Stone Soldiers 4: Shades of War

by C. E. Martin

  On the wall behind Campbell, four screens sprang to life, showing four different maps with locations marked.

  "The battles of Opequon, Antietam, Perryville and Chickamauga all took place roughly around the same time in September- the seventeenth through the twentieth.”

  “Today’s the eighteenth,” Jimmy said, directing his comment at Victor.

  “Since nothing happened on the seventeenth, we ruled out Antietam,” Campbell continued. “That leaves Perryville, Opequon and Chickamauga- which is having its one-hundred fiftieth anniversary, and will be attended by a large number of re-enactors.”

  “Leaving us less than twenty four hours,” Kenslir said, closing his briefing folder.

  Victor held up a hand, as though he were in school. “Uh, these don’t sound like the ghosts I’ve seen.” He was reading ahead in his file again.

  “Not all entities appear the same,” Kenslir said.

  “Hold on,” Dr. Olson said. “He’s seen a ghost?”

  “At Alcatraz,” Kenslir said. “When we rescued you last month.”

  “Yeah, but it was a dark silhouette- like a shadow,” Victor said. “Not like the ones described in this report.”

  “Ghosts?” Josie said, leaning back in her chair. “How do we fight ghosts?”

  “Why don’t we just cancel the festivities?” Jimmy asked.

  Campbell shook his head from side to side. “We can’t explain something like this to the public. We’d need a pretty elaborate cover story to justify calling off a major historical event like this.”

  “And we want to know who’s behind this,” Kenslir added.

  “Behind it?” Dr. Olson was very skeptical. “I lived at the Rock for forty years. Ghosts are not that big of a deal...” She glanced over at Victor “I’ve seen a few myself.”

  “We have never encountered anything like this before,” Kenslir said. “This is not normal spirit behavior.”

  “So someone can raise the dead?” Josie asked.

  “Possibly. Our scientists have been debating for years if it really is the dead. Some theorize spirits are psychic echoes of the living. Others believe they’re entities of a different sort all together. But in all the encounters documented, we have never seen so many with so much power.”

  Dr. Olson started to ask a question, but Kenslir cut her off.

  “Whatever they are, they all have one thing in common- to interact with the material world, they need energy.”

  “Energy? Jimmy asked. “Like electricity?” He glanced over at Colonel Phillips.

  “They can draw energy from a variety of sources,” Kenslir answered. “Electromagnetic fields or even living people. But they use it up a tremendous rate. The beings the oracle saw seemed to have an unlimited source.”

  “How do you stop something like that?” Olson asked, looking up from her file.

  Kenslir frowned. “Not sure- but we’ve had some ideas over the years.”

  “It’s all in your files,” Major Campbell added.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  This new body was nearly perfect. The minor damage from asphyxiation was easily repaired before any meaningful decay had set in. And a healthier body meant he could use his powers to their fullest now.

  If he still had the energy for them.

  It still puzzled him. In all his years of life, he had never met anyone who could do what he did. But there, in Wisconsin, in an average home, a teenager had surprised him- had stolen half his strength.

  The boy clearly had no idea what to do with the energy he had drawn from his father’s murderer. Most of it had probably discharged from his body during the brief fight. He doubted the boy had enough to do much of anything now. And after all this flying, he was running low himself.

  Fortunately, there were many places he could go to correct that.

  During his life, he had sought out these places of power- had memorized their locations. Back then, no one had known the source of his power, so he had been careful about drawing power only when he needed it. And he had made sure there were many, many locations it could be found, away from prying eyes.

  He was still hours away from his ultimate destination, and dawn was breaking, but he had no choice- he had to stop. Luckily, he had steered his flight toward a mid-western city perched on the banks of the Ohio River. A city with one of the strongest sources of energy in the eastern United States.

  A city called Louisville.

  The city on the banks of the Ohio river boasted it was a nuclear free zone. But it contained something far more dangerous than any nuclear power source.

  His destination was a decrepit, run-down building that had only avoided demolition because of its dark reputation. A reputation as one of the most haunted places in America. He had no doubt this was true- but when he had first been to the site he had not been able to see the dead.

  Even in broad daylight, he now sensed their presence. As he floated to earth and landed gently, he sensed- no, felt- them inside the large building. Lingering at the site as they had for decades- powered by the energy radiating from the building.

  He could feel that power drawing into him as he approached a locked door. No trespassing signs were everywhere, and a stout chain and lock barred his way. He broke them with ease and entered.

  The dead sensed him now too. They began to come into the main entrance room he stood in- no doubt sensing him siphoning the energy from their place of unrest. He let them watch him, even toyed with the idea of giving them energy to manifest fully. But these were not soldiers that could help him with his plan of revenge. They were patients. Victims of a horrible plague. Their deaths, and the deaths of so many, many others here had charged the site with energy as powerful as that at any sacrificial temple in the world. The sense of death and despair wasn’t just in the energy he now absorbed- it hung in the air, palpable.

  The spirits at this place began to understand what was happening. He felt their anger, their fear as they realized he was taking away their power. All of it. Soon, the most haunted place in America would be just another derelict building no different from any other.

  One spirit rushed him, hands outstretched, almost visible to the naked eye. But it faded as it neared him- its power drawn out and transferred into his body. The other spirits around the room began to fade as well- even from his psychic senses.

  At last, he had absorbed all the power there was. No ghost or revenant, or spirit or specter remained. The sanatorium was again just an empty building.

  He flexed his muscles and opened and closed his hands, feeling the raw energy coursing through him. The body of the arctic explorer could never have handled this. It had been ravaged by the elements and a lifetime of abuse. But this Wisconsin body was healthier- it had been exercised daily, fed only the finest of natural foods. It had never smoked, had never drank. It was in better shape than his own body had been the day his powers were unlocked.

  He flexed his legs and took to the air, crashing through the ceiling and rocketing into the sky. With this new energy he was able to accelerate beyond the speed of sound. The boom from his sudden acceleration shook buildings and broke windows all over the city.

  He was streaking southeast once more. He would be there in so short a time. Then his plan for revenge could begin. He would raise an army to terrorize the living. Which hopefully would draw out the man who had killed him. Just as it had almost twenty years ago...

  ***

  He simply could not believe what was happening. Years of careful planning brought down in only a couple of weeks. His organization was destroyed- nearly all of his pawns dead. And now even his beloved arctic base was crumbling- devastated by a massive explosion on the surface.

  Power was failing rapidly, so he had come here, to his most important sub-room to check on his children. He was glad he had designed their individual chambers with backup power, or else they might all be dead now.

  He wondered who could be responsible for this. Surely not the same man that had been destr
oying his organization, piece by piece over the past few days.

  The door to the room screeched as it was pried open, metal tearing as the panels normally retracted by hydraulic pistons were forced apart. Flickering light spilled in from the corridor beyond.

  Moving at speeds faster than any human could manage, he streaked across the room, flying behind one of the hibernation chambers ringing it. One of twenty silver tubes that extended from the concrete floor to the concrete ceiling.

  A man entered the room, rolling forward, then coming up in a crouch. A soldier. He held a massive pistol in his hands and covered the room with it. He was large, over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and huge arms that threatened to split the material of his black combat fatigues. He was covered in holsters and ammunition pouches. A pair of black plastic goggles covered his eyes and his jet black hair was cut in a short flattop.

  It was him. The soldier that had been pursuing him since he launched his plan to destroy America.

  The soldier looked over the massive room with its hibernation tubes, then his eyes settled on the centerpiece of the room. On a pedestal eight-feet across and three-feet high sat a greenish sphere, three-feet in diameter. The sphere had small, starfish-like arms extending out from its body, and had a melted look about it, as if it had been subjected to great heat.

  The soldier took a step toward it.

  "Looking for me?" a voice rang out all at once. The soldier’s quarry streaked out from behind the hibernation tube that had hidden him. He hovered in place over the floor, dressed in the same burnt white body suit he had been wearing so many hours before when they crossed paths in Los Angeles. A gray-eyed, blonde-haired man of Herculean proportions with a short beard covering his square jaw.

  The soldier immediately saw that beneath the flying man’s suit that was burnt and torn, his flesh had been healed. The soldier fired his pistol, unleashing streams of white-hot plasma at the hovering man.

  The plumes of purple and blue ionized gas lanced through the air like super-fast tongues of flame. But the flying man was faster. He dodged to the side and the plasma burnt into the walls of the chamber, melting steel instead of burning flesh.

  The soldier pivoted in place, tracking the flying man and firing round after round. But each missed its mark and his pistol at last ran dry. The magazine auto-ejected from the massive handgun, clattering onto the floor.

  The flying man swept in and struck with all his might. Green light flared where fist met chin and bone broke in both men- the flying man’s hand, and the soldier’s chin. The soldier was sent flipping over backwards from the impact.

  The soldier came up in a crouch, hands balled into tight fists, eyes glancing briefly over to where his large plasma pistol had been knocked from his grasp. His chin was now grey, the color of stone, and was shifting back into place.

  The flying man stood by the entrance to the chamber, nursing his mangled fist. He focused energy into it, willing the broken bone and torn flesh to mend.

  "Curious. Striking your head and body actually caused me physical pain."

  The soldier’s chin was turning back to flesh now, fully healed. He stepped toward the flying man.

  Gray eyes under a mop of blond hair squinted and unleashed twin streams of red at the soldier. The superheated air between the flying man and the soldier caught the soldier in the stomach, their intensity so strong they pushed him back as they burned through his shirt and reflected off a mesh undershirt.

  The flying man frowned. "Looks like I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way," He too formed his hands into tight fists and stepped forward.

  The soldier stood his ground, his weight centered on his right, leg, his left foot out in front, fists held at the ready.

  "You've ruined everything," the flying man said angrily, striding forward. "I had this all planned out, trained my soldiers and was ready."

  "Ready for what?" the soldier asked, tensing the muscles in his left leg.

  "Ready for the inv-"

  The soldier lashed out with his right foot, shifting his weight to his left and pivoting on the ball of the foot. His mind was clear, focused. He channeled his ki into the kick, slamming his foot directly into the flying man’s solar plexus.

  Faint, almost invisible green light flared at the impact. The terrific force of the kick surprised its recipient, who felt himself flung backwards ten feet as his rib cage was compressed, his bones splintered.

  Landing on his back, the flying man wheezed, unable to fill his lungs with air. He immediately began channeling his energy into his crushed chest.

  But the soldier was pressing his attack.

  He was already at his opponent’s side, dropping to his right knee and slamming his right fist down with all his might. He almost succeeded, but his target was quicker, literally flying out from underneath the punch.

  The soldier’s fist smashed into the hard floor of the chamber, throwing up chips of rock and creating a miniature crater one foot across and six-inches deep.

  The soldier ignored the broken bones in his hand as they began to heal- looking up in time to see his opponent sweep back in from above, kicking with his right foot.

  Toes wrapped in the sock-like body stocking the flying man wore fractured as they smashed into the wide goggles the soldier wore. The goggles exploded in a spray of plastic as the kick continued on, impacting the soldier’s forehead. The blow was so terrific it lifted the soldier off the floor, flipping him backwards again so that he tumbled end over end, several body lengths.

  He landed roughly on his back, his head ringing, his vision blurred.

  "Aargh!" the flying man bellowed, hovering in the air and clenching his broken toes with both hands.

  The soldier snapped his feet up, then out, pulling himself off his back and into a standing position. He grabbed at the link wire running out from under his collar and still connected to a fragment of his goggles. Jerking it free, the soldier tossed the useless shard of plastic aside.

  "When the mothership comes, your head will be mounted on my staff!" the flying man screamed, flying forward again.

  The soldier’s dark green, almost black, eyes narrowed. He immediately noticed his opponent was moving slower now. Barely faster than a human.

  The crazed flying man swung out with his right fist, intending to catch the soldier in a wide hook.

  The soldier ducked under the fist, hands snapping up, his wrists locking onto his attacker’s extended right forearm in an overhead x-block. Twisting, he pulled as hard as he could, right leg snapping up, over his head and smashing into the flying man’s groin.

  The flying man’s disbelief at missing with his punch turned to agony as a heavy boot crushed into his groin. He felt his hips dislocate under the impact even as he was pulled through the air and tossed over the soldier’s head. Before he could stop himself, he had crashed into the object on the chamber's central pedestal.

  After the pieces had settled, the flying man picked himself up, holding his weight on his hands as his body hastily repaired his legs. Then he screamed in rage as he noticed the shattered, green pieces of his most prized possession, laying in broken bits on the floor around him.

  "Mothership? You really are crazy," the soldier announced from atop the pedestal.

  Then he slammed a fist down, his entire body weight and all his concentration behind it. The large fist smashed into the wounded flying man’s kneecap, tearing it free and causing it to slid around, under his skin, to a position behind the knee.

  The soldier unleashed another mighty blow, but the wounded man caught it with one hand. "Do you know what you've done?" the flying man demanded.

  The soldier pulled his hand free, slipping it around and grabbing his opponent’s wrist. He immediately followed this up with a vicious palm strike to the back of the elbow. The flying man’s arm suddenly bent backwards.

  "No, Clint, what have I done?"

  At the mention of his real name, the downed man’s face contorted. It contorted to the poi
nt of transformation. His whole body seemed to shrink to a far thinner frame. The whiskers on his face and the hair on his head lengthened by several inches. But as quickly as he his body had withered, he swelled back up again, his beard and hair shortening, his limbs and chest swelling with muscles.

  "Don't call me that!" the man named Clint demanded. "That was my Earth name!"

  "Earth name? Just who do you think you are?"

  “Your death!” Clint spit out. His arm suddenly snapped back straight, and his legs quickly straightened as well, his body instantly healed in one quick transformation.

  The soldier had been waiting for that.

  “Not today,” he said, his hand suddenly filled with a sawed-off, double-barreled rifle. The barrels were pressed firmly against Clint’s face, over his left eye.

  The parahuman could see up the barrel of the weapon where a sparkling red gem was pointed at him. Even as he recognized the enchanted crystal, the gun fired, and the makeshift projectile rocketed forward.

  Clint had used all his remaining energy reserves in this brief fight, repairing the tremendous damage inflicted on him by the soldier. He had put all his energy into healing his body and turning it into a powerful, nearly indestructible mass of dense flesh and bone. He had no energy left for moving at speeds faster than bullets.

  The enchanted crystal smashed into Clint’s eye, obliterating it before entering his cranium. It tunneled through his brain then struck his skull. Had it been a regular bullet, the round would have flattened against the now-unbreakable bone. But it was not. It was an enchanted crystal- taken from his own follower. An unbreakable gem.

  The makeshift projectile erupted out the back of Clint’s head, then buried itself into the floor of the chamber. His body fell lifeless to the floor.

  Clint watched as the soldier stepped back and nudged the body with one foot. He watched it from above the floor, where he was now floating in the air. He felt as though he should be rising slowly upward, but he resisted the sensation and remained in place.