A Depraved Blessing

by D.C. Clemens

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Crippled

  It had been two weeks since another light in my life was snuffed out, two weeks of living in a boiling haze. While I was allowing my body repose in the form of a nap one afternoon, I overheard a multitude of dashing footsteps just outside the sleeping quarters. At first, I was certain they were only tricks derived from a lingering dream, but the first scene I viewed in reality was of my mother, Bervin, and Eloram standing in front of me and watching the doorless entrance, where the origins of the upheaval came from the stampede of warriors moving to and fro.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, not directly to anyone. “Where’s Dayce?”

  My mother answered, “Siena took Dayce to the mess hall to eat, along with Mrs. Ave. Then the captain began booming some orders over the intercom a few minutes ago.”

  “It sounded like they were preparing to attack a Tower to me,” Bervin added.

  “A Tower offensive?” I said to myself. I wasn’t yet awake enough to trust what I was hearing. “Are you sure?”

  “I interpreted it that way too,” said Eloram. “There weren’t many details in the orders though.”

  Before my awareness could catch up to my actions, I had already risen and was heading out the entrance.

  “Where are you going?” asked my mother with her characteristic combination of confusion and irritation.

  “To find out what I can.”

  The halls were crowded, more crowded than I had ever seen them before. I didn’t notice their faces as I made my way through the bulks of bodies going every which way, but I felt their focused intensity like a powerful current of electricity surging through the innards of the ship. The command deck was my only goal, hoping to meet a higher up to divulge the details of the announcement. I eventually found it, or maybe luckier to come upon it, and there, coming down a hallway and heading in my direction, I saw Yitro conversing with Lieutenant Crosst. I broke my hurried pace.

  Crosst, the first to spot me, said, “Ah, professor, here to volunteer for my squad, too?”

  I turned to Yitro as they both stopped right in front of me. With a look of general surprise, I inquisitively said, “Too?”

  He shrugged, and bearing a poised air only he could wear, said, “I’m a spirit warrior, aren’t I?”

  This rhetorical question Yitro posed to me revealed his metamorphosis and the several exchanges he must have had with the lieutenant to wholly convince him to become part of the fighting force. After the initial surprise made its round, I returned to my aim. “I was unable to hear the announcement. Is it true we’re going to attack a Tower?”

  “That’s right,” the lieutenant replied, continuing our walk as a trio, with me following their lead. “A Tower landed near Morva last night, a small city not far off the coast, or about a hundred miles north of our current position. According to the report I heard, some of the local forces decided to attack the thing, and wouldn’t you know it, they think they’ve damaged it.”

  “Damaged it? How?”

  “They believed something was wrong with the Tower,” she continued, not seeming to pay any attention to anything but what was in front of her. “It didn’t really spread much of the infection after it landed and its shield was visibly on the fritz, so the forces there decided to take a chance on an attack. Our sources there think they were able to disable its engines.”

  “But now they need reinforcements.”

  “Yep, the Injectors wiped out most of the small group. We’re the nearest, so we’ll see if we can finish the job before it can potentially repair itself.”

  “And you’re one of the squads going?” I asked, though it could have easily been a statement.

  The lieutenant came to a stop and explained with mock anger, “Thanks to you, professor, my little squad is now known as part of the group who defeated an Injector. We’ve no choice but to go.”

  “When do you move out?”

  “Three hours before we can get close enough to make an amphibious landing, but we’ll start the bombardment when enough ships are in range. Meanwhile, I have to get my new recruit here some proper gear.” I noticed we were standing in front of some supply rooms. “Anything else, professor?”

  My eyes gravitated toward Yitro’s, and in them I saw a fixed resolution he had never carried before. Still, the rest of him was as laissez-faire as I had always known him to be. What next shocked me more than learning he was to attend the resistance was me wishing I could be by his side as a fellow combatant.

  “No, nothing else for now, lieutenant.”

  As I once again entered the sleeping quarters after a much less vivid journey back, I found Bervin, Eloram, and my mother in much the same positions I had left them. I told them all that I had learned. Their reactions to our vessel’s new mission did not rival that of their astonishment to hear of Yitro uniting with them as a soldier in his own right, with the exemption of Eloram, who did not seem to elicit any emotion at all when the news entered her acoustic expanse. She merely stayed staring at me, with no deviation in her docile expression. She must have been distressed, but at the same time, I felt it was a sorrow she must have already been bracing for.

  As I was in these contemplations, Siena, Delphnia, and Dayce arrived, so we were all present to see Yitro silently reveal himself in his new tanned camouflage about an hour later.

  To disrupt the tormenting silence that conquered the room for the first few moments on his entry, I heard the question, “Are you sure about this?” I looked for the origin of the inquiry to discover that it came from none other but my mother. I did not recognize the aberrantly low, gentle voice.

  Before Yitro could respond, Delphnia petulantly interceded, exclaiming, “Let him join our ancestors if he wants!” While she said it harshly, only pity filled my soul.

  Without a sound, Eloram stood up from the cot and left the room, not taking any glance to Yitro and neither did he take a glimpse at her. He did not move to impede her, if anything, he was more still than before. Seeing that Yitro was not going to follow her, Siena chased after her instead.

  Bervin subsequently counseled Yitro. “You don’t have to do this, son.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but it’s already decided,” he replied. It was close to his usual tone, but I thought it had a newfound seriousness in it. “It might be pointless, but back at the island I saw I could do something more to help besides just keeping myself alive. Basic math says if I save just two people then I’ve given us better odds at surviving this thing. That’s how I feel, anyhow.”

  Dayce moved for the first time, walking up to embrace his hero. I don’t believe he truly thought about what he was doing, for he seemed to be under a spell as he wrapped his arms around him. I knew then that Yitro was no longer only his hero anymore. Yitro kneeled and returned the tight hug, not so different from how I held Dayce the morning I parted with him at the gated community. Over the room’s stillness, the feeble sound of Dayce’s tears escaping him could be heard.

  “Hey, Dayce, I have to go save the world now,” Yitro said as he looked copiously in his eyes. “When you’re a bit older you can join me and we’ll make an unstoppable team, all right?” Dayce sluggishly nodded. I saw his lips try to form words, but he couldn’t, for his sobs would not let him. “I guess I should find your future wife and bring her back to you.” He stood back up and strolled out the room.

  We were all in the well deck not long after to see Yitro set forth in his new mission in life. I briefly looked around and realized that Yitro was lucky. He had people to say goodbye to. The late afternoon light creeping through the deck’s opening grazed Yitro’s uniform, making it seem he was always meant to wear it. Sayings of farewells were exchanged, handshakes given, and hugs made. There was Bervin’s strong handshake, Siena’s pure tears, my mother’s maternal words, Dayce’s admiration, and even Delphnia was able to show him a hint of goodwill. For my part, we shook hands and I told him that I wished I could join him.
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  He smiled lightheartedly and he said, “Nah, an old-timer would just slow us down.”

  Then there was Eloram. She didn’t say too much, but there was no need to, as it was already said in private. Her eyes were ones of sheer tenderness as her tears smoothly moved down her kind face. She enveloped her arms around him, resting her moist cheek on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and held on every second she could.

  While he was walking down to the craft that would take him away from us, and after a last parting wave from him, a thought came to me of how I would be so blessed as a father to know that my son would grow up to emulate him. Almost as quickly as I could blink, he was gone. They all were. The soldiers had boarded their various transports, Yitro in the first of the two hovercraft, racing toward their daunting target. They drifted farther and farther away until I could see them no more as they wrapped around the Arians and out of our sights. One by one, what was left of our companions started their return back to our quarters until only Siena and I remained. We had decided beforehand to go to the command center and attempt to persuade Captain Fideon to allow us to listen in on the approaching mission.

  We found him without difficulty in the expected compartment, tangibly feeling the veneration in the room he presided in. As it turned out, it did not take much convincing for him to gladly give us permission to listen in. I had no doubt he saw this as a proactive attempt by me to learn all I could on the responsibilities and particulars of leadership. Truth be told, he was not as far off as he would have been before Yitro disclosed his recent transformation and new chosen path. He showed me how I should not confine myself to the rules of my former self, not to live my life as if I was still hoping for everything to work out without taking on a more active role in the solution. He was now using his strength and the gifts bestowed to him by the Spirits to help as much as he could give. I did not have his strength, nor did I have his spiritual gifts, but what I could do was accumulate knowledge and concentrate on learning a useful skill to better my chances of survival and those of others. All the same, my chief concern and curiosity rested on knowing how the mission was progressing. Any information I could acquire, status updates or the sounds of the battle itself, would be the nourishment for my anxious soul.

  The room where we were in was, for all intents and purposes, the brain of the ship. It was similar in size to that of a large bedroom or a small living room. Led through, I was greeted by the glare of computer screens positioned in every direction, excluding the wall where the entrance was located. In the center of the hectic room was a large white table, however, it would not do it justice to label it as so. Integrated on its surface was a computer screen of its own, and though it shined brighter than any of the others, my interest couldn’t be retained to it, seeing no relevant information being conveyed. My eyes examined the whole room, twice, maybe thrice, and still it was impossible for me to navigate all that I was seeing. Frantic feet moved periodically across the room, their focused eyes dissecting the screens in front of them. I did not count more than a dozen soldiers, but there were times when I was certain there were three times as many. Different voices were bouncing off all directions, some not germinating from the room we were in, and none coherent enough for my head to make sense of the chatter. The captain motioned for Siena and I to sit by the table at the center of the room, joining a few others who seemed too focused to heed our arrival. The captain continued to wander from one computer to the next, with an air of dignity that I was sure few people could still effectively bear. I peeked at Siena to expect her to be in admiration of the presentation as I was. I found that she wasn’t. Not a hint of wonder touched her countenance, in fact, I thought her more somber looking. It didn’t take me long to remember why she would be so.

  I wouldn’t say it took us all that long to eventually identify what data most of the accessible screens displayed, along with better distinguishing the conversations we were hearing spring off the walls. The crackling voices emanating from the radios during all the simultaneous exchanges did hinder me from concentrating on one discussion for too long. Even with all that was happening around us, Captain Fideon appeared to be able to effortlessly absorb the steady stream of information coming to him from every corner of the command center and from command decks beyond. I was in complete awe of him, not only in the poise he aired, but in how so unpretentious he was in the way he carried it. The room continued to grow more alive every moment that passed. All the while, Siena and I became quieter and more motionless, careful not to disturb the cadence sight. It turned out we did not need to wonder aloud how the mission was going, since we were provided updates from none other but of the captain himself. While I believed this was something he did habitually for the benefit of all those in the command center, I suspected my presence made him do it a little more than usual.

  “Shore bombardment has ceased, captain,” stated an older female soldier sitting at the head of the room, who appeared to act as his chief aide. “Waiting for ground teams to take their positions.”

  “It looks like the first wave is safely ashore,” said the captain in one of the first updates he gave himself. His voice was so much more stanch compared to when we dined in the mess hall. “No sign of trouble, yet,” he added a few minutes later.

  The aide next informed, “Sir, one of our birds has a visual on the target.”

  “Main screen.”

  In the same moment his order was vocalized, I became enticed by a large screen that was black an instant before and was now doubling the volume of light in the room. It was set on the wall opposite the entrance and above a line of smaller computer screens. The image it imparted was not one I much desired to see again, but I knew I had to fight the loathsome feeling draping over my eyes to be able to receive the information I wanted. Whether only in my imagination or not, I believed the whole room became silently enthralled during the split second the blacken frame of the target first flashed on screen. It did not at all ease my trembling nerves to know that it was rooted over ten miles away from where we were, not that it was longer possible for any distance to feel safe enough.

  Oddly enough, the Tower was fairly far from the city of Morva, its alleged objective. The small city was only a fuzzy splotch in the background and the area it was in was devoid of settlement. The contemptible Deliverer had sequestered itself on a plain of cracked soil and the bare twigs of petrified trees. Conversely, combined with the revulsion and condemnation I felt, there was an undeniable sense of attraction and esteem. I tried to ignore it, to cast it away, but observing the Harbinger of our unreserved destruction getting struck so impeccably by the light of the setting eastern sun gave the object a sanctified sheen, making the darkest form of black ever perceived become even more juxtaposed by the dainty evening colors that assailed the sky. I began to wonder for the first time if the creators of this Harbinger of chaos had any appreciation for art and, if they did, what that signified. My thoughts were interrupted when I detected a disruption at the Tower’s surface. Starting from its flat summit, the Tower suffered a distinctive wave of distortion that quickly journeyed down to its tapered base, giving me the impression that the Tower was a mere illusion. I presumed this to be a sign of its impaired shield.

  The Spirit of Time lurched forward in ever indolent increments the longer the ageless deity dragged on. The ground teams had to move into their positions before the attack resumed, all the while, anticipating to be met with resistance by the Injectors. Yet, as they progressed closer to their goal, our nemeses did not demonstrate their presence, excluding a handful of infected persons and animals. Even when the forces were well within their optimal range to begin the offensive, the enemy remained eerily absent.

  I then overheard a domineering voice stemming from the radios loudly advise, “Aim for the two engines!” A moment passed and much of the chatter from the radio terminated. The authoritative voice arose again and ordered, “Fire at will!”

  I watched as the first missiles and shells
tore through the sky and assault the shield of the Tower from every conceivable direction. The scene very much reminded me of our first attack on the Towers. I was even anticipating for everything to go dark just as it did then, however, they never did, the implication being that the Tower had lost its EMP ability. The majority of the expertly aimed projectiles created a visible impact ripple on the shield and, every so often, I would see some of these ripples rip open when the detonations were severe enough. In the span of these short-lived intervals, the newly exposed black surface was susceptible to our warheads, allowing them to stream through and directly strike the formidable structure in its actual form before it was able to restore itself. This cycle repeated itself for the next several minutes, with increasing success. There were strong winds, especially in the altitude it was able to reach, but even they could not prevent the buildup of smoke and surges of flame from veiling much of the Tower’s peak. The Injectors still restrained from assisting their possession.

  All at once, the accumulation of smoke dispersed from the Tower’s crown. Both the Tower’s engines had awakened and were clearing the air with the force of their thrusters. The anxiety in the already highly anxious room reached its furthermost height. The bluish light of the engines turned darker and darker and looked to be giving a significant amount of thrust, compelling the Tower to tremble, though it did not yet lift off. For the time being, the arsenals and munitions maintained their assail. With our view once again unhindered, we were able to see the shield easily tearing with each strike it suffered and was significantly slower at rearranging itself. Now it seemed every projectile was achieving a direct hit, but the advanced material was just as great an obstacle as the first barrier.

  Our weaponry continued concentrating their full devotion to the two engines, but the flaps that encircled them held firm and prevented any meaningful infiltration on the most defenseless sections of the ship. The only hope for a precise strike on them was if they could be struck from directly underneath, but the intense draft emitted from the engines prohibited anything from getting too close. We next noted the support legs of the Tower begin to retract into the drill, revealing the Tower’s intention to extract itself from the land. The interstellar engines seemed to gain an upsurge in propulsion, but they could still barely move the fortification. With what looked to be tremendous and strenuous effort, I could finally start to see the quivering engines succeed in giving the Tower enough of a push to pull it out of the soil. After climbing inches at a time, the spiraled base completely exited the hole it had twisted open when it had landed.

  It could not hold on to the taste of triumph for long. The entire shield surrounding the Tower radiantly flashed in a transparent light, and then wholly disappeared. The foreign craft was still striving to rise higher, but as it did so, its engines were becoming more exposed to direct strikes from below. Without any warning, a sudden and ferocious explosion cloaked the entire engine on the right side of the screen, causing the Tower to stop ascending. It laid suspended in the air for a long moment before it ultimately began to tilt to the right, seeing as it could no longer be supported by its lonesome engine. It collided crudely with the ground after a rapid descent of fifteen hundred feet. As soon as the black edifice, which still didn’t appear to have a dent on it, met with our reclaimed topsoil with a crash, my ears were joined with cheers, expletives, and applause coming from both within the room and through the radio channels, which included those of Siena and I.

  The cheering was not long lasting as every eye was still fixed the scene of our exultation and wanted to watch what happened next. The working engine of the nightmarish vessel was now positioned as the uppermost segment and which now served to gradually propel the gigantic structure forward, transforming the advanced craft into a glorified bulldozer. It pathetically skulked for half a mile, forcing our nearest war machines to retreat, until it eventually lost all its potency and stopped dead. With the dust settling around the combat zone, the battle was deemed formally over when a ceasefire was declared and another spurt of cheers and applause ran about the room, though it was more subdued than the first torrent. I saw the smiles all around me and I turned to Siena. She was smiling, but it not as vibrant as it conceivably could have been. Perhaps she was thinking the same about me. There was something encumbering our full joviality.

  I was able to hear the captain’s severe voice amid all the congratulatory acclaims. His eyes were fastened to the fallen Tower that persisted on the screen and he said, more to himself than anyone in particular, “Imagine what we’ll find in there! What we can use!”

  Before we could take our leave, thinking the captain had forgotten we were there and wanted to inform our group of what we witnessed, he walked up to us and asked, “So, Mr. Rosyth, Ms. Tillar, a bit too easy, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I thought it was trap,” Siena answered without reluctance, as if she had been prepared for the question, “but I can’t imagine they would sacrifice a Tower for this kind of tactic.”

  “I agree,” I said, the captain now on top of us. “They’ve been too successful and self-assured to resort to setting traps. The lack of any Injector resistance tells me they must have believed the Tower was beyond their saving and gave it up willingly. Something was obviously wrong with it, even before the initial forces had a chance to damage it.”

  Finishing my thought, Siena continued, “And that’s not to say they won’t return if we linger.”

  “Then you don’t agree in staying to study it?” the captain asked Siena, a trace of surprise escaping with the query.

  “I can understand the impulse,” she answered, “but I don’t believe leaving anything but a small force is worth the risk of attracting Injectors or another Tower.”

  “And just give them back their ship?” he grimly asked.

  “If they want it back, do you really believe we could stop them?” Siena calmly but persuasively replied.

  “If we can learn to use their technology inside that ship, then maybe we can.”

  Siena shook her head. “An unlikely prospect,” she said contritely. “It would be like giving our primitive ancestors a laptop. It would take many years for them to even begin to understand the symbols on the keyboard, and that’s assuming they didn’t break it. Moreover, if they were someday able to turn it on, they would have no way to charge it when the battery wasted. Reverse engineering technology we have no knowledge of would take the effort of thousands of the smartest minds working for many decades, and that’s if the world were more stable.”

  “All the more reason to start as quickly as possible.”

  “I know I sound fatalistic,” she said meekly. “I pray we quickly find something that can give us more of a fighting chance, but what I know for certain is that those soldiers out there are our most valuable resource.”

  “That I can agree with. What say you, Rosyth?”

  My eyes revolved to meet Siena’s. Any other wouldn’t have been able to see it, but it was clear to me that they contained a tinge of regret; a regret at saying the words she had just spoken without giving a more optimistic outlook. Though she spoke low and the talk of the soldiers smothered some of what she said, she was still in listening range of some of the warriors who were protecting us. Returning my attention back to the captain, I responded with my impression of the situation.

  “Personally, I’d finish evacuating everyone in the area and set off a nuke. Leaving a large force here for the slight chance of a long-term reward feels like pushing our luck.”

  He contemplated for a moment before saying, “The two of you make a strong case. I don’t completely agree with it, but you’ve at least convinced me to call back as many of my men as possible and counsel others to do the same. Unfortunately, your spirit warrior friend will have to stay there. Removing him would be detrimental to morale.”

  Complete darkness had soon reclaimed the sky. Neither the moons nor their stirring lights were anywhere to be seen, preventing untarnished vi
ews of the grounds where the fallen Tower laid, so Siena and I left, feeling we would not gain more much by staying. When we did make known our experience to the others in our assemblage, their reactions did not differ much from ours, a reception I could only describe as cautious jubilation.

  Over the next few days, engineers went to work studying the dethroned monolith, the first of its kind. It was a great misfortune that many of the brilliant minds and scholars that would have given anything to analyze and scrutinize its unguarded form did not have the fortune to be this close to it now. As expected, there were just a few superficial cracks and scratches on the harden exterior. It could have never been guessed by foreign eyes that it had been through a crusade of our most vengeful armaments. It was actually more of a surprise that it showed any signs of our reprisal at all, and most were actually satisfied with that. Ironically, the only ingress the crew was able to access was the engine that managed to remain intact. However, they were barred from exploring any farther than forty or fifty feet by mechanical impediments, but it still must have been an impressive ingress. Every engineer that was privileged enough to enter had a different story to tell once they emerged.

  One talked of hearing smothered voices whispering in his ear, while someone else spoke of hearing nothing at all, a dead silence that was maddening to her senses. There was discussion of feeling the fringe of a ghastly and heavy aura that packed the labyrinth within. Others described impromptu changes in atmospheric density that made it difficult to breathe fluidly. There were many other tales, some of which were so peculiar that they were impossible to remember in detail, but all of us believed them, no matter how outlandish they sounded. The armor itself was equally as remarkable. Anything less than our mightiest tanks was entirely futile to manage the slightest of fissures, and even they required the most acute inspection to notice the mark it left, like leaving a kiss on a mountain. Any progress would indeed be insufferably languid.