Rebel Yell: Operation Ardent Redux: Episode 1 (A Space Opera Adventure)

by J. L. Stowers

“One down, eleven to go,” she muttered to herself.

  Roni waited for the next fly-by and managed to damage another ship, this one not managing to land as gracefully as the first and erupting into a ball of fire as it slammed into the ground. Shortly after, she got another that careened into the ship flying next to it, taking them both out in a burst of flame and twisted metal. Four were now out of commission. But that still left eight more.

  Chapter 5

  Zadria ran back up the tunnel’s mouth to Roni, a group of miners behind her.

  “This is everyone I could find,” she said, panting. “Billy has the rest at the other entrance.”

  “We’re going to have to get them out of here. It’s only a matter of time before we lose our hold.” Roni looked over the crowd. Her stomach turned at the sight of their malnourished bodies. Her rage against the GC burned in her gut, bringing her blood to a boil. She leaned in close to Zadria, dropping her voice to a whisper. “They aren’t going to get stronger, and there aren’t rations to sustain us if the siege continues. We need to move, soon.”

  Zadra looked past Roni, out into dark. The remaining fighters continued their barrage of electrical attacks. “We’re going to lose some.”

  Roni inhaled slowly, whispering back, “I know. But it’s some or all at this point.”

  Roni crouched in the mine’s entrance, her eyes searching for the right opportunity. There she remained, unwavering as the first rays of sunlight broke over the horizon. Her mind briefly wandered back to David and all the times they’d watched the sunrise together.

  “We’ve got to move, now. Much longer and it’ll be harder to see the charges from the ships.” Roni lifted the comm to her mouth. “Billy, are your people ready?”

  “Let’s do this,” came his reply.

  Roni led the run toward the soldiers. Their numbers had dwindled throughout the night, and she hadn’t seen any hard-to-miss infantry carriers arrive. The GC may be running the operation here, but the diminishing number of foot soldiers told another story, one of a government stretched too thin. That meant only one thing to Roni. It’d be that much easier to get her revenge. She’d start with Luftchek and keep going until Penn was dying on her swords.

  As she left the protection of the mine, she took advantage of the fallen aircraft that littered the battleground. Once safely behind the wing of a downed fighter, she glanced over and watched Billy lead his people out of the caves.

  This was it.

  The next wave of fighters came down on them. They had reduced their formation to two groups of four.

  “Cover!” Roni yelled as another series of electrical blasts hit the ground around them.

  One of the miners jumped out from behind the wing to get away from an electrical tendril, only to be shot by the now-advancing GC infantry.

  “FIRE!” Roni bellowed as she hoisted her weapon up and let loose round after round at the approaching frontline. Soldiers fell. More soldiers than miners, by some miracle. The miners weren’t better shots, they just weren’t scared to die anymore.

  The man shooting next to Roni fell as he took a hit right to the head. Roni bit her lip and kept firing until the next round of fighters began their descent.

  “Cover!” she ordered. But Roni didn’t follow her own command; she remained tall and fired on another one of the fighters. Her shot made contact with the ship’s tail, exploding and causing it to flip end over end. It rapidly descended toward them, tumbling above them and crashing into the mine behind.

  Roni cringed, hoping there weren’t any other miners in that section of the tunnel.

  “Fire!” Zadria shouted as the tendrils petered out.

  Roni gave her a quick nod and opened fire on the infantry once more. They were no longer advancing toward the miners but instead held their ground.

  “We need to move. It’s about to get ugly for us.” Roni watched as, in the distance, the fighters grouped into one formation, readying themselves for another pass. With seven at once, it’d be nearly impossible to avoid the electrical pulses.

  “We need to charge in,” Billy’s voice came from her comm.

  “Agreed. Now.” Roni took a deep breath, glancing at the group she led. “It’s now or never.”

  Roni, Zadria, Billy, and the rest of the miners jumped up and ran toward the infantry. Those with blasters took the lead, providing covering fire for those without. If someone fell, the person behind them was quick to scoop up their weapon and take their position.

  Suddenly, the ground began to quake beneath them, knocking Roni off balance. She tumbled to the ground at full speed, eating a mouthful of red dirt as she fell, trying to protect her weapon from the impact.

  She rolled back to a crouched position and waved her group toward an outcropping of discarded rock from the mine. “Over there!”

  Billy and his group had the same idea, and the two converged behind the rock pile to catch their breath. They’d lost fewer than Roni expected, which was a relief to her. But they were still vastly outnumbered.

  “Give ‘em hell!” Roni shouted as she opened fire on the GC ground troops once more. While she had her attention focused on the army ahead, she didn’t see the blast coming from her side. Pain erupted in her shoulder, causing her to drop the massive weapon to the ground with a grunt as she toppled over. Gasping for air, she reached for the weapon, but another shot narrowly missed her hand. It didn’t take long for her to spot the culprit.

  “Ryan,” she growled through gritted teeth. “You little shit.”

  Roni’s militia turned to fire on Ryan and his small band of GC soldiers, but Zadria called out, “COVER!” And they all ducked down behind the boulders.

  Roni did her best to roll toward safety as the fighters let loose another round of electrical pulses. One landed a few feet away, causing Roni to recoil and cringe at the worsening pain in her shoulder. The tendrils reached out, grazing Ryan’s leg, and he stiffened, eyes wide, before falling to the ground. The rest of the soldiers in his group, not wanting to face the same fate, retreated.

  “Hah, that’s what you get, ass.” Roni smirked.

  “We need you up,” Billy yelled at her.

  Her smirk transformed into a sneer as she climbed to her feet. The blast to her shoulder would leave a nasty burn, but nothing she couldn’t survive, though holding the massive weapon would be considerably more difficult.

  “Take it,” she said to Billy, nodding toward the gun.

  He didn’t miss a beat as he scooped it up, gave it a good once-over, then lifted it and resumed firing on the infantry.

  “We can’t keep this up,” Zadria huffed, crouching next to Roni.

  “I know. I’m looking but I’m not seeing a way out.”

  The ground shook again, the sound of rock breaking as a rift broke open almost beneath them.

  “How serendipitous,” Roni said, eyeing the rift with distrust.

  “Do you think this can get us to the scout?” Zadria asked.

  Roni nodded. “Maybe, but there’s no way all these people will fit in that itty bitty ship.”

  “But it has weapons.”

  Roni stared at Zadria. “This would have been helpful to know earlier. “Let’s move.”

  “You’re just leaving us here?” Billy asked as he ducked down to cover from another run of the fighters.

  Roni’s eyes searched the small army she had helped create. They were tired. They had started this battle on empty, and she knew they couldn’t keep this up much longer. “No.”

  “But,” Zadria started.

  Roni silenced her protest with a glance. “Get them in there, one at a time. It’s narrow. It’ll be risky but maybe it’s our only chance.”

  Billy nodded and tapped a woman clutching a pickaxe on the shoulder, gesturing toward the rift. Next was a man with a blaster, which he handed to Roni.

  Roni helped Billy and Zadria lay down covering fire as the rest climbed into the narrow rift one by one. It was only large enough to go single file, and the b
ottom of the rift came to an awkward point, which would make their journey slow. But with another company of soldiers coming around toward them, they were about to be surrounded and didn’t have a choice. Finally, Zadria hopped down into the rift, followed by Billy.

  The fighters flew overhead once more, leaving another barrage of electrical pulses in their wake. One was a direct hit on the rift’s entry point. Roni jumped back to avoid it as it spread. She spun around to see the GC troops picking themselves up from their safe places, getting ready to advance again.

  It was now or never.

  Roni went to jump into the rift, farther from the dwindling pulse charge, running past Ryan’s body as she did so. Only he wasn’t dead. Not quite. He reached up and hooked her ankle as she ran by, tripping her to the ground.

  “What the hell?” she said, trying to kick free of his grasp.

  “Roni,” Ryan said, his voice sounding different.

  She stopped kicking, hesitating only a moment before pointing the blaster at him. “Let go.”

  “Help me, Roni. Please.”

  “Oh, now you want to be my friend? I’m serious. Let go.”

  “What’s happening?” he asked. There was a confusion in his eyes that gave her pause.

  “Ryan?” Roni reached over and grabbed him by the wrist as he let go of her foot. She gave a strong tug toward the rift, and they both tumbled inside with a grunt. “If you’re messing with me, I swear I will kill you.”

  “Why would I mess with you? Where are we?”

  “We don’t have time for this. Can you walk?”

  Ryan climbed to his feet in the awkward space.

  “Good.” Roni stood. “Let’s move.”

  Roni and Ryan made slow progress along the rift. Each of Hera’s tremors made her cringe, waiting for the rift to close again or for a river of molten rock to open up under her feet, but it didn’t. In some areas it widened. In some areas debris tumbled down. But for the most part, they were safe. It was too narrow for the electrical pulses to hit, and the rest of the soldiers hadn’t yet made it to them. The lack of resistance was odd to Roni, but she tried not to question it too much. She knew it was a matter of time before the GC would be on top of them again, and worrying about something she couldn’t control wasn’t doing her any favors. Instead, she tried to focus on hurrying through the narrow gorge, keeping her eyes open for any resistance overhead and her blaster trained on Ryan for any sign of betrayal.

  The bottom of the rift flattened out, and the ground overhead met once more, creating a tunnel. Roni patted herself down, frowning when she didn’t manage to come up with the light she normally carried with her.

  “Here,” Ryan said as he tapped the button on his suit, casting a glow from a light attached to the shoulder of the GC armor.

  Roni stared at him momentarily. “You’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”

  Ryan furrowed his brow and went to take a seat on a nearby ledge.

  “No, not here. Walk and talk. We need to catch up with the others.” She hooked his arm and pulled him further into the tunnel, dropping it when they were moving at a pace she was more comfortable with.

  “It’s still kind of fuzzy,” Ryan said with a sigh after several steps.

  “Fuzzy?”

  “It’s like I woke up from a dream and I’m having a hard time remembering all of it.”

  “Oh, don’t act like the victim here, Ryan. You were working for the GC after knowing all the horrible shit they do. There’s no excuse for that.”

  They plodded along in silence for a few minutes.

  “The thing that I am really struggling with,” Ryan started again, “is that I don’t know why I would do that. Work for them. I must have had some kind of motivation, right?”

  “Hell,” Roni said with a laugh. “I don’t know why most people do the things they do. I’m not about to try to understand your motivation.”

  “I get that. I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s something I would take on so lightly. There’s got to be something.”

  “Look, there they are.” Roni pointed to a group of lights bobbing ahead. One seemed to stop and bound toward them.

  “Roni.” It was Zadria. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “What’s he doing here?” Billy stepped out of the shadows, holding a small blaster at the center of Ryan’s forehead.”

  Roni scoffed. “Put it down. He’s… different. I don’t know. Something happened to him. I’ve got it under control, for now. And if that changes… then I’ll take care of him.”

  Billy looked skeptical but lowered his weapon. “What happened?”

  Zadria pulled Roni to the side as Ryan explained his feelings of dreaming and forgetfulness. “We have to get these people out of this cave. They didn’t escape the mines to get lost in some endless underground tunnel. It branches over there, but the fork to the right was a dead end.”

  “Guess that means we’re going left because I’m fairly certain that going back isn’t an option.”

  Zadria peered past Roni into the tunnel behind them. “Why aren’t they coming after us?”

  “I don’t know,” Roni replied, “but if they have a reason not to follow us then we probably shouldn’t be down here either.”

  “What are we going to do when we get out of here? We can only fit maybe two more in the scout, and that’s cutting it close.” Zadria’s voice had dropped to a whisper now.

  “I don’t know.” Roni matched her volume. “Maybe I can get a message back to home base to come pick everyone up. But they’d be at least a day out from here. Our ships don’t fly as fast as the scout.”

  “I… I think I can help,” Ryan chimed in.

  Roni, Zadria, and Billy all turned to look at him. “Help how?” they said in unison.

  “There are two infantry ships. The GC used them to bring us down to the planet. One of those could definitely hold everyone we’ve got here.”

  “That sounds risky,” Billy commented.

  “Yeah it does,” Roni added. “Let’s go for it.”

  A low grumble shook the earth around them. Rocks tumbled, and the ground split between Roni’s feet. Ryan grabbed her wrist and gave a yank, pulling her over to the side.

  “We need to get out of here,” Zadria said, steadying Roni as they peered down into the crack. A thin, hairline glow radiated from the bottom. “Now.”

  Roni, Zadria, Ryan, and Billy hurried over to the group and ushered them down the left fork. Roni and Ryan worked their way to the front while Billy and Zadria brought up the rear.

  With her blaster in hand and her swords charging, Roni squinted into the dim light of the cave. Movement up ahead turned out to be a small lizard, nothing to worry about, but a sign of good air. After a bend in the tunnel, Roni could see the soft glow of daylight ahead. She scrambled forward to find a sharp incline, littered with large rocks, leading back up to the surface.

  “Give me a lift,” she ordered Ryan, who complied. With his assistance and the aid of the large rocks, she was able to get her head above ground. The ravaged city glinted in the distance, but a black cloud of billowing smoke rose from the area of the mine. “Oh yeah. Get everyone out of there. It’s not looking good.”

  Roni hoisted herself up and the helped each of the miners out of the cave. Sighs of relief echoed one after another as they climbed out into the sunlight and fresh air. They all looked worse for the wear, their exhaustion really showing through now that Roni could see their faces again. She had to turn away so they wouldn’t get the impression that the rage surging inside of her was directed at them.

  Near the mine, there was no sign of fighter activity. Roni guessed that they had either landed or returned to the ship above. Either way, the ships couldn’t fly through that amount of smoke, so electrical pulses shouldn’t be a problem for Roni and her team if they had to circle back that way.

  “Where are the ships?” Roni asked Ryan as he climbed out of the tunnel behind everyone else.

  “They’
re on the opposite side of the city as the mine.” He paused, his face morphing into a look of disbelief and disgust.

  “What?” Roni asked at his hesitation.

  “I just… I remember they had us march through the city like it was some kind of parade. These people… they weren’t in good shape to begin with. I don’t understand—”

  Roni held up a hand, cutting him off. “Keep it together.”

  “Roni,” he continued, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “I keep remembering things that I did. Bad things.”

  The ground quaked again, harder this time, knocking the group to their knees. An explosion from the mine sent dirt, rock, and debris flying into the air.

  “Cover!” Roni shouted as she curled up, shielding her head with her arms. She felt rocks and debris hail down on her, some hurting more than others. When it seemed to die down, she peeked out at the destruction. A pickaxe lay only a few inches from her head. She exhaled loudly. “Close one.”

  Roni got to her feet as the ash and dirt continued to waft down from the sky. An orange glow emanated from the mine, but she couldn’t see how bad it was from her vantage point. What she could see, however, was the line of white GC uniforms funneling into the city. “Everybody up. We need to move!”

  As soon as everyone was given a once-over and helped to their feet, Ryan led them toward the far side of the city. “They’ll have to navigate around the buildings and cars, whereas we have a straight shot so we might get there first.”

  “Some of us should go ahead,” Billy said, leaning close to Roni. “Just to secure the ship until the others can arrive.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Zadria agreed.

  “Can you fly a ship like that, Zad?” Roni asked her.

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “Not the confidence I was hoping for.” Roni laughed.

  “I think I can,” Ryan said.

  “Ryan? Are you sure? You know how to pilot something like that?” Roni stared at him, a little mystified. He had never been a great pilot when they worked together.

  “I’ve done it before.”

  “Well, between the two of you, I really hope you can figure it out.”