Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree)

by Marshall S. Thomas

  "Alert, Delta! Targets, Darks, left flank, see the zeros, two three targets." Dolly pinged on the targets, lighting them up in red. That's all I could see – Dolly's dots. Three of them. I let off a burst of lightning.

  "Saka, Prophet, damn it, they're turning our flank and moving to attack from our rear. Damn it! I'm going after them!" I said.

  "Stop it, Prophet! No! Maintain your position!" Saka ordered.

  "Prophet, NO!" Ice shrieked. "Oh my God, NO NO, get back here!"

  "Prophet, no, no, what are you doing?" Bees called out. "Get down, get down!"

  "Prophet, get down at once!" the Prof ordered. "You'll be hit! Drop now!"

  "He's going on. He's going on!" Arie shouted. "Shit! I'm going after him!"

  "NO NO NO!" Ice screamed. "Stop, Nitro, stop!"

  "Nitro is going after Prophet," Smiley said calmly.

  "Nitro, get down and return to your position immediately!" Saka ordered.

  "Nitro, get back here, that's an order!" the Prof said.

  "Nitro is going after Prophet," Saka confirmed hopelessly. "What the hell? Blackie, get back here! Blackie just went after Nitro and Prophet!"

  The left flank suddenly erupted in lightning strikes, auto lightning, flashing and crackling and ripping.

  "Prophet is down," Bees said.

  "Oh no. Oh no," Ice said.

  "Nitro is firing, advancing," Smiley said.

  "Nitro is down!" Ice said. "Oh no, Deadman, he's down! NO NO NO!"

  "Prophet is up – advancing," Saka said. "All right, Delta – attack towards those Darks, now!"

  Delta charged forward blindly, wreathed in lightning strikes, deadly laser tracks snapping past them, their armor absorbing xmax hits and random shrapnel from erupting tacstars. They fired auto lightning as they advanced.

  "Prophet is down again – damn it!" Ice said. She opened up with her lightning, spraying a great arc of total destruction into the blazing chaos ahead. Smiley let loose with his Manlink, auto tacstar, and a line of blinding micronukes flashed to life ahead and writhed upwards to the cavern roof.

  "Oh my God," Ice said. "It's Prophet – he's – he's – Bees! Bees! Get here now!"

  Bees ran to the site, D4, D6, Ice and Prophet, hot blue dots pulsing on her tacmap. Her blood was running ice cold, her heart was thumping wildly.

  Prophet was sprawled in the mud on his back, limbs askew, motionless, his Battlestorm nowhere in sight. His armor was glowing white-hot and dotted with scores of evil ragged smoking holes. He was no longer cloaked. His chestplate was ripped open at the waist and blood was spurting forth from exposed viscera. Two laser tracks ran diagonally across his chestplate, still flickering. His faceplate was smashed. Ice was on her knees beside him, stunned, both arms raised as if afraid to touch him.

  Bees snapped Prophet's visor up, it jammed, and she yanked it off. His face was all bloody, ripped open, cheekbones exposed, shot in the face, Bees thought. His skull was shattered – blood and brain matter was still leaking out. Open dead bloody eyes. Dead, she thought. Dead dead dead.

  "NO!" she shrieked, raising her arms to the cavern roof. The firing had slackened off. It did not appear that the Darks were firing at them anymore. "YOU BASTARD!" Bees cursed, shaking her fists at an unseen Heaven. Ice stared at Bees, stunned. Bees brought her arms down and fell to her knees, straddling Prophet's waist. She tore off her own helmet, tossed it away, losing her cloaking, then brought her trembling hands to hover over Prophet's shattered head. Scarlet blood was still spurting out of his helmet. Silent now, Bees carefully inserted her armored hands into Prophet's helmet, cradling his skull. She kept her hands there for some time, bathed in hot bubbling blood. Her face was strained and icy, twitching, love and hate and terror and determination all clearly visible. Her mind was spinning wildly.

  You are a healer, the angel thought.

  I am a medic. I heal the wounded.

  Take my hands, the angel thought, holding out her hands. Bees grasped them. It was like an electric shock, coursing, pulsing through her body.

  "Oh!" Bees cried out.

  Peace, peace, the angel thought. Now you are a healer. She leaned in and kissed Bees gently, right on the lips. Thanks be to God, the angel thought. And she too faded away.

  You are a healer, Bees thought. Now she understood. The power of God was flowing through her.

  "Ice, please do a medprobe," she requested calmly.

  Ice touched the device to Prophet's bloody face.

  "Alive! He's breathing now! How can he be breathing when…"

  "Shut down and get to work," Bees said, not removing her hands from Prophet's head. "His blood loss is slowing. Stop the bleeding from the abdomen, call the Brights for medevac, now."

  Most of Delta was there by then, securing the area and staying out of Bees' way.

  "Nitro is hit bad," Smiley reported from where he had found Nitro. "Oh no, oh my God."

  "Nitro!" Ice leaped to her feet and charged over to the site. Bees stayed right where she was. The Prof was by her side.

  "How bad is it?" he asked.

  "His skull appears to be knitting now," Bees replied calmly. "Get the B's here, Prof. That's all you have to do. Get the B's here, now."

  "Knitting? Yes, yes. Ice, Prof. Telepath Breakblade and call a priority medevac, right now!"

  "It's done, Prof. Nitro is dying! Smiley, cyro! Cyro, now! Stop the bleeding!"

  "Biotic charge. Again! Again! Again! Damn! Life signs flat." Smiley was evidently applying a biotic charger to Nitro's chest.

  "Oh no. No! Keep it up! Keep it up!" Ice pleaded.

  "It’s no good, Ice," Smiley said. "He's gone."

  "Oh! Prof, oh my God. We…we just lost Nitro. He's gone. I'm so sorry." Ice burst into tears.

  Bees stood up abruptly, made the sign of the cross over Prophet, and followed the tacmap to D5 and D7, dripping blood. She was just as calm as an angel of God.

  Δ

  If you are ever killed, you can expect to have a lot of dreams. At least that's what happened to me. Endless dreams, about everything. You've got all eternity, you see. There's no rush. It was hard, trying to figure out what they meant. I didn't try. I just experienced them. Hot, violent dreams, at first. I was on the battlefield and charging forward – dying for Delta. That was the idea. That was the deal. I had promised them – whoever was up there. God, Deadman, Satan – whoever. Me for Delta. I die, they survive. Fair enough. I don't even remember getting hit. But I remember the dreams.

  An angel was leaning over me – I remember that. She was so bright, so brilliant that it hurt. I had to close my eyes.

  I saw the Legion Gate. Was this heaven? Arie was waiting for me inside, standing up as I entered the ready room. Damn it! Had he been hit too? I prayed for his soul.

  I saw everything. I saw Ice and Saka get killed on Galinta, again, shot all to hell, chopped to pieces, dead for sure. I was stunned, in total despair. Then that Bright trooper walked over and brought them both back to life, without a word, and made the sign of the cross, and walked away.

  Lucky Honeyhair was taking care of me. At least she was doing that in my fevered dreams, touching my wounds tenderly with magical fingers, a faint smile, dreamy emerald eyes, fine silky hair tickling my flesh just like a flight of butterflies. God, it was great to see her! What was she going to do without me?

  I kind of vaguely wondered when I was going to wake up. And where I would be when I woke up – Heaven or Hell. Or maybe someplace else. Maybe I wouldn't wake up at all, and death would be just an eternity of dreams.

  I knew I had been hit bad – bad enough to kill me, it seemed. My body felt like it was burning, the few times I became aware of it. Very spooky burning. Could that be Hell? Where I would burn eternally? Was I really that evil? Maybe it was that bargain I had made with the powers that be – my life for Delta's. Maybe it was Satan I had been praying to. And now I would burn in Hell forever.

  Well, we'd see about that. After all, I had promised Honeyhair. I had been fighting
Satan when I got hit. And I wasn't ever going to stop fighting.

  "LISTEN UP, SOLDIER!" It was a voice like thunder, booming in my ears. "I NEED YOUR LEGION SERIAL NUMBER. CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

  "Screw you, Satan!" I shouted back at him. "You'll get nothing from me!" The effort at speaking must have exhausted me, because it all faded out very quickly and I dropped into freefall, back to dreamland.

  Suddenly I was back in Rockpile One, behind my Battlestorm, prepping for another suicidal wave of Darks and Demons, when Scout called us all to take a look at an eyemote that was hovering over our fortress. It showed us a tall twisted vertical metal pole sticking up from the very highest point of our massive rubble pile. The black flag of the Legion was flapping boldly at the tip of the pole, as another series of missiles fell down onto our position, their flashes illuminating the silvery Legion cross coldly burning against a black field. I was thrilled to see it. And now, thinking back on it, watching that black flag flapping boldly over us as the missiles fell on our heads, I decided it was probably the most magnificent thing I had ever seen in my short, immortal life. That flag was the Legion, that flag was ConFree, that flag was us, all of us, and nobody else. That flag defied the galaxy. Come and get it, Satan, if you can. Reach out for it, try and tear it down, if you can. But you'd better send a whole lot of brainwashed slaves on that mission, because we're not going to make it easy. We are free men, and we are heavily armed, and we're not afraid of you, and you or anybody else who attacks us had best be prepared to die. Because we're not going down without a fight.

  And then Honeyhair was there, furious, her hands at my shoulders, sharp nails digging into my flesh. "Don't you ever give up! Don't you dare listen to Satan! You're a soldier of God! You kill those cursed Darks, those Demons, those slave soldiers. Kill them all, kill everything that moves, you hear me? You watch out for your comrades, all of them! You make sure they all survive! And you show Satan he shouldn't have picked a fight with the ConFree Legion. Kill all those slaves, and spit on their stinking corpses, you hear me?" She was trembling. "And never surrender! Never give up! You hear me, soldier? You return with your shield, or on it! And I'll be waiting, no matter what!"

  A hot red haze encased me. My head was throbbing, burning. It felt like I was sweating blood. My eyeballs ached. My heart was pounding and it hurt. Something was happening. My surroundings slowly came into view, flickering and fading, swirling slowly all around me. I was dizzy, head spinning, I was going to choke, I wanted to vomit. I tried to move, to raise my arms, anything, but I could not. I was paralyzed. I strained to make out the blurry images that were floating lazily around me. A pale face was gazing at me as from another dimension. No details. Looked like a girl, long hair. People were moving behind her. There was a lot of noise.

  "Prophet! Can you hear me? Blink your eyes if you can hear me." I was blinking my eyes anyway, to clear away the blurry view. Windshield wipers, I thought. Why don't our eyes come equipped with windshield wipers? Got to remember that.

  "He's conscious. Check the…" but I was not conscious, I was fading away again, into the dark. I was glad to leave. My body had been burning. Why don't they put out the damned fire, I wondered. Then I fell into the dark.

  The next time I surfaced in that particular dimension, wherever it was, it seemed a lot more peaceful. It was quiet. It was like I was slipping in there clandestinely. My body seemed…muffled, all the pain gone, but I could tell things were still pretty strange. My heart was booming away and my flesh still felt like it was hosting a minor brush fire.

  Light seeped in through my closed eyelids. I cautiously opened them to take a peek. The overhead was a wild tangle of medical equipment hanging from the ceiling panels, twisted up plastic tubing of mysterious med liquids and spotlights and packs of e-blood plasma and dangling biotic chargers and lots of other things that I did not recognize at all. I was in a hospital bed and somebody was sitting beside me on a chair. A nurse, her white uniform spattered with blood. She was evidently asleep in the chair, still holding a medpad in one hand. It was dead quiet, the lights were down and I had the impression that there were a lot of patients all around me. I could hear them breathing. Now my vision was clearing up. I was wrapped up like a mummy. Yes, the nurse was sleeping, I could hear her deep breathing. I tried to focus on her face. Pale strained face, honey-colored hair tied back behind her neck. Honeyhair! It was Honeyhair! Exhausted, spent, but it was clearly her. Oh no, I'm dreaming again. I closed my eyes. I don’t need dreams like this!

  A medalert pinged once and alerted the nurse. I opened my eyes again to see if I was still in the dream. Honeyhair was leaning over me from her chair, the medpad slipping from her fingers to the deck. Honeyhair!

  "Oh my darling, can you hear me?" She whispered it. I was stunned, captivated by those emerald eyes.

  "Honey…hair," I croaked. She blinked those lovely eyes and beamed – her whole face just lit up.

  "Don't try to talk," she said. "Just relax. You are getting the best care in the galaxy. I'm right by your side. The Legion is right by your side. And God is right by your side, too. Oh my darling, I am so happy. So happy!"

  Sure is a realistic dream, I thought. Just looking at her, my eyes filled with tears. Can't be true, that's ridiculous. Why would she be here, in a war zone? She's on Quaba. No. She's so lovely. But I'd best close my eyes and float away. So I did.

  When I came back again the place was considerably busier. It was brighter. Nurses and doctors were moving briskly from bed to bed. A dull roar. Out of the corners of my eyes I could see rows of beds to my left and right and more beds across an aisle that ran past the foot of my bed. The beds were all occupied, and the medics seemed quite busy.

  "Four Six Two is conscious. Spot check on Four Six Two." It was a young nurse in white, turning away from me now. Young? She looked like she should still be in midschool. A second nurse appeared, an Assidic female, who also looked pretty young. She leaned over my bed and spoke. "Four Six Two, spot check, patient conscious, vitals green, calling PC nurse. How do you feel, sir?" I couldn’t quite tell if she was talking to me or to someone else. She had a comset clipped to one collar.

  "Ahh…I feel kind of bad," I replied. An understatement. I felt as if I had just been removed from the roasting rack after a long, slow session.

  "Glad to hear it. Your condition is much better now."

  A young doctor showed up, unshaven, weary, rumpled white jacket. His eyes were gleaming with excitement. "How are you? How are you, Four Six Two? Um, Prophet. How are you?"

  "You tell me, Doc. I feel kind of dead."

  The young doctor laughed out loud. "You are not dead, Prophet. That much is for sure!"

  Honeyhair came running up abruptly, a glorious smile. "Oh thank God! Thank Deadman! Oh my darling, how wonderful! You're going to be all right. I've been watching over you for days. We've all been watching over you."

  The young doctor was scanning my charts on the d-screen by the foot of my bed. Honeyhair bent over me and blew me a little kiss. There was no place to kiss me because my entire body was cocooned with medcasts. There were openings for my eyes, nostrils, mouth, and presumably more down below but I was unaware of what was happening down there. It slowly dawned on me that this was an unusually disorganized, messy hospital. I couldn’t figure out where we were. Then the entire place shuddered and vibrated as a low growl sounded.

  "Honeyhair," I said. "Where are we?"

  "We're on the Second Level," she replied excitedly. "Thirty Second Fleetcom Emergency Field Triage Hospital. You'll be evaced as soon as we can return to topside."

  The Second Level! Adrenalin shot through my system. "What are you doing here, Honeyhair? I left you behind on Quaba, safe and sound. How did you get here?"

  "I'm a nurse, dear. A registered nurse. Delta wouldn’t take me, but there was an emergency call for nurses, medics and physicians of all kinds throughout ConFree. They were taking everybody. This is a national emergency. Do you think I could stay at home? They were s
howing the triage sites, all day, every day. All those wounded soldiers – thousands of them. Every time you switched on the d-screen. I volunteered. Trina volunteered. Mary volunteered. Everybody volunteered. And here I am. And I'm so glad I did it!"

  "I love you so much, Honeyhair." I was exhausted, just from talking, ready to crash.

  "Likewise! Got to run! I'll be back soon as I can. Love you!" And she ran off, almost colliding with another nurse who was running in the other direction.

  Δ

  "So what happened to me, Honeyhair? I don't remember a thing." It was a day later. They had removed the medcast from my right arm, and replaced it with several smaller medpads. That freed up my right arm so I could scratch my nose, which had been driving me crazy. They had also carefully removed part of the medcast from my lower face, so my nose and mouth were completely exposed. Thick medpads were affixed to my cheeks. But the rest of the headcast remained and it was braced to a frame so I could not move my head or neck at all.

  She was holding a little plastic cup of water to my lips. Deadman, that water was good. Heavenly! "You were hit. You were hit real bad," she said. "But, by the grace of God, you survived. That's all I know. It was God. I've been praying to God every day since you left me, and He has answered my prayers."

  "Where was I hit? I mean, how bad was it? Did I lose my balls?"

  "No. trooper, you've still got your balls. But it was bad enough. You were hit in the head, neck, chest, lower abdomen, thighs. They're re-growing everything. And you'll be evaced to ConFree as soon as we can get you to the surface."

  "In the head."

  "Yes."

  "There's a problem with getting to the surface?"

  "Yes. We're surrounded and reinforcements are fighting their way to link up with us and cleanse the Second Level. It's a big battle. It's been going on for a week." As if to reinforce her words, a shudder ran through the walls and deck and a distant thunder sounded.

  "Why did they put the hospital down here?"

  "The Battle of Level Two has been underway for awhile. This area used to be relatively secure. We had lots of casualties on this level that needed immediate triage. So we seized this old factory, cleaned it out and moved in all our equipment. They were rocketing us before we silenced them."