A Warrior's Return (15 page)

He made his way down the stairs and slapped
more C4 to both of the main pillars and the legs of the statue. He
then tossed the bag back inside the temple with whatever was left
inside of it and then walked through the jumbled boxes and unseeing
people, calmly as if he belonged as a member of the hectic
scene.

A guard noticed he was different though and
made to stop him and Talaric lifted a pistol and drilled him
between the eyes and his companion who had started to raise a
submachine gun.

Everyone’s eyes raised up to regard Talaric
and before they grabbed for their weapons Talaric hit the button on
the remote he held in one hand. All the C4 went off at once. That
would’ve been enough to destroy the temple and its contents, but
the blue amulets power source made the explosion almost seismically
larger.

The temple was literally blown apart and it
and the cavern beyond were consumed in a searing blue flame of
unmatched intensity. Talaric had misjudged the magnitude of the
blast and his error almost killed him. Diving around a corner he
narrowly missed being caught by the consuming blue fire.

Gaining his feet he ran. He ran like never
before up through the levels of bygone history. The ground shook
under and around him, as if gripped in the mighty throes of an
earthquake.

The quaking was the ground settling, as
ancient void spaces collapsed down on themselves, their supports
unseated by the force of the explosion in the deepest cavern.

The row of weakly glowing lights flickered
and went out and then came back on. Talaric ran with a will driven
by the need to survive. His lungs threatened to explode as he
ducked under toppling pillars that dated back to before the Romans.
The lights went out, but Talaric could see light up ahead and drew
both pistols. He busted out into the light as the tunnel collapsed
behind him in a cloud of dust and debris.

There had to be over twenty helicopters
parked close together in the market square beyond. There were no
shortage of men with guns either. The small army looked confused as
to what was taking place and Talaric didn’t let them think on it
any. Continuing to run all out, he brought up both pistols and held
them pointed to either side of him and pulled the triggers not
bothering to aim.

Bullets began to kick up dust all around him
and he felt one graze across his cheek.

Suddenly in the midst of the stressed chaos
of the scene a cool voice intoned its way into his head, “The last
lady on the right Captain! You’ll know me by my colors.”

With the adrenalized beat of his own heart
loud in his ears and the percussion sound of his pistols and of the
other weapons going off Talaric made out very little of it, ‘….lady
in…line? …..Colors?’

Then he saw and knew that somehow Eleanor
had figured out where they would pop out and had even gone so far
as to arrange for transportation.

The last sleek black helicopter in the
lineup had a pink T-shirt wrapped conspicuously around one of the
landing struts. It was already fired up and lifting off the ground
throwing up a maelstrom of dust and debris that peppered off the
ancient cobblestones of the marketplace floor.

Eleanor brought the helicopter broadways of
Talaric’s route and he leaped up into the open bay. Not bothering
to catch his breath he swung around and grabbed a hold of the rail
gun and swung it up and began to unload it into the twenty plus
gunmen, who had been chasing after him and were now spraying the
helicopter with bullets.

Eleanor lifted up abruptly away from the
marketplace, even as Talaric swung the rail gun to directly take
aim at a large troop helicopter that was in the midst of several
others.

It exploded into a large fireball of flame
and set off a chain reaction of explosions across all the remaining
helicopters.

They were just clear enough of the
marketplace to avoid the castoff flames and shrapnel caused from
the explosions. Talaric leaned back against his seat and took the
time to catch his breath in big gulps of air after just having had
the run of his life.

Dimly he heard Eleanor’s voice drift back to
him from the forward cockpit, “Just be the one passenger then,
Sir?”

He nodded and she turned back around in her
seat and was quiet for a moment, until she interrupted the silence,
“Sir it would appear that there’s a jet assigned to these
duckies!”

Moments later tracer fire splintered through
the space where the helicopter had just been. Eleanor was flying
evasively and to have to experience the flips and jolts of her
maneuvering was enough to almost wish for a missile and an end to
the misery.

Above it all and as calm as a pond on a hot
July night, Eleanor squeezed out from between the front seats and
into the rear bay, “I never liked ducks and I feel too much like
one at the moment for my taste!”

She tossed a parachute pack at Talaric.

He swung the pack off his back and slipped
into the parachute harness. Glancing up he saw her still standing
there, “Isn’t there another chute?” He exploded in question.

“Afraid not Sir going to be a bit of a
piggyback affair of sorts, hope your intended doesn’t mind the
togetherness.”

She quickly turned and pressed up against
him and snapped her flight harness to his chute harness. Talaric
stepped forward, as Eleanor reached out and snatched an oblong
weathered case out from underneath a bench seat.

They both went tumbling into space head over
heels out the side door of the helicopter flying onward in auto
pilot mode. They didn’t have much ground clearance so Talaric
pulled the chute as soon as they were free of the chopper.

Seconds later, as the chute caught open they
saw the trail of the missile and the resulting explosion of the
chopper. A fireball of blown apart wreckage and flame fell from the
sky.

A fighter jet shot by them moments later,
its sonic boom loud in the desert air. They watched it bank around
and they both knew then that it had seen the chute and that it was
coming back to finish them off. Eleanor wriggled in the restrictive
harness and brought up the heavy looking oblong case and snapped it
open.

“I had so much time on my hands this morning
Sir that I couldn’t resist the opportunity to do a little shopping,
hope you don’t mind given the serious venture we’ve embarked
on.”

Of all things she pulled out a portable
missile launcher!

Talaric just shook his head in disbelief at
her resourcefulness, “Is that thing loaded?”

“It had better well bloody be! I paid enough
for it from that slinky one eyed son of a sea serpent for it to
be!” She said as she brought it upward to her shoulder.

Talaric still couldn’t believe it, “And he
just gave it to you? What did you tell them you were going to do
with it?”

“Duck hunting. I hate the quaky little
creatures don’t you know. One time a whole flock of the confounded
creatures had the gall to fly into one of my starboard engines.
Locked it up they did. About did me in that time, those little
rodents with feathers!” She said sighting down the worn foggy
looking scope.

She pulled the trigger but nothing happened,
as the air around them started to flicker and heat up from the
armor piercing rounds blasting through it all around them.

“Blast!” Eleanor stormed out and bringing
one hand up she struck the barrel hard with one small fist.

The missile abruptly launched catapulting
both Talaric and Eleanor back through the air slightly as the small
air to air missile streaked off towards its target.

The jet pilot never saw it coming, or
probably better put, never expected it to come and took the missile
directly to the nose.

In the aftermath of watching the burning jet
streak off towards the ground to one side it became readily
apparent how fast they were falling. The ground was alarmingly
close!

It was going to be a hard landing.

Eleanor cried out, “I knew I shouldn’t have
eaten that second apple this morning! My greediness is apt to get
us both killed Sir!”

Talaric burst out laughing no doubt somewhat
hysterically given the situation. The incongruity of her statement
was absurd. She could barely weigh anything over a hundred pounds
soaking wet, but he weighed close to two hundred and thirty
pounds.

They landed.

Hard.

Talaric lifted his head up feeling like an
old man and spit sand out of his mouth. Sitting up he groaned and
held a hand to his head. His pack was several feet away and the
shreds of the chute still billowed out weakly behind him. Where was
Eleanor?

Turning swiftly he relaxed as he saw her
sitting up several feet away, but immediately tensed again, as he
saw how pale she was. She smiled wanly, as he crawled stiffly over
to her.

“My landing gear didn’t quite deploy I’m
afraid Sir. Busted a wing up a bit and lost a wheel.”

One of her legs was obviously broken and she
was cradling one arm. Talaric quietly set to work. He pulled
several pieces of wood from off of the box with the Ta’lont crest
on it.

He didn’t even bother glancing at what was
in the box, as his sole focus was on Eleanor. He set her leg, which
thankfully had not broken through the skin.

It wasn’t a bad break, but it had to be mind
bendingly painful what she was going through. She never so much as
whimpered, the only evidence of the screams that she held inside
being the unchecked flow of tears coming from her eyes.

“I don’t think your arm is broken just badly
sprained.” Talaric said softly, as he gently situated it in a sling
he had made from parts of the parachute.

With what little bravado she had left
Eleanor drew herself up a little and said, trying to sound her
usual self, “Thank you for the patch job, but it’s high time you
were off and that you leave me to enjoy my sunset. We Britts always
did enjoy a good sunset. Tea would make it better, but I’ll have to
carry on in my enjoyment without it.”

Talaric shook his head and reached out and
grabbed his pack and slung it on and then gently scooped up Eleanor
in his arms and started to walk out across the desert.

Eleanor protested but was too injured to
resist much, “Oh, come on Captain, we may have nicknamed you Clark
Kent, but that doesn’t make you Superman! Really, you must put me
down in the name of survival. You’ll never make it with dead weight
like me strapped on to you!”

Talaric ignored her, “Save that stiff upper
lip and all that British pride you cloak yourself with, you’re
going and that’s final!”

There was silence for a little while until
Talaric added, “Besides I couldn’t leave you here anyway. Some
unsuspecting jackal might wonder by and make a snack out of you
only to find himself with a horrible case of indigestion
later.”

She would’ve laughed at any other time, but
she was in too much pain right now.

With a tinge of humor to her tone she
replied, as her head rested against his shoulder, “We Britts are a
tough lot to swallow.”

Her tone was regretful and Talaric barely
heard her mumbled words.

“Why did they have to blow up my island? No
home now. All gone! No one left just me.”

Her voice was forlorn sounding and Talaric
clutched her a little tighter. The British Isles had been the
victim of a terrorist strike three years prior that had left the
islands a barren radioactive wasteland.

“There is more than enough room for you on
my world and my home will always be open to you. I’ll set you up
with some muscle bound oaf of a man, who doesn’t mind it when you
complement him and insult him in the same sentence. He’ll keep you
so pregnant that you’ll soon replicate an army of little sharp
tongued hellions.”

“He has to be blonde and have as much muscle
as you do. More would be better.” She said softly.

“Consider it done, even if I have to nail a
blonde wig to his head!” Talaric said matter-of-factly not really
joking at all with her.

Eleanor was as dear to him as one of his own
sisters. More than anything he wanted to see her genuinely happy
instead of just her graceful sharp tongued self, who created a
façade of toughness to hide the softy that she was at heart.

He heard her mumble, “You have yourself a
deal.”

His strides lengthened some, but the
shifting sand of the desert before him seemed endless.

I had taken to sleeping and resting during
the day for the most part, while staying awake at night. It was so
much cooler and more bearable then. Sparky preferred to work at
night anyway.

The little man I’d come to care for deeply
did not like to sweat. I had just left him after yet another
grueling session that ranged from everything from social
comportment, to how to use a dagger in the best fashion, even
different fighting skills and his favorite things above all else to
teach, technology.

I had never so much as seen a computer up
close and personal, let alone touched one before. His little roped
off cubicle was filled with them and their blinking lights. I did
my best to grasp what he taught and to my surprise I was learning a
lot. I wasn’t sure if it was due to any amount of concentration on
my part, but rather a statement to the fact of just how good of a
teacher he was.

I was mentally exhausted and I decided to
lay down for a while. The sleeping quarters were all shared and I
slipped into my bunk without arousing anyone. I lay there for a
moment reflecting on how blessed I felt and I had just started to
drift off to sleep, when some noise brought me back to
alertness.

Someone was moaning in their sleep and it
didn’t sound good. It was Cat. I debated about going to wake her up
from whatever nightmare she lay gripped in. I’d probably end up
shot for my troubles. The little mean blonde often went to sleep
clutching one of her pistols, and she had a submachine gun resting
against her bunk and who knew what else.