Peace Warrior (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

Tane arrived at the World Building of Cultural Leadership and Peace an hour after the Minith left it.

The building that housed the Leadership Council was chaos incarnate as people ran in and out of the building unimpeded by the usual access controls that governed entry to the hallowed halls of mankind’s most important structure. There was blood, still wet and bright red, splashed across the granite steps that led into the building. Tane worked his way around the larger pools of red, fear etched deeply in his nerves. There were no bodies, but he knew what waited inside. Death.

He quickened his pace and passed deeper into the building, heading for the Council's chambers at the center. He passed more tracks of red in the outer hallways of the building and followed them. They seemed to lead inward, toward the core of the building. Still, there were no bodies.

He reached the solid wooden doors of the Council's Chamber and hesitated, suddenly afraid to proceed. With a deep breath to steel his ragged nerves, he pushed the heavy oak barricades open. He stepped into the chamber and froze.

Inside, seated quietly around the table, were the six Culture leaders. Alive. Unmoving. Staring.

On the Council Table in front of them, piled like sticks of fallen timber, were dozens of human bodies. The bloodied corpses had been tossed upon the wooden surface by the Minith who had dragged them there. Their message was clear. They were a warning to the Council, and to the World, that the Minith would not accept rebellion by its subjects. At least, not without a price.

"Peace be with us." Tane croaked. Without warning, the contents of his stomach rose like lava and splattered across the crimson-stained floor. His stomach emptied itself of the bile but his mind could not. The sight of the broken corpses piled upon the table soaked through his tightly closed eyes. He lost track of time as his body rebelled against the horror.

An eternity later, Tane opened his eyes to the reality that would forever haunt his days and nights. It was unchanged, as he knew it would be, and he looked away from the tangle of limbs and blood as quickly as he could. His eyes landed on Randalyn Trevino, his own Culture Leader. She met his look without flinching. Tane saw the hatred that toiled behind the other's seemingly calm exterior.

"The Minith?" It was a pointless question, but one Tane could not contain. He had to hear the confirmation.

"Yes." Primo Esteval spoke, his Standard language tinged slightly with an accent of his S’mercan Cultural accent. This lingual slip was more than enough for Tane to realize how deeply affected the Leader Elect was by this madness before them.

Tane held his voice with some difficulty. Like the others, he was not accustomed to Violence but, unlike the Culture Leaders, he knew that his own race had done recent, similar damage to the Minith. He owed each of the Council Leaders an explanation but did not know where to begin. He was spared from his discomfort by an unexpected source.

"We must resist against the aliens. We have been complacent for too long."

Tane, along with the member of the Council, turned toward Sabatina Sabontay, the Urop'n Culture Leader. An outspoken Pacifist, she surprised everyone at the table with her bold statement. In the seven years of representing her Culture, she had never done less than everything in her power to preserve Peace. At whatever cost. Now, turning completely around in her behavior, she was espousing retaliation against the aliens.

Quasan Alla, the Musl’n Culture Leader, was not so contradictory to his past stance against any form of violence. "No! We must not lower ourselves to their level. Peace is the only way!" Tane opened his mouth to speak, but was beaten to the moment.

"Bah! You fool! There is no place on Earth for Peace now," the N’mercan leader spat. The anger Tane recognized a few moments before was raising its head now for all to see. Randalyn’s face churned with the emotion she felt. Her lips curled into an enraged snarl and spittle flew from them as she spoke. Tane was saddened to observe his Leader, who had served his Culture so well for so long, succumb to the madness that gripped her.

"We must fight! We have prepared for this through Senior Scientist Rolan's experiments and we cannot back away from it now! We must destroy the Minith!" Her fist pounded the table and the stacked bodies shifted. One of the topmost bodies, that of an older man dressed in the robe of a scholar slid sideways; threatened to topple of the stack. It held and Tane felt the breath he had been holding leave his chest. To his surprise, none of the Leaders pushed away from the table. Instead, they continued to look toward Randalyn.

“We must fight,” Randalyn repeated. “We must remove the Minith from our planet”

Esteval, Sabontay and Diekela Mamun, the Afc'n Leader, nodded their heads in agreement.

"But Peace is the only --"

"Enough!" Primo Esteval, in his role as Leader Elect held up his hand to stop the Musl'n Leader's arguments. "These are not ordinary times. We are at war whether we wish it or not. We must vote on how to proceed. As I see it there are two choices."

The Leader Elect looked around the table, pausing briefly to meet the eyes of each Culture Representative. He had to look around the piled bodies to see Suyung, the As'n Representative, but his look lost none of the emotion it carried and Suyung nodded.

"Option one: We succumb to the violence of the Minith and relegate the preservation of our world and the security of our Cultures to the Minith.

"This option, as we have all known for some time, will lead to the death of our world. There will be nothing left for our race, and we will die."

Quasan opened his mouth to speak but Esteval's glare quickly halted the attempt.

"The second option," he continued, "and the one I will vote for is this: We allow Senior Scientist Tane Rolan, with the assistance of his experiment, continue with the mission for which we have planned. This is no time to turn our backs on this chance. It is our only hope."

Esteval, no longer displaying any trace of S'mercan accent, posed the final question before the Council. "What option do you choose, Culture Leaders?"

Tane left the chamber a few minutes later, shaking his head. The vote had been unanimous and he had plenty of work ahead.

* * *

"We are prepared to fight!"

Titan raised his hands triumphantly over his head and the crowd of men around him shouted in agreement. Their chorus swelled to a din in the building between the Second and Third Squares and quickly became a deafening roar as the shouts and screams echoed and bounced through the enormous hallways. Grant nodded at Titan through the tumult, pleased that they were prepared to do battle with the Minith. Eagerness for the fight was half of the preparation needed for the war. But it was not the only preparation needed and Grant had no desire to go up against the aliens with a gang of thugs. He wanted an army and, as soon as the noise died down, made his point with Titan.

"Good, Titan. Now all we need is a few days of training and we'll be ready."

"Training? A few days? We want to fight now!" Titan was upset by the statement, as Grant knew he would be. Eager fighters never wanted to train. Instead, they wanted to begin the battle, certain in their ability to overcome their opponents through sheer desire and will power. Grant did not know how to tell these men that such determination quickly fades when the battle begins but good training sees an army through to victory. It was a tough lesson to learn and he had been fortunate. Many young soldiers never learned that lesson, their determination and spirit for the battle long forgotten as they lay dying from a stupid mistake.

"Eagerness is one thing," Grant tried to explain, "but there is no substitute for training. There are some things about the Minith that we need to discuss. Strategies and plans we need to work on."

"But, Grant," Titan pleaded, his desire to fight the aliens a visible thing, "we want to fight now." The men gathered around them listened intently to what was said. It was plain to Grant that they wanted to leave this place as soon as possible, and were willing to go up against the Minith if that's what it took.

"I know, Titan, I know. But we must plan this carefully if we are to win. The Minith are well trained as a fighting force. If we meet them with anything less than the same, we, and the rest of the world, will fail."

Titan held his tongue while he considered Grant's words. Finally, almost reluctantly he said, "All right. We'll wait for you to decide when we're ready."

Grant smiled, and the men around them murmured their reluctant agreement.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Tane arrived at the prison and immediately sought out Grant. He had to inform him of the Council's decision.

Grant received Tane's news from the Council with little emotion. He had decided already that, with or without the Council's blessing, he and those volunteers he could gather would wage war on the Minith. This world, although not of his era, was still of his race, and very much worth fighting for. He would not relinquish its control to another race, no matter what his own race's leaders decided. In fact, with the help of Titan, Mouse and Pound, he had already begun the work of building an army from the men and women of Violent's Prison.

"It is good to have the Council behind us, Tane, but it means little. Our problems with the Minith go beyond the Council. Every man, woman and child of this planet is affected by the actions and orders of those aliens. They have to be driven away. No matter what it takes."

“I understand what you are saying, Grant. But I feel greatly relieved by the Council’s decision. The Minith will never leave of their own volition. Force is our only recourse and I am pleased to know that the Council did not waiver from this difficult decision.”

Grant nodded. “I guess you’re right, Tane. It’s good the Council understands that violence and armed aggression, when used for the benefit of all humankind, have their place. The time for Peace ended with the arrival of the Minith.”

"What do we do now, Grant?"

Grant looked at the small man who had given him a second chance at life and who had freed him from an eternity of endless memories. His answer to Tane was simple. "We train, we fight and we win."

For the next three days, Grant and his cadre drilled the men and women of Violent's Prison in the art of soldiering. Mouse, Titan and Pound taught the fighting styles they had been forced to learn in order to survive the brutality of the prison. Pound taught the knife, Mouse the chain, and Titan instructed the soldiers in a variety of other weapons. Other prisoners displayed their own unique skills and contributed where they could.

Grant oversaw the training and gave crash courses in hand-to-hand, cover and concealment, and squad-sized tactics. To the extent possible, he explained what he knew of the weapons used by the Minith and gave in-depth discussions on the human arms of earlier, pre-Peace times. Tane had been sent to gather what weapons he could from museums, ancient armories, or private collections. Avery visited the prison to teach the men and women the intricacies of the Minith Mothership, as well as anything she could about the aliens' physical and psychological make up. It was a grueling period, stuffed with non-stop lessons, and everyone worked hard.

While teaching the prisoners, Grant took the opportunity to talk with the inmates and increase his library of languages. He recruited more than a hundred men to their army simply by conversing with them in their native tongues. For several, Grant's words in their language were the first they had heard from another human since being sentenced to the prison. The prisoners soon looked up to him and welcomed his leadership.

Grant spent most of his nighttime hours planning their assault on the Minith ship. He knew their only hope for defeating the Minith was in taking them at their ship. The aliens' spaceship served as both headquarters and living quarters. Except for those aliens who were out of the ship when they attacked, all of the Minith would be there, located in one place. Grant was certain the Minith had grown complacent and his previous successes at entering the ship were a direct result. He had penetrated their perimeter twice now without so much as a locked door, and suspected it would be more difficult the next time. The element of surprise was gone and he set his mind to finding a way of regaining it. The daily training continued uninterrupted but the problem was never far from his mind.

At the end of each day, Grant watched the men and women of Violent's prison stumble back to their places of rest. Forgotten now were their arguments over territory or their positions within the prison's squares. They were brothers in arms, forged into a single force with a single goal: Liberate Earth. It was a good rallying cry and Grant heard remarks from several soldiers – for they were shaping up into good soldiers – about how the Earth and its citizens, who had locked them away from their society, now needed them to act as saviors of their world.

The prisoners had been informed of the Council's decision and they accepted their newly found responsibilities with a pride many of them had believed lost forever. Grant was honored to lead such a group and praised whatever fates had elected him to be in such a position. No longer was he angry with the gods for robbing him of his world or his place in time. It no longer bothered him that the legs, arms and whatever else had been replaced by Tane, were not his own flesh and blood. They had come through when he needed them and they were now his as much as his own extremities had ever been.

And Avery.

His mind relaxed, as it always did, when he thought about her. He loved her; there was no denying that now. And, as if his thoughts had somehow magically summoned her, she appeared from around the far corner of the square and made her way toward him. He watched her sightless approach, her left hand reaching out to the stone, her fingers never leaving the wall as she made her way. Several times before reaching him, others moved away from her path in deference to who she was and what she had been through. She was accepted as one of them, as well she should have been. Though she still refused to tell him how it came to be, she was once a prisoner here herself, Grant mused.

Grant waited quietly and Avery stopped only a few feet away from him, her unseeing eyes seemed to look right at him.

"Grant, how is the training going?"

How in hell does she do that
, he wondered. "It's going fine, Avery. We'll be ready soon."

"Do we stand a chance, Grant? The aliens have well-armed soldiers who have been trained since birth for war. It hardly seems fair."

"Yes. We have a chance, though not a good one. If we are to beat the Minith, we're going to need every soldier we can train and a hell of a lot of luck. It won't be easy, but we have to try."

She stepped toward Grant and their hands met, held tightly. He pulled her to his chest and breathed in the scent of her hair. Holding her felt good, felt right. More right than he had ever felt.

"It's as if they were put here for this, Grant. The men, the women, even the children whisper to each other that they will be heroes for fighting the aliens." Avery stepped backward, away from Grant's embrace and turned her face up to his.

"What will happen to them, Grant? I mean, if we win... after the fighting is over? What will they do then?"

Grant looked away from Avery, unable to face her blind stare. How could he tell her what he did not know? Would these men and women live through the battle they faced? And if they did, would they be returned here by the society they were fighting to protect? It was an age-old problem shared by every army in history. What happened to the soldiers after the war? He had no good answer and said as much.

"But, Grant, if the Minith are defeated, they will have earned their freedom. Most of these people have been here for years. Some for their entire lives. Grant, some were even born here."

The way that Avery shivered when she made the statement cued something in Grant’s brain. Had she been born here? Was that how she had come to be in this place? He wanted to ask, but knew he could not. She would open up when the time was right.

Avery hugged Grant even tighter than before and he felt the strength of her conviction in the problem they faced. "We've got to change it, Grant. If we can, we have to change it."

"Avery, things can never be the same. Not after this.”

He meant the words, and Avery seemed comforted by them, but Grant withheld telling her that, although things could never be the same, he did not know how the changes would affect the people of Violent's Prison. How would the rest of the world treat them, knowing that they were perpetrators of violence, even though the violence they committed was for the good of their race? Only time would tell. But first and foremost, they had to fight and win.

"There's something else no one has considered, Avery. Something that may not allow the world to remain at Peace, whether we want to or not. The Minith are from out there," Grant explained. He pointed at the sky and, even though Avery could not see the motion, she nodded.

"What's going to happen if we run these aliens off our world? Will they return with more soldiers and larger, more powerful weapons? By defeating the Minith now, will we be killing our world in the long run?"

Grant paused. Breathed.

He had not realized just how deeply he was being affected by his role in all of this.

"Sometimes I ask myself, 'Are we doing the right thing?'"

"Grant, you know the answer to that."

He sighed heavily. The responsibility was a giant boulder that had been shoved uncomfortably onto his shoulders.

"Yes, I know. We have to fight. There's no other choice except to die a slow death at the hands of those damn monsters."

"Exactly. At least this way, even if we lose, it will be because we tried. It won't be because we rolled over and let them kill us."

They stood silently for a few long minutes, holding each other. Grant felt some of the tension drain from his body with the embrace and he knew that whatever happened tomorrow or next week, or even next year, they had each other now, and that was enough.

"Come on," Grant said, breaking the silence. "Let's get some rest." He took her hand and led her toward their small room in the Outer Square. The night was young enough for what he had in mind and the Minith could wait.

* * *

Grant dreamed of the frozen lake. In the dream, the enemy shot him long before he reached the hole in the ice and he lay unable to move, at the mercy of the men above. The enemy soldiers took shot after shot, laughing all the while, and Grant cried in horror as his arms were erased from the rest of his body piece by bloody piece. Grant would have looked up in defiance of his tormentors but his face was frozen securely to the lake's icy cover. Unable to move, he shut his eyes tightly against the only sight his frozen countenance allowed: the ice in front of him. The ice was littered with bits of his own flesh and large splashes of his dark red blood.

CRAAACK!

A cackle of laughter erupted from the watchers above with the latest shot as another chunk of Grant's body was wiped away.

CRAAACK!

Another shot, another burst of laughter.

CRAAACK!

More laughter, but Grant sensed a change in the sound, a change that seemed somehow sinister and terrifying.

CRAAACK! Although the joy of the sport was still in the laughter, the voices were not as abundant or as boisterous as before.

CRAAACK! Grant's body jerked with the impact of the shot and the laughter came again, even stranger than before. It was a 'whispered' laughter, heard only because it was carried on the wind.

CRAAACK!

No laughter. A minute passed without another shot. Five minutes and still no shot rang out. Grant wondered if the soldiers had grown bored. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the ice and his hopes fell, crushed like a newborn kitten beneath the treads of an ancient tank. The animals had descended from the road above, had come to collect their reward.

Grant pried open his near-frozen eyes and saw the feet of his tormentors not three feet away. To his horror, they were not the booted feet of his human enemies. They were the misshapen, leathered feet of the Minith.

Grant opened his mouth to scream --

-- and awoke next to Avery, the scream still on his lips. He bit back the panic and swallowed the sound. His heart thundered with the fear he had felt and he tried to slow its beat while his mind raced. Something had caused him to wake up and it had not been the dream.

Grant looked quickly around the small room. He saw nothing out of the ordinary in the dim light of early morning but heard steps in the corridor outside. Within seconds, the dream was forgotten and Grant was out of bed. The sound of footsteps approaching had replaced those of the soldiers in the dream. He grabbed his boots and found Mouse waiting outside the door.

"What's wrong, Mouse?"

"Nothing is wrong, my friend. But Tane just arrived at the Outer Square and he asked me to bring you there."

"Tane's back? I didn't expect him for a few days. Did he get what I asked for?" Grant pulled his boots on and laced them quickly.

Mouse shrugged. "Perhaps. He arrived in a cargo carrier."

"Yes, well, he'd better if we're to have any chance. Those damn monsters are better equipped than we are."

Grant re-entered the small room while Mouse waited patiently outside. Avery was still asleep on the small pallet they had shared for the past few days and Grant smiled lovingly down at her peaceful form. He kissed her lightly on the forehead and left the room.

“How is she?" Mouse asked, his voice quiet so as not to wake her. Everyone had come to care for Avery, both for who she was as a person and for what she had been through. She stood as a symbol to the men and women of the prison that freedom was possible... freedom from Violent's Prison and from the Minith.

Grant understood how Avery was viewed by those around him. But to him she was more than a symbol of hope. She represented everything about humankind that was worth saving. He tried not to let his emotions interfere with his responsibilities but it was difficult, more difficult than he would have believed. He had never been in love and the emotions he carried inside were like a puzzle he could not figure out. He wondered how long the confusion he felt would last.

"She's fine, Mouse. The work tires her out, but she keeps going when others couldn't. She’s very strong."

"Yeah, she'd have to be to make it through what she has."

Five minutes later, Grant and Mouse stepped into the Outer Square. Grant saw the scientist leaning against the large cargo vehicle. Tane had his eyes closed. Fatigue was etched clearly across his features.