The Storm Maker

by Sid K

  “I brought mine along,” Kartar said.

  Symptar shrugged and said, “I only brought my hunting rifle.”

  “I have mine,” Felptar said.

  “Mine is right here,” Relkyett said. “I’ll get it out of the gun cabinet.”

  “Anybody else?” Sthykar looked at everyone. The rest shook their heads or said nothing, “Well, I brought mine along,” Sthykar continued. “That gives us four automatics and the rest are hunting rifles. Let’s see how we can distribute them effectively.” He once again leaned over the map.

  “Leave one ATR here,” Jontvyk said. “If they storm the place, the men here could use some automatic fire to repel the invaders. Take the other three with us.”

  “Right,” Sthykar said. “Relkyett you are staying here with your ATR. You know your own home the best and how to fortify it if needed. I am leaving Carvyk, Evyk, Pelyett, Symptar and Tulkar with you here. I need to take the army men with me in case we get in a battle.” he turned to Symptar. “We need your ATR.”

  “No problem,” Symptar said. “One of you can put it to better use than I could.”

  “Colonel Jontvyk,” Sthykar said. “You take Symptar’s ATR and along with Dentar, Hayett and Karyett, hold up on this hill nearest to that compound.” He pointed to a ridge on the map. “I am giving you all army men and the hill will give you the advantage of the high ground. You are the first in line if they attack.”

  “We will hold them there alright,” Jontvyk said, “and be back you up if needed.”

  “Felptar you have the other ATR,” Sthykar said. “You along with Colonel Muftar, as well as Kartar and Nyk will hold the second hill here.” He pointed to the second ridge on the map. “You will be Jontvyk’s backup. I am not putting all eight of you together because the enemy could flank Jontvyk’s hill and surround them; in that case you will have to come to his aid.”

  “For them to pull that off, especially at night,” Jontvyk said, “They would have to be elite troops.”

  “Let’s not underestimate them,” Muftar said.

  “Right,” Jontvyk said. “I am not disagreeing with Sthykar’s plan, just saying.”

  “Alright, if we are all in agreement…” Sthykar said and waited for anyone to speak up.

  “That’s nice of you Sthykar, but we don’t need no agreement,” Relkyett said. “As an active colonel of the elite army, you have the highest rank in the chain of command here. Just give us orders.”

  Others nodded.

  “We are on a vacation,” Sthykar chuckled. “But, yes, I am taking command of the situation now. Everyone knows what they are doing, then.”

  Then they all rushed to get their rifles and their equipment. The ones who were staying behind started the preparation to fortify the cabin. The ones who were going with Sthykar started packing their bags. Sthykar inspected his ATR, his hunting knife, and started looking inside Relkyett’s tool shed for various tools for infiltration.

  * * *

  A group of six men wearing lab coats had congregated near a fireplace. Most of them were sitting on a sofa and a few chairs placed around there. A couple of them were standing with charts and diagrams rolled up in their hands. Beneath them was an expensive rug. Many antique pieces were put around the room to make it more decorative. An old pendulum clock was strung on the wall, above the fireplace. They were talking and their discussion was intense and the men were sweating even in the air-conditioned environment. They were the last of the survivors. The scientists and the expert engineers whose roles had necessitated that they work till the end of the project. The rest were gone, presumably dead, they were used till they weren’t needed and then thrown away after they fulfilled their roles in the construction of the project. Now that these men were almost finished with their part of the project, trepidation had filled their hearts.

  “Men,” a voice interjected. All the side conversations stopped to give deference to the speaker. The speaker was ‘Boss’ Hantex Rut, the Ranxian industrialist, dressed in a suit, a cigar in one hand and a briefcase in the other.

  He took a few steps towards the men in lab coats. After glancing at each of them he spoke to the ones who were standing. “Is the machine fully operational? No glitches this time?”

  One of them replied meekly, “Yes, sir, it is but…”

  “But what?” Hantex Rut demanded.

  “The assembly and setup is still not complete. However, you can do it yourself. Our work is essentially done.”

  “Oh, I see,” said the Boss; he retracted his steps to the door, threw down his cigar and turned, taking ,a pistol from his coat pocket. “Your time is up then. We don’t need you anymore,” he calmly said.

  “Can we go back to our families? We promise we won’t say anything...you don’t have to hurt us; we can’t harm you,” one of the scientists said in a desperate tone. The others were equally desperate.

  “Sure you can harm me,” replied the Boss. “You know how make to make this machine; you probably know its weaknesses. But never fear; your deaths won’t have been in vain. You have helped me in such a great and historic deed. I am going to create a powerful empire.” He laughed rancorously.

  He suddenly became deadly serious. He looked straight at them and said, “You were useful, but no more.” Then he aimed his pistol at the closest scientist and pulled the trigger.

  Bang!

  Blood shot from the man’s chest as he fell with a thud. The others were scared, but in a desperate last attempt they made a mad dash towards Hantex. The Boss had not expected this; he was paralyzed for a second, but quickly recovered and pulled the trigger four more times and shot down four of them. The remaining one had gotten close enough to slam both of his hands on Hantex’s gun-wielding arm. The gun went flying under a chair. The scientist kicked the boss in the stomach, knocking him to the ground and then he dove to recover the gun.

  “Montex, all of you, come in here fast. Fast, damn it,” Hantex was screaming out the door.

  Corporal Montex and a couple of his men got through the door, but their Ranx rifles were still slung behind their shoulders and they were not ready to fire.

  “What the…” Boss exclaimed. “Take out those damn rifles and start shooting this fool.”

  “None of you move,” the scientist screamed at them. He was holding the pistol with both of his shaking hands and had aimed it right at Hantex. He took a moment to figure out his situation; Hantex, Montex and a couple of his men were frozen on the spot; they had not managed to get their rifles into a position that would allow them to fire right away.

  He took a deep breath and then said, “Mr. Hantex Rut, for your vile actions and for your devious plan for the future, I should shoot you. But you will be brought to justice.”

  “Oh, shut up…”

  “No. You listen to me now,” the scientist cut him off. “Move away from the door or else I will shoot. I am not joking.”

  “You got only one bullet left in that,” Montex said. “I see five men dead and that’s a Ranx pistol you are holding; its magazine holds only six rounds. I never liked that, Starfirian pistols come with ten round magazines. But now I am glad. So you see,” he calmly said to the scientist, “you can shoot only one of us here. The remaining three will ensure that you are dead.”

  “But I will shoot your boss, and I bet he doesn’t want that.” He turned to face Hantex, “Do you?” He looked at all four of them for a second and then said again, “Now move away from the door.”

  Hantex, Montex and the two others moved away from the door while keeping their eyes on him. The scientist slowly walked towards the door with the gun pointed at Hantex. As soon as he reached the door, he sprinted down the hall to an open door.

  Hantex Rut yelled angrily, “Don’t you just stand there! Get at him! Hound him! Smoke him!”

  Montex and his men had readied their Ranx rifles and a half dozen other gunmen had now arrived there after hearing the whole commotion. Montex said, “You do realize this tower is surrounded by a
maze. You wanted it built this way. Hard to find a man in there let alone one with a gun.”

  “You will realize my cleverness one day in having it built this way.”

  “Very clever, Boss,” Montex said sarcastically. “You have now killed all of them. What if they had deliberately screwed one of the parts or if they had made an honest mistake and the machine stops working in the future?”

  Boss Hantex slammed his fist on the palm of his other hand. “Look here Corporal Montex, I am an industrialist. I have designed and constructed a great many machines myself and I am the lead architect of this project. I needed these scientists and engineers to build the project from scratch, but I have been supervising every minute detail and have made sure everything will be functioning properly. The machine is working now and it will continue working in the future. Now take your men and get this bastard. If he gets out, our goose is cooked.”

  Corporal Montex was annoyed a bit at this arrogance, but he had signed up for the project of his own free volition. He clenched his rifle and took the men that had assembled there to find the scientist.

  * * *

  Colonel Sthykar took leave of Colonel Jontvyk, Dentar, Hayett and Karyett after watching them set up on the ridge nearest to the compound. Earlier, they had left behind Felptar, Muftar, Kartar and Nyk on the previous ridge. He told them what he had told Felptar and Muftar, that if he said “Rats” on the radio, then he was being pursued by hostiles and if he said “Wolf”, then he was coming back alone. Sthykar walked alone from thereon. They had started as soon as the evening had given way to night, and had reached the forest as soon as the sun had hit the horizon. Now it was night. The three moons were glowing, but were occasionally covered by clouds. Sthykar always wore rubber soled boots when hunting to minimize the noise and he was slowly but steadily walking through the trees and bushes towards the place they had stumbled upon earlier. Soon he reached the wall.

  When he came near the door of the wall, he knelt down and observed the guards with his binoculars. Unfortunately the clouds had, at that very moment, covered up the Red Moon—the brightest of the three. So he waited for a few minutes. When the clouds gave way, under the faint moonlight he was able to make out two guards on the outside, as well as two on the inside.

  Sthykar started walking eastward while still in woods till he had put a sufficient distance between himself and the guards. The wall itself curved and he couldn’t be seen by the guards when he walked out of the woods and to the wall. He checked all the arms and tools that he had brought along with him. He had his ATR Rifle strapped across his back with the rifle sling, a pistol that was in the holster attached to his belt on the left side of the waist, rifle and pistol magazines attached to his belt, a compass, pliers, a rope on his right shoulder, rubber gloves in his right pocket, a radio, binoculars, a hunting knife, and he was holding a grappling hook in his left hand.

  He took his rope and tied one end to the grappling hook. He pulled on it to make sure the knot was strong, and then looked up. He swung the grappling hook a few times till he sensed he had a good intuitive grasp of the power and direction required. Then he flung it to the top of the wall. With a small noise, the hook attached itself to the inner edge atop of the wall. Sthykar tugged on it a few times to make sure it was holding strong and then started climbing. As a mountain warrior, scaling a small wall was child’s play for him and he was quickly at the top where he rolled over on his back under the first of the three barbwires.

  First he untied the rope from the hook, pulled it up and bundled it. Then he took out his rubber gloves and put them on. Next he held the pliers with his teeth while he grabbed the first barbwire with gloved hands and looked for an electric wire. He sighted a small electric wire intertwined with the much thicker barbwire. He could have just slipped under it, but he knew that coming back he could be in a rush and thus it was better to secure his exit now. First he cut off the electric wire with his pliers and then he cut off the barbwire. The wires were held up by the poles on top of the wall located at regular distance and hence they did not snap beyond the poles. Sthykar did not see a need to cut off the second or the third barbwire as they were much further up. He then turned on his shoulder and looked inside.

  First he looked towards the direction of the big steel gate. There was nobody else patrolling from inside besides the two inner guards near the gate. Long guardhouses sat on each side of the gate, both of the same size; he estimated approximately twenty rooms per house, however less than a quarter were lit, presumably the rest of the guards were sleeping. Amazingly there was a big round hedge maze that surrounded a three story tower; each of its floors was considerably taller than a regular building’s floors, making the tower as tall as a standard five story building. The tower itself was at a distance and the light coming from it was faint, but Sthykar could see that it was lit on every floor. The maze itself made up the largest portion of the interior of the compound. There was open space of around twenty five feet between the wall and the maze, but the maze itself stretched for what looked like a quarter or a third of the mile. At this distance, especially at night it wasn’t possible to tell whether there was anything between the maze and the tower.

  Sthykar thought, one thing was sure, this was no lumber operation. There were no log stacks, no mill, and no woodchip heaps. The lumber mill story was a front for something more sinister. He definitely had to investigate.

  He threw down his grappling hook a certain distance off to his left, then jumped down straight and landed on his feet. He walked over and picked up his hook, tied it to the back of his belt and walked alongside the maze away from the gate till he came upon an opening and entered inside.

  He walked a couple of steps then stopped. He didn’t want to get lost in the maze, however he remembered some tricks for finding the way out of the maze that he had read as a kid when solving maze puzzles. One of them was to always walk along the right hedge wall and to always make a right turn in the opening. It was a long and tedious method but got one out of the maze eventually. The hedge walls themselves were around eight feet tall. If he got lost, he could climb over them, one after another; however that would be tiring and would be his last resort.

  He cautiously made his way inside, following the above mentioned trick. He had taken out his pistol now and was holding it in his right hand. The distances inside the maze did not require the rifle. After tiptoeing his way for a while in a silent night with only the faint light from the tower at the distance, he finally heard some noise. He stopped, then quickly positioned himself with his back to the hedge wall right next to an opening in a particularly dark spot.

  The noise became clearer in a short while. He was hearing footsteps, fortunately of only one man. Sthykar slowly moved as close to the opening as possible without revealing himself to the other side. The footsteps got closer.

  Then Sthykar saw the shape of a pistol and a hand holding it come out of the opening. He quickly switched his own pistol to his left hand, waited a moment for the man to emerge from the opening and then whacked the pistol holding wrist with a hard chop of his right hand.

  The pistol dropped to the ground and Sthykar sprang into action. He put his right palm on the mouth of the man from behind and pushed inward. At the same time, he kneed the man’s left knee throwing him off balance and then pulled him back away from the opening. He shoved his own pistol into the man’s lower back.

  “Make a noise and you are dead,” Sthykar said. “I got ten rounds full.”

  The man’s body was shaking with fear and he was trying to regain his balance

  “Take it easy,” Sthykar said. “I need to ask you some questions, but you don’t shout or go for that pistol or I shoot right away. Shake your head if you understand and agree.”

  The man shook his head and Sthykar slowly released him from his palm grip. The man took a few deep breaths and regained proper balance after Sthykar pulled back his knee. Sthykar quickly walked over and grabbed the fallen pistol. The man was stan
ding there, not making a move, as if frozen in fear.

  Sthykar examined the pistol. He took out the magazine and saw only one bullet.

  “Six round magazine,” Sthykar chuckled. “This is a junk quality foreign pistol. By the way, when did you fire five other rounds, because I heard nothing and there is no silencer either.” Sthykar looked at him and then laughed. “Or do you not reload till all of your bullets are gone?”

  “You speak Starfirian,” the man finally spoke hesitatingly.

  “You don’t expect me to speak Ranxian do you?” Sthykar said as he put the magazine back inside the pistol and tucked it inside his belt. “So what are you clowns up to here? This isn’t a lumber mill. What is going on?” Sthykar aimed his own pistol towards the man.

  “You are not a Ranxian...you are not one of them,” he said. “You are from outside, aren’t you?”

  “One of who…Wait a minute, I recognize your accent. It’s Karaln,” he said.

  The man slowly walked closer to Sthykar, puzzled. His hands were still slightly shaking, but the rest of him had stabilized now. “That is correct. I am a scientist from Karaln Nation. But how would you know that?”

  “My wife is from Karaln Nation,” Sthykar said, “But if what you say is right, how are you mixed up with these armed Ranxians?”

  “They kidnapped me and I have been their hostage for over a year now,” the man said. “It is a long story.”

  “Well, if it is a long story, it will have to wait,” Sthykar said. “Are they looking for you?”

  The man nodded.

  “Then we have to get out of here and get the police,” Sthykar said. “Turn around and follow the path I tell you. I will be right behind.”

  “You are not the police? I was hoping you were.”

  “Just a hunter,” Sthykar said. He did not want to disclose his true identity just yet till he had figured out what was really going on here. He did not know if he could trust the man. Yet, he was a Karalnar amongst the Ranxians; he didn’t look tough like the guards and he was carrying a pistol with only one bullet in it. No guard or gunman would do that. However, Sthykar did not completely trust the man.