by M. J Kreyzer
Muldoon remained where he stood with the intent of refusing to cooperate with Luke’s decision. Luke ignored him and got his things ready, giving Muldoon a clear message that Luke wouldn’t be negotiating.
Everybody was awake and on their feet in matter of minutes, stumbling around half-asleep as they were all under the impression that they’d be getting several more hours of sleep than they actually were.
It was still dark when they starting hiking; only an hour had passed outside the time field. The forest was still a dark navy while the crickets and night birds chirped and cooed for the duration of their nightly orchestration. It was chilly, and the nighttime mountain air made the weaker ones in the group shiver while the others wrapped what extra layers they could find tightly around them. They wouldn’t be travelling in the three separate groups as they had been; with the Bremmonni Badlands being as close as they were, Luke didn’t want to have everybody spread out only to have to regroup a short time later.
And within an hour they were woken up. The arrival of dusk and the upwards spike in temperature was a welcome assistance, making only a minimal reduction to their immediate list of concerns.
The Legionnaire forces seemed thicker than before, forcing them to slow their pace down considerably in favor of stealth. Squads and even entire companies plodded through the underbrush with their guns raised. This wasn’t the behavior of a search party; these Legionnaires were expecting a fight. And with every encounter they came closer.
Gradually they moved further and further, keeping their breaths shallow and their movement calm. But they had to keep quick. It was only a matter of time before the Legionnaires would pick them up on their motion trackers.
The sky rapidly approaching twilight, the team reached a sharp decline, slanting downwards at a sharp angle, making solid footholds hard to find as they spent most of the time sliding through the loose dirt and scattered leaves. Everybody was still tense from the gorge and said very little. And reaching their next obstacle did little to relieve their stress.
The hill ended abruptly, reaching flat ground at a good sixty degree angle. No more than twenty yards past the bottom of the hill the thickly wooded trees stopped as though they were pressing up against an invisible barrier. After that, it was a giant, flat, spotless dirt plain that stretched off into the horizon.
Rocks, leaves, and all manner of underbrush made small earthy avalanches down the hill as the group made their descent. Each person balancing carefully against the sloping hill, they arrived at the bottom of the hill, reaching the flat land and taking several braking steps to slow their momentum to a halt.
Travelling at the rear of the group, Luke saw everybody moving up towards the edge of the forest and stopping as though moving one step further would mean their immediate death. Upon reaching the bottom of the hill and moving up into their ranks, Luke understood their apprehension.
It was just as he had remembered it. The Bremmonni Badlands was nothing; a complete wasteland. Nothing grew nor lived here, neither was there any geologically modifying elements to factor in and a non-existent annual rainfall. The ground was almost solid rock, looking more like a broad, roughly hewn cutting board than actual dirt. The edge of the forest bent off into the distance and Luke had no doubt in his mind that there were several tanks with their sights focused on this spot of land. He had no idea what else they might be able to do, though; Muldoon got Luke’s hopes up for nothing.
“I’m not seein’ em.” Hendrick said moving to Luke’s side.
“And this place is being patrolled.” Luke said, pointing into the distant sky at a large, black object he knew to be a Helio. “Any ideas?”
Hendrick set his pack on the ground and opened it up, pulling out a small aluminum case and opening it up to reveal a row of cigars. He got back to his feet and held the cigar out to Luke. Luke looked at the tip of the cigar and it began to glow. Smoke plumed out of Hendrick’s mouth as he puffed at it, giving Luke a thankful pat on the back before putting that hand in his pocket.
“Haven’t smoked a cigar since Praemon.” Hendrick said, half proudly and half disappointedly. “Had a cigarette couple days back. God knows I’m not doin’ that again.”
“So you’re as clueless as I am.”
“Absolutely.”
So those were their options then; sit there in a place where a Legionnaire patrol would undoubtedly pass, or take their chances crossing the badlands with the hopes that they weren’t spotted and pulverized.
It was a hopeless situation, and Luke had no idea what to do. Using Furo could get them to Leramato, channeling it through Luke’s body to increase his speed, but then again, he’d show up on a Forge tank’s targeting computers like a flaming gas tanker, consequently putting the surrounding Legionnaires on alert, especially since there was a Durant in the area, and somebody as smart as Frenz would put two and two together and have the whole of the Bremmonni Badlands glassed with sweep lasers.
“We’re losing light.” Sable said, moving up next to Luke and Hendrick.
“Obviously.” Luke said irritated. “And unless you’ve got something constructive to say then go sit down with everybody else.”
It was a comment that Sable wasn’t expecting and it took her back, her face not only shocked but hurt. But Luke didn’t care. Besides, without having to shepherd everybody along like a herd of Quo like he was Luke could cross the badlands in a good twenty minutes. Hell, he could be to Pyre by morning with hundreds if not thousands of dead Legionnaires in his wake. But he had an entire crowd of people in his wake and that wasn’t an option.
As Sable went quiet and left the group as soon as she had arrived, Hendrick frowned at Luke.
“Ease up.” He muttered. “You’re gonna kill yourself.”
“Just keep your mouth shut.”
Hendrick laughed with deprecation, shaking his head and pulling his cigar from his mouth. “As long you stop being an emotional little bitch then I’ll have nothing to comment on.”
“Come again?” Luke muttered dangerously.
“You.” Hendrick said, turning to Luke with the same, toothy smile he always wore. “You’re acting like a teenage girl who just had her first period.” Hendrick used his cigar and pointed back to Sable, his smile going from humored to angered. “You see that? All she ever tries to do is do what’s right by you. That’s all she ever does. This little operation scares her almost as much as it does Seraphine but you wouldn’t know it because she’s trying to keep with the typical fashion that all hardened warriors have to be stoic, fearless badasses. On top of that, she cares about you. You don’t need half a brain to realize that.”
Luke looked back at the rest of the group to make sure they were out of hearing range. He’d give Hendrick a few more words before Luke staged a salvo of his own.
“You need to let it go.” Hendrick said after a draw from his cigar. “And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Luke just glared at Hendrick, an unintentional action that gave Hendrick even more ammunition to work with. Hendrick smiled.
“And all you ever do is glare or bust your sword out. You never talk, never debate, discuss, just glare or kill. The world isn’t a place where it’s look, get mad, and kill.”
“You’re one to talk.” Luke combated. “If you hadn’t torched that bus full of people, there were children on there, remember? I might take that statement seriously. But not from a murderer.”
“Good one.” Hendrick grinned and patted Luke on the shoulder. “Luke knows how to say mean, hurtful things, huh? Well guess what? I’ve paid for those things. Besides, clinical insanity doesn’t help those matters any.”
“You gonna hide behind that your entire life?”
“Hide? Heh, I own up to it. Unlike you who still can’t acknowledge the fact that you’re putting revenge before the lives of your family and friends.”
Nobody had ever said anything like that to Luke before, and hearing Hendrick, his closest friend, say the per
fectly wrong thing, pissed him off more than anything else at the time could have. In the end, Luke said nothing.
“That’s what I thought.” Hendrick said. “So if Trina were still here would you be treating her the same way?”
In a blur of blue steam Luke’s fist flew through the air and caught Hendrick in the side of the head. Hendrick slammed against a tree and fell to the ground, appearing dazed, but unhurt. After a groan, he looked back and Luke and smiled once more.
It fueled Luke’s contempt. The others were already running over to stop him. Hendrick was on his hands and knees, getting to his feet. Luke got a running start and kicked Hendrick in the face, the armored toe of his boot cracking Hendrick’s skull while spurting blood across the tree. Hendrick flew to his back, nearly unconscious. With what air he could muster, Hendrick managed a wheezing laugh. Luke gritted his teeth and drew his sword. He took one step towards Hendrick and was grabbed around the waist and slammed a tree hard enough to send a crack running up its side.
Sable and Pontious helped Hendrick rise unsteadily to his feet, his face covered in blood while his jaw had clearly been dislocated. Luke struggled against Morlo’s grip, his entire body now steaming while Morlo struggled to hold him. Hendrick reached an unsteady hand up to his jaw. With a loud, wet crack he set it back in place.
“You could’ve killed him!” Sable screamed. “Is that what you wanted!”
“Let ‘im down.” Hendrick wheezed. He shrugged off Sable with one arm and stepped towards Luke. “Come on, big guy. Let ‘im down. Let’s see if he’s got anything else besides being ridiculously strong and pathetically angry.”
“Not a chance!” Morlo struggled to keep Luke against the tree. “Muldoon!” Muldoon responded and helped Morlo hold him down. Hendrick continued to stagger towards Luke.
“Get down here you pussy.” He said half consciously, his words slurring like a drunkard. “Come on. Show me what else you’ve got… or is that it?” Hendrick drew the combat knife from its holster on his shoulder and tossed it between both hands. “Morlo! Drop him NOW!”
“Cocky prick!” Luke roared as he struggled as hard as he could. Even with their combined strength Morlo and Muldoon had difficulty restraining him. “Trying to be the big man, the show off! You’re no better than I am!”
“Never said I was.” Hendrick replied without breath. “I am saying that I’ve got my priorities straight.”
“What, and you’re saying I don’t! I’ve been-“
“You want to kill Legionnaires! To kill Frenz! You don’t care about us! We’ve followed you through absolutely everything! Everything! You’re not helping Seraphine to Pyre to destroy the Commune, you’re taking her there because she’s the way you’ll be able to kill off the entire First!” Hendrick threw his knife to the ground and buried it in the dirt. “We’ve been imprisoned, tortured, we’ve even died, because you’ve been going after revenge ever since Trina died.”
“Shut up, Nate! That’s not true and-“
“DON’T LIE TO ME!”
“I’m not lying!” Luke yelled, finally ripping his arms from Morlo’s and Muldoon’s grips. He fell to his feet and slowly approached Hendrick. “So you’re saying that for more than ten years of giving up everything I had, giving up my own son and daughter, to lead the Darks against the Commune, you’re saying that I was being selfish?”
“I’m saying you did a hell of a better job of controlling yourself back then than you do now.”
“Oh yeah?” Luke scoffed. “Explain that.”
“Alright then.” Hendrick said with a voice that suggested that doing so would be far too easy. “First, back in Styne. We rescued you, dove head first into enemy territory to pick you up, and first thing you say when we get you? Give me something to kill with.” Hendrick cocked a brow. “Not exactly a friendly greeting. And don’t get me started on Slaughter Canyon-“
“I was doing my job! They’re the enemy!”
“So where’s the line then?” Hendrick demanded. It was becoming obvious that Nate had been holding this in for a while. “Where’s the point where you stop being a hero and you start being an egocentric maniac? Answer that!”
“You don’t know what it’s like!” Luke shouted back. “My family’s gone! The Durants are dead! And everybody who made that happen is still out there doing the same things over and over, killing families, committing genocide!”
“You’re family isn’t gone!” Hendrick yelled. He looked at Luke as though he were the densest man on earth. “We’re right here!”
Luke said nothing. All eyes were on him and he felt them boring deep into him. Even Rush looked at him half hoping for him to give the response they were all looking for. Luke didn’t meet any of their gazes. He just looked at the ground, thinking about what they’d want him to say.
Then he felt Tess looking into his mind. She’d gotten better at it, and it was at that point that Luke realized that he had nothing he could hide. She’d see him for what he really was.
“If I hadn’t come looking for you after you took down that Helio when we first went after Rush, would you have even come back to find us?”
Of course Luke would’ve. The entire reason he went after Rush was to find Tess and protect her; or was that something that Luke had just convinced himself of? Luke knew that he loved Tess and she meant the world to him, but was she the reason he went to save Rush? What about Frenz? He had to be stopped and Luke was the man to do it, but what reason was Luke doing it for? To save the Darks? Defeat the Commune? It was at that point that Luke realized that he didn’t know what he wanted. Luke’s confusion was evident in his expression, and the fact that he was so confused about such a seemingly simple thing hurt the Ditrinity.
“That’s what I thought.” Hendrick said as thought defeated. “Well there’s plenty of Legionnaire’s around here. You shouldn’t have any problems finding some more guys to kill. You seem pretty happy with that.”
“What.” Luke stated, acting sardonic in an attempt to regain superiority. “So you going to say you wished you’d never gotten me out of prison now?”
With sullen eyes, Hendrick slowly shook his head, the expression on his face being one that Luke had never seen before; it was almost as though Hendrick had become a new person. Luke had hurt Hendrick in a way that Hendrick had never been hurt before.
“Never.” He muttered.
They all stood there, looking at Luke. And after the silence, Luke spoke up once more. “So what now, then. You’re all just going to carry on without me, huh? Fight for freedom?” He said, speaking in a mocking tone. “Fight for Relias?”
“Shut up!” Sable stopped him. Her aggression came as a surprise to everyone, but most especially Luke. The anger on his face thinned into sorrow as she approached him. “You might not care about us. Okay? I’ve gotten used to the fact that we’re nothing to you. But don’t you take away one of the only things we’ve got left to hold onto. Don’t you dare!”
“You say there’s a god!” Luke yelled back, stepping towards her til they were face to face. “You think that there’s somebody out there watching out for us! He never helped us! Nobody did!”
“Yes he did!” Sable shouted back, her voice louder than they’d ever heard it. “He gave us you!”
And at that, Luke stopped. What she said ripped his breath from him. There was nothing else to say. Luke tore through his thoughts in search of something he might say to give himself the upper hand but, upon consideration, it was obvious that there was no upper hand to be had. Luke had betrayed his friends, his family, and that betrayal was obvious on all of their faces. From left to right Luke looked at them, saw their expressions. Vyvyr stood there, stoic, yet vulnerable. Pontious remained objective though his eyes gave his anger and hurt away. Morlo’s face lacked its usual strength and, like Hendrick, appeared defeated. And while Sable still stood strong, she struggled to maintain herself. She was making feeble attempts to hide it, but the occasional stray tear would build in her eyes while her lips q
uivered. As for Hendrick, he stood there strong as ever; he knew that he had just assumed Luke’s role.
And then there was Tess. She looked at him with the same pained expression she had had that night in Praemon, that look of sadness and fear. And seeing that while looking back over the faces of the Ditrinity Luke knew, once again, that his life had spiraled out of his control and his flaws had gotten the best of him. His friends, his family, everything he had left, was leaving him. The thing that pained him the most, though, was that it was once again all his fault. He wanted to apologize but he couldn’t do it; he didn’t want to feel weak or to appear feeble. He was supposed to be strong, unmoving. But then again, look how far that had taken him.
There was faint engine noise that was rising up over the plain which drew the solemn attention of everybody in the group.
It was a large, powerful but aged truck pulling a long animal trailer which was several times the truck’s length. Rust lined its fenders bumpers and, as it got closer, the engine became a much more haphazard sounding piece of equipment, as loose bits of metal could be heard clattering all over the truck’s exterior.
“Problem solved.” Muldoon muttered.
The truck turned around and backed into the area where they stood until the trailer was concealed by the tree line. There was a flash of reverse lights as the truck shifted into park and there was a clatter of opening and closing car doors.
“You guys sure don’t know how to be discreet.” Came a deep voice. A thick, muscular black man came around the edge of the trailer into view. “You’re just lucky we picked you up before the First got to ya.”
“There’s, like, twice as many people here.” Said another, more lanky man who had emerged from the passenger side. “We don’t have room for these people, man. We just don’t!”
“We got room.” The other man said. “I’m AJ Merino and this here is Shank. We’re the Enforcers y’all were supposed to meet up with.”
Kristik’s beard shifted as his face scrunched in confusion. “We early by ‘most a week. How you-“
