Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree) (40 page)

"Welcome to the Demon's world," Mercury said. "The First Expeditionary Scouts send fraternal greetings to our Legion brothers and sisters. We will stand by your side forever. And we don't plan on leaving Galinta until the last one of these foul creatures is hunted down and killed."

"Well, thank you. I can assure you that the Legion stands by its friends. If you need anything, just ask. Do you manufacture those A-suits?"

"Yes, it's based on the Legion design – with some improvements. We dumped the old Systie A-suits several years ago. And we love the E." She hugged the weapon like a baby.

"Prophet, did you hear what the D's did to those captives?" It was Scout, standing right beside me, his visor open. He appeared to be in shock.

"Yes I did, Scout. This is Mercury – of the First Expeditionary Scouts. Mercury, this is Scout – my super."

"Pleased to meet you, Mercury. Good work on killing all these D's."

"Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure. They killed one of our troopers. We have vowed to kill a thousand of them to avenge her."

"I'm sorry to hear about your comrade," Scout said. "I plan to kill thousands of these vermin as well. Prophet, I don't want any prisoners. No matter what they say. Just exterminate these cockroaches."

"I decided that a long time ago, Scout. Is there any word on Ice or Saka?"

"No. No word. As soon as we learn anything we'll let you all know."

The cavern shuddered. A grinding boom echoed off the walls.

"General alert. Eden, the starport and environs are under air attack by hostile forces. Seek cover immediately. Fleetcom vac and air units are responding."

We hustled up the tunnel to the main entrance where we joined a big group of Legion troopers, Assidic rangers, biogen scouts,
Andrion Deep
medics and all the rescued girls to wait out the attack. The rubble of Eden was once again being struck, this time by Demon saucers. The bright flash of antimats shook the earth. Swirling clouds of black smoke shot upwards in flame-laced mushroom clouds. From time to time, I caught glimpses of D saucers and Fleetcom drones, ricocheting around the skies as if out of control.

"I thought we had air superiority," Arie said. He was right beside me.

"I heard there's more Demons operating south of Eden, and they have saucer support. I guess this confirms it."

"Well, if they're raiding us, we don't have air superiority, right?"

"Let's wait a bit and see."

"Any word from Saka or Ice?"

"No, afraid not."

Smiley joined us, grounding his manlink and looking around as if enjoying the nice new day. His manlink had a name lasered into the stock:
Hot Dolly
.

"Hot Dolly?" I asked.

"That's my girl," Smiley said, happily. "She hasn't failed me yet. She's got a bad temper, I'll admit, but she's flawless."

"We appreciate her, Smiley," I said. "That's a ten."

Blackie was standing by Doggie, looking out at the chaos, panting happily as if in his natural element. What a beautiful animal.

Bees bumped up against me. She looked pretty serious. She took a deep breath and spoke. "Prophet, will you pray with me for Ice and Saka?"

"Yes. Sure."

She took my hands and joined them to hers and pulled me to her, face to face, eye to eye. She took another deep breath and started whispering, as if it were a secret. "Saint Michael the Archangel, we humbly pray for the souls of Ice and Saka, soldiers of the Lord who are grievously wounded in battle by the will of God his will be done, we beseech thee, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God to hold Ice and Saka in your invincible arms and lay on your healing hands and cure them of their terrible wounds and restore unto them their souls and their bodies and return them to us that they may continue fighting the powers of evil that poison the world of Galinta where Satan reigns. May God's will be done. Amen." By then her eyes were flooded and a few tears trickled down her cheeks but her face was stony cold. I had never seen such a powerful combination of faith and love and resolve.

"Do you think God will cure them?" she asked, looking directly into my eyes.

"Yes, Bees. Yes, He will."

"Thank you, Prophet. Thank you. I don't know what I would do without you."

Δ

We were off almost immediately once the skies had been cleared of Satan's minions. Eden was burning with the wreckage of uncountable Demon saucers, Fleetcom and Assidic fighters and Fleetcom drones. I couldn't tell who had won the air battle but there sure were a lot of shot-down spacecraft and aircraft. In the wake of the battle, the sky filled with Legion Phantoms and Assidic and Biogen armored aircars as our fighters and drones circled overhead. Long lines of A-suited soldiers ran towards the Phantoms and boarded. We were delighted to see Bird in the cockpit of the
Ruthie
, grinning at us.

"Welcome aboard!" he shouted. "We're going to chase these bastards right to their nests and fumigate them!"

That was the plan. We lurched up and away and it looked like we had unlimited fighters and drones at our service. I had heard that the 22
^nd
Legion, the Rimguard, and the 10
^th
Legion, the Black March, had joined us, strong new reinforcements to ensure we could stamp out this ugly intrusion into humanity's little sector of the galaxy. All right, I thought. All right!

"What's the story with those saucers, Bird?" Doggie asked. "Can we counter them?"

"They're damned good," Bird said. "But we're damned good, too. Our drones are lightning fast, and our fighter and Phantom pilots are the best in the galaxy. Their shielding is annoying to us, but I'll bet our cloaking is annoying to them! Ruthie, show our friends our score." A d-screen just above the armored plex flashed on to display a stylized rendering of five flaming saucers spiraling downwards.

"Damn! You got five of the bastards yourself?"

"So far. Ruthie and I. It ain't over yet."

"Congratulations, Bird!" Scout said. "Keep it up! And be careful."

"I'm doin' what I love. You put that on my gravestone, Scout."

A little shot of adrenalin hit me. No! Don't even think it!

Bird inserted us into the advance. The Phantom was invisible and we were invisible, thousands of invisible soldiers, Legion and Assidics, chasing down the D's who were in a disorganized retreat to the southeast, covered by saucers overhead. Our air power went after their air cover, and we went after the D's on foot.

"Squad advance – on me, recon formation. Go, Blackie!" We were practically running through beautiful countryside with forest and swamps and wild open fields of tall grass and a sparkling river running through it all. I knew we were going to transform it into a charred, howling wilderness littered with rotting corpses.

Blackie ran ahead of us. He wasn't invisible but Doggie figured the D's would pay him no mind once we started shooting at them. And there they were, the bastards, practically on the horizon, running from us.

"Fire at will! Get 'em!" We all opened up. Dart dart dart, xmax xmax xmax – I knew the drill by then. They started to drop. Would we really be able to defeat them? It seemed like they had a whole lot of both troops and saucers. Even if we stopped them here, would it change their minds about seeking refuge from the Brights in our universe? And what happened to the Brights anyway? They had intervened briefly, just at the right time, and then disappeared. Where were they?

The horizon erupted in flame, smoking yellow tracers shooting up into the sky. Tacstars and antimats, shredding the D's. Our air power was doing its job. Blackie was barking up a storm, charging around us as if urging us on. But there was no need to urge us on. We were strongly motivated. A thousand dead D's for Ice, and another thousand for Saka – yes. The Biogens had the right idea.

Δ

"Delta, One. We are to hold this line, right here, for now," Doggie said. "We've got Comet to our left and Alpha to our right. The A's and the Biogens are probing ahead of us." It was just past 2300 hours and the night sky was covered with smoky black clouds. We were exhausted, seeking shelter in a shallow rocky gully. We had been marching and fighting all day, and we were ready to crash. "Find cover, get some rations and catch some z's. Alternate sleep sked each fire team, let me know who's awake and who's sleeping. We may be moving at any time, so be ready for that."

Squad Delta was now down to six soldiers. Bees and I were on the left, Doggy and Smiley in center, and Scout and Nitro on the right. Bees and I had good positions behind a scattering of boulders. She was right next to me. We'd have to disperse a bit, later. I looked out into the night. The horizon was burning. It started to rain, a miserable drizzle. Honey had the night vision on, and all her other senses. I could see the movement of little field rats, running through the tall grass. The D's were not going to be slipping up on us un-noticed.

"I'll take first watch," I said.

"No, I'll take it, Prophet," Bees said.

"I'll take first watch," I repeated. "That's an order."

"Don't be silly," she said. "Anyway let's finish our rats first."

"Fine with me," I said, popping open a citro beef stew.

"Oh! Can I have that? I'll trade you a drunken duck."

"Bees, you can have anything you want from me. And we don’t have to trade." I handed over the citro beef stew – it was bubbly hot and smelled delicious. The drunken duck was roast lemon duck, a highly desirable trade item. She forced it on me.

"Thanks, Prophet. What do you think happened to the Brights?"

"I don't know, Bees. But their intervention sure turned the tide of that battle."

"They're angels, you know."

"Angels, huh?"

"That's right. They're from Heaven. Both Ice and Saka were dead. Ice had a shattered skull and Saka's head was almost severed from his body. And that Bright healed them both. He brought them back to life, and he healed their wounds – by touching them! Their wounds were still critical, very bad, life-threatening, when he left them. But he restored life to their bodies, and sealed Ice's shattered skull, and restored Saka's head and neck and spine to his body – that's what it looked like to me, when we evaced them. It was miraculous. It was two miracles."

I was enjoying the drunken duck. Eating in an A-suit is done by sliding the visor up. But I left it far enough down so I could continue scanning our surroundings. "Any word from triage?" I asked.

"Not yet. The triage folks are too busy to send out messages. Pray for them, Prophet."

"I will. I do."

"You don't believe they are angels, do you?"

"I don't know, Bees."

"Did you see the sign he made over Ice and Saka when he was through healing them?"

"I couldn't make out what it was."

"It was the sign of the cross, Prophet. The sign of the cross." She drew it in the air, before my face. "They're angels."

"Tell me, Bees. How did you become so religious?"

"I had a difficult life. My mom told me about God. She made sure I went to church. It was a comfort. A wonderful comfort. It's all I had – my mom and the church."

"What about your dad?" The rain continued, cold and miserable.

She glared at her beef stew. "I have no dad."

"Well – what happened to him? I mean, everyone has a father."

"Do you really want to know?"

"Bees, I really like you and admire you. Yes, I'd like to know, but only if you want to tell." That brought a sad smile to her lips.

"You know, most Cyrillian families don't have fathers. The family consists of a mother and her kids. Cyrillian males think pregnancy is an amusing consequence of copulation. But it doesn't concern them in the slightest. I remember I told you once about Cyrillian family values – no family, no values."

"Yes, I remember."

"And I told you my family was different."

"Yes."

"Well it was. But like most Cyrillian families it consisted of a mother and a child. No father."

"I see."

"But we were very different. For one thing, my mother was an ethnic Outworlder. So she raised me with Outworlder values. And with God. We rejected the Cyrillian world entirely – and they rejected us."

"What about your father?"

"My mother lied about him. She wanted me to have good thoughts about him. She said he was a good man but he was a doctor and he was busy on other worlds healing the sick. I used to have fantasies about his finally returning home, and a joyous reunion. After awhile, I stopped believing that. She didn't even have a pix of him. I decided she did not even know who he was. So in that sense we were a typical Cyrillian family. Father unknown."

"How can that be – in this modern world?"

"He's nobody. He doesn’t even know I exist. He probably doesn't even know my mom's name either. She was probably just a random victim. When ConFree decided to crack down on crime on Mica 3, they arrested maybe half the Cyrillian male population and executed everyone involved in violent crime. I remember praying they would execute my father, whoever he was. I cursed him for bringing me into the world."