by Paul A. Rice
He explained that even in its current dimension, the country still suffered from a very bloody past, but they held high hope that its future would be a much different one altogether. The host of their adversary had been working on a highly-secretive project and had been hidden in those isolated hills for some four or more years. The nature of his work – the task of perfecting plasma power and of mastering the fusion of hydrogen cells, a task that involved making machines capable of heating atoms to many times the temperature of those found in the very core of Earth’s little sun – had left him a desolate and lonely man.
George said, ‘That work will see an end to all of the power problems in their dimension, one small lake of water will be enough for decades of power; it will be a development to be shared amongst all parallels, if we can only prevent the Dragon from interfering.’
George looked at them and Ken saw the frustration on his lined face, he saw that the old guy was still struggling with the chain of unfolding events, events that for once didn’t seem to allow him and his kind to be in the driving seat.
George said that the whole thing was odd; he said the man had only recently become involved in the work, and that they were unable to trace any existence of him previously. He was, however, a masterful scientist and also a physicist of extreme skill and talent. George told them that the only thing his research had revealed was the fact that the man had appeared as if from nowhere.
Several of the long-standing members of the research group had resigned in protest at the man’s sudden and unexpected promotion to leadership – who was he, and why had he been put in charge? They were all questions that had gone unanswered. And so, many of the original team had resigned and left the project immediately. Of those who remained, it seemed that three or four had already met their end in some untimely fashion or another.
‘We are now beginning to wonder if the freak accidents these unfortunate people met with, were actually ‘accidents’ after all, but we cannot see the truth at the moment, not yet…’ George said, angrily.
He explained that almost everyone who had been involved with the original research project had either moved on, or had been killed. Either way, their enemy had taken charge of the project. Most of the work had been done in more western countries, but, after the arrival of the mysterious man, more and more of it had been moved to hidden locations, vast underground bunkers having been constructed in one country after another. Eventually, the man had ended his journey of mystery and deceit by choosing to settle in the place where they had only recently found him – a large cave on top of a barren mountain, which lay, literally, in the middle of nowhere.
George paused for a moment whilst he once more shuffled through some papers. Seeming to find what he was looking for, the old man looked up and continued. ‘We have been able to determine that there is a nuclear apparatus within the confines of his cave, or at least something with a similar signature, our brief and intermittent scans have indicated the presence of such a device.’
Seeing the baffled looks on the faces of his audience, he said, ‘The technology his project has been working on is very advanced for their time, the colliding of atoms and the starting of fusion is very much a specialised field, it too may produce such a signature, some of our own early propulsion devices give off exactly the same tell-tale signs, it may well be that this is what we can see, but we doubt it. Why would he be hiding it, why is he the one, why has the Demon taken him? All of these things remain unanswered, and we don’t like it!’ He stopped and pushed his notes away before looking back at the screen.
Then, in a somewhat resigned tone, he said, ‘For the moment I believe we should leave it there, we are in the process of gathering more information, and to put it quite frankly, other more pressing events are unfolding as we speak.’
He said there was no apparent reason as to why Maggie had been taken, perhaps it was merely chance. They couldn’t see if she was in the cave, in fact they couldn’t see where she was at all. However, the one thing they did know for sure was that Maggie was still alive. ‘We can feel her, she is still with us!’ was all George said. He didn’t permit them any further discussions on the subject of Maggie. Instead, he focused them back into the present, a time where it looked as though they would have to stand ready for the Dragon’s latest onslaught.
Then, and on a more positive note, George said that it was possible that the next incursion by their enemy might well be their last. ‘He does not appear to have an infinite amount of men, and from what we have been able to see it seems as though he may well be having some recruiting problems…’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘All of the surrounding villages and towns are now bereft of human life-forms; however, we can establish that there are still a fairly large number of personnel within the cave. Who they are and what they are doing is a mystery to us at present.’ He sat staring at them before saying: ‘And that, I am afraid to say, is as much as we know, it is the limit of our knowledge so far.’
George said he would send them some more of the required equipment and, as soon as he was able to, a further update on the remainder of the situation. In the meantime, he suggested they stand ready, prepare themselves and await further instructions.
Seeing that the conversation was drawing to a close, Ken asked one final question. ‘Is there anything you can do to help us, George? Maybe send the Storm, or something, you know…when they arrive?’ He didn’t really fancy another gunfight, and the thought of losing someone else to the Darkness worried him to the point of desperation – the thought of losing Jane was unthinkable!
George’s answer put paid to any big ideas of Ken being able to sit back and watch the Dragon and his mates getting their arses kicked by someone else for a change. ‘No, I am afraid not,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately for you, and for all of us, the dimension where you exist, your current reality, does not actually exist at all. It is merely a place in-between time, a slice of time slipped between the fabrics of other dimensions. You are, or at least you should have been, totally invisible. This is what concerns us so much, we have no idea how has he found you, it should not have been possible, not unless…’ He paused to sit there, blinking his old eyes. Absolute silence was the only reply his words received.
George told them it had already been an ultra-difficult task. Just to get the communications working again had, in itself, been nearly impossible, the movement of weapons and equipment a near miracle. He said, ‘Now was not supposed to be the time, we were not expecting this chain of events! You were all supposed to be where you are for quite some time yet – for several more years, in fact. This has been hard for all of us, but I know that you can do this, we know that you can, you have to!’ He sat there in silence whilst his Hunters looked up at him.
The atmosphere became heavy once more; unsaid words and an even more uncertain future causing the darkness of despair to open a bleary eye. Ken didn’t intend to let it awaken fully. He said, confidently: ‘Right, well that’s fair enough then! No problem, George, no problem at all!’ He rose to his feet and looked at the others. ‘Okay, people, you heard the man – we’re done, let’s get back to the defences, shall we? George, do you need another ‘wish-list’ from me, or what?’
The old man smiled at Ken, said he didn’t need a list, and that Ken would have some additional items within the day. With a final wave, and a sincere: ‘Take care, all of you…please, take care!’ George’s image flickered once and then melted away with the screen.
They remained seated for a while, each of them sitting in silent reflection, soundless thoughts tumbling around their own heads. No-one dared share those particular thoughts. Some were of fear, and some were of rage – most were of the Darkness.
George was as good as his word. At twenty-past three the very same afternoon, his promised re-supply arrived. Michael, who had been up in the Eagle’s Nest at the time, became aware of a bright green glow, more of a flash, actually, illuminating the area below his perch in the roof of the barn.
Ken heard him calling.
‘There’s a green light in the barn! Stand to, stand to!’
Ken heard the alarm in Michaels’s voice, felt it in his own head, and turned toward the building at a run, shouting as he did so. ‘Stand to, everybody stand to!’ He sprinted toward the barn, rifle in both hands, eyes flashing from the rooftop to the hedges and then back to the barn. ‘Where were they?’ The thoughts rushed through his head as rapidly as his eyes scanned the ground around the farmyard. He needn’t have worried.
Michael appeared in the doorway with his rifle still slung over his shoulder. He was carrying a small, grey box in his hands. Looking over to where Ken was racing across the courtyard, weapon at the ready, the boy said, ‘This thing has just appeared on the floor of the barn – what is it, the weapons?’ He laughed as he saw Ken’s furious charge toward him, slow into a gentle jog. ‘Sorry Ken, it made a weird flash is all,’ the boy said. ‘I thought it was them coming back, you know…Moving?’
Ken laughed, and replied with, ‘Don’t worry Mikey, well done for raising the alarm, mate!’ He grinned at the boy and then turned around and shouted towards the house. ‘Stand down, guys! Stand down…it’s only some stuff from George!’
Turning back to Mike, he said, ‘Let’s have a gander shall we, Mikey?’
He took the container from Michael and together they walked back into the cool, dark interior of the barn. They were soon joined by the others and in a short space of time, after zapping the box, Ken was busily demonstrating how the new grenades and mines, which had been contained within the box, worked. George had also included some more ammunition and three new weapons. The addition of a belt-fed machinegun, a sniper rifle, and, best of all, a fat-barrelled grenade launcher, to their armoury was indeed a welcome one.
As it turned out, it would also be a decisive addition.
Ken had no idea how George had managed it – he knew from previous discussions that simply procuring the weapons was in itself a sizeable hurdle. Firstly, George had to find someone who happened to be in a dimension where such items were available, then the person had to know what he, or she, would be looking for – then they would have to buy them. Finally, the most difficult task, as it now seemed, was that George had to find a way in which to squeeze the items into that ‘tiny slice of time’ where Ken and the others now lived, in a time that apparently was not quite-so-well hidden as they had hoped. It must have been a hellish task, but here they were – a neat row of shiny new ‘toys’.
Ken didn’t waste any time whatsoever in showing the Hunters in how to play with them. For the rest of the afternoon he gave weapon-handling lessons and showed them how to put the new additions to best use. Everyone felt the hard recoil from the sniper rifle, and the teeth-loosening judder of the big machinegun – most of them holding its heavy trigger for too long, their error sending long arcs of tracer rounds heading into the air.
Ken laughed, saying: ‘That’ll be great if they’re bloody airborne, won’t it? But, in the meantime, just count to three and then release the trigger: ‘one - two - three’, and release. Keep your eyes open whilst you’re firing. Jane, watch where the rounds are landing, that’s it, that’s it – look at that!’ He pointed towards the patch of ground she was firing at and they all watched the vicious fountains of earth bursting into the air as her well-aimed shots sprayed across the target. Ken grinned, and said, ‘Nobody is gonna get through there if you can shoot like that – well done!’
He showed them how the gun’s ammunition was joined together by cleverly-designed metal links. They all had a go at firing the gun and also at re-linking some of the loose ammunition. Ken turned it into a competition, as usual, and they had soon added to the already considerable supply of belted ammunition.
Then they all fired one round each from the grenade launcher, the ammunition for the weapon came in the form of some deadly-looking, egg-shaped rounds, which were gold in colour. Ken showed them how the weird sight flipped up, and how to gauge the distance to their prospective target.
‘Just get the round to land near the target, within ten or twenty yards if you can, that’ll be enough to mess ‘em up a bit!’ he said, and then demonstrated by aiming at the rock that lay about two hundred and fifty yards away.
They all covered their ears, because, judging by the size of the weapon’s large barrel, the noise was set to be extremely loud. Once again, when it came to these things, they were wrong. The hollow ‘Bdoop’ noise the weapon made was, in comparison to the head-splitting racket of the machinegun, a mere whisper.
Ken was either lucky with his first shot…incredibly the grenade landed absolutely smack bang on top of the small grey rock…or once again he had shown them his absolute mastery of all such things. When they saw the small orange flash followed by the cloud of black smoke and grey dust, then heard the ‘whummpp’ noise of the explosion, they knew which one of the two they would be betting on.
‘Holy cow…did you guys just see that?’ Red said, looking at Ken in amazement. The rest of them cheered loudly.
Ken was so proud that he repeated the procedure; this time the round missed the shattered rock, but only by about six feet. It was an impressive display and they all agreed that it should be he, Ken, who must carry the launcher, or ‘Blooper’, as he affectionately called it. He laughed at their praise and then said something about ‘small things amusing small minds’. Jane gave him a slap across the shoulders whilst the rest of the gang then reversed their praise and began abusing him for being a show-off.
Finally, after some discussion on the various pros-and-cons of their new weapons, they decided to situate the sniper rifle in the Eagle’s Nest, placing a second person up there, armed with the machinegun. The position overlooked almost the whole farm, except for some dead ground, that’s what Ken had taught them to call any piece of land they couldn’t see into: ‘dead ground.’
There was a long run of it that only someone on top of the water tank would be able to see into, and was the primary reason why the sentry position had been sited on the tank in the first place – the blind gulley ran almost to the side of the farm. Ken had laid barbed wire down there in the hope it would force the attackers onto some more visible terrain.
Now, with the addition of some mines and grenades, he didn’t care so much. He spent hours in laying an intricate pattern of grenades and mines down in the area. Ken assured the others that should anyone decide to approach from that way, well… it would be the last decision they made for a while, a long, long while. He had grinned when he told them about the trap – the evil glint in his eye once again reminding them of just who it was that lay beneath the humorous coating of the everyday man, whom they had come to admire so much.
Those eyes had twinkled when, after returning from his task, he’d looked at the other men and said, ‘Don’t any of you guys be sneaking off down that little gulley for a sly piss, will you? I’ve seen you, Mikey!’ The young man blushed.
Ken became more serious. ‘Be careful, everyone must keep away from that area, and don’t let those bleeding dogs go anywhere near it, either, Jack will go nuts if one of them gets blown to pieces!’ He looked down at the large dogs who sat patiently at his feet; they had taken to following him around like shadows.
Rufus looked up at the sound of Ken’s last remark, sneezed, shook his head so violently that his baggy ears made loud clapping noises, and then gave Ken a look as if to say: ‘Excuse me…but do we appear to be stupid?’
The boys saw the exchange and burst into laughter.
Ken laughed, too, but when they had finished he reiterated his warning about the mines in the gulley, saying: ‘Watch out!’ He didn’t care about the other mines, which he’d lain amongst the various obstacles and gaps in the wire, as none of them were on trip fuses. No, those would only detonate upon his command. Using the little battery pack, which he had clipped to his belt, Ken would be able to get those mines to explode whenever he wanted. All he had to do was hook it up to the cables he’d
laid, and it would be ‘bye-bye’ to whoever was standing anywhere near the mines.
Ken also spent a fair amount of time in zeroing the sniper rifle.
It was a toss-up between Junior and Michael as to who was the best shot. ‘Well…’ he said, ‘…let’s not get into a pissing match, one of you uses the rifle whilst the other one spots and then uses the machinegun when the bad guys bunch up, okay, how about that?’ The boys agreed and Ken smiled when he saw their fierce competitiveness, it was probably the most necessary thing right about now – the will to win.
He then showed them how to make the most of their weapons from the lofty shooting platform. ‘You guys can probably stop those fuckers in their tracks from this position alone,’ he said, with a wicked grin. ‘There’s only that dead ground by the water tank, but you should be able to get them before they manage to reach it.’ He pointed over in the other direction, to the left, saying: ‘We need to watch that place, too! See where the hedge thickens…’ The boys nodded.
Ken said, ‘Well, if it was me then I’d be looking at outflanking this position by using that direction, cause a distraction over here…’ he pointed back to the right, ‘…and then, when you’re not looking I’d get some guys around the back by using that hedge-line.’
The boys looked at him, then at each other, and then back to Ken. Junior grinned, saying: ‘Yeah, yeah…we get that – you’re a sneaky fucker, aren’t you, Ken?’ He laughed gently. ‘We’ll be watching, watching three-sixty with eyes up our arses! Just let ‘em try and come that way, we’ll smash ‘em!’
‘Let’s just hope you’re right, big guy!’ Ken whispered.
The three of them lay in the roof of the barn for a while and laughed amongst themselves. Eventually, Ken then brought them back to the serious business. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We have two of our main weapons up here, so I want you to get some more sandbags and do plenty of work on the defences. I don’t need you guys getting whacked in the first two minutes, get some thick layers all around your firing positions, and make sure you do a good job of it, too!’