Heart of Annihilation (16 page)

“Come on ma’am, you’ve got to go back to Retha!” I yelled, my hand going around her waist. With a painful wheeze, she locked her knees, refusing to move. Silent words fell from her lips.

I didn’t have the strength to force her and took a knee, motioning with my rifle for Rannen and Hoth to come. Thurmond held back the soldiers with his cover fire. I didn’t see Boderick. Marshal Rannen ran at a crouch toward me with Hoth behind him, Rannen’s head moving side to side as he watched for a target. He had a Rethan weapon wrapped around his hand and fired blue electrical bolts toward the enemy to keep them down.

Five, six, seven shots from Thurmond and silence descended again. Thurmond ejected the magazine, looked at it, and cast it aside. He wasn’t holding a Rethan weapon anymore either.

Marshal Rannen passed the first Humvee, a mere twenty yards away. Hoth paused and rose from his crouch. What was he doing? Water dripped from his ponytail. His lips became a thin line. A Rethan weapon glimmered in his hand. He aimed at Rannen’s back, blinked, and squeezed the trigger.

The bolt curled into Rannen, wrapping around his torso and throwing him forward onto his face into the mud. He didn’t move.

“No!” The scream tore from my throat.

I brought the rifle to my hip, forgetting everything else, and fired at Hoth. The trigger clicked the firing pin into place, but no bullet exploded from the end. I smashed my fist on the forward assist and fired again. Click.

Hoth gave me a cursory glance and leaned over Rannen to touch his neck. Red, bleeding rage eclipsed any fear or pain.

The commander stepped from the shadows. She made no attempt to crouch or hide. The corners of her mouth lifted in amusement. Her boots sloshed in the mud and water. Rain dripped from the brim of her hat. Lightning illuminated her face, leaving her eyes black holes of shadow. She eased a 9mm out of a drop-leg holster and tapped it against her thigh.

Deputy Hoth rose from his examination of Rannen. He turned his head and opened his mouth to say something. In one fluid motion, the commander raised the pistol to his head and squeezed the trigger.

My whole body jerked in revulsion. The crushing sound of Hoth’s collapsing body sent waves of nausea through me. My fingers numbed. The rifle dropped from my hands and splashed near my feet.

“What are you doing?” Justet yelled. His dripping white face arrived at the commander’s shoulder. He couldn’t seem to look away from Hoth’s body. “I thought you said he was working for us?”

“No loose ends.” The commander stepped over the corpse.

“We just need to get the portal, right? We don’t actually have to kill them!” Justet’s voice reached a high note.

The commander ignored him. Sergeant Sanderford and over a dozen other soldiers came out from behind the buildings. The rain, wind, and thunder beat a metronome against the weighty quiet.

I spotted a glistening white object on the ground near one of the overturned crates and dropped to my knees. This wasn’t over. I rotated the Rethan weapon, trying to remember how Rannen held it. Egg thingy in palm. Snake thingy around wrist. Thumb on trigger. With a zinging sound, energy was drawn from my body into the weapon. Easy, peasy. I aimed at the commander . . . lemon squeezy . . . my thumb squeezed the trigger.

A blue bolt zipped out, hitting Lieutenant Justet in the hip. He was thrown back with a yell and landed on his butt. His feet went up over his head, and he belly flopped into the mud. I adjusted my aim and squeezed the trigger again. It hit another soldier on his elbow and sent him spinning. Everyone else split.

The commander alone stood her ground. I squeezed the trigger again. A spark fizzled from the muzzle. I pressed the trigger several more times, and then chucked the weapon at her. It only flew a few feet before landing with a squelch of finality. The commander raised the berretta and pointed it between Officiate Lafe and me.

The last of my energy leaked quietly away. My legs weakened. I leaned against a crate. A whisper of words from behind and I finally understood what the officiate was saying.

“My men first . . . my men first . . . my men first . . .”

I thought about her simply stepping backward through the portal. Surely someone on the other side would be able to heal the shrapnel wounds with their highly advanced technology. She rubbed at the blood flowing from her abdomen as though if she brushed enough away it would clear the problem. Her eyes never left the commander.

How Officiate Lafe remained standing so long was a mystery, but whatever it was suddenly deserted her. She dropped to her knees. The commander shifted the aim of her weapon to me.

A revving motor shredded the night. Headlights bore down on me as one of the Hummers raced forward to cut me down. I only had time to cover my face with my arm.

“Rose! Get out of the way! Get out of the—”

A blur of Thurmonator sprinted past the commander just as a bullet exploded from the muzzle of her pistol.

Blood sprayed from Thurmond’s head, misting my face. His body slammed into my chest. I landed on my back. Thurmond’s body was heavy and limp on top of me. All the air went out of my lungs. Jagged shards of pain ripped through my shoulder.

With a gasp and a desperate grunt of effort, I rolled with Thurmond. The Hummer hurtled over the top of us, the front tires barely missing my face, and smashed into the tower. It jolted up on its front wheels where it balanced precariously long enough for me to throw Thurmond off my chest.

With a groan of Kevlar on metal the Hummer dropped, the back wheel landing its crushing weight onto the back of my thigh. I cried out as my leg, chest, and the side of my face pressed deep into the sludge.

I gave one weak effort to free myself and fell still. Mud seeped into my ear.

The light from the dimensional catapult portal vanished, laying a blanket of darkness on the battlefield.

The commander stood dimly in my line of sight, one hand rested on her hip, the other holding the pistol at her side. The rest of the camp was a smudge of movement behind her, unimportant worker ants scurrying to do the queen’s bidding.

The Hummer door creaked as it opened, and a pair of boots dropped down next to the vehicle. He limped toward the commander while offering me a smug glance. Sanderford’s thin, sandy hair was plastered to his head.

In a quick, rough movement, the commander grabbed his collar and dragged him toward her. His expression changed to surprise in the second before only the back of his head was visible.

“If you’ve damaged the portal, you’ll pay for it with more than your life.” She put her face right in his, snarling with such venom I felt as though my skin were crawling with spiders. “Now go get the others to help disassemble it.”

The commander shoved him. He stumbled away from her, and disappeared from my line of sight.

“Specialist Rose.” The commander approached with languid steps, like a dorsal fin gliding above bloody water. She crouched next to me. A long finger traced through the blood from the gash on my hairline and made a wide circle that ended on my chin. Then she touched the tip of my nose.

“But it isn’t really ‘Specialist Rose’ is it?” She exhaled an almost nostalgic sigh. “It’s a pity you don’t remember anything. There was a time when your brilliance was infamous throughout the entirety of Retha, with a flashy title and everything. Now you are simply irrelevant.”

She took my chin in her hand and pulled her face close to mine, looking at me with molten silver eyes.

“There was a time when I thought I’d like to be the one to finish you, Caz. Pull the trigger or wield the knife. But then I realized I’m
not
you.”

She pushed my head back into the mud. He finger hooked around the chain of my dog tags and she yanked them from my neck.

“You kept the key.” She raised it to eye level and examined the pendant. “You had no idea what you had here, and yet you kept it. Fascinating.”

She pulled something small from her pocket. Lightning flashed on a tiny, silver object not unlike a ball bearing. Holding my half-circle pendant between two fingers, she placed the silver BB next to it. With a zap it snapped together, and she released the pendant. The BB hung suspended, somehow, where the center of the half-circle should have been.

I reached for it, my arm shaking with the effort. She rose to her feet, pulling it out of my grasp, and stared down at me. Cold humor etched her face. With a scornful snort she turned away.

“Marshal Lafe.” The commander made her way past the scattered crates over to the mortally wounded Rethan leader.

The officiate hunched over her injuries. Bulging eyes glared through strings of shimmering silver hair. Her mouth opened and closed. The commander ejected an empty magazine and allowed it to splash to the ground before snapping in a new one. She pulled back the slide and released it with a metallic snap.

“You should have listened to me when I said she was unhinged. You should have done something. But to condemn me to the new council? You knew I had nothing to do with the murders. You knew!” The commander ran her hand over her face to expel the anger. When she looked up again, her expression was calm. “None of it matters any more. I fluxing well don’t know where she hid the Heart of Annihilation, and of course she doesn’t know. They never remember anything do they,
Officiate
, these RAGE inmates? I blame you for the loss of the weapon more than I do her.”

She shook her head and tapped the pistol against her leg. Without another word or expression she raised the pistol, pointing it at Officiate Lafe’s head.

“I’ve spent over twenty years trying to find another source that will lead me to the Heart of Annihilation and now, finally, I am close. So very close.” The commander looked to her left. I followed her gaze until my eyes lit on the still form of Marshal Rannen. She looked back at Officiate Lafe. Her finger tensed on the trigger.

“And,” the commander swung the pendant in front of the officiate’s face, “I have the key. I want you to die knowing you failed your mission here, and that I destroyed Retha’s last chance at finding the device.”

The commander’s face tightened, not in pleasure but cold, hard, premeditated justice. I closed my eyes the instant before the shot fired. The sound ricocheted through my mind—a heavy thump and a splashing sound. The busy voices of the soldiers in the background became perceptible only as they silenced. Rain pounded into the puddles, cheerfully fulfilling the yearly moisture quota.

The rumble of a motor cut through the rain.

“Sergeant Wichman, there you are. So good of you to finally join us.”

I forced my eyes open. A Deuce was now parked inside the circle of buildings, with the driver’s side door hanging open. Dark streaks covered Sergeant Wichman’s shoulders, and water beaded on the brim of his hat. The commander didn’t look at him while she holstered her pistol, but I got an eyeful of the shock on his face as he surveyed the scene. The expression was gone when the commander looked up.

She nodded in the direction of Marshal Rannen. “I’ll have the other men get the portal and load that one in the Deuce.” She jabbed her thumb at me. “Make sure the rest are dead.”

She shouted orders to the milling figures. The rain lessened for the first time since it started, and I was able to see the carnage in vivid detail. The headlights of the vehicles illuminated the twisted bodies of Hoth, Rannen, and Officiate Lafe. Lieutenant Justet was being helped to his feet while someone else slapped Luginbeel’s face.

I gripped Thurmond’s leg, grateful that my near-paralyzed state didn’t allow me to see the way his stomach refused to rise and fall.

Sergeant Wichman was suddenly crouching beside me. His eyes roved down my body to my trapped leg, and he placed two fingers against my throat to check my pulse. When his eyes made it back to my face I gave a slow, accusing blink. He jumped.

“Hey, little buddy,” he whispered.

I blinked a few more times. My tongue glued to the roof of my mouth.

“Where’s Thurmond? What happened to him?”

I tightened my grip on the motionless leg.

“Oh, shit.” He glanced around. “You’ve got to hang tight here for a bit. Don’t let them know you’re alive.”

“Wh—” I swallowed and tried again. “Wh-where am I g-going ta-go?”

“Sergeant Wichman. Sometime today!” The commander called. Wichman leapt to his feet. “They’re either dead or they’re not. Finish up. We need your help over here.”

“Be right there, ma’am.” He crouched next to me again, slipped something white into one of my muddy pockets, and whispered, “I’m really sorry about this.”

Wichman drew a 9mm from a shoulder holster, and for a moment I believed I’d used my last life.

Wichman aimed, and I jerked as he unloaded two rounds into the mud not far from my head.

Then he disappeared from my line of sight to answer the commander’s beckon. Rannen’s enormous body was rolled over and lifted by a team of no less than seven soldiers, who struggled to wrangle him into the back of the Deuce. Camouflaged figures moved past me, pulling the silver plates off the tower. No one noticed the simple silver coin they were churning deep into the mud. They jostled Officiate Lafe with irreverent feet as they worked off the hand-scanning panel and disconnected wires. The pieces were piled into overturned crates and loaded into the Deuce with Rannen. Every eye avoided looking at me.

Luginbeel, his head lolling, was helped into the Deuce by another private I vaguely recognized. Sergeant Sanderford gave me a hard, unreadable stare as the commander spoke softly in his ear, her back to me.

Everyone climbed into the vehicles with juvenile whooping and cheering like they had scored a victory, not murdered a bunch of guiltless alien visitors and two former comrades. I included myself in this count, since there was no doubt I would be following Thurmond shortly.

Sergeant Sanderford finally looked away, nodding to the commander as she climbed in the passenger side of the Deuce. Doors slammed and headlights flickered around. They maneuvered the vehicles between the buildings, all except the Humvee parked on my leg, and trundled off into the darkness.

The officiate’s body lay directly in my line of sight. She was twisted in an unnatural heap, her blank silver eyes staring at me. The bullet hole in her forehead oozed a trickle of blood that the rain washed down her nose.

“Daddy,” I whispered.

I was painfully aware of my isolation, my utter aloneness on this bloody hilltop surrounded by corpses. Corpses of enemies. The corpse of a friend.

Shoot me. Cut me. Crush me. Anything but be responsible for a friend’s death.

Please let me die
, I thought.

You die, I die.
The angry voice in my mind snarled. Caz. That’s what the commander called her—called me.
Dig yourself out of this you stupid, selfish little girl.

I couldn’t feel anything but sorry for Caz. She would die with me, angry and vengeful to the end.

Something shifted under my fingers followed by a groan. I gripped Thurmond’s pant leg, only to have the fabric ripped away. Movement, muttering, and swearing. A face hovered inches from mine.

“Hey, Rose.” A soft touch to my head.

The moon shifted out from behind the clouds. I couldn’t tell where the mud ended and the blood began, but there couldn’t possibly be a bullet through Thurmond’s head if he was talking to me. My lips parted to take in a shallow breath. He pressed two fingers on my neck, checking my pulse, and then vanished.

A moment of panic. Had I imagined him?

Thurmond staggered around the Hummer, bracing his hand on the side for support. I closed my eyes, maybe even took a snooze, because when I opened them he knelt next to me. He gathered my face in his hands. His thumbs wiped the blood and grime from my cheeks.

“Come on, sweetheart, you’re in shock,” he said. “Can you talk to me?”

His voice, a composed rumble of sound, penetrated deep into my injured soul. Soothing. Quiet. My consciousness wavered. A light slap to my face. A shock of breath shuddered through me.

“There you go. Good girl. Deep breaths.”

Tears jammed up somewhere behind my eyes.

“Say something, Kris. Come on now, talk to me.”

“There’s a H-Hummer on m’leg.”

Thurmond barked out a brief explosion of humorless laughter. “I know there is.”

He pulled a sticky strand of bloodied hair from my face and smoothed it back. His eyes flitted to the wheel of the Hummer. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to get it off. I don’t think he knew either.

“You’re going to be okay, but you need to stay awake for me. Can you do that?”

For him? Sure. My body, however, rebelled, quietly shutting off the lights and closing the doors.

Indistinct flashes of events paraded before of me, Thurmond’s voice a constant soundtrack. Sometimes he seemed to be camped out near my head, patting my cheek to force my eyes open. Sometimes he was a shadow, moving around the Rethan camp and assembling a pile of debris. Sometimes I didn’t see him at all, although the Hummer rocked on my trapped thigh.

I wasn’t sure when my leg came free of the tire, but with a release of pressure my flattened limb curled toward my body. The coolness of the mud on my chest spread to my back. The moon and stars, fringed by wispy clouds, rolled into view. Strong arms cradled me like an infant.

“Come on Kris, wake up. Please! I need you! God, I need some help!” Thurmond’s voice whispered in my ear, desperate, pleading, and prayerful. “Please, she needs a doctor and I don’t know how to get that for her! I don’t know what to do!”

I remembered my dad saying,
When you’ve done all you can do, God will make up the difference.
My mind cleared and I saw a possible solution.

“Let’s take the hummmm . . .” Too many m’s. My lips wouldn’t move beyond that.

“Rose?”

“Hmm mmm?” That was almost clear.

“The battery on the Hummer’s dead. I don’t know what to do.” Discouragement poured from his words.

“Use hummman jummm jummm-per . . .”

“Jumper cables?”

“Me.”

“You can’t even walk.”

“You haven’t . . . you . . . given me a chance.” Blackness crept in. The small window that opened long enough for me to communicate a solution began to slide shut.

“Didn’t you use all of your energy on the portal?”

“Dunno.”

Thurmond’s face disappeared as my eyelids fell shut. The problem with the Humvee suddenly didn’t seem so important.

“Rose? Hey! Come back!”

Movement. A warm touch of skin to my hands. Cool metal under my fingers. My despondency lifted for a brief second as a jittering surge of electricity erupted from my fingertips. The hazy roaring of an engine. The musty canvas smell of a Humvee.