Reckoning ~ Indian Hill 2 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (48 page)

The sweat on her forehead instantly turned to ice. Beth moved as quickly and silently as she could to stand back up and refasten her pants. ‘Oh my God, my gun!’ Beth panicked. She was defenseless. At least she was until she looked at the floor of her stall and realized she had brought the treasure with her.

In her agony, she had neither the will nor the strength to unclench her hands, and one of those hands had been holding onto the pistol. She counted her lucky stars as she picked up the pistol and stood upon the seat of the toilet, lest someone look under the partitions and see her shoes.

“Boady!” The mystery voice yelled. “Come on, Boady! The rest of the guys are leaving, man. Let’s go!” The man got closer, opening every door he passed to search for his friend. The man pushed open the door to the bathroom. “Boady! You in here?” No response. “Oh my gawd!” the man said from an obviously pinched nose. “Boady? Did you kill a skunk in here?” Beth blushed in embarrassment. “Can’t….get…my…breath,” the man stuttered, obviously thinking he was making fun of his friend. What Beth wasn’t prepared for was what the man did next. He approached her stall, the man’s face turned instantly ashen as he pushed the door open. Beth sat on her haunches with the pistol aimed squarely at his head, while his weapon had been placed on his back for comfort. He had not seen the reason to keep it at the ready, at least, not until that very moment. As the initial shock wore off, the man attempted to pull the rifle to the front. Beth fired, more out of instinct than knowledge.

The noise was deafening in the small enclosure. Her hearing was toast and the only sound she heard were the bells that clanged in her head. Smoke filled the small cubicle. The recoil of the weapon pushed her down and thudded her back onto the seat of the toilet. The bullet had not pushed the stranger away.

She feared that she had completely missed. With the disorientation that she felt, she didn’t think she would be able to get another shot off. And then she looked up to realize that the top half of his skull had given way to a gray and red, fleshy matter, which held no obvious shape she could recognize. The man seemed to slide down more than collapse, the outcome was the same though. She stared at his head as it pulsated out its remaining contents.

The wheels spun in her head. She could not stand to look at him but neither could she tear her eyes away from the macabre event. His head took on the appearance of a soft boiled egg in a teacup. Shards of bone protruded all around his crown. His thoughts or, at least, his thought container was spread open for all to see.

“Hammie?” she heard faintly. “Hamster! Where are you? Stop screwing around!” That was a little louder and sufficient to begin the sweeping process in the dusty regions of her brain.

“Oh shit,” She intoned. Her reasoning took over. If she had been temporarily deafened by the shot, than the “faint” voice was a lot closer than she wished. Beth sprang over the folded body and nearly lost her balance as she slipped on the wet tiles. Tiles slickened by the material that once made the man she shot whole.

She looked down long enough to make her footing sure, the sight was a nightmare to be revisited on another occasion. Beth opened the door and took a precursory glance out to see how close the man was. Thankfully, he had not rounded the corner, at least, not yet.

She debated with the thought of going back and hiding in her cell, but she vowed to herself to never go back there. Anyway, she didn’t think that she would be able to handle the sight of the bloated and now blue body of her sergeant. She ran down the corridor towards the exit, heedless of the fact that the blood and brain on her shoes was leaving a telltale trail for someone to follow.

***

Kuvlar, the interim supreme commander sat huddled in his chair, or throne, as he liked to think of it. Had he been wearing a crown, it would have weighed heavily right now. All was not going well in the planetary invasion. The ship, HIS ship, he reminded himself, had suffered a grievous wound, the likes of which had not been inflicted since the intergalactic war with the Stryvers.

During that time long, long ago, all the Progerian ships had been fitted with distress beacons. Whenever a ship came under attack, a signal was emitted. For fighters, the signal went to the mother ship that launched it. In the case of the much bigger and thus more valuable mother ship, the signal traveled through sub-space folds back to the Progerian home planet. The ship had transmitted for no more than three minutes before Kuvlar had the foresight to shut it off.

Three minutes was two minutes and fifty-nine seconds too long. The signal had not yet reached his home planet but it would, soon. And after that, at least one mother ship would be dispatched to see what the problem was. And then, Kuvlar feared, all hell would break loose. He was not responsible for the hu-mans’ attack on the ship, but in the eyes of his superiors, he would be blamed. That was a philosophy that killed more than one officer in the ranks. When one officer had the buck passed onto his desk, he would, more often than not, relinquish such responsibility to his immediate subordinate. Most times by a rifle blast to the underside of the jaw.

Kuvlar, however, would not go down, not that way. He was much too resourceful and ambitious, he thought to himself. True, they had lost a much larger percentage of fighters than anticipated, and also true, the hu-man civilization had not yet completely crumbled under the stress of anarchy. He was determined to have the planet under his control and being productive by the time his so-called “help” arrived.

It was only a matter of time before his Genogerian troops were ready for a ground war. He had only to wait for enough transports to send them to the planet’s surface to be effective as a fighting unit.
Those hu-mans will run for their lives when they see my army marching towards them
, the ISC mused. He knew that hu-manity was tough, but with no military left, his troops would have nothing more than mop-up duty to complete.

Kuvlar would be held more accountable for the loss of fighters and their pilots than for the Genogerian troops and with this fact, he made a decision that could ultimately determine the fate of this third stone from the small sun. He was sending in his troops without air support. That was usually the case, since by the time ground troops went in, there was little or no resistance left in the locals. So this reasoning gave him a foothold, should there be a hearing on his actions.

He would not, however, risk anymore of his ships. He had more than enough Genogerians, somewhere in the neighborhood of ten million. It was tough to tell; the brutes were always fighting and breeding so getting an accurate count was difficult at best and he felt he really only needed a third that many to do the job.

The most ever sent onto a planet at one time was half a million, and that had proved an enormous strain on their supply line. The food and supplies required for that undertaking had also been a strain on his pilots. “No, two hundred and fifty thousand will be plenty. I will start in their greatest country and let the rest of the world watch and learn what happens should they resist our rule.” He laughed to himself or showed something as close to a laugh as his species possessed.

Yes, he would have everything under control, when the other “rescue” battle ships came. He would fix the mistakes of his predecessor, fool that he was, and become a hero on his home planet. Once this gem of a planet became a viable mining facility and colony, he would have a great city erected there called by his name.

Yes, it would be a beautiful place, and hu-mans would be in their proper place. The ones who acquiesced would be serving their masters and the ones who didn’t, they’d also be serving their masters, as the main course, he daydreamed. He would wait for the outcome of the “games” when his champion, Drababan, killed the remaining hu-man. Then, he would hit the planet while its morale was at its lowest. He slammed the great mitt of his hand into his palm and licked his front teeth. The crown didn’t weigh so much now.

Chapter 49 – Mike Journal Entry Thirteen

The Fight

It was D-Day or rather, my personal D-Day. I wasn’t nervous, which surprised me. Concerned, but almost from a distant vantage point. I thought I should be nervous but I couldn’t seem to muster it up. I guess I had come to some sort of peace with the whole thing. The inevitable conclusion was there, how it played out was still to be determined.

The guards came in, four of them. They didn’t exactly exude their feelings, but I almost got a sense of the respect that they had for me. If anything gave it away, it was their postures. All four of them were at the ready if I so much as sneezed. Chances were, I wouldn’t make it to the arena, at least, not in one piece.

Two guards walked ahead of me, regularly turning their heads to make sure that I wasn’t creeping up on them and the two in the rear were even more vigilant, if that was possible. It was kind of comical, two thousand pounds of ferocious, man-eating, planet-conquering, croc-aliens being afraid of me. I didn’t think that I’d make a good snack for just one of them.

My heart sank a bit upon entering into the arena. There was nothing, except, of course, for the thunderous crowds and the dozen or so cameras. If my eyes weren’t fooling me, it looked like they had been raided from some local Boston television studios, one of the cameras had a WBZ sticker emblazoned on it.

Beyond that, nothing. The arena floor was just that--a floor. And from the sight of it, a concrete floor. I touched it to be sure, and without a doubt, that’s what it was or at least a passable facsimile of that material. The walls were also barren. There wasn’t so much as a slingshot. How was David supposed to take down Goliath in this adventure without a slingshot?  Now my nerves began to show themselves. Great timing, I cursed. The guards took that as their cue to get out.

The announcer began my introduction. The hissing at the pronouncement of my name let me know what they thought of me. I guess I couldn’t blame them. I was the equivalent of a New York Yankee coming into Fenway Park. They hated me, and not just for being a “hu-man.” Rightfully or not, I had been blamed for the nuclear strike that crippled the ship. Then again, I had also kidnapped their supreme commander and shot some of the guards down. So, apparently they had good reason to hate me.

Well, screw them! I hated them too as I gesticulated wildly with my middle finger. The nuance might be lost on this crowd, but I’m sure the people back home liked it. It kind of reminded me of a poster that a friend of mine once had when we were kids. It showed a small mouse holding up his middle finger to an eagle that was bearing down on him. It was called “the last act of defiance,” or something along those lines.

Now that I thought about it, I really didn’t want to be the mouse. He may have gotten off a great gesture, but he still ended up as lunchmeat. A small quiver shook through my body. I hoped nobody had just walked over my grave.

***

At that moment, Paul touched the old Hobbit Tree to say a small prayer for my well being, before heading inside to watch.

***

Lost in my thoughts, I looked up when the crowd began to roar; Durgan had entered. Like most of his bouts, he had no shirt on and he looked chiseled, literally. He looked like he could have been cut from stone. He flexed and brought his arms up to egg the crowd on, and it worked. They truly loved him.

I wondered for a moment if they would cheer this loud for him when it came time to fight “their champion.” I quickly brushed that thought aside since it would mean he had won this battle. I was not quite ready to meet my maker, not just yet anyway.

The buzzer sounded and an eerie silence came over the throngs; the game was afoot. My legs felt wooden as I approached the center of the arena, for truly, there was nowhere else to go. Durgan’s approach was much more relaxed and casual than my plodding. As we drew nearer to each other, I got into a readied position. We circled each other a couple of times, sizing up the competition, I was as familiar with his style as he was with mine. I seemed to rely more on luck whereas Durgan relied on a maniacal brute strength; advantage Durgan.

Waiting for the tiger to strike seemed the prudent approach, although prudence was never my forte. I sprang, thinking that perhaps Durgan’s nonchalance would be his undoing. For all his acting, he was ready.

With lightning bolt speed, he landed a blow to my cheek that sent me sprawling; even more dangerously, it had me seeing spots. Unconsciousness was a heartbeat away. Durgan lunged after me. He was in motion right after his initial contact and he almost made it to the ground before I did. Dazed as I was, I couldn’t believe how fast the madman was. Does insanity make you faster?