Crimson Strike

by Peter Bostrom

  “Rand?” I asked. “Lieutenant Stanton wants to know about the metal feline.”

  He looked up, genuinely puzzled, from applying a thick, clear length of adhesive. “Oh—you mean the mechanical battle panther.”

  “Yes, Rand. The one you’re working on,” Lopez deadpanned.

  “Ah, yes. Well, the structural integrity of the enclosure’s locking mechanism was disengaged during the battle,” he said truthfully. He just left out the part where he was the one who had done the disengaging.

  “Fine,” Stanton spat. “I’ve been put in charge of Omega squadron, which means I’ll be just ahead of you.” He then looked to Kovac and Lopez. “So be on your best behavior.”

  He jogged over to the head of a nearby group of well-ordered soldiers and in another moment, they began quick-marching. We followed immediately after them in a wide line—Winnifred, me, Kovac, and then Lopez at the other end. Based on the fact that Lopez was still scowling in Winnifred’s general direction, I’d say her position on the far end of our line was very much intentional. Rand walked next to Panthra, continuing to perform quick patches along the way.

  Harker turned to me and said, “Are you not afraid that I will run away if I am unrestrained?”

  I thought for a moment, trying to quickly come up with the smoothest possible response. “Nah—I’m more worried that a troll will transform into a two-headed dragon with jowls and start breathing fire on us.”

  Dammit.

  “Does that happen often in your world?” Winnifred asked genuinely.

  I scratched the back of my head, just underneath my helmet. “Not really. Actually, it never happens.” Then, taking a second shot at it, I said, “What I meant was, you might run away from the Peacekeepers, but I’m pretty sure you’d never run away from me.”

  Winnifred’s wrinkled brow relaxed and she broke into a smile. “I’d be a fool to run from someone as surprising and as powerful as you,” she said.

  I suddenly felt a lopsided grin take over my face. Just then, one of the soldiers at the end of the Omega squadron procession—which was only about five or so meters ahead of us—craned his head backward as he walked and said, “Hey, Walker! How do I know you won’t just shoot me in the back like the Egghead lover you really are?”

  A few of the soldiers beside him chuckled. My smile faded and I just fixed my eyes on the cracked road ahead of me. But after a moment’s pause, Kovac answered, “Watch your mouth, soldier. Walker’s a committed Peacekeeper. He’s our best hope.”

  “Yeah, and I came up with ‘Egghead,’ you a-hole,” I mumbled under my breath.

  The soldier wasn’t intimidated by Kovac’s towering presence or even by his impressive string of three sentences. “Yeah? Then why have so many of us died because of him? I heard what happened when the portal opened. He was showing off again and Stanton’s squadron was massacred.”

  “You weren’t there, space trash,” Lopez answered sharply.

  “Maybe I wasn’t,” the soldier said. “But my buddy saw the helmet vid footage, and it was pretty obvious that Walker abandoned them—just so he could look like a hero.”

  Lopez was already on edge, so when I saw her hand gravitating toward her plasma gun holster, I knew I had to act quickly before things got out of control.

  “Look,” I said, butting in. “I feel awful about those deaths—really, I do. That’s why I didn’t argue when Captain ordered us to stay all the way back here. I swear on the gods of Krypton that I’ll follow orders from now on.”

  The soldier opened his mouth, but couldn’t really argue. So he just mumbled something about a “fantasy freak” and turned back around.

  We walked in silence for another couple of blocks.

  “I—I came up with ‘Egghead,’” I muttered to Winnifred, cringing at how lame it sounded even as I said it.

  Then, as if in protest, a chorus of howls erupted in the distance. Almost immediately, I heard nervous shouts from ahead of us, where the factory space opened out onto an artificially grassy area with thickets of synthetic trees just beyond the grass. A moment later, we all came to a halt outside of the the main entrance to Sam Walton Memorial Park.

  Several more howls sounded, raising goosebumps along my arms. This was it.

  My helmet comm sprung suddenly to life, and by the slight head-tilting of several soldiers ahead of us, I could tell we had all been hailed from a general channel. Captain Patel’s confident voice reverberated in my ears.

  “Soldiers,” she said. “This might be our last chance to contain these sons of bitches and keep them from infecting the rest of this moon—maybe even all of Neptune. So lock and load, and let’s show those bastards what Peacekeepers are made of!”

  21

  THE SOLDIERS CHEERED and cursed and held their weapons high. Now this was an army. And I actually felt like I was part of it. Together, we were powerful—invincible, even. Nothing was going to stop us from routing out the enemy and annihilating every last one of them.

  But then the monsters answered with their own brand of cheer-curses. It was like someone had stuck a bunch of snarling, rabid dogs and hissing snakes into a barrel, sent them down a river, dropped them off a waterfall, and then opened the lid. The noise chilled me to the bone and silenced the other soldiers like a wet blanket.

  Then, after a few moments’ silence, I heard renewed yelling from the soldiers ahead of me and the high-pitched noise of plasma weapons firing. Patel must have ordered the first few teams to charge. I wanted so badly to be there—to prove I could be a real hero. Not just by using some magical stones, but by following orders and functioning as part of a team.

  My crew listened carefully to see if we could guess at what was happening. This was made even more challenging by Panthra, who was making a constant whining, growling noise. But even over her anxious sounds, the pained screams of soldiers was unmistakable.

  “That does not sound promising,” Winnifred said.

  “Neither do you,” Lopez muttered from down the line.

  “What was that, darling?” Winnifred asked.

  Lopez rolled her eyes in reply, then stared intently ahead at the park’s entrance. We all stood there in a tense silence.

  But we didn’t have to wait long. A loud voice came through over my helmet comm and made me jump. “Gah!” I said.

  “Walker—get your insubordinate ass up here!” Patel’s voice said.

  I tapped on the side of my helmet. “Yes, Captain. Right away.”

  My team was looking expectantly at me. I paused for a moment, then said, “Captain—permission to bring my team? We have a few special items that should come in handy.”

  Their eyes widened. Lopez shook her head, dreading what I might be getting her into. “Fine,” Patel said, “but someone will need to stay behind and keep an eye on the metal monstrosity and the prisoner—Peacekeeper leadership will certainly want to interrogate her when this is all over.”

  I smiled. “I know just the person.”

  I left Lopez to keep an eye on Winnifred and Panthra, which she was more than willing to do—especially because it involved her sitting on Panthra’s back and aiming a plasma gun at Winnifred’s head. Rand reluctantly left his duffel bag with Lopez, and with Kovac bringing up the rear, the three of us cut through the center of the two remaining teams to find the captain.

  Patel was issuing orders from behind a public comm relay station that was unconvincingly disguised as a gray-brown tree with short, perfectly symmetrical branches. A long park bench had been dragged over and now had a row of portable display screens open on top. Two guards kept watch as Patel’s eyes flitted from screen to screen as she gave a continuous stream of orders through a fist-sized external comm unit.

  I cleared my throat and Patel held up a finger without looking at me. She barked another round of orders through her comm unit, then motioned us forward, still staring at the display screens.

  “Do you see this here?” Patel said, pointing to a small section of the monitor.<
br />
  I squinted to make it out. The image was coming from a soldier’s helmet cam on the front line. There were trees in the foreground, but a clearing just beyond.

  “There’s an empty pond there. We’ve set up a perimeter around the far end of that clearing—not to keep these bottom-feeding civilians out, mind you. But to contain the enemy. If we can just push them toward the pond, we’ll have the high ground and can pick them off from there.”

  I nodded. “So you need us to give them that push?”

  “Exactly,” Patel said, looking back at the screen’s many open windows and scowling. “We’ve contained them with plasma launchers—barely—but we can’t keep it up for much longer. Take your team to the north side of the clearing and report to Sergeant Lukyanenko.”

  She turned back to her screen without another word.

  Kovac, Rand, and I soon reached the front line at the north side of the clearing. Soldiers were scattered among the trees, both on the ground and settled in branches above. A handful were firing shoulder-mounted plasma launchers, while the others were trying to provide them with at least a little cover by firing plasma slugs at the quickly-moving furry shapes who would momentarily appear between trees. A mixture of civilian and soldier bodies were strewn across the ground—most with deep gashes across their necks or torsos. Rand just about vomited at the sight, but instead tilted his head up high enough that he couldn’t see the dead who lay on the ground.

  The werewolves were moving so quickly that the soldiers couldn’t quite get a lock on them. They fired anyway, blasting holes in trees and wasting ammunition. I thought about rushing in and just using my philosopher’s stones to clear out the enemy, but remembered what I had said to Patel earlier—“Scoundrel Force won’t let you down.” I thought about the soldiers who’d already died and the many more who were still in danger here. I needed to change the way I did things when it came to battles if I wanted to be a hero for everyone—and not just for myself.

  I quickly found the unit’s commander, who was firing a plasma rifle from behind a low bush. “Sergeant . . . ” I said.

  He turned his round head and looked at us. “Lukyanenko,” he said in a thick Russian accent, then returned to firing.

  “Sergeant Lukyanenko—we’re here to help,” I said over the dual high- and low-pitched whine of plasma weapons.

  He stopped firing and gave me a deep frown. “Can you draw them out into the open so the launchers have a clear shot?”

  I gave him a quick nod. “On your command,” I said.

  He nodded back at me, then tapped the side of his helmet. “Theta team, cease fire!”

  The trees grew silent, except for the sound of snarls. I saw several muzzles poke cautiously out from behind trees and bushes.

  Lukyanenko continued, “Some sorry bastard is here to flush out the enemy. Briggs—ready your launcher. Coming at you in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .”

  I held out my Power Glove and imagined a handful of golden lassos that shot out, wrapped around several werewolf snouts, and yanked them toward me in a jumble of fur.

  There was a loud, low whine as a large plasma ball tore into the center of the furry mass and sent bodies flying in every direction. We’d done it!

  A cheer rose from the soldiers. But it was quickly silenced as several werewolves who had been on the periphery of the group rose from their scattered positions. They shook themselves, snarled, and bounded forward toward the soldiers with a bloodthirsty look in their eyes.

  From the branches of a a nearby tree, I heard someone yell, “I’m out of plasma rockets!”

  Uh oh. Looks like I’d just made things worse. Again.

  As I held out my glove to create an invisible barrier against the wave of werewolves approaching us from different directions, I began to hear the sound of a deep, sinister marching melody with trumpets and trombones. The red stone! So I quickly made my gloved hand into the shape of a pistol, braced my forearm with my opposite hand, and fired.

  A giant burst of red light erupted from my hand and blasted the two werewolves who were closest. Their torsos evaporated, and their legs tumbled forward onto the ground. The remaining werewolves stopped suddenly, unsure of what just happened.

  And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure, either. What had I just done? I mean, I knew I’d just smoked those werewolves, but none of them wore the short black flexible pants the native Dominion wolves wore. Which meant these ones used to be civilians or soldiers. They probably had friends or family here on Triton. Friends and family they’d never see again, thanks to me. But on the other hand, was I sparing innocent civilians from seeing their loved ones transformed into something deeply disturbing?

  God, this was complicated.

  In the brief silence that followed, I heard a strange buzzing noise. It couldn’t be the werewolves, so it had to be the vampires, who were most likely buzzing while they lurked in the shadows.

  Wait—were these vampires able to transform into bees? I thought bats were bad enough . . .

  But when I looked up through the patches of synthetic leaves toward the noise, I caught glimpses of vid drones circling in the air above us, so I squinted to get a better look. These didn’t look like standard military drones—they were brightly colored and had markings on them that I couldn’t quite make out.

  Something went whizzing past my left ear and snapped me back to the battle field in front of me. A stocky, dirty gray wolf with singed fur on his shoulder and wearing short black pants held a tree branch in one hand at the head of a small group of werewolves. A matching branch lay on the ground just behind me. The dirty gray werewolf growled, then grunted as he heaved the other branch at me.

  I quickly raised my glove, made my hand into the shape of a gun again, and fired a sizzling red bolt of energy at the branch. It exploded into a shower of slivers. I then leveled my weapon—I mean, my hand—at the dirty gray wolf, who was bounding toward me. He leapt, razor-sharp claws extended toward me, and I fired. Another dazzling red bolt shot from my finger and burned a hole straight through the creature’s chest.

  The werewolf’s lifeless body dropped to the ground with a dull thud in front of me, the smell of burnt hair and charred flesh filling the air. The rest of the werewolves froze as I took a long step toward them over the body of their comrade.

  Then, I leveled my hand toward them and began firing red bolts.

  They immediately turned and ran. They let out long howls, which were echoed by others nearby, and I saw several groups of the creatures bounding away from us.

  We finally had them on the run! And we were forcing them toward the empty artificial pond-hole—exactly where we wanted them.

  I heard Lukyanenko’s loud voice in my helmet comm. “Extend the line and advance together to push them into the pond!”

  Kovac and Rand began to move to their right, firing their silver slugs at the werewolves who were foolish enough to test our perimeter. The metal slugs hit them with a sizzle, and the creatures dropped to the ground one after another. Soldiers from Theta team soon joined them and fired. Their plasma slugs didn’t have quite the same effect, but since the wolves had no way of knowing which slugs were which, they kept their distance.

  Even after dispatching so many of their kind, more wolves approached our side of the field, apparently sensing this as their only way out. But just as we were beginning to push this part of the werewolf army back toward the empty pond, I heard the dull hum of approaching transport engines, which was followed by several loud skidding noises.

  Rand turned his head slightly in my direction and yelled, “I certainly hope those are reinforcements.”

  They weren’t reinforcements.

  Suddenly, the colorful drones I’d seen earlier made sense. This was a team of media personalities and news vid reporters who were hurrying to set up bulky recorders as close as they could to our perimeter line.

  The only problem was, the desperate pack of werewolves had turned and were beginning to charge in their direction.

/>   22

  “CLEAR OUT!” I yelled as I ran toward the civilians, waving my arms wildly. But these people hoping to capitalize on the low-hanging fruit of an enemy invasion from another world were either too distracted or too focused on getting marketable footage to pay me any attention.

  But if I were to, say, perform incredible feats of speed, strength, agility, and magic, then they couldn’t help but notice and they could retreat to safety. That’s when my mind switched tracks—if I got the media’s attention, then they’d also have the best seats in the house for whatever awesomeness I could get to come out of my Power Glove. They came here looking for a show, after all. I mean, I’d been busting my ass to try to make Patel happy, and she’d been nothing but a jerk to me and my crew. If I turned around and fought to save these media folks instead of chasing them away to safety, maybe I could get some much-needed good publicity—just this once.

  I quickly downed a high-density nutrient bar and almost gagged on its mushy contents, but then felt a rush of energy. I tossed the silver wrapper onto the ground. Then I thought better of it, snatched it up and stuffed it in my pocket—role models don’t litter in parks!—, broke off from the rest of Theta team, and charged straight toward the pack of charging werewolves, screaming at the top of my lungs.

  “Walker, what the hell are you doing?!” Sergeant Lukyanenko yelled through my helmet comm. “Get back here!!”

  “Sorry, Sergeant,” I replied loudly, “these monsters need to learn what happens when they bark up the Peacekeeper tree.”

  I glanced over at the cam operators, hoping they’d heard that one, and saw a few begin to swivel their cams toward me. Now I just needed something to make me look even more awesome on a vid . . .

  I reached behind me and pulled out my rod-sword, igniting it as I cut a glowing figure-eight pattern in the air before me. There—that should do it. My steps thudded to the beat of the sword’s badass marching music inside my head, which just pumped me up even more.