jaw and shatters through his skull. He falls like a lead weight, gray matter and blood splattering my shirt.
Behind him, there is another Ku fighter, and behind him, there are more and more …
I suddenly feel the strain of fatigue.
We can’t do this forever. This condition is not sustainable.
Somewhere in the midst of the carnage, I see Ling, the pilot who helped get us to safety from the Athena flagship. He is putting up a valiant effort against the Ku, but I watch as he is struck down and then trampled underfoot.
He will never know what it is like to live free. He is gone, just like that.
Again, I feel anger. It feeds the fight inside of me, pushes me to continue.
Don’t give up, don’t give up. We can do this.
I vaguely register that my left arm is growing weaker, and my head is beginning to pulse with pain. I glance down at the arm. I am losing too much blood—but there is nothin
g I can do about it now.
Chris is struck down. He hits the ground, and a Ku fighter crouches on top of him with a gun. Instinctually, I spring to Chris’s side and collide with the Ku fighter, knocking him to the dirt. The shot goes wild, striking another Ku fighter. Chris rolls to his feet and finishes this one off.
“Thanks,” he breathes.
I nod, and we are back at it again.
Along the edges of camp, Hawaiian militiamen—led by Haku—are frantically throwing grenades, eliminating masses of ten Ku fighters or more at a time. The Ku return the move by chucking flaming Molotov cocktails and small bombs over the fences. Vehicles explode, and some of the Ku set fire to the buildings, finally realizing that if they’re going to win, they have to drive the snipers from their nests.
We are being pounded.
Of the three hundred militiamen putting up a valiant fight, we have already lost well over a hundred. Our numbers are dwindling, and the Ku just keep coming.
The ground begins to tremble, and for a moment I am terrified that the Ku are going to charge through the perimeter of the fort with tanks, and that will be the end. It will be over.
But as the rumble increases, I absently recognize the pattern of the roar.
“Black Hawks!” I scream.
Above us, choppers are approaching, like massive wasps against the dark sky.
Admiral Boyd,I realize.
The Black Hawks approach the fort, and they let rain a payload of gunfire that drills into the earth itself, shaking the very foundation of the island. There are four Black Hawks total, and Chris and I dive for cover behind one of the barracks. The din of the powerful gunfire from the aircraft is deafening.
I crouch next to Chris for a moment, and when I look up to meet his gaze, he desperately holds my face in his hands. “I love you!” he shouts.
I nod. Yes, I know.
“I’m going to help Devin!” he yells, gesturing to the barracks building burning at the edge of the fort. Devin is on top of the roof with a few of our men, fighting with the Ku at the bottom. He is trapped.
I make a move to follow him, but I see Lani.
She, too, is cornered, and she is screaming bloody murder at the Ku who are trying to kill her. I make a decision then to help her—to let Chris help Devin, and to take the opportunity to save another life myself.