One of the Brights came right over to us. The other one just stood there, as if on guard. The first Bright stood over Ice's smoking A-suit, then knelt by it. Bees looked up at him, stunned and silent, but remained at Ice's side. Surprisingly, I did not feel any alarm at this Bright intrusion. The Bright looked into Ice's bloody helmet, then put one glowing armored hand in there to touch Ice's shattered skull. His brilliant fingers ran red with bubbling blood. His other hand touched Ice's helmet gently. He did not move for some time. Bees was seemingly paralyzed. Doggie stood there mute. Blackie watched the Brights as if fascinated. When the Bright finally removed his bloody hands from Ice, he made a gesture over her, stood up, and walked over to Saka. Then he kneeled and put one hand on Saka's bleeding shattered head and the other on his helmet. When he was through he made the same gesture as before, then stood up and walked away, re-joining his companion.
"Ice is alive!" Bees shrieked. "Oh my God, she's alive! She's breathing! EVAC EVAC EVAC EVAC EVAC, critical! Bird, get down here right now! Oh my God!" She leaped up and ran over to Saka. "Alive! Alive! Saka is alive! BIRD. BIRD. Where the hell are you! You bastard, get here right now, she's alive, he's alive, both of them! Triage, Bird, take them to triage!"
A great windstorm swept over us. The Ruthie was winking in and out of invisibility as Bees and Doggie and I loaded Ice and Saka into the assault door. Ghostly auto xmax rounds floated past us. A couple of evac medics inside the ship got to work on them both immediately before the door slammed shut and the invisible Phantom flashed away on its way to the Wasp.
"Bees, you join Prophet on left flank," Doggie said. "Get back to work, both of you. Scout, what's been happening?"
"We're advancing. Get your cloaking back on, for God's sake. What’s the story with Ice and Saka?"
"They're both seriously wounded. They've been evaced. Pray for them."
Bees came over to me and we embraced, a clash of armor. She was crying with joy. So was I.
"I thought she had left me," Bees choked. "I thought I was all alone. I thought God had cursed me. I thought He had abandoned us all. I was selfish – selfish! Oh dear God, forgive me for I have sinned. Your glory is clear for the whole galaxy to see. I thank you Lord. I thank you I thank you I thank you!"
"You're not alone. Bees," I replied. "Ice is alive. So is Saka. And I'm right here."
"Did you see them? Did you really see them? Those Brights?"
"Yes. I did."
"They're angels, Prophet. They're angels. The Brights are angels. Angels of the Lord."
Δ
We got back to work, killing D's. Their wave attacks had ceased. The D's seemed to be in retreat. The Brights had vanished. Nobody seemed to know where they had gone. They had turned the tide, then disappeared. My mind was inflamed with rage. I wanted to see dead Demons. Our drones and fighters were blasting the landscape, showering the D's with antimats. The saucers had for the most part fled. The sun peeped over the bloody horizon as if terrified at what it was revealing. The A's had joined us in gunning down surviving D's. We had given them our individual cloaking technology so they were just as invisible to the enemy as we were.
Nearing the starport, we figured victory was close. The surviving D's were indeed surrounded, and a whole field of saucers was burning brightly, casting a black cloud over everything. An Assidic squad was just to our left as we moved cautiously forward, using the rubble as cover, blasting away at the surviving D's. A group of three D's sprinted for cover. They were unarmored, clad only in coveralls. I gunned them down with auto x, then switched to laser and sliced them up. The A's were firing too. There was nothing left by the time we ceased firing. I felt nothing but hatred for them. The info folks would have to get their enemy info sources from somebody else besides me. Every Demon I saw was going to die real quick.
"General alert. Biogen units are landing to assist us against the enemy. The First Expeditionary Scouts have landed and are attacking the enemy. Biogen units are marked in gold."
Biogens! I was thrilled. I knew they had their own world now; they had torn it from their former human Systie slavemasters, just as we had done in ConFree. They had transformed their own world and now they were our allies. Standing with us, against the D's! How many human worlds had done that? Only the A's. I knew our alliance with the biogens was going to be eternal. Bleed for ConFree, and ConFree will bleed for you. Blood is the mortar that builds strong alliances. I had studied the history of ConFree, and that's what it said.
The D's were holed up in the starport terminal building and also in a whole lot of underground bunkers they had carved out, all over Eden. Delta took on the terminal building. Smiley fired auto tacstars into the huge doorway and the A's joined us. The building exploded and crumbled, a fiery holocaust, entombing the Demons in an eternal hell. From time to time some desperate A-suited Demon would stagger out of the flames in a brightly glowing A-suit, and we would gun him down without mercy.
When the flames died down a bit, Arie and I made our way to the highest smoking rubble pile and stuck a tall metal pole into the rubble. It had a ConFree flag at the top. Doggie had supplied the flag. We looked up at it. It looked so damned good, that wonderful black flag flapping in a hot breeze against that smoky sky. It was the flag of victory. And it looked downright glorious.
Some Assidic rangers saw us and climbed up after us and planted their own flag next to ours. Later a couple of biogens appeared and brought their own colors and ran them up beside the others.
Then we had breakfast, sitting in the smoking rubble chewing cold rations. It was 0615. I was exhausted.
Chapter 11
Where Satan Reigns
"Look at that roof. Man!" Arie was impressed. It was 0700 and we were deep inside a gigantic excavation torn out of the earth not far from Eden, acting as escorts for a party of medics from the hospital on the Andrion Deep. The D's had ripped out a huge tunnel leading to a great hall deep under the surface. Bomb-proof, no doubt. The walls and ceiling were made of dirty metal arches that led up from a muddy deck. The overhead was burnt black. It was leaking a slow miserable cold mist. The hall was full of hundreds of large metal containers, scarred, burnt, dented and filthy. It was also full of Demon bodies – torn to pieces, armor and all. The walls were scarred with tacstar hits. The biogens had taken this place, and they were not taking prisoners.
"The D's work fast," I replied, looking over the cavern. I noted some movement from a tangled pile of bodies. A Demon, no armor, blood all over his face, still alive. I walked over there and shot him in the face. He stopped moving. Blackie charged up and growled at the corpse.
"Prophet, report!" Doggie demanded.
"Sorry, Doggie. I found one alive. He's dead now."
"Fine. Keep me informed, all right?"
"Yes sir."
"Our apologies, sir." It was one of the biogens. She was clad in black camfaxed armor very similar to our own. Her visor was open. She was so pale and beautiful and captivating it was downright spooky. She had golden hair and icy blue eyes. My heartbeat sped up. It was like talking to an angel. "We thought we had killed them all," she said. "We plan on burning them once we get a chance."
"Were you in on the attack? It must have been a challenge, cleaning out this nest."
"It wasn't really that hard, sir. We lobbed in a barrage of tacstars, then roasted them with plasma. Then we moved in and shot anything that moved."
"Please don't call me sir. My warname is Prophet."
She stunned me with a dazzling smile. "Yes sir – Prophet. My warname is Mercury. Yes, we didn't know about the captives when we used the plasma. But luckily they were not harmed. Are you with the Legion?"
"Pleased to meet you, Mercury. Yes, I'm a Legion trooper. The Condor Regiment is at your service. What are these captives?"
"There they are. Your medics have them now." A long line of females was snaking out of the bowels of the installation, accompanied by the medics from the Andrion Deep. The rescued females were all pale, dirty, clad i
n torn clothing and seemingly stunned and exhausted.
"All females," I said. "What did the D's want with them?"
"The same thing all males want," Mercury said, with a slight touch of steel to her voice. "Rape and degradation."
I looked at her in shock. "You're not serious."
"I am very serious. Talk with them if you don’t believe me."
"Oh, no, I believe you. But I mean – good Lord, that's terrible." Sex you rearend! I could hear it echoing in my head. They were serious!
"They're all pregnant, you know," she said, quietly.
"What! But the Demons are aliens. How can they…"
"Our physicians examined them. They say the D males produce a mixture of sperm and eggs and that's what they deposit in both D females, and females – or even males – of other species. The new fetus can survive without a womb if necessary. It will survive and grow inside its host as a parasite. When it grows to term it will eat its way out of the host, killing it. So, it may be technically wrong to say those girls are pregnant. But they are carrying Demon parasites. That's what our physicians say."
I was stunned into silence.
"Welcome to the Demon's world," Mercury said. "The First Expeditionary Scouts send fraternal greetings to our Legion brothers and sisters. We will stand by your side forever. And we don't plan on leaving Galinta until the last one of these foul creatures is hunted down and killed."
"Well, thank you. I can assure you that the Legion stands by its friends. If you need anything, just ask. Do you manufacture those A-suits?"
"Yes, it's based on the Legion design – with some improvements. We dumped the old Systie A-suits several years ago. And we love the E." She hugged the weapon like a baby.
"Prophet, did you hear what the D's did to those captives?" It was Scout, standing right beside me, his visor open. He appeared to be in shock.
"Yes I did, Scout. This is Mercury – of the First Expeditionary Scouts. Mercury, this is Scout – my super."
"Pleased to meet you, Mercury. Good work on killing all these D's."
"Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure. They killed one of our troopers. We have vowed to kill a thousand of them to avenge her."
"I'm sorry to hear about your comrade," Scout said. "I plan to kill thousands of these vermin as well. Prophet, I don't want any prisoners. No matter what they say. Just exterminate these cockroaches."
"I decided that a long time ago, Scout. Is there any word on Ice or Saka?"
"No. No word. As soon as we learn anything we'll let you all know."
The cavern shuddered. A grinding boom echoed off the walls.
"General alert. Eden, the starport and environs are under air attack by hostile forces. Seek cover immediately. Fleetcom vac and air units are responding."
We hustled up the tunnel to the main entrance where we joined a big group of Legion troopers, Assidic rangers, biogen scouts, Andrion Deep medics and all the rescued girls to wait out the attack. The rubble of Eden was once again being struck, this time by Demon saucers. The bright flash of antimats shook the earth. Swirling clouds of black smoke shot upwards in flame-laced mushroom clouds. From time to time, I caught glimpses of D saucers and Fleetcom drones, ricocheting around the skies as if out of control.
"I thought we had air superiority," Arie said. He was right beside me.
"I heard there's more Demons operating south of Eden, and they have saucer support. I guess this confirms it."
"Well, if they're raiding us, we don't have air superiority, right?"
"Let's wait a bit and see."
"Any word from Saka or Ice?"
"No, afraid not."
Smiley joined us, grounding his manlink and looking around as if enjoying the nice new day. His manlink had a name lasered into the stock: Hot Dolly.
"Hot Dolly?" I asked.
"That's my girl," Smiley said, happily. "She hasn't failed me yet. She's got a bad temper, I'll admit, but she's flawless."
"We appreciate her, Smiley," I said. "That's a ten."
Blackie was standing by Doggie, looking out at the chaos, panting happily as if in his natural element. What a beautiful animal.
Bees bumped up against me. She looked pretty serious. She took a deep breath and spoke. "Prophet, will you pray with me for Ice and Saka?"
"Yes. Sure."
She took my hands and joined them to hers and pulled me to her, face to face, eye to eye. She took another deep breath and started whispering, as if it were a secret. "Saint Michael the Archangel, we humbly pray for the souls of Ice and Saka, soldiers of the Lord who are grievously wounded in battle by the will of God his will be done, we beseech thee, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God to hold Ice and Saka in your invincible arms and lay on your healing hands and cure them of their terrible wounds and restore unto them their souls and their bodies and return them to us that they may continue fighting the powers of evil that poison the world of Galinta where Satan reigns. May God's will be done. Amen." By then her eyes were flooded and a few tears trickled down her cheeks but her face was stony cold. I had never seen such a powerful combination of faith and love and resolve.
"Do you think God will cure them?" she asked, looking directly into my eyes.
"Yes, Bees. Yes, He will."
"Thank you, Prophet. Thank you. I don't know what I would do without you."
Δ
We were off almost immediately once the skies had been cleared of Satan's minions. Eden was burning with the wreckage of uncountable Demon saucers, Fleetcom and Assidic fighters and Fleetcom drones. I couldn't tell who had won the air battle but there sure were a lot of shot-down spacecraft and aircraft. In the wake of the battle, the sky filled with Legion Phantoms and Assidic and Biogen armored aircars as our fighters and drones circled overhead. Long lines of A-suited soldiers ran towards the Phantoms and boarded. We were delighted to see Bird in the cockpit of the Ruthie, grinning at us.
"Welcome aboard!" he shouted. "We're going to chase these bastards right to their nests and fumigate them!"
That was the plan. We lurched up and away and it looked like we had unlimited fighters and drones at our service. I had heard that the 22nd Legion, the Rimguard, and the 10th Legion, the Black March, had joined us, strong new reinforcements to ensure we could stamp out this ugly intrusion into humanity's little sector of the galaxy. All right, I thought. All right!
"What's the story with those saucers, Bird?" Doggie asked. "Can we counter them?"
"They're damned good," Bird said. "But we're damned good, too. Our drones are lightning fast, and our fighter and Phantom pilots are the best in the galaxy. Their shielding is annoying to us, but I'll bet our cloaking is annoying to them! Ruthie, show our friends our score." A d-screen just above the armored plex flashed on to display a stylized rendering of five flaming saucers spiraling downwards.
"Damn! You got five of the bastards yourself?"
"So far. Ruthie and I. It ain't over yet."
"Congratulations, Bird!" Scout said. "Keep it up! And be careful."
"I'm doin' what I love. You put that on my gravestone, Scout."
A little shot of adrenalin hit me. No! Don't even think it!
Bird inserted us into the advance. The Phantom was invisible and we were invisible, thousands of invisible soldiers, Legion and Assidics, chasing down the D's who were in a disorganized retreat to the southeast, covered by saucers overhead. Our air power went after their air cover, and we went after the D's on foot.
"Squad advance – on me, recon formation. Go, Blackie!" We were practically running through beautiful countryside with forest and swamps and wild open fields of tall grass and a sparkling river running through it all. I knew we were going to transform it into a charred, howling wilderness littered with rotting corpses.
Blackie ran ahead of us. He wasn't invisible but Doggie figured the D's would pay him no mind once we started shooting at them. And there they were, the bastards, practically on the horizon, running from us.
"Fire
at will! Get 'em!" We all opened up. Dart dart dart, xmax xmax xmax – I knew the drill by then. They started to drop. Would we really be able to defeat them? It seemed like they had a whole lot of both troops and saucers. Even if we stopped them here, would it change their minds about seeking refuge from the Brights in our universe? And what happened to the Brights anyway? They had intervened briefly, just at the right time, and then disappeared. Where were they?
The horizon erupted in flame, smoking yellow tracers shooting up into the sky. Tacstars and antimats, shredding the D's. Our air power was doing its job. Blackie was barking up a storm, charging around us as if urging us on. But there was no need to urge us on. We were strongly motivated. A thousand dead D's for Ice, and another thousand for Saka – yes. The Biogens had the right idea.
Δ
"Delta, One. We are to hold this line, right here, for now," Doggie said. "We've got Comet to our left and Alpha to our right. The A's and the Biogens are probing ahead of us." It was just past 2300 hours and the night sky was covered with smoky black clouds. We were exhausted, seeking shelter in a shallow rocky gully. We had been marching and fighting all day, and we were ready to crash. "Find cover, get some rations and catch some z's. Alternate sleep sked each fire team, let me know who's awake and who's sleeping. We may be moving at any time, so be ready for that."
Squad Delta was now down to six soldiers. Bees and I were on the left, Doggy and Smiley in center, and Scout and Nitro on the right. Bees and I had good positions behind a scattering of boulders. She was right next to me. We'd have to disperse a bit, later. I looked out into the night. The horizon was burning. It started to rain, a miserable drizzle. Honey had the night vision on, and all her other senses. I could see the movement of little field rats, running through the tall grass. The D's were not going to be slipping up on us un-noticed.
Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree) Page 28
