by Ben Stevens
Eventually, the disgruntled officers and their men had fallen in line and joined with him. The Old Guard was formed.
And so they confronted Lily Sapphire and the turncoats Jon 310-257 and Master Sergeant Miller, a formally decorated war veteran, more recently serving as a cookie. They performed their bit of theater brilliantly, making their mass exodus from the Zigg, and taking with them a sizeable amount of weaponry and equipment.
They had set up shop in Lincoln, a Republic enclave on the far edges of Home’s eastern farmlands, and waited for their chance.
That chance had come much sooner than expected, in the form of contact with a mysterious agent, referring to himself only as “The Provocateur.”
The man of mystery had yet to reveal himself—or, as Private Nguyen had so astutely pointed out, prove himself trustworthy. Yet, with his options limited, Martin had taken up the counter-insurgent’s offer to meet. So far, so good. Now we will see if I have made a grave error, or if we are on the path back to rightness.
The Provocateur—for he refused to give his real name—had contacted Martin on his personal N-tab, no small feat in itself, and informed him that he had a plan for ensuring victory for the Old Guard, and the Republic.
In the days leading up to his journey to the forested rendezvous point, Martin had pondered deeply the identity of this agent. A remnant of the Ministry, perhaps?
What a blessing that would prove to be! A Minister on their side would be their best chance at restoring order. But as far as he could tell, every Minister and every Handler—the human half of the Ministry of Social Purity’s infamous Scrubber units—had either been killed or rendered powerless in the coup, unable to control their Sniffer counterparts. More fallout from the Incident and whatever Strange blow the so-called goddess had dealt.
Despite his reservations and his concerns regarding the Provocateur’s true identity—it could easily be a trap laid by Lily Sapphire and her sycophants—Martin followed the instructions he’d been given.
As Martin and Nguyen trekked farther, the forest around them thickened enough that they had to skirt several clusters of trees, slowing their progress. As well as becoming more numerous, the trees became thicker as they continued. This forest was obviously considerably older, perhaps even pre-Storm in origins. What little light they’d had now grew even dimmer, and the day began to take on the feel of an early night.
“Get out the lantern,” Martin ordered. “I nearly tripped just now.”
Private Nguyen did as he was ordered without complaint, stopping briefly to take off his ruck and retrieve the battery-powered lantern attached to it.
Now, under the warm orange glow of their electric light, the duo moved into the thickest, darkest part of the ancient forest, closing in on the coordinates they had been given.
“Just up ahead,” Nguyen announced.
Martin, in the lead and aware of their position, rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time at the young soldier’s greenness. Just what did they teach these kids in Academy anyway?
New Breed, my ass.
“Keep quiet and stay alert. Let me do the talking,” Martin snapped.
“Sir! Yes, sir!” the private responded, and Martin heard telltale rustling sounds as the kid sloppily readied his Lawnmower.
Martin gave one last glance down to the N-tab he carried, the one on which he had first been contacted, and confirmed the red dot blinking on its topographical map display was indeed just a few meters in front of him.
Showtime.
The forest floor below them began to slope downward into a grade that beckoned them toward what seemed to be some sort of pit. The canopy of tree branches above became so thick as to completely block out the frosted white light. Martin’s mind made cave associations as he and Private Nguyen descended the slope to the edge of a small glade, no larger in circumference than an office in the administrative levels of the Zigg.
Martin’s eyes darted back and forth between the blinking dot on his N-tab and the glade, which appeared to be empty of both trees and people. He had come to the right location, but there was no one here.
Entering the clearing itself, Martin and Nguyen instinctively positioned themselves at each other’s backs, as they turned in place to survey their surroundings. They were enclosed by thick, gnarled trees on all sides as well as above, so much that Martin could barely see the path he and his ward had taken. Surrounded, but alone.
“It would seem that we have been played for fools,” Martin grumbled, his words carried into the frigid air on puffs of steaming breath.
“Great,” Nguyen said. Despite the kid’s ceaseless grumbling over their three-day journey, Martin did not scold the young man. Their gamble on the promise of help had now proved to be a colossal waste of time. There was much to do in Lincoln. Shelters and defense fortifications needed to be built. A new chain of command had yet to be fully established. If the Old Guard ever wished to realize their dream of re-establishing the Republic, they would first have to survive the winter, waiting for new crops to be planted in spring, and then become as mighty as Home had once been. He had no time for games like this.
“Blast it all to hell,” Martin said, scowling. “Let’s get out of here. We may yet be able to make it to the Farm road before nightfall.”
“I told you to come alone,” a voice called out from somewhere in the thick trees.
Martin and Nguyen spun about, alarmed, scanning their surroundings once more.
“Enough games!” Martin shouted, his anger rising. “Show yourself!”
“Relax, Major. I am here,” the voice said.
Just to the left of Martin, the air began to shimmer. Realizing immediately that the effect was not simply the refraction of lantern light off of ice crystals suspended in the air, Martin and Nguyen leaped back. Reflexively, Martin’s hand shot down to his hip, and with a flick of his thumb, unfastened the nylon strap that bound his sidearm to its holster.
“Jumpy, are we?” the voice said, clearly originating from the shimmer hovering before them.
The scintillation grew in intensity and then appeared to dissolve. An image, no, a true presence of a man appeared in its place.
“Active camouflage!” Martin heard Nguyen gasp.
“I had to know that I was safe first, that I could trust you.”
“You?” the major asked, unable to believe his eyes.
“Yes, me. I have been in hiding, watching, ever since,” the man said, flashing the soldiers a wry smile.
“We thought you were dead,” Martin said.
“And I thought you were going to come alone,” came the snappy response.
Martin ignored the jibe and quickly moved to change the subject.
“Well, now that I know who you are, your promise of salvation seems a bit more credible. I came, so you know I’m willing to hear you out. Although I’m not sure why we couldn’t have met in a more reasonable location.”
“As I said in my communique, secrecy is of the utmost importance. If anyone in Maya’s, or rather, Lily Sapphire’s circle even so much as gets a whiff of what I am plotting, it will fail. I brought you out here so I could test you, to ascertain your trustworthiness, or to see if the Loyalists need a different leader.”
Martin narrowed his eyes and remembered the pistol, still resting in its unfastened holster.
“You know I respect you, I just made that clear. But I do not like your tone. Or your choice of words. That sounded like a threat just now.”
“Take it however you will. I care not for your pride or your life. The Republic is much bigger than one man.”
Martin could see what he meant, but he still didn’t like what had been implied.
“I think you may have things a little backwards,” Martin dared. “You see, I am the leader of the Old Guard, and I am here to figure out if I can trust you.”
The Provocateur waved his hand dismissively and smiled. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Nguyen shifted uncomfortably, an u
nconscious gesture that made Martin aware that this banter was fruitless, and besides, it was growing cold.
“Enough of this pissing match. Say what you brought me here for,” Martin demanded, relaxing his posture some—a tacit olive branch, but he kept his pistol ready. “Tell me your plan for defeating the insurgents.”
“Very well. It is simple. We won’t defeat the insurgents.”
Martin scowled. Has he lost his mind? Did the sorceress taint him somehow? “What nonsense is this?” he growled.
“Listen, Major. We won’t defeat them. We will arrange for them to defeat themselves.”
The electric lamp cast the Provocateur’s face in a strange glow, giving him an otherworldly appearance. His widening grin only served to accentuate the unnerving qualities of the man and the situation.
“I’m listening,” Martin said, prompting him to continue.
“You see, you are all making the mistake of assuming Maya and her rebels think as we do. That they are military. That their goals are military goals. They are not.”
Before Martin could ask what the Provocateur meant by that, he informed them.
“Despite their unthinkable victory over our glorious Chairman, the sorceress and her inner circle of rebels are nothing more than idealists. They aren’t actually seeking the power they just took. They truly believe that they are the heroes of this story, and likewise, believe that what they are doing is just; that Invasives are deserving of equal rights and the same protections as humans. They are all, to a one, idealistic fools, like the singing strumpet they follow, putting lofty principles before proven practicalities. I have ways to manipulate them into making an even bigger mess than the one they’ve already created.”
Martin was flabbergasted. His mind strained, trying to understand such naive stupidity.
“We will use this to our advantage and tear them down without having to fire a single bullet. We will grease the wheels, so to speak, and the revolutionary vehicle in which they are riding will accelerate out of their control. They will crash and burn. And when they do, we will step back into the picture to finish them off and take back Home, saving humanity in the process.”
“I’ll play. How do you plan, exactly, to do this? No more cryptic words. Speak plainly,” Martin said, genuinely intrigued.
“Ah yes. I forget that I’m talking to a grunt. A decorated grunt, but a grunt nonetheless. Allow me to elaborate.”
Martin ignored the insult and listened as the Provocateur laid out his plan in detail. It was a long con, a masterpiece of conniving manipulation that would, Martin came to see, set the stage for a swift and easy retaking of Home. He stood in silence for a moment, contemplating the plot and its potential.
“As much as it pains me to admit this, I like it. It’s a sound plan,” Martin said.
“Well, thank you. I learned from the best.”
Martin nodded, instantly intimating the man’s meaning.
“So it’s settled then. We have a trust established?” Martin asked. His mind was beginning to fill with possibility and glory.
“We do.”
“I suppose I should count myself lucky that it is so. After all, you are a man of your word. You came alone when I did not.” Martin gestured to Private Nguyen.
“When did I say that I came alone?” The Provocateur chuckled, then snapped his fingers.
Like puppets descending onto a stage, suspended from strings above, three blurred objects lowered into the clearing from the tangle of thick tree limbs overhead.
Before Martin could identify the nature of the new arrivals, one reached down with unnaturally long arms, each ending in a six-toed claw, and snatched Nguyen off the ground, pulling him several meters into the air and holding him fast.
The electric lamp fell from the soldier’s grip and landed on its side, changing the arc of its orange glow and throwing long shadows over portions of the wooded glade.
Illuminated by the lamp, Martin beheld in shock one of the three creatures as it slipped into view.
Bead-like eyes, small and black, with eerie horizontal lines for pupils, stared back at Martin on either side of an elongated face. The thing’s features and head instantly reminded Martin of the skull of a horse, its flesh paper-thin, wrapping its elongated, bony features. Scores of needle teeth, almost as fine as hair, slowly wavered back and forth around the creature’s mouth, as if its lipless gums were lined with cilia.
The near-skeletal head was attached to a lanky body, some nightmarish cross between a hairless cat and hairless primate, currently upside down, hanging from the trees above by prehensile feet, identical to the extraordinarily long arms, all of which ended in six long claw-toes.
“What is the meaning of this?” Martin shouted, fetching his pistol from its resting place and pointing it at the Provocateur.
“I would re-holster that weapon if I were you, Major,” the Provocateur warned. “The Neal-Laen are ambush predators, preferring to attack from above. They evolved on an arboreal forest world and can be quite swift when moving through trees.”
“Not faster than a bullet, I’d wager!” Martin growled back, cocking the hammer back on his pistol to show that he meant business. Above, muffled sounds came from Private Nguyen as he squirmed in the cradling grasp of the hanging creature. A second later, the muffles and the squirming stopped. Only the soft sounds of the winter wind whistling through the trees remained. That, and the pounding of Martin’s blood in his ears.
“Squeeze the trigger, and all hope for the Republic is lost. You may or may not kill me, I can’t say. But I can guarantee it will be the last thing you ever do.”
Keeping his pistol’s glow-in-the-dark sights trained on the Provocateur, Martin shifted his eyes enough to see the two Neal-Laen that weren’t grappling with Private Nguyen move without making a sound, repositioning themselves within easy striking distance of Martin, to his back left and right respectively.
“Why?” Martin asked, shaking with a volatile mixture of rage and fear. “Why are you doing this?”
“Two reasons. One, I said I needed to test you. Two, I told you to come alone.”
A dull thump behind Martin made him jump. He spun, trying and failing to keep the Provocateur threatened with his pistol. On the ground behind him, he found the source of the sound. Nguyen’s limp body had been dropped by his captor. Even in the soft glow of the electric torch, Martin could see the kid’s face looked shriveled, aged somehow, dried up.
Slowly, with all the grace and self-mastery of a champion gymnast, the Neal-Laen that had killed the boy unfolded itself from the tree canopy, gently turning end over end, until it had grasped the lowest hanging branches with its long arms, and then touched down onto the ground with its mirror-image legs. Once on the ground, the beast came down to stand on all fours, completing its animal appearance. Martin’s eyes, wide with horror and disgust, only came to the underside of the beast’s belly. He watched, frozen, as a dinner-plate-sized starfish of sorts dislodged itself from the Neal-Laen’s neck, crawled to the ground, and then began to go about eating the remains of Private Nguyen’s body with an unseen mouth orifice.
“I told you that we would need to work with Drop-trash for this to work. You agreed that was sound. I need to see if it’s possible. I need to see your mettle. Sacrifices must be made.”
“And that means sacrificing my men?” Martin spun, hating to turn his back on the Simian-Equidae alien, but more strongly wanting to menace the Provocateur with his weapon again.
“Do you have what it takes to see this through, Major? Or do I need to find another confidant? The boy had to go; his blood is on your hands, not mine. I told you to come alone. I told you that secrecy must be maintained at all cost.”
Martin wavered back and forth between lowering the gun and pulling the trigger. Finally, cautious wisdom, or perhaps simply self-preservation, won out. He lowered the pistol with a shaky hand and bored into the sinister agent’s eye with his stare.
“Fine. I will go along with y
ou. You can count on me to keep our operation a secret. I can handle it. Forget the boy.”
“That’s the spirit.” The Provocateur grinned and waved his hand. The Neal-Laen snatched up Private Nguyen’s body and climbed up into the trees, disappearing without so much as the sound of one single twig snapping.
Unable to shake the feeling that he had made a deal with the devil, Martin saw no other option that ended well for him. Then and there, he made a promise to himself and to his fallen soldier that, when the dust had settled, when this was all done and dusted, he would kill the Provocateur. But for now, he would bend the knee.
He holstered his weapon, looked directly into the man’s eyes and said, “You had better be right about all this, Matiaba.”
5
Morning came without event, though to Jon and Lucy it was just a brighter version of night, neither of them having slept a wink.
Maya appeared no worse for wear. Her headache, if that was what it could be called, was as fully and completely gone as the night’s stars above.
“I’d like to try again,” she stated to the group matter-of-factly, arms crossed. She had apparently come to them expecting a fight and looked to be in no mood to back down or compromise.
“But, my lady!” Lucy blurted out, beating Jon to the first counter-assault.
“Let me speak!” Maya commanded, causing Lucy’s jaw to snap shut instantly. “I know and have reluctantly accepted that I can’t open a full-sized door for now, perhaps forever. But I did manage to get that small one formed.”
