by Chris Lowry
The top ejected with a powerful explosion that rocked them back, even in their suits and four Lick soldiers spilled out, weapons blazing.
Jake and Steph opened up with the conventional weapons, smashing snouts, cracking scaly skin.
Babe drew a target on one of the soldiers and almost fired as his head exploded. Sherill up in a tree had locked in on their position.
The shooting was over in seconds.
“Lt!” Waldo screamed.
Lt jumped up and raced toward the forward position. His movement was effortless, almost balletic due to the suit and the robots floating in his bloodstream.
He could hear the amplified footsteps of the rest of his squad racing after him.
Waldo knelt beside Danish on the ground. A smoking crater occupied where his stomach should have been.
“I told him to stay down,” Waldo explained.
Lt dropped beside them and worked the helmet off Danish’s head. He took off his own and set it down next to his knee.
"How did I do Lt?" Danish coughed through a mist of blood.
Lt wiped the crimson stain off the boy’s lips.
"You did fine Danish. Real fine. You were a Jedi Knight of bad ass Lick killing. Some of the best I ever seen, I shit you not."
"Really," Danish gasped and took a long rattling breath. "What's a Jedi knight?"
His eyes glazed over as he stared into the abyss, the life sneaking out of him in a long slow wheeze.
Lt wiped the back of his hand across is nose and sniffed.
"We know," said Steph, her voice thick with emotion, eyes swimming in unshed tears.
"He ain't ever heard of a Jedi, Lt moaned. Fucking Licks. What kind of fucking world do we have if you don't know who the fucking Jedi’s are?
"I don't know," she sighed.
"I think it was rhetorical," said Babe.
"No," said Steph "I don't know what a Jedi thing is either. Were they like SEALS?"
Lt snickered through his clogged nose as he stood.
"Something like that," he told her.
"What do we do with him?" Babe sniffled through tears.
"We got to hide him Babe. We need that suit."
"It's shot up Sir. Won't do any good now."
"Yeah, maybe," said Lt. He took a moment to compose himself over the body of his dead soldier, and bowed his head.
"You praying?" Jake asked.
"Something like that."
"You still believe in God?"
"Don't matter what I believe, not anymore. Only matters is what he believed. He wanted to live in a world where it was possible. So, I said a little prayer to God, or to the gods of War, or Odin, I really don't give a fuck, which one, so long as they make his transition a little easier. Fucking Licks. Kid didn't deserve to get shot, didn't need to die out here in the middle of the fucking woods."
"He was trying to do something good," said Steph.
"You think this is fucking good?" Lt snapped. "One more kid gone. One more human slaughtered. How many of us got to die to save one man?"
"All of us, Lt," said Babe. "Lutz would do it for you."
"You think so Babe? I think you guys would let me go on doing what I do inside, and you get to doing what we did out here. How many patrols have gone unmolested since we started trying to round up a coalition? How many Licks get to go on breathing while Danish is dead, Rook too. Suds out for the count. Lutz captured. And the Lick still out there."
His voice came in a low fast growl, rage burning in his ice blue eyes.
"You want to tell me it's worth it? You want to tell me it's okay to trade his life for someone else's? How about yours? Who can I trade you for Babe?"
"Lt-."
"Don't say nothing," Lt held up a hand to forestall his comment. "You think I'm losing it, cause I can see it in your eyes. You think this dead kid here is the straw that broke the fucking camel's back. I ain't no damn camel Babe. And he sure as fuck ain't straw. I'm just sick of this alien bullshit. We kill 'em ten at a time, maybe less, maybe more. And all the fucking while, they're still here, still got more of 'em. We need something bigger. Something bolder."
"We need to destroy their mothership."
Lt glared at Jake.
"Say that again."
Jake ran a gloved hand across the chest plate of his suit.
"We have these, but you're right. What are you doing with them? Makes harassing the patrols easier?" Jake waved a hand at Danish on the ground. "But they're supposed to keep us safe."
"Destroy the mothership," Lt said, almost to himself.
He cradled his blaster.
"Babe, Steph, I want that suit off Danish. Divide it up and ruck it out. You," he pointed to Jake. "Dig a grave for his body. We ain't gonna leave him out here for the critters to get."
Babe and Steph kneeled over the body and began to strip it. They packed it away piece by piece into their backpacks, stealing Danish's own for even more space.
Lt wandered to the edge of the road and glared at the still burning hulk of the Lick hovercraft. His eyes studied the smooth lines and shallow curves of the construction.
The polymer metal was dented, crumpled, electrical fires melting the shape in spots. He sniffed the acrid stench of burning plastic, the computer brain being fried.
The Lick could bury their own dead, he thought. If they even bothered to come retrieve them.
Then he knew how he was going to get onto the LIck base and rescue Lutz.
It came to him in a moment of clarity as he leaned a shoulder against the tree and watched the aftermath of carnage stretched out in front of him.
"Babe!" he called out.
"Lt?" the man said from several meters behind him.
Lt looked over his shoulder and saw his second waiting, balancing under a double load of suit and his own gear.
"I had me an idea Babe. You ready to move up to the majors?"
"I'm not even a Captain yet, Lt."
Lt snorted.
"Minor league to major league," he explained. "Baseball."
"I don't remember," said Babe.
"You don't have to remember," Lt told him. "I'll remember enough for the both of us."
He led him back through the woods to the others so they could outline the plan.
CHAPTER SIX
The group marched in stoic silence, the loss of Danish weighing on them.
Steph drifted closer to Lt.
“Why did you call him Danish?” she asked. “You call me Annie Oakley, Jake Chief. I don’t know the other’s real names.”
Her soft voice carried through the silence of the woods, only the insects humming to betray their presence.
Lt tilted his head so he could see the reflection of his helmet in her visor.
“I wanted a fucking donut,” he said. “Told the boys to keep a lookout if we were scavenging. You find any donuts in a bag, bring ‘em to me straightaway. We run up an old gas station convenience store. Things a burned out shell, roof half caved in. Lick must have sent a round through the wall or something. But you never know what kind of treasure might be inside, if a place like that’s been overlooked. That little fucker comes running out waving something in his hands, screaming he had a donut for me. Turned out, it was a cheese Danish.”
“Danish,” Steph breathed.
“Danish,” agreed Lt.
“How did it taste?”
“Plastic melted to it from the heat. Couldn’t eat it.”
She nodded, and as they kept walking, she fell back in step with Jake.
“We got any intel on this place?” Babe asked.
“Yeah,” said Lt. “See that mountain? It’s ten klicks from here. That’s where we’re going.”
“They built a compound on a mountain? That’s stupid,” said Waldo.
“Lick ain’t found ‘em yet.”
“That’s what we thought about the last place.”
Lt agreed with him, but kept it to himself. He had thought they were secure in the last compound the
y visited, but a Lick convoy showed up while they were there and bombed the place to hell.
They used a special kind of concussive weapon that knocked people out. Humans were taken captive, including one of his own men, Lutz.
The suits made the twenty kilometers float by. Lt couldn’t remember feeling so good, so strong and rested, his entire life. It was like the nano inside of him gave the boundless energy of a five year old.
The woods thinned out as they approached the mountain. He could see signs that the culling was on purpose, trees cut to ground level stumps. The ageing of the wood told him it had been years ago.
He stopped on the edge of a bare spot and studied the incline.
“You see them?” Babe asked.
He nodded, then realized Babe might have compromised peripheral vision in the helmet. He checked his own as he said out loud.
“I see ‘em.”
He held up a hand and waved, motioned the four armed men toward them.
“Step out so they can see us, hold up your hands.”
“Like a surrender?” Waldo snorted.
“Ain’t gonna hurt us if they shoot,” said Lt. “But minimize our threat level. I think them shooting us would get our parlay off to a bad start.”
“Don’t move,” one of the men called down to them.
“Do we look like we’re moving?”
The men approached on opposite vectors so they could create interlocking fields of fire if they began shooting. Lt was at the tip of the V.
“Who are you?” the first man asked as he got closer.
“What are you?” one of his companions asked.
“We are the answer to your dreams, boys.”
“I dreamed of Jeannie,” said the first man. “Not some goon in a suit.”
“Who you calling a goon, asshole,” Babe muttered.
He hefted his stick against his shoulder.
“Babe,” said Lt. “Let’s play nice with our hosts.”
“Babe? You’re the Babe?” the second man asked.
“King of the home run derby,” Babe answered.
“Are you the Kid?”
“Don’t fucking call me the Kid,” said Bonney.
“Go get Holcomb,” the first man said to his companion. “He’ll sort it out.”
He lowered his rifle as the second man ran back to a black gash in the mountain next to a rock. They watched him slip into the darkness, and that’s when Lt noticed.
“Smoke,” he said.
It was faint, a hazy smudge against the mountainside, but now that he focused on it, he could tell what it was. Smoke coming from a hole in the ground.
“Where’s your compound?” he asked the first man.
He got no answer though. The man watched the gash in the rock, eyes moving back and forth from the men in armor to the hole and back again.
After a few moments that seemed to stretch like hours, the second man slid out of the darkness, followed by another.
Lt watched Holcomb descend the path down the side of the mountain, and calculated the distance based on his size. He must have been a large man once, but his shoulders were slumped now, by age, by command, by the weight of responsibility for keeping this patch of the human race still alive.
He turned a thin face toward Lt.
“You the leader?” he asked.
“Are you?”
“This man says you’re Lt William Bonney.”
Lt lifted up a gloved hand and popped open the visor on his helmet.
“That’s the name my Momma gave me,” he said. “I think my daddy thought it would be a good joke.”
“Bonney, you’re wearing tech suits.”
“We are.”
“No one has seen tech suits in years,” said Holcomb, staring at the men as if he didn’t believe them. “Not since the aliens landed.”
“We’re upgrading,” said Babe.
Holcomb looked at the stick on his shoulder.
“I thought you carried a bat?”
“Lost it in a fight,” said Babe. “I’m on the hunt for a new one.”
“Good luck with that,” Holcomb crossed his arms over his chest. “What brings you to my command?”
“We’re recruiting,” said Lt. “High Command has a message.”
“I hope it’s not any of that join up and we’ll work together bullshit, cause if it is, you can go sell it somewhere else.”
Lt eyed the compound leader for a moment, measuring him. Holcomb locked his eyes on the squinty ice blue one’s glaring at him and returned it for equal measure.
“This ain’t a sales call,” said Lt after a moment. “This is a courtesy call. Did High Command send me out here to drum up support? Yeah, they did. But am I going to force you to do anything? Look, you can hide out here on the mountain or you can hear me out.”
“In,” said Holcomb.
“In what? The message?”
“The mountain. We’re not on the mountain. We’re in the mountain.”
Lt looked past him to stare at the gash in the rock. He saw it was in the ground next to the rock, a clever use of shadows and depth to alter the appearance.
“Nice work,” he said.
“High Command put you in those suits to get people in line? Pound on the patriotic drum for God and country?”
“We found these,” said Lt.
“Bullshit. The Licks destroyed the labs.”
“They missed one,” said Babe.
“And if they missed one, there might be others,” Lt told him.
He watched Holcomb’s eyes shift as that bit of news sparked a few thoughts in his head. The compound leader was old enough to remember what the world was like before, if the struggle for day to day survival hadn’t burned the memories out of him.
Lt knew it was all about focus. One of the reasons he was so good at killing Licks, he surmised, was his focus on that singular task. He didn’t worry about the past because it was dead and gone. He didn’t spend too much time on the far future, because it hadn’t happened yet.
His focus on the now made him a good Lick killer.
Holcomb reached a decision, and it softened the hard lines in his face.
“We’re exposed out here,” he said. “Let’s move inside.”
He turned around and didn’t wait for them to follow as he led them up the path.
They fell in step behind him as he led them through the gash in the ground. Inside, it opened up to what looked like a Viking communal hall from a history book.
The earth walls stretched as far back as a football field, sanded tree trunks acting as columns to hold up the ceiling. A long rock hearth stretched the length of the room, benches gathered around it, small flames fluttering the length of it.
Lt could see torches set in the columns and on sconces in the walls. People moved in the shadows, slipping away from the fire as the squad in tech suits marched in.
“You think this tech will lead to more?”
“Maybe,” said Lt. “It’s a possibility.”
"We have a couple of veterans of Mars here who say otherwise."
"Ain't possible," said Lt. "Nobody made it out alive."
"Nobody's making it off earth alive either," said a crusty voice from behind the flames of the campfire. Lt tried to make out a face in the shadows, but couldn't until the man leaned forward.
He had been beautiful once. The memory of it was there, hidden in the lines, creases and scars that marred the structure of his features. Blue eyes dancing with mirth over a sad knowing smile.
"Everybody's going to die," said the man. "Someday."
"Not on my watch," Lt said to his squad. "Nobody dies unless I give the order to do it, got it?"
"You sound like my old commander," said the man. He shifted up with a slight groan and limped around the fire.
His leg had been busted, sometime in the past, set improperly, and it showed. His limp was pronounced, a slight thump and drag echoed in the cabin as he walked.
