Dark Victory - eARC (31 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I give my Dad an awkward hug, try to say something but I can’t because I’m crying and my throat is so thick it threatens to gag me. He says, “M’boy, it’s been a long, long time, but let’s get out of this killing zone.”

My throat clears. “Hold on, Dad, just for a sec, hold on.”

A humming noise and from another section of the woods, a Humvee bounces out, driven by Serena. I’ll be damned, she found another way to get to this battlefield. She maneuvers the Humvee up to us, and gets out, and Serena is with her dad, all over him. Smart girl, she’s also taken a first aid kit and canteen from the Humvee and starts working on her father. Thor leans his head out of an open window, barks with happiness, and then his barks get sharper, being so close to Creeper sign. I yell, “Thor, settle!” My Dad takes the canteen and takes a deep swallow. Buddy, however, is still standing there, a self-satisfied smile on his face. Serena’s dad leans against my dad, and Serena starts tugging away Doctor Coulson’s burnt BDU blouse, tugging open the first aid kit.

“Randy . . .”

I interrupt him, “Dad, what the hell just happened here? Buddy . . . what the hell did he just do?”

Doctor Coulson gasps as Serena’s fingers work on him. “He . . . he talked to that Creeper . . . I think he told him to turn around . . .”

“Dad?”

“Randy, we need to go.”

I’ve always listened to my Dad, have always followed his advice and counsel, but now, on this torn-up battlefield and the trenches behind me, with skeletal remains, uniform scraps and broken weapons, and the dead Creeper in front of us, it’s all changed.

“No,” I said. “Not until I know what’s going on. You and Doctor Coulson and Buddy . . . you’ve been communicating with the Creepers.”

“We have,” he says, taking another long swallow. “After years and years, we’ve made progress . . . and once we got a fragile line of communication established, I bet you can guess the first question, right?”

Sure. Topic A at every bull session every service member has taken part in during the past decade. “Why are they here?”

Another moan from Doctor Coulson, but Serena doesn’t let up. Dad says, “Randy . . . why do wars break out?”

I give him the textbook answer. “Population expansion. Shortage of resources. Perceived security threat.”

“True enough,” he says, rubbing at his blackened face again. “But would a star-faring civilization really resort to war to address excess population? Or a shortage of resources? And we pitiful people here, who can’t even travel in our own solar system, we’d be considered a threat? Really?”

No answer on my part, for this topic has been discussed at every military gathering for the past decade. Dad says, “So what other explanation for a war that doesn’t make sense? What have we seen in our own history, Randy?”

The answer comes right to me, as silly as it sounds, and an answer that’s always been hooted down during bull sessions. The Crusades. The Thirty Years War in Europe. The Jihads. “Religion?”

“A very odd answer,” he says. “But millions of people have died on this planet because of disputes over which god to worship. And remember the missionaries who went into colonial Africa and South America, spreading the Word. And when they were imprisoned or killed, their sponsoring empires took that as a
causi belli
, and did what they did.”

“The Creepers . . . they’re here, fighting to convert us?” Even though the words come out of my mouth, I still can’t believe them. Even Serena looks up from her medical work. Doctor Coulson is still standing although his head is slumped, and his son Buddy continues to ignore us all.

“Yes . . . that’s the whole point of why they’re here,” Doctor Coulson says, head still bowed. “Kill and kill and kill until we accept their belief system. Until we learn to talk to them and convert. And Buddy . . .”

No wonder he can speak the lingo. He’s learned it. He’s adapted to it.

“He’s . . . a convert?”

Doctor Coulson slowly raises his head. “My son . . . yes, he’s the first. That’s why they’ve been here, all these years. To beat upon us, kill us, until we convert to their . . . belief system. Or religion. Or whatever you want to call it.”

I stare at the closed dome, at the killed Creeper exoskeleton. A waft of cinnamon comes over me. Standing here out in the open is an insane thing, but I’ve seen a lot of insanity in the past ten years.

“Buddy’s the first then, right? And the Creepers know it? And converting us . . . that’s their ‘mission accomplished,’ right? Killing is their evangelizing?”

My dad stays quiet. Doctor Coulson says, “That’s . . . that’s a good analysis, Randy.”

“And as far as you know, Buddy’s the only one in the world?”

Serena still works on her dad. My Dad just looks at me. Doctor Coulson says, “The only one.”

I take my Beretta out, push it against the base of Buddy’s skull, and with my hand firmly grasping his collar, the M-10 and M-4 bouncing on my back, I frog-march him away.

Towards the Creepers’ dome.

As I remember that long-ago choir practice with my squad.

What would you do to end the war?

There’s shouts, yells, movement behind me and I say, “You stay behind or I swear to God, I’ll blow off his head, right here! Understand? Leave me be!”

Buddy doesn’t put up any resistance, and strange, I know, I don’t hear much but what I do hear is Thor barking at me, back at the Humvee. For God’s sake, I hope my pal stays behind, because things are going to get goddamn interesting, pretty quick.

The ground is scorched and crusty earth, and I swerve around the collapsed exoskeleton, and the closer I get to the dome, the more my legs start shaking. Not many men or women have gotten this close to a Creeper dome and have lived to talk about it, and I sure as hell didn’t think upon getting up this morning that I’d be joining that elite group.

At some point the sight of the dome freezes me, filling up most of my view in front of me, and I turn. Dad is there, and so is Doctor Coulson, leaning on Serena, and I don’t think about the expressions on their faces.

“Doctor Coulson!” I yell, still digging my pistol into Buddy’s neck. “I want you to tell Buddy to talk Creeper talk, and you better translate, word for word, what I’m going to say, or you’re going to lose your son, and all of us are going to become charcoal in the next sixty seconds. Got it?”

He slowly nods, and I go on. “Doctor Coulson, tell Buddy to tell the Creepers to open up their goddamn dome.”

Serena and Dad both shout “No!” at about the same time, but Doctor Coulson says, “Buddy! Authorization Pappa Bravo Pappa! Tell them . . . tell them to open the Dome.”

Buddy is practically hanging off my hand, but he raises his own hands up and shouts again in that clicking, sputtering, whirring noise, and by Jesus and all the souls of the departed, a line appears in the dome, and it starts to widen. There are gasps behind me but I press on, although as the gap in the dome gets wider, I’m so goddamn scared I think I’m going to piss my pants.

I jerk Buddy closer, and as I yell out my words, Doctor Coulson repeats what I say, and Buddy talks in the Creeper language as well. It’s like a game of telephone and I hope we’re getting the damn thing right.

“I know why you’re here . . .” I yell. “A holy mission for you . . . I understand . . . and now, here’s your first convert, your first prophet to us . . . but here it ends . . .”

I pause, my hands shaking. “We have fought you . . . and fought you . . . and fought you . . . for ten of our years . . . your orbital station is destroyed . . . we have shown you . . . that we will never surrender . . .”

I jerk Buddy forward and Serena screams. “So here is your prophet . . . your convert . . . but if you do not surrender, if you do not stop fighting, if you will not submit to us . . . I will kill him . . . right here and now . . .”

From the corner of my eye, I see Doctor Coulson is trying to get to me, supported by Serena, but my Dad is in front of the two of them, blocking them both.

“I know you follow us . . . you know who I am . . . I am the fighter who killed one of your own . . . with just a blade . . . who climbed up on your warrior and struck it dead . . . and I have no fear of killing your prophet, your chosen one . . .”

My heart is one solid roaring thumping, and I yell out again, “Your warriors, they are to come out now . . . do you understand me? Now! They are to come out and surrender to us . . . or I will kill your prophet, the one you have fought so long to create . . .”

My eyes are filmy and I don’t know what the hell is going to happen, but I flash back to that photo of mom and my sister, burning and fading way, and by Christ, if I can end it here and now, that’s what I’m going to do.

“Now!” I yell.

Pause. Wait.

“Now!”

Movement.

Oh-so-familiar
click-click
sound.

God, what am I doing?

A Battle creeper comes out, followed by another one. I think I just might pass out. Another Battle creeper emerges, until eight are lined up, right in a skirmish line, not more than ten meters away. I’ve never seen so many Creepers bunched up like that, right out in the open.

The stench of cinnamon nearly knocks me to my knees.

I kick at Buddy’s legs, push him to the ground. Another scream from Serena, followed by shouts from my Dad and Doctor Coulson as I unlimber my Colt M-10, set a round for ten meters, load up my M-10 and bring it up to my shoulder.

BLAM!

And I kill the Creeper on the far left.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“Doctor Coulson!” I yell out. “Remember, word for word!”

And I go on, though I feel like I’m going to pass out, but Buddy’s collar is firm in my sweaty grasp.

“You moved too slow!” I yell to the dome, bringing up Buddy and pointing my pistol at his head. “I mean what I say . . . I want your surrender . . . the surrender of all Creeper forces . . . or your prophet dies . . . and you’ll never convert any of us! You’ll be a failure . . . and you Creepers . . . in this dome . . . will be blamed by your fellow fighters . . .”

More stuttering sounds from Buddy, and I wait, and I wait. My legs are about to give way. The Creeper on the left has finished its shuddering and is on the ground, dead.

The other seven are very much alive.

The smell of the cinnamon is still overpowering and almost gags me. I can make out the clicks and whirs from inside the seven exoskeletons. Inside each of those deadly shapes is a live, flesh-and-whatever Creeper, looking out at me, a teenage boy, each of them with the ability to smoke me down in less than a heartbeat.

God knows what their alien minds are thinking.

I jerk Buddy’s collar again.

“Surrender!” I yell. “Now!”

The Creeper on the right starts to lift up its arms and I close my eyes. I’ve seen so much in the past ten years that I have no guts or desire to see what’s going to happen next. I just hope it’s goddamn quick, that my Dad survives, and that poor old Thor will be able to escape as well.

Click-click.

Click-click.

From behind me, Dad says, voice shaking, “God preserve us.”

I open my eyes.

It’s something I’ve never seen before. All seven surviving Creepers are stretched out on the ground, flattened, their weaponized arms folded behind them, in a form of submission.

Of surrender.

I let go of Buddy and he stands there. Still a quiet puzzle, still an enigma. “Boy,” I say to him, “what the hell did they do to you?”

He turns his head to me, silent yet there’s a look there, beyond the faint smile, in his haunted eyes.

A look of . . . triumph? Of power? Of revenge?

I reach out, take his hand. He doesn’t protest. I need to see something else. I bring Buddy closer to the line of the outstretched Creepers. Serena is still screaming at me.

We get closer. The sound of the machinery inside the exoskeletons is louder. Behind them is the opening to the dome. I see flickering lights and dark shapes moving within there. What’s back there? What’s hidden away?

A job for somebody else. I’m so scared now it’s a fight to put one foot in front of me.

We get closer still.

A whining noise gets louder.

The Creepers are on the move.

Away from Buddy.

Away from their new prophet, away from their convert, they slide back, still with arms down, still in submission.

I stop, manage to catch my breath. Buddy stops with me. I kiss the top of his sooty and sweaty head, not able to say anything after all the years of burning and fighting and drowning and dying, dying, dying. I take his hand and gently usher him back to the Humvee and Serena, Doctor Coulson and my Dad, and Serena runs up to me and clobbers me to the ground, swearing at me at every moment.

Dad helps me up, and I rub at my cheek and jaw, and I taste blood in my mouth. Scorched dirt is smeared on my hands. I look back. The Creepers haven’t moved. Serena and her dad are clustered around Buddy, hugging him, stroking his hair, kissing his cheeks. I still can’t believe what I’ve just done—or seemed to have done with this young boy—and I say to my Dad, “Why were you both charged with treason? Because of Buddy?”

He manages a smile. “Not because of Buddy. We’ve kept that secret . . . until now. No, we were charged with treason for unauthorized diplomatic discussions with the enemy. We were barely talking with the Creepers and we were supposed to let the Secretary of State—who needs a staff to find his shoes in the morning—take over the negotiations. Wasn’t going to happen.”

I rub at my moist eyes. “The President’s people didn’t want negotiations,” I say. “They wanted the orbital station destroyed, so the President can declare victory before the next election. And you and Doctor Coulson and Buddy . . . had to be put away, or killed, so the truth about the negotiations would never come out, along with Buddy’s . . . conversion.”

My father says, “How many does it take to make war, and how many to make a peace?”

“One to make war,” I say automatically. “Two to make a peace.”

“True,” he says. “The President declared the war had been won, and that peace was at hand. The Creepers obviously disagreed . . . until now.”

I look back again at the open dome, at the flattened and unmoving Creepers. It’s like a scene from some fantasy movie, if fantasy movies were ever going to be made again. “What now?

“Now?” my Dad asks, and then laughs, hugs me. “You tell me. You’ve just ended the Creeper war. You and Buddy! What do you think, Randy?”

What to think. What a question. Ten years of fighting and dying and burning and starving, to end here, in a field somewhere in rural New York? Where are the triumphant generals? The speeches? The signing ceremony? The bands? The celebrations?

“I don’t know,” I say, realizing just how filthy I am and how much I stink. “I’ve never trained for anything like this.”

Dad laughs, hugs me again, and then we all slowly walk back to the Humvee, Serena looking at me now with some sort of forgiveness in her eyes, and now I think, do we have to do this again, one dome after another? Should we leave? Should we stay and alert any QRF’s in the area about what’s just happened?

What to do. What to do.

At the Humvee Thor has his head hanging out the rear window. I undo the door let him out, and he leaps on me and drops me to the ground. My boy is on top of me, barking and licking my face, and I hug him and plant my face in his fur, and I whisper, over and over again, “We’ve won, pal . . . we’ve won . . . we’ve won.”

More happy barks, and then something else comes to me.

“No more fighting,” I say, gently weeping with my dog in my arms. “You’re gonna live forever, boy. Forever.”