by Rick Partlow
As he came around the side of the barn that faced the farmhouse, Jason saw that the rear of the building was dark but for the built-in chemical striplight over the back door, glowing in green solitude. No one was in sight and the rear windows were unlit, but the depthless night around them could be concealing legions for all he knew. Deciding enlightenment wasn’t about to strike momentarily, Jason pushed off the barn wall and sprinted across the gap between the buildings, braking against the side of the farmhouse with his free hand, trying hard not to lose his balance and smack into the wall with his shoulder.
Jason found, to his disbelief, that he was close to hyperventilating. Here I am, he shook his head, about to piss my pants over what’s probably nothing more than a bunch of farmers guzzling moonshine and bitching about the weather. Gripping his pistol tighter, he fought to get his breathing under control before he moved again. The cool night air tickled his throat and he had to struggle mightily not to cough, but finally he was confident enough to edge slowly around the curve of the farmhouse, keeping low, his sidearm at the ready. He felt his boot brush against something weighty and giving and nearly jumped out of his skin before he saw that it was only a half-empty bag of fertilizer.
As Jason glanced back up from the intruding sack of manure, a faint glow from around the arc of the side wall brought him up short, and he found himself suddenly less than a meter from the side window, its clear-plastic pane opened inward. Back against the wall, he inched toward the portal, straining to make sense of the muffled rumble of male voices within.
“You have disappointed us, Jorge,” one of the men inside intoned in a Central American dialect of Spanish that McKay, trained in high Castillian with a smattering of Mexican, could barely make out. “The O’Keefe assault was planned for over a year. It required us to call in every favor, exhaust every resource and commit our best men. Had it worked—had Gomez gotten access to the orbital shuttle—we might have acquired the resource our movement has dreamed of for the past ten years: a starship.” The man’s voice seemed oddly familiar to McKay, but the dialect and the machine-gun pace with which he spoke made it difficult for Jason to place.
Whoever the speaker was, his words raised the hackles on McKay’s neck. So that was what Gomez had wanted. Now the attack made much more sense. With O’Keefe as a hostage, the terrorists could conceivably have reached either the Mac or, more probably, one of the freighters refueling insystem.
“How can you blame this on me?” McKay heard Jorge Mendoza’s plaintive reply. “It was your ‘soldiers’ who failed. I was not brought in on your plan, I was not invited to participate, I was ordered at gunpoint. My wife and children were threatened! How can you hold me responsible?”
“If you were committed to our cause, we would not have had to force you, Jorge!” The other voice became strident, and even more familiar.
Curiosity overcoming his caution, Jason decided to risk a peek into the window. Edging closer, he turned away from the opening—putting his left shoulder against the wall, his head turned as far toward it as he could—then slowly leaned back until he could see inside through the corner of his left eye.
Besides the gently-glowing striplights built into the interior of the building, the only illumination in the living room came from a relatively high-tech lamp that Jason realized must have cost the Mendozas a pretty penny: he recognized it as a methane-burning device that could be fed raw manure to produce the fuel it used for lighting. The lamp threw heavy shadows across the communal room, and across the four men who occupied it. Jason immediately recognized Jorge Mendoza, pacing across the room, his expression reflecting a conflict of fear and indignation as he faced the others.
Two of them were muscle, plain and simple: big, menacing bruisers armed with Close Assault Weapons Systems—what the grunts in the Corps called “super-shotguns.” The last man was much less physically imposing than the other two, not much bigger than Jorge, but clearly the leader from the tone of his voice.
“I have not come here to argue with you, my friend,” the man continued, seemingly calmer. Jason struggled to get a glimpse of his face, but he was leaning on a corner table, his upper body wreathed in shadows. “The time has come for us all to band together and overthrow the bourgeoisie oppressors. We have been handed a golden opportunity and we must not hesitate!”
“But the aliens…” Jorge shook his head.
“The Invaders will not be an obstacle,” the other man advised him. “We have had reports from scouts we’ve sent out that they have ceased their attacks and abandoned their looting of the city. Some of their troops still wander the streets of Kennedy, but they have no direction and many of them have died. Juan Ortiz travelled out to the port and found it completely destroyed. Now is the time! Before the Fleet can send reinforcements and crush us under their heel once again!” He rose from his leaning position to make the last point, gesturing emphatically with his fist, and finally emerged into the light.
The face that light revealed was weathered and cracked with age, maned with an unruly mop of salt-and-pepper grey. For a heartbeat, Jason still couldn’t place the middle-aged, bearded face, but it was the fire behind those dark eyes that finally sparked the recognition. The man was none other than Miguel Huerta, the emigrant success story whom he’d met less than three weeks before as the chairman of the Independent Farmer’s Council… and an old, dear friend of Valerie O’Keefe.
Shit. This, he knew, was not good at all. Grandfather McKay had an old saying appropriate to situations like this: something about getting the fuck out of Dodge, he recalled. He was fully prepared to follow that sage piece of advice when something interfered: something hard and unyielding that slammed into the back of his head. Jason’s pistol fell from suddenly-strengthless fingers and he dropped forward to his knees, a polychromatic flare filling his vision, his head exploding with blinding pain. He swayed on his knees like a sapling in a gale, and then the unseen bludgeon cracked across his jaw and the spiralling colors faded to black.
In the beginning, God created Jason McKay’s head. And the head was without form and void; and darkness was upon his thoughts. And then God sneered wickedly and said, “Let there be pain,” and there was one hell of a lot of pain. For a moment, the pain was all that pierced the blackness clouding Jason’s mind, along with the realization that he’d been sucker-punched. At least, a small, functional part of his brain thought, Valerie was safe.
That was when he heard the scream. His eyes popped open and his head jerked around toward the noise, igniting a blinding flash of agony at the base of his skull. Stars danced across his vision for an endless second, and even when they cleared the scene before him only clarified a piece at a time through his pain-fogged brain. He was, he saw immediately, inside the farmhouse—thrown into a dark corner of the kitchen like a sack of potatoes. His feet were stretched out before him, bound with cords, and he could feel the same rope biting into his wrists behind his back. Huddled in a corner across from him were Carmella Mendoza and her children, the woman seeming even more frightened and shaky than her two little daughters—not frightened of him, but of the scene that was playing out before them.
It was, as he had feared, Valerie who had screamed. She was being dragged into the house by two of what Jason now painfully realized were three bodyguards, while Huerta and the other gunman looked on. Jorge stood to the side, wringing his hands at this turn of events, while Huerta seemed almost cheerful, casually tossing Jason’s service pistol from hand to hand.
“So nice of you to stop by, Ms. O’Keefe,” he said, waving to her in mock greeting as his men brought her before him. “I never thought to see you again after our visitors from space burned down the governor’s mansion.”
“Miguel!” She recognized him for the first time, her eyes flying open, a look of relief coming over her face. “Thank God it’s you! Tell them to let me go.” She tried to jerk her wrists free from the men holding her, but their hold was too strong.
“I’m afraid that wouldn’
t be prudent, my dear,” he said, stepping up to her, shoving McKay’s pistol into his waistband. “This is a fortuitous turn of events. After the little fiasco here last month, the movement needs something like this. You and your Lieutenant friend will make valuable hostages when we again have to deal with the Fleet.”
“We?” Val’s voice was full of disbelief. “Miguel, you can’t mean that you were involved with that man Gomez.”
“Carlos was a friend,” Huerta admitted easily. “But he was careless and sloppy. I told him he should have put a dead-man switch on that bomb, but he said we didn’t have time… and he paid the price.”
“But…” She shook her head helplessly. “He would have killed me.”
“That was not the plan, but had it been necessary, I’m sure he would have,” the man agreed readily. “You are like all the others, Valerita,” he said, an almost sad expression on his face. “So willing to condemn violence when it is used against you, but so ready to accept it when it benefits you. How is government violence toward my people more justifiable than our violent response? You and your ‘peaceful protest,’” he spat the words out. “You want us to sit around and sing songs while they slaughter us!”
“That’s not true!” She shook her head angrily, close to tears. “I’ve tried to help your people!”
“For which you have our humble thanks,” Huerta sneered. “Now, it is time for us to help ourselves. But I have no taste for political arguments at this late date. Now is the time for action, not argument. Our course is clear, and you are but a tool.” He smiled, moving even closer to her, caressing the softness of her cheek with the fingers of his right hand. “And tools are meant to be used.” His left hand slipped under his jacket at the small of his back and produced a long-bladed hunting knife, holding it centimeters in front of her face as his right hand seized the back of her neck.
Valerie shrieked in horror, trying to jerk away from her captors, but they held her fast as Huerta ran the flat of the knife across her cheek almost lovingly. Flinching away from the cold metal, she bit her lip to keep from crying out again, but the shaking of her shoulders betrayed her fear. Huerta chuckled, enjoying the dread in her eyes as he brought the knife down her throat to her chest. With one, swift, savage motion, he hooked the knife in her shirt and slashed downward, ripping the garment apart and drawing a sharp, startled cry from the woman.
Jason struggled against his bonds, but he was still groggy and weak from the concussion, and the ropes held fast. Jorge Mendoza, however, had finally decided that this was more than he could put up with and moved forward, grabbing Huerta’s arm and pulling him away from the woman.
“No, Miguel!” He stared the older man in the face, eyes on fire with righteous indignation. “You cannot do this! She has never done anything to hurt you or the movement.”
“Do not tell me what I can and cannot do, Mendoza!” Huerta jerked away from him angrily. “You would do well not to forget your place!”
“My place?” Jorge repeated, eyebrows going up. “You speak like a Republicista! Are we not fighting so that every man may make his own place, Miguel? Are we not fighting for justice? If you do this, how are we any better than them?”
“You fool.” Huerta yanked the pistol from his belt and shoved it into the man’s chest hard enough to drive him back a step. “Whatever gave you the idea we were better than them?” And without a word of warning, Miguel Huerta pulled the trigger.
Jason jerked in surprise at the ear-popping roar of the pistol, watching as Jorge’s face screwed up in shock and pain. The farmer looked down at his chest, staring in disbelief at the smoking hole in his shirt, gushing a flowing stream of blood. He stood there for a long moment, seemingly unaffected; but then he staggered back a step, clutching at his chest, and collapsed backward to the floor.
There was silence for the space of a heartbeat as even Huerta’s men seemed surprised at what their leader had done, but the still was shattered by the keening wail of Carmella Mendoza as she rushed across the room to fall at her husband’s side, cradling his head in her hands. Even from where he lay, Jason could tell that the man wasn’t breathing.
“Murderer!” Carmella screamed at Huerta. “Butcher!”
“Back with your children, puta,” Huerta snapped at her, motioning threateningly with his weapon. “Unless you wish for them to lose both their parents this night!”
Carmella hesitated, not wanting to leave Jorge’s side, but Huerta took a warning step forward, and she slowly made her way back to the kitchen. Anna and Elisabeth were watching her from there with haunted eyes, both of the little girls too terrified to move.
“Filipe,” Huerta ordered, motioning at Jorge’s body, “take this trash outside.” One of the men, the one Jason assumed had hit him from behind, slung his weapon—an Invader autorifle—and dragged the corpse out of the front door by its feet. Jorge’s eyes were open wide, still staring into eternity with that same look of shock and surprise.
Valerie had stopped struggling and was simply staring at Jorge’s body. Her face was pale, eyes filled with abject terror: a rabbit caught in the headlights. She seemed not to notice the way her ripped blouse exposed her, but Huerta hadn’t forgotten. Turning back from the door, the farm council chairman stepped back toward her, all faux smiles and conversational patter gone, his eyes glowing with the predatory hunger of the wolf.
“Take her to the table,” he grunted.
Huerta’s bodyguards pulled Valerie between them back to the kitchen table, laughing coarsely as they let their hands travel across the expanse of skin exposed on her chest. Valerie didn’t make a sound, too paralyzed with fear even to scream, as she was dragged back onto the flat surface. Huerta calmly, matter-of-factly moved between her legs, shoving her skirt back around her hips as he held the knife at her throat.
McKay struggled frantically against his ropes, feeling the adrenaline of desperation pumping in his blood. He was getting ready to call out, to try to draw their attention away from her; but in the second between making the decision and carrying it out, Carmella Mendoza appeared in front of him like an apparition, a wicked-looking carving knife clutched in her fist, face screwed up in a mask of rage.
“No.” He shook his head, brain too scrambled to find the words to tell her that her husband’s death wasn’t his fault. But she just knelt at his feet and used the knife to slice through the ropes securing his legs together. Jason let the breath he had been holding trickle out in a quiet sigh of relief, as he twisted around to expose his wrists to her. He felt the ropes part to the blade, then touched the crude, wooden handle of the knife as it was pressed into his right hand.
Rolling to his knees, he took in the scene before him, trying to channel his rage and prioritize his targets. The first had to be the closest of the gunmen: he’d kept his autoshotgun in the crook of his left arm while he held Valerie down with the other. The other thug had his weapon slung—he could wait. But Huerta, while he’d returned Jason’s service auto to his belt, still held a knife to Val’s throat as he ripped at her panties with his free hand. And, of course, Filipe was outside and could return anytime. Best to deal with the ones inside as quickly as possible.
Feeling the pins-and-needles beginning to fade in his extremities, Jason hopped to his feet and lunged across the room, hammering downward with the carving knife and burying it in the base of the closest gunman’s skull. The big man’s back arched, his hands clutching in the air behind his head, mouth open in a silent scream as he staggered back from the table. His shotgun clattered to the floor, but Jason hadn’t the time to retrieve it. Huerta and the other bodyguard snapped around, the older man’s knife coming off of Valerie’s throat and giving McKay the opening he needed.
Jason’s forearm caught Huerta across the throat, throwing him off his feet and sending his knife clattering across the floor. The second bodyguard struggled frantically with his slung CAWS, but Jason was already wrenching his service pistol out of Huerta’s waistband. He was bringing it up in lin
e with the second gunman when Filipe burst in through the front door, autorifle blazing wildly.
With slugs chopping into the walls and floor all around him and no cover to be found, Jason risked a forward barrel roll under Filipe’s point of aim and came to a stop on his butt between the Central American’s legs. Firing one-handed, he punched three shots up through the man’s groin, sending Filipe collapsing backwards with an agonized scream, his intestines flopping out of the gaping hole in his lower abdomen.
Rolling onto a knee, McKay saw that the second bodyguard had finally freed his shotgun and was swinging the muzzle around toward him. With no time to bring his sights to eye level, Jason fired instinctively from the hip, the double-tap impacting the shotgun’s receiver and wrenching it from the man’s hands. Unarmed and desperate, the Central American seized Valerie around the neck and hauled her off the table, holding her in front of him as a shield.
Not wanting to give the man a chance to use Val as a hostage and not trusting his shaking hands to attempt a headshot, Jason threw himself across the table and took them all three of them to the floor in a heap, with Valerie sandwiched between the two combatants. Letting his pistol drop, Jason managed to grab the bodyguard’s left forearm and force it away from Valerie, then raised up on his knees and threw the senator’s daughter out of the pile.
That action, unfortunately, left him open for a punch from his opponent’s free hand that grazed across his cheek, snapping his head around and throwing him back off balance. The bodyguard immediately tried to press his advantage, hooking a leg around Jason’s arm and throwing him halfway across the room. McKay used the momentum to roll back to his feet, taking up a low, wide-legged stance just in time to meet the man’s headlong charge.
Running on training, instinct and endorphines, Jason responded to the assault just as his unarmed combat instructor in Basic Training had taught him. Sliding slightly to one side, he lashed out and drove a heel into the bodyguard’s knee, shattering the kneecap with an audible crunch. His balance gone and his leg buckling beneath him, the thug collapsed forward, directly into Jason’s upward palm strike. The meaty part of McKay’s hand caught his opponent across the bridge of the nose, shattering the bone and driving one of the larger fragments into the man’s brain.