The Last Hero

by Nathaniel Danes

“No.” She shook her head. “They tried hitting us at a number of points in a coordinated strike. Running into you so early on must have shot their timetable all to hell. After your alert, we were ready and slaughtered the poor little bastards. Don’t expect them to be any more of a problem while we finish bringing the last of the water on board.”

  “So much for being a cupcake mission.” Trent felt around to examine his other injuries. “Blow darts. Fucking blow darts. I must be the first human blow dart casualty in at least two hundred years. How long was I out?”

  “Not long – six hours or so. Doc says you’ll be ready to get out of here in less than a day.”

  “That’s good. I would have guessed the darts would be tipped with poison or something.”

  “Oh they were. Just wasn’t poisonous to us. “She poked a finger into his chest. “You got lucky.”

  “Sure sounds like it. Just glad Roth was nearby and didn’t get hurt too bad. Can you track her down and ask her to stop by. I’d like to thank her.”

  Thomas couldn’t keep a big smile from showing.

  “What?” Trent asked.

  “Well...you see, Colonel.” She cleared her throat. “When a sergeant wearing nothing but panties and a bra saves your life because she happens to be the only one around you...well, let’s just say that’s how rumors get started.”

  Shaking his head Trent said, “Just go get her, Captain.”

  “Okay, okay.” Thomas held her palms out. “Far be it for me to get between you two love birds.

  Chapter 26: Prisoner

  Steadying his aim on top of an empty missile crate, Trent zeroed in on the out-maneuvered foe. The unsuspecting enemy believed their flank was secure, unaware that moments ago, their brethren quietly fell before his blade.

  Those in his sights were already dead. He could pull the trigger and dispatch them with little thought or effort. But he wanted more. He didn’t just want them, he wanted to collapse what remained of the enemy line with one thrust to the jugular.

  He waited.

  He waited for the squad under his direct command to catch up to him so when he did fire, they could rush into the gaping hole created by the deaths.

  Trent grew frustrated with the delay.

  He wanted his kills and knew it wouldn’t be long before the deceased comrades on the right flank would be missed.

  Still, he waited.

  He waited because the prospect of earning a spectacular victory with little blood shed on his part was too alluring.

  Finally, the rest of the team finished weaving their way through the obstacles.

  “Listen up.” Trent lowered his weapon and settled behind cover to avoid spoiling the surprise. “Sweetie, show them the diagram of the enemy position. Once we take the five in front of us out, I want fire team one to move along their forward line, and team two to get in their rear area and raise hell. Move fast, they’re not going to stay disorganized for long.”

  Reapplying his weapon to the chore at hand, Trent unloaded the MRG on full auto. He didn’t stop until the last of the targets lay dead on the cold metal floor.

  “Go. Go. Go.” He rushed out to join team two’s invasion of the rear.

  Team one almost immediately engaged the confused and stunned enemy units, piling up kills by pouring fire into their exposed sides.

  Team two initially found few prey. After the enemy regrouped to confront the new threat represented by team one, they managed to pounce on a weak point in the new right flank, trapping the bulk of the enemy in a hellish crossfire.

  Two dozen withered under the relentless rain of supersonic BBs.

  The chaos and reduction in manpower created by the raid played out as the enemy front grew thinner and thinner until it broke all along the perimeter. Trent’s forces smelled blood and surged forward.

  The defeated enemy didn’t surrender. They fought valiantly against the hopeless situation to the last man.

  His blood ran hot. He surveyed the conquered foe littering the floor of the fighter bay. Holding the MRG overhead, he let out a terrible battle cry, “Victory!”

  “Give it a rest,” Lt. Colonel Beth Cutter said from her position on the floor.

  “Match over! Team Colonel Maxwell wins!” the judge announced.

  The dead rose from their metallic graves.

  Cutter picked herself off the floor and removed her helmet, flipping her ponytail in the process.

  “You got lucky, Colonel. How the hell did you flank us like that?”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it.” He removed his own helmet.

  “You cheated.”

  Trent laughed. “Ha, I didn’t need to cheat. Stop being such a sore loser. Maybe you’ll win next time—as long as you’re not playing against me.”

  The irritated colonel stomped off to debrief the soldiers she thought had guarded her flank.

  Trent liked seeing her upset at defeat. Sure it was just a training exercise or a game if truth be told. Its real purpose was more to entertain than prepare for actual combat, but being disgusted at the very idea of defeat was an important attribute of a good commander.

  Taking a deep breath through his nose, he closed his eyes to savor the moment, attempting to squeeze out every last drop of joy. A commodity in rare supply as the caged crew traveled in the fourth month of their journey.

  The moment soon faded as an all too familiar vision again haunted his mind, the image of an aging Anna. In her nineties, the little girl who once stumbled around in her father’s large shoes now had gray hair and a weathered face. In this waking nightmare, he pictured her standing alone over an open casket, weeping at the sight of her lifeless mother.

  Forcing his eyes open, he shook his head in an attempt to expel the image. At best, the desperate action would buy him a short reprieve from the tormenting demons infesting his conscience.

  Out of the corner of his eye, something caught his attention. Something that helped soften the pain by its mere presence, Amanda.

  Today, she served as a member of the defeated team, filing out of the fighter bay with the rest of the vanquished sporting sour faces.

  As if sensing his gaze, she turned her head. For a second, one that could hold eternity but failed to satisfy either’s cravings, their eyes locked.

  They turned away from one another, severing the energy that flowed between them.

  Since the events by the lake, they carefully kept their distance from one another. Discipline was the only thing holding the ship together. A colonel carrying on an affair with a sergeant would set a dangerous precedent. Too many scandalous, and grossly exaggerated, accounts of Amanda’s “naked” rescue mission floated around for them to be seen together.

  With a racing heavy heart, Trent exited out the opposite door as Amanda.

  ***

  Ignoring his stomach’s cry for food, he went to the holding cells. Completing the security checkpoint routine for about the hundredth time, he again found himself staring silently at the caged beast.

  MRG draped across his back with his helmet under his right arm, he looked deep into the Bearcat’s yellow eyes. For no particular reason, perhaps out of boredom, he decided then and there to speak to the prisoner.

  “Hello.”

  The yellow eyes opened wide. The word, not translated via a speaker or visible machine, simply appeared in his native language in his ear as easily as if it came from one of its own kind.

  “Neat isn’t it.” Trent removed his gear and took a seat. “During one of your...feeding session I guess you could call them, we took the liberty of implanting a translation chip directly onto your auditory nerve. I have one too so we can communicate. You know, become good friends.”

  Even with countless differences of biology, environment, and culture, the pissed off look appeared to be universal in nature. After staring hard for a few seconds, the prisoner’s gaze drifted to the wall.

  Trent continued, “Hope you don’t mind. It wasn’t anything compared to removing that little surprise
you were keeping in your head.” He tapped his temple with an index finger. “Why if we left that there for you to detonate it, then we wouldn’t have this chance to get to know each other. What would have been the point of me capturing you in the first place?”

  The lion head jerked back, retuning its eyes to the conversation.

  “That’s right. I’m the one who captured you. Blasted your friend inside the door, wasn’t any trouble. Then cracked you in the back of the head, easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

  Trent let the inflammatory comments sink in. Hopefully, they would sting enough to ignite a response, any response.

  “I didn’t fight back, your victory is hallow and meaningless,” it said. The translation popped into Trent’s mind as a deep American male voice.

  “I beg to differ. You’re sitting here alive, are you not? I wouldn’t call that meaningless. Even if you fought back, I still would have won. I wouldn’t even need my rifle here.” He pulled the knife from his boot. “Back on another world, I killed one of you with this knife.” Holding the blade on display, he plunged it down. “Stabbed him right in the heart.”

  Bolting from his chair, the massive warrior paced around his cell.

  “You lie!”

  “I most certainly do not.”

  Frustration boiled over. The wild animal threw itself against the cage, banging against the bars.

  Startled, the guard with the tranquilizer gun jerked and readied the weapon.

  “Hold your fire!” Trent didn’t startle at the aggressive display. He rose and took the weapon from the nervous man’s trembling hands. “Can’t you see that we’re trying to have a polite conversation here? He was just conveying a deep sense of dissatisfaction at learning that his race isn’t the invincible warriors he thought they were.”

  Looking back, Trent saw the huge chest of the beast heave in and out with each angry breath. He could feel the warmth in the air generated by the exhalations.

  “Sit down, and we can keep talking, or I’ll have to let him put you down, again.”

  Its eyes burned. Its extended claws curled up into fists, resembling fury sledgehammers. Trent made intense eye contact and in the most forceful voice he could muster said, “Sit. Down.”

  The guard’s jaw dropped when the prisoner slowly backed up to its seat and sat down. While he didn’t show it, no one was more surprised than Trent that it had actually worked.

  “Now.” He returned to his own seat. “Where were we?”

  ***

  The chilly fall air blew against Trent’s skin, causing goosebumps to sprout. Dying grass and dried leaves crackled with each step as he approached the old woman in a heavy black coat, standing under a barren tree.

  Trent’s conscious mind shouted as he struggled to escape the nightmare. As always, he was powerless to stop the scene from playing out.

  He came closer to the old woman and heard muffled crying. Now just at an arm’s length away, he realized that he stood in the middle of a graveyard. He felt he knew the crying woman but couldn’t place exactly how.

  The urge to comfort her came from deep within. Reaching out, he placed a hand on her shoulder. The woman turned, burying her head in his chest.

  Through her cries, she wailed, “Why didn’t you come home? We waited. We both waited so long.”

  Still confused as to her identity, the horror of the dream came into vivid focus when the name on the tombstone caught his eye.

  Madison Maxwell.

  The wind picked up, throwing leaves about. The cold air cut deep.

  “I missed you.” The woman spoke in a frail voice. “I missed you, Daddy. Why didn’t you come home?”

  Space opened between them. She raised her eyes to his. In her ancient gaze, he saw pain and abandonment.

  He wanted to speak. To tell her that he was sorry. Before the words could be said, before the healing could begin, her eyes transformed, replaced with the cold, dead amber stare of the Kitright Ambassador. He jolted awake. His body convulsed from the self-inflicted torment.

  Soaking in sweat that swamped his clothes and bedding, his eyes opened. Encased in darkness with only the sound of his pounding heart greeting him, it took a second for him to remember where he was.

  Standard practice for awaking from a nightmare was to tell yourself that it was just a dream. Those words held no meaning to Trent in this situation. While it might have lacked in a few details, the dream was closer to reality than not.

  Almost every night ended, or began depending on his perspective, the same way.

  Swinging his feet to the floor, he sat up. Sweat rolled off, splashing on the metal below. Too afraid to attempt sleep again, he changed into a dry gray t-shirt and black shorts. After slipping on a pair of self-adjusting shoes, he left the haunted room. Sadly, he was the one who caused it to be haunted.

  With no destination in mind, Trent aimlessly wandered the corridors. Occasionally his path would cross a crewmember working the third watch or another restless legionnaire. Most of the time, he found himself alone.

  That’s exactly what he didn’t want.

  His feet eventually carried him to the shuttle bay. He entered for lack of any better idea.

  In the middle of the walkway separating the twin lines of shuttles, he stopped.

  “What brings you here?”

  The unexpected voice propelled him into the air.

  The person laughed.

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Pivoting around on the balls of his feet, he came face to face with a smiling Amanda. She was dressed just like him with her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  Crap. We can’t be seen here...at this hour… alone.

  Seeing the panic on his face, she sought to claim him down.

  “Relax, Colonel. No one ever comes in here on the third watch, just me. And I guess you on rare occasions.”

  Jerking her head to the side, signaling him to follow her, she walked to the back of a shuttle and up its ramp.

  She sat.

  Trent took a seat across from her.

  “Do you come here often?” he asked.

  “Most nights. It’s kinda crowded since we closed off a lot of space to store water. I’m surprised more of the Legion doesn’t hang out here. I guess they don’t mind so much company all the time. What brings you here?”

  Leaning into his seat, he said, “Can’t sleep.”

  “Bad dreams?”

  “More like dream, same one almost every night. I spend a lot of time roaming around the ship and just happened to end up here.”

  Amanda switched seats, taking one next to him.

  “Your daughter?” she asked.

  Emotion stirred inside. He shifted to the edge of the seat and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees.

  “I keep seeing her as an old woman standing over her mother’s grave. Five months in this tin can, and she is in her seventies. My little girl is in her seventies, and I’m not even forty. How fucked up is that?”

  Tipping to the side, Amanda rested her head on his shoulder. She wrapped an arm around his back. “I’m sorry.”

  Trent knew that he should pull away, but he so desperately needed her comfort.

  “Thanks. I know that I’m not alone. Lots of similar swan songs around here.”

  Amanda said, “It’s weird. I mean...I’m pretty sure my parents are dead by now. But I can’t accept or even feel their loss. Don’t think I’ll be able to until I get home and see it for myself. It just doesn’t seem...real.”

  Slipping an arm across her back, he returned her generosity and increased the intimacy of their hold.

  “The human mind isn’t designed to process this. You can’t reconcile that in five months they passed away from old age. We’re all prisoners of relativity.”

  “I just wish I had made more time with them. I should have tried harder to connect. I thought we’d have more time. Now...now we don’t.”

  Wetness soaked through his shi
rt where her cheek lay. Twisting his upper body, he held her arms.

  “Don’t do that to yourself.” He lowered his lips to kiss her forehead.

  Before contact, Amanda threw her head up. Her lips met his.

  Trent pulled back.

  “Wait. We can’t, we shouldn’t. It wou—”

  Placing a finger on his rambling lips, she silenced the protest.

  “I’m lonely. You’re lonely. But I don’t feel lonely when I’m around you, and I think you feel the same. I’m tired of feeling this way, and I’ll be damned if I am going to continue to feel this way because of some Goddamned regulations. Forget the regulations. They won’t give us our lives back. The only thing I know for sure is that we don’t know how long we have. I want to be happy again, even if for only a moment.”

  Slowly, her lips advanced.

  Trent neither met them halfway nor retreated. He used the interval before contact to determine a response.

  Each millimeter she drew closer, the burden his heart endured lightened. The sensation told him all he needed to know.

  Surrendering to desire, he allowed their lips to meet. The floodgates opened, and soon they were locked in a passionate embrace.

  ***

  The prisoner became a valuable daytime distraction.

  Finding early conversations a bit forced and one-sided, Trent changed tactics and taught the captive a game he was sure to like, chess. He hoped occupying him with a game of war would leave the beast more susceptible to casual interrogation techniques.

  Any information to slip past its fangs could prove critical in the war effort. Even a seemingly harmless statement about the color of the sun over his world offered during an exchange of favorite vacation spots, could help locate the Bearcat home planet.

  Some aboard grow tired of his slow approach and pushed for more aggressive methods. He refused. Justifying the decision based upon the abundance of time their unfortunate detour provided and the fear of damaging such an irreplaceable prize.

  For all they knew, he could still be the only enemy soldier captured. Who knew what technology awaited them at Alpha Gate? It wasn’t crazy to imagine techniques now existed to simply download the information locked away in its alien brain. Keeping that brain healthy was a worthwhile goal. To be completely honest, Trent began to like his new companion and didn’t want to be responsible for his torture.