Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree)

by Marshall S. Thomas

  "For God and Saint Michael," Bees said calmly, over the net. "Grant us victory over Satan! May God's will be done. Amen." And that's all she said, but it said it all. Victory! Not a word about Delta. Yeah – maybe she was right. Victory was important. We were just a small part of this, weren't we? Maybe nobody from Delta would survive, just as I feared, but if so, we'd go out together. And we'd go down fighting. I wore her cross around my neck. They had taken Bees' silvery Bright armor away from her, the armor the B's had given her on Vezhedak. And now she was just like us – black Legion armor, a large Legion cross and the Bright white hand lasered onto her chestplate, for all to see. We were each equipped with a Bright-friendly combat pulse ID as well.

  "Stand by, Delta!" Doggie's voice echoed on the tacnet. "Safeties off! No more chit-chat! The B's are getting set!" A burst of icy adrenalin shot through my system. The depth indicator was still spinning down, 1347, 1354, 1366, 1382, 1404, 1422 – a giant crash shook the entire ship. Dead, we're dead!

  "Release restraints!" Doggie shouted. The B's were charging past us, everything was suddenly a hot red, and the assault door had snapped open, never to close again. I caught a glimpse of Breakblade, recognizing him from the ragged scarf flapping from around his neck. It was a scarf that his grandfather had worn into battle with Satan. Breakblade was the first man out the door, followed by a horde of Bright white knights in silver armor. I snapped my restraints loose, leaped up and joined the rest of the squad as we pressed forward towards the door.

  "All right, Delta," Doggie said. "Activate cloaking. Let's kill some Darks."

  Δ

  Our first glimpse of Zero Alpha Eleven, as we stumbled out the assault door, was encouraging, if confusing. Our eyemotes had thoroughly mapped the entire target area, but what we saw resembled nothing on the tacmaps, which were changing quickly as our tacmods readjusted the maps to match reality. Eleven was a glowing lake of hissing plasma with huge smoking islands of unidentifiable skeletal white-hot debris scattered everywhere. It would have been pitch black this far underground with the power all out except for the plasma, flames and spotlights from individual Bright troopers who dared to display them. Overhead, huge sections of cavern roof had fallen down into the molten lake. Everything visible was either scorched black or glowing white hot or burning brightly. Oily black smoke and clouds of evil ash swirled around us in a hot breeze. Up ahead, a huge plasma driller assault carrier was buried nose-deep into the lake like a colossal dart as Bright troopers charged out open assault doors. It was so hot everything was hazy and indistinct. Honey did what she could to sharpen up the images. A blinding flash suddenly lit us all up.

  "Smiley, test fire," Doggie ordered. Blackie was darting around him in a state of wild excitement. His latest doggie armor protected his feet and legs and fur from random bursts of plasma, but it was surely not made for wading through lakes of plasma.

  Smiley fired the chainlink, and the brief screeching burst illuminated the battlefield as a series of tacstars burst and rippled upwards off in the direction of our advance. All right! Now that was firepower!

  "Delta, Breakblade. Follow me." The unemotional metallic voice was the auto-interpretation of Breakblade's telepathed commands. Sure, we'd follow him. He was going to lead us right to Satan. Doggie had taken Blackie in his arms.

  "Delta, advance," Doggie said. We advanced.

  Δ

  "Down! Down!" We dropped, to Doggie's urgent command. A series of blinding flashes followed, my visor blacked out to protect my vision, and a crackling, spitting roar shot through our positions. I was flat on my chestplate, frozen amidst a series of metal rods that were still glowing white-hot. We had outrun the molten lake but there were more challenges ahead, some of them coming right at us.

  "Overhead is collapsing, see the tacmap." It was the Bright tacnet, the telepathed transmissions interpreted into speech by our glacially calm tacmod. I looked up in terror, then checked the tacmap. An awful grinding shuddered through the cavern, vibrating on my armor.

  "Oh shit, it's coming down!" It was Arie. He didn't sound too pleased. An ear-shattering boom sounded – like a giant asteroid hitting a planet. Off to the southeast, a gigantic slice of the solid stone overhead was sliding down, faster and faster. If it dropped on us we'd all be squashed like bugs. Surely it would pull the rest of the cavern roof down on us as well. Oh damn! Deadman, get us out of this one!

  It hit; all creation bounced and jerked like a titanic earthquake, and a solid blast of rock dust, dirt, and flying wreckage shot past us. Little rock fragments pinged off my armor. I lay there, waiting for death.

  Glory, advance. White knights, report your martyrs. May God's will be done. It was Breakblade – they had evidently had some losses. May God's will be done! That was the same thing Bees was always saying.

  "Delta, advance," Doggie ordered. One two three enemy probes snapped past us, searching for targets. They sounded like frying bacon. Dark Probe Type B, Honey labeled them. I fired xmax at the damned things. Impossible to see if I hit anything, they were too fast.

  "Keep moving if you fire at anything," Doggie said. That I knew. Several tacstars erupted behind us – maybe the probes.

  "General alert," our tacmod announced. "Conclusion: Cloaking is repeat is effective against Dark Probe Tacstar Type B." That announcement would go to all our troops and allies engaged in the campaign. Evidently the fact that the probes passed us by had assisted the Legion in coming to that conclusion. All right, at least we accomplished something even if we were shortly to be written out of history.

  Zero Alpha Eleven was now considerably smaller than it had been – a giant portion of the target area was now just a massive pile of rocks, cast into darkness and shrouded in thick gritty rock dust.

  "Enemy activity ahead, ALERT! Missile barrage, seek shelter now!" Honey shouted it in my ears and I hit the deck.

  Tacstar barrage, Glory, shelter and return fire when you can, Breakblade ordered.

  The world erupted in a blinding, searing nuclear hell that hit us again, again, again, again, tacstar missiles falling right into our positions. Was this how we were to die? Frying in a nuclear hellhole? Suddenly the Brights were returning fire, blasting away with their Battlestorm lightning rods. The earth shook as some kind of counterfire missiles shot over us, headed for the Darks. The lightning bolts ripped open the dark.

  Glory, forward! Oh man! I got up and staggered forward. I couldn't see a thing. Honey did her best to clear up the view but it was a real mess.

  Behold Satan's minions. We were cautiously advancing through a nightmare landscape that looked like something from a children's horror story. Skeletal structures were poking through the ash clouds and I couldn't tell what they had been before being blasted to oblivion. But one thing we could see – A-suited bodies, the armor blasted to mush, still glowing red. Darks. Dead Darks. They had evidently been caught in our initial missile assault on ZA Eleven. They were suited up so they must have been prepped for an attack but it did them no good. Dead in a microfrac, Dark or not. All their power, all their determination, did them no good. Dead soldiers. Damn it! I hated seeing that.

  We came under fire, lightning bolt hits cracking around us violently.

  Glory, attack! Breakblade ordered.

  "Delta, remember they can see us," Doggie said. "Smiley, let loose, all you have, auto tacstar. The rest of you, auto xmax. Disperse, advance, hose 'em down!" I could barely see the Darks on the tacmap. All of Glory fired, lightning bolts. All of Delta fired too, tacstars and xmax. And Satan's troops were firing as well, an awful pounding as those terrifying, deafening lightning bolts burst in our midst. How could we survive? I was stone cold terrified, a twitching robot moving on adrenalin, firing autoxmax. The tacmap images of the enemy were dancing wildly. Shoot at us, will you, you bastards! Die, you unholy vermin! Don’t you dare fire on Delta, these are my comrades, and now I'm coming to kill you and I'm not going to stop! Run, you bastards! Here, here, I'm right here! Can't you see me? My finger was lock
ed on the trigger of my E and I was firing nonstop. I couldn’t see a thing, Honey was talking to me but I couldn't hear her, I was so charged up. I knew I was moving towards the enemy but couldn't see them. Then the ash cloud parted briefly and someone stood before me, within arm's reach. Dark, I thought. For just an instant I could see right into his eyes behind that green faceplate as a lightning flash lit him up, and he was looking right at me – surprised. He was young. He looked like a midschooler. I fired auto x into his faceplate. The x erupted and blew his head clean off, spraying me with bloody debris. I just stood there over his body, stunned.

  Keep firing, Glory, pursue the enemy.

  "Good work, Prophet," Doggie said. "Delta, advance, the enemy is retreating. Keep firing, Smiley." There were dead Darks all around me, a tangle of awful corpses. Some of them were still bleeding, smoking A-suits glowing white. One of them moved, stretching out an armored arm as if appealing for help. I shot him in the head and moved on, my heart pounding. I had not felt anything in particular when shooting him in the head, I slowly realized. I had observed myself doing it, like a disinterested onlooker.

  I slipped in the blood and went hip-deep into an awful tangle of torn-up Dark armor, shielding only the dead. I struggled out.

  I want to wade hip-deep in dead Darks. Good Lord, Deadman, that was my prayer! My heart was frozen, my blood was ice. I was getting exactly what I had asked for. I looked over my armor. It was dripping blood.

  I want to bathe in blood. Done! Done, done, done, you damned fool! Your death comes next!

  But Delta will survive. That was the deal. Fine. All right. I'm dead. Let's get on with it!

  "Prophet, move it! What the hell are you doing?" Doggie asked.

  "Yeah, let's go, Doggie. I'm on point. Can I be on point?" An icy certainty rushed over me. I was going to die for Delta. And that was good.

  "I'm on point," Doggie replied. "Get back with your fire team."

  Δ

  Darks are breaking cover and advancing. Glory, attack! The Bright knights arose as one and charged past us, firing those Battlestorms, a deafening barrage. Bright missiles shot past us and impacted in the Dark ranks, a blinding, horrifying line of antimat annihilation, cracking the world right in two. Dark missiles ripped into our position, shaking the earth, tacstar nukes, filling the caverns with brilliant mushroom clouds, twisting and boiling, lightning blasting away all around them.

  "Delta, advance! Smiley, let 'em loose and don’t stop for an instant!" Smiley fired, and the chainlink tacstars burst among the Darks like the finger of an avenging god, shrieking, ripping, rumbling, bursting. I could only stumble forward, firing auto-x, trusting to Honey to find me the targets and bring them down. We were deployed in our tried and true recon-attack formation, Saka, Ice and me on left, Doggie with Smiley and Bees in center for maximum firepower and quick medical help, and Scout, Prof and Nitro on the right. We were all very well dispersed.

  "Warning, Delta! Dimension Two is activating! D spirits are approaching your position! Stand by to fire autovac!" Damn it! We sure didn’t need this!

  "Ignore those creeps, Delta," Doggie said. "It’s true, Blackie is going crazy, but just ignore them. Insult them. They can’t hurt us!"

  Need assistance on left flank, strong Dark units dug in. We're in a tempo thermodet minefield and pinned down. It was the Brights. And we were on the left – Saka, Ice and I. My heart froze. On Galinta, it had been exactly like this. I had been with Saka and Ice then too, on the left. And Saka and Ice had both been killed by the Demons. Oh no. No! No, god damn you to hell. NO!

  I leaped to my feet and charged forward towards the Darks. Of course it was pitch black in the cavern but there was so much glowing ordnance flying around I had no trouble seeing what was ahead of me, even without Honey's wonderful help. And suddenly it was like I was watching myself, from overhead. That had never happened to me before, but there it was – I was overhead watching myself but I was also in my body, raising my E to my shoulder. It was astounding. From far overhead I could see everything – the white knights, looked like a whole squad of them, sprawled on their bellies in the dark, firing lightning bolts but keeping low, not daring to move – thermodet mines! I could see the Darks too, well emplaced, firing carefully at the enemy from the glowing wreckage of a nuked building.

  Terrified, I watched myself run right through the minefield, right past the Brights, firing auto x at the enemy. I vaulted into the destroyed building through a giant break in the wall and I was suddenly back inside my body. I started walking slowly and systematically through the Dark positions, firing canister darts and auto X, taking my time so the rounds would penetrate their shielding and armor. One by one – the first one down, head shot, his companion looking up in surprise as my auto-x ripped into his helmet and he want down immediately. Could they see me or not? I was cloaked but we had been told the Darks could see right through our cloaking. The third Dark, not even aware of my approach it was so noisy and chaotic, I tried darts darts darts then xmax xmax xmax, then laser laser laser, slicing into his armor, a bloody eruption, moving on to number four, prone and comfy behind his Battlestorm clone. I blasted the weapon, then blasted him. Their shielding didn't appear to be quite as good as we had been told. I moved on. The next Dark was scrambling to his feet, fully alert, looking right at me, raising his weapon. I blasted the weapon – yes! Then went to work on his armor. Another one down, shrieking. Lightning bolts were blasting all around me now, flashing and cracking, bringing down portions of the building. Something fell on me and I was driven down into the dark, fading away quickly.

  Cease fire! That's a friendly unit. The enemy is retreating. Pale Horse, back out of that minefield. Red Dragon, take that objective. Watch out for that allied unit. That's the last thing I was aware of, Breakblade's rapid-fire telepath orders.

  Δ

  "Get away from me, you repulsive freak! I'm not afraid of you! You make me sick!"

  "Run, coward! You were a disgusting, ugly failed human and now you're a disgusting, ugly failed spirit! Crawl away on your belly back to Satan!"

  I was swirling through the dark, an ultimate dark split by a million burning streaks, falling slowly down towards us. What the hell? I was spinning around in circles. I was vaguely aware of figures around me, lit up occasionally by icy flashes. Black shadows, strong hands on my arms and legs.

  "Prophet! Prophet! Respond, damn you!" Somebody was firing vac, autovac. We were staggering through the dark.

  "How you like that, worm?"

  "Get 'em, get 'em! More! More!"

  A titanic boom shook the earth and suddenly a great shower of glittering plasma settled down slowly over us all, hissing and popping and crackling. I fell backwards into the dark and somebody fell over me. I lay there as the plasma rushed over me. I was suddenly conscious – plasma! Had to get up, move! But one of my comrades was right on top of me – protecting me from the plasma! I was unconscious, so I had to be protected from the plasma. Whoever it was, was dying for me. No!

  "I'm conscious!" I shouted. "Get off me! We've got to move, now!"

  "Prophet! I thought you were dead!" It was Ice. Oh my God. Ice! Dying for the dead.

  "Get up! Get up!" I insisted. The plasma was fading now, swirling all around us but losing strength. Ice and I struggled to our feet. Our armor was smoking. The Bright shielding had done its job.

  "That plasma was from the MS!" Scout said in my ears. "The Darks set it up so the MS can set off plasma on us. Stay alert! They may be tossing more of that our way!"

  "More spirits!" Smiley said, letting loose another burst of vac into the dark.

  "Ice," I said. "Thanks. What happened to me?"

  "A building fell on you. Don't do that again, all right? Are you crazy?"

  Lightning bolts cracked and flashed up ahead, leaving searing tracks on my faceplate.

  "Continue the advance, Saka; is Prophet all right?" Doggie asked.

  "He's fine! Prophet, disperse and advance – now!"

  "Mo
re spirits!" Arie said.

  "Well, shoot 'em," Doggie replied.

  I want this sector secured. Kill any survivors. Blood Moon, secure. Ice River, press the advance. Chase them right out of the sector. It was Breakblade.

  Blood appeal, blood appeal! Morning Star, this is Seven Seals. We are being over-run. Sector Zero Alpha Fourteen. Strong Dark forces, heavy antimat missile barrages, we've lost half our strength already, may God's will be done. Request reinforcements now, whatever you can do!

  Glory, Morning Star. Teleport your entire task force to reinforce Seven Seals, now. Confirm.

  Morning Star, confirm all of Glory is to teleport to Seven Seals to reinforce now. Glory, Glory, you heard the orders. Teleport – now! Sector Fourteen! Form up when you get there! Breakblade didn't hesitate.

  I fell prone into a pile of smoking wreckage and listened to Task Force Glory teleporting away, a series of dull bangs as each Bright soldier wrenched himself out of this location and thundered into another location. I had been told teleporting was a powerful and difficult operation even for the Brights. Now what was going to happen to us, I wondered. We sure as hell couldn't teleport anywhere. Now we were alone, 1422 mikes under the earth and facing the entire, enraged Dark nation. The dark cavern was full of glowing probes and enemy lightning flashes and brilliant little red xmax rounds, falling softly into the dark. It was really beautiful.

  "Keep firing, Delta," Doggie ordered. "Don't let them know the B's are gone. Prof, what you want to do?"

  "Stand by, stand by, look at that tacmap," Prof replied. I was dispersed on the left flank, Ice off to one side, Saka to the other. The tacmap appeared on my faceplate. I snapped off a few bursts of xmax. Fire from the Darks seemed to be sporadic. "We’re almost at Sector Nine," Prof continued. "That was our first objective; it will cut off advance Dark units if we can secure it. It hasn't been penetrated yet, except for random antimat strikes. This was Breakblade's objective. An important objective. But he can’t do that now."