The Storm Maker (35 page)

* * *

       Sthykar’s
helicopter buffeted to and fro, but as they got closer to the compound it
suddenly stabilized; the hard gale became soft breeze and the rain turned back
into drizzle.

       “Looks
like we are in the eye of the storm now,” Sthykar said.

       “I
see the compound wall,” Pelyett said. “What do I do?”

       “Fly
over the wall towards the gate,” Sthykar said. “Keep moving in a circle while I
take out the gate rangers.”

       “There
are four of them,” Tulkar said. “Get some help from Colonel Jontvyk.”

       “Sthykar
can do it; he is the best sharpshooter in the country,” Relkyett said.

       “I
didn’t spend thousands of hours of my life practicing marksmanship for
nothing,” Sthykar said and clutched his rifle with determination. He opened the
helicopter door slightly as it crossed over the wall of the compound flew
towards the gate. Tulkar tied the rope they had to two of the seats and took
out explosive sticks as instructed by Sthykar earlier.

       As
soon as the helicopter hovered near the gate, Sthykar pulled back the door and
aimed his rifle. The four Rangers patrolling the gate looked up, thinking that
it was their own helicopter that had gone to drop off the police chief. Sthykar
opened fire and shot two of them dead with his first two shots. The other two
who were standing on the other side of the gate scrambled to aim their rifle at
the helicopter as Sthykar quickly swung his rifle towards them, took aim and
fired two more shots, dropping them dead as well. He had been practicing
shooting regularly since he was eight years old and his efforts were not in
vain.

       “Pelyett
tell Jontvyk to be ready,” Sthykar said while tugging on the rope to make sure
it was fastened securely. “Relkyett, Tulkar, provide me with cover from your
side if anybody comes.”

       Sthykar
took the explosives, along with his rifle, and quickly rappelled to the ground.
He looked towards both the barracks; they were quite a distance away for the
sound of gunfire to reach them in the midst of the whirling wind and the
pattering rain. Unfortunately, his explosives were getting wet; he hoped the
rain would not pick up enough to drowse the fuse.

       “Colonel
Jontvyk,” Pelyett spoke on the radio. “Prepare to attack.”

       Sthykar
took one look at the gate and figured out where its weak points were.  He began
putting the explosives on the gate. He had done far more complex demolitions in
the army and this was simple. In less than two minutes, he had arranged all the
explosives, lit their fuse and was climbing back up the rope. As he was almost
near the helicopter, he saw two Rangers run towards him from the central road
that led to the tower. They were probably assigned to guard the road and hence
were not in their barracks.

       Sthykar
quickly grabbed the rope tightly with his left hand, curled it over his wrist, crossed
his feet over it, flicked his ATR rifle to ‘auto’ and fired at them with his
right hand extending the rifle. Relkyett and Tulkar had also opened up from
their side. The Rangers were hit and both dropped down on the ground as Sthykar
climbed up in the helicopter.

       “Pull
back over the wall,” Sthykar said. “We have less than a minute.”

       Just
as they were hovering a slight distance away, a massive explosion tore the gate
apart. Colonel Jontvyk and the twenty-one gunmen with him quickly charged out
of the woods and stormed through the shattered gate towards the two barracks on
either side before any Rangers managed to come out.

       “Put
the helicopter down just outside of the gate,” Sthykar said and Pelyett
grounded it there.

       “Shall
we join them?” Relkyett asked.

       “Relkyett
and Tulkar, you go join Jontvyk,” Sthykar said. “Pelyett, fly me to that tower
in the middle.”

       “We
can come with you there,” Tulkar said.

       “I
can’t ask you to, its too risky. We don’t know its layout from inside; we don’t
know how many Rangers are in there,” Sthykar said. “If it wasn’t Slyntya as a
hostage in there, I would have gone with the rest of you from land.”

       “We
will take the risk,” Relkyett said.

       “I
know you would,” Sthykar said laughing. “But I have to move fast and move in the
shadows. Better I go alone.”

       “We
won’t be long,” Relkyett said. “You take care, Colonel.”

       Both
Relkyett and Tulkar saluted Sthykar and he returned their salute as they ran
into the compound. Pelyett put the helicopter into the air.

       “How
do you want to do this?” he asked.

       “Go
as high as this helicopter can be taken while you still see the tower, then
lower down slowly on top of it. I don’t want them to see us coming.” Sthykar
said.

       Pelyett
further increased the elevation of the chopper.

       Meanwhile
Ex-Capitan of 999
^th
Reserve Army, Yytar was the first one to the
door of the eastern barracks. The barracks in the compound were two rectangular
single floor buildings with four windows on front and back and one window each
on the side. The doors for the barracks were to their extreme left. The walls
were made with solid brick but the doors were a wooden. Normally each barrack
housed sixteen Rangers, including the ones who patrolled the gate, the wall as
well as the front of the road. The Starfirians had already dispatched six of
them, and ten additional Rangers had been sent out to fight, leaving behind
eight in each of the barracks.

       They
had not heard the gunshots, but the sound of the explosion did not escape their
attention. In both barracks they were debating whether it was a particularly
loud thunder like they had been hearing for quite a while now or an explosion.
A few of them looked out the window just in time to see the Starfirians with
rifles and shotguns storming their barracks. They scrambled to pick up their
own rifles.

       Yytar
kicked the door that was not locked and it hit the side wall. He opened fire
with his ATR slaying two Rangers instantly and forcing others to take cover
under beds or tables. He turned away as soon as his rifle was empty. Surprisingly,
old man Zyf had beaten his younger companions and had reached a window next to
Yytar. He stood on a stone ledge under the window, shattered it with the stock
end of his shotgun, turned it around and let loose a blast into a Ranger who
had just stood up from under the bed after Yytar had retreated. The Ranger was
blown hard and hit the opposite wall. Zyf himself was jerked back by the recoil
and fell on the ground. A young man rushed up to him and helped him to his
feet.

       “One
more shot like that,” Zyf said, “and I will have to be carried back.”

       Colonel
Jontvyk had hit the western barrack at the same time, kicked in the door and
let loose his entire 25-round ATR magazine into the startled Rangers who were
scrambling for their guns. The rest of them, Sthykar’s friends as well as
Coldwoods townsmen, opened up into both barracks through the windows, shooting
up the buildings with tens of rounds, before they stopped to take an appraisal
of the situation. By the time Relkyett and Tulkar had caught up to them, the
battle was over; all sixteen Rangers were dead, and only a few had managed to
get off some rounds of their own. Colonel Jontvyk counted his numbers, all had
lived, a couple had been shot, but not fatally. Zyf had perhaps broken a hip
bone, but he was refusing any help and was waving his shotgun in the air.

       “Colonel
Jontvyk.” Relkyett rushed up to him. “Sthykar has gone alone to the tower to
rescue Slyntya. He will need our help.”

       “What
are we waiting for then?” Jontvyk then turned to the crowd. “Patch up the
wounded and help them walk. We will take the central road down to the tower; we
don’t want to get lost in the maze. We might encounter resistance so be ready
for the firefight; it’s not over yet, not till we capture that tower and their
leaders and not till our reserve army arrives.”

       Colonel
Jontvyk and Relkyett led their team towards the central road. It was a one lane
concrete road. There were maze bushes on either side and they used them for
cover. They ran from one bush to the next, while those on other side provided
cover and looked out for the enemies. They had gone half way down the road and
now could see the tower better. Suddenly a few Rangers rushed out of the tower
and towards the road.

The
Boss Hantex Rut was rubbing his hands with glee while enjoying the display
screen and the storm in progress. The technicians were furiously, turning
knobs, flipping switches on or off, changing dials, shouting questions and
yelling commands. These were all Ranxian scientists or technicians; on top of
that, they were also members of the Ranx Rejuvenation Party, more importantly
they had joined before the party had come to power. Their loyalty could be
counted on. Their belief in the ideology of restoring the mighty Sanguine
Empire of yore, or more likely creating a powerful Ranxian empire in the image
of the old empire was driving them. A few Ranxians who weren’t party members
had been amongst the kidnapped scientists, and Boss Hantex had ruthlessly liquidated
them along with the foreign scientists. He did not want some saboteur to gum up
his plans, or one of them to escape in the future and provide details of his
weapons. He did not like the idea of killing innocents in cold blood, but he
also knew that no empire was built on the backs of war dead alone. It was not
for nothing that the old Sanguine Empire was known as that, it was an empire
built on blood. He would be a benevolent emperor, he told himself, but first he
had to become an emperor, and that mission had to be ruthlessly executed. As
the Boss Hantex was lost in his thoughts, Suka’s radio chirped; he stepped out
of the room to answer it.

       “Boss,”
one of the technicians spoke up while Suka was gone, “The hurricane wind speed
has reached seventy to eighty miles per hour; in a few minutes it will reach
over a hundred and it will be impossible for any man to walk against it.”

       “Wonderful,”
Boss said. “How high can we go?”

       “Theoretically,
two hundred miles per hour wind speeds can be created,” the technician said.
“But I wouldn’t want to push it that much. This is our first time using the
machine and we don’t have everyone who built this with us.”

       “Quite
right,” the Boss said. “What is the safe maximum wind speed we can push the
machines towards without breaking?”

       “One
hundred seventy-five miles per hour is safe,” the technician replied.

       “Push
it to that then,” the Boss said and went back to his earlier thoughts.

       Slyntya
had sat down on an empty chair and Sayett was standing next to her. She had
recomposed herself and sat stone-faced. Sayett was observing all the action as
much as he could comprehend it.

       Suka
Manx returned, walked up to the Boss and tapped him on the shoulder, startling
him out of his dreams of future power and grandeur. “Boss, I need to talk to
you.”

       “Yeah,”
Hantex replied.

       “Privately.”
He motioned towards Slyntya and Sayett, that he did not want them to hear.
Hantex and Suka stepped outside the room.

       “What’s
going on, Capitan Suka?” Hantex asked.

       “We
got trouble at the barracks,” Suka replied. “One Ranger just radioed me about a
firefight breaking out there, but he was cut off, perhaps hit with a bullet. No
one is answering now.”

       “That
can’t be their warriors.” Hantex looked puzzled.

       “No
way. Corporal Montex told me they are still in a fight against the
Starfirians,” Suka said.

       “Must
be paratroopers,” Hantex said. “You assured me that nobody can drop
paratroopers in the midst of a hurricane.”

       “I
don’t believe they are paratroopers,” Suka replied. “Air transport planes can’t
fly that high over the storm, only the fighter planes can. And they aren’t
jumping in the middle of a damn hurricane.”

       “Then
who the fuck can they be?”

       “I
don’t know,” Suka replied. “Your storm was supposed to stop anyone coming in
from the outside.”

       “Your
Rangers were supposed to take care of the stragglers,” the Boss nearly yelled.
“Do you think these intruders are the hunters from earlier?”

       “Might
be,” Suka said. “There are six Rangers underground guarding the prisoners, and
six with us here. I will take the six that are downstairs and deal with whoever
it is that decided to drop in unwelcomed.”

       “What
about those prisoners?” the Boss asked. “Will they try to make a run for it?”

       “They
are locked behind iron bars,” Suka said.

       “You
do that then,” the Boss said. “Tell me who they were and take an extra radio
for the barracks rangers. Theirs might be shot up.”

       “I
was thinking the same.” Suka took Hantex’s leave and rushed down stairs.

Hantex
walked backed into the room, peeved at this intrusion, but still confident that
it was a minor annoyance. He forced a grin to avoid his prisoners from getting
wrong ideas about being rescued.

       Suka
went underground where they had built a large number of dormitory-style rooms
for Ranx Rangers to stay hidden. If Starfirian police or investigators had
shown up in force while their project was still under construction, they would
have kept all the Rangers down below with a false floor to hide the rooms
underground. Now these dorm-style barracks doubled as a prison for Coldwoods
policemen and the SPASI guards. Suka collected the six Ranx Rangers that were
on guard duty and took them upstairs after properly locking the exit door.

       Suka
and the Rangers checked their Ranx rifles, loaded up on ammo and walked
outside. They heard faint noise of firing in the distance.

       “We
will go straight up the central road,” Suka said. “It is unlikely that the
intruders will bother to find their way through the maze.”

       “Who
are they, Capitan?” one Ranger asked as they walked towards the central road.

       “Our
boss thinks they are the hunters who stumbled upon us earlier,” Suka said. “But
our Rangers in the barracks would have easily handled some hunters. We will
find out soon enough.”

       As
Suka had finished his sentence, they reached the beginning of the road and saw
a large number of strangers armed with guns walking down from the other end.
Suka let loose a volley of fire and quickly dived behind a thick maze bush. He
would have preferred a harder cover, but the bush was thick enough to stop the
bullets. In the next few moments, both the Starfirians and the Ranxians
scrambled for cover behind the bushes and soon thereafter an all-out gunfight
broke out along the road.

* * *

       Pelyett
had taken up the helicopter as high as its manual recommended, flew it over the
tower that looked like a small blip below and slowly lowered it. Sthykar threw
down the rope and as soon as the rope nearly touched the roof of the tower, he
told Pelyett to stop lowering.

       “You
are going to be alone, Sthykar,” he said.

       “Not
unless you want to let the helicopter hang in the air by itself and come
along,” Sthykar replied.

       Pelyett
chuckled, “Take care.”

       Sthykar
took his rifle and the remaining explosives and grabbed the rope.         “Just
circle around in the air over the tower till Jontvyk and company gets here,
then land near them. We will need the helicopter to evacuate the wounded.”

       Then
Sthykar slowly descended the rope and quietly landed on the tower roof . He
tugged the rope to indicate for Pelyett to fly away. Pelyett untied the rope
and pulled away as Sthykar rolled the rope around his shoulder, in case he
might have use of it again. There were a lot of antennas, rods, machines, wires
and connections on the roof. He had to be careful to avoid getting electrocuted
as the atmosphere was very humid; the air was laced with water vapor that
Sthykar could even taste on his tongue. Fortunately, he knew his way around the
wires and the sockets. He quickly examined the roof while walking tiptoed.
There were two stairways that led to the doors, each of them opposite to the
other. Sthykar put the rifle on the roof and took out his pistol that would
allow him the quickness of movement. This whole mechanical-electrical setup
must be the storm machine, he thought. He could deduce that such a machine
would have to be outdoors to interact with the weather, and he hadn’t seen
another setup like this anywhere else in the compound. What better place to put
it than on the roof. He started wiring the explosives around the machines.

* * *

       The
battle between the Ranx Rangers and the Starfirian Warriors had reached a fever
pitch in the middle of the biggest storm any of them ever had been in.
Starfirians had pushed the Ranxians almost to the edge of the town of
Coldwoods, far back enough that the three Ranxian Ranger teams had linked up
under the singular leadership of Corporal Montex, forming a defensive
semicircle around their compound. Starfirian divisions, all nine of them, had
also linked up with each other under the unified commandership of Capitan
Jolvyt, and had formed a larger semicircle surrounding the Ranxians from east
to west.

       The
Ranxians Rangers were fighting hard and staging a very controlled retreat. They
were the best division of Ranx’s best infantry army with battle experience. But
they were heavily outnumbered; they could only slow down the onslaught by the
Starfirian troops, but could not stop it altogether. The Starfirians kept
advancing in the face of fire, their significantly larger numbers allowing them
to trade higher causalities for more ground.

       But
the Starfirian army was stopped, not by the Rangers, but by the insanely
powerful hurricane that had crashed on all of their heads. The wind speed was
reaching ninety to hundred miles per hour now. Every step forward was a huge struggle.
Ranxians could not retreat anymore, even if they wanted to, and the Starfirian
advance was stopped dead. The wind and rain shattering against the faces made
it impossible for anyone to see much anything. Soldiers put their hands on
their eyes, allowing small gaps in between their fingers to catch a glimpse of
their position and of their enemies. Many fired blindly in front of them.
Bullets themselves were flying in curved trajectories and hitting soldiers
positioned behind the trees. Water gushed down and made it impossible to find a
proper step. The clouds had darkened, the sunlight was cut off as if the night
had arrived early—a lot early.

       The
hurricane increased power once again and reached wind speeds of a
hundred-twenty miles per hour. Many soldiers fell on the ground and were rolled
down away. Rifles flew out of their hands and smashed into trees; trees were
uprooted and twisted and turned in the air, knocking men down and colliding
with other trees. The front lines had become mixed chaos of Ranxians and
Starfirians, now fighting not against each other, but side by side against the
fury of nature generated by the machines of man. The battle was finally stopped
by the storm, the descending darkness of growing clouds made it impossible to
see much and the rain and the winds knocked men down on the ground and sent
them rolling, sliding, twisting—even flying.

       Capitan
Jolvyt had no choice but to issue a general retreat order. Many radios had
stopped working, with water getting into every last one, and the order was
conveyed the old-fashioned way from one soldier to another. But by the time the
order was issued, both Starfirians and Ranxians had already started running
away from the storm and away from Coldwoods. Corporal Montex had also ordered
his men to surrender, but they had already made up their minds and were running
away from their own compound—away from the storm.

       Both
sides retreated as fast as they could, this time their action helped along with
the strong wind and rain at their backs, propelling them faster than they ever
had run in their lives. The compound set on high ground, the highest in the
nearby region purposefully chosen by the Boss. Water gushed down from it to the
low-lying areas, creating an artificial lake that would encircle the town,
turning it into an island fortress.

       There
was another high ground to the north where both sides’ troops now ran. Beyond
the northern ridge lay tall hills, not as high as Coldwoods, but high enough
that the rain water there would drain south. A mad dash by all the soldiers
towards Colonel Weltar’s position ensued.

       Colonel
Weltar, Capitan Aryt and a thousand troops of first division who had been held
back in reserve were hit by the rain as well, but much lighter rain and slower
winds. To their amazement a great mass of their army came running towards them
and took a great sigh of relief upon reaching that high ground. Many returnees
fell down on the wet ground and lay there in relief having made it to safety.
Amongst them were Ranxians as well, glad to live, even as prisoners. Corporal
Montex found Colonel Weltar’s tent by the sight of a congregation of a large
number of soldiers standing around as well as walking in and out. Corporal
Montex briefly introduced himself to Colonel Weltar, conceded defeat and
officially surrendered all the Rangers under his command to the Starfirian
Army.

* * *

       Suka
Manx examined the situation as another Ranger with him took a shot and
collapsed on the ground. Now they had lost four Rangers and there were only
three of them remaining, facing at least fifteen riflemen on the other side. He
did not think that they were paratroopers, but they were definitely army or
ex-army, based on the accuracy of their shots and the deftness of their
maneuvers. They were as good as the Rangers he had with him and that was the
scary part. He could not stop them for good with just two Rangers, not even if
he radioed the Boss to send six more from his room, which the Boss was unlikely
to do anyhow. Most of the Rangers had gone out with Montex and it was unlikely
that they would return in the midst of the storm that raged outside the
compound.