Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (20 page)

Dennis didn’t answer as he watched the confusion of the commandos turn to understanding as they began to make their way through the carnage being laid out in front of them.

“Sir
,
we have incoming!”
t
he gunney
yelled above the din.

Dennis looked
up.
“Three o
’
clock
, sir
.” Dennis cocked his head to see
three
gunships bearing down on his men.

“How long until those men down there clear the enemy lines?” Dennis asked
,
never taking his eyes off of the gunships.

“If they get a move on, about a minute
,
sir
,”
t
he
gunney answered,
fully understanding.

“Well
,
G
unney
,
if my calculations are correct
,
we’ve got about
thirty
seconds until those ships figure out our exact position. And once that happens, well
,
you get the picture. Order the men out now.”

“Sir
,
you understand that’s a death sentence for the men down there?”

“Gunney
,
it’s the nine of them or the
forty
of us. We need to live this night out to fight another time. Go get moving. Have
Corporal
Carver drop one more RPG before he withdraws.”

Within seconds all of Dennis
’
men had melted into the woods,
Corporal
Carver was quick to follow after blowing up what appeared to be a small arms depot.

Dennis watched his men withdraw with a smile of satisfaction on his face, he understood they by no means won the war, but they did bloody their opponents
’
nose and that was well worth a slap on the back. Dennis reloaded his clip and got back to the task at hand. The aliens had begun t
o regroup with the loss of fire
power
from the ridge.
Dennis decided to alter their perception slightly as he set his
M-16
to fully automa
tic.

“Fuck the three round burst
!” he screamed
. Genogerians began to fall in heaps as Dennis’ rifle became hot to the touch.
He
knew what he was doing was
equivalent
to suicide but it was really just a matter of numbers, his one life in exchange for the nine that had almost made it out of the kill zone. Before Dennis could reload his weapon he heard small arms fire off to his right, he turned to look
and
notice
d
his
g
unnery
s
ergeant
had moved to a small knoll
twenty-five
feet away and was resuming fire while Dennis reloaded.

“I thought I told you to get the men out of here!” Dennis screamed above the roar of the SAW machine gun
the gunney
was firing.

“I did get the men out of here
,”
t
he
g
unney yelled with a large smile across his face, never taking his finger off of the trigger as he spoke. The Genogerians had finally figured the real threat was coming from above, blue beams of weapon discharge rocketed all around Dennis and his Gunnery
Sergeant
. Dennis wasn’t done berating his second in command, he figured that could wait for later
though
, if later ever came. The gunships silently screamed by, had they not been tearing up chunks of the ground with their huge plasma discharges their passing would have gone completely unnoticed. The muzzle discharge from
the gunney
’
s machine gun muzzle discharge was equivalent to a lighthouse for wayward ships. The second gunship lined him up and came within inches of cutting him cleanly in half.

“Shit
,
that was close!”
t
he gunney
laughed. He didn’t even stop to wipe the clods of sod that
had
peppered his body.

“Gunney! Stop firing and get the hell out of here! They have your location!” Dennis yelled above the roar and destruction of the third gunship.
The gunney
never even looked up. The first few discharges were right on course,
the gunney
had seconds to live and seemed non-plussed that the end was nigh. The shots were ten feet from where
the gunney
lay, when Dennis heard the tell-tale pfft of
Corporal
Carver’s
RPG.
T
he gunship couldn’t have been more than
fifty
feet over Dennis
'
head when the round hit it. The round ripped through the side of the gunship
,
the explosion blew Dennis and
the gunney
farther
into the ground, hot metal rained down all around them, momentum carried the ship a couple of hundred yards past them.

Dennis was deaf, all was quiet even as he watched bullets being fired from
the gunney
’
s weapon
Did he ever stop?
Dennis wondered. As he stared down at the alien encampment the blue phaser blasts had slowed but
he knew
they would pick up shortly. The most distressing thing to Dennis
was he couldn’t
hear
his heart hammering in his chest
and that unnerved him.

Dennis ran for his
g
unnery
s
ergean
t. And believing
he was screaming at the top of his lungs, Dennis was ordering him
to get his gear and get moving.
T
he
two
remaining gunships were circling back and Dennis had the distinct feeling they would not miss again. Dennis was beginning to believe he was mute as well as deaf until realization dawned on him,
the gunney
was as stone deaf as he was. Dennis grabbed
the gunney
’
s
vest up by his shoulder and yanked as the entire world lit up in a vision of blue death.

CHAPTER TWE
N
TY-SEVEN
- Mike Journal Entry 8

The sub ride for the most part was
quiet
, I found every excuse I could to spend time with
Lieutenant
Yarborough and it seemed to me she didn’t mind so much. Aside from the occasional glance
,
I caught her stealing at me, nothing significant happened. I wish it had
,
but nothing ever materialized
,
at least not on th
e
voyage. I
assuaged
my feelings
,
knowing that if I so much as touched her side the crew would most likely know before I could put my hand back in my pocket. I f
igured she had to know that too
and hopefully that was why what I considered to be a blossoming relationship didn’t happen. Who
knew—
maybe it was all just happening in my mind. I could tell in a millisecond how and when a man was going to attack but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out even the minutest
thoughts o
f a woman. I was pondering this very question when I heard the
c
ommander
summon
me to the bridge, in not as steady a voice as he would have liked. I quickly put on my military
attire and headed straight for him
. I didn’t like what I saw,
the
c
ommander
had just turned from the periscope and his ashen face belied all the truth I needed to know.

“Mike
,
you might want to see this
,” he said
stepping away from the scope.

I had hoped to lighten the mood, it didn’t work. “From the looks of you
, sir
. I’m not so sure.” He didn’t answer.

I placed my hands upon the imaging ha
ndles and stared into the scope.
F
or the life of me I couldn’t f
igure out what I was looking at.
I turned the handle to try bring
ing
into focus the object the
commander
had wanted me to
see
. My view was obscured by what looked like gray ash and smoke.

“
Commander
,
I don’t understand
.
W
hat am I looking at?” I asked, concern starting to well up in my breast.

He never turned to me, his face buried in his hands
.
A
ll the men on the brid
ge were working diligently even as they watched their
c
ommander
. In all the years they had been under his command
,
I could imagine
they had
never
remember him being so distressed.

“Look beyond the ash, Mike
,”
he managed to say.

I attempted to focus o
n the foreground as best I could, the auto-focus kept distorting the image and finally the computer compensated for what I was trying to gaze at
.
T
he first thing I noticed was the painted gas tower I had marveled at as a youngster, but this was different, only about half of it was there, and that was significantly more than the rest of the structures that had been m
y home for the past two decades.
Boston the land was still there, but nothing else remained over a story or so high. Anybody who had lived or worked in the city was now part of the debris that
had
rain
ed
down. I couldn’t pull my gaze away, the sheer enormity o
f it threatened to overwhelm me.
I felt that if I let go of the imaging handles I would fall to the floor in a heap. My stomach convulsed, my eyesight narrowed
to pinpoints, the end had come.
A
ll I had known or ever would know was gone.
Lieutenant
Yarborough came up on my right side
and grabbed my arm, I would have swatted her away if I didn’t think it would disturb my
tumultuous
hold on reality as I knew it.

“Captain
,” she said
. I barely looked at her, I
looked through her.
“Captain
,
please come with me
,” she asked
. She
took hold of my forearm and
led me.

M
y legs moved
on
instinct
rather than
any willful volition
. Somehow she got me back to my quarters.

“
What happened
?” I mumbled

“
S
hh
,
”
w
as her answer. Grief threatened to overwhelm all that I was, my very being was in harm
’
s way. And then a ray of sunshine struck my lips.
Lieutenant
Yarborough, Tracy
,
kissed me
.
F
rom somewhere deep inside
,
I was able to recognize this fundamental part of humanity, I crawled back from the abyss. For the next couple
of hours I wasn’t able to forget my grief but I was able to compartmentalize it. The love we made shook me to the core and more than likely saved my humanity. Her love was a rock that I tied myself to, the turbulent storm threatened to unmoor me, but she fought valiantly to keep me with her. When I finally planted my seed in her, I was beyond grief, I was beyond happiness, I had nothing left to give. The stroke of her hand on my face was my last conscious thought. I gave myself over to the void. Blackness enveloped not only my eyes but my heart and my soul
.