by David Estes
She levels her gun at his head.
“Who are you?” the CO asks, Maia’s gun still tight against his head.
“We’ll be asking the questions here,” Anna says, keeping one eye on the CO and another on her pile of soldiers. “First one: do you want to die?”
“No, of course not,” the CO grunts. “But in about two seconds, when I’m supposed to check in and I don’t, there will be dozens of soldiers swarming this place, so I suggest you—”
BOOM! The bullet rips into the CO’s thigh, just above the knee. He cries out in pain, topples over, clutches his leg.
Maia stares at Anna, her gun limp at her side. “You—you shot him,” she says.
“He was lying to me,” Anna says, her voice sounding strange and guttural even to her own ears. “I—I had to show him who’s in charge here.” The red-hot anger she felt a moment earlier is ebbing, being replaced by a degree of remorse, something she always feels after inflicting pain on another, even an enemy; it’s something she can’t afford right now. Action is the only remedy.
She thrusts a foot at already-injured soldier two, who tries to block it by throwing his hands over his head. Instead of going high, she stomps on his stomach, earning another groan and the move of his arms from his head to his gut. Lashing out again, this time at his head, she feels the satisfying—and somewhat sickening—thud of her boot off his skull. His head snaps back, cracks into the jaw of soldier number three, who lets out a bloodcurdling howl, and then lolls to the side, his eyes rolling back into their sockets.
Soldier three is clutching his mouth, blood pouring out from between his fingers, his face all scrunched up. “War is hell,” Anna says, bringing her gun down on the crown of his head. He slumps over, unconscious.
Turning to face Maia, her body hot with violence, she says, “Knock him out.”
Maia looks at the CO, back to Anna, says, “Can’t we just tie him up, gag him?”
“He’ll get loose and then he’ll try to kill us. We don’t have time for prisoners, and I don’t believe in killing defenseless soldiers, even ones like these.”
The CO rolls over in the fetal position, his face a shattered mess of pain, his pant leg a darker red than the rest of his uniform. “You already shot me,” he spits out. “Just finish the job.”
“I’m not letting you off that easy,” Anna says. “You’ll pay for your crimes before a war tribunal. Maia?”
Maia takes a deep breath, closes her eyes for just a moment, and then swings her gun like a hammer, whacking the CO sharply across the temple. His writhing stops, his body still with unnatural sleep.
Letting out a deep breath, Maia looks at Anna. “That was horrible,” she says.
“Violence always is,” Anna says.
“You made it look so easy, almost like you enjoyed it.”
Anna cringes. That’s the problem. She was so full of anger at these horrible men that she did sort of enjoy it. She knows she’s flirting with a dangerous line between fighting against evil and joining them. It’s a line she has vowed never to cross.
“She did it for us.” Anna and Maia both jerk to the side, spot the woman, the man’s wife, on her knees, her hands clasped together as if in prayer. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you so much.”
Her husband stirs, sits up, rubs his head as if clearing his mind from a bad dream. He truly is a giant, with rock-like fists, a chest the size of a beer barrel, and a head twice the circumference of most adult humans. His lip is swollen and fat, one of his eyes bloodshot, painted with black and blue beneath it. But he’s smiling. Smiling at his wife, who’s smiling back at him.
“Oh, Barry!” she cries, clambering to her feet and launching herself at him. She lands on him so hard that, if not for their significant size difference, she might have flattened him.
Maia watches the heartfelt reunion with moist eyes, while Anna watches Maia. She’s so young, full of courage, unmarked by the horrors of life. She silently hopes the war will be over quickly and in their favor, so the innocence and naivety of this girl can persevere for years to come.
She thinks of Adele again, in the belly of the beast, having already endured so much emotional and physical pain, forced to endure more. She hopes her youth hasn’t passed her by these last seven months, when everything changed.
Chapter Twelve
She leaves the rescued moon dweller couple in what she hopes is a safe place—a hidden bomb shelter beneath the floorboards of a shed. It’s a neighbor’s, who had invited Bear and his wife to stay there with them, but they opted instead to remain in their own cellar. A bad choice. But now the kind neighbor welcomes them with open arms and a warm drink, as Anna and Maia seal the trapdoor behind them.
“I’m so glad we got there when we did,” Maia says. “That was amazing seeing their eyes light up when they hugged each other.”
Anna tries to smile, but only manages a thin line. It was a fulfilling rescue, yes, but only a small victory against an enemy set on digging out the city’s residents. With the army barricaded underground, there’s no one to oppose them.
“We have to get to the base,” Anna says.
“It’s not far,” Maia says.
“The way this place is swarming with cockroaches, it’s far enough.”
“We’ll make it.” Now who’s the optimist?
Anna really smiles this time, not hugely, but sincerely. A little shot of hope is just what she needs. “You’re right. We’ll make it.”
They exit the shed, running low to the ground, keeping their heads below walls and crumbling houses. Less than two blocks away is the old church with the underground caverns, where the temporary army base was set up. The once-high steeple no longer stands tall and beckoning. Now fallen, it is but a reminder of what the church used to stand for. From behind a wall, Anna can see that the main church structure—in which stands the primary entrance to the underground tunnels—has imploded upon itself, and now looks more like a raw granite stockyard than a place of worship.
The secondary, hidden entrance to the tunnels was, of course, the one from which Anna and Maia exited, and was destroyed just as they escaped its bounds. She knows her stalwart men and women soldiers will try to dig their way out, perhaps even use small explosives to blast through the blockades, but it will take time. Perhaps if they remove some of the larger blocks from the other end, it will give them a chance to break free. Then the battle will truly begin.
Anna clings to this faint and distant torch of hope as she hops the wall, sprints across a back patio, and ducks behind the next wall. Using this method, the women erase one block from the distance between them and the church. One block to go.
Voices shout through the thick and dusty air, but she’s unable to ascertain their direction or distance. When they fade and don’t return, she leads Maia across the next block, sticking to the shadows and narrow side and rear laneways. Every once and a while she stops to listen for the enemy, tilting her ears in each direction like an animal.
In this manner, they reach the church unseen. Ducking behind a boulder the size of a truck, she surveys the destruction zone.
“Which entrance should we try?” Maia asks.
Given the entire topside of the church collapsed on the primary entrance, the amount of heavy rock and cement is an impenetrable fortress, one made dangerous by shifting rubble and unexpected pockets of empty air. It could take days to dig them out that way.
“Secondary entrance. We’ll be more exposed, but there’s much less blockage.”
Maia nods. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“I’ll go out first,” Anna says. “Just in case someone’s watching the area.” She starts to move out, but Maia puts a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.
“We’re doing this together.”
Anna sighs, half-concerned, half-relieved. “I thought you might say that.”
Chapter Thirteen
The women steal out into the open, their eyes flicking rapidly in every direction. They
reach the entrance to the bunker, where the original chunk of stone that blocked their return to the base has been joined by two dozen other smaller hunks of stone shrapnel. Through small gaps in the blocks, Anna determines that half the tunnel has caved in beyond the exterior blockage. Through the muddle of brown and gray rocks, a muffled sound arises: thunk, thunk, thunk.
“They’re there,” she says excitedly. “They’re trying to break through.” A rush of hope flows into her, giving her just the spark of energy she needs. “C’mon, let’s do our part from this side. Start with the small pieces, work our way up to the big ones.”
For a half hour they struggle and strain against the weight of the “small pieces,” which are anywhere from twenty to eighty pounds, some so heavy it takes both of them just to roll them off the pile. Every second Anna expects to hear the chatter of sun dweller gunfire, but it never comes. Removing the next to last of the small stones, she wipes a dirty hand across her dirty forehead, trying to keep the sweat out of her eyes. Maia’s face is equally filthy. “There,” she says, prying off the final manageable chunk and watching it crash from the pile.
Breathing heavily, Anna says, “Now for the big ones. We’ll need to find something to use as a lever.”
Together they search for something—anything—that might give them a chance at success. Anna leads them onto the pile that was once a church, moving slowly to avoid alerting any spying eyes to their presence. Atop the pile, Anna scans the surrounding area, immediately spotting three sets of red uniforms blotted against the drab landscape. The arrogance and stupidity of the sun dwellers as evidenced by their uniforms, she thinks.
“Stay down,” she warns Maia. Together they flatten themselves against the pile until each of the groups move out of sight.
They take turns searching for a lever while the other one keeps watch. Anna’s taking her second turn searching when she sees it. A long, metal pole, decorated with an exquisite brass handle at one end, with beautiful ornamental designs of the Sun, Moon, and Star Realm insignias painted on the side. At the other end is a cap with a bronze cross. The pole was likely used for some ancient ritual involving the salvation of those attending the church. Now it will be used for a similar purpose, she thinks, only this time it will involve the salvation of all of us.
She pulls it from under a boulder, cringing as the steel shrieks along the sharp edge of the stone. “Take this,” she says, feeding the handled end to Maia.
“This is perfect,” Maia says, taking it. With Anna holding the cross-end and Maia the handle, they climb down the pile, returning to the secondary bunker entrance.
They test out the lever on several medium-sized rocks, jamming the cross-end beneath them and using their collective strength to force the loads up and off the pile. With each small victory, Anna’s energy wanes and the steel rod bends more and more. After the sixth rock is removed, she says, “We need to try to remove that big one before us or the pole breaks.”
In agreement, Maia shoves the cross under the largest block of all, the one that originally trapped them on the outside. Taking their positions, Anna on the outside, Maia on the inside, they lean on the steel cylinder, trying to force their entire weight down on the end of the lever.
Nothing.
Gritting her teeth, Anna continues pushing, determined not to let a hunk of rock get the better of her. Finally, it starts to give way, but then—
CRACK! She cries out as the rod gives way beneath her, catapulting her headfirst. She crashes on her shoulder and neck, pain lancing through her back and into her legs. Something falls on her, and she gasps as the air leaves her chest.
“Oomf!” Maia grunts, coming to rest on top of her. “General! Are you okay?” she asks, rolling to the side.
For a minute Anna can’t breathe as she bites at the air, fruitlessly trying to capture it. Then finally: whoosh! She gets a full breath down her throat and her lungs inflate. Panting, she says, “I’m okay, you just knocked the wind out of me, and—”
She cringes as she tries to stand, feeling pain roar through her body.
“General, let me help you,” Maia says, grabbing her under the arms. “What hurts?”
Anna thinks for a second, blinking away stars and tears. “Everything at the moment,” she says, wishing it was a joke.
“Okay. You rest, I’ll try again.”
“Forget about it. I might be older than you, but I’m just as tough. Give me a sec. I’ll help.”
While Anna prepares herself for a whole new world of pain, Maia retrieves the pole. “The cross snapped off, that’s what caused the problem,” Maia explains, showing Anna the mangled end of the rod.
“Good. Then it shouldn’t happen again.” That’s when she hears it: a shudder of the earth, a slight tremor caused by something below the surface.
“It’s them!” Maia says elatedly. “They’re trying to blast their way out.”
Anna cranes her neck and hears voices now, still muffled but closer than the sound of the pickaxes she heard earlier. “Let’s help them out,” she says, arching her sore back to stretch it out, feeling her muscles groan in protest.
Maia plunges the naked tip of the rod back under the massive tombstone block, and then reassumes her position on the inside of the lever. Anna joins her, says, “One, two, three,” and then they jump up, using gravity and body weight and raw strength to shove the metal downwards. Plumes of pain roll up through her back and neck, causing a spontaneous headache that throbs in the back of her skull. Her arms ache from the last hour of exertion and stress and killing. But still she presses on. As before, nothing happens at first. Thirty seconds pass and she feels her veins popping out as she holds her breath, trying to push a little harder.
It happens.
The block starts to move, and this time it’s not in preparation to snap the end of the rod off; rather, it moves up under the pressure driven from the back end of the lever all the way to the front. It’s just a slight bob upward, but the movement is enough to allow Maia to shove the pole further under, giving them even greater leverage. Anna keeps pushing, pushing, pushing, harder than she ever has except maybe during childbirth.
An inch of movement turns into half a foot and then a foot—and then the block is teetering on its edge, pushed from behind by the lever and pulled from the front by gravity. With a final shove, Anna and Maia break the tie, sending the block tumbling from the entrance, down a small incline, where it lands with a satisfying and dangerous Thud!
Anna’s smile is reflected on Maia’s face, neither of them needing words to express their shared sense of accomplishment and hope.
As they stare down at their fallen foe, there’s a rush of feet as dozens of sun dweller soldiers pour from behind houses and buildings, a flooding river of red.
Anna closes her eyes and prepares to draw her weapon; she won’t be taken alive.
Her last regret: that Maia will probably die along with her.
Chapter Fourteen
From behind the stone block, they fire their weapons again and again, dropping a dozen sun dwellers before the click click click of their weapons informs them that they’re out of ammo, out of luck, and out of time.
Looking at Maia, Anna says, “You’ve done good, kid. I’m proud of you.”
Maia looks back at her, her eyes filled with tears of sadness and maybe a hint of pride. She says, “It was an honor to serve with you, general.”
Anna nods and then does the only thing that might keep them alive. She tosses her gun out, yells, “We surrender!”
Slowly, she raises her hands above her head, expecting her fingers to be blown off at any second. No one shoots, so she stands up, seeing only red and black. At least thirty red-uniformed soldiers move in on her, their black guns trained on her head and chest. “There’s one other with me,” Anna says, so as to not surprise them when they see Maia.
Maia rises up slowly, follows Anna out into the open, leaving her spent gun behind the rock.
Surrounded, Anna gazes at
the faces around her. Angry, bloodthirsty, scowling. Not friends. A man steps forward, his uniform decorated with several ribbons and silver medals. An important man. The leader of these men. He says, “By order of President Nailin of the Tri-Realms, we are authorized to put you to death for resisting the laws and statutes of the government. Do you have anything to say for yourselves?”
Anna’s not listening anymore. She’s remembering her daughters on a day long ago, their identical jet-black hair swirling around their backs as they run through the house, full of energy and imagination as they play some made up game that she never really understood. Their expressions of pure childish delight on their faces mask the truth of their situation. They have no money. They have no food. They’ll be lucky to last the year. And yet Adele and Elsey find joy in each other.
One foot in the past and one in the middle of a war, Anna smiles, content with the life she’s lived, sad that she’ll never see her daughters again, but proud of who they are, what they’ve accomplished. She hopes Adele will forgive her for implanting the microchip, that she’ll understand why she did it, that she’ll realize what she was hoping to accomplish. She closes her eyes and her husband’s face appears as she prepares to meet him on the other side.
“Nothing to say? Good. That makes things quicker. Shoot them,” the man says.
Feet scuffle nearby as her executioners step into position. She waits for the bang! and the burn of hot metal in her body, but instead there’s a crackle of static and then a voice.
“Ceasefire!” the voice says. “Under order of President Nailin, ceasefire!”
Anna opens her eyes.
THE END
~*~
A SNEAK PEEK: FIRE COUNTRYBOOK 1 OF THE COUNTRY SAGA
Available anywhere e-books are sold March 1, 2013!
Chapter One
When I’m sixteen and reach the midpoint of my life I will have my first child. Not because I want to, or because I made a silly decision with a strapping young boy after sneaking a few sips of my father’s fire juice, but because I must. It is the law of my people; a law that has kept us alive and thriving for many years. A law I fear.
