Royal Hues of Blue: Book One

by Greg Gotti

  “Sir,” the man saluted him.

  “Sergeant, how many search squads have yet to report?” Fuentes asked.

  “Only three, sir,” the sergeant answered. “They are all closing in now.”

  Fuentes smiled as he shook his head in frustration.

  “It is the lack of radio communication that gave him time to make distance before we could form our search ring and close up the holes. Having no radios in the darkness meant we had to establish visual with each other before joining ends to form our chain. Wallace obviously got beyond it before we could close it up.”

  “What are your orders, sir?”

  “Leave an entire platoon to guard this hill. I don’t want any stragglers mounting a heroic solo mission to disable our transmitter. Line the rest of the men up in formation and await instructions. We are going to turn over every rock in the Federation until we find Wallace. Dead or alive, we will deliver him to the Board as ordered.”

  The sergeant saluted and hurried off, leaving Fuentes to plan his next move. The plan had been so perfect, and it had gone more smoothly than he could have hoped. He had been a bit nervous about going head-to-head with Wallace, but the Soona had walked into their trap like a hungry rat determined to get the cheese. Wallace had caught him off-guard by wheeling around and going back uphill, but those few minutes shouldn’t have made any difference. He had men searching every inch of ground on this hill, but he was sure Wallace had broken containment rather than finding a hiding place. He was certainly living up to his reputation of being crafty and unpredictable, but it wouldn’t be enough to prevent his capture.

  “Oh, Captain Wallace,” Fuentes said to the morning sunrise, “you are simply delaying the inevitable. You are mine, and I shall have you.”

  Chapter Four

  John opened his eyes to find himself in darkness. He was confused for a few moments, and could hear the sound of voices speaking in a tongue he could not understand. He realized it was the language of the Ristas, and that it was coming from above him somewhere. He could tell that someone seemed very upset about something, and he could hear the voice of a female mixed in with several male voices. It seemed as though the female was arguing with one or more of the males, and John wondered where he was. He felt carefully around him and discovered he was lying inside a shallow wooden box of some kind. The voices seemed to be coming from right on top of him, and he suddenly wondered if he was being buried alive. He felt panic surge through him and wanted to bang on the top of what he assumed to be the lid of his burial box when he suddenly heard the sound of footsteps on a wooden floor. The male voices were getting farther away, and John heard the distinct sound of a door slamming. He lay quietly for a few minutes, wondering what on earth was going on and how long he had been here. The last thing he remembered was falling to the ground and helplessly watching someone approach him as everything went black.

  John was abruptly shaken from his thoughts as he heard a horrible screeching sound somewhere near him. He heard the sound of hinges gently squeaking, and footsteps approaching. He felt relief sweep through him as he realized he had not been buried alive. Suddenly, the wood above him swept upward, and cool air struck his face as he blinked in surprise. He looked up to see the face of a young woman holding a flashlight peering down at him.

  “Me puede entender?” she asked.

  John had no idea what she was saying. He looked at her in confusion, a thousand questions in his eyes, and she nodded her head as though to say “that’s what I thought.” She motioned for him to get out of the box, and John put a hand on the edge of the side to pull himself up. Searing pain shot through him as he cried out and fell back flat. The woman came to him with a concerned look in her eyes. His side felt like a hot knife had been stuck between his ribs. He clenched his teeth in pain as she put an arm beneath him and helped him until he was sitting up. He saw that he was indeed in a small cellar of some kind. There were jars and canisters filling the shelves along the walls, and he could smell the slightly damp, cool air as he realized he was rather cold. The young woman helped him stand and step out of the large wooden chest in which he had been laying. He grimaced from the pain but forced himself to stand up as she supported him as much as she could. She led him down a very narrow hallway and through a door that she closed and locked behind them. They were now in a basement of some kind, and the woman moved a small section of wall into place over the door they’d just come through. John realized he’d been in some sort of hidden cellar. She helped him up some stairs and into a large living room to sit down on an old worn sofa. She sat down next to him and reached over to lift his shirt. John reflexively blocked her with his forearm.

  “Yo no te haré daño,” she said softly as she gently lifted his shirt to examine his side. John had no idea what she was saying. He only knew a few words of the Rista’s language, but something in her voice and in her eyes reassured him that she would not harm him. He looked down to see that the entire left side of his torso was purple. The water had broken his fall, but he had still collided with significant force against something at the bottom of the waterfall. He knew he had been lucky not to have drowned, and he wondered how he had ever managed to climb out of the water and continue fleeing. She gently ran her hand along his ribs and he jerked in pain as she came to an extremely sore spot. Her eyes filled with concern as she pulled her hand away. He was struck by the beauty of her large brown eyes. Her hair was a very dark brown, almost black and it hung to below her shoulders. Her clothes were very plain, just as most people in the region wore, but he could not help but notice her soft features. If someone took her to the city and gave her a makeover, she might even be considered a beauty. She finished examining him and pulled away to sit back cross-legged on the sofa facing him. John wished he could talk to her. He decided to try…

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  She smiled and shook her head side to side. She raised her hands palms slightly upward as if to say “I don’t know what you’re saying.” John smiled and laughed softly. His side was very tender, and he knew better than to allow himself to shake in any way. He wondered how he could communicate with her and found himself wishing he had learned to speak in the Rista tongue when he had been in training. He was a woodland soldier and a very good one, but there wasn’t much call for speaking other languages aside from the translators assigned to each unit. He could remember as a boy, listening to his grandfather speak of a time when all the people of this area had shared the same speech. What was it he had always called it? Colorado? John thought that was it. Many of the old timers had referred to the region by that name. They spoke of other things like a greater nation the Colorado people had belonged to along with many other different tribes of people. That had always seemed like such a magical time of wonder to John as he had listened to the stories of flying machines that could fly all over the world and took people to islands where it never got cold.

  He saw the machines once in a while. They would fly far above the ground leaving streaks of white behind them. His great grandfather had said those were actually ice crystals, but John always had thought that to be some kind of silly story meant to amuse him. How could a machine be powered by ice crystals? Back in school, John had learned all about the plague that had wiped out most of the population of the earth. His grandfather told the story differently though. He insisted there had been a great war where men all over the earth had killed each other with weapons that made people get sick and die horrible deaths. John thought it must be at least partly true due to the fact that so many of the older people told the same story, but there was no mention of this war in the schools. The schools had taught him how the Ristas had blamed the Soona for the diseases and tried to wipe them out.

  John was jolted from his daydreaming when the woman suddenly sprang from the sofa and walked across the room. She went to a small table and pulled two apples from a bowl. She offered one to John as she sat down and took a bite out of hers. John gratefully accepted the apple
and bit into it. The juice was sweet and the apple was very crisp. He realized how hungry he was and soon devoured the entire apple down to the core. He looked up to see her watching him with amusement. He gave her a slightly embarrassed smile and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m sorry, but I am so hungry I could eat a whole cow,” he said with a laugh.

  “Hombre hambriento,” she replied with a laugh.

  John had no idea what she was saying, but he laughed at her remark as she got up and brought him another apple. He thanked her and ate a little slower this time. He had never eaten an apple as delicious as this one. He wondered what kind of apple it was and wished he had a way to ask. He wished he had a way to ask her a lot of questions. They watched each other as they ate and John found something about the woman strangely attractive. He felt a stab of guilt and looked down. Though his wife had passed away nearly two years previous, John had never stopped mourning her. He realized that he had not so much as given a second glance to a woman since she had died. Was that because he hardly ever saw women out here in the disputed territory, or was that because his heart could not consider any woman but Vanessa? He shook the thought from his head as quickly as it had entered. She was one of them; the dirty savages who had killed his son. He hated everything about the Ristas. He didn’t know why this one had saved him, but he was sure it was just a temporary thing. Maybe she was waiting until she could collect a reward for his head. Whatever it was, he knew he needed to get out of here as soon as he could.

  John looked up and realized the woman was staring at him curiously. He lowered his eyes; embarrassed at what she might have seen in his face though there was no way she could have known what had been going through his mind. He raised his eyes slowly to find an amused look on her face, and he gave her a questioning expression. She began to giggle, and John found himself becoming flustered.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  She only laughed harder and brought one hand to her mouth as her laugh grew louder. John was puzzled as to what could possibly be so funny. Her laughter was so intense that he knew there was something he was missing. He brought his hand to his head to scratch it and felt something brush against it. He jumped and felt a stab of pain in his side as he turned to see a butterfly fluttering away from where it had been perched on his head. The young woman was crying from laughing so hard. Realizing what the joke had been, John began to laugh too. The uncertainty between them was relaxed as they laughed together. John felt pain in his ribs, but he didn’t care. His new friend was obviously a Rista, and he hated the Ristas. She had saved his life though, and John knew he had to honor that. He wondered what her name was. He stopped laughing and brought his palm to his chest as he looked into her eyes.

  “John” he said as he patted his chest. She stopped laughing but her smile remained. He did it again. “John” he said as he repeated the patting motion.

  “Maria” she said mimicking his chest patting. “Maria.”

  So your name is Maria, John thought as he nodded his head and allowed his eyes to run over her from head to toe. Somehow her name suited her. John found that he liked it. His ribs ached from laughing, and he brought a hand to his side as his smile faded. Maria frowned and rose from the sofa. She walked out of the room and returned a minute later with a cup of something or other which she offered to him.

  “Bebida” she said as she handed him the cup.

  John looked at her questioningly.

  “Bebida” she repeated, this time with an imploring nod.

  He raised the cup to his mouth wondering if bebida was the name of whatever he was drinking or the Rista word for “drink.” The cup was full of some sort of strong drink, a spirit of some kind which John was not familiar. It burned going down his throat and in his belly. He sipped more of it and soon he felt his pain fading. Maria sat next to him as his eyes began to grow heavy. He was tired and wanted to rest. He wondered if she had drugged the beverage, but he suddenly realized he was not afraid of this woman. She cradled his head against her shoulder and gently took the cup from his hand. John felt sleep overtaking him as she slowly lowered his head to a small pillow. He wanted to stay awake; instead, he felt his mind drift off as he fell into a deep sleep just as the sun was dipping below the tall trees just on the hillside overlooking them.

  Martinez scowled as he watched the jeep winding its way up the dirt road leading to the command center atop the hillside. His junior officer had been ordered to update him on the search for Wallace before sundown, and the sun had just disappeared behind the western mountains. He clinched his fist in frustration and turned away as the jeep made the final turn and stopped off to his right. The young officer jumped out and strode up offering a salute.

  “Good evening, sir,” he offered as he almost cringed in anticipation.

  “Good evening, Fuentes,” he replied with an icy look. “I take it from your arriving at the last possible minute that you have not located Wallace?”

  “We have every available man searching for him, sir. We will find him.” Fuentes’s voice carried a confidence he did not feel.

  “You had the biggest prize available in this entire war standing right in front of you, Fuentes. He was right there, just waiting for you to bag him and be a national hero, and you let him get away.”

  “We have killed or captured his entire unit, sir. He found a cave or a hole somewhere and is waiting for nighttime to move. This is when we will find him. You know how these hills are full of hiding places.”

  Martinez shook his head in disgust.

  “How did he get off the hill in the first place, Fuentes? You lead a Special Forces unit. You are supposed to be the best soldiers we have. How am I supposed to trust you with key assignments in the future if you are the man who let John Wallace get away when you had him boxed in with a thousand men?”

  Fuentes stood staring at Martinez. It was obvious to the colonel that his junior officer was angry, but he held his composure well.

  “Sir, requesting permission to speak freely,” Fuentes said evenly.

  “Yeah, go ahead, Fuentes,” Martinez said nodding his head. He had been on the bad end of a few of these dressing downs in his younger days too. He knew Fuentes was doing well to keep his temper in check.

  “Sir, you speak as though I allowed the Soona to carry out their mission; or as though they made it back to their land safely. We captured or killed their entire unit. Only Wallace seems to be missing, and we will find him. I humbly say this is why he is John Wallace and other soldiers aren’t. We wiped out an entire Elite Forces unit and crippled the Soona’s ability to conduct operations behind our lines for the near future. We may have completely removed such ability. One man temporarily escaped through darkness and under cover of the thick woods. He may be lying dead in a cave somewhere or fallen into one of those old mineshafts. You know how deep those things are. If he is still alive, we will intercept him before he makes it back to his own land, sir.”

  Martinez studied Fuentes in silence. He knew everything he had said was correct, but he felt the younger man was missing the point. He stepped close and placed his hand on Fuentes’s shoulder.

  “You did well in all of that, Captain. Nobody is disputing the good you did. But this is John Wallace; the great Soona hero. He inspires his people. He gives them hope they can win this war. He gives them the will to keep fighting. We both know one of the key objectives of war is to break the enemy’s will to continue the struggle. We need to parade him on the back of a truck past the great clock in our grandest city with all the people cheering. We need to spread photographs of this throughout the Soona Nation. This is how you break an entire race of people; by breaking their heroes. Wallace may very well be at the bottom of some underground cavern, but that does us no good. His legend will only grow. People will start spotting Wallace everywhere. He will become a mythical figure. Every time there is some sort of small attack on one of our facilities, people will say it was Wallace. He will be even more damaging to us in
death than he was in life. This is why we must find him, Fuentes. As long as his men believe their leader lives, they will fight for him.”

  Martinez could tell from the look he got that Fuentes understood him, and he patted his shoulder.

  “Alright, nightfall is coming soon. Have you managed to get any sleep?”

  “No, sir, I have been leading the search personally every step of the way,” Fuentes answered.

  “Okay then, come bring me up to speed on what we are doing in the area around the tower. After that, I want you to get a few hours of sleep. We have the larger search underway now, and I need you fresh for tomorrow.”

  “Sir, I really…” Fuentes began to protest before Martinez cut him off with a wave of his hand.

  “That’s an order, captain. Tomorrow is a big day. Get your rest. Trust me; I know a thing or two about Special Forces work myself.”

  Fuentes grinned and nodded his head, and Martinez managed the smallest of grins for him. They walked into the command center as the first stars began to blink on far above.

  John awoke with a start. It took him a few moments before he remembered where he was. He sat up slowly, favoring his injured ribs as he lowered his feet to the floor and looked around. He could see the sun was out, but now on the other side of the house from where it had been when he had fallen asleep. He had slept through the night and well into the next day judging from the intensity of the bright sunlight streaming through the windows. John looked all around but saw no sign of Maria. He stretched best he could without hurting his injured side, and slowly rose to his feet. His ribs still throbbed with pain, but it was not incapacitating like it had been. He suddenly realized he wasn’t wearing his shirt, and he searched the room for it. Finding it nowhere, John walked through the house searching for Maria. The house was sizeable, but the first floor consisted of one large main room with a hallway leading to a master bedroom at the end of it. There were several doors that John figured to be spare bedrooms and closets, but he did not open any of these. He did not want to call out for Maria; for fear that other Ristas might be just outside and hear him. He went to what he figured to be the master bedroom and knocked on the thick wooden door, but there was no answer. He hesitated, wondering if he should dare to crack open the door but decided against it. Daylight streamed in through a window next to the door, and John turned and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror hanging in the hallway. He walked closer and inspected himself best he could in the dim windowless hallway. His thick red hair was a disheveled mess and he had dried blood caked on his neck. He brushed his hair out of his face and he leaned in close to look at himself. His blue eyes stared back at him like pools of deep water as he examined his appearance. He needed to shave and his hair was a dirty mess, but other than his ribs, he did not seem to have sustained any other major injuries or damage. He turned away from the mirror and walked to the window next to the back door. He spent a few minutes looking around for any sign of people; seeing none, he open the door and ventured outside.