Escape From Asylonia, page 28
part #1 of The New War Series
A delicate cough slipped through Rochelle's lips.
'I'm sorry,' she fluttered. 'I can't quite hear you.'
The leaders' eyes flamed with rage.
'Well, maybe I should come a little closer' he bellowed, stamping in her direction until his obese cheeks were barely an inch from her pale face, his vile breath infecting her nostrils.
Inwardly, Rochelle smiled. Outwardly, the mask of fear sat stiff on her face. She pulled the syringe from her pocket and drove it into the chunky mound of Camahran’s wobbling stomach.
The creature staggered backwards, an agonized shriek scratching through his veins like angry claws down a chalkboard. The contents of the syringe filled the Temüjin's blood.
His plump face turned various shades of red and blue, morphing from one to another. His eyes threatened to abandon him, and his skin began to flake and peel away, torn at the seams by those same howling veins. His gun fell to the floor. His legs shook and his feet clawed. His body lurched, and throbbed, and screamed, and wailed. There was blood; thick, hot, rotten-smelling blood that boiled and bubbled. It burst from his eyes. It poured from his mouth, and it seeped from the tips of his webbed fingers, dripping to the ground in round, fat drops.
LXXX.
Unsure whether to be horrified, confused or amazed, David watched the whole thing happen as though it were being shown to him in a slow-motion replay. He saw the wobbling beast puke up horrible pools of his own innards. He saw the henchmen draw their rifles and take aim. Still struggling, he began to rock from side to side like a pendulum. A bullet soared towards Rochelle. David toppled sideways, falling in front of her. The bullet struck against the straps of his restraints, snapping them apart and freeing his arm. The dead bullet and David’s head met the ground at the same time. Stunned, the slow-motion view played on. Bullets cruised through the air like they were pushing through an invisible swamp. David saw Sol copy his actions and fall before Rochelle. The restraints around the Samoan’s legs were blasted apart by a bullet.
Noah remained exactly where he was, his body unable to act upon the wild urge to fight back.
As Camahran continued to melt into a disgusting pool of viscera, his three henchmen charged at David and Sol. Sol kicked his legs out in front of him. His left boot pressed into the chest of one warrior, his right into that of another, kicking them both to the ground. He kicked out again. The third, shorter beast met the sole of Sol’s boot with his throat. David used his one free arm to first unstrap himself, and then release Sol.
The Temüjin bounced back with aggressive aplomb, pinning David and Sol to the ground. The humans grappled with them, David tackling one warrior, catching his fist, kicking him in the thigh, then pulling him to the ground, where he mounted the creature’s chest and began throwing fists. Sol took on the other two literally single-handedly. He grabbed one by the throat and slammed him to the ground, then lashed out at the other with a fist to the temple, but the two-armed beast fought back, thrusting the flat of his palm into Sol’s nose.
David’s adversary began fighting back with blows of his own, reversing their positions. Sol and his beast duked it out, Sol throwing out his one arm in a flurry, gaining the upper hand despite his enemy using both fists. The warrior on the ground wrapped his arms around the human’s legs, and brought him down.
Her nerves flaring, Rochelle launched the syringe like a dart. It flew through the air and pierced the neck of the only Temüjin still standing. The creature squealed and spewed blood into Sol's face. The wrestler overpowered his one remaining opponent and took him out with a forearm to the face. He grabbed David's attacker by the waist and hurled him across the room.
David clambered to his feet and wrestled with Rochelle's shackles. Sol began to beat down on the Temüjin, as though they were two barely competent sparring partners in his warm up for a championship match. Rochelle looked at David, dumbfounded and relieved.
‘You...You saved my life,’ she told him.
'Uh huh,’ he grunted in response. ‘So now we're definitely even. Do me a favour, please? Go help Noah, and let's get the hell out of here.'
Rochelle nodded, bounded towards Noah, and began tugging at the belts holding him to the bed. Noah winced.
On the other side of the ward, David sprung towards Sol, assisting his friend by beating down on the Temüjin warriors, passing them back and forth between clubbing blows, like giddy children laying waste to a pinata.
Rochelle broke Noah free. Beaten and bruised, he collapsed into her toned arms. She helped him across the room. Noah moved his tired legs forward to match hers, barely stopping when she stooped low to reclaim her mighty syringe from the liquid flesh of the newly vaporized Temüjin. They made for the door.
‘Playtime is over, boys,’ she yelled. ‘Let’s go!’
LXXI.
Noah fell from Rochelle's grasp. Dropping to his knees and climbing back to his feet again, he looked back at David and Sol. Pangs of guilt mixed with a sense of remorse, troubling him as he watched them do what he had been unable to do himself.
They finished off their enemies by grabbing them by the seat of their pants and tossing them out of the window, then stopped to face one another, nodded in recognition of a job well done, and bolted after their companions.
The four fugitives raced back through the winding hospital corridors, the walls and ceiling curving around them in a fashion which reminded Noah of an old London tube station.
His heart beat furiously, exhaustion overwhelmed him, and his sobering mind fought to hold the insanity at bay. His legs raced on, but his empty stomach made him double over, struggling for breath. David looked back to him. Somewhere in his mind was the idea to leave him, let him suffer for the disappointment and frustration Noah's disease had brought about in David. The voice of Wing Commander Attreus spoke in his subconscious.
This was your mission, David. This is your duty. Now or never. Life doesn’t always give us things exactly the way we want them, son, but it always gives us what we need. Earth needs General Fallon, and General Fallon needs you. Now or never, David. For The Greater Good. Play Your Part.
The ghostly voice of his father was right. Beneath the weak, frail old figure of a man, gnashing at the air and clutching his hip, there was still his hero, still a leader, still The General. He had come to rescue Noah Fallon, and rescue Noah Fallonhe would. Noah had said that he himself was the only one who could bring back the General, but if he, David, could at least help Noah get to a place, both physical and mental, where Noah could do that, then he would be fulfilling his duty, playing his part.
He dropped back and ducked under Noah's arm. Noah let his arm rest around David’s shoulder, hobbling along as the Kid carried him down the corridor.
'Hey doc, I got a question.'
Sol's voice came strong and fit, as though their pace, and the toll of their previous battles, affected him nowhere near a much as the others.
'What is it?' Rochelle shouted.
'What the hell was in that needle?'
'HIV vaccine,' she replied through laboured breaths.
'HIV?'
'Yes, Solomon, HIV. David said it would save lives. I just never thought they’d be our own!’
David tried to hide his smile as they hurried further towards the hospital door. Rochelle’s train of thought rolled through her heavy breaths.
'I thought,’ she continued, ‘That if it killed off all non-human beings last time, it would probably do the same thing now.’
'Good thinking Doc,’ said Sol. ‘There’s just one more thing I gotta ask though, sister.’
'Really Sol? Can’t it wait?’ David asked.
'Not really, dude. I was gonna ask how we’re gonna get out of here. Those assholes blew up the coach.'
'Don't worry,’ David replied. ‘I have a plan.’
LXXXII.
If he was being honest with them, David would have been forced to admit that the events which followed the destruction of the jetcoach had left him with little time to plan their escape. Yet at the moment Sol had asked the critical question, an answer had come almost fully formed into his conscious, delivered to him by a muse which spoke in the low tone of the late Alan Attreus.
They burst out of the door and fled the hospital. A fire roared, proud and defiant, despite the storm of stodgy rain that hailed down from a perpetually belligerent sky, filled with smoky-greys and smudges of black.
Watching hungry flames scoop up what remained of the jetcoach into their ruby and amber mouths, David delicately helped Noah to rest an arm over Sol’s shoulders. Sol placed his own arm at Noah’s waist to steady him.
‘So, what’s the plan, Lieutenant Davey?’ he asked.
‘Look over there,’ David replied, pointing off towards the Temüjin battlecruiser, parked on tripod legs by the edge of a lake. A verge of weeds sat between them and the ship.
‘See that battlecruiser? You guys take Noah over there, and wait for me. I won’t be long.’
'Where are you going, David?' Rochelle asked calmly.
‘There’s just something I need to do before we go,’ he told her. ‘I left something behind.’
Rochelle balked. She reached out, holding him at arm's length.
‘Oh, David, no. Please don’t.’
David slowly peeled her hand from his shoulder, then slapped his own hand around the back of her neck. His body pressed hard against her, Rochelle accepted his lips willingly with her own. The scent of her hair after countless hours on the run, the sensation of flesh pressed against flesh, and the melting of two bodies into one, all took David far away from the angry flames, the relentless rain, and the sadistic pain that had just moments earlier filled his bones. In their embrace, he felt as though he was as close to touching heaven as any man could ever hope to be whilst stranded in the midst of hell incarnate. He retreated from her with equal force, wrestling himself from rapture.
'Please don't worry about me, ‘Chelle. I'll be right behind you,' he promised.
They took off in separate directions, and had moved no more than thirty feet apart when he heard Rochelle stop dead in her tracks and call his name.
'What's wrong?' he asked.
'Nothing,' she shouted over the rattling soundtrack of fire and rain. 'Just that, I think I love you too.'
A broad, cheshire cat smile overwhelmed his face. He turned away from her before the temptation to kiss her again became too strong, and charged round the side of the hospital.
He found the Temüjin exactly where he had expected. Their dead bodies lay in pools of brown blood, which struck against the sides of broken glass like ocean waves against ancient, immoveable icebergs.
There, she lay among them, ignorant of everything. Ganesha. Sweet, indestructable Ganesha. Remover of Obstacles, Lord of Beings, Patron Saint of Getting Them Out of as Much Trouble as She Had Gotten Them Into.
The Temüjin blood stuck to his fingers, and seeped onto the exposed wounds of sore knuckles as he reached out to take her.
Giving one dead warrior a final kick, literally in the ass, David turned and made his way towards the battlecruiser, teasing the smooth bumps on Ganesha's face en route.
As he approached the battlecruiser -Sol, Rochelle, and Noah resting anxiously and exhausted beside it- he hit on the right combination of buttons. The ship rumbled to life and swallowed her own legs through a wide mouth into which the three of them climbed.
David remained on the ground. He took one last look at Ganesha, brought her to his face, and kissed her goodbye. He looked back at the ship, then threw the computer into the lake and climbed inside.
LXXXIII.
The potent storm rapped against the dark green coat of the Temüjin battlecruiser, and ravaged the ground around them. A tempered wind tore into the flames, hurling shards of fire through the remaining hospital windows. Lightning lashed its electric tongue against the crushed bones of dead Temüjin. Heat engulfed the island.
Inside the ship, it was Sol who broke the silence that had fallen between them in a brief moment of respite from the storm, from the Temüjin, from the island, and the very planet on which it sat.
'So, hey, dudes. Anybody got any idea how to fly one of these?'
Rochelle shrugged. Sol looked about him expectantly. David studied the controls. There was no yoke, only a shiny, dark-grey lever protruding from the control desk, each of its capacious grooves hosting some kind of button. It reminded him of a joystick from one of his old gaming consoles. Above and around it, the blank, glossy faces of modestly sized visiscreens glared at him, teasing.
Alright then Mr. Smart Guy Engineer, figure this one out.
Everything around him was coloured the same shade. They sat on charcoal seats, the floor below them was charcoal, as was the ceiling above them and the walls around them. A bank of switches, vaguely similar to the ones he had installed in Attreus One, hung overhead. A series of pedals, shaped like the flat, webbed-feet of the Temüjin, sat hidden beneath the desk. Eventually he shrugged too.
'I guess this is the one thing I didn’t think through. Sorry guys,' he resigned.
A fiery pain raped Noah’s hip as he leaned forward, resting a hand on the control panel for support.
'You have to push each pedal down at once to ignite her,’ he whispered. ‘When she starts to purr, flick those two little black switches by your right elbow, pal. She should give you the controls,' each word came a little louder, a little stronger.
'You mean, you know how to fly this ship?' asked David.
'I only did it once,' Noah replied. 'Right at the start of the war. We lost our ship in battle and were stranded on some rock, damned if I can remember the name of it now. Anyway, after a couple of days we came across a bunch of Temüjin scumbags. God knows why they’d stopped off there, there wasn’t much time for a Q and A session. They fired, and we did just what we always did, hacked off their damn ugly heads and fed them to the dirt. Then we took control of their ship. It's been a long time, I ain’t gonna lie about that, but it all looks familiar.'
David sat up to leave the hulking pilot's chair.
'No,' Noah commanded. 'I'm too weak, Kid. I’m sorry, Goddamn am I sorry, but this whole trip has kicked my ass. You're gonna have to pilot her yourself.’
‘But, General Fallon...’
‘Don’t worry Lieutenant, I’m right here as your co-pilot. I’ll talk you through the whole thing, pal. Reckon you can do it?'
Now or never, David.
David saluted the General.
'Yes, Sir.'
As Noah sloped into the seat beside David, Rochelle and Sol strapped themselves into the crew seats and smiled at one another.
'Let's get this baby home then!' beamed Sol.
‘Yes!’ Rochelle enthused. ‘Onwards and upwards Captain, I mean, Lieutenant!. Onwards and upwards!’
David failed to share in their excitement. Nerves lurked in the muddy waters of hiss guts. A fog drifted through his thoughts and then dissolved again. He ran his hands through his hair, combing long strands from his face, and studied the controls.
'Right,' he said at last. 'So what do I, General?'
LXXXIV.
Noah clapped his hands and rubbed them together. A cool light washed through him, brought about through the responsibility of helping the young, untrained pilot, the feeling that David had placed his trust in him, and the unabashed elation he derived from playing an active role -however small it may have been- in the escape from Asylonia he had longed for. It filled him with a certain strength that dislodged the fading remnants of insanity from his mind. He talked David through the pre-flight preparations, boosting the young man's confidence with words of encouragement as they took off through the storm. David steered, Noah hit at a series of round toggles on the control desk, making the visiscreens flicker to life.
He felt, if not entirely confident, then at least of sound enough mind to take on the task at hand and prevail, just like the old days. This, he was sure now, was how it was supposed to be all along. He could not remember exactly how David and Rochelle had become a part of his life, but he was as certain as he had ever been about anything that Dr. Asa was the one he had been sent to help. He was also certain that he owed her. he had been sent to help her, but instead had unleashed insanity from the bottom of a whiskey bottle, the way a fairy tale hero releases the magic genie from a lamp. His particular genie had tasted hot and sour as it burned its way through him, gradually destroying both mind and morale.
But that was then, and this was now.
Now, he had a chance to make amends. This was no longer about him, his self-pity, or his condition. It was about her, about doing right by her, about doing what he should have done in the first place. he turned from the control panel to glance back at Rochelle, as though double-checking they had not left her behind. His only duty was to get her home, and by whatever means he had left within him, he would fulfil it to the end.
David followed The General’s instructions. He took the ship high above murky cloud until they were cruising, at one hundred and fifty five miles above the surface of Asylonia, through a calm, dark-blue sky abundant with stars. Starting to feel as comfortable in the battlecruiser as he had once been in Attreus One, David commanded his new vehicle with his usual ease.
'Hey ‘Chelle, I wondered if maybe once we get home you might want to, I dunno, meet up or something?' he asked, throwing his voice over his shoulder without turning his head.
'That would be very nice indeed, David,' she replied.
Sol grinned.
'You guys know you have to name your first born 'Sol', right?'
David let out a nervous laugh. Rochelle patted Sol playfully on the back of his hand.
'And if it's a girl?' she giggled.
'Solina, obviously.'
'What about you, Sol?' asked David, quickly and deliberately changing the conversation’s course, as he kept the battlecruiser soundly on hers. 'What'll you do when we get back to The Motherland?'
