Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure
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Indian Hill 3: Conquest
INDIAN HILL 3: CONQUEST
Mark Tufo
Copyright 2012 Mark Tufo
Discover other titles by Mark Tufo
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Editing by:
Gerald Rice
gerald.rice76@sbcglobal.net
Cover Art:
Shaed Studios, shaedstudios.com
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Dedications: To my wife, you make all of this happen. Without you, my muse, I would have REAMS of nice clean unused white paper!
To Katherine Coynor, whose tireless work and super human eye for detail has helped to make this book as good as I can get it.
A special thank you to Lauren Dietz whose beautiful picture graces most chapter headers.
As always to the brave men and women of the United States Military, Thank You all for your sacrifice to our Great Nation.
Table Of Contents
Chapter 01 - Mike Journal Entry 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04 - Mike Journal Entry 02
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08 - Mike Journal Entry 03
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13 - Mike Journal Entry 04
Chapter 14
Chapter 15 - Mike Journal Entry 05
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20 - Mike Journal Entry 06
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24 - Mike Journal Entry 07
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27 - Mike Journal Entry 08
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30 - Mike Journal Entry 09
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33 - Mike Journal Entry 10
Chapter 34
Chapter 35 - Mike Journal Entry 11
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38 - Mike Journal Entry 12
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42 - Mike Journal Entry 13
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49 - Mike Journal Entry 14
Chapter 50
Chapter 51 - Mike Journal Entry 15
Chapter 52
Chapter 53 - Mike Journal Entry 16
Chapter 54
Chapter 55 - Mike Journal Entry 17
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60 - Mike Journal Entry 18
Chapter 61
Chapter 62 - Mike Journal Entry 19
Chapter 63 - Mike Journal Entry 20
Chapter 64 - Mike Journal Entry 21
Chapter 65 - Mike Journal Entry 22
Chapter 66 - Mike Journal Entry 23
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
And So It Ends...
CHAPTER ONE – Mike Journal Entry 1
Two weeks, two fucking weeks I spent in a hyperbolic chamber as the aliens did their medicinal magic on my shattered teeth, broken jaw, ribs, nose, left orbital socket, detached retina and a slight break in my shin. So the fucker had broken my leg when I took out his airway. Son of a bitch that he is—I mean was.
“I’ve learned a new term from your race, Mr. Talbot, tenacious.”
My head swiveled to see from which area the voice came from. My gaze rested on a small speaker box set in the left side of my now semi permanent home.
“It’s me, Mike.” The small metal box issued forth, as if that were enough explanation. I had thought about answering but the mere thought of moving my jaw made me think twice. I had no desire to revisit that pain.
“It is I, your doctor (he said it like I would remember him), and you can talk. You’re jaw is almost completely healed. I must say that you humans truly are a resilient species. Although not quite as hardy as the Progerians or even the Genogerians, yet you still seem to bounce back quickly from damage.”
“I’m glad that I can be of service, Doc,” I said sarcastically and not much above a whisper. The doc might be right, but I wanted to be sure the parts moved well and without much pain before I started doing any operatic arias.
“You truly are a unique species, both delicate and strong at the same time. A small instrument inserted in the right spot can stop your heart in a moment but yet you can survive having nearly every bone broken in your body. You talk about you’re loathing of violence and warfare, yet it pervades every aspect of your culture, your entire civilization is predicated on warfare. You talk of equality of all humankind while you step on the necks of those below you. Your art, your music, your spirituality have almost no rivals among the known universe but the vast majority of your kind would trade it all away for individual gain. You are altruistic to a fault, while self preservation reigns supreme.”
“Are you done with the semantics lesson, Doc? I’m still not feeling all that well.”
“Right, right. Well, that’s not really what I wanted to discuss anyway. I was just musing. I am writing my report for the home world; they will be very curious about your species and we should have some record of it.”
The implication was unsettling. The doc hadn’t talked about it, but there it was out in the open. They wanted a record of us before we became extinct. “Doc, get to the point, or you’re going to be talking while I’m sleeping.” I had no desire to humor this being. Sure, he was one of the few that had been something sort of decent, but when it really came down to it, it had only been for his personal gain. It’s great to know that greed could travel the star systems too.
“Yes, I just wanted to let you know that I bet everything that I had won on your previous bouts on this last fight. And at twenty-six to one odds, I came away with more drakkar than my offsprings’ offspring could spend. I will be able to, as you humans call it, ‘retire’.”
“Wow, Doc, I can’t tell you how happy for you I am.”
“Why thank you, Mike. Coming from you, that is actually great news.”
“Whatever, Doc. But what does that do for me?”
“Do for you? Why nothing, hu-man. I came here only to let you know that you have bettered my life. Unfortunately for you, your time will be up in another week or so.”
I sat up so fast I was rewarded with a solid thunking of my head on the top of the chamber.
“I’m guessing by your reaction that you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, I know what you mean. I just didn’t think that it would be that quick.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m not betting any money on Drababan, either. He should be able to kill you in under ten seconds, but I’ve watched you far too many times to believe you are as far an underdog at which the odds-makers have you. Which is actually
at two hundred fifty to one.”
“Wow, that close?” From the silence through the box I knew the doctor was still trying to process my words. He probably thought I misunderstood what he had said.
“Well, okay,” he muttered. “I will let you sleep now. The healing medicines work much better when the patient sleeps. It has to do with the relaxation of the endocrine system. I heard the intercom system shut down and then the lights in the chamber dimmed as if in response to the doctor’s words. Hell, what did I know, that was probably exactly what happened. As much as I tried to fight sleep, I needed to think about how I was going to get out of this situation; consciousness eluded me. My dreams were filled with despair—sorrow and an aching that went deep down into the recesses of my brain. Even if by some small miracle I survived the ordeal, I would be a broken man, a shell of the person that I had the potential to become. Soon even self-pity faded away. I washed up on a beach of golden sand and the brilliant red of a sunset. It had been heaven, of that I was sure of upon waking many hours later. But why was I being shown that, was it in preparation for my soon to be earthly departure? There was no way I rated a spot in nirvana though, I had done things for which there was no absolution; why was God tormenting me this way? Was he showing me what my loss of humanity had lost me in the afterworld? Had my brief pathetic stay in life cost me my afterlife? Or was he showing me there was still hope for my soul? I wept for hours upon waking, even as my glimpse of heaven began to fade from my waking. There was still hope; I came away with that, if nothing else.
CHAPTER TWO
Beth had traipsed through the woods the majority of the night; it was fear that drove her. Not fear of the woods, although that did unsettle her some. It was the fear of what was behind, glimpses of the Sergeant’s bloated body haunted her every move. That, and the man’s head she had so neatly dissolved, add to that, she missed Deborah. The girls had become fast friends in their mutual shared agony. Beth couldn’t take it anymore; she stumbled toward a fallen tree and slouched down, her ass making a solid thud as she wept into her hands. Hunger, pain and despair took over. Beth sobbed until she felt certain she had completely wrung out her soul, and then she cried some more. Afterward she slept, a soulless, dead sleep, no dreams permeated her mind for if they had they most assuredly would have been dark and oh so regrettably unforgettable. She awoke sometime after midnight, the sky black but not as dark as her soul, she figured, but what disturbed her was the silence or better yet the absence of sound. The woods were deathly silent, nothing stirred. But there was something out there, she couldn’t see it, she couldn’t smell it but she knew it was out there all the same. ‘A deer maybe?’ Even in her fantasy world she knew that wasn’t the case, deer don’t make the woods go quiet. Only hunters have that effect and with that revelation she was now wide awake and wide-eyed. Fear didn’t so much creep as it leapt into her heart. She turned her head slowly from side to side trying in vain to catch some sort of sighting of whatever was in the forest with her.
Was it the Sergeant? Was his purplish blue body trying to find her and take her with him? That was insane, wasn’t it? Wasn’t an alien invasion two years ago considered to be an insane thought? Beth hunkered down trying to make herself as small as possible.
Crack. Something off to her left had broken a fallen branch, her heart raced as she blindly reached out trying to grab onto anything that could be used as some semblance of a weapon. Nothing happened for ages, for eternities, whatever it was had sensed its blunder and was trying to establish if its quarry had been alerted. If the quarry had been Beth, she most assuredly had been warned, but prior warning in no way implied preparation.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said softly as she pounded her head. “Why didn’t I take the gun?” That small error now took on a much greater magnitude. Something or someone was close and so far Beth had only been able to secure a handful of moss as a potential bludgeon. The crack had been close enough, but whatever was stumbling through the woods was heading in her general direction, Beth pulled her legs in close and hugged them for all they were worth. She considered running though she knew she would be running blind and there was still the possibility that the thing out there might pass her by, but with every agonizingly slow second her hope of just that diminished.
Closer.
It approached slowly as if unsure of its location, closer all the same. Beth held her breath, whatever it was, was only feet away, she could hear it breathing, if it was a meat-eating animal she had only a few minutes of precious life left.
There it was. It muttered a semi-silent curse. It wasn’t an animal in the traditional sense, but it was a meat-eater and it was looking for her. Was it the Sergeant—was he really coming for her?
“Fuck,” she heard again. It didn’t sound like the Sergeant. Who was it? And why were they out here in the middle of nowhere looking for her? Was it one of the raiders? Had someone seen her handiwork? Or was it her handiwork himself coming to seek some sort of revenge? When she was sure that he would literally fall over her feet, he moved on. She heard him walk through the woods and now that her senses were peaked he sounded like a bull in a china shop. Beth finally let her breath out, thankful for one of the few times in her life that she hadn’t taken a bath in the last couple of days. Her hammering chest slowly quieted as the footfalls from her pursuer grew fainter.
“Oh, Deb, where are you?” she wept. “Mike, I need you!”
CHAPTER THREE
It had been weeks since the mothership or for that matter any of the fighter ships had so much as blinked and Paul could not help but wonder if this was the calm before the storm. Civilization for the most part had crumbled, sure there was a viable resistance set up across the globe but could it stand up against any sort of onslaught? Paul thought not. The best mankind could hope for was to die free. It wasn’t how he had planned his life, but then he figured that it really wasn’t how any of them had.
“Well, better get on with it,” he said out loud.
“Sir?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Corporal,” Paul said as his addled thoughts converted back to the more streamlined and simplified of the military life. “What is it, Corporal. Addison?”
“Sir, the civilians are beginning to grow restless. A growing minority of them want to go topside, they’re sick of living like rats, tucked away and hidden.”
“Better to be hidden, living like a rat than shot down like a dog.”
“Sir, nothing has happened for over two weeks, maybe the worst of it is over.”
“I take it Corporal that you are part of this growing minority?” The corporal did not respond. “Do you truly believe Corporal that our ‘friends’ up in the sky after so thoroughly kicking our mightiest militaries collective asses in a matter of days have since decided that maybe this planet isn’t worth the effort after all?”
The corporal struggled for a second, Paul couldn’t completely blame him, they had all lost most of their loved ones and wanted to now try to get on with some semblance of normality.
“No, sir, I don’t but what are they waiting for?”
“Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Maybe they’re busy prepping their ground troops, maybe they’re waiting for reinforcements, maybe they’re just toying with us like a cat with a mouse. Maybe they just want to completely crush our spirits when they have our greatest champion slaughtered at the hands of their champion live as it’s broadcast around the globe on the Alien Sports Network. Fuck, corporal, I don’t know, but if so much as one person attempts to go topside without explicit orders to do so I want them detained and if they resist I want them shot. I will not have our last bastion compromised because some in our group want to go smell daisies! Do you understand, corporal?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” The Corporal snapped to attention, saluted and about-faced to tell his girlfriend that they’re topside picnic was going to have to be postponed for a while.
“Frank, I know you were listening—can you believe this shit
?”
“Sir, I can. Every day the aliens do nothing, the more restless our charges get. I almost wish they’d attack so we could direct our energy somewhere.”
“How go the preparations for the fight site?”
“On schedule, Paul, maybe a little ahead. I think our French friends feel a little guilt for how quickly they were willing to give Mike up.”
“Good. Whatever leverage we can use on our froggy friends to make sure they get the job done right is fine with me. What have the new models listed the possibility of a successful raid at, Frank?”
Not good, Paul, even with our changes in tactics we’re really only looking at a one in four chance in pulling this off.”
“Well, let’s just hope this is the fourth chance and not any of the other three.”
“I’m in agreement, oh and one more thing, Paul,” the major turned and said as he was headed out the door. Paul nodded for him to continue. “Our stores are down to two months even with rationing.”
“One way or the other, Frank, I don’t think we’re going to need the full two months.” The colonel nodded as he put his cover back on and headed to the civilian sectors to quell any sort of uprising that might have been rearing its ugly head.
'Is any of this worth it?' Paul could feel his deepest doubts surfacing, he thought. He felt powerless to stop them. Even he thought they should have the chance to breath in fresh air one last time. Throw a baseball under a beautiful blue sky once more. Hear the laughter of children as they played on a swing set. Wasn’t that their right? NO! Paul forced it down.
He knew he hadn't taken their rights away, the invaders had. He just felt that he was the last stop-gap to prevent any further loss of whatever rights they may have left. Letting them go would be tantamount to mass murder, sure not by his hands, but he would shoulder the blame all the same. While there was any semblance of hope he would hold onto it as long as possible. To let go of the tiger’s tail now would be to admit defeat and if Mike could keep going on after all he had been through, then dammit, so could he. He would not be bested, not by the aliens not by fate or destiny and definitely not Mike.