Battle

He weighed the rifle in his hand. Despite its size, it was extremely light. The barrel was glistening silver and the body was spray painted black, hidden in the shadows.

“Down, down, down!” Screams echoed throughout the barren battlefield.

He ducked just in time to dodge a blazing bolt of electricity. It fried the stone behind him and left the rock melting into a horrid blue goop. Sweat poured from every possible pore and he could barely breathe. He knew that he didn’t have much time, yet his body remained rigid. Gathering the rest of his strength, and clenching his eyes closed, he made his move.

With a bounding jump he collided with the ground, rolling behind a pile of rubble from the buildings now ablaze with blue fire. Electric beams sprayed around him and a feeling of isolation suddenly overwhelmed him. He was hiding from the enemy without his squadron, what of which he hadn’t seen for days. He was trained to be a team player, he was trained to work with others, but he was utterly alone now, hiding from the enemy, who had cornered and outnumbered him. His will to live almost vanished; nothing was important anymore.

Breaking away from his thoughts with a mix of fear and confusion, he ducked as low as he could, allowing the gray rubble to protect his body and what gear he had left. Just in time too; another beam roasted the area where his head had just been. It smoked for a moment, releasing a nasty burning stench, then died down. Recognizing the ammunition as a charged sniper shot, he realized he was in a lot more trouble than he had previously thought.

His rifle rested in his hands, low on ammunition, and he only had two photon grenades left, tucked carefully in his utility belt. The battery on his suit had been damaged and ever since, the viewing screen was flickering with incorrect numbers. His distances were all off and he had no idea which direction he was going. With the gear he had now, he would be lucky to stay alive for another day.

Suddenly, an enormous blast pounded against the building just above his head. The beams shattered the windows and sent showers of glass down amongst the ruined city. The building, unable to hold its structure, creaked terribly. It began to sway and he immediately knew that the weight would shift right towards his position. The entire building was going to fall directly on his safe haven! With a quick glance over his shoulder, he ran, despite the fact that he was now in the open battlefield. His pursuers, about twelve in all, began to fire with deadly accuracy missing only because of a quick thrust left or a roll right. Within twenty seconds he had turned the corner and headed down a deserted alley, the buildings on either side ablaze. With heat pounding against his entire body and sweat leaking from every pore, he continued his mission. His eyes were protected from the heat by his helmet. The operating computer told him that if he were outside the suit, he’d already be dead. That’s reassuring, he thought quietly.

While he ran, he searched desperately for a way out of the fierce war-ground. An underground tunnel, a transport device, he’d even step into a faulty teleport system for a way out of this death trap.

With all his knowledge, all his hope, he couldn’t come to the reality that he was going to die, whether it be in weeks, months, or even today. He could hide all he wants, but in the end they’d find him. Or he’d simply run out of food supplements. He cursed under his breath. In either situation, he’d end up in enemy hands and his team would never get the information that his squadron was sent in for. All the stealth, all the weaponry and military planning would be for nothing. Then it struck him, he was the only hope to get the secret back to base. This simple fact kept his body alive. It kept his nervous system from shutting down and kept his heart pumping. Enriched with self-dignity, he held his head high and continued on.

He noticed a door in a building on his right. The building didn’t look too damaged and it could prove to be decent shelter for a while. He walked in.

With a jolting pain in his shoulder, he realized that he’d stepped into an automated tranquilizer field. The needle split through his suit and pinched his skin. His muscles weakened, sending him down on his knees. Damn them. They rigged every doorway! He was only searching for shelter and they must’ve known that. His eyes blurred and the inside screen of his helmet blinked: Danger.

* * *

Awoken by a series of nightmares, he glanced around the room. He was tied mercilessly to a metal desk with chains digging into his skin. There was a heavy turret by an open window on his left, inside the dark room. He was in a building looking down on the battleground.

His rifle was nowhere to be seen and his suit had already been removed leaving him in a tight, black under-suit. Without making too much noise, he managed to lift his head, despite the chains, and see that the room he was in resembled a small office. There was a thermo-artificial fireplace, an operating computer with camera feeds probably hidden all around the room, and an out-of-place metal door with what looked like a thumbprint detection grid. A bright red light blinked: locked. Suddenly, after a series of quiet beeps, the light turned green and read: open.

“You,” a voice came from the doorway. It was deep, coarse. Exactly the kind of voice that a dictator would have.

“What have you found out?” the Dictator asked simply, walking over to the man and pressing a handheld plasma pistol to his head.

He knew he’d have to answer; he had a gun to his head. “My name is Royk of the Twenty Second Squadron, Section Twelve of the Royal Army and I know nothing.”

The Dictator measured his temper and repeated, “What did you find out? I don’t give a damn what squadron you’re in!” He pressed the gun harder onto Royk’s skull.

“We haven’t found out anything! I was sent on a stealth mission to infiltrate your security and hack into your battle array but my squadron never made it! We don’t even know where your central computer is located!” Royk yelled. This, of course, was a lie. He already knew the secret. He had already hacked the system.

The Dictator huffed loudly and shook his head. He pulled the gun away and said, “As much as I know that’s a lie, this just isn’t going to work. You’ll be taken into enemy processing within the hour.” The Dictator managed a horrific smile. “Oh what fun that’ll be.” With that, he was off.

Royk was left alone again in the desolate room and all he knew was that he never wanted to set foot into “enemy processing”.

* * *

With a quick turn right, he forced a small pocket concealed under his armpit open. All suits were made with this yet many of his fellow soldiers felt that it would be too obvious having a weapon concealed there. Royk took the opportunity and the enemy never even noticed.

He pulled out a small knife with fidgety fingers. He pressed the activation button and an inch long laser emerged from the handle. A thermo-oscillating beam heated up to a thousand degrees in a matter of milliseconds. He cut through the chains easily enough. A loud hissing noise filled the room and he was continually afraid that someone would hear. However, luck was on his side.

He lifted himself off the desk and scanned the room from a new perspective. The floors were marble.

Royk knew that his suit and equipment weren’t in the room. It was possible that they had already been decontaminated, examined, and destroyed. He knew that there was no way he’d make it through the city without a gun. He’d have to find something.

Walking over to the metal door, he took out his knife again. Desperately hoping that he wasn’t caught by the camera, he cut open the thumbprint analyzer to reveal a series of different colored wires tangled in great webs around a central green motherboard.

His training had not only showed him how to set up defense, it also taught him how to destroy it. Royk took a small blue wire, cut it with the laser, and replaced it into an area where a red wire was. With a quick slam on the door, the locks unbolted and the green light blinked: open.

Taking a deep breath, he pressed the door open slowly. He peeked his head out from behind it and looked down the deserted hallway. It was completely white with luminescent lights lining the entire ceiling. The hallway appeared empty. There was a single metal door on the right, closest to Royk, and another at the end of the hallway. There were no guards. They probably thought their doors would hold him in. What a mistake!

Royk hacked through the door on the right within minutes. He opened it prepared to defend himself. Lucky again, he thought. It was empty.

This room was much bigger and looked to be some sort of cleaning facility. There were massive tubs of a white liquid and cloths strung from large hangers. A warning sign read: Must wear safety equipment at all times. He ignored the warning and continued on through the maze of cleaning machines and conveyor belts. What exactly were they cleaning? It looked as if it had to be something big, yet there was nothing around that resembled a “finished” product. It could be a chemical testing facility. But then, why the conveyor belts?

“No, no, no,” a voice came from behind a tub of liquid. Royk ducked hurriedly, hiding himself from the man. “I said tub number eighteen!” he yelled to someone else.

“Sir the polarizer solution is dispersed throughout all the tubs,” the worker replied. Royk was only six feet away from the two men and separated only by some plastic and “polarizer solution”, whatever that might be. It could be some kind of fuel, thought Royk. But why would the fuel need to polarize? It hit him like a brick: the separation of atoms. That’s how they were going to power the weapon. Only another piece to the secret.

Royk, during his thinking, had been leaning on the tub of liquid and as soon as the two men moved away, he slipped and the entire tub swerved forward on small black wheels. Cursing himself, Royk jumped out hoping to surprise them but he found himself looking down the barrel of another plasma pistol.

“Don’t move,” the man said, looking somewhat comical in his oversized white safety suit and helmet. Royk, ignoring this, took his chances and threw a kick at the man’s neck. He was at such close range with the man, it’s a wonder he twisted enough to dodge the plasma shot. It melted the tiles just next to Royk’s right foot just before his kick made contact with the poor man. There was a loud crack then the man fell to the ground, unmoving.

The other worker was still frozen with shock. He stood with his eyes wide, never even drawing his gun. Rookie, thought Royk. He simply elbowed him in the chest and the worker fell right the ground. A couple broken ribs, nothing more. He’ll wake up okay, but the other man was surely dead.

Royk seized both of their pistols and held one in either hand. He checked the clips; there was more than enough. He took one last look at the bodies and ran back to the door he’d come from. Now he could make his escape.

The door was left open so he simply ran through it, shut it, and put the thumbprint analyzer back together. It looked as if nothing had happened.

He snuck back into the room with the metal desk and looked out the window. Four stories down lay safety.

He looked around, trying to find a way to get down safely. After searching around the room, he began digging into the large desk in the corner. To his amazement, there was a long rope in the second drawer of the metal desk, along with remnants of his suit. Opening the other drawers he found the other parts and soon, he was putting on his suit once more. Smiling to himself, he walked over to the window. The distance on his helmet told him it was only eleven inches to the ground. He laughed and tossed the rope out the window. It flew down to the ground with ease and rested still. He tied it to the turret and began to climb down hesitantly. He had thought about setting an overcharge on the turret’s control panel but that would only bring attention to his escape.

As his feet touched the ashes of the ground, he thanked God that he was still alive. With fear of an attack from patrols, he ran through the city, leaving the building far behind. He had to get back. He had to find a way. He had to live.

He had only run a quarter of a mile before he had a fleeting sense of another presence. He dove behind a large boulder, hiding from view. His heart thumped loudly behind his thin suit and his breathing quickened.

A noise. Something moving. He kept still, hoping only that he’d gone unnoticed.

Again. This time it was closer. No doubt a human; it was too small for a ground tank and definitely bigger than a patrol bot.

He quietly cocked his plasma pistol. An electric buzz was released, signifying that it was ready. With such small guns, he hoped the enemy was poorly protected.

An unexpected voice came from the other side of the boulder. He quickly noticed that it was no enemy voice. It was Tom!

“Royk, is that you?” Tom whispered into the heat.

Royk moved out from behind the rock and into Tom’s view.

“Bless you Royk, you’re alive!” Tom whispered. “Why haven’t you contacted base?”

“My communications to base were severed,” he replied. “Where are the others?”

Tom just shook his head and looked at the ground. “They ambushed us from behind a building. We were outnumbered and I was knocked unconscious. I woke up and all of them were dead.”

“All of them?” Royk asked impulsively. His squadron was dead. He’d failed them.

“We don’t have time for this!” Tom said as a blaring siren erupted from all around them. It blasted the town in fierce waves, awakening the enemy soldiers and alerting them of the escapee.

“They know I’ve escaped,” Royk muttered under his breath. “We have to get out of here!”

“Way ahead of you,” Tom said running behind a building. Royk followed and found himself jumping into the passenger side of an enemy quad.

“We’ll head due east,” Tom yelled as the hydrogen powered engine burst into life. “There’s another squadron there waiting for us!”

Royk nodded as yells from the enemy came from behind him. In seconds, both Tom and Royk were bombarded by rifle-fire. Thrusting the quad forward, they escaped the oncoming shots and they just barely escaped a thermal explosion from an enemy grenade. The quad shook as the shock wave tore through the ground.

They were still too far away to radio in and they knew that the quad was in range of the turret. Dammit, thought Royk, I should’ve overridden that thing!

The quad whizzed through the burning city and within seconds enormous blasts of electrically charged explosions ruptured the ground around them, sending huge clouds of ash into the air. It smelled horribly of burnt plastic.

With nothing but the speed of the quad between them and certain death, they raced on through the battleground. There was more fire. More dust. More fear.

Almost too quickly they felt fresh air blasting through their suits. They looked back to see dirt turning into a dense cloud behind them. They were out. They’d made it. Tom radioed in to the squadron through his connection.

“We’ve got it!” Tom said. “We’ve got Royk.”

“We have information on the secret,” Royk said. He couldn’t help but smile.

A raspy voice came in through Tom’s link. Royk immediately recognized it as his commanding officer. “Thank God! This war can finally end! Royk, you will be remembered for centuries! You are now officially in the Elite squadron of the Royal Army! Thank God, thank God!” he yelled blissfully.

Tom turned to Royk and smiled. “Thank God,” he said laughing.