Roark (Women Of Earth Book 1)

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  “No! Stop! Make him stop, Vochem,” Mira cried as the healer tore her away from the man who was no longer Roark.

  With a final shout, Roark grabbed up Mira’s weapon, turned, and ran toward the oncoming cyborgs. The firing ceased through fear of hitting their friend.

  While the two attackers’ shapes were more apelike than man, with hunched shoulders and overlong arms, their bodies were symmetrical; legs matching legs, arms matching arms. Not so with Roark. His body had become grotesque. He ran with an awkward gait as he adjusted to the power of one massive thigh against the other’s artificial strength. Beneath the tattooed circlets, his body grew. The arm Mira assumed was natural was actually replaced beyond the shoulder and cut along a portion of his chest. The other shoulder, though broad for a man, was dwarfed in comparison. The lower arm, however, was not. He’d adjusted by the time he reached his target.

  Vochem sounded concerned, but only in an observational way as if he’d divorced himself from feelings for his friend and had become the impartial scientist. “He’s over-adjusted. He can’t maintain that power for long. He can’t survive it.”

  He handed Mira the thing he clutched in his palm and reached for another weapon. “Mason, come on. Closer range will do more damage. You two stay here,” he ordered Mira and his sister. “If Mason and I go down, fly back to base,” he called as he ran. “Don’t wait, don’t stop. Run.”

  “It makes him behave,” Mira said dully as she looked at the golden dragon in her hand. “It makes him behave.”

  She watched as Roark fired round after round as he ran. In spite of his awkward movements, his aim was true. The cyborg staggered back with each successive hit, but each time recovered and took another step forward. The weapon’s power drained and Roark threw it aside, ignoring the directions he’d given Mira just moments before. The cyborg picked up speed. It charged at Roark. Knife in hand, Roark charged, too.

  Mira screamed as the two freight trains of flesh moved toward each other on a collision course. She expected a resounding crash such was the speed and force with which they met. There was only a thud when chest met shoulder as, at the last moment, Roark shifted and lowered his oversized shoulder to ram his opponent. They fell together. Roark was flung over the cyborg to land on his back. The whoosh of air leaving his lungs could be clearly heard.

  The cyborg recovered first. Feet firmly planted and bending his body in a back breaking arch, he hoisted himself to standing, then continued the movement forward, forward, until he loomed over Roark’s prone body. A knife appeared in the raised hand. Mira screamed again as the knife arced downward.

  Ahnyis fired and missed. Roark’s misshapen legs came up and locked around the cyborg’s neck, squeezing and pulling it forward. Unable to breathe, the cyborg flailed his arms, driving the knife over and over into Roark’s side and thigh.

  Then the flailing stopped and the cyborg lay still. For the first time since the contest began, Roark made a sound. With a roar of pure rage he twisted the cyborg’s head and continued twisting until Mira could no longer watch.

  Ahnyis grabbed Mira’s hand and tugged. “The children. Let’s go. There’s nothing we can do here.” She handed Mira a much smaller weapon, similar to the one she used before and hefted the larger one in her free hand. She began to run and mindlessly, Mira followed.

  Roark lay on the ground beneath the headless body of the cyborg. He showed no signs of life. She would later swear that her heart stopped beating before its breaking tore it from her chest.

  “The children,” Ahnyis called again, in English Mira noted.

  She nodded again, numb in her shock and grief. The children. There was nothing else she could do for Roark.

  Vochem and Mason moved at random around the second cyborg. Vochem’s left arm hung useless. The sidearm he used was little more than an annoyance to the creature. Mason’s weapon was useless, too. It was jammed and having no experience with weapons at all, he didn’t know how to fix it. He used it as a club, aiming his blows at the knees, in an attempt to bring the thing down.

  At first, the cyborg seemed stunned at the interference. It batted and pawed at the hail of small weapons ammo, and at the attack at its knees. It turned and turned again, keeping its attackers in constant motion. In a test of stamina, it could outlast its opponents and win, but its orders were to attack. So it did.

  The chip in its brain started adjusting the movement of its body to the movement of its foe. In, out, in, out rat-a-tat-tat, in, out, in, out, protect the nerves bundled at the knee.

  Vochem fired when he thought the cyborg would turn to Mason. It turned, but only enough to lash out with its booted foot. The healer flew back, his head hitting the ground with a thunk.

  “Vochy!” Ahnyis’s high pitched screech was deafening.

  Before Mira knew what was happening, the tiny Kataran flew at the cyborg whose attention was now centered on Mason. The cyborg was more than a foot taller than Ahnyis, but she wasn’t deterred. With amazing agility, she leapt to his back, climbed it in fact, using the inch long claws that sprang from the tips of her fingers when she hissed. The cyborg whirled at this new annoyance, and whirled again when it couldn’t find the source.

  Vochem and Mason were shouting at her to drop and run. Sweet, gentle, and delicate Ahnyis ignored them both.

  She continued to claw her way up the back and at last found the position she sought. One clawed hand gripped his scalp. The other raked across his eyes.

  The cyborg screamed, whether from pain or its sudden inability to see, it was hard to tell. Using her feet for leverage, the healer leapt from his back, landed several yards away, and rolled to her feet.

  The cyborg swung its head from side to side, lashing out with its long arms and massive fists, an angry bear searching for a victim to punish for its pain.

  Mason yelled and Roark, returned from the supposed dead, replaced Ahnyis on the cyborg’s back. Mira’s heart returned to her chest and began to beat again.

  The women didn’t wait to see the finish. They ran for the open door of The Miner’s Den. They could still hear the frightened cries of the children locked inside.

  Two Silver Eagles flew overhead. They converged on another ship. There was a flash, a dark burst of smoke, and the ship spiraled downward out of the sky, debris falling with it in dark tendrils against the bright blue.

  Chapter 29

  The ghostly glow of emergency lights led the way, though that was all they did. Designed to lead the way out, their faint light illuminated the bright red exit signs and so were always at the women’s backs. The smoke was thick and they moved with hunched shoulders to keep below the worst of it. The necks of their shirts were pulled up over nose and mouth to act as a breathing filter. It wasn’t much help.

  Ahnyis took the lead. Where Mira stumbled and bumped into empty display cabinets and overturned chairs that seemed to spring up into her path, Ahnyis’s footsteps were sure. She moved easily through the eerie haze. The wail of children’s voices echoed through the main room.

  To Mira’s ears, the sounds defied their source and seemed to come from all directions at once. She would have had to investigate all four tunnels to find the mouths that made them. Not so Ahnyis. She went unerringly to the last: Gold in Them Thar Hills – Win Games and Prizes Along the Way!

  Mira wondered if Ahnyis’s sight and hearing were another connection to the catlike behavior she displayed in her attack. Tail, ears, claws, Mason...

  That train of thought was derailed when she caught her shoulder on the underside of a metal vending machine attached to the wall. Tokens 50¢. Electronic games had apparently replaced the cheesy plastic picks and shovels they’d handed out the last time she was here.

  They moved on until they came to a cave. The oversized sand boxes and a long wooden sluice box with real running water for gold panning had been replaced by an arcade. Now, it was nothing more than an archeological testament to times gone by, a graveyard of technological entertainment. Dust and cobwebs covered
everything.

  Mira jumped and screeched when the swirling smoke parted to reveal an ugly face with a leering grin, a miner mannequin. Ahnyis turned on her and hissed.

  “Shhhh, something’s not right. We’re moving away from the sound.”

  The healer led them back the way they’d come.

  “The sound is coming from inside the walls,” she whispered, “It’s not all children.”

  A little further on, she quietly opened a door that Mira would have missed it blended so well with the faux stone wall. The hallway it led to was a normal one with plaster walls and plain, hollow core doors. The smoke hadn’t penetrated as deeply here and Mira closed the door behind them to keep it that way.

  These were business offices and each had a wide window looking out onto the hall. Most were covered with closed blinds. Some doors were open. Most were closed.

  The crying came from the end of the hall and Mira would have rushed to the sound, but Ahnyis raised her hand and then tugged her ear. Listen. She inched along the hallway and then Mira heard it, too. A deep male voice whispered behind the door. She couldn’t hear the words, but the tone wasn’t comforting or kind. It vibrated with warning and threat.

  Ear to the door, Ahnyis signaled with her hand; index finger up and then palm raised above her head; index finger up, palm raised to her waist. One adult, one child. She motioned to herself and indicated movement to the left. Mira was to move to the right. Ahnyis then made a gun with her finger and thumb and shot it at Mira. She put her own, larger weapon on the floor outside the door.

  Mira, sidearm pulled from her pocket where she’d put it to safely feel her way with two hands, now waved it frantically. Expecting her to be the shooter was not a good idea! Using the larger, rifle-like weapon with the sight attached was easier, though she wasn’t sure how much it improved her accuracy. And sure, she’d shot that little bastard, Bret, but she wasn’t really in her right mind when she did it. Roark had stopped her from shooting Anthony and she groused about it, a lot, but she wasn’t really sure she could have done it and was secretly glad she wasn’t put to the test.

  Ahnyis smiled and patted Mira’s shoulder in a reassuring gesture that reminded Mira of Nona Donazetto right before she said, “Don’t worry, dear, I’m sure your parents will understand.” Nona was always wrong on that one.

  She couldn’t explain it without words and Ahnyis didn’t give her a chance to try.

  “Hello? Is anyone here?” the healer called sweetly, “We’ve come to get you out. Final check. Last call.” She almost sang the words.

  “In here.”

  Ahnyis opened the door. Mira followed her in and moved to the right.

  “Oh!” Ahnyis cried in pretended surprise that sounded remarkable genuine. “Please, don’t hurt him.” Her voice quivered with fear.

  The Godan soldier was sitting in an office chair, the kind with octopus legs with swirling wheels attached at the ends. He was holding a knife to the throat of a little boy about Bitsy’s age. His eyes slid to Mira. Her quivering fear wasn’t fake, particularly when he smiled.

  “I know you,” he said. “Everyone knows you. Ma’am,” he added with a curl of his lip. He turned his attention back to Ahnyis when it was clear Mira was too frightened to speak. “Where are the others?”

  “The others? Oh! Rescuers, you mean. Th-they’re gone.” Tears leaked from her eyes. “We c-came to do a last ch-check. There’s a skitt out front. You can have it. Please, just leave the child with us.”

  She sounded convincing to Mira, but the soldier wasn’t taking any chances. “I don’t think so. Nobody’s going to let the Commander’s whore go off on her own. I don’t believe they’d let their pet healer go wandering around unescorted, either. I do believe there’s a vehicle outside and they’ll let me take it as long as you’re with me. Let’s take a walk.” He started to rise. “And unless you want this little fellow’s blood on your hands, you’ll pass me that zap.”

  “Z-zap?” Mira stuttered and looked down at the weapon in her hand. “Okay.” Pointing it downward, she started to offer him the weapon.

  The chair shifted slightly on its wheels. One hand holding the shoulder of the child, the soldier shifted the knife hand to steady himself while he stood to his full height. The boy’s head was at the soldier’s waist.

  “Don’t think about it, Wynne, just do it!” How many times had she said those words to her sister; jumping from the garage roof to swing from the branch of the big maple tree; tightrope walking the top bar of the swing set at the school playground? Don’t think, just do it!

  Mira’s hand came up. She pointed and hit the button. She was as shocked as the soldier when the small red hole appeared in his throat.

  Ahnyis grabbed the boy and pulled him into the hall. Mira bent at the waist and threw up. What if her hand had wavered and she’d hit the child?

  They found four more children huddled in a room at the end of the hall. The oldest looked about twelve. Her face was grey and her dull eyes were sunken.

  “We’ve been waiting for you to come,” she whispered in a strangled voice. “We were afraid to come out for the soldiers. We didn’t know...”

  Whatever vestiges of guilt Mira had about taking another life, disappeared.

  “You’re fine now, sweetheart,” she assured the girl. “We’re from the good guys and we’re here to help.”

  They were on their way back to the main hall when Mira almost shot Harm. Her hand was up and her finger was on the button when he came through the smoke at the open door.

  “Whoa,” he shouted, hands in the air. “It’s me!”

  “Oh, God, Harm. I thought you were another one. Take this. Please.” Mira handed him the zap.

  “Another one?” he asked.

  “We had an incident,” Ahnyis told him. “Mira took care of it.” The children were huddled behind her, except for the oldest who couldn’t walk without support. “It’s okay. He’s one of the good guys, too,” she assured them.

  “The other tunnels are clear. It took us a while. Some of them hid. This is the last. Where’s Roark?”

  “Um, you know those, um...?” Mira made a gesture with her hands that Harm interpreted correctly.

  “We fought four.”

  “Did you kill them?” Mira asked. She didn’t try to mask her incredulity.

  “No, their mission was to give their controllers time to escape. I lost four men, six injured, before they boarded and took off.”

  “You called in the Silver Eagles,” Ahnyis stated, “We saw them.”

  “Orders were to take them down or take them out. Where is he?”

  Four soldiers were waiting in the outer hall. Harm gave them time to assure the children before handing them over to the soldiers who would carry them to the med-vacs that were on their way.

  “Where is he?” he asked again.

  “He turned,” Ahnyis supplied when Mira couldn’t find the words. “He’s one of them. Why wasn’t I told?”

  “No one was supposed to know,” the Prime said bluntly. “Is anyone left?”

  He was already marching in the direction of the way they’d come. “How is he?”

  “He’s fine, Harm. He’s fine,” Mira called after him as she scurried to catch up.

  Once again, Ahnyis saved her from barked shins, bruised hips, and the chairs and tables Harm threw out of his way as he ran to the front entrance. Unable to travel nearly as fast as the unstoppable Prime, they made their way through the smoke. By the time they made it to the main room, flames were shooting from the Gemstone Jungle.

  Coughing and choking, Mira staggered from the Miner’s Den to find Harm standing erect, sidearm pointed at Roark. Vochem and Mason stood nearby, each hanging on to the other to keep him from falling down.

  Roark was down on his left knee, torn and bloody and snarling. His eyes were glazed and inhuman. Strips of skin hung from his arms. One forearm sizzled and popped, sending a tendril of smoke into the air. His left leg bulged above the knee with broke
n bone or muscle. Damaged though he was, his arms still worked. He lashed out at Ahnyis as she took a step forward. She quickly stepped back.

  “Don’t do this, Harm. You’re his friend,” Mira whispered.

  “That’s why I do it, Mira. That’s why I’m here, to see he dies a hero and not a monster.”

  “He’s not a monster. He’s Roark.”

  “No, not anymore. You haven’t seen them before. I have. When they get like this, they don’t come back. It’s what he’s been waiting for, what we’ve been waiting for these past ten years. He knew it would happen, Mira. This is what he wants.”

  “Don’t make it harder than it has to be, Mira.” Vochem said gently. “I can fix his body, but not his mind. That’s gone. Harm’s right. This is what Roark wants.”

  “Let me talk to him. Let me try.” She couldn’t let it end this way.

  “He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know us,” The healer argued, his voice still soft. He sounded as if he wanted to cry, too. The dispassionate scientist was gone. Roark’s friend remained. “If his femur wasn’t broken, he’d have killed us, too. He might have made it if the third one hadn’t shown up, but it was too much for his system.” He nodded his head toward another headless cyborg that lay a few feet away. “I told you he couldn’t maintain that kind of power. It’s broken him.”

  “Let me try,” she begged.

  “No. I won’t have your death on my conscience, too.” Harm’s finger moved from the lighted blue button to the dark trigger one above it.

  Mason lunged. Harm’s shot went wide. Ahnyis cried out. Vochem gasped. Mira dropped to her knees in front of Roark.

  “You know me, miku Roarkiem. I’m your Mirasha,” she said in Godan, “And I touched your heart.”

  Roark blinked and growled. He raised his fist. She was beyond the length of his arm, but if he lunged, he would easily be within striking distance. And she would easily die.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she told him though her heart was pounding in her chest. “Miku Mirasha. Mira miku. Those are the names you call me and you told me once that you protect what is yours, which pretty much means you can’t hurt me.” She moved a little closer. When he snarled, she stopped.