One Minute to Midnight (42 page)

"So I’ll just fight for your daughter and
whoever else is in that temple by myself, and you keep your hands
clean, right?" George said. He was shaking his head in disgust,
until he saw a picture on the mantle above Gali’s fireplace. It was
the girl from his dream.
"That’s Gretel, my twenty year old daughter." Gali said. A tear
rolled down his cheek.

George felt a knot in his stomach, and
remembered how hard he had been crying in the dream when he
separated from the same beautiful girl, and now here she was. In
the picture she was holding a bouquet of flowers and smiling at the
photographer.
"OK, I’ll do it." George said.

"I can offer you access to a cache of weapons
we've collected over the years to take with you." Gali said.
"How many people am I supposed to be saving?"
"The mantises have taken thirty of our villagers since they
arrived. We believe they're processing us for food before moving on
to another planet. A man named Vonic who passed through here—after
escaping from their temple two weeks ago—told us that's what he
saw."

"Can I at least have a place to sleep for the
night?" George asked.

"Of course. You can rest in my daughter’s
room. Thank you for doing this." Gali said.

"Don't get too happy just yet. This may be the
shortest offensive in history."

George went into her bedroom and was instantly
lulled to sleep by the sweet smell of floral perfume. He remained
asleep uninterrupted for three days. When he woke up, George was
facing another photograph of Gretel. In this one, she was holding a
bizarre twin-headed cat and grinning like a child. He could feel
her energy through the picture, and he knew she was calling for him
to come save her from the mantises. He still had the strange sense
that they had known each other before, in another time, and another
place. George smelled food cooking outside the bedroom door and got
out of bed. Gali and several other people had gathered in the
living room to converse about the strange-looking human who had
arrived in the night.

"He’s awake! Our savior is awake!" A man
said.
He was wearing a black robe and a hat with tassels dangling down
past his ears on both sides of his head. His long beard was
peppered with grey, and George assumed he must be some sort of holy
man. Gali came in from the kitchen and smiled at George.
"You’re just in time! Dinner’s ready!" He said with cheer.
"I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week." George said.
"You’ve been sleeping for three days. We were beginning to think
you’d never rejoin us." Gali said.
"Is it true? Are you going to fight the mantises?" Asked a portly
woman sitting on the sofa.

"It seems that way." George said.

"Good for you! We would fight back but…" The
woman began.

"Yeah, I know, you’re pacifists." George
interrupted.
Dinner was a light affair, and was mainly focused on praising
George’s bravery and honor for the impending quest.

"I can take you to the weapons locker. You’ll
be able to arm yourself for the task ahead. Once we finish eating,
of course." Gali said.

George could not blame them for wanting to
have this over with as fast as possible. If what Gali’s informant
had said was true, then people from their village were being ground
into snacks for bugs, and that had to be a tough to digest. He
would do what he could, and in return, he was going to see if he
and Gretel had the spark he thought they did in his dream, and then
he would whisk her away. He felt insane, thinking that his dream
girl on another planet had fallen for him, but then, he would never
have believed that he would be sent on a beam of light to such a
planet. George ate some kind of meat that tasted like beef, and was
as gracious as possible to his hosts. He could not help but feel
like this might be his last meal. After dinner, Gali led George to
a hidden door in the kitchen with stairs leading downward, and they
descended into the basement.
At the bottom of the stairs was a large black metal door with a
green glowing numeric pad beside it. Gali entered a pattern of
digits and the door slid aside, and as it, did lights inside the
room within clicked on. George could hardly contain his excitement
when he saw what Gali had been storing under his house. It was a
bunker filled with weapons and armored vehicles that reminded
George of a Hollywood movie set.
"Our own violence almost destroyed us long ago, and so to prevent
our society from total ruin, we put down our weapons and became
pacifists. You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to come down
here and grab a gun to kill those bugs, but if I do, the others
will join and after this threat is over we’ll be back to killing
each other before long. It’s a slippery slope." Gali said. "Thank
you for doing this."
"I'd like to say ‘you're welcome,’ but right now, I’m more
concerned with getting out with your daughter alive, without being
killed. If I can, I'll rescue the others while I'm in there."
George found a wall of body armor that was tough, light, and
covered most of his body when he tried it on. The helmet he put on
had a black visor, but when he looked through it he could see the
bunker with total clarity.

"That will resist armor piercing bullets, and
over here we have some great firepower." Gali said. He led George
to a wall of rifles and pistols where he selected an AR-15-style
plasma rifle with a grenade launcher attachment. George slung two
bandoliers of neutron grenades over his shoulders, forming an X
across his body. He also picked up a plasma pistol fashioned to
resemble a model 1911 forty-five caliber sidearm.
"You don’t want to be anywhere near those grenades when they go
off. Each one is more powerful than a case of standard grenades,
they’ll blow a hole through almost anything."

By the time George was done selecting weapons,
his arsenal would have caused Rambo to turn up an eyebrow. Gali
took him to another section of the bunker where the vehicles were
stored.

"Pick a war wagon." Gali said.

George suspected that Gali was resisting the
urge to pick up a gun; he could see it in the other man’s eyes.
Like a smoker who walks away from his addiction but perpetually
longs for another coffin nail. George walked through rows of heavy
armored vehicles, some of them decked out with large cannons.
George stopped at a four person armored personnel carrier with twin
plasma cannons on the roof and grenade launchers on the left and
right sides of the vehicle.

"I’m ready to go. You sure you’re going to let
me do this alone? I probably have enough firepower to nuke this
planet, but one man against an army is asking for a very short
battle. Also, it would be nice to have company." George
said.

"I’m sorry, George. All I can give you is our
blessings and weapons to accomplish the mission." Gali looked
ashamed.

"OK, I’m off then!” George said. "See you on
the other side." George extended his hand and Gali shook it. A
bald, muscular man, wearing a priest’s robe and a jewel-studded
headband appeared from the shadows as George was entering the
vehicle.
"This is Dama, he is the guide that will show you the way to the
temple in his vehicle." Gali said. Dama nodded, but said nothing to
either man and got into his own war wagon.

"May the creator watch over you." Gali pressed
a button on the wall and a large set of doors opened.
"I must be out of my mind." George grimaced and fired up his
engine. He followed Dama out into the village and beyond it for a
few miles until they saw the fortress rising out of the tall trees.
Dama turned back and waved, leaving George to his own
devices.
"Cowards." He said as Dama drove past him in the opposite
direction. "That thing is enormous!" George said to himself. The
temple rose high into the sky, giving George the impression he was
approaching an Indonesian ziggurat. There were mantises everywhere
as he approached, and he was so exposed that there was no way to
conceal his war wagon. "I thought they came out at night. Dammit
Gali!"
A division of troops was marching toward him as George threw
caution to the wind and fired two plasma rounds from his
roof-mounted cannon into their ranks. Green arms, legs, and torsos
exploded through the air like a ticker tape parade as George
slammed into them with full force. Cannons blazing he sent a
hundred of them to their deaths, scattering their in all
directions, until the other soldiers got their bearings and
regrouped. He raced for the temple, which resembled a tiered
pyramid of the kind built in South America in ancient times. The
mantises began their counter attack, and George saw that they had
some dangerous toys of their own. Cannon fire rained down on George
as he narrowly missed one blast after another of some hot, sticky
corrosive green liquid that melted everything it touched. George
fired, and they returned it in force, and soon he was surrounded.
The green liquid hit one of his wheels, knocking out the left front
of his war wagon.
George spun out, coming to a stop as he faced the temple. He fired
toward the massive fortress and the sky filled with their warriors.
George checked his weapon cache, preparing to exit the vehicle and
make a run for the temple in an all-out move of desperation to save
Gretel, when he heard a transmission over the radio.
"George! George! Press the green button on your
console if you can hear this! It's a beacon."
Gali
screamed over the comm. It took a moment, but George found the
button His mind was racing and he was fairly certain that death was
close at hand.

"I can hear you! The mantises are swarming me.
This was a bad plan after all." George said.
"We’re on our way! Do not get out of your vehicle
until we get there, and keep firing at those bastards."
Gali said. George was relieved to hear that he was getting
help. He had written them all off as cowards, but maybe he had
awakened a sleeping lion.

Moments later, airships zipped through the
air, firing into the mantis swarm while hundreds of human infantry
troops engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the mantis
infestation.

"What about your karmic future?" George
asked.
"
Some things are
more important than worrying about my past mistakes. I'll try to do
better in my next life, my friend. I'll not go out of this one a
coward who refused to save his people and allowed his daughter to
be eaten by bugs." Gali said.

"Where is Gretel?!" George shouted over the
microphone.
"She’s inside the temple, near the base. Reports are saying the
mantises are keeping them in a dungeon until processing time." Gali
said.

George opened the door to his war wagon, and
since the battle was raging, he was able to run through the fray
and to the temple steps. He shot three mantises with his rifle as
they skittered toward him while he ran up the stairs. The day was
alive with gunfire, explosions and screams on both sides from the
dead and dying. The mantises were taking a heavy toll and their
numbers were decreasing as the furious humans went continued their
rampage. George was almost to the top, when he was knocked from his
feet by a large green arm. When he looked up he was lying beneath
the torso of an eight-foot tall mantis, and the monster bug was
about to impale him his sharp claw. George pulled his pistol and
fired a round into the mantis’s torso. It dropped on top of him
with a
thud
, and it took all
of his strength to roll it off of him. He clambered to his feet and
ran the rest of the way to the opening at the temple peak. Several
mantises followed him up, and as George reached the door, he tossed
two hand grenades behind him before ducking inside the opening. He
ran down a set of stairs as the deafening explosion not only
evaporated a swarm of mantises, but also caved in the entrance,
leaving him no escape.

"Looks like I’m all in, now. Good going,
George. Real good idea…I’ll just throw some grenades and hope for
the best." He shook his head in disgust and kept moving.

The majority of the mantises were outside
defending their temple, and as a result, he met no resistance as he
navigated the complex tunnel system. After a while, George found a
grated door with a keypad lock beside it and shot the handle with
his rifle. The handle exploded, allowing the door to swing open.
When he peered around the corner he saw a set of stairs leading
down into the darkness and the acrid, foul odor of rotting flesh
followed. He knew the dungeons had to be down there.

"Here I come!" George raced down the steps
into low light, and when he got to the bottom he was confronted
with an endless grid of cell-lined hallways. "Which cell is hers?"
He thought.

As he searched from cell to cell, he heard the
moans and groans of those imprisoned, and began to release them one
by one as he went. "Gretel!" He yelled.
It seemed hopeless, and he began to feel that he might have been
too late as he released one human after another could not find her.
Then he heard a female voice answer his call. George ran toward it.
"Gretel!" He yelled.

Her cell was at the end of a corridor, and
when he looked inside he could tell it was her. She had been
beaten, and her clothes were filthy, but it was Gretel.
"I’m George, I’m here to save you!" George said.
"Please, get me out of here. They were going to process me next.
The cell next to me was yesterday and they go in order."

"You won’t be here. Let’s go!" George
said.
As they were exiting the cell a mantis guard ran toward them with a
laser rifle slung over his shoulder. It fired a single round,
nicking George in the shoulder. George pushed Gretel into an empty
cell and slid along the slime-covered floor while squeezing the
trigger of his own riffle repeatedly. The mantis was blown
apart.