A Warrior's Journey

by Guy Stanton III

  The little man was speaking again, “You might find part of it intact not too far from here.”

  “Part of it?” Larc asked skeptically.

  “There’s a synagogue a couple towns over. I think they still follow some of the practices of that cult.”

  Larc’s menacing look had the shop owner back pedaling, “I mean faith!”

  “That wouldn’t help us any, we came for all of it!”

  “You might try the city. There used to be a lot of churches there at one time. Maybe someone there still has one.”

  “What city is that?”

  “San Francisco. If you stay on the main road it’ll take you right to it. Just look for the signs.”

  Larc nodded and we left the store and approached the strange vessel. Larc saw the wheel inside at the front of the vessel and grabbed my shoulder and moved me to the door next to it.

  Opening the door he pushed me into the vessel forcefully handing me the small piece of cut metal in the process, “You have experience. Make it work.”

  Was he serious?

  I didn’t know how to operate this vessel!

  Larc got into the seat across from me, while the others piled into the seats behind me. This was so unfair! Frustrated I turned to the wheel in front of me.

  Where did the metal piece go? It seemed somehow important to the process. I found a slot behind the wheel on the side and the metal piece slid into it easily. I wiggled it a little and the vessel made a noise. I turned it harder and the vessel came alive with a shudder. I closed my door as did the others.

  Now what? There were knobs, buttons, and indicators of something everywhere one looked within the cramped space. Horses were so much simpler than this!

  Oh how I missed Relentless!

  “What about this thing? It looks like the gear Torren has to engage to move our water vessel.”

  I looked to where he was pointing at a knob sticking up beside me. Okay it was worth a try. I grabbed it but it wouldn’t move. I tried harder and braced my foot on the floor. My foot hit something and the knob in my hand moved on its track several clicks. I glanced under the steering wheel to see two pedals that were somewhat similar to the ones that Torren had to work with.

  One would make us go faster and the other slower, if this vessel worked on the same principle. I was pretty sure that I had hit the left one and the vessel hadn’t moved. I’ll try the right one. I pushed hard on it and the entire vessel jumped backward and I hit the wheel hard, even as I took my foot off that pedal to stomp on the other.

  The vessel jerked again and I watched as Larc’s head smacked off the window beside him. Served him right for doing this to me. He turned to scowl at me. I shrugged and pointed at the wheel meaningfully. He looked away; yeah that’s what I thought.

  I took my foot off the pedal and the vessel drifted backward. I stepped on the left pedal again to stop. I needed to go forward now. I was pretty sure that was how the vessel was meant to move, forward. I glanced down at the knob beside me again and reached down to move it forward a bit. Letting off on the left pedal the vessel drifted forward.

  The men behind me gave a shout of success and Orhanin and Thanic, who were closest behind me along with Larc began to pound on my back and shoulders until I thought I was seeing double.

  After they quit hitting me I pulled the strange vessel out into the middle of the big black road and pushed down more on the right pedal and was rewarded with more speed. I stayed in the middle of the road. I was less likely to hit something that way I thought.

  The shop owner stood beside his counter watching the jerky motions of his van going on outside. He watched as the van traveled out of his lot with eight of the strangest men he had ever met. When the van was out of sight he reached for the phone on the counter. He was about to punch in the number he needed, when his eyes caught sight of the fortune in gold that lay on his countertop.

  The money they used anymore was all but worthless in value. They only used it because they were forced to by the government that said it had value regardless of what the economy said it was worth. But this gold, now it had value!

  Why, with that much gold, he could charter his way to South America, where things were better than they were here. He looked back at the phone. If he called the police they would confiscate the gold, of that he could be sure and then there had been the threat given by the big blond haired man with the probing blue eyes.

  He didn’t ever want to look into those intense eyes ever again. He paused for a moment longer and then he put the phone back on its holder on the counter and gathered up the gold before someone could see it. He was leaving tomorrow.

  He had enough real money in his hands to start all over again and get away from this sad place. He ran to the door and flipped the closed sign over before then running to his small living quarters at the rear of the store.

  The General fumed in his office as he paced back and forth in front of the windows that overlooked the bay. He couldn’t say he was all that surprised by the turn of events, but it didn’t make it any easier for him to swallow how he had been relegated to a minor part in the operation, as if he was a nobody!

  Sure enough as soon as the Committee had been informed of the incident they had sent their ‘black hands’ as they were termed, to take over the investigation. All he was yet tasked with was the finding of the alien vessel that had landed offshore. His forces were not to participate at all in the search for the occupants of the two boats a search patrol had found concealed in the dunes to the north, which in his opinion was sheer lunacy.

  The more available resources brought to bear in the capture of these aliens the better, in his opinion. It was an uneasy time for his fledgling country and its new leadership. A leadership he did not approve of.

  The military could do a far better job of running the nation than the sadistic freaks on display over at government house were doing. It was hard to keep his thoughts of the new government to himself. People that talked to loudly in opposition to the Committee had a way of showing up dead or missing soon after. It was how they stayed in power.

  There rule was based out of fear by those they were supposedly tasked with serving.

  A knock sounded at the door, “Yes?”

  An aid came in, “Sir, the Eastern Colonies have noticed our heightened state of alertness and are demanding to know why!”

  “We no longer run joint operations with them, but go ahead and forward their request to the Committee. Let them deal with it.”

  The door closed and the General stared sourly out the window at the bay and reflected on the sad state of affairs of their once proud nation. Weakened by social issues and economic downturns the nation had been unable to cope with the magnitude of the natural disaster that had struck the middle of the country ten years earlier, let alone recover from it.

  A series of earthquakes of unpreviously seen severity had completely destroyed much of the heartland of America. Whole areas had been wiped out beyond recognition and millions had died.

  The effects were felt for thousands of miles away. As bad as the initial event had been, even more had died in the aftermath of the quakes, when rescue didn’t come or from the harshness of the environmental factors.

  Everyone had been affected by the quakes and communication was so disrupted that no comprehensive relief effort was ever able to be mounted on behalf of those affected by the quakes the most, as everyone had needed relief of some kind.

  The bad news had only continued for the fractured country. Not even a year after the disaster had occurred the final death knell of the once great nation was sounded.

  Religious fanatics or at least so it was claimed, had planted dirty bombs in all the remaining major east and west coast cities. The bomb plots had been caught in time along the west coast, but the east hadn’t been so fortunate. Most of the bombs had gone off and millions more had died or suffered terribly from the aftereffects of the bombs.

  The cities full of residual radiation
were abandoned and for a while all communication had been lost with the east.

  The people in the western half of the country had been thrown into a panic at the lack of order and resources to be had. Virtual chaos had ensued. That was when a group, self termed the Committee, had stepped in to restore order to the panicked masses.

  By using whatever means they had to, they put a stop to the endless riots and brought about an unsteady peace. They instituted themselves as the governing body of the west coast, in place of the former control of the nation by the elected heads in Washington DC, which was now nothing but a ghost city.

  Their rule of iron had controlled the Western Confederation for the last eight years unchallenged, but as of late cracks had been showing, as a result of their heavy handed tactics and many corruption scandals.

  It was a tumultuous time to be living in. World wide it wasn’t much better. Europe had collapsed financially under the weight of its long term cradle to grave socialism schemes.

  The populations of entitled youth within their borders had revolted and countries had burned in anarchy, as governments had toppled. It was everyone for themselves as lawlessness rose unchecked, along with the sins against humanity that it racked up with the passing of every new day.

  Russia instead of capitalizing on America’s downfall had fallen into its own combination of chaos of social issues and homegrown terrorists.

  The Middle East and Africa sank back into the bitter inner struggles of the dark ages, without outside intervention keeping them from each other’s throats. Only South America and Asia weathered the global collapse. China’s strong arm government had fallen, after being weakened by the global economic downturn and its long time oppressed people had risen up clamoring for freedom.

  They had ushered in a new era of freedom and had succeeded in the stabilization of their country in the hard times the world at large faced. They had with the other large players in the area, including Australia put together a coalition that became the strongest militarily and economically in the world.

  They termed themselves simply as the Asian Alliance. The Committee was at odds with them and there was all but open conflict between the two factions, when there should have been peace. The conflict between China and America had never gone away, even after the two nations had switched ideologies of rule, china embracing the will of the people, while the Western Coalition favored iron handed control in place of freedom.

  The only other bright spot in the world was South America, where nations were flourishing in the face of stability brought on by there being no more market for the drug trafficking that had torn their communities apart for years on end. For them at least the fall of America was a good thing.

  The General couldn’t help but feel depressed over the fall of his country into the parted out state of ruin that it now was. America once the center stage of the world scene and the bearer of supreme power was no more. Unless…..

  This incident could be the very thing needed to turn everything around. The advanced technology laying out there in the ocean could be the ticket that his beleaguered remnant of a once proud nation needed to reclaim its place in the sun.

  It was a chance where he had expected there to be none. He was not about to let the selfish and self centered ambitions of the Committee undermine this opportunity for salvation out of the pit that the nation had been thrust into!

  The Committee’s agents were good at what they did though. He would let them ferret out the strangers among them first before he would make his play, which meant that he had to continue swallowing his objections toward them for yet a little while longer.

  Driving in the middle of the road on this planet had been a mistake and I now clung to the right side of the road. People on this world had an odd way of expressing extreme anger with just one finger.

  After a harrowing journey of surviving the open road we entered what must be the city, the shop owner had spoken of, in the late afternoon. Five minutes later, after the lives of everyone in the vessel had been jeopardized several times over, I swung the vessel over to the side of the street and turned the key off and with a relieful shudder the machine was blessedly silent.

  I had a splitting headache caused in large part from driving this confounded contraption of a device that would have been better off not having been created. The other reason for the headache could find its blame in the form of the incessant ringing noise coming from somewhere inside the vessel.

  Why would the people of this world put such an annoying alarm in their vessels? The vessel drove well and there were no flashing indicator lights, but yet the alarm had gone on and on!

  It would blessedly stop briefly only to start back up again in annoying frequency a few moments later. It was enough to drive one nuts after a while. I looked over at Larc and I saw the corners of his mouth crease up a little.

  I was not taking this cursed thing one foot further!

  Larc turned to the others in the back, “We go on from here on foot. We’re going to split up. Zevin, Orhanin, Thanic, are with me. The rest of you will go with Talaric. Scout out the city for these churches, but keep a low profile! Meet us back here tonight with what you find.”

  The sun was starting to set as the little shop owner parked his suitcases down by the door. He was about to leave, when he remembered a stash of money that he kept for emergencies in a secret drawer beside the cash register.

  Forget leaving tomorrow, he was leaving tonight for forever! He bent down to access the drawer under the counter, when he heard the jingle of the door opening.

  “I’m closed!”

  The door shut and then he heard the click of heels on the floor.

  In heated exasperation he bent back up from the counter, “I said I’m closed!”

  The shop owner ended on a high note, as he caught sight of who stood in front of him on the other side of the counter. His eyes moved slowly up from the three inch heels to the toned calves and then to the crimson silk border of the dress that was cut above the knees. The dress was tight, as it curved up to outline a narrow waist, which then curved back out to encompass a generously proportioned chest, which the dress offered a tempting peak at by the use of a plunging v neckline. Red hair that looked dyed hung around the leanly muscled shoulders that were held back straight with pride.

  The hair framed a face of cool beauty that was punctuated by black eyebrows and probing cobalt blue eyes. Any man would have been hard pressed to not have been entranced by her, but all the little shop owner saw reflected in her icy cool gaze was his own death, if he didn’t think fast enough.

  Money wasn’t all he had in the little drawer under the counter. He had to get to it! His life depended on it, because he knew who she represented.

  Her voice was as cool, as her gaze, as she smoothly asked, “Mr. Kingsley I believe? Mr. Kingsley certain events have transpired that are going to require you to come in for questioning. You weren’t in the process of going anywhere were you?” She asked indicating his suitcases with a nod of her head.

  Mr. Kingsley swallowed, “Just a little weekend trip.”

  She smiled, but there wasn’t anything nice about it, “Mr. Kingsley its Wednesday. A little early for a weekend getaway isn’t it?”

  “I’m busy on the weekends so I take my getaways during the middle of the week, but I can reschedule my trip if it’s needed for me to help a hand of the Committee.”

  “Oh it is I assure you.”

  “Just let me close down my register and I’ll be right with you.”

  Mr. Kingsley ducked down with one hand still on the countertop as he reached for the hidden drawer with the other in search of the loaded Smith & Wesson that it held. He’d kept the gun even though it was illegal to keep a gun of any kind, for just such a day as today.

  The progress of his hand came to an abrupt halt, as he squealed in pain and came erect to behold in horror the sight of his other hand affixed to the countertop by a wicked looking blade. Moaning and crying in pain
he tried to pull the dagger out, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Evette gracefully hopped up onto the counter beside the squalling shop owner and then swung her legs around beside Mr. Kingsley. Mr. Kingsley’s attempts to free himself ended, as another knife blade came up under his chin and forced him to look up into the arctic blue eyes of his captor.

  Her full lips parted and she said, “You know what your two mistakes were Mr. Kingsley?”

  He tried to swallow, but the point of the knife made it hard to do so.

  “It’s alright Mr. Kingsley, if you don’t know I’ll tell you. Your first mistake is that you should have called us and given up your bribe money, as a good patriot to the confederation would have. You see money is really worth nothing if you don’t have the life yet to spend it. Second you shouldn’t have waited to go if you were going to be a traitor to your country and the Committee. You should have run and then kept running, but since you didn’t here we are. Now I really do hope that we can resolve this unfortunate situation Mr. Kingsley. I’d hate to have to take you downtown and let the boy’s have a go at you. I’m sure you’ve heard some of the stories.”

  “I’ll talk! Please don’t take me downtown!” The shop owner emitted in a low moan, fully aware of all the stories of brutal torture that the Committee was guilty of committing.

  “Good, now how about you telling me everything you know about the strangers that came to visit you.”

  As Mr. Kingsley blubbered out the whole story Evette listened attentively.

  After he had finished she contemplated him for a moment and then she reached forward and tapped him on the chin with the tip of the dagger, “I do believe you’ve told me the truth, which is why I’m going to let you live and continue on with your miserable little life, but I wouldn’t recommend betraying your country again by aiding and abetting the enemy!”

  “No I won’t! I swear it!”

  Evette yanked the dagger, affixing his hand to the counter top, out and slid off the counter gracefully. She reached under the counter and pulled out the drawer he had been reaching for.