by J. N. Chaney
“So that went well,” John said as Stacy and I got back into our respective predators. “Want me to run him over?”
“It’s still the captain somewhere in there,” Lou reminded John. “If we can kill Legion, we can save him. We can save all of them.”
“They’re gaining on us from the sides of the canyon,” Tong said, looking at his data pad. “If we drive hard, we might be able to make it out of here before they reach the edges, but it’s going to be close. We need to be faster and go now!”
“Let’s go,” Stacy said. “Dean, you take the lead. Drive like hell.”
“On it,” I said, jumping into the predator. The engine was still running. I stomped on the gas and we took off like a shot. John did the same, peeling out and kicking up clouds of dust.
Legion moved to the side, waving goodbye. Usually when someone waved, a friendly smile accompanied the action. This time around, he stared at us with those bleeding black eyes and an evil smile.
I moved my eyes away from the psychopathic virus and studied the road ahead. The canyon didn’t wind very much, but in the darkness it took my full concentration to not only drive fast, but avoid the many rocks and boulders in our path. If I ran over one, it could mean huge damage to the predator, and that wasn’t something we could afford right now.
Sulk said something out loud that Tong translated a moment later.
“He says if we make it through the canyon, his people have an underground installation less than an hour away. We can head there.” Tong paused, exchanging words with Sulk once more. “Last time he was there, Legion had not laid siege to it, but he can’t be sure this time around.”
“We’ll find a way through, even if Legion is trying to block our entry point,” Lou said over the comms. “We haven’t come this far not to make it.”
For the next hour, I drove as quickly as I could without sacrificing our safety. If I missed a boulder or other large obstruction, we were done. Lucky for me, the headlights on the predator cut through the darkness and spread out as if it were bright as day, as long as the field of vision was right in front of the predator.
John kept the other vehicle a safe distance behind me as we continued. No tailgating on this trail. If I had to stop suddenly and he plowed into me, we could potentially be stranded with no working vehicle. Whenever I could, I took a quick look at the satellite feed in the lower right-hand corner of my HUD.
The tiny dots symbolizing infected were growing, like two waves headed toward one another that were about to crash on the canyon between them. Even more concerning, there was no end to the canyon in sight. The infected managed to somehow span the entire area as they raced toward us from both sides.
Legion’s been busy taking out the Rung, I berated myself. Stupid, how stupid were we to sit and wait behind our walls for an entire month, hoping for what? That Legion would one day leave on his own?
For as much as I beat myself up, I knew that we hadn’t just been sitting inside of our walls playing dice. We had emptied the Cerberus Installation of everything we could use, reinforced our walls, and trained a Civil Authority contingent that would be able to give Legion hell when we called on them. Still, it wasn’t enough. I realized that now.
“We’re not going to make it,” Tong said via the comms in our helmets. “We’ll still have two minutes’ worth of driving left when the infected reach the canyon walls. There have to be over a hundred thousand of the infected now, including humans, Rung, and animals.”
“Get ready to clear the walls,” Stacy instructed Tong. “You too, Lou. We can bet they’ll be raining down fire on us, maybe even boulders.”
“Got it,” Lou said with a confidence I didn’t feel.
“Understood,” Tong answered.
My eyes traveled back and forth as I studied the map and the terrain ahead.
“Incoming in under a minute,” Tong said, his voice tense.
“Cover the right side of the canyon,” Stacy told him. “I’ll cover the left. Lou, you go back and forth, lending a hand wherever the infected presence is the heaviest.”
Both Tong and Lou gave an affirmative.
“I know we don’t all believe the same thing here, but do you mind if I say a prayer?” Lou asked. “It’ll only take a moment.”
“I’m not going to say no to any kind of help,” John said.
“We can spare a few seconds until they show up,” Stacy answered. “Make it short. And make it count.”
“We’re here for a reason,” Lou said more as if he were talking to someone than any kind of prayer I had ever heard. “I believe we are here to help the Rung and Remboshi live in peace once more. By defeating Legion together, we’re setting them on a course for their planet to live in harmony again. Give us courage to do the hard things and the wisdom to make the right decisions at the right time.”
That was it.
Then Lou went quiet.
I wasn’t sure if I believed any of this fate or destiny talk, but still, I felt compelled to add my two cents. “Amen.”
That was all the time we were getting. Lou’s prayer did make me feel better for the briefest moment.
Tong beginning his countdown ruined that for me. “Contact in five…” he began.
The dots on our screen were so close to the canyon edge, they looked as though they were falling into it from both sides.
“Four, three…” Tong continued.
I could see where the canyon ended on our map. The darkness didn’t allow me to see it with my eyes ahead of us, but very clearly, the diagram in our HUD told us we were almost there.
“Two… ONE!” Tong screamed the last word.
Stacy and Tong lit up the tops of the canyon cliffs above us, followed with Lou’s own Judge.
I couldn’t look up to see what they were shooting at more than a second or two at a time. To be honest, I couldn’t see much anyway. The lights on our vehicles shone straight ahead. The only light available to us from above was courtesy of the moon and stars.
Dark silhouettes of madness popped over the edges of the canyon. I couldn’t see what they carried, but a maelstrom of hellfire descended on us from above, as well as rocks the size of my head, so I could just imagine what they had available to them.
Rock and debris hit the predators along with the enemy fire as we snaked our way through the canyon.
War was hell, especially as we were outnumbered by the enemy. I had only glimpses of it before, but this was no exception to the rule. The discharge of enemy firepower thundered in the canyon, echoing even as rock and dirt exploded around us. I was grateful for the ear protection of my helmet to dampen the sounds, otherwise I would have trouble hearing for days to come when this was over.
Infected began to fall from the tops of the canyon. Bodies hit the predator with a squishy metallic sound, causing me to jerk the vehicle from side to side. The sickening thuds struck the frame of the vehicle so hard, the predator shuddered under the assault. I was certain John was having the same issues.
More and more bodies fell on us. Along with them came rocks, which I wasn’t sure were thrown intentionally, and sporadic weapon fire from those infected able to use blasters.
“Keep the bodies off the predators!” Stacy screamed as I continued to swerve to avoid them.
“There are too many of them!” Tong yelled back.
9
The open top of the predator was shaped like a T. As such, rocks bounced off my armor and helmet. I almost felt sorry for Sulk as he hunched over in his seat, trying to protect himself from the onslaught.
“They’re not just falling as we shoot them,” Lou roared. “They’re throwing themselves off the cliff trying to get on top of us!”
The idea was so insanely out of the box, I almost disregarded it. But I knew Legion was crazy and his box, so to speak, did not have a secure lid. With thousands of infected to offer up as sacrifices, it would make sense he would pay the heavy price of loss if it meant us not getting out of the canyon alive.
She grabbed my helmet in her three-fingered grip, trying to rip my helmet off my head.
My heart pounded in my chest as adrenaline flooded my system and I held onto the steering wheel with my right hand as I tried to fend off the Rung with my left. I jerked my head back and forth to avoid the Rung’s grip while keeping my eyes on the road in front of us, still swerving around to circumvent boulders.
Tong was going to be of little to no use. It wasn’t like he could turn his Blood Shot in my direction and try to fire on the infected Rung, even if he wanted to. He was too busy trying to keep the infected who were still launching themselves at us off our predators. Not to mention the fact that he was bound to hit us if he tried to intervene.
Another smack on the hood of our vehicle and a human infected grabbed on tight. This one was a grown man with the trademark black pools for eyes. A river of ebony liquid sludge came from his mouth and he clung to the vehicle like a parasite.
I continued to fight the infected Rung who was still trying to get a grip my helmet. She twisted this way and that as I attempted to throw her off and it was all I could to keep us from slamming into one of the canyon walls.
A second later, we jerked hard to the right as she finally managed to rip off my helmet. It fell onto the seat next to me. Cold wind blasted me in the face and, although refreshing, was not really what I wanted at this point. The infected grabbed for the steering wheel. For a second, I thought we were goners as she gained a grip on the handle with her right hand.
Before she could swing it one way or the other, Sulk suddenly stirred to action. Moving his body to the side, he struck out with his thick tail, batting her hand away. Another swift strike loosened her hold and sent the alien spinning into the darkness.
The other infected on the hood obscured my view of the canyon road in front of me. He pulled himself up over the windshield, his obsidian eyes fixed on mine. Unlike the infected who had been ripping at my helmet, I had time to deal with this one.
My left hand still on the wheel, I reached for the Judge with my right. I laid into the infected with my weapon, hammering him with three steel rods to the chest, followed by a couple to the head for good measure.
Black blood splattered across the predator and whooshed through the air around us. The infected let go of the windshield, falling to the ground with a satisfying plop. A second later, he was lost behind us in the night.
“We have got to get out of here!” John roared over the comms. “Almost there!”
Then I saw it. Ahead of us, only a few hundred meters off, I could make out the downward sloping ends of the mountain and the end of the canyon.
Legion must have realized we were about to make our escape, so he made a last-ditch effort to disable our team. More rocks slammed down on us. I took a shot to the skull that opened a gash in my head. Pain exploded and blood dripped into my vision, turning it a haze of red. Then another rock hit my left shoulder and it felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my collar bone.
A second later, we were out of the canyon and headed into open terrain. The screams of thousands of angry throats lifted into the air. I looked in my rearview mirror to see John just about to exit the canyon himself. His predator was smoking from the front. Somehow, the hood had been ripped off. Sparks ignited a small fire that soon engulfed the engine.
I watched in horror as the predator buckled and flipped end over end as though it had hit something. I slammed on the brakes of my predator without thinking and yanked us into a hard U-turn straight back to the upended predator.
“Stacy! John! Lou!” I yelled out loud in a panic. Without access to my helmet, I had only my voice to communicate.
Luckily for me, Tong had seen what happened. He was also asking them if they were all right over the comm unit.
“Can you hear us?” Tong shouted. “Please respond.”
Nothing.
I screeched to a stop beside the smoking predator and searched nearby but couldn’t see any bodies, which meant they had either been thrown from the predator or were trapped underneath.
“Tong, keep us covered,” I yelled as I prepared to jump out.
Sulk chattered something awful, yanking at his cuffs and looking at me intently.
I didn’t need Tong to understand Sulk wanted to help. As far as I was concerned, he had already proved his worth by saving me from the infected Rung that had latched onto my helmet. Without a second thought, I released him from his cuffs.
Tong didn’t bother arguing. He was already scanning the area for infected.
My best guess was that we had a few minutes before the infected were able to find a safe way down from the canyon walls and assault our position.
I ran over to the smoking predator, dropping to all fours to get a look underneath the vehicle. John was coughing, trying to crawl out from under it. Lou was upside down, still buckled in his seat. He wasn’t moving. His neck was positioned at an awkward angle. Stacy was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” John coughed, motioning to Lou. “Get him out. Help him.”
Sulk was small enough to crawl through the driver’s side and under the upside-down predator. He unbuckled Lou and grabbed him under the shoulders with care.
I helped as soon as Sulk pulled him far enough out. Together, we dragged Lou out behind John.
As much as I wanted to find Stacy, I knew something was very wrong with Lou. His body was heavy and limp in my hands, not responsive.
We laid him on his back as carefully as we could.
“Lou, Lou, can you hear me?” I asked, gently removing his helmet.
Lou’s face was pale. Blood spurted copiously from his mouth, and he gave off a weak, wet cough.
“You remember who you are,” Lou said so faintly I could barely make out the words.
His head was twisted to the right side of his shoulders in a way I had never seen before. Dark bruising was already starting around his neck and shoulder. I knew deep down things didn’t look good for him.
“Lou, we’ll be okay,” I said, refusing to accept the obvious. “We’re going to get you back. You don’t give up. You hear me? You don’t give up! You’re not allowed to, not after all that fate and destiny stuff you’re always talking about.”
Stacy appeared out of the darkness from wherever she had been thrown in the accident, limping gingerly. Thankfully, it seemed her armor had saved her from the worst of the fall when she was thrown from the predator.
“Lou,” Stacy said, approaching him as quickly as her injured leg would permit. She removed her own helmet and sank to her knees beside him. She grabbed Lou’s hand in her own. She recognized death when she saw it. We had all seen enough of it to know what it looked like. “Lou, we’re here for you. You’re not alone.”
“You…will save them,” Lou said, looking into the night sky above. “You two…will save this planet. We are all here…for a reason.”
The finality in his voice was enough to give my anger pause. My mouth was dry. A lump formed in my throat, rendering me unable to speak. With that, Lou let out a long draw of breath, and he was gone.
We sat there a few seconds in silence with the smoking predator behind us still burning from the hood. Distant screams in the night told us our spare time, time to say goodbye to our friend and examine wounds of the others in the wreck, was up.
“We have to go.” Stacy was the first to speak. “We’ll come back for his body. He’s past Legion being able to infect him now. We’ll give him the burial he deserves later, but right now we have to go or his death will be meaningless.”
I rose to my feet, feeling so much anger burn in my chest I was ready to make a final stand against Legion right there and then. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was angry, grieving, and in pain from this loss.
&nb
sp; John pulled off his own helmet. Tears filled his eyes, shimmering like tiny pools in the light of the many stars.
“What do you want from us?!” John shouted at the screaming infected. “You want to take everything? Is that what you want? You want to kill or infect us all and be alone again?”
John pulled the Judge from his hip. He began firing wildly into the night.
“Put your weapon down,” Stacy said firmly and loudly over John’s fire. “All that anger you feel? Bottle it up and get ready to use it the next time we come face to face with Legion. Right now, what you’re doing isn’t helping anyone.”
I had a moment with Lou, maybe the last moment we would ever have together. I looked down at my friend, the man with the faith and beliefs I didn’t quite understand but whom I felt privileged to know. The man I might have never known if we hadn’t crash landed on this god forsaken planet.
“I’m not going to let you down,” I said, closing his unseeing eyes with the tips of my fingers. “I’m going to make this count. I promise you. I’ll make this count.”
“Move!” Stacy shoved John toward the one working predator. “Now, Dean! On your feet!”
“Let’s go,” I said, helping her bully John backward.
It was clear John was still stunned, maybe even concussed from the accident, but I couldn’t tell and there was no time to check him.
The howls of the infected behind us continued to grow in volume. They couldn’t be more than a half kilometer off and were closing in quickly.
Sulk followed us as we all piled into the single working predator. I confirmed what I already knew by the sounds of the screams. They were coming, there were many, and they would be here in minutes.
Stacy slammed herself into the passenger side seat with Sulk in the middle and me in the driver’s seat. John and Tong squeezed into the back with the Blood Shot.
We were off a second later, the wheels spinning to life underneath us.