The Apostates (49 page)

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The fight had barely begun when the town hall seemed to fall in on itself. The shoddy construction of the building was apparent when the front facade caved-in and portions of the high ceiling of the gala hall collapsed, sending woodwork, plaster, insulation, and wires falling down among the combatants within. Order members and Apostates alike dove for cover. Monsignor Carafa had been buried by a portion of collapsed ceiling. He had found a niche that shielded him from the full weight of the collapse. Aside from cuts and bruises, he was unhurt. The same could not be said for Friar Leo, whose right arm had been crushed by rubble. Friar Leo managed to free himself. He caught sight of Angel-Seraphim, who was lying there among the debris. It was not known to him if she was dead or alive, but, he did not care. Friar Leo picked up a section of steel re-bar that had snapped off during the explosion. He stumbled over to Angel and raised the re-bar like a spear to impale her. A tomahawk thrown from behind him found its mark: embedded into the back of his skull before Friar Leo could perform the “coup de grace”. He collapsed; giving up the ghost. Monsignor Carafa had dug himself out from the rubble when he witnessed the demise of Friar Leo. The fury of the Lord entered the man, and he was intent on avenging his fallen Friar. He brandished his spear threateningly. Pale-Silence anticipated the Monsignor’s advance. He wrenched the tomahawk from the skull of Friar Leo. He kissed the blade, and flipped it in the air once, catching it, then, Pale took several paces forward and chucked the tomahawk, end-over-end. Carafa took a horizontal swipe with his spear and cut through the tomahawk like butter: splitting it into two pieces. Carafa approached Pale, who attempted to fight back, but the attack was overwhelming and he took the butt end of the spear to the jaw, and the plasma blade to the gut.

Hades-Perdition, who by now freed himself from the rubble, rammed into the side of Carafa right after stabbed Pale-Silence. Carafa tumbled and regained his footing, whipping the spear around to present the point to Hades. Hades brandished his claymore and assumed a defensive stance. Another explosion shook the building. Carafa took the opportunity of the confusion to launch an attack. He lunged forward thrusting the spear at Hades, who managed to barely evade the spear point. He felt the flesh searing on his arm as the blade passed closely. Using a “half-swording” technique, Hades grabbed the blade of his sword and placed his other hand on the hilt. He used the sword like a crowbar, and was able parry the shaft of the spear to one side, then, he slid his sword blade up the spear shaft and pushed the spear to one side of the Monsignor. He performed a draw cut that opened that side of the Monsignor’s neck, but it did not hit an artery. It was, however, messy and he stumbled back; in shock. He composed himself, with his cloak soiled in blood.

“You die now, Apostate! May you never know the warmth of the Lord!” Carafa exclaimed.

He launched a clumsy attack that was easily parried by Hades, who then slashed back with his sword, resulting in a blow that grazed the Monsignor’s chest armor, but failed to wound. A bayonet dagger was brought down from behind, between Carafa’s collarbone and shoulder blade. Angel had executed a surprise attack. Carafa countered by driving the butt end of the spear into her ribs, knocking the wind out of her. She fell to the ground gasping for air. Carafa turned to defend against the threat that Hades posed but by that time it was too late: before he knew what happened, Carafa had been impaled by Hades claymore and lifted high off the ground. He gurgled and hacked as his lungs filled with blood. Carafa dropped his spear, struggled for a moment more, then went limp. Hades retracted his sword and dumped Carafa’s body to the rubble-strewn floor.

“Are you okay, Angel?” Hades asked her, wiping the blood from his sword on the dead man’s cloak.

“Yes, I’m good,” she confirmed.

“Pale is wounded badly. We need to get the hell out of here!” Hades yelled. He picked up Pale-Silence with one arm and slung him over his shoulder. He worried about Pale's gut wound, but he had no time to do anything about it. Angel composed herself and picked up the spear, Hades’s claymore, and the one tomahawk she could find. She did not know the fate of Friar Francis or Manuela Noriega. At worst they would live to propagate the suffering of the people of Central America, at best they were dead under the rubble. Angel could hear nearby impacts and explosions from the barrage of battleships. What was left of the town hall building shook and loose pieces of plaster and splinters fell from above. The three Apostates headed for the town hall entrance, which was partially caved in. They found the pile of their automatic weapons they had left previously. Hades picked up his M82 sniper rifle, but Angel left her gun behind because she carried too much. They rushed out of the building among the burning wreckage and strewn bodies. They kept low, and moved steadily. There were large numbers of bodies right around the town hall, which, had not been there when the Apostates entered. Hades surmised that the Order was preparing an ambush when the shell landed.

They started back toward the fortress and its marina, through the shantytown streets. Up ahead at the end of the street was a barricade attended by three armed men. Hades ducked behind an upturned dumpster and set Pale aside as he rested his sniper rifle on the top of the dumpster. He sighted-in on the range, and then let off three successive shots, milliseconds apart. The rounds found their marks and the heads of each man crumbled like cookies.

The group continued on up the street. They avoided a patrol and then came to a large clearing around the fortress. The view from their position was awe-inspiring and terrible. A third of the massive fortress had collapsed into a morass of brick, stone, metal wreckage and bodies. The remaining artillery pieces were trading fire with the Apostate fleet. Tracers of high explosive rounds could be seen zipping through the air and impacting in the water and off the side of the fortress. Shells would overshoot their marks occasionally and land somewhere in the town, blowing apart a shanties and apartment blocks. By now there was no portion of the town that was left on touched, mansion or shanty.

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Ravine had boarded the motorboat moored to the Hermes and approached the smoking hulk that was the battleship New Jersey. It was listing to port, and taking on more water. He steered the craft alongside the hull and ascended the rope ladder hanging down the side. He worked his way down the leaning weather deck through the clouds of burning oil and fumes, toward the bridge. Ravine ascended sets of stairs leading up toward the flag bridge. He heard sounds: grunting and tumbling. When he rounded the corner, and passed some utility pipes he saw it: a bloody confrontation was in tow. Captain O’Leary was slathered in blood and she was squaring off against that woman: the one with the cross scar on her forehead.

Ravine felt a sense of dread when he came to the realization that she had been hiding in the fleet the entire time. He thought about how she waited until the most opportune moment to assassinate Aqua-Deluge. His heart dropped when he theorized about how she died alone and terrified. He wasn’t going to let it happen again; except he was having doubts about himself. He had not been well since he started using ‘Base’ again.

He rushed toward the two, which were engaged in a grappling match. The Prelate had a hold of a shard of glass, which she held like a dagger, slashing at Captain O’Leary. O’Leary grabbed hold of her wrist and kept it at bay. But, the Prelate delivered repeated punches to the face from the metal-clad stump of her left hand, which were taking their toll. The Captain had already taken a number of swipes from the glass shard, which had cut her arm, and she had suffered a stab wound in one shoulder. The Captain was on her back and fended off knee blows to her midsection. Ravine rushed up and tackled the unsuspecting Prelate, knocking the wind out of her and sending her against the bulwark of the observation deck. Ravine threw a punch, which the Prelate promptly blocked with her metal stump. The force of the impact sent pain shooting up his arm, and that momentary lapse was all the Prelate needed. She took a quick swipe with the glass shard to Ravine’s face, which raked his forehead and cheek, barely missing his eye. He let out a yelp and recoiled with hands to his face. He fell back against the bulwark. She raised the glass shard above her head, maneuvering to finish him off, when the broken-tooth, the bloodstained behemoth that was Captain O’ Leary snatched the Prelate by the back of the head and began squeezing. The Prelate felt cartilage pop in her ear, and the crushing pressure the Captain was applying to her head was more than she could bear. Prelate Inoguchi brought the glass shard up passed the left side of her own head and slashed at the inside of the Captain’s upraised left arm. She knew where to strike: aiming for the brachial artery, severing it with ease. Captain O’Leary screamed with pain. The blood spilled out from the wound. The Captain gazed at an oil fire burning on the water below. She raised the Prelate overhead like a toy, and then chucked her down into the raging inferno. She watched the Prelate’s flailing body fall into the firestorm.

The Captain stood for a moment more, began to sway, then collapsed against the bulwark. Ravine tried to remove the blood from his eyes and then climbed to his feet. Just at that moment another round came screaming across the sky and impacted into the superstructure above, destroying the mast and RADAR apparatus. The ship was lost; it was a burning heap of twisted metal. He leaned down to the Captain and checked her vitals; she was still breathing. Captain O’Leary opened her eyes ever so slightly and peered at Ravine through a blood-encrusted face.

“I’m done, she got me good. Let me go down
with my ship,” she managed to say. She held out a hand, and Ravine clasped
her’s in a gesture of camaraderie, then, she went limp. He let go and left her
as she lay. Ravine ran toward the bow of the New Jersey. The ship had taken on
so much water that the bow was nearly at the water line. He only had one route
off the ship: to jump into the water. The rest of the ship and surrounding
waters had been consumed in an intense oil fire. He looked out toward the rest
of the fleet and the Iowa, which was sending salvo after salvo at the crumbling
fortress. He surmised that Gale finally got the hang of the targeting system,
and she was now using it like a true professional. He jumped into the water and
swam toward the Iowa.

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Gale-Whirlwind kept an eagle eye trained on the fortress. She would systematically reduce one section of the fort, making sure to destroy all its guns, then she moved on to the next section. She could see that the portion of the fort closest the waterfront still had plenty of serviceable guns. She spied that they were prepping a howitzer to fire. From her retinal display, she observed the round discharged. The arc was high overhead, passing over the Iowa, and it slammed into the S.S. Cape Jacob cargo ship. The well-placed shot tore through the superstructure and the bridge of the ship. Gale focused her field of view on the ship and magnified. She made out the twisted wreckage of the top deck of the ship. Crewmembers were on fire and jumping off the sides of the ship in a vain attempt to save themselves, or at least end their pain. Gale cursed to herself. She needed to put the fortress out of commission right away.

Gale ordered the advance of the Iowa and the remaining battleships. The engine crews scrambled into action. Gale had requested another from the ship’s personnel to take the helm, and after a moment the man raced to the bridge, to steer the ship. The remaining battleships, in formation, steamed forward, at a slow but steady pace. They formed a line, and sailed dangerously close to the fortress; point blank range. Gale lined up the sights of the turrets and ordered a full broadside against the unscathed side of the fort. All guns ablaze with hellfire, penetrating deep into the heart of the fortress that ignited a munitions store, which blew a massive plume through the top level in the center of the fortress. The Iowa advanced further, passing the fortress and into the Strait of Panama itself. She gazed up ahead in the distance: a row of wrecked ships that had been skuttled in the middle of the Strait, to bar passage. Behind the Iowa, she could see through the rear view sensors that the North Carolina had lined up her guns and also delivered a broadside into the teetering fortress. She could see that walls crumbled and fires raged out of control within the fortress. The line of ships followed up with broadsides from the Indiana, and then the Alabama. By this time, with the sheer amount of ordinance being brought down upon the fortress, it had been reduced to a smoldering ruin of steel, stone and blood.

Gale guided the Iowa up alongside the wreckage of scuttled ships. She aimed the Iowa’s guns low toward the waterline and let loose a monstrous barrage. The shells slammed into the wreckage of a trawler, which blew the skeleton of the ship into smaller and smaller chunks of metal. The salvo’s sent plumes of water, climbing toward the heavens. Once she reduced one ship, she set her sights on the others, effectively clearing the Strait of its blockade.

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As soon as the Apostate’s battleships had stopped firing upon the fortress and had moved along to the blockade, Hades-Perdition, who carried Pale-Silence, and Angel-Seraphim moved through the heaped rubble to reach the marina. They had found the motorboat that they used previously to reach the shore, but the helmsman was dead nearby, having taken shrapnel to the chest from all the shelling. It was no matter, as they could run the boat. As soon as they were settled into the swaying boat, Hades fired-up the engine and they set out to find the Hermes, in an attempt to get Pale-Silence medical attention. Pale had lost much blood, but he still stirred. He was delirious, mumbling something about “el diablo”. Angel tried to keep pressure applied to his wound. The water was choppy from all the maneuvering of the fleet and the shells that had tore into the surface, agitated the waves. At long last they traversed the watery expanse and pulled alongside the Hermes. Hades secured Pale and climbed the rope ladder with inhuman strength, but even he was pushed to his limits. They all reached the weather deck.