by C. E. Martin
"Why's it keep glowing green when you touch it?" Lawrence asked.
"It's enchanted," Kenslir said. “I'm canceling out the etheric charge in the bacteria- or whatever it is."
He picked up his rifle and started to stand. Several gunshots rang out, breaking the pre-dawn silence. Slugs began to slam into Lawrence and on the ground around the two soldiers.
The team instinctively took cover, several moving behind the large transport truck. Kenslir and Lawrence ducked behind the jeep.
"See where it's coming from," Kenslir said, frowning at Lawrence.
"Oh, right," Lawrence said, remembering he was now bulletproof.
He stood up from behind the jeep and looked around. Semi automatic gunfire continued, with several rounds slamming into Lawrence again. His TTV popped up glowing red triangles in four positions, tightly clustered across the large, courtyard-like area just inside the main gate.
Kenslir grabbed Lawrence and pulled him back down. "Don't give away you're bulletproof just yet."
"What now, Colonel?" Smith asked over the comm channel. He was crouched by the cab of the large transport truck, peeking out now and again.
The TTVs were now all sharing data and the positions of the enemy determined by triangulating gunfire were marked on all the men's goggles. A colored red bar swept across their field of view as the TTVs synchronized with a spy satellite watching them from orbit. The four glowing triangles now had human silhouettes behind them- crouched down by the corner of a prefab building, using a group of 55 gallon drums for cover.
"Keep them busy- I want to know why they aren't just piles of bones," Kenslir announced. "Command- scan the rest of the area, see if there are any more heat signatures."
Kenslir then faded back into the darkness- even his HUD marker on the rest of the team's TTVs fading away.
"You heard the man," Smith said, leaning out on one knee. "Light these bastards up."
Smith began firing quick bursts from his M-60, riddling the corner of the prefab building. The remainder of the team did likewise, their M-60s flashing bright orange and spitting out streams of 7.62mm bullets.
The red-silhouetted men ducked back for cover as metal sparked and the bullets tore dozens of holes in the metal building. Their glowing shapes made it easy for the team to send rounds over their heads or along the ground in front of them, rather than hit them.
This continued for nearly thirty seconds, the stone soldiers firing short bursts, the mysterious gunmen ducking back for cover, occasionally firing blind around a corner, only their rifles- identified by the TTVs as AK-47s- extended into view.
Colonel Kenslir's green position indicator came back on- on top of a low metal building behind the men. Then he jumped down behind them.
***
The gunmen were in a panic now. They could easily retreat- the wide dirt road that ran north, through the town was beside them. But something kept them there, trying to get a clear shot then ducking back as the concentrated fire of the stone soldiers kept their heads down.
Colonel Kenslir watched them for a second, slinging his USAS-12 autoshotgun around on his back so his hands were free. Then he leapt, barefoot, from the metal roof onto the dirt behind the men. Despite his immense size and the many pounds of gear he wore, he landed quietly, without detection.
Kenslir took two steps and looped an arm around the closest gunman- a Nigerian in standard rebel wear of jeans, a dirty shirt and a chest harness holding spare AK-47 magazines. He clamped his left hand around the gunman's throat, compressing his windpipe so he couldn't speak. His right hand grabbed the man's right kidney, squeezing it with superhuman force.
Despite Kenslir's silent attack, the man grimaced at the blinding pain in his kidney and squeezed the trigger of his AK. The rifle barked out a round that struck the ground behind his peers, who were crouched down, waiting for a break in the machinegun volleys so they could return fire.
They all spun around, eyes going wide when they saw the giant holding their comrade. Kenslir was easily head and shoulders taller than the slight Nigerian he held.
"Eyaaaa!" a gunman screamed and fired his AK.
A stream of bullets poured out of the rifle, killing the man Kenslir had been holding and striking the Colonel in the shoulder and forehead.
He pushed the body away from him, flinging it forward like a missile- a hundred pound sack of meat and bones that knocked the trio off their feet and against the metal drums they had been using for cover.
Before they could recover, the Colonel had drawn the twin Bowie knives hanging from his back. He let one fly with an underhanded throw, spearing a gunman who was bringing his rifle around. The large blade sank to the hilt in the man's chest, killing him instantly.
"No! No!" the third gunman said, dropping his rifle and raising his hands over his head. "I surrender! I surrender!"
His companion likewise raised his hands.
"Throw your rifles over here," Kenslir said, ignoring the wounds in his shoulder and head. The wound above his goggles was now a gray color- the flesh turned to stone that seemed to push out bullet fragments, then fill in with fresh stone. As the men watched, the wound could be seen turning back to flesh as the first rays of dawn fell across the town.
Both men complied and raised their hands over their heads as Kenslir watched them, transferring the remaining Bowie knife to his left hand. He dropped his right to the large submachine gun strapped to his leg.
"On your knees- cross your ankles."
"Yes, yes," the talkative gunman said. Both he and his angry, quiet companion complied.
"Hands together, on top of your head."
The gunmen again complied, one watching Kenslir with great fear in his eyes, the other with smoldering anger.
>>>MOVE UP<<< Kenslir cybernetically texted to the team. >>>LEE, LAWRENCE- PAST ME. TAKE UP FLANKING POSITIONS ON EITHER SIDE OF THE ROAD AND WATCH FOR MORE OF THEM.<<<
The stone soldiers all charged forward, Lee and Lawrence sweeping past on their gray feet. They each got on either side of the road, crouched by the corner of prefab buildings. Lee quickly reloaded his M-60, dropping off a large ammo pack while Lawrence looked on.
Smith and Cooper came around the pile of barrels and looked down at Kenslir's captives.
The Colonel kept a hand on his submachine gun and reholstered his remaining Bowie knife in a sheath on his back.
Smith noticed the other Bowie knife sticking out of the dead gunman's chest- he had no doubt the blade had sliced through ribs and sternum. "Good throw, boss."
"You- what's your name?" Kenslir asked. He noticed the angry gunman was staring at Kenslir's bare feet and those of Smith.
"I am Kaleem, and this is Saleel," the wide-eyed gunman said. "We are your prisoners- please don't kill us."
"Sir- look at their necks," Smith said, noticing each man wore a small bird skull on a cord around their neck. The corpse with the Bowie knife in his chest also had one.
Kenslir stepped forward, causing Kaleem and Saleel each to jump. He rolled the corpse he had thrown at the men over and found a fourth bird skull necklace. With a quick jerk, he pulled it from the corpse's neck, snapping the cord.
Kenslir held it up by the cord, examining the necklace closely.
"Are you Americans?” Kaleem asked, sweating nervously. He had noticed the soldiers' uniforms had no markings, no name tapes.
Kenslir shifted his grip, putting the skull in his right hand- it began glowing a bright green instantly. He closed his hand on the skull, crushing the bone to powder and ending the green glow coming from it.
"Magic?" Cooper asked.
"Who gave you those?" Kenslir asked, brushing the broken bits of bone off his hands.
"It was the witch!' Kaleem said excitedly. He seemed more panicked now. "She lived by the river. We went to her for help taking this oil site..."
"Shut up you fool!" Saleel hissed, speaking for the first time. "The Goddess will strike you down!"
"Goddess?" Kenslir asked.
"Which Goddess?"
"He means Oya," Kaleem said. "But not me- I believe in America. Go Yankees!"
Over both men's heads, an info box appeared in the TTVs, scrolling rapidly scrolling out information about the Goddess Oya- a Yoruba deity from the region associated with the Niger river and alleged to be a master of the sky and storms among other things.
"Goddess?" Smith asked. "Those real?"
"Legends have to come from somewhere," Kenslir said, watching both gunmen with his dark, dark green eyes. "But it's generally a bunch of exaggerated bullshit."
"Sir!" Cooper said, pointing at the corpse Kenslir had removed from the necklace from. The body seemed to be deflating, then the skin began to dissolve away, revealing gooey red flesh beneath- but only for a moment. The corpse's flesh was rapidly being consumed as well.
"Doc! You seeing this?" Kenslir asked out loud.
Saleel suddenly pulled his hands down and grabbed at Kaleem- he jerked the bird skull necklace off his comrade and dug in a pouch on his belt.
"Stop!" Cooper yelled, raising his M-60 to his shoulder.
"Allu Akbar!" Saleel yelled, showing he had a grenade in his hand now. Beside him Kaleem was in full blown panic and tried to grab the bird skull back.
Kenslir took a step forward, quickdrawing his Bowie knife once more. With one swift motion he sliced through Saleel's wrist, amputating his hand- which fell, still clutching the grenade, to the ground. The Colonel kicked the hand and grenade, knocking them a dozen feet away.
The sudden loss of his hand stunned Saleel, allowing Kaleem to grab at the former's bird skull. But it was too late- the talkative gunman was already starting to melt. He began screaming and thrashing- pulling off Saleel's necklace as he thrashed around. His flailing managed to knock his own necklace from Saleel's hand. It landed at Smith's feet.
Saleel looked up at Smith then dove for the necklace. Smith stepped on the skull, crushing it to powder beneath his stone foot.
Kaleem was screaming now. Kenslir reached across his vest and pulled a large Desert Eagle automagnum from a holster on his left hip. He shot the melting gunman man once in the head, silencing him.
Saleel's face was contorting now in pain as well. His skin began to dissolve away.
"I ought to let you die slow," Kenslir said- then he put a bullet in Saleel's face.
An info box sprang up above the men, filled with Dr. King's face. His glasses were off now, revealing his left eye that was forever petrified from an early experiment in turning men to stone. "Sorry, sorry- I was in the bathroom. What did I miss...? Oh. My."
"This stuff is incredibly fast acting, Doctor," Kenslir said, holstering his pistol. He retrieved his second Bowie knife from the bones wrapped in rebel clothing that had been a gunman just minutes ago. "Too fast to be overly contagious, I'd think."
"Yes, yes. The rate of mortality would make it extremely difficult for an infection to spread very far."
Another info box sprang to life, this time of Major Campbell in the Detachment's Command and Control Center. "Do we reduce the quarantine zone, Colonel?"
"No- not yet. Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to engineer this- let's see why. Anything show up on those scans yet?"
"Yes, sir," Campbell said. A map of the oil town appeared in place of his face, a green beacon flashing for Kenslir's position and a red one flashing to the north. "There appear to be several soldiers moving in and around a large warehouse structure. We believe it is some kind of vehicle garage. It's just inside the perimeter fenceline. "
"All right," Kenslir said, cybernetically closing all the info boxes in the TTVs. "Reload and check your gear. We're going to go see who these guys are."
***
The warehouse was easily the largest in the town- a three story-tall building wide enough for several tanker trucks and filled with mini cranes and hoists. All designed for the unloading of the heavy equipment being trucked in daily to build the pump station that would one day send oil along a pipeline to the coast.
Like the cluster of buildings by the main gate, the area was wide open- storage containers stacked two high forming a wide plaza lined with stacks of crates and off road forklifts. Small piles of bones were scattered all around- signs of the workers stricken down where they stood when the super bacteria first struck. The team had seen many such piles in the street and alleys on their way north.
The TTVs revealed over a dozen gunmen inside the building, ducking in and out of cover, various weapons, from AK-47s to RPGs, being set up for an attack they knew was coming.
>>>LEE, LAWRENCE- SET UP ON THE SOUTHWEST CORNER. SMITH, COOPER- SOUTHEAST. START PICKING OFF ANYTHING THAT SHOWS ITSELF.<<<
"What about you, sir?" Cooper asked as he ran to position.
Kenslir now carried his autoshotgun in front of him. He checked the breech of the underbarrel grenade launcher then walked out into the middle of the street. "Time to let them know we're here."
When he was well in sight, the gunmen inside the warehouse started firing-most of their rounds falling short or going wide. In response, the stone soldiers began firing their M-60s- sending short, controlled bursts into the warehouse from their positions. The red-silhouetted gunmen immediately dove for cover as bullets began breaking crates and smashing against metal beams.
Kenslir fired his grenade launcher- dropping a round right inside the large open doors of the warehouse. The explosion lifted two gunmen from cover, flinging them over the crates they had been hiding behind. Both were dead before they hit the ground.
The Colonel calmly ejected the spent 40mm round from the grenade launcher, then began slowly firing the shotgun one-handed as he reached up to his vest with the other and retrieved a fresh grenade. All while walking slowly forward, toward the warehouse.
"RPG!" Cooper yelled over the comm channel. But whoever was about to fire the rocket had stood up too much from behind their cover. Lee dropped the man with a short burst from his M-60.
In their life as flesh and blood men, the stone soldiers had been proficient with the M-60- a bucking, man-portable machinegun originally designed to be fired from a bipod or fixed mount. But made of living stone, with superhuman strength, they could fire the M-60s with pinpoint accuracy, with no concern for recoil. They used this accuracy now, sending out streams of bullets at the gunmen in the warehouse, rapidly depleting their numbers.
Colonel Kenslir had finished reloading his grenade launcher, and was now stopped in the street, a hundred feet from the open doors of the warehouse. He fired another grenade into the building- sending men and broken equipment flying again.
He calmly dropped the magazine from his rifle and pulled a fresh one from the leg carrier on his left thigh, slamming it home. When a gunman leaned up to see what was going on, the Colonel fired the shotgun- sending a tight cluster of flechette rounds into the man, nearly removing his head.
Again, Kenslir calmly opened the underbarrel grenade launcher and ejected the empty 40mm casing. As he put a new one into the weapon, several AK bullets slammed into his chest and leg.
On either side of the Colonel, the squad's M-60s opened up again. Whoever had shot him was riddled with gunfire and fell to the ground, dead.
"Sir? Should we take a prisoner for interrogation?" Smith asked over the TTVs.
"Negative," Kenslir said- then fired his grenade launcher again.
The explosion ripped apart a stack of crates two more gunmen had been hiding behind, throwing them off their feet. The Colonel quickly brought his rifle to his shoulder and fired two quick shots. A barrage of flechettes ended the misery the wounded men were in.
"Uh, sir?" Smith asked hesitantly. Slaughtering regular flesh and blood people wasn't something he'd counted on.
Kenslir fired another grenade into the large building- exploding another stack of crates and killing three more gunmen. "Standing orders, gentlemen. This is a Class 10 quarantine zone. No hostiles are to be allowed to leave. Under any circumstances."
He punctuated this with a full b
urst of fire from the autoshotgun- shredding a gunman who tried to sprint from behind one stack of barrels to the more solid cover offered by a forklift.
Kenslir dropped another empty magazine from the autoshotgun and slammed in another. "Move up. Search and clear."
The stone soldiers came forward slowly, M-60s held tightly to their shoulders and entered the large building- checking every corner and moving from cover to cover. Old habits died hard.
"Clear!" Smith said, looking back out the main entrance.
The Colonel was pouring a canteen of water over his shoulder, where he'd been shot.
"Sir- got something here!" Cooper announced excitedly.
Kenslir put away his canteen and he and the men walked over to Cooper's position.
Behind a large truck parked in the back of the warehouse there was a large boulder- nearly waist high. It was a dusty tan and carved with a series of symbols. Lying on the ground all around it were pick axes and sledgehammers- several of which were broken. Lifting straps and an overhead mechanical winch that ran along tracks in the ceiling of the building showed the boulder had recently been unloaded from a truck.
"What is this?" Cooper asked.
Dr. King's hologram appeared again- this time eating a sandwich. "Those are some sort of early Druidic carvings."
"Druids?" Lee asked. "In Africa?"
"The Crown used druids extensively in early colonization efforts in Africa," Dr. King said, pausing to take another bite. "They were a counter to the native shamans in the region."
“So what do they say?" Lawrence asked.
"I have no idea- I'll get to work on them right away," Dr. King said, then flickered out.
Kenslir stepped forward, extending his left hand toward the rock.
"Sir!" Smith said, looking back behind them.
The men all turned and saw a wizened old woman standing back from the main entrance of the building. She wore tattered rags, and a cape made of what appeared to be a lion's hide- complete with mane. She leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden staff that was adorned with small animal skulls and bones- like the ones she wore in a necklace that reached to her waist. Her head was shaved and the old woman had red streaks and swirls painted on her scalp.
