Cougar's Roar

by Jim Mohr

  “Yes, sir,” I answer as I hand it to him. “This sir,” I give him another paper, “is the order to execute all four of them as soon as possible.”

  Colonel Kral smiles as he flips through the report. “It is hard to believe that Mikhailov is a spy. I worked with him in the Ground Command.” Kral looks at the order of execution. He signs it and returns it. “Do it, Captain. Thank you for a job well done.” The Colonel stands and salutes me. I return the salute. It is a special feeling to succeed without even having to use my powers on anyone, special indeed.

  ***

  Nada Dvorak—Resistance Installation: Prague, Czech Republic

  “If there is a God, please help me.” I gaze at my filthy hands and I remember what I was before I met Cougar. How I miss him so. Does he even know what condition I am in? He must be alive, Funnel Web seems certain of it.

  My chains rattle and I sense a human approaching my cell. The wet stone offers no comfort. The darkness does not hide my fear. I am alone, and I fear I will soon be dead.

  I remember things from my childhood, things that bring me happiness. My family taking Cougar to the Lucerna Great Hall in Prague, watching his face as the music of Beethoven filled the room. My heart hurts with the hole he left in it, I miss my dear friend so.

  The door opens. My cell is flooded with light. “Get on your feet,” a fat human guard says. It is best to follow their orders. It spares me from having to be beaten yet again.

  I shuffle forward as the echo of the chains fills my ears. New shackles are placed on me, then the old ones are removed. They are leading me out. I pray that they are freeing me.

  Two other guards wait for the fat one to bring me out of the cell. I know that I could use my power and harm these three, but for what? What good would it serve? We shuffle down the hall, a man in shackles is being held in front of his cell door ahead of us. I see that his face is scarred and worn with age. We stop so his shackles can be joined to mine.

  The man and I are guided further down the hall. A woman whose face is bloodied is next to join our parade of prisoners. Her clothing is torn, she can barely stand. My God! It is Cougar’s foster mother, Gabrielle. I cry as I see her. “Gabrielle!” I gasp. She turns and lowers her eyes. I see blood on the front and back of her filthy pants. She has been sodomized. I can smell it. My senses pick up the scent of my old instructor, Mr. Gerdt.

  The fat guard backhands me and my eyes well with tears. “Shut up.” There is hatred in his voice. Humans hate, but they have no power. They do not deserve to strike us Timere, or even the Psychokinetics for that matter.

  We three shuffle further. A fourth person, a woman, joins our line. She is familiar, though I cannot place her. Was she Cougar’s nurse?

  We four stand in the stone hall. We are bound together. Our fate will be the same. Judging by the condition that poor Gabrielle is in, I know now that we will not be freed. We are going to the firing squad.

  A burly Czechoslovakian Ground Command Sergeant approaches from the doorway up ahead. “I want no trouble from you four. You follow the instructions, and this will be quick and painless for you all. If you cause trouble, all four of you will suffer for it.”

  He approaches the man in front of me. “So, I hear that you are a spy?”

  The man looks at the guard and laughs. “Good news travels fast,” he answers in Russian.

  “Yes, so how many of our pilots died because of your treason?”

  “Not as many as will die when our deaths are avenged.” The man is strong for a human.

  The guard strikes the man in the chest. The force of the blow slams him into the wall. The chains pull on myself and Gabrielle. My feet are pulled from under me. I see stars as my head slams against the stone hallway wall. The fat guard lifts me and sets me on my feet again.

  The PA system cracks. “Command personnel, arriving jet from Berlin. Command personnel, arriving jet from Berlin.”

  The burly Sergeant looks at us four. “That’s not us. So, we move!” The chains rattle as we are led forward. I can hear the man in front of me gasping. His breath whistles and every so often he coughs. I can smell his blood. The blow that he sustained earlier has wounded him, broken a rib possibly.

  Gabrielle is mumbling something, I cannot hear what she is saying. Ahead, an iron door opens and sunlight streams down the dank hall. We exit into a large, white gravel yard. The summer sun feels warm on my face.

  Ahead I see the firing squad; ten men with assault rifles. We are led in front of them. Behind us are sandbags piled 4 feet high. The ground is worn and covered by white bone fragments, small pieces of flesh are scattered which are being attended to by insects.

  “Halt!” The burly guard yells. “Turn to the right!” We turn and face the squad. At the far end of the yard a door opens. Funnel Web and Mister Gerdt enter the yard through the door. They are walking slowly toward us.

  The PA system sounds again: “Colonel Kral to airfield number three. Colonel Kral to airfield number three, posthaste.”

  Funnel Web and Gerdt arrive behind the squad, Funnel Web looks at me. “Dvorak, do you have any last words?” I shake my head. “Mikhailov?” The man looks back at Funnel Web.

  “It’s a shame that I won’t see the Resistance lose this war. I’ll die knowing it will happen though.”

  Funnel Web does not respond. “Detches, any last words?”

  Gabrielle coughs as tears run down her face. “My Cougar will avenge us, you bastards.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that he will,” replies Gerdt.

  Funnel Web looks at the last woman, the nurse. “Andrev, any last words?”

  She looks at Funnel Web. “There is someone looking for me. When he finds out that you’ve killed me, you will pay. The Timere will never have this world. Not so long as Tiger and Cougar live.”

  I look at the woman, she is glaring at Funnel Web, he is glaring back at her. What was she talking about? Funnel Web rubs his chin. “Well human, when whoever is looking for you shows up here, I will set them straight.”

  The nurse laughs. Funnel Web yells, “Firing squad, ready!” Rounds are chambered. My heart is beating so hard that I can hear it. My hands are sweating. I feel warm fluid running down my leg. “Aim!” The weapons are brought up to the squad’s shoulders. I look at the man to my left. His eyes are closed. “FIRE!”

  The crack of gunfire startles me. The man is shot through the throat. Blood sprays out of the back of his neck. Bullets strike me, hot lead, pain. I see the man’s face destroyed by lead. I hear a yell, it sounds like “STOP!” … Blackness, gunfire growing distant.

  Chapter 32

  Funnel Web—Resistance Installation: Prague, Czech Republic

  Watching the four bodies be destroyed because of a command of mine brings such satisfaction. I hear shouting coming from behind us, from the door that Gerdt and I, only moments earlier, had passed through. As I see Nada Dvorak’s head rip apart I hear the shouting more clearly. I feel dread, fear like I have never felt before. There is a power approaching me from behind.

  I turn to see who is shouting. My heart drops… There is a bald man, wearing the rank of a Colonel General approaching, he is wearing a black cloak with gold on its edges. He is running toward our now dead prisoners, the cloak billowing behind him. His eyes are a solid black, like two round obsidian stones gazing at me. The firing squad clears their weapons. Gerdt is laughing.

  The bald man’s power is immense, he is a Timere. He stares at me and I feel my soul wilt under his gaze. His eyes are wide with anger. “You! Who were these people!?” His voice emanates power and terror.

  Gerdt speaks before I can answer the man. My terror, his eyes, have me frozen. “None of your business, they are dead.” Gerdt continues to laugh. Does he not sense this man? Has he not seen his rank?

  Behind the man, other Timere enter the courtyard. An oriental woman and a pair of twins approach
cautiously. The bald man grabs me. “You! Spider! Who were they!?”

  I bow to this man as his powerful hand holds me. “They were a weak Timere, an Alliance spy, a human personnel staffer, and a nurse.”

  “Nurse?” he shakes me, I feel his hands burning me. “Was she Jenna Andrev?”

  My breath is taken away. I sob as I remember what she said before she died. “Yes, nurse Jenna Andrev was her name.” He releases me and runs to the body on the far right. The bald man then drops to his knees, in the blood splattered dirt he softly touches the nurses’ corpse.

  Gerdt is still laughing. He is laughing at me. He has gone insane with power.

  The bald man’s head raises up. “Who are you, spider?” The man’s voice sounds defeated.

  “My Lord, I am Funnel Web.” My voice has no power in it. This man seems to drain my power.

  “Funnel Web… Do you know who I am?”

  “No, sir.”

  The man stands and approaches me. “I am Taipan!” My legs are swept from under me as my face slams into the ground. The humans in the firing squad all scream. I look at them. They strike each other with the butts of their rifles, their fists, and are kicking each other wildly. Their violence toward one another began the moment this strange man in black announced himself as Taipan.

  Taipan watches the humans beat each other. “You humans killed the godmother. You will now kill each other. Your minds will perceive each other as giant snakes. Kill the snakes! Kill each other!”

  Cracks of hardened plastic and metal striking heads, arms, backs, fill the yard. The hallucination that Taipan is inducing into the ten humans radiates like heat off of black pavement. Blood sprays over the men as they brutally strike each other. The hallucination that each man sees is perfect, their fellow soldiers are snakes. They beat each other until there is no longer movement. Grey matter, white shattered bone, blood, and gore are all that I see. I vomit at the sight.

  Taipan looks at Gerdt who is staring back at him, wide-eyed with terror. “You! Unassigned Timere, you were laughing at this! You…” Taipan growls as he glances at the twins. They pull handled hooks from their clothing; hooks that look like thick meat deboning hooks. “Piranhas, tear him apart!”

  Before Gerdt can do anything, the twins are on him. The hooks tear at him as if he were thrown into a meat grinder. Bones and chunks of flesh fly in the air. A small bone lands at my feet, it is in pristine condition. A small ligament hangs from the end of it. When the Piranha finish, there is a pulverized pile of flesh and bone where Senior Lieutenant Volker Gerdt once stood.

  I feel Taipan’s gaze on me, my hair stands on end. I look up at him from the kneeling position.

  “What did Jenna Andrev say? Was there any mention of the hormone?”

  “No, sir. She warned us of your coming. She also told us that the Timere will never gain this world as long as Tiger and Cougar live.”

  Taipan continues to stare at me. “So, she didn’t have a vial on her? Did she carry the hormone? If I find that you are lying to me Funnel Web, I will slaughter you and every one of your living family members. I will wipe you from existence.”

  “No, sir. I would never lie to you, Lord Taipan. She made no mention of the hormone and carried no vial. She has been a nurse here for ten years. She was a civilian.”

  Taipan looks at the Asian woman. “Asian Hornet, notify Envenom headquarters that we must focus on finding the Russian. We must now hunt Tiger.”

  The woman bows. “Yes Lord, immediately.” The Asian woman runs back toward the door.

  My head sags as I await my death. “Funnel Web, I sense that a Piranha resides here at Prague base.”

  “Yes, Lord,” I answer.

  “Good, I want you to understand me.” He grabs me by my hair, lifting me to my feet. The pain rips through my scalp. “There, now you are on your feet.”

  I refuse to raise my head, I refuse to look at his black eyes. “I am listening, sir,” I plead.

  “Funnel Web, you have ruined an eleven-year search of mine. That nurse that you executed was the only living scientist from the Centre of Genetic Research. She knew where the hormone that gives us power was kept. Now, you have broken the trail. Now we need to search for Tiger. He has an eleven-year head start on us. If not him, then we have to hunt for the Wolves.”

  I cannot comprehend everything Taipan is saying. His Russian is poor, he is from Australia I would guess. “Sir, how may I help?”

  “Help? You, help? No Funnel Web, you’ve done quite enough already.”

  I still look down. I can sense his harm power growing. I feel terror coming from Taipan, power and fear reside in this man.

  Without warning, he grabs my thighs. The pain explodes through my body as I fall to the ground. My legs are numb with pain. My thighs are bent 12 inches above my knees. My femurs are shattered.

  “Now, you will suffer even after you heal. You will now know what true agony, what true remorse feels like. This is what you deserve for causing me grief.”

  My world goes black.

  Chapter 33

  Cheetah—Atlanta Base

  “Well, if you are a child prodigy Lieutenant, I’ve got a project for you,” Colonel Max Renfroe says as he drops a 6-inch stack of reports on the table in front of me. The break room for the O2 personnel is only occupied by the Colonel and myself. I gaze at the tab on the top report—Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky.

  “Sir, I had heard the base was a myth.”

  The Colonel’s left eye raises inquisitively. “No Lieutenant Smith. It is quite real. Southwest of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, in the mountains, is Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky base. The amount of Earth excavating that they’ve done is immense. The base is almost entirely underground. Lieutenant, it’s a damn turtle shell. Hard as hell, and special operations can’t get anyone inside. If we were able to hit it, it would serve multiple purposes. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the most likely to strike Seattle base. It guards the Eastern coast of Russia. We have to begin taking the fight to them; we aren’t going to win this war on the defensive.”

  I slide the stack of reports closer, I flip through them. “Okay, sir, it sounds good. What’s my project?”

  “Lieutenant, use these reports, satellite data, read tea leaves, voodoo, whatever you have to. When you have compiled a full intel report we will give it to Operations. We want to hit Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The rest of O2 is working on China, Europe, and Moscow. We only can give you 5 percent of the computer time. Basically, Lieutenant, we are giving you a BB gun and asking you to take down a Death’s Head.”

  I smile as I look up from the stack of reports. “Sounds fun, I’m on it, sir.”

  ***

  I never knew how dull and dry intelligence reports are. Good Lord, I catch myself nodding off as I read these things. There are satellite photos of tire tracks, thermal imagery, satellite time-lapse films, patterns of animal activity, soil color, hundred years of altitude measurements. The information is just so God-awfully dull. Of all of it the thing that clicks for me is actually the patterns of animal activity. The Peninsula of Kamchatka is populated by brown bears, tundra wolves, foxes, sheep, and reindeer. Why is this one mountain area southwest of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky void of animals? It’s not that there aren’t animals around, they just do not go near this mountain. Our department has been pursuing this from a military viewpoint. Maybe we need to look at the terrestrial view, the view of nature. Humans must eat, breathe, and sleep. If you are underground, how do they process their air? How have they eliminated the threat of active volcanoes on the Peninsula? Do they encase their base in polymers as we do to prevent water seepage? It’s a puzzle where the pieces are hidden. I need to find a piece!

  “Lieutenant!” a voice behind me yells.

  “Holy shit!” I shout as I jump to my feet. My powers surge and I draw my Kastane sword. In front of me stands a
human Corporal.

  “Sorry to startle you, ma’am. Security is asking you to go to the medical ward. Sergeant First Class Lightfeather is to meet you there. Two civilians showed up at the main gate requesting you.”

  I sheath my sword. The world is in slow-motion for me. I try to focus on slowing down. “Thank you, Corporal.” I breathe deeply. “We let civilians in now?”

  “Yes, ma’am. These two are different, ma’am.”

  “Very well.” I gather my work and place it in the corner of my work cubicle. “Lead on Corporal, lead on.”

  ***

  At the main entrance to the medical ward, German Shepherd is waiting for me. I sense his power, it is immense.

  “Corporal dismissed,” he says to my escort.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” the young human responds and he turns and leaves.

  Sergeant First Class Lightfeather has a disapproving look on his face. “This isn’t good Cheetah. This situation isn’t good.”

  I bristle at his breakdown of military protocol. “Sergeant, I am a Lieutenant. Address me as such.”

  His eyes flash with power as he squares his body up. “I am German Shepherd. The authority granted to you by humans means nothing to me. I am here to protect only, to guard. I will call you by your name. Besides, there are only three Psychokinetics stronger than I am, and you aren’t one of them.”

  My hand instinctively goes to my sword. I sense his defensive power growing. “What is it with you male Psychokinetics? First Cougar, now you. Do you boys not get enough sleep? Is your testosterone level out of whack? What’s your problem?”

  German Shepherd glares at me. “What is it with you young cats thinking this is a game? You have no idea about the world out there. You stand there, hand on your sword, thinking you can kill me quickly. You, little kitten, have much to learn.”

  I remove my hand from my sword. I can tell German Shepherd is full of rage. “All right, German Shepherd. I’ll go along with you. Let’s try to be amiable all right?” I offer my hand to him, a peace offering.