by Steve Lang
"So I’ll just fight for your daughter and whoever else is in that temple by myself, and you keep your hands clean, right?" George said. He was shaking his head in disgust, until he saw a picture on the mantle above Gali’s fireplace. It was the girl from his dream.
"That’s Gretel, my twenty year old daughter." Gali said. A tear rolled down his cheek.
George felt a knot in his stomach, and remembered how hard he had been crying in the dream when he separated from the same beautiful girl, and now here she was. In the picture she was holding a bouquet of flowers and smiling at the photographer.
"OK, I’ll do it." George said.
"I can offer you access to a cache of weapons we've collected over the years to take with you." Gali said.
"How many people am I supposed to be saving?"
"The mantises have taken thirty of our villagers since they arrived. We believe they're processing us for food before moving on to another planet. A man named Vonic who passed through here—after escaping from their temple two weeks ago—told us that's what he saw."
"Can I at least have a place to sleep for the night?" George asked.
"Of course. You can rest in my daughter’s room. Thank you for doing this." Gali said.
"Don't get too happy just yet. This may be the shortest offensive in history."
George went into her bedroom and was instantly lulled to sleep by the sweet smell of floral perfume. He remained asleep uninterrupted for three days. When he woke up, George was facing another photograph of Gretel. In this one, she was holding a bizarre twin-headed cat and grinning like a child. He could feel her energy through the picture, and he knew she was calling for him to come save her from the mantises. He still had the strange sense that they had known each other before, in another time, and another place. George smelled food cooking outside the bedroom door and got out of bed. Gali and several other people had gathered in the living room to converse about the strange-looking human who had arrived in the night.
"He’s awake! Our savior is awake!" A man said.
He was wearing a black robe and a hat with tassels dangling down past his ears on both sides of his head. His long beard was peppered with grey, and George assumed he must be some sort of holy man. Gali came in from the kitchen and smiled at George.
"You’re just in time! Dinner’s ready!" He said with cheer.
"I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week." George said.
"You’ve been sleeping for three days. We were beginning to think you’d never rejoin us." Gali said.
"Is it true? Are you going to fight the mantises?" Asked a portly woman sitting on the sofa.
"It seems that way." George said.
"Good for you! We would fight back but…" The woman began.
"Yeah, I know, you’re pacifists." George interrupted.
Dinner was a light affair, and was mainly focused on praising George’s bravery and honor for the impending quest.
"I can take you to the weapons locker. You’ll be able to arm yourself for the task ahead. Once we finish eating, of course." Gali said.
George could not blame them for wanting to have this over with as fast as possible. If what Gali’s informant had said was true, then people from their village were being ground into snacks for bugs, and that had to be a tough to digest. He would do what he could, and in return, he was going to see if he and Gretel had the spark he thought they did in his dream, and then he would whisk her away. He felt insane, thinking that his dream girl on another planet had fallen for him, but then, he would never have believed that he would be sent on a beam of light to such a planet. George ate some kind of meat that tasted like beef, and was as gracious as possible to his hosts. He could not help but feel like this might be his last meal. After dinner, Gali led George to a hidden door in the kitchen with stairs leading downward, and they descended into the basement.
At the bottom of the stairs was a large black metal door with a green glowing numeric pad beside it. Gali entered a pattern of digits and the door slid aside, and as it, did lights inside the room within clicked on. George could hardly contain his excitement when he saw what Gali had been storing under his house. It was a bunker filled with weapons and armored vehicles that reminded George of a Hollywood movie set.
"Our own violence almost destroyed us long ago, and so to prevent our society from total ruin, we put down our weapons and became pacifists. You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to come down here and grab a gun to kill those bugs, but if I do, the others will join and after this threat is over we’ll be back to killing each other before long. It’s a slippery slope." Gali said. "Thank you for doing this."
"I'd like to say ‘you're welcome,’ but right now, I’m more concerned with getting out with your daughter alive, without being killed. If I can, I'll rescue the others while I'm in there."
George found a wall of body armor that was tough, light, and covered most of his body when he tried it on. The helmet he put on had a black visor, but when he looked through it he could see the bunker with total clarity.
"That will resist armor piercing bullets, and over here we have some great firepower." Gali said. He led George to a wall of rifles and pistols where he selected an AR-15-style plasma rifle with a grenade launcher attachment. George slung two bandoliers of neutron grenades over his shoulders, forming an X across his body. He also picked up a plasma pistol fashioned to resemble a model 1911 forty-five caliber sidearm.
"You don’t want to be anywhere near those grenades when they go off. Each one is more powerful than a case of standard grenades, they’ll blow a hole through almost anything."
By the time George was done selecting weapons, his arsenal would have caused Rambo to turn up an eyebrow. Gali took him to another section of the bunker where the vehicles were stored.
"Pick a war wagon." Gali said.
George suspected that Gali was resisting the urge to pick up a gun; he could see it in the other man’s eyes. Like a smoker who walks away from his addiction but perpetually longs for another coffin nail. George walked through rows of heavy armored vehicles, some of them decked out with large cannons. George stopped at a four person armored personnel carrier with twin plasma cannons on the roof and grenade launchers on the left and right sides of the vehicle.
"I’m ready to go. You sure you’re going to let me do this alone? I probably have enough firepower to nuke this planet, but one man against an army is asking for a very short battle. Also, it would be nice to have company." George said.
"I’m sorry, George. All I can give you is our blessings and weapons to accomplish the mission." Gali looked ashamed.
"OK, I’m off then!” George said. "See you on the other side." George extended his hand and Gali shook it. A bald, muscular man, wearing a priest’s robe and a jewel-studded headband appeared from the shadows as George was entering the vehicle.
"This is Dama, he is the guide that will show you the way to the temple in his vehicle." Gali said. Dama nodded, but said nothing to either man and got into his own war wagon.
"May the creator watch over you." Gali pressed a button on the wall and a large set of doors opened.
"I must be out of my mind." George grimaced and fired up his engine. He followed Dama out into the village and beyond it for a few miles until they saw the fortress rising out of the tall trees. Dama turned back and waved, leaving George to his own devices.
"Cowards." He said as Dama drove past him in the opposite direction. "That thing is enormous!" George said to himself. The temple rose high into the sky, giving George the impression he was approaching an Indonesian ziggurat. There were mantises everywhere as he approached, and he was so exposed that there was no way to conceal his war wagon. "I thought they came out at night. Dammit Gali!"
A division of troops was marching toward him as George threw caution to the wind and fired two plasma rounds from his roof-mounted cannon into their ranks. Green arms, legs, and torsos exploded through the air like a ticker tape parade as George slammed
into them with full force. Cannons blazing he sent a hundred of them to their deaths, scattering their in all directions, until the other soldiers got their bearings and regrouped. He raced for the temple, which resembled a tiered pyramid of the kind built in South America in ancient times. The mantises began their counter attack, and George saw that they had some dangerous toys of their own. Cannon fire rained down on George as he narrowly missed one blast after another of some hot, sticky corrosive green liquid that melted everything it touched. George fired, and they returned it in force, and soon he was surrounded. The green liquid hit one of his wheels, knocking out the left front of his war wagon.
George spun out, coming to a stop as he faced the temple. He fired toward the massive fortress and the sky filled with their warriors. George checked his weapon cache, preparing to exit the vehicle and make a run for the temple in an all-out move of desperation to save Gretel, when he heard a transmission over the radio.
"George! George! Press the green button on your console if you can hear this! It's a beacon." Gali screamed over the comm. It took a moment, but George found the button His mind was racing and he was fairly certain that death was close at hand.
"I can hear you! The mantises are swarming me. This was a bad plan after all." George said.
"We’re on our way! Do not get out of your vehicle until we get there, and keep firing at those bastards." Gali said. George was relieved to hear that he was getting help. He had written them all off as cowards, but maybe he had awakened a sleeping lion.
Moments later, airships zipped through the air, firing into the mantis swarm while hundreds of human infantry troops engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the mantis infestation.
"What about your karmic future?" George asked.
"Some things are more important than worrying about my past mistakes. I'll try to do better in my next life, my friend. I'll not go out of this one a coward who refused to save his people and allowed his daughter to be eaten by bugs." Gali said.
"Where is Gretel?!" George shouted over the microphone.
"She’s inside the temple, near the base. Reports are saying the mantises are keeping them in a dungeon until processing time." Gali said.
George opened the door to his war wagon, and since the battle was raging, he was able to run through the fray and to the temple steps. He shot three mantises with his rifle as they skittered toward him while he ran up the stairs. The day was alive with gunfire, explosions and screams on both sides from the dead and dying. The mantises were taking a heavy toll and their numbers were decreasing as the furious humans went continued their rampage. George was almost to the top, when he was knocked from his feet by a large green arm. When he looked up he was lying beneath the torso of an eight-foot tall mantis, and the monster bug was about to impale him his sharp claw. George pulled his pistol and fired a round into the mantis’s torso. It dropped on top of him with a thud, and it took all of his strength to roll it off of him. He clambered to his feet and ran the rest of the way to the opening at the temple peak. Several mantises followed him up, and as George reached the door, he tossed two hand grenades behind him before ducking inside the opening. He ran down a set of stairs as the deafening explosion not only evaporated a swarm of mantises, but also caved in the entrance, leaving him no escape.
"Looks like I’m all in, now. Good going, George. Real good idea…I’ll just throw some grenades and hope for the best." He shook his head in disgust and kept moving.
The majority of the mantises were outside defending their temple, and as a result, he met no resistance as he navigated the complex tunnel system. After a while, George found a grated door with a keypad lock beside it and shot the handle with his rifle. The handle exploded, allowing the door to swing open. When he peered around the corner he saw a set of stairs leading down into the darkness and the acrid, foul odor of rotting flesh followed. He knew the dungeons had to be down there.
"Here I come!" George raced down the steps into low light, and when he got to the bottom he was confronted with an endless grid of cell-lined hallways. "Which cell is hers?" He thought.
As he searched from cell to cell, he heard the moans and groans of those imprisoned, and began to release them one by one as he went. "Gretel!" He yelled.
It seemed hopeless, and he began to feel that he might have been too late as he released one human after another could not find her. Then he heard a female voice answer his call. George ran toward it. "Gretel!" He yelled.
Her cell was at the end of a corridor, and when he looked inside he could tell it was her. She had been beaten, and her clothes were filthy, but it was Gretel.
"I’m George, I’m here to save you!" George said.
"Please, get me out of here. They were going to process me next. The cell next to me was yesterday and they go in order."
"You won’t be here. Let’s go!" George said.
As they were exiting the cell a mantis guard ran toward them with a laser rifle slung over his shoulder. It fired a single round, nicking George in the shoulder. George pushed Gretel into an empty cell and slid along the slime-covered floor while squeezing the trigger of his own riffle repeatedly. The mantis was blown apart.
"I know you!" Gretel said as they began to run again.
They heard a loud booming sound echo through the temple and the floor began to rumble.
"They’re taking off!" Gretel yelled.
"What? Who?"
"This is a space ship disguised to look like a temple. We have to get out of here, they’re going to take off with us still inside." Gretel said.
"I don’t know of another way out and I destroyed the temple doorway on my way in. I’ll have to make a new one." George said. The floor rumbled louder.
He took off one of the bandoliers and set a digital timer for each of the hand grenades. After leaving them in a cell up against the wall, he returned to the empty cell at the end of the corridor where he left Gretel and waited.
"Cover your ears." He said.
In a moment, an explosion rocked the prison level of the temple as a jet of fire raced past the cell he and Gretel were hiding in. When it was safe, they exited the cell and both could smell the sweet scent of fresh air as daylight shone in around the corner of a destroyed section of cells.
"Run!" George yelled.
Just as the ship began to rise into the sky, two humans from different worlds tumbled out of the craft and onto a blood-soaked battleground. They had jumped out just in time to see the ship ascend skyward, but because of the mass damage caused by George’s grenades, the spaceship depressurized and exploded in a hail of rock and metal while the remaining mantis forces were destroyed by the human army. George and Gretel lay for a moment in each other’s arms, as chinks of debris scattered along the ground.
"That was as close as I ever want to come to being blown up." George said. He wiped his dirt-streaked face with a sleeve as Gretel reached inside the pocket of her jeans.
"I know you, but not how. Can you tell me why I have this?" Gretel showed George a picture of him sitting outside of a coffee shop having a conversation with an unseen party. "It showed up one day in the mail about five years ago with a letter attached that read keep me in your pocket." Gretel said.
"I don't know about anything anymore, but I have the strangest sense we've known each other before. You are why I was sent through time and space..." George trailed off. Gretel pulled in closer to him and smiled.
"Thank you for rescuing me." Gretel kissed George's sweat-stained chest as he moved a mop of dirty hair from her pretty eyes.
"It was well worth the journey. I just wish there hadn't been so many bugs." George smiled back and she laughed. Sparked by a new sense of togetherness, the two grew to love each other, and had two children later in their lives.
Jinks the Wanderer had been successful in reuniting another star-crossed couple, and as he peered down on Gretel and George from his starship, he wondered how many more couples it would take before his karma was clean. Grilnek, the War
Lord of Karnos, Destroyer of Planets, was now a matchmaker to the millions of lost souls searching for each other across the vastness of space-time. With another success under his belt, he steered his ship toward the crab nebula. Two reptilian young people were in now dire need of his unique services.
a new day dawns
During the final war, Falcon was separated from his parents. With help from his friends in the new world, he just might find them again.
Falcon's trembling hands clutched the cold, wet earth, as fresh early morning dew soaked through the cotton rag of the T-shirt clinging to his back. It read There's no place like 127.0.0.1, and since there were not many fun clothing items left after the wars ended, he treasured it and wore the ragged shirt every single day. Falcon lay for a moment while the odor of whatever foul muck he fell into permeated his nose like the stench from under a dumpster. It was a damp, foul odor, reminding him of old ketchup, and dirty diapers. Falcon heard taunting howls coming from the mutants now, and their pack was not far from him. He had been spotted trying to break into a convenience store in the middle of the night to grab any pills he could find to trade for food. The hard drugs had been used up years ago, but every once in a while, he could find a crate of antibiotics, or nasal decongestant, the good kind that will get you a little high. For many in this era, the cheap thrills a simple decongestant could bring were enough for a momentary escape from the hell of reality.
Closer now, louder, more fearsome were the whoops and hollers. Falcon pried himself from the ground and made another attempt at scaling the second floor roof. If he could get his footing on the gutter and clamber up before the mutants got to him, he would be safe and out of sight. The bottom floor windows and doors had been barricaded long ago, preventing access, and if there were people living within, he hoped they would take kindly to a stranger barging in. I really have no choice. He thought.
In a few hours, the sun would be up, and somehow it always made encounters with the mutants less scary, but no less dangerous. In the dark, they took on the persona of the boogey men, those horrifying monsters lurking under your bed as a child, but mommy was not around to make the demons go away. Not anymore. One… more… jump. With the tip of his ragged tennis shoe, he caught the drain spout’s mounting bracket and hoisted himself onto the roof with the tips of his fingers. The second floor bathroom window glass had been blown out long ago, leaving a gaping black portal leading into the unknown. Falcon looked back to the street one more time and made his move. Just as he saw the first mutant appear from around the corner, he was through the window and peering down at the street as he crouched behind the wall.
