Night jumped back to the right, but his retreat was stopped suddenly as his back met the unyielding stones of the temple wall.
The warrior smiled, revealing teeth that had been sharpened into points. He had been driving Night backward toward the temple, knowing that it was only a matter of time until Night ran out of room.
Night swayed left and then right, trying to judge if he could dive out of the way and back into open ground. The warrior swayed with him, mimicking his every move and closing off any avenues for escape.
Knowing that his time was rapidly running out, Night elected on a gamble. He had seen how the warrior flinched back when he threw the pistol at him, and Night realized that the Mayan wasn’t used to defending against thrown weapons. The Terran switched the grip on the knife in his left hand and threw it in a soft arc toward the warrior, the blade glinting in the sunlight as it spun end over end.
As Night had hoped, the Mayan was momentarily distracted by the flying knife and his eyes inadvertently looked up at it. Realizing it was a trick, he looked back down to see Night already in motion toward him. The warrior jumped back, swinging the weapon in his right hand at Night’s head, but Night already had his momentum going and was inside of most of the blades. He intercepted the weapon with his left arm, and the two lowest blades pierced Night’s upper arm, the sharpened obsidian cutting all the way to the bone. Turning with the blow, Night continued his lunge and drove his other knife in an uppercut through the warrior’s throat and into his brain.
The Mayan warrior’s eyes rolled up into his head and he fell backward, leaving the macuahuitl embedded in Night’s arm.
Across from the Great Pyramid of Cholula, Keppler-22 ‘b’, August 12, 2020
Top considered the multi-colored wave of Mayan warriors and made his decision. “All available soldiers to the south side of the courtyard!” he commed. “Incoming Mayan warriors!” He turned and began firing at the small brown men. “Tiny, finish off the last dino-bear; everyone else concentrate their fire on the Mayans!”
The other two soldiers that were with him, Sergeant Zoromski and Sergeant Yaroslavsky, turned, and the three soldiers began killing the Mayan warriors as fast as their suits’ reticles could settle on their next targets. As the warriors reached about 25 meters, the rear rank stopped and hurled spears with atlatls. The spear-throwing tools were wooden shafts with cups on the end that supported the butt of a spear. By using the length of the atlatl as a lever, it allowed the warriors to throw the spears with more energy, giving the throws higher speeds and a greater impact.
Seeing the spears descending on them, Top fired one more time and then dove to the left. Seeing him move, Sergeant Zoromski dove to the right. Sergeant Yaroslavsky was more focused on shooting as many of the warriors as he could. He methodically shot warrior after warrior as they came screaming at him, and he never saw the three spears that caught him in the chest. Accelerated to nearly 100 miles per hour by the atlatls, the obsidian blades pierced his suit and plunged through his chest. One of the blades went through his heart, and he fell, looking like an oversized pin cushion. Zoromski was luckier; only one of the spears hit him, slicing through his left leg and pinning him to the ground. Struggling to get up in time to meet the charge, Top saw that the rest of the Mayans were nearly on him, when their front ranks dissolved in a string of antimatter grenades. Looking up, he saw the Gordon brothers standing over him with their tridents leveled, walking explosives across the Mayan warriors.
As the remainder of the Mayans closed, the brothers discarded their tridents in favor of their pistols. Both men favored the ‘two-gun salute’ and drew pistols with both hands. Several other soldiers came up behind them and the firepower rapidly became more than the Mayans, unaccustomed to powered weapons, could face. They broke and ran back the way they came.
“Hold your fire!” Night ordered as he jogged up, blood running down his left arm. The officer could see that the warriors no longer posed a threat. “We’re here to kill snakes, not people.” He looked behind him to see that the last of the dino-bears was dead. “Top, let’s get our dead and wounded together and get the hell out of here.”
“Sounds good, sir,” Top replied. As he started to organize the remaining soldiers, the Master Sergeant had to stop and sigh. Now that the danger was past, the Gordon twins were arguing over who had killed the most dino-bears. Some things never change, he thought, shaking his head.
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Three
Shuttle 02, Approaching the TSS Vella Gulf, Keppler-22 ‘b’ Orbit, August 12, 2020
“We’re here,” said Night, gently shaking Calvin. The officer had fallen asleep on the way back to their ship, and Night had let him sleep. Without implants, he couldn’t communicate until they got back, anyway, and Night could see that he was spent. His time had been spent getting his arm treated. The uneven edges of the macuahuitl had shredded his skin; stitching him up had been a challenge for their medic, Sergeant Ben Shabat. He had closed the wounds, but Night would have to spend some time with the medibot once they got back to the ship or he would have a nasty scar for the rest of his life.
“Who did we end up losing?” Calvin asked, coming awake.
“I think you know that we lost Sergeant Yaroslavsky, Petty Officer Martin, Sergeant Tagliabue, Corporal Shokal and Corporal Applebaum. We also lost Corporal Carrasquillo, who got torn apart by one of the dino-bears. We also had quite a few wounded. Sergeant Zoromski took a spear through the leg; he’ll be all right. Leading Seaman Borsheim has a couple of broken ribs, a punctured lung and took a bull horn through his gut. He was in bad shape, but we got him stabilized; he’ll probably be all right. Jet Li has a broken leg but will be fine. Leading Seaman Abdul Wazir was poisoned; his status is still to be determined.”
“What happened to Staff Sergeant Dantone?” asked Calvin. “Did he make it?”
“I don’t know,” replied Night. “He was going into surgery when we left.”
Sick Bay, TSS Vella Gulf, Keppler-22 ‘b’ Orbit, August 12, 2020
Calvin and Night walked into the sick bay. They needed to report to the ship’s commanding officer, but wanted to get an update on Staff Sergeant Dantone before going to see her. As they entered the facility, they were met by both the ship’s medical officer and the ship’s medibot, who had come to an uneasy truce over who actually ‘owned’ the sick bay.
“How is Staff Sergeant Dantone?” Calvin asked the pair.
“Umm..” the medical officer said, looking embarrassed.
“Is he dead?” demanded Night.
“Well...um...not technically...” the medical officer replied.
“What he is trying to say,” answered the medibot, “is that Staff Sergeant Dantone’s body was non-functional when it arrived here. Not only was it damaged beyond repair, parts of it had been subjected to a toxin which broke down the flesh to make it easier for the beast that had attacked him to consume. Had he not triggered all of his nanobots, as well as nearly all of the chemicals in his pharmacopeia, it is unlikely that he would have survived the trip back here.”
The medibot paused. When it saw that the medical officer wasn’t going to say anything, it continued, “With his body non-functional and only a limited amount of time before his brain ceased operating, I did the only thing that I could. I pulled out the Mark XXII shell we had in storage and encased him in it.”
“What the hell does that mean?” asked Night.
Calvin sighed. “It means that Staff Sergeant Dantone is now a cyborg,” he said.
CO’s Conference Room, TSS Vella Gulf, Keppler-22 ‘b’ Orbit, August 14, 2020
“I’ve read your report, and there are several things that I don’t understand,” said Captain Griffin two days later. “In fact, I don’t think that anyone reading the report is going to understand a lot of it, which is why I asked you to come discuss it in person.” The conference room was filled to overflowing with the ship’s officers, the ambassador and her staff, most of the squadron’s
chain of command and nearly all of the platoon members that weren’t in sick bay.
Calvin smiled. “I figured that was why you set up this meeting, which is why I asked all of the platoon members to attend, as well,” he replied. “I think there are many aspects of this mission that are going to defy understanding...and belief... unless you are willing to change the way you think significantly. All of us that went into the pyramid certainly had to reevaluate everything we ever thought we knew.”
“OK,” said Captain Griffin, “I understand most of the early part of the mission, from the landing to the fight with the starfish things. I even understand first contact with the Aquants who, if I read this correctly, look like...mermaids?”
“Yes, ma’am,” answered Calvin. “The ones we saw were mermen, and they have some sort of telepathic bond with at least some of the ocean creatures.”
“We’ll have to get the ambassador fitted out with a better suit so that she can go down and meet with them,” noted the commanding officer. She paused and then sighed. “What I don’t understand is all of this talk about...” she paused and then finally said it, “jinn,” as if talking about them made her as crazy as the team that had gone down to the planet’s surface.
“I have to tell you, Skipper,” replied Calvin, “if I hadn’t been there to see them with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it either. That is why I asked Vice Sergeant Al-Sabani to join us. He is our expert on them.” He nodded to Al-Sabani, who was just out of sick bay. Although the slash marks that extended across his face would eventually go away, he was lucky to still have vision in both of his eyes.
“We know that they exist because the Prophet tells us so,” said Al-Sabani, his voice full of certainty. “They are one of the three sapient creations of God, along with humans and angels. Like people, they have free will, so they can be good or bad.”
“Your religion tells you about these things?” asked Captain Griffin.
Al-Sabani nodded. “I am especially acquainted with jinn, because I have had a qarin since I was five years old. This is a special jinni that is assigned to a person. It is much like the guardian angel that Christendom believes in, but it is really a jinni.”
“Is there a difference?” asked Captain Griffin.
“Oh, yes,” answered Al-Sabani. “Angels obey the will of Allah in all things, but jinn have free will. As such, there are both good and bad qarin.” He smiled. “Mine is a good one.”
“So, if I understand this report,” said Captain Griffin, “there are many different types of jinn, and they can also be either good or bad, although some types are almost always bad.”
“Yes,” said Al-Sabani. “For example, ghuls and hinn jinn are almost always bad. They mainly stay in cemeteries and feast on the dead.”
“And these things really exist?” asked the commanding officer, still not sure she believed.
“Yes!” answered all of the soldiers that had seen and fought them.
“And what about these women that helped you kill the fire-based ones...the efreet?” asked Captain Griffin.
“They did help us,” replied Calvin, “but we don’t think they were really women.”
Captain Griffin’s eyebrows knitted. “If they weren’t women,” she asked, “what were they?”
“After talking with the people that are most familiar with jinn,” Calvin answered, “we think that they were actually sila jinn. These jinn are very talented shape-shifters who can turn into anything they want, but most often appear as human females. They are very rarely seen, but are more tolerant of human society than most other types of jinn. They are also extremely intelligent and generally do not try to harm or trick humans. Sila are, however, very fond of meddling in an attempt to help.” He paused, looking for agreement from Al-Sabani, Leading Seaman Abdul Wazir and Master Chief O’Leary. All three nodded.
“We think, although we can’t prove, that they helped us in order to overthrow the coatls,” Calvin continued. “That would also explain some other things, such as why Master Chief and I allowed unarmed women to follow us through the pyramid. They charmed us.” He paused and then finished, “It also explains how they disappeared right after the fight in the temple room.”
“It is also not that big of a jump from ‘sila’ to ‘Sella,’” added Al-Sabani. “They don’t usually give their real names, because knowing someone’s name gives you power over them.”
“Bravo,” said Sella, clapping her hands as Sella and Trella materialized on top of the conference table, dressed in Middle Eastern silks. They were both sitting in the middle of the table in the lotus position, looking at Calvin. “For an unbeliever, you did very well figuring that out.”
“Thank you,” said Calvin. “When nothing makes sense, the least unlikely possibility is the one to go with. The only thing that made everything work out was that you were also jinn.” He paused and then continued, “Thank you very much for your help, by the way. We could not have done it without you.”
“You are welcome,” said Trella. “You might have been able to vanquish them on your own, although we decided it was unlikely. You only had three weapons that could hurt the efreet and no way to make them stay corporeal. More importantly, we listened to you and knew that, had we not intervened, the suits would have detonated and destroyed much of the planet.” She looked at her ‘sister.’ “We think that we would have survived the explosion, but weren’t sure. Helping you was the only way to save the planet and make sure that we did.”
“We thank you for your assistance,” said the ambassador, who hadn’t understood or believed anything until they materialized. “We would like to open up relations between our civilization and yours.”
“Thank you,” said Sella, “but we believe in privacy more than anything else. We helped you this time, but we are not interested in formal relations between our society and yours.” She looked at Calvin and said, “I did, however, find that touching your mind was...pleasant. If you ever need my help, please come back to the town on the planet below and call my name.” She vanished.
“You’re cute, too,” said Trella to Master Chief O’Leary. She blew him a kiss and also vanished.
Calvin smiled at Captain Griffin. “Any other questions?” he asked.
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Four
Shuttle 02, Keppler-22 ‘b’, August 15, 2020
The shuttle landed on the beach where it had first touched down just a few days before. To Calvin, it seemed like it was a lifetime ago. Failing to enlist the aid of the sila jinn, the ambassador had wanted to establish relations with the Aquants at least, and the only way that Calvin knew to find them again was to land back at the same place they had met previously, as he had told Dolph he would. He wasn’t willing to risk the ambassador’s life with the native starfish, though, so the remaining members of both platoons exited the shuttle, and the ambassador waited safely inside. Although a few of the soldiers watched the tree line for the giant bear creatures, most of the troops faced the water and watched for the hostile sea creatures.
Calvin looked over to where the carcass had rested as bait, but it was gone. The beach was clean, clear and as pristine as any beach he had ever seen. The waves lapped gently, calling for him to go in for a dip. He knew what waited for those that ventured out into the water, however.
It was a hot day, and it wasn’t long before the environmental systems in the suits were straining to keep up. Happily, they didn’t have long to wait.
“I’ve got shark fins in the water,” reported Mr. Jones. “It looks like they’re approaching. 11:00 from straight out and about 1/4 of a mile.”
Calvin looked in the direction Mr. Jones had indicated and saw the fins. There were a lot of them, including several that were enormous. “Yeah,” he said, “that looks like them.”
He called the ambassador, and she walked with the soldiers down to the water. The fins stopped a couple hundred yards offshore, and they were soon greeted by the Aquants, led by Dolph and King Barra. In
troductions were made all around. Before they could move on to anything of substance, Calvin got a call.
“Lieutenant Commander Hobbs!” commed Sergeant Gordhain MacKenzie. “I’ve got beasties incoming! It looks like several of your bear riders approaching down the path.”
“I see them,” said Master Chief, hurrying over to take charge of the defense. “Form up in a firing line,” he said. “If they charge, let them have it. They are tough to bring down, so don’t hold anything back. If you get a shot at the riders on their backs, take them out. The animals are less focused without their riders.”
The warning wasn’t needed, as the riders slowed to a walk at about 200 yards and then stopped 100 yards away from the troops. There were four of the giant creatures. Their riders dismounted, and one of the riders took the reins of the creatures and waited while the other three advanced.
The Nahuatl approached the soldiers, who still had their weapons leveled at them. “At ease,” said Calvin, walking up. “I don’t think they mean to attack us.”
In confirmation of this, the men all stopped and held out their hands to show that they were empty. Calvin was fairly sure that he recognized at least one of the men from the group that Steropes had disarmed in the temple. Once he made that connection, he noticed one of the others had a large bruise on his throat, also courtesy of Steropes.
“Hi,” said Calvin. “Can we help you?”
“You killed our gods,” said the leader. “So you must be gods, yourselves. As you have obviously taken their place, how do you want us to worship you?”
When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony Page 24