The Apostates

by Lars Teeney

  Ravine rushed over to the gangplank that connected the deck to other ships in the row. He moved from ship to ship in the direction of the left flank. He overheard more L.O.V.E. chatter and thought he heard the general order to attack the right flank.

  “It’s gonna get hot over there. I hope Gale will be alright. They got Hades in a sniper position and Blaze over there. The flank should hold,” Ravine thought as he jumped onto the deck of an oil tanker.

  “Contact with Rangers and regulars! Incoming fire!” Gale-Whirlwind had yelled through the [Apostate-net]. Over on the right flank she was firing her weapon from behind the bulwark of a cargo ship. She had managed to halt the advance of a group of regulars who had to take cover in the growth of trees on the shore, due to her superior firing position. Rangers adjacent to the regulars trained in on Gale and returned fire forcing her to crouch behind the bulwark. She started to panic but willed herself to keep composure. Several Apostate soldiers converged on her position at the bow of the ship to return fire upon the Rangers and regulars, the effect was that a stalemate developed, where the L.O.V.E. advance was halted.

  Hades-Perdition caught a Regime army regular in his sites and put him down with a fifty caliber round to the head. The soldiers around him responded by calling out that they were under sniper fire.

  Hades listened to the L.O.V.E. chatter—the second wave on the left flank was ordered to advance.

  “Aqua, heads up, you’ll be expecting an attack on your flank pretty soon!” Hades warned.

  “I heard it. I’ll be ready,” Aqua-Deluge responded.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Head Ranger Frank had ordered the second wave to attack the left flank. He checked on their progress with his field glasses. He saw that they made steady progress toward their objective. Head Ranger Frank was relieved, to see something going right. Then, suddenly, he spied a peculiarity in his field glasses. There was something hovering above that wing of the attack.

  “What the fuck is that?” Frank was worried now.

  Down on the left flank the Rangers and regulars were moving through a thicket leading to the shore to engage the entrenched Apostates. The ranking Ranger noticed movement from above. Approaching from the south, were small, flying craft, about a dozen, in a chevron formation. They had made a slight buzz as they moved closer.

  “What the hell? Are they watching us with those drones?” one Ranger yelled furiously.

  “Shoot ‘em down!” another Ranger shouted.

  Regular troops and Rangers raised their weapons to the sky. The drones had approached and hovering overhead, about one hundred feet in altitude. There was an object attached to each drone that was released and a dozen spherical objects dropped toward the battle group. They were grenades. The fuses had been timed to explode just above the ground.

  “Grenades!” one Ranger managed to yell out right before they detonated. White, hot shrapnel was flung in every direction, cutting through countless men, severing arteries, and dicing vital organs. A soldier was slightly wounded and he tried to drag one of his gravely wounded comrades to safety. The glowing blade of a shaft of plasma burned a whole through the chest plate of his armor. As he looked down in shock the plasma blade was jerked up rapidly, splitting the upper body and head in two.

  Prelate Inoguchi retracted the plasma blade and stood over her victim, then moved stealthily toward the ships on the left flank of the battle.

  “Ranger Ivanov, respond! What is your status? What was that explosion?” Head Ranger Frank demanded an answer but none came. Now the Head Ranger was worried—he was losing control of the operation rapidly. He decided to commit the Rangers who were stationed to guard him to investigate the left flank. Frank was all alone now.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Ravine-Gulch heard the chatter and confusion within the L.O.V.E. ranks. He wondered what could possibly be transpiring. It sounded like they had come under attack by a third party. The news was disconcerting because it wasn’t apparent if they were friend or foe.

  “Guys, did you get that? Someone is attacking the Rangers. Anybody get a visual?” Ravine inquired to everyone involved.

  “I saw some explosions by the shore. We were expecting the Rangers second attack here but nothing,” Aqua-Deluge confirmed.

  “Wait a minute. Someone is attacking our soldiers on shore. I saw a couple go down. What the?” Aqua sounded worried.

  “Hang in there! I’m coming to your position!” Ravine announced. He picked up his pace rushing from ship to ship. Ravine was confused—a third party attacking both Rangers and Apostates?

  Aqua-Deluge attempted to get a clear shot on the figure engaging the Apostate soldiers on shore. She watched the carnage through her scope. The assailant appeared to be a woman fighting in close quarters with some type of energy weapon. She watched the mysterious woman side step a bayonet thrust, break the arm of her opponent, then she used him as a human shield to absorb rounds shot by two other of his comrades. She threw his body aside and proceeded to attack the two soldiers.

  Aqua captured the woman in her sights and took a shot. The round struck her breastplate and knocked her back slightly, but it had ricocheted harmlessly off. Aqua-Deluge’s position was given away, as the mysterious woman cast a fiery glance her way. The woman then slipped around the back of one of the soldiers after he left himself open. She brought the knife to his neck and carved a crevasse into his jugular, spilling its contents.

  Aqua cursed audibly at the sight of the kill and attempted to line up another shot, but when she looked through her scope, the woman had disappeared and none of the soldiers were standing.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Apostate personnel began retracting the gangplanks to the ships and some started to pick up steam and move out of their static positions. The lead ships on the left flank were closest to open ocean. The ships on the right flank would have to wait to move out until the ships on the left were clear. The right flank was under attack and an intense firefight had developed. Gale-Whirlwind was laying down suppression fire, with a few other soldiers. Blaze-Scorch was busy tending to several wounded soldiers, trying to stop the bleeding from a severed artery.

  Hades-Perdition was keeping attackers at bay from the central gate leading to the pier. He had downed two bold attackers who tried to rush the gate. It didn’t take the Rangers long to stop that tactic. They were now scanning the ships looking for the sniper’s position. Rangers were formidable marksmen—all they needed was Hades’s position to turn the tide. Hades’s let off another round. This shot did not hit its mark, missing a head as a branch entered the line of fire, blocking the round. Hades’s position was given away and several Rangers started lobbing rounds up at his sniper’s perch. A round grazed his gauntlet, a few others missed by inches.

  “Shit! I’m taking fire up here! I need to take cover!” Hades pulled himself out of the line of fire and jumped down from the ledge to a catwalk below. He started to make his way down toward Gale and Blaze’s position. Rangers waded into the water toward the hull near the stern of the ship. The Rangers began scaling the side of the ship’s hull with magnetized grips. Rangers and regular troops laid down suppressive fire.

  “There’s too many of them! I can’t get shots off. They’re boarding the ship near the stern.” Gale was shaken. She returned a few rounds but just succeeded in attracting a dozen rifles firing her way.

  Without Hades’s sniper fire, more Ranges rushed the shoreline and took down the few remaining Apostate soldiers on the pier. They approached the hull near the bow of the ship, right under Gale and Blaze’s position, but there was little they could do to stop the boarding as Ranger marksmen pinned them down.

  “I’ll take down the Rangers boarding at the stern,” Hades-Perdition reported, as he set his M82 aside, and then unsheathed his Claymore. Standing at the ready, he awaited the Ranger boarding party. Ranger‘s heads appeared from over the guard rail. One, two, three, then six jumped onto the weather deck.

  “Well gentleme
n, it appears we have an old score to settle,” Hades stated. He enjoyed killing Rangers, after everything they had taken from him. But, for every one he killed, five more seemed to crawl out from the rocks. It also seemed that as the years have passed the quality of the Rangers had decreased dramatically.

  “Get that fucking dandy!” A Ranger yelled. Several affixed bayonets to their rifles, some pulled side arms and rushed at Hades. He awaited their attack.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Ravine ran the length of the transport ship as fast as his feet would carry him. He attempted to make contact with Aqua-Deluge, “Aqua, I’m almost to you, hang in there!”

  “Multiple contacts! Please help!” She was engaged in a near point-blank firefight with some of the Rangers detached from Ranger Frank’s personal guard. The captain of the ship increased its speed. Aqua didn’t know how Ravine would reach her because the ship was under way. A Ranger attempted to charge her, Aqua shot her automatic weapon from the hip and hit him center mass, dropping him.

  The Prelate Inoguchi was in the water coming from the shore, but she could not catch the ship, which by now had turned hard and was underway. Inoguchi opened a channel in her neural implant and activated a remote trigger. Within a few seconds, another swarm appeared from over the tree line. This swarm of drones was fast approaching the vessel that was under steam, where Aqua-Deluge was engaging Head Ranger Frank’s personal guard.

  Another Ranger charged her and grabbed her gun before she could fire, they wrestled over it. She pushed the gun toward him and knocked the broad end of the gun into the Ranger’s face, which loosened his grip. Aqua flipped the gun around and placed a shot through his temple, leaving a blood pattern on the smokestack behind him. Another Ranger grabbed her from behind and put her in an arm-bar hold. A Ranger approached from the front with a bayonet drawn and prepared to thrust it into Aqua’s chest.

  Without warning an explosion rang out and rocked the ship, knocking the two Rangers off balance. Aqua grabbed the bayonet-equipped rifle and dispatched one of the Rangers with a thrust to the neck. Another explosion hit the ship and knocked Aqua on her buttocks. She looked up and saw a swarm of drones. It appeared that they were dropping objects into the water, which cut through the water’s surface—miniature torpedoes. They locked in on the ship and impacted, ripping a series of breaches in the hull below the water line.

  Ravine was pulling himself up a rope ladder dangling down the hull near the stern of the now-crippled ship. It was listing to the port side and was taking on water.

  “Aqua, what the hell’s going on?” Ravine asked emphatically. He leaped over the bulwark and onto the deck, running toward the bow of the ship, trying to keep his balance on the listing ship.

  “Don’t know! Rangers...who the hell are you?” Aqua-Deluge had exclaimed. Ravine didn’t know who she was talking to. He rounded a smoke stack and came upon a pile of Ranger bodies. He proceeded further toward the bow of the ship—then he saw it happen. Prelate Inoguchi thrust her plasma knife through the chest of Aqua-Deluge, singing flesh and armor alike. The Prelate retrieved her knife and let Aqua slump to the ground, she was lining up for a killing blow when Ravine lunged and tackled the Prelate at the waist.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Head Ranger Frank was sweating now. How could the assault have gone so awry? He had no idea what was going on, and it was only a matter of time before Inquisitor Rodrigo found out the magnitude of Frank’s mistake. Frank decided that it was time to get personally involved. Maybe he could salvage the situation on his own. He fastened the helmet of his L.O.V.E officer’s armor onto his head and rushed down the hill toward the fleet. Head Ranger Frank moved toward a cargo ship on the left. He followed the trail of Ranger bodies and the sound of battle. Frank found that magnetic grips were still stuck on the hull of the ship so he used them to scale the side. Head Ranger Frank reached the weather deck.

  Further down the ship, toward the stern, he could see a fight underway. Many of his Ranger’s were engaging a single figure. Before he could react a scalpel was stabbed into the thin neck lining of the armor. Frank yelled in pain, but the scalpel did not dig very deep. He back-handed Blaze-Scorch and was going to turn the scalpel on her if it hadn’t been for Gale-Whirlwind pulling out her sidearm and firing a round into his back. The impact knocked him forward, but the armor absorbed the damage. Frank was livid now. Blaze attempted to attack him, but he landed a punch to her left brow. She went down to one knee, seeing double. Gale was empty, she threw the sidearm away, rushed up to head Ranger Frank and landed a punch to his midsection, but omly hurt her hand on the armor. She then attempted a roundhouse kick to his helmet, but still no damage. Ranger Frank grabbed Gale by the neck and raised her off the ground.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Toward the stern of the ship Hades was fighting with the remaining five Rangers, he had dispatched one. Hades had been disarmed of his sword and was doing the best he could to fight the Rangers hand-to-hand, but he was getting the worst of the beating. Hades’s caught a glimpse down by the bow of the ship that Gale and Blaze were fighting someone, but he couldn’t get to them. Hades caught a Ranger’s fist to the side of the head, dazed, he grabbed the Ranger’s fist then head butted him in the teeth, knocking some loose. The Ranger reeled in pain. Hades followed up by wrapping his arm around the man’s neck and jerked violently—a snap could be heard. Hades let the Ranger fall. The four other Rangers regrouped.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Gale kicked and flailed, trying to free herself from Head Ranger Frank’s grip. She tried to kick him in the crotch, but that was protected too. Gale couldn’t breath and the fight was slipping away from her. The world started to go dark and she could feel herself returning to the darkness. But, her journey was interrupted when Blaze got a hold of a high-powered rifle and sent several rounds into the side of Frank’s armor. The first two rounds impacted into it, weakening the area, the third and fourth rounds punched through and dug into Frank’s side. He collapsed on the ground, holding his side.

  “Jesus. How did this go so wrong? Not how I thought it would go at all.” Frank was spent.

  “You people are arrogant, fascists, who underestimated us. How did you think this was going to play out?” Blaze-Scorch scolded Frank. She kept the gun trained on him.

  “Good. You’re good, I gotta give that to you. I’m beat. Got me good,” Frank conceded and smiled. He pulled himself over to the side of the guardrail and learned against it, while leaking blood.

  “Looks like you’re our prisoner. You’ll probably be a good bargaining chip with the Regime,” Gale mocked him, picking herself off the ground, air returning to her lungs.

  “No no, I’m afraid that can’t happen. My time is up—you can join me in the afterlife if you’d like.” A grenade appeared in Frank’s hand, he had pulled the pin. Without reacting Gale and Blaze ran and jumped around the side of the smoke stack. A split second later the grenade detonated and liberally spread the Head Ranger’s shell around the weather deck. An armored hand landed near Gale’s side. Blaze and Gale rose to their feet and rushed toward the fight between Hades and the remaining Rangers. Gale-Whirlwind glanced at Hades’s Claymore laying on the deck, so she rushed over and swiped it up. A Ranger was struggling with Hades and was gaining the upper hand when he found a sword point emerge from his sternum. The Ranger went limp.

  Hades gained a second wind when he saw his reinforcements in action. He dispatched one Ranger with several quick strikes to the neck, then threw him overboard. The last remaining Ranger surrendered.

  “Blaze, watch him! Gale, let’s find Ravine!” Hades cried.

  “Right behind you.” She replied. They were off.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Ravine was locked in a life-and-death grappling match with Prelate Inoguchi. She had him pinned with his back against the ground. The Prelate was trying to bring her plasma knife down into his face, but he was protesting with his hands keeping the knife at bay, but just barely. Ravine groaned with
exertion, due to the struggle.

  “Succumb to the will of the Lord, Apostate!” The Prelate was high on adrenaline as she inched the knife toward his eye socket.

  “No, fuckin’ way, lady. I’ve already been dead!” Ravine yelled, as he grabbed her wrist of the hand holding the knife and twisted, wrenching the knife from her downward grip. The knife was turned upward and burned through the Prelate’s left forearm, severing the hand. The Prelate did not shriek, but clenched her teeth, and jumped backward rapidly.

  “There will be a reckoning.” With that line, she plunged overboard, disappearing into the murky water. Ravine ran to the bulwark to locate the Prelate, but she was gone. The ship was listing to port at nearly a forty-five-degree angle. Ravine-Gulch cradled Aqua-Deluge in his arms and ran toward the edge of the ship. A tug was already evacuating the crew. He carried her to the static vessel. Ravine could see that the entire fleet was now under steam and traveling toward the old Golden Gate.

  The fight had been worse than he thought it would have been. They had advanced warning and still very nearly lost. He wondered where the Prelate had come from and why she was fighting L.O.V.E. Were the Church and Regime at war as well? Events were about to get hairy.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  OLD MONEY BLUES

  Graham Wynham’s motorcade cruised into New Megiddo city. It passed through multiple checkpoints but had no problem getting through since he was a friend to the Schrubbs. Graham had checked on the progression of events in California and had learned that the Apostates were attacked but pulled through. Graham was on edge, it seemed that not only L.O.V.E. was after the Apostates but so too was the Church. It also seemed that the Regime was at war with itself; it went well beyond the petty rivalry between the Schrubb siblings. The Regime was cracking up the closer it got to the B.A.G.