Charger the Soldier (36 page)

"You do realize this is a one-way mission?"
Gin asked as she accepted a cup of coffee.

The two women sat together at the small
kitchen table, and spoke at length of what lay ahead. "It is true
that I will miss my grandchild," Hanna said, with sadness. "It is
equally true that I will miss you."

Gin was shocked. Her mother had never spoken
like this in her entire lifetime. The remainder of the visit now
seemed to pass too quickly, for Gin had suddenly realized that this
was truly good-bye, and she would never see her mother again.

Three weeks passed, and five families
prepared to board the transport to the Earth ship Loki. Hanna stood
rigid in the crowd of well-wishers. She did not approach her
children, but just stood looking stern, like the Sergeant she had
once been. Gin, mellowed by the knowledge that, after all, her
mother did care for her, turned and blew her a kiss, and little
Reanna waved, before they disappeared inside the transport.

>>>

Some two months later, Hanna was working in
her small garden, as she did almost every day. She lived alone, for
her marriage to Mitch hadn't lasted long; they were simply too
different. Hanna didn't mind living by herself, but she now had to
live with a companion, the sadness she felt because she would never
see Gin and little Reanna again.

The teleprompt rang and told her it was a
call from the district enforcement agency. When she answered, the
screen showed a thin, uniformed man, who asked her if she could
spare the time to come down to the enforcement camp for a few
moments. Hanna said she could be there in a few hours. The man
calling seemed very pleased with this, and promised to be there
when she arrived.

As promised, Hanna arrived at the enforcement
office after a couple of hours and met with the thin man, who
introduced himself as Constable Smyth. "A prisoner has asked to see
you, ma'am. We have the beast locked up good and tight," Smyth
said. He guided Hanna down several white gleaming halls to the
lockup area. "It nearly destroyed three of my men to get it under
control, but fortunately they will live." Hanna was puzzled, still
having no idea why she'd been called. "Good thing they had on body
armor, or it might have been curtains for all three," Smyth
said.

Entering the lock-up room, Hanna was
astonished to find herself face to face with an old enemy. How had
it come to be that Mac was separated from Charger and locked up?
Her eyes widened, then narrowed to intensity, for she had promised
to be there when Mac drew his last breath, to get even with him for
the torture he had inflicted on Jill. This, she thought, was the
opportunity of a lifetime. This was her chance for revenge.

"Can he be released into my care?" asked
Hanna, with an edge to her voice. Mac turned slowly in the cage to
face her.

"I can see no reason for not allowing this,
ma'am," Smyth replied. "I can have the papers drawn up right away,
but are you sure this is the right thing to do? He is very
dangerous."

"Most definitely!" Hanna grinned at Mac.

Mac growled, low and threatening. Slowly, she
walked up to the dividing field, and with a voice full of malice,
whispered to Mac, "Tomorrow you die. Today you will suffer."

"We will have the animal brought to the front
office, ma'am, but first you will need to sign off on custody of
it," Smyth said, as he began to lead Hanna back to the front area.
Hanna nodded and followed along, brushing her graying hair back
from her face. After about an hour, the heavily restrained and
sedated Lycan was waiting just outside the office to be loaded into
Hanna's transport.

"Please, ma'am, can you tell me why this
thing asked for you to come to its rescue here in State?" Constable
Smyth asked.

"I know this beast from the war. I guess it
could think of no one but me to call, but who is to know the mind
of such an animal?" Hanna replied calmly and smiled.

Hanna drove along the shoreline of the ocean
with her windows rolled down, enjoying the sea spray from the water
for several miles, while Mac sat delirious in the back of the
transport. She wanted him to be fully recovered from the sedation
before she sought her revenge for the trauma he had inflicted on
Jill over many long years.

When, for a brief time, Jill and Hanna had
been bonded by the technological mental link, Hanna experienced
Jill's entire life's experiences and ever since had carried that
memory burned deep in her mind. It seemed as if Jill's experiences
had become part of her.

She spoke in German to the dazed and snarling
Mac in the back of the transport. "I do not know what providence
has delivered you into my hands, but I did promise you I would
someday kill you."

Mac was slowly regaining his composure, and
started thrashing about in the back, trying to break the
restraints.

"Relax. I will be releasing you very soon and
we can finish this," snapped Hanna, her German accent growing
thicker with emotion.

Mac had long lost the ability to speak
readily, for, being mentally linked to Charger and Jill, there was
never a need to talk. This day however was the exception. Mac
managed to grunt out a comment that turned Hanna's face red with
anger. "I've killed many. I will kill many more!" growled Mac as he
fought the restraints.

"Not after today, Jew," retorted Hanna as she
swerved the transport into a small cove that led to a private
beach. Hanna stepped out and retrieved a heavy black bag from the
back of the transport. She opened it, pulled out her body armor and
began placing pieces of it on her body, taking her time to ensure
that Mac would be fully conscious of the fight ahead. "She was a
virgin, you bastard, you took an innocent girl and twisted her for
your pleasure. I will enjoy killing you."

Mac thrashed wildly in the back of the
transport, as what appeared to be fear began creeping into his
eyes. Hanna, fully geared, walked slowly to the transport door,
which shuddered as Mac threw himself wildly about. She reached out
and lifted the handle, and as she did, Mac slammed with full force
into the door, sending it flying open and knocking Hanna hard in
the chest, dropping her to the ground.

Mac, still fully restrained, bolted from the
compartment and began running up the embankment to escape from
Hanna.

Slowly Hanna stood up and reached for her
weapon. She fired a single shot into one of Mac's heels, sending
him crashing into the dirt and rolling back down the embankment
toward Hanna. "It has only just begun," said Hanna softly.

Mac lay motionless as Hanna approached. She
pulled a knife from her boot and cut the restraints that held him
firm, then backed away. Mac stretched his limbs for a moment and
growled. Hanna tossed the knife to Mac and began removing her
weapon.

Mac ignored it. He needed no knife to tear
apart a human. He began preparing himself for the task of killing
Hanna.

"Fool, you should have taken the knife,"
sneered Hanna. With incredible swiftness, due in part to the
biomechanical body armor she wore, Hanna closed the gap on Mac and,
with a brilliant kick and several punches, broke some of his ribs
and sent teeth flying.

Mac tried desperately to defend himself but
Hanna seemed to be everywhere. He would lash out in one direction,
only to find Hanna was now behind him.

It was indeed a feat to kill a Lycan. Very
few had died in the wars, but they were not invincible, and Mac was
older now. He managed to connect for a moment with Hanna, grabbing
her by the arm but, before he could do any damage, she got loose by
breaking his hand. Mac let out a howl of pain.

"Good, good, that's for the boy Jill liked,
the one you killed," snapped Hanna. She stepped back only a moment,
then lunged forward. "This is for the other kids you murdered." She
sent a brutal uppercut hard into Mac's chin, sending a few more
teeth flying to the ground.

Then she struck downward with devastating
impact, hard into Mac's ear. The sight of flesh being ripped from
his skull was sickening. Blood sprayed into Hanna's eyes, sending
her backward for a moment to clear them.

Mac took full advantage of the opportunity.
As Hanna cleared her eyes, Mac lurched forward and grabbed her by
the throat. He was squeezing the breath out of her, but Hanna
reached down to a button on her belt. Activated, it sent a huge
current of electricity into Mac, shocking him so badly that smoke
rose from his fur.

"Bet you never expected that, you prick!"
Hanna yelled at the twitching Mac on the ground. She spat, then
kicked him hard in the ribs, breaking a couple more. She staggered
back against a rock to catch her breath as Mac groaned in pain.
After another few moments, Hanna walked forward and grabbed Mac by
his mane and, pulling hard on the hair, she activated a
biomechanical implant that momentarily increased her strength. She
hoisted Mac from the ground like a rag doll and hammered hard into
his stomach and face with a series of punches, all the while
yelling, "She was a kid, a virgin, you bastard, she never had a
chance, you tortured her for god knows how many years."

In disgust, Hanna threw him hard into the
rocks and he crumpled to the ground. The battle suit she wore was
standard military issue, left over from the war, and Hanna was
indestructible, or so it seemed.

But it took only a second of inattention,
just a second of her not watching where she stepped. Possibly it
was the tears flowing from her eyes that made her footing fail, or
the thoughts of the awful torment that she felt from Jill's
memories. But she tripped and fell to the ground. She tried to
control her descent, but the ground hit her hard, knocking the
breath from her lungs.

Then Mac was on her back, ripping at her suit
with dedicated insanity. Hanna made it to her feet after some
struggling, and pressed a button on her wrist that activated a
stimulation pack in the arm of her suit. Suddenly she felt a huge
burst of strength and the pain was gone. A quick twist and Mac was
firmly in her grasp. She pulled Mac's arm from its socket and
kicked hard, shifting Mac's knee cap to the side and breaking his
leg. Screaming like a wild animal, Hanna lashed out, striking Mac
over and over, until her mind was a blur.

But Mac had won. In the moment he spent on
Hanna's back, he had managed to shear off the back of her skull.
Hanna's brains were slowly spilling out, killing her. She fell to
her knees, stunned and unable to move. Her eyes blurring, she
stared at Mac as he rose from the ground and approached her.

"German bitch," Mac grunted softly in her
ear. Hanna's eyes rolled back and it was over. Her body was later
retrieved, but the killer was never discovered.

T
he years rolled by, but the three grad students, Mark,
Andy, and Mickey, who had obtained their doctorates in science and
helped Earth in countless ways, still met often in their old
hangout, the Bat Cave, to argue and gossip. Now in their seventies,
they were nearing the end of their working careers. This day in
early 2073, Mark, thin as ever and a little stooped now, wandered
in to find Andy debating vigorously with Mickey.

"Milk, the simple creation of water and fat,
provided by women!" Andy shouted. "If women did not give milk to
male babies, then males would not exist. God creates man, Adam then
creates Eve from a rib. She is the last thing created, and yet is
the most important thing for the survival of man. What kind of
logic is that?"

"Milk has nothing to do with it!" Mickey
responded, still as vigorous as when his wild hair had been red,
not the sandy gray it had become. "Evolution played no part in the
development of mammals giving milk to their young. I tell you
again, the aliens that intervened at the genesis of our time here
on Earth needed to design us so that women give milk to their
young. Otherwise, we would obviously stand out among the mammals of
Earth. No, the aliens were clever enough to design us like mammals
so that we would never figure out we are actually aliens."

Both men stopped shouting and turned their
attention to Mark. He blew out a long breath of air and said, "God
did it!"

"That's just nuts," exclaimed Andy. "Why
would God create a perfect being like Adam, superior to the angels
and yet have him be so dependent on woman, the one thing most hated
and reviled in scripture?"

"God did it," repeated Mark. His mind was too
taken up with other news to be interested in the argument.

"Evolution created milk so that women, when
they give birth, can feed their young. That is not divine, but
evidence for the process of evolution," Andy said.

Mark stared at Mickey, then at Andy, and
said, "I told you, God did it." Then he shook his head. "Ah guys, I
can't do this today, something bad has happened."

He knew that would get the attention of both
men. He rarely described anything as 'bad' and the use of that word
meant he was serious. "Remember a story from a number of years
back, the one about a girl who was part of the team that destroyed
the alien mother ship in orbit?"

Andy and Mickey both looked puzzled.

"The girl was German, her name was Lieutenant
Hanna Massey, and she was murdered around eight years back."

"Yeah, now I remember. She was one of the
heroes in the war, always on the news," responded Mickey, then Andy
nodded agreement. "What about her?" asked Mickey.

Mark was a little surprised that his friends
hadn't remembered Hanna more readily. The death of one of the four
heroes had been the only thing marring the success of this new age.
Hanna had been not quite sixty, and apparently strong and sure of
herself when she met her demise. Her death was a shock to the
nation, for she had become an icon of the war which Earth had
endured. The coroner concluded, judging by the severity of the
trauma to her body, that Hanna had been in an intense fight for her
life and lost. Speculation on the event had continued for
years.