Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree)

by Marshall S. Thomas

  "Goodbye, Professor," Doggie said. "We'll sure as hell miss you."

  "Let's go, folks," Bird said. "Time to go!" Bird would be coming with us. That was good news. We needed a good driver, for where we were going.

  "Goodbye, hole!" Smiley said as he paused in the doorway to the bus. "We're going to miss you!"

  Δ

  "Disperse, disperse, max disperse. Maintain recon formation. Fire canister darts at any movement," Doggie urged us. We had just been inserted into the smoking moonscape of Eden, under a sinister, overcast night sky. Adrenalin danced through my veins. The rubble of the former town was glowing, flickering, and spitting sparks, and the festivities had hardly begun. We were all in cloaked armor, hopefully invisible to our foes. And they were right ahead of us, thoroughly alerted after our fleet of pilotless strike drones annihilated all targets with a blinding typhoon wave of antimats. All the new Demon living mods had been blown away; we had seen that on our way down, and it looked like all those saucers parked at the starport had been blown away as well, but I wasn't sure about that.

  Bees was getting spookier than ever. As we advanced, she whispered into the tacnet, "Saint Michael the Archangel defend us in this day of battle, be our safeguard against the wiles and wickedness of the devil, may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the other evil demons who prowl through the galaxy seeking the ruins of souls." Doggie was silent. I guess he thought our medic was providing a service by giving us hope in the face of death. But sometimes she really creeped me out.

  "Targets! Hostiles in armor, shielded, uncloaked," Honey alerted me. "As marked. Forty-three targets, sixty-one targets, one hundred and seven targets; correction, two hundred and twenty-three targets, as marked." The D's showed up as little red blips on my tacmap. Up ahead – and more of them every frac.

  I was on left, with Saka and Ice. Doggie was in center, to our right, with Smiley and Bees. Scout was further right, with Nitro. With the Prof's absence and Bird overhead, there were only eight of us, but the makeup of the fire teams made sense – the three leaders, Doggie, Scout and Saka, in separate elements so leadership could continue in event of casualties, Doggie at the center with both our manlink master, Smiley, and our medic, Bees, for rapid reaction when necessary. We were all very well dispersed. I had a general idea of our ops plan. We were surrounding the enemy on all sides, the Legion on east and north and the A's on south and west.

  "General alert. Hostiles in armor emerging from underground installations. Two hundred, ninety-seven at last count. Recommend air strike on exits, note the zeroes."

  We continued moving cautiously forward. I had been delighted that the D's had not shot our Phantom out of the sky on the way in. It presumably meant that their ability to spot our starships did not extend to cloaked Phantoms. We had moved on the target at about treetop level, max speed, and Bird had done a first class job of delivering us. We were accompanied by pretty much the entire 9th Legion – Outvac's End. And all of the Condor Regiment. I could see them on my tacmap, a mighty host. And up on the forested hills on the horizon, little blue specks revealed Assidic units, seizing the high ground and moving down towards the enemy. A little box appeared on my tacmap, just as promised: WELCOME TO EDEN, COURTESY OF THE 4TH IMPERIAL RANGERS. In smaller text it read: Breakfast will be served 0600 hours in the rubble of the starport terminal.

  I felt so damned good about that. We were not alone!

  "All right, boys and girls. Open fire with canister darts and keep moving," Doggie said.

  I brought my E to my shoulder and fired and it sounded like a swarm of seriously disturbed hornets. Honey guided my rounds to the targets. The massive blast of darts vibrated on my armor – the entire regiment was firing and advancing, an invisible, unstoppable tsunami of armor and hypersonic darts, mowing down the enemy like grain before a scythe.

  "General alert. Darts are effective. Repeat, darts are effective. Enemy shielding going down." I could see them now, the D's encased in flickering green force fields – and now the shielding was fluttering, and fading.

  "Xmax, Prophet. Firing auto xmax," Honey said. "You have three enemy shields down, I am firing x at the enemy A-suits." And suddenly the battlefield lit up with x as we all fired, thousands of deadly glowing arcs, lighting up the night, falling into the Demon positions. The D's began to fire as well, horrific flaming showers of plasma, splashing to the ground, then changing to xmax as the D's realized they could not see anybody to target. Suddenly xmax was erupting all around us. Shock waves hit us as invisible drones shot close overhead and the blinding flash of antmat eruptions shook the battlefields. Our drones, taking on the D's!

  "Keep moving, guys, keep moving or they'll target your x tracks!"

  "General alert. Saucers rising from underground bunkers, note the zeros. Recommend retarget all drones on bunkers and airborne saucers." Deadman! A series of glowing saucer craft shot past us close overhead. The battlefield erupted in antimats, a thundering series of awful strikes, all around us, blasting me right off my feet, tossing me into the mud.

  "Prophet, Prophet! I recommend xmax on the three targets I have marked." I tried to respond to Honey's urgent request, but my mind was working very slowly and so was my body.

  "Prophet, I have given you a mag charge. The enemy is advancing. Fire!"

  I crawled forward, my head swimming, and took a position behind a pile of rubble and fired xmax at the targets Honey was highlighting.

  "General alert. Auto xmax is effective, repeat, is effective against unshielded enemy armor; repeat, auto xmax is effective against unshielded enemy armor."

  "General alert, saucers are returning to strike the battlefield. Take cover, take cover."

  "General alert, cloaking so far appears effective, repeat…" The antimats erupted again, ripping reality apart, just like the sky falling right on top of you, crushing you like a worm. I squirmed in the mud, shrinking inside my armor, digging like a berserk mole, trying for just a fraction more cover, antimats antimats antimats, an antimat sky, an antimat earth, antimat life and death. Where the hell was our aircover, where were our drones, where were our fighters?

  I peeked out my faceplate, which was flickering on and off in response to hot blinding light and alternating icy dark. The sky was like hell – a sky of flame, rippling doom from horizon to horizon, night lit up like day, a crimson day covered with thick black oily burning smoke and wild arcs of x and straight hot laser tracks slashing into the dark, and ugly showers of plasma, falling down hissing to touch us gently. Four invisible aircraft shot overhead, leaving a wake in the smoke behind them. Drones! We were using drones initially. Where were our fighters? A whole fleet of glowing saucers flickered silently past us, shooting up into the sky, possibly in pursuit of our drones.

  "Enemy is advancing! Get off your asses, Delta. Advance!" Doggie at least was still functioning. "Advance and don't stop moving! Darts and auto xmax! Count off, one!" I staggered to my feet and fired into what looked like a flickering green wave coming at me. They were firing plasma and x.

  "Two!" Scout was alive! I couldn't see him, but there he was on the tacmap.

  "Three!" Saka! Still with us.

  "Four." Ice, blessed Ice.

  "Five – Smiley's here. I'm going to fire tacstars."

  "Do it!"

  "Six, you there?" Where the hell is Six – wait a mo – Six, that's me!

  "Uh, yeah, Six is here!" I shouted.

  "Seven is here. Wake up, Prophet." Arie, bless him!

  "Nine is here," Bees said.

  Smiley's tacstars lit up the D's. Flash flash flash, little pieces of armor and Demons flying through the air. I was slowly advancing, keeping on the move, firing at individual D's, canister darts at Target 7, force field flickering – down! Switch to xmax, flashes on his A-suit, a bright burst, target down.

  "Good hit, Prophet. Target 8!" Canister darts, buzzing off, flashing over the throbbing green force field, f
ield going down. Xmax, die you bastard, xmax bursting all around me, a titanic blast of hissing plasma blew me off my feet. I landed in a hellish plasma shower and struggled to my feet and broke free of it, Honey shrieked warnings in my ears. I didn't hear them. Ahead of me, hundreds of A-suited D's, green forcefields flickering, were still coming at us. They were under incredible volleys of fire, darts and xmax and tacstars, and every now and then a drone dropped an antimat into their midst, shaking the earth, and Smiley kept firing tacstars like a madman, tearing great holes in their lines. A Fleetcom fighter shot past in the blink of an eye and the entire D line of advance vanished in a giant opstar, erupting like a volcano, blinding me, shaking the earth, and a whole fleet of saucer craft were in pursuit, blazing as entire sheets of tacstars erupted from them and followed in the wake of the fighter.

  "Six, Four. Disperse a bit. You're too close." Ice was always thinking. She was a good tac man. I put some more distance between us.

  "General alert. More saucer craft appearing in normal vac and heading for Galinta. Two hundred twelve new IDAG starcraft identified. Fleetcom moving to intercept. All cruiser fighter fleets now engaging." Damn it! We had enough saucers already!

  Something was spiraling downwards through the burning night, flaming, little pieces breaking away. It was a Fleetcom fighter. No!

  About six evil, multicolored saucer craft shot past us, and the battlefield again erupted in their wake, antimat death for all, without favor or prejudice, death death death for all. I saw some D's cooking in its awful breath, disintegrating before my eyes.

  As the smoke rose from the antimat, the view revealed more and more A-suited Demons, still coming at us, firing plasma and auto x. Some of them had intact shielding and some didn't.

  "All right, Delta, hold your present positions," Doggie said. "Keep firing. Stay low. They are not to get past us, you hear me? Keep in touch and maintain your chain of command. Stay on the net and report any casualties." I knew bad news when I heard it. I kept on firing at the D's and wondered how long we could keep it up.

  "Rich, are you all right?"

  "I'm fine, Arie. Just keep firing!" My heart was pounding. Damn it! We were supposed to have them surrounded. And where was our air cover?

  A saucer appeared, right before me, dancing in the air. It fired antimats and everything lit up and the earth shook again, and it was just like being inside hell. When the air cleared a bit, I got a partial view of eight or nine saucers landing with wide open doors disgorging more Demons in flickering green A-suits.

  Smiley fired tacstars at them. A whole lot of troopers were firing tacstars at them and the scene was soon lost to my view. The hovering saucer was gone. I resumed blasting individual D's. Darts, forcefield down; xmax, Demon down. Next, darts, forcefield down; xmax, Demon down. Again, darts, forcefield down; xmax, Demon down.

  A tremendous blast erupted near the Demon positions. A brilliant sun appeared to be rising from the ground, a swirl of blinding white, dazzling my eyes, slowly rising, just like a star, floating over the Demons, spitting off little flaming globules that drifted to earth like living flecks of sunlight. What the hell?

  Four bizarre ships appeared, almost delta-shaped, reflecting white light, floating eerily over the battlefield. Then they shot bolts of lightning into the Demon position – or that's what it looked like. The bolts blasted the D's with deafening cracks of ultimate violence, and the earth shook. Then the ships took off and a fleet of saucers filled the skies, going after them. But the delta saucers returned and hurled themselves at the D ships. I watched in fascination as the burning night sky turned into a violent tracery of aerial combat. Both the new delta ships and the D saucer ships appeared to be set on autocombat, the ships moving faster than the eye could follow, twisting and turning at impossible speeds, missile and antimissiles filling the sky and occasionally exploding but more often falling to the earth in apparent confusion. The ground combat had almost ceased as the D's watched the show just as we did.

  "Resume firing, Delta! Stop gaping at those ships!" We got back to work. So did the D's. Just as I was targeting another D, a saucer came tumbling out of the sky, trailing smoke. It fell to the battlefield and exploded. I killed a D to celebrate.

  Two more delta ships shot right past us and landed not far off.

  "One, do we target those new ships or not?" Scout asked.

  "That's a twelve, Scout. Don't target them unless they shoot at us."

  A good rule of thumb, I thought. Oh man! A new wave of D's was almost on us! I fired darts darts darts, then xmax xmax xmax. Three of them faltered and fell.

  "Smiley, give us some tacstar support," I requested. He responded but not before the D's had sprayed our position with plasma and xmax. They could not see us but they knew somebody was firing at them from where we were.

  Somebody walked out right in front of me. He was tall and radiated light. He wore a blinding silvery A-suit and carried a strange weapon. He fired his weapon at the Demons. It cracked like lightning and blasted the D's to bits, armor and all. The D's fired back at him, plasma and auto xmax. He just stood there, firing again and again, clearing my field of fire of Demons. CRACK CRACK CRACK! They were torn apart. The few survivors turned and ran. He continued firing, pursuing the fleeing demons.

  "I'm hit," someone whispered. My adrenalin exploded.

  "Prophet, Doggie! Saka and Ice are both off tacmap. Report!" It was Doggie. I turned and ran for where I had last seen them.

  Ice was down, her A-suit twisted and smoking, cloaking off. She had multiple hits in her chestplate and helmet. I tried to see into the faceplate. It was splattered with blood. I triggered it open. Oh no. Ice! She was clearly dead, head shattered, blood gushing out, dead eyes focused on eternity. No! No! Ice, oh no, oh my God. And I had promised Kwan to keep her safe. I had promised! I was stunned.

  "Ice is down," I cried out. "Medic, medic, Ice and Saka are down." I could see Saka now. I ran over to check him. The entire A-suit was chopped up, evidently blasted by a tacstar. His cloaking was also no longer functioning. "Saka, Saka are you all right?" I forced open his faceplate. Dead. Dead for sure. His head had been almost severed by a large chunk of shrapnel that had blasted its way into his helmet. His filmy eyes stared into infinity. "Doggie, Prophet. I report Ice and Saka are both killed in action." I could hardly believe I had said that. I dropped to the dirt, stunned. Saka! They killed Saka! Bees was suddenly there, hovering over Ice.

  "Oh Ice. Oh Ice! Oh my God! God, how could you do this?" She turned her cloaking off, stunned.

  "Saka's dead, too," I said.

  "Oh no. Oh no. She crawled over to Saka on hands and knees, hesitant to believe it. "Oh no. Oh no."

  "Delta, maintain your positions! Scout, you're in charge." There was still a lot of shooting going on but Doggie was suddenly there, accompanied by Blackie, armored up in a dog vest. Doggie turned his cloaking off, and I did the same. It was hard to see what you were doing when the cloaking was active.

  "Is there any hope for either of them, Bees?" Doggie asked.

  "Oh my holy God, please grant Ice and Saka eternal rest and peace and eternal love," Bees said. She was praying, her armored hands held together like a church steeple. "They are your holy soldiers, died in service, please honor and praise them, please grant us victory and vengeance, Lord. Have you deserted us? How could you leave them, Lord? How could you?"

  Off to one side, somebody else was down. What the hell? It was that luminous soldier who had been attacking the D's. I stood up and walked over to look at him. He was sprawled in the mud, his brilliant armor showing several bad hits in the chest area. I went to my knees, exhausted. He was still moving. His right hand was trembling. His left fumbled at his helmet. A visor snapped open. I looked in. He appeared to be…luminous. Bright. Of course, these were the Brights. He looked almost human – an old, tough soldier, resigned to his fate. His right hand closed over a flask that might have been a canteen. He struggled to get it to his lips but he could not do it. He was fadi
ng fast. I reached for his canteen and my hand covered his. I lifted the canteen up to his lips and put my other hand in back of his helmet to hold his head up so he could get at the canteen.

  "My God, Prophet, don't touch him!" Doggie warned. "He's going into Dimension X!" The Bright soldier had the water now. He took several long sips, and I removed my hand from the canteen. It dropped away. I reached for it, but the old soldier ignored it. He opened his hand and reached out for me. His eyes were blinking, but he was looking right at me. His hand was trembling. I took his armored hand. It gently closed over mine. A warm tingling rushed over me – peace and love. He was dying. Holding my hand.

  "Let go of him, Prophet, damn you! Delta, maintain your positions and continue firing!" I could hear the battle dimly, tacstars, antimats, the startling cracks of those Bright lightning bolts. A distant music.

  The Bright was flaring up now, blinding, magnificent. Going somewhere else. I reluctantly released my grasp and fell away from him an instant before he disappeared with a loud bang.

  Bees was prostrate over Ice's body, embracing that shattered A-suit, sobbing and shuddering. I wandered over to Saka's body and knelt by him and looked around at the battle. I would have to tell both Kwan and Lan Hwa that their eternal loves were dead, their bright futures gone. There would be no darling children, no happy family. Only a dead, dark eternity as the clocks wound slowly down. The night sky was burning, the battlefield was burning; it sounded like a million rounds of x were all impacting at once. But the D's were not coming at us anymore.

  "Prophet, take your position and continue firing," Doggie said.

  "My position is right here, Doggie," I said. "I'm guarding my squadies." No, I was not going to move.

  "Rich, are you all right?" Arie asked on private. I did not reply.

  Blackie was sniffing at Ice and Bees. Then he went over to investigate Saka.

  A couple more Bright soldiers appeared. Blinding – magnificent. Maybe they'll shoot me, I thought hopefully. Put me out of my misery. Then I'll be with Ice and Saka – my squadies. Blackie stood there on alert, looking them over. Doggie kept a wary eye on them, but did not appear particularly concerned. "Bees, pull yourself together." He said, huskily. "Call for an evac. We're not leaving our comrades behind."