The Blue of Antyllus

by Michael E. Gonzales

  “No, not this right, the next.”

  All around them they heard the sounds of running feet, voices raised to near panic levels, and the roar of constant gunfire. Thus far, they had not encountered the enemy face to face.

  Cautiously, the three ascended a long flight of skeletal metal stairs and entered a long corridor with several doors to either side. At the far end of the corridor stood a set of double doors that opened into a room that was once the spacious office of the factory foreman, but Major Kuriko had it converted into her private quarters.

  The door was locked and entry was gained by a keypad. Serenity walked right up to it and entered the seven-number code. Isso and Joe looked at her questioningly. “Hey,” she said, “I looked over her shoulder.”

  They quietly pushed the door open, and with weapons at the ready, entered the chamber. The place looked like a nineteenth century brothel. The lighting was dim. There were several different styles of rugs covering the metal floor. Curtains of red and gold, as well as walls of hanging beads, divided the chamber into sections.

  Furniture of both human and E’meset design was all around. A table to Joe’s right held all kinds of expensive actual Earth-made liqueurs. Next to it, another table held several illegal drugs; Nash spotted herolein and morphidine from the hospital in New Roanoke. There were also several hallucinogenic native plants on the table.

  Joe noticed that Serenity stayed back by the door. Her eyes were wide and her shoulders slumped as she looked around the room.

  With his weapon to his shoulder and his eye looking over his sights, Joe turned carefully around a curtain and entered into the bedroom. Here was a massive bed apparently manufactured on-site. Tied naked to the bed was Mrs. Lindsey, gagged and blindfolded.

  Joe carefully cleared the rest of the bedroom area and announced, “Clear.” Mrs. Lindsey heard his voice and her head jerked up.

  Joe yanked a curtain down from the ceiling and covered the woman with it. He then proceeded to untie her and remove her blindfold.

  “Mrs. Lindsey, you’re okay. I’m Lieutenant Billen…your husband sent me to bring you home,” Joe said, smiling.

  The woman began to cry.

  “It’s all right, ma’am, we’ve come to get you all out.”

  As soon as Serenity heard Janet’s tears, she rushed to her side and cradled her head in her arms.

  “It’s okay Janet; they are going to get us out of here. The CDF and a bunch of E’meset are attacking right now!”

  Just then, three mercs burst into the room. Isso killed two with his rifle and broke the third man’s neck with one hand. He returned to the door and looked down the hallway. In E’meset, he said to Joe, “It is time. We must go.”

  “Coola.” Joe said, then turned to Mrs. Lindsey. “Ma’am, are you injured? Can you walk?”

  “I can walk. Hell, I’ll run if it gets us out of here faster!”

  “Ma’am, where are your clothes?”

  Serenity helped Janet get dressed, and they were soon ready.

  Joe stopped the two women by the door and as he provided Mrs. Lindsey with body armor, a respirator for later, and a shot of ESS, he explained, “Ladies, we are going to be moving fast. Mrs. Lindsey, you are their most valuable hostage. If they can’t keep you, they would rather see you dead. So, by any and all means, you must keep up with us, keep your head down and…do not stop unless we do. Do you understand, ma’am?”

  She nodded. Her face was pale and her eyes dilated.

  By the sound of the battle, Joe believed that the initial shock the mercenaries suffered was past and they had begun to organize their defense.

  They moved out of the room, down the hall to the catwalk by the metal stairs. Joe watched the floor below them, but all he saw moving were mercs, doubtless message couriers, and guys carrying ammo up from the basement; otherwise all the mercs were at their stations. The real trick would be getting beyond the walls of the factory. The mercs had gunners and snipers on the roof. Running away from the building did not look feasible at this point.

  ○O○

  Nash had pushed hard and paid a high price to get past that second set of three bunkers. Now, it appeared there were only two very large, earthen bunkers remaining. These positions each had .50 caliber machine guns mounted in them and were supported by a platoon-sized element of infantry located on either side of the road, so they had overlapping fields of enfilading fire over the road. They were also receiving supporting fire from enemy riflemen in the swamps.

  This is disheartening, Nash said to himself. These bunkers had definitely brought their advance to a standstill. Altogether, there wasn’t even two platoons of enemy holding them back. This meant that a very large number of the enemy were free to assist in the fighting at the factory itself.

  Nash radioed in a sitrep. “Charlie Oscar this is Recon six. I am stopped at phase line gold, I say again, I am stopped at phase line gold. Casualties are high, ammo is low. Over.”

  “Recon six, this is Charlie Oscar actual.” The colonel himself was on the net. “Resistance is stiff on the north and east sides of the objective. The south is showing some progress. Recon, we need you to punch through, and get close enough to suppress tangos on the roof so team Seal can get out with the package. Acknowledge, over.”

  Nash paused a moment. “This is Recon. Acknowledged, over.”

  “This is Charlie Oscar. Good luck Recon. Out.”

  “Punch through the man said…sounds simple enough.” As a matter of fact, Nash was as pinned down here as were those boys on Omaha beach back in 1944. And just like them, he needed some artillery support, but there wasn’t a single tube of artillery on the planet.

  Nash called his few surviving leaders together, and so that he was understood he explained his plan in both English and E’meset.

  “Boys and girls, we’re in a fix. Team Seal needs a diversion in order to get the hostages out. We are that diversion. We have to make so much noise that the bad guys come running. I want Kalanas and his E’mesets to enter the swamp to our left, and Ski, I want you to take your people and go up the right. Each of you get your element about twenty meters out from the raised road, then head east toward the factory. When you’re about a hundred meters ahead of the main body, we’ll head straight up the road. We’ll get them in a cross fire.”

  Everyone looked around at one another. No one said a word.

  “Someone have a better idea?” Nash asked.

  Kalanas spoke in his broken English, “I will see you, Tuva, on the other side.” Nash would never learn if Kalanas was aware of the irony or not.

  As everyone got up to leave, one NCO remained…the sergeant known as ‘Ski’.

  “Sir…why does everyone call me Ski, my name is Zmitrowicz.”

  “I’m sorry, I guess because all Poles get called Ski,” Nash said and shrugged.

  A buck sergeant was standing nearby and interrupted, “Ski, you remember Sergeant Carol Nowak?”

  “Sure, Carol was killed at the wall last year.”

  “She was Polish, too…from Toledo. She called you Ski behind your back.”

  “Why?”

  “She was sweet on you, Ski. After she died, everyone started calling you Ski in her memory.”

  Ski lowered his head. When he brought his head up, his eyes were red. “Okay then, Ski it is.” He looked again at Nash and said, “But sir, please, in case…remember, my name is Demetry Zmitrowicz.”

  Nash took the man’s hand. “I’ll never forget.”

  ○O○

  Nash returned to the center of his line and crawled up next to his E’meset chief of scouts. Ahead of them stretched the road. The two bunkers were just outside the visual range of their night vision.

  Nash examined his watch. He would begin his movement forward right down the center of that road in fifteen minutes. He figured in twenty he’d be dead. There were no other options. To free the forty-two hostages and end the threat to everyone these mercenaries had to be defeated, and to do that, a grea
t many here would have to die. There’s nothing special about me that I should get a pass. He said to himself.

  He did wonder how Tanny would take the news. She would be sad to hear it, no doubt, but how sad, he wondered. If she was in love with him, this would hit her hard. For the first time, he hoped he was wrong and that she didn’t love him.

  “Tuva,” the scout said, “do you smell the wind?”

  Nash adjusted the filter on his respirator to allow in odors but still he did not smell anything.

  “No, what is it?”

  “Tihsad, it is the year for the rains, the very hard rains, they will come from where Ourinco sleeps.” He pointed toward the southwest.

  As Nash looked to his right front, he saw a distant flash of lightning. He then glanced at his watch and looked back up at the scout and said in E’meset, “My friend, the time has come. I am honored to die alongside you.”

  The scout responded in English, “Tuva, Lu’aya decides the time of our parting. If not in Lu’aya’s plan, we do not die this morning.”

  The eastern horizon was growing brighter as the sun headed toward dawn. Distant clouds had already turned orange and pink. The rapidly advancing storm to the southeast threatened to block the sight of dawn. Nash would be sorry not see his last sunrise.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered, and as he stood, the entire line of CDF and E’meset soldiers rose with him.

  ○O○

  Moving back toward the staircase, Joe studied the area below them. The cavernous factory was packed with all kinds of machines. Many were connected together by conveyor belts, bundles of cable, pipes, and conduit. The machines themselves created a labyrinth down there. He realized that, at this point, they were closer to the western side of the structure than anywhere else.

  Joe moved back and gathered the other three around him. “Do either of you know of any doors out on the west side?” he asked the two women.

  “Yes,” Janet said, “we’ve all had to work in this area. There are several exits. Closest to us would be airlock number seven, and an emergency exit farther north. From airlock seven, south, about two hundred meters, is the large vehicle airlock.”

  “We’ll head for the emergency exit. No sense waiting. Let’s go.”

  “Joe,” Isso said, “let me in the front to see.”

  “Okay, Isso, you take point.”

  Down the stairs Isso crept. Joe had never seen anyone move with more stealth and speed. At the bottom of the stairs Isso, now ten meters ahead of Joe and the two women, turned hard right, then made a ninety-eighty degree turn to head west.

  When Joe reached the bottom of the metal steps, he turned just in time to see Isso disappear behind some large piece of equipment. With Serenity and Mrs. Lindsey behind him, Joe made the same turn and saw Isso standing about five meters in front of him like a statue. What’s he waiting on? Then Joe noticed that Isso’s weapon was on the floor at his feet. Isso looked over his shoulder at Joe and shouted, “Eyya!” Run! Just as he did, three mercs stepped out from behind a machine where they had stood, holding their weapons on Isso. “Don’t try anything!” the larger of them shouted.

  From behind Nash stepped two more mercs. One stepped up behind Serenity and put a gun to her head. Joe lowered his weapon to the floor.

  The three mercs and Isso walked back to join them.

  “Major Kuriko is gonna be real happy,” the big one said. He then approached Janet and ran a finger down her chest. “She’s gonna be really happy to see you!”

  “I told you Joe,” Serenity said. “You should have let me have a pistol.” Joe noticed her shoot Isso a glance and Isso raised an eyebrow in response.

  “Oh, shit,” Joe said under his breath.

  Isso looked up into the rafters above and in English shouted, “Now!” The five mercs all looked up. When the guard holding the rifle on Isso raised his head Isso kicked him hard in the groin, the man came a meter off the ground. At the same instant, Isso swung his left arm and caught the other guard in the throat with the edge of his hand. He was choking to death as he hit the floor.

  Simultaneously, Serenity pulled the bayonet from her belt and jammed it hard into the side of the man holding the pistol on her. The blade got stuck between his ribs and the bayonet was pulled from her hand as the man fell.

  Joe jumped on the big merc and they fell to the floor in a deadly embrace.

  Janet folded into the fetal position on the floor.

  Serenity dove for the stabbed man’s pistol, lying near her on the floor. She grabbed it just as the fifth merc realized the threat and brought his weapon to bear. They both fired at the same instant.

  After Isso had downed the two mercenaries that had been guarding him, he turned to the big fellow who had Joe pinned and was trying to strangle him. Isso grabbed the merc by the throat and lifted him into the air. Before Joe could say a word, everyone heard the bones in the man’s neck break and saw his head flop over backward, his tongue distended and his eyes bugging out. Isso tossed the man’s body aside as one might toss away an apple core.

  Joe got to his feet, rubbing his throat and looked Isso in the eyes. The man had just saved his life. Before he could speak, Isso said, “He did not expect a dirty trick from an E’meset.”

  Joe smiled. “Is everybody—”

  “Lieutenant!” Janet called to him. Turning around, he saw Serenity on the floor bleeding. The bullet had entered her shoulder, shattering the right clavicle, and proceeded on to destroy her scapula as it exited. She was in great pain and going into shock.

  Joe quickly opened his AEM and gave Serenity an injection for the pain. Then, he bandaged the wounds and sprayed on a foam that hardened in order to immobilize the area as much as possible—which, Joe realized, was not going to be much, given they would now have to carry her out.

  When finished, Joe scooped the woman up in his arms and turned to leave. Isso stepped in front of him. Slowly, and in E’meset he said, “I am stronger and will not tire. Give her to me.”

  Joe realized Isso was right, and handed her over.

  Isso smiled and looked down. “How is it said among you? Now, we are even.”

  “Even—what do you mean?”

  “You took a woman from me, now I take one from you,” and he smiled broadly.

  Serenity became lucid enough to look up at Isso and say, “Oh, look, a Christmas tree!” Then, she passed out again.

  Joe smiled and said, “Let’s move.”

  ○O○

  Nash and his people had advanced slowly about thirty meters when the first drops of rain began to fall. Big drops. Nash had seen these rains before. The only word he knew that came close to describing them was monsoon, but there was really no comparison. These rains were more like standing under a cataract for several days with lightning storms of indescribable ferocity raking the ground. Every five years during the rainy season, dozens of these storms slashed over the planet for weeks at a time. When speaking of the passage of time the E’meset used this event as their measuring stick.

  Before him, the dark masses of the bunkers were just becoming visible in the early pre-dawn light. To their left and right, rifle fire erupted. Nash’s flankers had made contact with the enemy in the swamps. He was just about to order a full assault when, as if it were one mighty explosion, the two bunkers evaporated in blinding blue and white flashes.

  From behind the area where the bunkers once stood, voices began to shout in both English and E’meset, “Kad uho ah ta!” Basically “Hit the deck!” Nash and all his people fell flat on their bellies as from their direct front, where the voices had been heard, a fusillade of gunfire made quick work of the stunned and disoriented mercs that had survived the missile attacks. Then the combined fire of both halves of Nash’s command opened up on the enemy in the swamps. Several were seen to flee. Nash ordered a cease fire. “Let the cowards run. We’ll mop them up later.”

  Nash ran forward to find Hoofnar, the commander of his E’meset swimmers. He found her looking up at the sk
y toward the southwest.

  She turned as he approached. He placed his hand in the center of her chest. “I have never been happier to see you as I am now,” he said.

  “I am sorry we did not attack the metal house as you said to do,” Hoofnar said. “We had to go far out to avoid the Ukse.”

  “If you had been faster, and attacked the factory, I and all with me would now be dead. I owe you my life.”

  She smiled and looked back into the sky, saying, “Nash, now comes the tihsad. Our war will be washed away. Those exposed to the rain will be beaten by the water and shocked by the liquid fire of the tihsad.”

  “You’re wrong, Hoofnar,” Nash said. “This is a gift from Eya’Etee Ki Kee.”

  Nash got his command back together, cross leveled ammo and reported back to higher that he had cleared the road and would now assault the west side of the factory.

  Just beyond where the two bunkers once stood, the road encountered the elevated landmass upon which the factory had been built. This allowed for a greater dispersion of his forces.

  The mercs had left a skeleton force to watch their west rampart, figuring that the swamp and bunkers on the road would stop any enemy from the west.

  As Nash’s forces headed toward the wall of the factory at a full run, the enemy on the roof was relocating their gunners to better man the west wall.

  ○O○

  Just as the mercenaries were getting into position, the rain picked up. Drops as large as quarter-liter glasses of water were falling all around them.

  Without preamble, a bolt of lightning over six meters in diameter struck an antenna near where the mercs were gathering on the west side of the roof. Simultaneously, the accompanying thunder shook the entire world with a degree of violence only experienced under an artillery barrage. The winds burst forth from the southwest, and blew several of their numbers off the roof entirely. With their fear buckets full, they made like roaches for the doors and hatches that would take them into the comparative safety of the factory’s interior.