by Mark Tufo
That would be nice, his eyes said, but both of us knew the chances of that were pretty slim. It was tough to tell his meaning as I was too busy backpedaling from his aggressive, queen’s pawn opening.
“Captain.” I looked up to see Sergeant Yarborough framed against the door jamb. “May I have a word with you?”
This was a new development, this was the first time I had seen her use any type of military dictum with me. It was far too unsettling for my likes.
“Sure, Sergeant, go ahead.”
“It’s lieutenant now, sir. I’ve been field promoted.” She pointed to the gold bar pinned on her lapel. “And I would like to speak with you alone,” she responded as she looked over at Drababan.
I got up off of Drababan’s bed. “Congratulations,” I told her and then I turned to Drababan. “Sorry, Dee, it looks like we’ll have to finish this one another time.”
“No, matter,” he answered. “It was mate in fifteen moves anyway.”
I looked down at him, his snout pulled back in a sneer, which I now knew was his equivalent of a smile, and I believed him.
“Maybe the next game I’ll show you will be Monopoly,” I said as I strode toward the door.
Drababan was still trying to grasp this new word as I headed out of sick bay with the Lieutenant in quick tow.
My quarters weren’t that far away and compared to what the rest of the crew was sleeping in, it was the Taj Mahal. My room consisted of a couch cushion, a desk, and a chair roughly the size of those unidesks we all remember so well from grade school. Still, I wasn’t complaining. It was infinitely better than any of my alien quarters or the crew bunks, if that’s what you wanted to call them. Those men had to get out of their beds if they wanted to roll over into a different position. It was a phenomenon some seamen carried throughout their wholes lives much to the chagrin of their significant others. Even in a spacious king size bed, those old salts would get up out of bed, invariably disturbing their spouses and then getting back in as if they were still packed like playing cards.
I sat down on my cot. I didn’t know if that was proper military bearing or not, but the last two years of my life had taken their toll and whenever I saw a chance to take a respite I did so. Lieutenant Yarborough didn’t seem to mind.
“Sir,” she began.
Well this was getting interesting, I thought.
“I came here today to apologize for my behavior the other day and if you wish to press charges for insubordination against me I will secure myself to the brig.”
“This place is big enough for a brig?” I asked
Her wonderfully gray-green eyes enlarged for no more than a split second. Did she really think I’d press charges?
“Lieutenant, relax—I mean at ease. I have no intention whatsoever of pressing charges.” Her body slightly relaxed. She probably wasn’t even aware of it, but after so many fights my senses were a lot more in tune with the nuances of the human body. “Listen, Lieutenant. I know what you’re going through. I’ve also lost a lot of people I was responsible for—you keep second-guessing yourself whether there was something you could have done to save them, let me tell you, Lieutenant. You couldn’t help—it was their time to die. And I’m not gonna give you any bullshit about it being a good day to die, because any day you die just plain sucks. If you want to ask me if your mission was worth it, I’ll tell you flat out, no. I wouldn’t sacrifice that many for one on any given day, no matter who that man was. I’ll guarantee you one thing, Lieutenant. I will make the aliens pay ten-fold for what they did to your team, I promise that.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Lieutenant Yarborough said as she turned to leave.
“Lieutenant, one more thing,” I hurriedly said.
“What’s that, Captain?” she answered, never fully turning to look at me, I thought she might have had a tear in her eye.
“What time do you eat around here?”
“0600,” came her quick reply.
“Would you mind if I joined you?” I asked with an edge of nervousness in my voice.
“Officers always eat together, sir,” she answered.
Not exactly the response I was looking for, but it was a start.
“Anything else, sir?”
“I meant what I said, Lieutenant.”
“I know you did, Captain,” she answered as she leveled her gaze on me. Yep, my heart definitely stopped. Luckily, she left fast or I would have looked mighty stupid having a heart attack at my ripe old age.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Beth sobbed for the first mile she trudged through the ash that was Boston. She cried for Deb, for her family, for Boston, for herself, but most of all she cried for the sheer hopelessness of it all. Who was she kidding? What was finding Mike now going to mean even if he was still alive? He couldn’t right all the wrongs no matter how hard he tried. But she reasoned, she could make it right with him somehow and that counted for something. She was a good twenty miles from where she wanted to be and she was scared, but she had a purpose and with luck she would be in Mike’s arms within the next two days. The thought spurred her on.
***
Cut the bitch’s head cut clean off. The thought spurred him on. The Bitch's footprints were getting much more defined, with each passing minute, he was making great gains, at the pace he was at he figured to have her in sight within the next hour. And let her see him—what did he care—what was she going to do, shoot him? He laughed, crazily. Where was she going to go? He hadn’t seen a car since the journey began, he didn’t see any reason to believe that that was going to change anytime soon. Besides, God was on his side—what could go wrong?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dennis was primed and ready as were his men. The distance to Dedham was only eight miles as the crow flew, unfortunately Dennis knew they would not be taking the crow’s route. He and his men had twelve bristle laden miles to trek and they only had a couple of hours to do it in, if they were going to be able to complete their mission and get back undetected, it would be tight and he had no illusions, it would not be extremely dangerous, but the times were inherently dangerous. The time for pondering was over, the time for action had come. Physically and mentally he felt he was up to the task. Dennis’ men were chomping at the bit to finally get into some action, the majority of them were either prior military or still technically in their respective services until their fighting forces were forcibly disbanded. Most had a personal grudge to bear. Dennis had to reign them in more than once during the mission briefing, telling them it was a recon mission and nothing more. This was not the time or place to make a stand, soon but not yet.
“Alright, everyone pack enough supplies for two nights and tape up your magazine cartridges I don’t want any extraneous noise. We leave in ten,” Dennis said as he picked up his papers and headed to his own quarters, hopefully, he thought to himself, not for the last time. But something was different he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, something just wasn’t quite right. “Nerves,” he muttered as he moved on.
Paul was nowhere in sight as Dennis and his men moved out. He didn’t expect him to be, but he had hoped
“Good luck, my friend,” Paul said as he watched Dennis’ men slide into the edge of the woods some hundred fifty yards away.
“He’ll be fine, Paul,” Frank said as he came out on Paul’s side.
“What are you doing here?” Paul asked as he turned to look at Frank.
“Same thing you are,” Frank answered. Both men turned to look where Dennis’ men had slipped into the twilight, no longer in sight.
Dennis surged with pride as he turned to look back at his home for the last few months and saw Paul and Frank standing at the exit way.
***
It was close to ten o’clock when Dennis finally got his men into position. His heart pounded as he looked upon the scene below him, an unfriendly alien race had beach headed on planet Earth. And they weren’t wasting any time setting up. As fast as air ships could land, workers were unloading them. De
nnis wasn’t entirely sure what the offloaded containers held but any army relied heavily on weaponry, ammunition, and food. Dennis began to formulate a plan to disrupt the supply chain, but he was under strict orders, this mission was a recon mission only. He reasoned by the time he got the intel back to HQ they would of effectively landed unhindered and would have a stable base from which to launch their occupation. Dennis was pondering a few well-placed rockets when one of his men came crawling up.
“Sir, one of our scouts has reported that we have visitors.” Dennis’ heart skipped into overdrive, a few rockets was one thing but he wasn’t sure if he was quite ready for full on contact just yet.
The corporal pointed to a place about three hundred yards off to their immediate left, a small sloping grass embankment. Dennis grabbed his night vision goggles to see a dozen armed men slowly crawling directly into the alien encampment.
“What the hell are they doing?” Dennis said more to himself. “They’re going to get themselves killed and more importantly, they’re going to give our position away.” Dennis took off his hat to rub his head. “Corporal, tell the men to get ready to move.”
“Out or in, sir?” the corporal asked.
“I haven’t decided that yet. Just tell them to be ready. Stupid friggin’ rednecks with shotguns are going to get us in a world of hurt in a matter of minutes.”
Dennis could see it in his corporal’s eyes, he knew the man was scared but he would do what he was told and what his training had taught him, but the fact still remained he had no desire to see what waited on the other side tonight. Dennis’s second in command, Gunnery Sergeant Hayes, a short stocky man who could probably beat one of the aliens in an arm wrestling competition made his way over.
“I just heard, sir. What are your plans?” he asked.
“Don’t have any at the moment—this wasn’t in the contingency handbook. What are your thoughts?” Dennis asked, knowing full well the answer still lied with him no matter what the gunney offered.
“Well, sir, my first disposition is to let those yahoos get what’s coming to them and tactfully pull our men back before this place lights up like a Christmas tree.”
“But?” Dennis prodded.
“But, sir, they’re doing exactly what I want to do. Maybe not in the exact way I’d go about it, but they’re going to go and exact a little revenge for all the shit those bastards have done to us in the last two years and I’d like to be there to get my own little piece of that.”
“Gunney, get the men into proper firing lanes, I don’t want to fully engage the enemy but I would like to give those ‘yahoos’ as you call them some sort of fighting chance should they began to volley off some shots.”
The gunney began to move off to issue orders. “One more thing, Gunney, if we start to take fire from any of those airships I want a hasty retreat no matter what those men down there are into, have I made myself clear?”
“Like mud,” the gunney answered with a gleam in his eye.
The gunney came back three minutes later. “All set, sir. And one more thing, sir,” the gunney said as he checked his clip and made sure his safety was off.
“Yes,” Dennis replied.
“I’d like to take out that big ugly one on top of the unloading ramp and I told Lance Corporal Carver to put an RPG round in that landed ship right after I do it.”
Dennis found it hard to smile but he found a way as he also checked his clip and took his weapon off safety. “Get it done.”
The gunney was looking at the potential battlefield through his night vision goggles when he sighed audibly.
“What’s the matter, Gunney?” Dennis asked with a little concern in his voice.
“You’re about to find out, sir,” the gunney answered hastily, as a loud whoosh passed near to their location, followed quickly by a loud explosion.
“What the hell? Who the hell gave that order?” Dennis yelled.
“Ah, sir, apparently our friends down there had the same thought in mind. They took out the guard on the loading ramp.” The implications were clear, Corporal Carver had seen the big alien go down and loosed his RPG as instructed. It was probably as big a shock to the invading men as it was to the aliens.
The aliens didn’t panic as one might assume from the surprise attack, the ones that were still in fighting capacity immediately took defensive postures and proceeded as best they could to ascertain where the threat had originated. What they didn’t know was the insurgents were already amongst them. Dennis had to appreciate the thoroughness with which the men down on the landing site were taking care of business. To him, they weren’t so much yahoos as they were commandos. Alien guards were falling wherever the men went, but running room was quickly evaporating as more and more of the enemy became aware that the threat was in their midst. Dennis watched as the alien noose began to tighten around the men.
“Gunney, do you see how the ring of aliens is beginning to constrict?” Dennis said.
“I see it, sir,” the gunney answered.
“I want you to get your men to concentrate fire on the northeast side. I want a gaping hole on the same side where the men made their initial intrusion.”
“Understood, sir.”
In a matter of seconds, all hell broke loose on the alien defensive ring, huge Genogerians were cut to pieces as lead reigned down from above.
“It’s good to see they can die,” the gunney said as he paused a moment to reload his M-16.
Dennis didn’t answer as he watched the confusion of the commandos turn to understanding as they began to make their way through the carnage being laid out in front of them.
“Sir, we have incoming!” the gunney yelled above the din.
Dennis looked up. “Three o’clock, sir.” Dennis cocked his head to see three gunships bearing down on his men.
“How long until those men down there clear the enemy lines?” Dennis asked, never taking his eyes off of the gunships.
“If they get a move on, about a minute, sir,” the gunney answered, fully understanding.
“Well, Gunney, if my calculations are correct, we’ve got about thirty seconds until those ships figure out our exact position. And once that happens, well, you get the picture. Order the men out now.”
“Sir, you understand that’s a death sentence for the men down there?”
“Gunney, it’s the nine of them or the forty of us. We need to live this night out to fight another time. Go get moving. Have Corporal Carver drop one more RPG before he withdraws.”
Within seconds all of Dennis’ men had melted into the woods, Corporal Carver was quick to follow after blowing up what appeared to be a small arms depot.
Dennis watched his men withdraw with a smile of satisfaction on his face, he understood they by no means won the war, but they did bloody their opponents’ nose and that was well worth a slap on the back. Dennis reloaded his clip and got back to the task at hand. The aliens had begun to regroup with the loss of firepower from the ridge. Dennis decided to alter their perception slightly as he set his M-16 to fully automatic.
“Fuck the three round burst!” he screamed. Genogerians began to fall in heaps as Dennis’ rifle became hot to the touch. He knew what he was doing was equivalent to suicide but it was really just a matter of numbers, his one life in exchange for the nine that had almost made it out of the kill zone. Before Dennis could reload his weapon he heard small arms fire off to his right, he turned to look and noticed his gunnery sergeant had moved to a small knoll twenty-five feet away and was resuming fire while Dennis reloaded.
“I thought I told you to get the men out of here!” Dennis screamed above the roar of the SAW machine gun the gunney was firing.
“I did get the men out of here,” the gunney yelled with a large smile across his face, never taking his finger off of the trigger as he spoke. The Genogerians had finally figured the real threat was coming from above, blue beams of weapon discharge rocketed all around Dennis and his Gunnery Sergeant. Dennis wasn’t done b
erating his second in command, he figured that could wait for later though, if later ever came. The gunships silently screamed by, had they not been tearing up chunks of the ground with their huge plasma discharges their passing would have gone completely unnoticed. The muzzle discharge from the gunney’s machine gun muzzle discharge was equivalent to a lighthouse for wayward ships. The second gunship lined him up and came within inches of cutting him cleanly in half.
“Shit, that was close!” the gunney laughed. He didn’t even stop to wipe the clods of sod that had peppered his body.
“Gunney! Stop firing and get the hell out of here! They have your location!” Dennis yelled above the roar and destruction of the third gunship. The gunney never even looked up. The first few discharges were right on course, the gunney had seconds to live and seemed non-plussed that the end was nigh. The shots were ten feet from where the gunney lay, when Dennis heard the tell-tale pfft of Corporal Carver’s RPG. The gunship couldn’t have been more than fifty feet over Dennis' head when the round hit it. The round ripped through the side of the gunship, the explosion blew Dennis and the gunney farther into the ground, hot metal rained down all around them, momentum carried the ship a couple of hundred yards past them.
Dennis was deaf, all was quiet even as he watched bullets being fired from the gunney’s weapon Did he ever stop? Dennis wondered. As he stared down at the alien encampment the blue phaser blasts had slowed but he knew they would pick up shortly. The most distressing thing to Dennis was he couldn’t hear his heart hammering in his chest and that unnerved him.
Dennis ran for his gunnery sergeant. And believing he was screaming at the top of his lungs, Dennis was ordering him to get his gear and get moving. The two remaining gunships were circling back and Dennis had the distinct feeling they would not miss again. Dennis was beginning to believe he was mute as well as deaf until realization dawned on him, the gunney was as stone deaf as he was. Dennis grabbed the gunney’s vest up by his shoulder and yanked as the entire world lit up in a vision of blue death.
