BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 51
 

Cerise triggered a sustained burst from the autorifles attached to her right forearm before switching to the shotgun on her left. She continued to advance forward as she fired until the platoon of Legion mercenaries were neutralized. Elias joined her along with a squad of Ganisian Marines and Tanthean Expeditionary Troops following in their wake.

  “Better’n havin’ a tank with us!” one of the Tantheans, Senior Fleet Sergeant Maurice Hughes exclaimed. The bulldog flashed a smile at the SPF officers and chuckled. “Dag! Get that door opened up!” He tugged at the high collar of his body armor and leaned against the wall seeming to relax, though his eyes never stopped moving and his carbine was kept at the ready.

  The trooper that moved to the door, Elias and his mate only knew him as Lance Corporal Dag, bypassed the alphanumeric lock and engaged the actuators. “Hey! Hey!” the coyote said in a high pitched voice, “we got civvies in here!”

  “Calm down, kid” the bulldog said. “Ya wanna scare ‘em even more?” He slung his carbine and stepped into the room for a quick head count. “Cap’n Tivnan,” he called over his shoulder. “Got twelve in here. Looks like mostly younguns. Oldest are fourteen, maybe sixteen years tops an’ a couple what’re much younger. Looks like they ain’t been fed none too good, either.”

  “Roger that, thank you, Sergeant,” Elias said before putting in a call for the team from the Mother’s Arms that was handling the guiding of the civilians to the rescue shuttles. He listened before sending an acknowledgement. “Extraction escorts will be here in about ten minutes. They’re getting the last of the previous group loaded.”

  “How many does this make?” Dag asked as he looked at the frightened children.

  Elias kept watch on the doors down the corridor while Del moved to peek into the room before joining her Captain. “Nearly eight hundred so far,” the fox answered. He took a sip of the water tube inside his helmet, Maurice thinking the same as he upended his canteen.

  “By th’ Maker this place is huge. I’m glad this corridor ends here,” the bulldog said as he felt a tug on the leg of his fatigues and looked down at a young wolf cub. “Hey-la! How ya doin’ kid?”

  “Are you here to take us home?” the child asked.

  “Well, boyo, that’s th’ plan,” the Sergeant said tousling the child’s head fur.

  “What about our moms and dads?”

  “You tell me where they are an’ I’ll go get ‘em fer ya,” Maurice said with a smile.

  The child took the trooper’s hand and walked towards the hallway, stopping dead when he saw Elias and the others in their power armor, his eyes going wide and trying to back pedal so quickly he landed on his rump with a yelp. Maurice reached down and picked the kid up, giving him a wide grin.

  “Hey, now. Don’ you fret none. That there’s Cap’n Elias from the Spatial Police Force. He’s a good guy!” As if to verify what the bulldog said, Elias and the others waved.

  “Woooowww,” the cub said softly his eyes wide and muzzle agape. Eventually he pointed to a couple of doors further down. “My mom and dad are in there. I think. Well…my dad is. I don’t know where they took momma.”

  “What’dya think, Cap’n?”

  “It would be easier to get everyone to the shuttles if they’re with their families. Get him back in the chamber just in case, though,” Elias said already moving to the sets of hatches the child pointed out.

  He and Cerise pulled the doors apart shorting out the actuators in a shower of sparks and accompanied by the sound of screeching metal. Inside were adults of various species. All of them looked like they could do with a couple of weeks of good food and showers, but other than that seemed alright. Elias noticed that they were all males and had the others get them out to the rest of the mixed contingent of children as he and Cerise moved to the next room.

  Again he and Cerise pried the doors open. What was in this chamber was completely unexpected. The other rooms had been outfitted with only basic amenities like a sink, a couple of universal lavatories and sleeping pads with tattered blankets. This room was lavish in comparison with carpets, padded benches and separate alcoves of thick cloth set up almost like tents. The females of different species all huddled in the center of the room holding on to one another in fear. Elias bit back several swear words as he saw that not one of them had any clothing on and all wore explosive collars.

  A calico feline in veils draped and tied around her that did little to conceal her stood near the far wall, a terrified look in her eyes as a lynx ground the barrel of a pistol into her ear and his other arm around her throat.

  “Back up!” the lynx shouted causing the calico to flinch and close her eyes tightly. “Back up and get away from the door!”

  “So you can go where?” Elias’ voice said over his suit’s external speaker. “Even with a hostage you can’t make it to the docks. And if you somehow manage to get to a ship that functions, you won’t make it past the blockade. So I repeat, go where?”

  “Keep him talking, Lover,” Cerise told him over the comm channel from where she still stood in the hallway.

  “I’ll kill her! I swear I will if you don’t back out now!” the merc ordered.

  “Hold on,” the fox said. “Take a deep breath and think. If you shoot her, that’s what we consider acceptable collateral damage. You, however lose your one bargaining chip because I’ll gun you down before you can aim that pistol at someone else. So, why don’t you just calm down and think this through rationally.”

  “Don’t move,” the vixen said in a whisper.

  No sooner had she spoken then a neat, round hole appeared in the cat’s forehead. He crumpled as the calico began screaming thinking that the shot that echoed in the room was from the weapon pointed at her and realized after a moment if she were dead she wouldn’t be able to scream. She opened her eyes and turned to see the Legion merc on the floor behind her.

  “Nice shot, Lover,” Elias told his mate. She stepped around her armor and gave him a smile as she holstered her little automatic. Since the encounter on Dennier, she never went anywhere without the small pistol.

“Had to learn to shoot,” she said with a shrug, aware of the awed looks that she was getting from the Tanthean and Ganisian troops, some of them quite appreciative. “I failed debate classes in school.”

  Elias laughed as she returned to the open back of her armor, making sure her tail swished saucily with every step, the white tip flicking playfully, and climbed back into the suit making every motion seem sensuous.

  “Sergeant, get the ladies here back to their families. When the extraction team gets here tell them that these ladies are going to need trauma counseling.”

  “Yessir!” the bulldog said as he looked back at Cerise’s power armor unit.

  “And Sergeant, stop ogling my wife.”

  “Sorry, Sir!”

  “You’re so mean!” Cerise said with a laugh over the private communications channel.

  “I guess I am,” the white fox admitted with a laugh. “But you were the one shaking her tail for a bunch of wound up Marines!” he told her with a chuckle.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied loftily.

  Before the females could be herded out of the room, all of them had surrounded the mercenary’s body and were kicking, clawing and scratching at the nearest representative of all the torment that they had endured. The troops were having trouble dragging the females away and a couple pulled free of their rescuers to resume defiling the cadaver.

  “LADIES!” Elias shouted, his external speakers turned up as loud as they could go. It sufficed to get the attention of the females and he dropped the output level before continuing. “You have family members waiting for some of you. There will be a team on the way to escort you to the shuttles that will take you out of here. Please, he’s dead and you’ve had your moment of revenge, but it’s time to leave. Let’s go.”

  Some did as they were instructed, others got in another blow before following the others out, and every single one of them spit on the now mangled form of the lynx as they filed out.

  As they watched the females make their way to the other two rooms, Del came walking up. “Captain, that’s it for our sections. Randal’s team and some of the Marines have located the primary command center and are trading some heavy fire. According to reports, there aren’t any more civilians and this batch brings the total up to one thousand, four hundred and nine.”

  “We figured there’d be more than that,” Elias said.

  “Um…there was, Sir,” Delian informed him, her voice sounding even more flat than it normally did over the comm channel. “Some of the other teams…well, they found…they found that the Legion was trying to clean up what they did.”

  “What do you mean?” the fox demanded.

  “A lot of the Legion slaves were taken to the refuse incinerators…”

  Elias listened feeling anger fill him. “How much longer until we get the last of the civvies on the shuttles?”

  “At this rate, it’ll take an hour to get the rest of the evacuees off, then another to recall the troops,” the tigress informed him.

  “Get word to the other teams to begin their withdrawal and for Odette and her team to begin prepping the demolition charges,” the fox ordered as he turned to head back the way they had come.

  “Charges?” Del said weakly.

  Elias stopped. “Are you having trouble with what I said? Possible radio malfunction?”

  “No, Sir!” the tigress replied.

  “Good. I’m on my way to Lieutenant Mercks’ position. Make sure everyone gets the recall order.” With Cerise falling in step behind him, Elias made his way past the civilians and brought up the mapping capability on his HUD. He found Randy four levels up.

  “Are you really going to blow the base without trying to take prisoners?” Cerise asked on a private channel.

   “Do you think they would have given us a chance to surrender when they attacked on Dennier? What about Melise and the others? Don’t you think the entire PA would rest better knowing that these bastards were dead? Or the families and other refugees?”

  Cerise didn’t answer because he was right and knew it. They would have murdered her, her husband, possibly taken their children for slaves if they didn’t also kill them outright. Van would live a short life, working until he finally dropped dead, and Renee…what they would have done to her didn’t bear thinking about it was so nauseating.

  “As it is, they will get a chance to surrender. Just one. After that this entire facility will burn and no one will even be able to step foot in these corridors for at least a thousand years.”

***

   “What’s the situation, Randy?” Elias asked as he stepped up to the position that Randy and his group held. He had sent Cerise back towards the shuttles with the rest of the troops.

  “Stalemate. We can’t storm them and they can’t come out,” the wolf said. “They have enough heavy firepower that it would be suicidal to charge. They’re protected against chemical attacks so gas won’t work.”

  “How heavy have our casualties been?”

  “Three of our armor units down, nine other SPO’s got their tickets punched. Four of the Ganisian Marines, two Tantheans are dead. The humans from the Trafalgar got chewed up pretty bad. They lost a total of thirteen with eleven more wounded.”

  “What’s your estimate of their strength?” Elias asked.

  “No estimate. We have an exact count of one hundred six. Cost us three FloBots, but we have an accurate count.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time. Odette and the rest of the demo team are setting the nukes,” the fox told his friend.

  “I don’t know what you expect us to do. It’s not like we can go in there and pull them out. Personally after the things that they’ve done, I say let them cook. This section was fairly well thought out. It’s highly defensible.”

  Elias shook his head, though it was impossible for Randal to see the gesture through the one-way armored faceplate. “No can do, Randy. I have to make the offer.” Before the wolf could protest he switched to his external speaker. “Are you still alive, Colonel Ganlin? You’ve been trying to have me killed long enough. I don’t mind that you came after me, but it was a mistake to involve my family.”

  A deep voice called out from inside the command center though Elias couldn’t see the speaker. “Is this the Captain of that rather remarkable freighter that was anything but? Elias, I believe your name is, correct? Elias Tivnan.”

  “You’re well informed. So, am I talking to Roric Ganlin?” the fox asked.

  “You are,” the disembodied voice growled after a long moment of silence. “I’m quite surprised that you keep on surviving all of the amusing deaths I plan for you, though I think one of my people almost got you on Dennier. I normally don’t allow non-felines in my ranks, but I could see making an exception for you.”

  “I think not. I can’t say that your particular views appeal to me.”

  “Come now, Elias. Here the strong are rewarded, and you have proven yourself strong, indeed.”

  “I’m not here to bandy words about, Ganlin. I’m here to offer you a chance to surrender.”

  “I think I’ll decline. For more than thirty years I’ve been a mercenary and I have never surrendered or backed down from a fight. I don’t think I’ll start now,” the deep voice said.

  One of the light armored SPF personnel approached at a crouch and deposited a crate with carrying handle at the fox’s feet.

  “Are you sure Ganlin? What about those in there with you? We’ll hold fire if anyone surrenders. And I promise a fair trial,” Elias told the Legion commander.

  From inside the chamber came a bit of a ruckus followed by weapons fire. Everyone outside dropped into position to return fire, though nothing more happened. “Not bad, Elias. You just helped weed out the ones with…questionable loyalties.”

  “I take it that your answer is no, then.”

  “You would be correct in that assumption, Elias,” the deep voice told him.

  “Very well, Colonel, though I wish you’d reconsider.”

  “I think the monkeys that are out there with you have a fitting response to that. Let’s see if I can remember it…ah. Yes. ‘Get bent’.”

  Elias shook his head in frustration and motioned the others with him to ready for a charge into the command section. “Colonel! This is your last chance. Don’t make do this the hard way!” the fox shouted.

  The only answer from inside the chamber was a burst of gunfire through the door that smacked harmlessly on the floor and wall.

  As the group prepared to storm the defended position, a bright flash and deep WHOOMFFF!  erupted from the doorway to the command center as a large incendiary device was detonated. Flames licked past the edges of the doorway, and a time or two for the first seconds of the conflagration, Elias thought he saw something moving in the miniature hell that poured out of the open doorway, but that was impossible.

  Elias swore vehemently. “Bunker buster!” Disbelief colored his voice and behind the faceplate of his armor the fox’s eyes were wide with shock. “They’d rather all die than be captured!”

  “Elias!” Cerise’s tremulous voice said over the comm channel. “I don’t know what’s going on there but the safety protocols for the base’s reactors have just redlined! They’ve been set to blow!”

  “Randy! Get everyone to the shuttles now!” the fox ordered grabbing one of the troopers that was next to him and spun the Labrador around and pushed him towards the exit route.

  “Yes, Sir!” the wolf replied, still stunned by what he’d witnessed. He’d seen one of the incendiary rounds used once before but being this close to the effects of one was more than he was prepared for.

  As Randy passed the word, he thought about it and realized that what just happened wasn’t something Elias would have wanted if given the choice, even though he and his family had been put in danger. The fox had offered surrender. He had offered a different way out. And that he had done so twice after everything that had been done to him was a testament to Elias’ character. In the end all of it was for naught. At least the death stroke had been swift and merciful. The incendiary round was specifically designed to clear out bunkers as quickly and humanely as possible. In less than a second, an individual within the blast radius would have been atomized, reduced to their chemical components and carbon.

  Randy turned to see Elias still staring at the flames and wondered how much of his soul it had cost him to see the end one of the greatest threats ever to the Planetary Alignment in general, and to the fox in particular. As the others departed, Randy switched his radio to a private channel to speak to Elias.

  “Are you alright?”

  It was several seconds before the fox could answer, and inside the armor tears streamed unseen down the fur of his cheeks. He felt dirty, vindicated, relieved and soul-sick all at the same time. “No, Randy. I’m not alright. I don’t know if I’ll ever be alright again.”

  The wolf turned him away from the fire that raged just a little over a dozen feet away and in the direction the others had gone. “C’mon. Let’s go home.”

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.