Bring Me the Head of the Buddha

by Bloom, A. D.

  Now, it looked like a siege tower, and no matter what he did, that siege tower and all of Lady Chatterley's mass was about to collide with his own castle.

  -48-

  Inside the cabin where Team Buddha had holed up, Bonnie knew none of the things that were causing Oskar Delvaux to tear out his hair in a madman's fit of rage. Bonnie only knew that it was fucking hot and that she was pretty sure her ass was burning. It was one hundred and twenty-five degrees inside the crew quarters and very wet since the fire suppression systems had kicked in. She was nearly deaf from the groaning of Lady Chatterley's bulkheads, and the hammering and reverberations of four thousand tungsten cored rounds hitting the hull had driven her insane for six seconds in which she was sure her ears bled brains that ran down her neck. The hull had shaken and twisted and she was sure for thirty seconds, as the deck below her tilted one way and then another, that they were about to sink. Now, to her amazement she found she could still hear well enough to make out a new noise. It was faint, but it sounded like a distant alarm, a siren warning of Very Bad Things about to happen. She had a pretty good idea what it was.

  Casper heard it, too. He wondered if they had a special siren inside the Ziggurat that they used to warn everyone of a Giant Fucking Ship About to Ram the Building. He never got a chance to ask Bonnie about it because Bonnie, Casper, everyone, and everything in the tiny cabin was suddenly airborne, flying forward into the steel bulkhead.

  Impact.

  PART THREE

  -49-

  The foremost inch of Lady Chatterley's bow was a graceful steel curve, and it emerged from the steam cloud to be driven into the side of the Ziggurat by 29,000 tons of mass at five knots. For a fantastically brief moment, the gently curving prow of the ship touched only a square inch of the Ziggurat's bayside face. All 29,000 tons of twisted steel mass pushed irresistibly on that one point of dusky-rose-tinted XinCryst. In that brief moment between first contact and the violent, explosive release, the fantastic pressure on the crystal wall created a Piezo-electric charge that briefly lit the entire Eastern face of the Ziggurat's bottom level from the inside and somehow pooled as static electricity inside the Ziggurat.

  The ball of electricity was ten-feet-wide, and it floated in the air like a bluish-white, fuzzy, crackling sphere of light. It was plainly visible inside the Ziggurat's vehicle bay for a full two-tenths of a second before the wall exploded.

  Yard-wide, chunky fragments rained down on maintenance personnel and G.S.A. Peacekeeper assault troops across the East side of the Zig's vehicle bays.

  Lady Chatterley continued forward until the base of her superstructure siege tower wedged in the Ziggurat, towering over the bow that penetrated almost forty feet into the interior. The Morituri who emerged in bulletproof assault-suits from the lowest levels of the superstructure had every advantage imaginable. They fired at the G.S.A. troops inside the vehicle bay from above, from the unascendable, upward curving bow of reinforced steel.

  The top three decks of the superstructure looked, from the view in Oskar Delvaux's office, like a half-melted steel bunker wedged into the cracked roof of the pyramid's base level. Delvaux expected to see armored figures pouring out of the new enemy bunker on the rooftop, but none came. He smiled, speculating that the Sun Gun's beam had melted the hatches shut on the top decks. Goddie terrorists would not be pouring out on to the Ziggurat's roof like they were storming a beachhead. Not just yet, anyway.

  Bonnie was relieved to see that, as an organizational policy, the Sons of Caine wore underwear beneath their golden robes. This was fortunate for all thirteen bodies piled against the forward bulkhead of the crew quarters because after impact they fell in a pile of semiconscious, neglectfully posed, and improbably intertwined bodies.

  She pulled, pushed, and writhed her way free of them. She was the first to disentangle herself, and for a few moments, it was just her on one side of the cabin and a pile of Team Buddha on the other. Her eye sought parts of Alvin in the mass against the bulkhead. Not yet, Bonnie thought. Soon. She was sure that Delvaux would still want the Buddha. This Shoot On Sight Blacklist Bullshit was a mistake or a frame-up or a betrayal. She needed to know which it was. There was only one person who knew that – Oskar Delvaux.

  Casper looked up from underneath a crane scarred forearm. He saw Bonnie across the tiny cabin, separate and distinct from the pile. He wiggled free and crawled towards her. It made Bonnie uncomfortable that Casper had chosen to move in her direction. She thought he'd be better off to stay clear of her, and she stood so that they wouldn't be sitting next to each other.

  “Aren't you going to ask if we're there yet?” she said. There was a rising lump on the crown of her head from the impact, and she was still shaky, but she didn't want to let it show in front of Casper.

  Suddenly, the entire pile became active at once, and the intertwined humanity turned her stomach in a reaction that the piles of intertwined bodies in the Power Of Pleasure Club's slimy grotto had been unable to elicit. Bonnie didn't realize it, but her stomach turned in reaction to the pile because the intertwining bodies here represented the intimacy of trust and a shared mission, both of which she planned to betray. Those things had not been present in the POP club's piles of solo pleasure seekers that only intertwined as a matter of mutual necessity.

  She made for the hatch, and found it refused to open. Everything aboard Lady Chatterley was slightly deformed. There was gunfire outside. That sounded better to Bonnie than a moment longer in the cabin. She put her left foot against the wall and pulled on the hatch until her face turned red, and when she thought she might burst a vein, it suddenly swung open with a rush of air. Bonnie fell backwards on top of Casper, and was disgusted again. She practically ran out the hatch into the passageway.

  She saw militants with bundles of light, shoulder-fired rockets disappear around the corner to the left and she followed them. The passageway led to an open hatch and the bow deck, and there was a dusky-rose tinted light out there that she knew very well.

  We're inside the Ziggurat; it fucking worked, she thought. She'd guessed the plan and she'd guessed that they'd bounce off the wall. This is the APC bay, Bonnie thought. Or it used to be. Now it's our big-ass parking space. She didn't hear Casper creep up next to her, and when he said, “Whoa,” she was startled. She wanted to hurl him over the bow, down into the vehicles. Instead, Bonnie edged closer to the hatch so she could see more of the action on the bow deck.

  She saw bulky, assault-suited men lined around the pug-nosed bow, firing down into the APC bay, the Zig's garage. Every few seconds she'd see one of them stumble backwards when they took a few rounds to the upper chest or helmet, only to lumber forward again and rain down more fire on the vehicle bay below. It was filled with APCs, maintenance technicians, Peacekeeper troops, and fear. She could smell the fear.

  The men carrying rockets were lightly armored and cautiously approached the edge. They wore woodland camo. NORCAL White Sunday Goddie mutherfuckers, she thought, and she imagined the scene below. The vehicle bay was usually filled with Armored Personnel Carriers. Everyone down there was probably pinned behind the APCs. That's what the rockets are for, she thought. Once the APCs are gone, the troops down there will be fish in a barrel.

  Casper saw Bonnie's head swivel quickly from side to side with searching eyes. He knew that look, she was checking for witnesses. Bonnie didn't want Casper to see this. “Get back to the cabin,” she told him, shoving him in the right direction. The White Sunday rockets would fire any second. The moment Casper's back was turned, she pulled a grenade from her webbing, pulled the cotter pin, and rolled the high-explosive out onto the deck. Everyone on the bow deck had their backs turned and saw nothing. Casper was moving too slow, and she had to shove him forward, then around the corner to avoid absorbing shrapnel when her grenade detonated. There was an explosion, a wave of hot pressure, and the staccato and whistling sound of angry metal bits bouncing off the sides of the passageway around the corner.

  Bonnie crept
around the corner and forward again to the bow deck hatch. The four White Sunday rocketeers were on the deck bleeding, but the Morituri in assault suits hadn't seemed to notice. She withdrew down the passageway and then she saw Casper was peeking around the corner. He didn't know what she'd done exactly, but he knew the look he'd seen – the witness check she made before she'd shoved him back around the corner right before the explosion on the bow deck. Casper was staring at Bonnie, and she didn't like it. She snapped, “What? What?”

  “Nothing.” He didn't ask, but she came up with an explanation anyway.

  “One of their rockets musta cooked off... happens,” she said.

  “Yeah... happens.”

  “We're just hitching a ride with them, ya know,” Bonnie said, “It's not like we're really on the same side as those Goddie fucks.”

  “Yeah... just hitching a ride,” Casper repeated. He wondered if she was really still an Operator and decided that he didn't care one way or the other. Casper just wanted to know which side Bonnie was on so he could make sure he was on that side, too. It wasn't because he was scared of her. It was because Casper's loyalty was to people, not sides. He vaguely realized that he was on Bonnie's side, whatever that was. Casper hoped she knew that, but he suspected she didn't, and he wondered why that bothered him.

  Back inside the crew quarters, the Sons of Caine formed up around Alvin in an octagonal ring of shaolin protection. Carlos laughed and said to Alvin, “So, um, I guess these guys are with you after all, huh?” Alvin just shrugged. Donnie Cain guarded the Buddha's Eastern side, and he leaned forward to speak softly in the four-foot-tall Buddha's ear.

  “Thanks, man. I mean, thanks for letting us come with you.”

  “How the fuck,” Alvin asked him without looking, “How the fuck did you guys even find out about this?”

  “I, um...” Donnie fished under his robes, produced a mobile device, and displayed its screen to Alvin explaining, “I got a text...see?” The sender's number and account were masked, and the message read simply, “Protect the Buddha” along with GPS coordinates and a time. “I thought you sent it. I thought you sent the tour boat that picked us up, too.”

  “Nope,” Alvin shook his head, “Not me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Still happy you came?” Alvin asked.

  “As happy as a bowl of water in the rain.” Donnie smiled when he said it, but Alvin cringed.

  -50-

  Carlos stood over four bullet-ridden Protestant Militant bodies at the base of the starboard side interior stairwell. They were obviously victims of another insurgent group, not victims of G.S.A. fire. B-I-D-N-E-S-S, he thought, Bidness, as in Not Mine. A lot of old scores were going to get settled today. It was a lot like a prison riot. He reminded himself to keep an eye out for Padre Pedro. The Padre would be looking to save face in front of his Morituri comrades. Rubbing out the people that had embarrassed him, people like Carlos, would go a long way towards that end. That, he decided, was definitely his B-I-D-N-E-S-S. He started up the stairs and motioned the rest of the team to follow.

  The next deck was almost empty, and when he got one deck higher he saw why. Every inch of the passageways were filled with religious insurgents, guns, explosives, and malice. The sheer volume of hatred in an enclosed space threatened his sense of self-preservation, and he wished he could pick another route, but this was the only way to go.

  A squad of Angels of Badur with the white 624 painted front and back on their vests were pushing uncomfortably close to a group of three militant Sons of Abraham who should have stayed closer to their own group, and looked like they knew it. Carlos thought the Muslim fundamentalists from Badur were probably itching to spray the Sons of Abraham with hot lead, but they wouldn't do it just yet. They still need each other, he thought. The real carnage and backstabbing will come later, after they win the Zig... IF they win the Zig.

  Casper usually found himself staring at the wrong time. This time he was staring at a group of Latina Gangsta Cholas dressed like the one he and Otis had smoked out before the Rainbow Burst. They had the same bandannas she had, tied in some way Casper couldn't really figure out. He decided that was the point. Casper watched them move towards the stairs in a tight group with their arms around their sisters and heads close together, whispering. They were almost kissing. Their armor hid their breasts, and their untucked flannel shirts and baggy jeans hid everything else, but Casper still tried to get a look anyway.

  Had he been wearing a pair of DeeGee encyclopedic data-glasses they would have informed him that these were Las Marias Muertas, that the animated teardrop tattoos were only worn by their blooded killers, and that the wearer should flee to another location posthaste. Casper didn't have that information, and when he saw the Maria Muerta they'd smoked out earlier, he tried to be cool and nod his head upward in a gesture of recognition. She saw it, and so did her friend who started to break formation and head in Casper's direction with a drawn machete until the girl Casper had tried to signal pulled her back. Casper heard Bonnie laughing behind him. She slapped her hand down on his shoulder and shook it saying, “Nice job, Romeo.” Otis was busting up, too.

  “Fuckin' dumbass,” he added.

  The entire frame of the superstructure shook with three explosions from the decks above that were all timed with a half-second of ear-ringing silence between them. There were three more detonations that shook the deck plates harder, and the momentary increase in air-pressure was more unpleasant than the noise itself. Seconds later they heard the sound of a few, then many automatic weapons, punctuated by grenade detonations. The din of battle floated in through open hatches and down the stairwell to Carlos and Team Buddha.

  The militants who clogged the stairwells, spilling down and crowding the deck below, began to move up the stairs and disappear. The insurgents all chambered rounds and checked their gear as they moved forward. They were eager to get out of the superstructure in which they'd been trapped, deafened, and cooked for the second half of the ride. They all yearned to get into the fight they could all hear starting without them.

  The roof assault had begun.

  -51-

  Oskar Delvaux watched the six hatches blow off and tumble through the air to land on the roof of the Ziggurat's base level. Then the Goddies began to pour out and spread across the roof.

  “This?” Delvaux screamed into the air, “This is your grand plan? Have your crossed wires somehow found God? Do you yearn for some Crusade and ultimate martyrdom? What can you possibly hope to gain from this?”

  MUNI 5-7 said nothing because there was nothing to say. Delvaux's rage required no response.

  The Colonel from the Primary Ops Center projected in unannounced.

  “Where, Colonel, are my men?” Delvaux asked with forced calm that made the Colonel all the more nervous.

  “Director Delvaux, Sir, all combat-trained personnel have been tasked with perimeter defense.”

  “Colonel, I think we have already experienced a breech of our perimeter.”

  “Yessir,” the Colonel agreed. “Base security are attempting to engage the insurgents on the first level rooftop, but are finding it difficult due to the fact that there are only a few small access doors to the roof.” Delvaux made no response and continued to stare at the figures pouring out of the hatchways on the front of Lady Chatterley's superstructure turned siege tower. “I have,” the Colonel added, “given orders for assault troops and Operators in our three Stealth Suits to engage the insurgents from above – from the second level's rooftop.” The Colonel knew it wouldn't be enough. He wondered if Delvaux knew that too and then decided he wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

  -52-

  There was nowhere to hide on the open rooftop, and its smooth surface was slick with blood. Blue-helmeted G.S.A. troops and insurgents slipped and fell, running past the dead. Both sides formed into firing lines; it was a terrible way to do battle. Without real cover the best way to survive was to fire as many rounds as possible at the enemy before
being shot by them.

  Casper watched through a hole in the outside wall of a control room set on the half-melted, penultimate deck of the superstructure turned siege tower. He watched the firing lines form and fall, and the way each body, each individual died in a way all their own. Each one twisted and fell in a unique dance that was never again to be repeated. Sometimes it ended when they fell to the roof, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes they twitched or writhed, screaming, crying, smearing their death in the air like they smeared their blood on the roof as they died. Casper imagined, in a flash, fifty ways he might dance, might twist with a bullet's energy spinning him around or stare vacantly at a limb blown off by an explosive round as he bled out.

  Watching them walk forward in firing lines, hurling horrible force and violence, Casper's arm hairs stood on end. He was chilled as the scene he witnessed made Something dance on the edge of his consciousness. He saw them all, G.S.A. and Goddies alike, praying to the Death God they all worshiped together. Casper saw the combatants on the roof gifting Death, both giving each other as sacrifice to Him, and simultaneously gifting it upon each other as if it were something they themselves coveted.