A Warrior's Journey (32 page)

Orhanin had been shot through one hand and
had a deep groove across the top of the other shoulder. Larc had
taken over carrying the girl after seeing the pain on Orhanin’s
face caused from holding onto the girl. Orhanin had been reluctant
to hand the girl over though and had only done so because of Larc’s
insistence.

We watched as Evette raced up the dock
towards the boat. The sailor at the gun started to move the gun
towards her as she neared. I watched as both of Evette’s guns
raised and then I saw the sailor manning the gun fall backward
closely followed by his helper. Other sailors were falling like
flies left and right to.

Within five seconds the armored patrol
boat’s crew of seven were no more. Evette jumped over the side of
the boat and disappeared within the boat, but quickly reappeared
motioning for us to come. We all started running for the boat. When
we reached the boat Evette had already started it and had it
idling. She had even cast off the mooring lines.

I’d said it before and I’d say it again,
this woman was handy to have around, and deadly too! I tried to
step over into the boat, but I more or less fell into it. I pulled
myself up to a sitting position. I just couldn’t catch my breath it
seemed.

Larc glanced at me and motioned something to
Evette. Evette was by my side. I tried to get up, but she pushed me
back down, “I need to help.”

“It’s all taken care of and you’ve lost far
too much blood for you to do anything other than sit here.”

She said in a no-nonsense way. “Okay.” I
said leaning my head back against the railing, as I continued to
suck air down.

Evette tore the sleeves off of her shirt,
tearing one sleeve in half making two pads of it she pressed one on
either side of the wound and then used the other to hold them in
place tightly. Evette left and some time passed by, but then she
was back holding something up to me.

“Drink!”

It was some kind of bluish fluid.

Was she serious?

She wanted me to drink water that was
blue!

Pushing my head back she practically forced
my mouth open and began pouring the stuff down my throat. She let
me up for a gulp of air. The stuff wasn’t bad at all!

I took the bottle from her and finished it
off. Looking up at her somewhat sheepishly I held out the empty
bottle, “Is this all there is?”

She laughed softly and held up a second
bottle, “You know I really shouldn’t give this to you after what
you did to me back at the warehouse.”

I pointed at Larc, who was steering the boat
and said, “He’s the one you want to punish. He’s the one who pushed
you. What could I have done?” I said indicating my injured arm.

“Right!” She said skeptically, but she gave
me the other bottle anyway in good humor and then she moved on to
who else needed help next.

Besides Orhanin’s injuries, Thannic had a
couple bullet burns and Larc had a deep furrow cut across the front
of one thigh. The children and Evette had escaped with no injuries
at all.

I lay my head back against the side of the
ship and closed my eyes and simply rested, as I enjoyed the swaying
motion of the boat, as Larc steered it out of the harbor and down
the coast. After a while I heard a loud “ouch” I cracked my eyes
open to see Evette kneeling beside Larc.

She was tying a rag around his thigh wound,
perhaps a little too tightly. If the saucy grin on her face was any
indication I would say I was right about my last thought. Finishing
she came back over and sat down beside me.

“Feel better?” I asked.

“Much!” She replied.

Glancing back over at Larc I saw that
Orhanin and Thannic were talking with him. It had to be serious
because their demeanors and manner of speaking were. I was too
tired and comfortable to move. I closed my eyes again; soon it
would be nightfall and God willing we would be back on our way
home. Home had never sounded as good as it did now.

The General leaned over the chart table in
his private bunker looking at the plan before him.

An aid came in to report, “Sir the action at
the warehouse seems to have been wrapped up with most Committee
forces dead or surrounded. No sign of the whereabouts of the
strangers, but a navy patrol boat went missing from the general
vicinity of the warehouse shortly before sunset.”

“That’s it! There trying to get back to
their spacecraft!” Boomed the General.

“Call up the Navy and Air Force I want every
available asset we have in search for that patrol boat. And I
wanted it done 10 minutes ago. Go! Get to it man! This could be our
last best chance to turn what’s left of this country around!”

The aide rushed out of the room to do the
General’s bidding. The General tried to quell the excitement
rippling through him at the prospect of capturing the alien ship,
but it was hard. Opportunities like this didn’t happen every day
and that fool think tank of a Committee had almost squandered the
entire operation.

He was done with the Committee, or he should
say dark humouredly, that the Committee was done for good. His
secretary interrupted his thoughts as she handed a cup of coffee to
him. He hadn’t noticed her come in.

“Oh thank you Tanya!” Said the General
absentmindedly.

The secretary responded, “You’re welcome
Sir. Reports are coming in throughout the Confederation. Half of
all committee members are presumed dead, while the other half are
in custody.”

“Good! Give the order to kill the ones in
custody too. We don’t need any loose strings left to cause us
problems later.”

“Understood Sir.”

The secretary left the room leaving the
General alone. The General took a sip of the coffee, as he stared
at the map in front of him. He was really doing mankind a favor by
getting rid of the half psychotic crackpots that the Committee was
made up of.

His throat burned and then suddenly air to
breathe was hard to come by. The General fell to the floor as he
tried to make it to a phone to call for help.

He couldn’t breathe!

The door opened and a man walked in to the
room and then over to the General convulsing on the floor.

Committee member Tomlinson smiled good
naturedly down at the General, who looked back up at him in horror,
as he struggled to get a breadth. His face was turning purple for
lack of air.

“Couldn’t have done this without you
General. Just between you and me I found it as hard to work with
the rest of the Committee as you did. They were how do you say it?
Somewhat more conservative than I am. I think the country will
benefit from the leadership of just one man, don’t you?”

Tomlinson laughed at the General’s lack of
response, “Sorry there wasn’t more room at the top General.”

The General’s weak fingers fumbled at his
gun holster.

“A soldier to the end I see. Let me help
you.” Tomlinson said leaning down and snatching the pistol out of
its holster.

He then proceeded to empty the entire clip
into the General. The gun empty he tossed it away and went to the
intercom and pushed a button.

Tanya’s voice came through the speaker, “Yes
Sir?”

“Can you see about getting me a fresh cup of
coffee in here?”

“Right away Sir!”

“Oh and Tanya have housekeeping come by and
clean up this mess before the coffee stain sets in?”

“Yes Sir, I’ll put that work order in
now.”

We were nearing the spot where the space
vessel had dropped us off; nothing could be seen in the gray
darkness around us. Would they come?

Had they already left for home? It hadn’t
been a full month yet so they shouldn’t have left yet surely. Then
farther out to sea I saw a small beacon of light flash a couple of
times, it was the signal!

They hadn’t left yet, but they were a good
deal farther out to sea than they had been before, when they had
dropped us off. Larc responded with the light we had on board and a
confirmation signal came back to us in several brief tiny
flashes.

Elation rose up in all of us and then we
were plunged back into cold reality, when everything around us
seemed to break lose all at once. Huge spotlights flickered on from
the direction of the beach and lit the patrol boat up like it was
day.

The sounds of more of the giant mechanical
bugs could be heard coming from the beach as well. Rounding a bend
in the shoreline ahead of us was a huge ship made entirely of metal
that would have made our biggest ship on our world look like a
child’s play toy in comparison. There were other smaller boats as
well.

It was awful to have been so close to
freedom only to have it seemingly snatched from you at the last
second. It was unbearable and I never wanted to be made to feel
like this again. Larc and Thannic were busy doing something while
Orhanin manned the wheel.

What were Larc and Thannic doing?

They were putting an inflatable boat over
the side, how did that help the situation? The big hovering bugs
would be on us in seconds, with the enemy ships close behind. Larc
fairly threw Evette into the boat and I could see that she was
crying.

Why?

Thannic put both kids in the boat, kissing
the tops of their heads as he did so. Before I had a chance to
consider that, Larc had grabbed me by my good arm and was half
throwing me into the boat.

“Here take this!” Larc said handing me the
Bible.

I took it and clutched it to my chest unsure
of what was going on. Larc shook Thannic’s hand and then he was in
our little boat and we were moving away from the patrol boat and
out toward the space vessel, leaving Orhanin and Thannic
behind.

“No wait! What about them?” I screamed
pointing at Orhanin and Thannic.

“They’re staying Zevin. It was their
choice.” Larc said with tears in his eyes, as he looked back at the
two men standing at the railing of the patrol boat.

“No! You can’t let them!” I yelled half
getting to my knees, but Larc pressed me back down.

“They’re only doing what you would do on
behalf of them Zevin. Besides right now is not about them or us!
It’s about getting what’s in your arms back to the people of our
world. The survival of our people and perhaps much greater things
than even that depend on us getting the words of the Creator to our
people! If it costs us our very lives to do so it would not be too
big a price to pay. Honor them Zevin and remember them as they are
right now because too few men have had the courage and the
selflessness to be like they are in this moment. And if one day
it’s demanded of you like it was of them today, then answer it with
the same dignity that they are now!”

The significance of Larc’s words weren’t
lost on me, but all I could do right now was feel. I felt loss. I
had already lost my big brother for perhaps forever and now I was
losing two men that I had grown so close to that they had seemed,
as if they had always been my brothers too.

At the top of my voice I yelled out my
farewell to them. I saw Orhanin briefly raise his bloody bandaged
hand in acknowledgment that he had heard me, as the patrol boat
sheared off away from us diverting the attention from us.

Evette continued to steer the little air
boat out through the choppy seas, her face awash with tears, as she
headed towards freedom that had been paid for dearly.

Thannic made his way up to the upper
platform and slipped into the gun harness, as Orhanin manned the
wheel.

Thannic’s voice rang out in an exuberant
yell as spotlights lit up the scene, “Let’s ride, big brother!”

Orhanin smiled wryly, his younger brother
had always been the more vocal of the two of them and he obliged
him now by thrusting the throttle all the way forward. As the
engines roared the boat jumped forward like a horse singed by a
lightning bolt.

The roar of Thannic’s war cry was only
drowned out when the double machine cannons he manned spurted to
life, as they belched out twin flames of molten fire.

Heavy caliber tracer rounds weaved brightly
across the night sky like a butterfly from flower to flower. The
parallel lines of destruction touched first one and then a second
low-flying helicopter. They burst into flames and crashed into the
sea below.

Orhanin steered the charging patrol boat
through the burning wakes as Thannic shot the tail rotor off of
another chopper sending it on a long arc towards the sea. With guns
blazing he kept the other two choppers at bay.

Before the water grew to shallow on their
approach to the beach Orhanin threw the wheel over bringing the
boat into a tack parallel to the beach and its angry searchlights.
As the boat plunged alongside of the beach Thannic with one long
squeeze of the trigger let loose a stream of uninterrupted hell on
searchlights and man alike.

As searchlights went out and vehicles blew
up into fireballs of light and sound, men went running for cover,
as they forsook the fight. Throughout the approach small arms fire
pinged off the patrol boat like a horizontal hailstorm. Pulling
away from the beach the boat shook as heavy caliber rounds ripped
into it from above, as one of the choppers roared by overhead.

Thannic swiveled and laid down fire in its
wake and the chopper blew into a thousand pieces, even as the
remaining chopper held off to coward to join the fight. Streaming
back out into the bay Orhanin headed for the big ship kicking up
waves, as it raced onto the scene as fast as its ponderous bulk
would allow it to. Smaller ships joined the fray and the little
patrol boat started to unravel at the seams and trail black smoke
that was lost in the darkness of the night.

The hammering of the big guns overhead
ceased as Thannic let go of them, as there was no more ammo left to
fire. Crawling out of the harness Thannic fell off the platform to
the deck below and managed to crawl up to Orhanin at the con.