He had to pause for a moment as his voice started to crack. “Not only will the deaths of the brave men and women be in vain today, but also every civilian – men, women, and children. They will all face extinction if that message is sent and the aliens that created this mess come and finish us off. What I am about to ask of you I don’t do lightly. But I want… no, what civilization needs is for each of you to charge the communication center and somehow shut down that transmitter. I know I’m asking you to give up your lives on a suicide mission, but one of us might just get lucky. I will lead the charge myself. Are you with me?”
A private in the back was the first to reply: “Huya.” Every soldier in the room raised his gun and chanted the military slogan in unison with him. ”Huya, Huya!”
Blake ordered a couple of his men to keep guard over the bombs and destroy the keys if necessary.
Everyone poured out of the church. They screamed battle cries with their fists raised. The ABs spun around and snarled.
Day 14, 10:30 am: Tara
The enemy had pulled back so that they could remove the bodies of their comrades, which were making it difficult to finish wiping out the unclean. Every member of Tara’s group was covered in sweat and blood and was barely recognizable as being human. There were less than thirty survivors now, and a general sense of resolve had settled over the group that they would all die here today. They all welcomed the brief pause in the battle so that they could catch their breath, but the bloodlust still rushed through their veins.
It only took the ABs a few minutes to clear the bodies, and they were soon forming their circle around the survivors.
The soldier standing next to Tara turned and looked at her. “I guess this is it, and for what it is worth, you fight pretty good for a girl.”
This almost made Tara smile, but she was too tired to let it break past her lips. They were surrounded by hundreds of ABs packed three or four deep. It had been even more before, but many had left to head to the center of town. Tara stood a few meters across from the AB men and women looking into their eyes. For a brief moment, she wondered what they were thinking. Did they have children that they were fighting for? Was their cause worth dying for?
A signal was given, and the ABs charged their lines. The fighting was as fierce as before at first, but as soon as it started something strange happened. A large black woman that Tara was fighting with suddenly stopped, and a blank stare came over her face. Tara plunged her knife into the woman’s chest before she could recover. The AB woman, instead of clutching her chest and screaming in agony, appeared to simply lie down and go to sleep. All around the circle the enemies were lying down. At first the soldiers finished them off by the hundreds, but their humanity took hold, and they fell back to the center of their circle.
The ABs were now hitting the ground so fast that they were piling up on one another. Panic spread across their ranks, and they started to fall back to the old white church, leaving a trail of bodies as they raced away.
A cheer went up amongst Tara and the survivors. They all had confused but jubilant looks on their faces. Tara reached down and checked the pulse of one of the ABs that appeared to have fallen asleep. At first the pulse was extremely weak and slow, then it just stopped.
Tara stood and addressed her fellow survivors. “They are dying. They are dying!” Everyone wanted to cheer, but the realization of the mass destruction suppressed the jubilation, and most just sat down on the blood-soaked ground to recover from their exhaustion.
Tara didn’t know what to make of what had just happened but could only think of one thing. Blake was probably still out there and might need their help. She walked over to the lieutenant. “Sir, we are doing no good here. Our soldiers might need our help attacking the communication center if there are any of those AB bastards left.”
“You’re correct, Reynolds.” He then turned to the group. “Break time is over, ladies. If we don’t hurry we will miss the final dance at the communication center, so let’s move out.” He looked back at Tara and cracked a slight smile.
Day 14, 10:35 am: Blake
As Blake and his men charged the front lines, a strange thing happened. One by one, the men and women along the AB’s lines dropped to the ground. Blake signaled his men to halt. The AB leaders in the back were encouraging their troops to attack, but they all had the same wide-open eyes that seemed to be looking at nothing. In a few minutes, most of the ABs were lying on the ground motionless.
“Hell, that damn antigen-bomb thing worked!” Blake thought. Everyone cheered, including Blake. But then he noticed that most of the surviving enemies in the back of the masses did not seem to be affected by the bomb. They retreated towards the communication building.
Blake estimated that their numbers were down to around a hundred. He grinned. A hundred enemies against his twenty surviving Marines was something he could live with, and he felt confident with their chances.
Blake turned to his small band. “Give them hell!” His men yelled with him. Blake thought their battle cries would make Spartan gladiators proud. The sound of the battle filled the air along with the screams of the dying. Blake noted that these ABs were much harder to fight than the ones they had encountered earlier in the day. Many of them were or had been in the military. Their skills were evenly matched to his men. They were also ready to die for their cause. However, they didn’t possess the sharply honed skills and training to work as a team that Blake’s men did.
Blake lost count of the AB bodies that he had killed while he made his way through the enemy lines. He fought his way to the large front steps of the building, his face and hands covered in AB blood. Hurriedly, he scanned the situation and counted his surviving men. It appeared that there were ten of his men still left standing. Over half of the enemy was killed, but the remaining men fought fiercely. A few blocks to the west, Blake saw another fifty or so ABs running to reinforce their comrades.
Blake glanced to the west and saw a small band of Marines rushing towards them. All of a sudden, Blake’s private who had been carrying the bomb appeared next to him. “My orders are to shadow you, so here I am.”
Blake smiled at the private’s tenacity. ”Well then, let’s go finish the job.” They burst through the building’s doors. Moments later the approaching group of ABs and the small band of Marines joined the fight.
Blake and his private quickly made their way through each room with their knives ready. Blake took the lead, and the private watched his back. He scanned the dimly lit hallway and noticed that at the end was a bright light, and there were several cables coming out of the room on the left. He silently signaled to the private his intentions to enter the room, and they both crept along the wall to the edge of the door. They were so focused on the source of the light that they didn’t hear the footsteps behind them.
The private yelled, and Blake spun around to see what the source of the private’s alarm was. Two large ABs wearing tattered and blood-covered Navy SEAL uniforms growled as they held their knives. “They must’ve seen us run into the building,” Blake thought.
The private raised his knife to deflect the strike from the first AB, but he couldn’t deflect the thrust of the second attacker. The knife went deep into his stomach below his body armor.
“No!” Blake shouted.
The private grunted as he started to cough out blood. But the private’s first attacker made a mistake figuring his adversary was dead and stayed too close. With the private’s last breath, he sank his knife into the head of the AB soldier standing in front of him. Both men dropped to the floor, leaving Blake alone with the second AB soldier.
The remaining AB drew his sidearm out of its holster. Blake instantly dove into the room as the bullets whizzed past him into the wall. Blake quickly rolled on the ground and noticed a man in a white suit. He stood on the other side of the room, staring at a laptop’s screen.
“That’s the one who was addressing the crowd!” Blake thought. “He’s going to send that message
. I have to stop him.” However, the bullets outside the door reminded him that he had other problems to worry about first.
Blake leaped next to the opening of the door and waited for the AB soldier to enter. Seconds later, the AB’s gun appeared through the door. Blake slammed the butt of his knife onto the enemy’s hand. The gun slid across the floor, and the AB soldier dove into the room. He rolled inside and immediately stood.
Blake switched his knife to his right hand, and the two soldiers circled each other to gain an advantage over one another. The AB soldier grabbed a large wrench off of the nearby table, threw it at Blake’s head, and lunged forward. Blake sidestepped the wrench, but the motion threw him off balance and knocked him to the floor. He couldn’t anticipate the approaching knife aimed at his head.
Blake dropped his knife and grabbed the AB’s wrist with both hands. He grunted as he struggled to keep the AB’s knife away from his head. The AB shoved his weight behind his knife hoping to end the fight.
Suddenly, Blake flashed back to a technique he had learned from an old Marine when he was in boot camp. Blake knew if he didn’t try something he would be dead in seconds. The knife slowly moved closer to his head, and his right hand suddenly released its grip. With the same fluid motion, he twisted his body, moved his head to the right, and the knife stabbed the wooden floor.
The knife nicked his ear, and blood dripped down his neck. However, he was still alive. With his free hand, he plunged his thumb into the AB’s eye. The enemy immediately sat up and tried to extract Blake’s thumb out of his eye.
“Gotcha!” Blake thought. He grabbed the knife in the floor next to his head. With all the strength he had left, he yelled and plunged the knife into the side of the AB’s neck. Blake lay back on the ground, and the AB soldier dropped to the floor.
It was only seconds before Blake stood and focused his attention to Lord Dameon. Suddenly, the AB leader gleefully yelled in excitement at something he was seeing on the laptop in front of him. Blake sprinted across the room, but before he could reach him, Lord Dameon pulled a small handgun out of his pocket. He aimed it straight at Blake’s head. Blake froze.
“You know, I am an extremely peaceful man most of the time. Even now, I wish I could convince you to join us.” He walked from one computer to the other. Blake assumed one of them contained the message about to be sent.
“However, I know that you and your kind will never accept us. I also know that you will never accept the gift that has been granted to us. What is your name, soldier?”
Blake hesitated but decided to play his little game to buy more time. “Blake. My name is Major Blake Reynolds.”
“Well, Mister Blake… once I press this button, our message will be sent, and the creators will come. They will help us purge the unclean from this planet. It’s too bad you won’t be a part of it.”
“If I can just surprise attack him, maybe I can buy myself more time,” Blake thought. He knew it was better to die in an attempt to stop Lord Dameon than listen to him talk anymore.
Blake lunged forward, and Lord Dameon pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Blake below his body armor just above his hip. Blake knew that he had been hit but felt no pain.
A panicked look spread across Lord Dameon’s face as Blake got to within feet of him. Two more shots went off. The first missed, and the second grazed his head. Blake fell to the floor, and the room grew darker.
Blake vaguely noticed someone rushing into the room. The voice yelled and pointed a gun towards Lord Dameon. Suddenly, everything was silent, and darkness covered his eyes.
Day 14, 10:40 am: Tara
As Tara’s group plowed into the enemy lines, they were stunned by the number of bodies on the ground. As the group approached the communication building, Tara saw someone she thought resembled Blake enter the building. When she hit the front lines of the battle, her only thought was to get into the building and help her husband.
The enemy’s numbers quickly thinned around the building due to the quick work of Tara’s group of reinforcements, and she only had one AB between her and the door. A large, Asian-looking woman in exercise clothes lunged at her with a homemade spear. Tara parried the spear to her left and continued to charge forward. As she passed, she brought her knife to the woman’s throat and stroked it across her neck. The woman fell to her knees and attempted to close the wound and breathe.
Tara didn’t bother to turn to see if she was being pursued. She ran down the hallway and yelled for her husband. “Blake! Where are you? It’s Tara!” No answer.
Suddenly, she heard gunshots around the corner. The noise came from a small-caliber handgun, which made her worry; it didn't sound like it was military issue. She rounded the last corner and noticed a young private and an AB SEAL lying on the ground in a large pool of blood. Tara grabbed the gun out of the dead AB’s holster and checked to see how many rounds were left in the clip. There were only two bullets left.
She rushed in the room and saw the man in the white coat fire a shot at Blake’s head.
“No!” Tara screamed. She instantly raised the pistol and fired a shot. In her rush, the bullet missed its mark.
Lord Dameon looked at her and leapt to the computer. “You’re too late!” he said.
All that Tara could think about was that she was too late to save her husband.
She took a quick breath, leveled the gun, and pulled the trigger. This time, she was dead-on. The bullet hit its mark in the center of the man’s head. The impact of the bullet sent his body backward slightly, so his hand came down harmlessly on the shift key on the computer. At that moment, Tara honestly didn’t care if the message had been sent or not; she only cared about her husband. His body was motionless on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
She sprinted over to him, crouched on the floor, and rested his head on her lap. She felt for a pulse and in her panicked rush she couldn’t feel one. However, she felt on the other side of his neck. The pulse felt extremely weak, but it was there. Tara cried uncontrollably as Blake moved slightly.
His eyes fluttered open.
“I hope you didn’t expected angels and clouds,” she said, covered in the gore of war.
Blake grinned. “You’ve never looked so beautiful.” She laughed through her tears just as his eyes closed.
Tara did her best to stop Blake's bleeding. She kept him alive long enough for the medics to take over. They rushed in, stabilized him, and placed him on a stretcher to be loaded onto a helicopter.
“I won’t leave your side,” Tara whispered. She followed Blake and the medics, and they were loaded along with other wounded. They flew to Camp Pendleton’s base hospital.
When the helicopter landed, the medical staff forced her to stay in the waiting room. She protested but eventually complied. She watched as more wounded flooded through the doors, offloaded from the helicopters.
Tara smiled when she recognized the soldier on the gurney being rolled out the through the doors. His head and abdomen were heavily bandaged. She ran to him and hugged him tightly.
“Ouch!” Blake said.
“Sorry!” They laughed, and he patted her shoulder. “We did it.”
“What happened out there?” Blake asked.
“Once the antigen reached all the ABs in the area, the tides turned. The retreating troops re-engaged, but for the first time, numbers were on our side. The communication compound was quickly secured, the medics and medical helicopters flew in, and everyone was helped.” She frowned. “Sadly, there were few, if any, soldiers left alive who weren’t wounded. But all the ABs are dead, and the message wasn’t sent!”
Tara hugged him again, and her eyes filled with tears. “I love you!”
Bret grew up in a small town in Idaho. This was before the time of the electronic babysitter. Life was filled with hunting, fishing, and hanging out with friends. For an escape, science fiction books were his method to explore the universe. He now resides in Utah.
Please visit www.BretLandon.com to learn more
about him and his writing process.
AB (The Blake Reynolds Chronicles Book 1) Page 21
