by S. M. Nolan
“Release!” Russell yelled.
Reese threw the Humvee's switches. It slid from the emptied bay and its parachute blasted open.
She hurried for the group, “Move!”
The two crew-men took a running leap. Reese secured her harness, tested it against her body with a flex.
Thorne stepped to the ramp's edge, looked down as the others approached. “I can't do this.”
“Don't be a pussy,” Reese said, shoving him out. He flipped her off, screaming and falling out of focus.
“I'll see you on the ground,” Russell said to Maggie. She nodded. He hurled himself into the air.
“You know I've only done this once, right?” Maggie said, feeling her stomach drop.
“Then you know what to do.”
“I got thrown from a plane and almost broke my ankles. One of the pilots ended up hanging from a tree, dead,” she stalled with fear.
“It's a good thing we're jumping into desert then,” Reese said, with a pat on the back.
“That doesn't help.”
Reese motioned her to the edge, “We'll go together.” Maggie nodded, clutching Reese's hand with terror. “On three.”
Maggie nodded, eyes shut.
“One.”
Maggie's grip cut off blood to Reese's fingers.
“Two.”
Her body shook.
“Three!”
They leapt together. Reese's hand was ripped away. Maggie's side jolted with a knife of pain. She fell, struggling to grasp her goggles and sickened by her momentum. Her arms strained with her fingers to affix the goggles. Her eyes opened, blinked out tears to glance around as she plummeted.
Static sounded in her ear. Reese's voice cut through it, “On your right! Just above you! Spread your body out to slow your descent.”
Maggie splayed her arms and legs, watched the ground emerge from beneath low clouds. Her abdomen spasmed, teeth gnashed against the pain. Reese gave a visible thumbs up, pointed ahead to Russell.
“He's enjoying himself.”
Maggie watched him tuck and roll, “You're crazy, this isn't fun!”
He laughed over his radio, “Enjoy it, Maggie. People pay good money for this.”
“Yeah?” She ridiculed over wind. “I got shot. How much is that worth?”
“Buzzkill,” Reese said. Maggie fought the wind to raise her middle finger. “That's not a proper English greeting.”
“I know it's not you bleeding wanker!” Maggie yelled, purposely emphasizing the insults.
“Enough kids,” Russell said. “Throw your chutes.”
He pulled his chute open. Others appeared below. Maggie watched Reese throw hers, jerked at the cord on her chest. She braced for a jolt that didn't come. Her eyes went wide beneath her goggles.
“My chute!” She cried through the radio.
“Maggie!” Russell yelled.
She tried the emergency chute with a cry. Nothing.
Reese acted. She clasped her knife, sliced through the cords of her chute, and slimmed her body down. She sliced through the air toward Maggie as Russell's heart climbed into his throat. Their figures rocketed toward the sandy abyss below. He was helpless, willing Reese and Maggie together beneath his breath.
Maggie screamed, splayed her body against her aching side. Reese gained, closed in. She grabbed for Maggie's back, missed. Her body alternated stances with grabs. A hand clutched Maggie's harness, the other threw an emergency chute. Another jolt slowed them. It wasn't enough.
Russell felt a deathly rise of tension in his body. Maggie still screamed. Reese clutched her tight. Maggie clung to her, threatened to strangle her.
She yelled beside Maggie's ear, “I need to cut your harness. Lower our weight!”
Reese's knife sawed the straps around Maggie's body as the ground neared.
“It's gonna' be a hard landing,” she wheezed.
Maggie blinked, hit. The impact dislodged her hold, broke the two apart. They tumbled off in separate directions, came to a rest winded and disoriented in blistering-hot sand.
Maggie groaned. Reese rolled sideways, coughing and covered in dust. She cut her chute loose and drug herself over.
“Are you…”
“Fine.” Maggie coughed, warm wetness at her side. “I think I split my stitches.”
A slow trickle leaked from beneath her bandages, her throat dry and sore from screaming. She coughed, pulled herself closer to Reese. Someone touched down near them with a thud. Her air returned as a sonic boom followed explosions in the sky and the C-130 began its descent in a cloud of smoking debris.
Maggie winced at the sight, pushed herself to her hands and knees, hoping to power through her agony.
“Where's the truck?”
Russell approached, dragging his chute behind him, “Thorne's on it.” He knelt to look the two over, “You alright?”
“Nothing… a good fuck wouldn't fix,” Reese whimpered. “Where the hell are we?”
“Locator's in the truck,” he replied, helping Maggie up. “We'll know soon enough.”
Maggie grunted, doubled over. Russell lifted her shirt, checked the blood at her side, “Doesn't look too bad. Reese?”
She threw a hand at him, gasped, “I'll fix it.”
“You alright?” She nodded, waved him off.
The Humvee sped toward them, skidded to a halt nearby with Thorne driving. The plane's crew climbed out to sort the gear inside.
“We need an inventory,” Reese called. She limped for the truck's rear, “Find me a damned med-kit. And the locator.”
Thorne stuck his hand out the window, the device in it. Russell grabbed it, leaned Maggie against the truck. He thumbed through the device, “Just west of the Nile, six hundred miles from Kohms.”
“Ten to twelve hours,” Reese wheezed, first-aid kit in-hand. “Give or take.”
“You sure you're alright?” Maggie asked, concerned.
“Yeah.” Maggie shot her a look, unconvinced. She relented with a crooked grimace, “I think I cracked a rib.”
“Christ!”
Maggie leaned toward her with a yelp. Reese breathed deep, “Isn't the first time. I'll be fine.” She coughed into a clenched fist, slammed it into a fender in pain. She opened the door for Maggie, “Come on, lie down.”
Maggie maneuvered into the truck, “Thanks, by the way.”
Reese gave half a laugh mired in a groan, followed her into the truck. Thorne appeared beside Russell, looked to the C-130 crew at the truck's rear.
“What should we do about the sheep?”
“Drop 'em in the first populated area we find,” Russell replied, his arms crossed. Maggie yelped beyond the door, diverted his eyes for a moment. He looked back to Thorne, device in hand, “Ten miles from the nearest highway.”
“Fifteen minutes, then,” Thorne remarked. “You wanna' drive?”
Russell shrugged, climbed in to ignite the engine. The C-130 crew clambered into the Humvee's bed, hung on as they started through the desert.
31.
Leptis Magna
October 8th
8:00 PM
Somewhere between the Nile and The Libyan Border
The group drove until they reached a populated highway, then deposited the two crew-members with a canteen and a bag of rations. With time wasting, they continued along roads until the sun began to set, then diverted from the highway into the desert, aimed for the Egyptian-Libyan border.
When their fuel began to run low they stopped in a random patch of desert. Thorne and Russell climbed out to refuel the truck from canisters in the back. Night brought an expanse of stars and a waning moon that traversed distant, mountainous sand-dunes, the air chilled from the sun's absence and the sand's inability to hold heat.
Maggie fought Reese in the back seat as she refused to acknowledge her injuries. She eventually accepted a small dose of morphine and Maggie convinced her to remove her vest and bra to keep pressure off her torso. Reese sank into a quiet lilt, oddly contented
given her usual demeanor.
“You going to be okay?” Maggie asked.
Reese gave a pleasureful groan, “This stuff is so great.”
“Might've over-done it a bit,” Maggie admitted. “Just try to relax.”
“Yes, mum,” Reese said, imitating the extremity of Maggie's accent.
“Funny,” she scowled.
“Lighten up. You'd be a jolly right tart if it weren't for that cheeky cunt back there.”
Maggie glared, “First, I don't talk like that. Second, I have no idea what you just said. And last, what cheeky cunt?”
“Ugh…” Reese sighed with a heavy breath, her words slowing. “That daft wanker, Russ.”
“What about him?”
Reese's slurs worsened with each new phrase, “If you didn't love slobbering knob, I'd shag your pants off.” She gave a seductive purr.
“I got that one.” They descended into silence. Maggie's tone shifted with it, “Reese?”
“Yes, mum?” She said with an earnest attempt to focus.
“Why'd you cut your chute? You risked your life to save me even though there wasn't anything in it for you.”
Reese's eyelids fluttered, “I don't know, mum, I guess…” Maggie waited, could tell she was drifting off. She looked over with a peculiar gleam in her eyes, “I didn't want to finish without you.”
Despair clutched Maggie's chest. “Thank you, Stephanie.” Reese's eyes were already closed, her breath shallow in sleep. “I owe you.”
Thorne climbed into the passenger's side, “How is she?”
“Asleep. I gave her some morphine, but it's going to take a while for her to heal.”
“She'll be fine though, right?”
Maggie shrugged. Thorne's face sank. Russell climbed in, diverted their attention, “If we're lucky, we'll make it half-way before another refuel. If we're ungodly lucky, we'll coast into Kohms on fumes.”
The truck started, lumbered forward into a gallop. The moon followed. The Humvee's shadow splayed across dunes and rocks that it dodged as its tires threw out a sprawling dust-cloud. They crossed Libya's border, climbed dunes to head northwest over open-land.
The tank of fuel took lasted another three hundred miles across desert and occasional, decrepit highways half-covered in sand. In the night's blackness, the stars and moon reigned with a blistering glow similar to the mountains.
Russell stopped along an empty highway to refuel, and Maggie followed him out to lean against a fender, “How are we looking?”
“So long as the tank holds up, we'll be fine.”
Maggie's eyes swept the empty desert, “You think it's there?”
Russell shifted his weight, angled the fuel container around, “I don't know, but we're closer now than we've been. If Severus was a Protectorate agent, it stands to reason his monument holds a clue. It's the next logical place to look at least.”
“I guess it's better than nothing.”
He poured in the last of the gasoline and removed the spout to replace the can in the Humvee. He returned to Maggie's side, a hint of despair to his movements.
She nudged him with an elbow, “What's on your mind?” He shook his head. “C'mon, Russell.”
He inhaled deep, exhaled slowly, “Everything.”
She leaned on her uninjured side, “Talk to me.”
He winced at the thought of speaking his mind, but she deserved the truth. “I can't help asking myself what comes next? If we manage to destroy the weapon, will Omega still be after us? Do we stay together, fight them, or split up to make it harder for them to track us? I mean, there's a million questions that can't be answered, I know that. But some I have to ask. It seems like the only ones worth it are….” He trailed off. “About us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want me around or—”
Maggie smiled, “Of course I do, Russell.”
He leaned against his back, felt foolish, “I'm sorry, Maggie. The more I wonder about it, the more I feel it's drawing my focus away from what's happening.”
She understood. “Look, you helped me find the strength I've needed to get this far, but neither of us has the luxury of considering our future right now. We need to stay focused. If you're asking me if I want you to leave, my answer's no. If you want to leave, I'm not going to stop you, but I do want you here.”
Russell's head tilted, “I guess I hadn't thought of it that way.”
Maggie labored to retain hope beneath her assessment, “We can't dwell on ourselves. Not now. We have no idea what'll happen if Omega gets the weapon. There's a million possible outcomes, but most are bad. This isn't about us, or a cult on either side. It's about all the people that'll be held hostage, terrorized and enslaved by shadows, by Omega. Nobody deserves that. We're the only ones able to do anything about it, so we must.”
Russell nodded in agreement, “You're right, but for the record, Maggie, I care for you. I want to be with you.”
Maggie took his hand, “I do too. I promise, if we get through this, we'll have something worth sticking around for.”
She gave him a deep, lingering kiss that forced his arms around her. Her breath quickened, and his hands slid down her sides. She whimpered, pulled away. He apologized profusely.
She grimaced, cut him off, “You don't ever have to apologize for kissing me.” She stepped back. “C'mon, we've only got a few hours left.”
They climbed in and the engine started, carried them through the night. Thorne snored lightly in the passenger's seat, his mouth open as his head jostled around. Behind him, Reese wheezed with an occasional grunt as she stirred and settled.
Maggie watched the GPS while the hours crawled by and the landscape shifted to small, scattered villages. On less gasoline than Russell estimated, they sped North through rural towns that rose and fell between expanses of flat emptiness.
The darkened horizon was abandoned as Kohms edged nearer, pocked with bright lights and the soft aura of pollution. The GPS's final grid-line flashed over its screen with a beacon's coordinates within it. Maggie woke Thorne, handed the device over, then roused Reese.
Russell sped along a highway that led to the ancient ruins, now a museum site established in a wide perimeter. He rolled to the top of a bridge that overlooked the distant site, stopped.
Beyond the highway, the earth sloped into a bowl. It rose again to be met by the museum area's massive monument lights. Even at-range, Severus' arch was visible. From all four of its sides, inlaid, stone pathways led toward it—one plateaued by an aqueduct a few hundred yards long and nearer their position than the others.
Stone pathways led to ruins in the center, a circular forum of eroded stones nearby buffered by roman-era columns and arches. A daunting series of paths and stones were scattered about; remnants of once-prominent structures now decayed.
“Why are we stopping?” Thorne asked.
“This is an international monument,” Russell said, scanning the distance. “They're not going to let us just walk in and start poking around.”
“So what do we do?” Maggie asked beside Reese.
“Drive in,” Reese said, groggy. “Just don't hit anything.”
Russell watched the highway to judge the traffic. A few cars came and went, but nothing to keep them from their objective. He threw the truck into gear and sped down the bridge, angled off-road, and into the earthen bowl.
The truck bounced, shook, the engine floored as they reached a small river bank. It rose fast. They caught air, flew to the opposite bank, narrowly avoided two trees on landing. The impact tossed them about the cab. Russell creamed sparse bushes and grasses, swerved to avoid larger ones, and plowed forward for the main ruins.
The ancient structures loomed at their right. Russell whipped them left, sped along a stone path as the aqueduct neared. It dipped down, curved toward the arch. A treeline ahead forced them into it.
“Hold on!”
He threw them over the small plateau. They landed with a bounce, regained
traction to follow the aqueduct. The arch drew closer by the second. Weathered sandstone gleamed in upward-angled monument lights.
Russell clenched his jaw, slammed on the brakes to whip the truck sideways to a stop just outside the arch. They recovered quickly, piled out to look up at the unsuspecting monument. Reese fought to pull herself around the truck to Maggie's side.
They stood for a moment, staring in awe at the Arch of Septimius Severus that had weathered eons since his rule. Though most of its stone filigrees had cracked or worn away, along with the flutes of its plinth-supported columns, it held to the standard one would expect of a Roman-era ruler.
Four, massive piers formed the edges of archways that rose past crumbled, filigreed spandrels to its cube-like top.
“I guess the emperor's ego was a good cover,” Russell said, looking it over from top to bottom.
“Funny no one's found anything here,” Reese grunted, doubled over the truck's hood.
Maggie mused in reply, “If someone knew what was here, we'd all be dead.”
Thorne was cautious, “Let's just hope whatever is doesn't kill us.”
Russell agreed, directed him with hand on his shoulder, “Gear.”
Reese extended a hand, “Maggie?”
Maggie helped her up, her own wound a dull nuisance. They hobbled for the arch, stopped at stone steps that led to its center. Though it had remained largely intact, the coffer-ceiling's finer details had crumbled away. Paneled reliefs of past wars were only vaguely decipherable.
Maggie and Reese rubbernecked their way around the piers and the countless scenes there, examined one in the shadow of the monument's lights. Thorne approached with the gear as Russell produced his flash-light, headed for Reese and Maggie.
“How will we know what to look for?” Thorne asked.
Russell examined the piers at a distance, “It'll be low enough to access, out of place—something that doesn't quite fit with a theme or that shows…”
“Ha-Shan reverence,” Reese breathed.
Russell stepped around a pier. His light splayed over the depiction of a sacrificial bull atop an altar.
