Charger the Soldier (22 page)

There had been a horrific attack by one of
the three gigantic alien siege weapons bearing down on a group of
American and German fighters protecting civilians waiting to be
transported out of the combat zone. Thad screamed at Ivan and his
group to take the right flank as ordered by General Harris. "You're
the bait. Go right and draw the alien fire while we swing left and
try to get behind them!"

"Typical American cowboy shit," Ivan yelled
back at Thad over the screaming of cannon fire. "We will go be your
whipping boys! Just make sure you are at the rendezvous point on
time!"

Ivan and his small group of undead reds
closed in fast on the nearest siege tower, with flamethrowers
blasting a stream of liquid fire at the enemy. As soon as the
Americans had gained some distance from the Russian fighters,
General Harris ordered a focus fire on the alien tower that was
Ivan's target.

Thad was stunned to see the band of undead
reds caught in the barrage. Huge sections of the alien tower
sheared off, crashing down on the Russians, who were trying to take
cover in the chaos. Within minutes, the alien tower stopped its
advance, and continued crumbling to the ground. The other two
towers stepped up their speed toward the small town, trying to
close the gap and prevent any more losses.

Charger, fighting the third tower, farthest
from the town, managed to stop it momentarily, leaving only the one
tower, the size of an office building, bearing down on the
defenders.

Thad and his group worked their way to where
Ivan's group had been caught in the fight, and found Ivan still
alive. Thad said, "Damn, you gave me quite a scare there. I had no
idea this was going to happen. I called for medical aid. It should
be here shortly."

Ivan lay on his back, blood pouring out of a
shoulder wound. "Stupid American cowboy shit! You almost got me
killed."

Only Ivan, Natasha, and Mikhail survived out
of that group of Russian fighters and they were flown back to base
and patched up. Some of the troops celebrated the stopping of the
three towers that day, but all of them now knew that General Harris
cared nothing for the soldiers under his command. To him, they were
all expendable.

Ivan refused to be stopped in his thirst for
revenge. Taking Russia was going to be the biggest mistake these
invaders had ever made. As soon as he and the other survivors were
repaired, they immediately sought to rejoin the fight, despite what
seemed like the attempt by General Harris to kill them all. Ivan
had heard that a small group of aliens were dug in on high ground,
and a group was being formed to try to capture them.

Ivan demanded that he, Natasha, and Mikhail
be given the opportunity to join in the assault on the hill to
capture alien enemies. The plan was bold, but the world badly
needed answers. Capturing these invaders would allow the scientists
the chance to search for weaknesses. This was a priority now. With
the deaths of billions of people all over the world, extreme action
was needed. Thus Ivan's demand was granted. They were to ensure
that the aliens on the high ground could find no avenue of
retreat.

"Don't worry, this time I will be joining you
guys," Thad said to Ivan.

"I feel safer already having an American
cowboy at my side," was Ivan's sarcastic reply.

Later, Thad returned. "Hope you all don't
mind, but I brought a friend to the party." A huge lumbering
creature came forward, with a hunched over, dirty, growling
man-beast next to it.

"What the hell is that?" gasped Mikhail, as
he stepped back a few paces and clutched his weapon.

"Relax, he's a friend. His name is Charger
and this here is his pet, Mac. Did I get that right?" Thad turned
to Charger, looking for confirmation.

Mac growled, and Charger replied, "Not a
pet."

Thad also stepped back a bit, putting a
little more space between himself and Mac. "Right. Well, command
has agreed that we few will assault the hill and try to cut off any
retreat by the aliens."

"I guess we got the dirty job, so buckle up,
monkeys, this fight might be expensive," Ivan said, with his usual
youthful bravado.

Natasha squeezed off a few rounds of flame
blasts from her weapon, ensuring the thing was working to peak
efficiency. Mac jumped, caught off guard by this action.

"Ah, the big bad putty cat is scared of
fire," Natasha teased.

Mac immediately attacked Natasha, sending her
flailing to the ground. The Lycan was instantly on top of her,
snapping and clawing at her armor. Catching hold of a small
section, Mac began peeling the metal flesh from Natasha's body.
Screams and shouts arose from everyone.

Everyone except for Charger, that is. He
reached down, grabbed Mac by the scruff of his neck and, ripping
him free of Natasha, slammed him hard into the dirt. He pinned the
thrashing and snapping Mac down with one foot.

"Shit! You bastard! What the fuck was that!"
snarled Mikhail as he approached Mac, clicking his flamethrower to
life. Charger turned his great mass and attention toward Mikhail
and, without words, simply presented himself as a threat. Mikhail
responded by stopping and backing up.

"That better not ever happen again!" snapped
Mikhail, as he attended to Natasha's wounds.

Ivan turned to Thad. "You damn well better
keep those two on a leash, or I will deal with it!"

Thad laughed. "Ain't ya glad they're on our
side?"

Ivan was not impressed. Charger just brushed
off the insults and released Mac, who went back to his place behind
Charger. With things in order, the small group set off into the
darkness of night, skirting the base of the hill, just out of the
weapons range of the aliens. Once they were behind the hill, Thad
radioed to the base that they were ready.

Everyone's attention was focused on the
aliens at the top of the hill, waiting for any that tried to
retreat. Only Mac realized what was approaching them from behind
their position. He whimpered quietly to Charger, who turned to see
a ridge of dirt rising up slightly from the ground and slithering
toward their position. The others in the group now caught wind of
what was happening and they too turned to face the fast-moving
bulk. Up the hill, Hanna's group had started the fight. The aliens
were fighting back and this bulk was apparently rushing to aid the
dug-in aliens. It came straight toward Ivan and Thad.

Mac was first to launch himself toward the
slithering object, digging at the dirt like a dog. It was a
spinning spike, a weapon everyone dreaded. They would rise up out
of the ground and shoot tentacles in every direction, driving their
hooked ends through the toughest of armor. Then the spike would
spin, drawing back the tentacles, along with whatever was attached,
and plunge deep beneath the ground to crush the prey. Not waiting
for the tentacles to launch themselves, the three Russians began
blasting the rising spike with flamethrowers, singeing Mac's fur.
This caught the attention of some of the dug-in aliens; they began
attacking downhill, toward Charger and Thad.

"Shit, we're in the middle!" yelled Thad,
trying to alert everyone to the danger. His weapon ejected shells
all around him as bullets flew wildly.

Like a fast-flowing river, Charger swept
uphill through the aliens as they reformed themselves into hard
combatants. His great axe, blazing hot with plasma confined in a
small magnetic field, sliced easily through the aliens and they
fell all around him, squirming and hissing as they died. Mac was
ripping apart any tentacle that emanated from the spike, trying to
stay clear of Natasha's flames. These spikes were especially feared
because, as they began to die, they produced one last weapon. The
outer casing of the spike's shell would peel open and launch
thousands of small darts tipped with a deadly poison.

"It's going to pop!" Ivan shouted. He and the
others began stepping back. They turned around, presenting their
armored backs to create a shield wall. Thad ducked into the group
for cover.

Mac was the only Lycan ever to find the
spike's weakness. He relished pain and would throw himself into the
exploding spike, absorbing the darts before they could gain any
speed in flight. As the smoke cleared, and the troop turned around
to see the results, there on the ground sat Mac, almost drooling
with pleasure from the poison darts.

"That's one sick puppy you got there,"
Natasha said to Charger as he picked a few darts from his
armor.

Mac leapt up and rushed at Natasha, snarling.
Charger gave Mac a firm look. Mac stopped and backed off. "Not a
puppy!" Charger growled as he glared at Natasha and Mikhail.

"Okay, sorry, didn't mean to offend," Natasha
said. "One fight tonight was more than enough." She was still
smarting from the damage Mac had done to her armor earlier.

>>>

Earlier that evening, as the final plans were
made, Hanna had been introduced to the group that would accompany
her and her blinking magic light. The two scientists carried
backpacks with canisters of freezing agents. Five very large
vampires and six heavily armored Lycans, with some of the undead
reds, would attempt to prevent the aliens from retreating.

Hanna watched as the lead vampire, an
enormous man, and his two Lycan companions, relayed to her group
the positions to take shortly before they reached the summit of the
alien position. Since the female Lycan seemed capable of moving
almost silently, she had been given the task of accompanying Hanna
and two scientists, with their gear, to the alien nest.

Since Hanna spoke only German, one of the two
scientists chosen was bilingual. This helped in the group's
communications, but would be useless to Hanna and her female Lycan
escort when they traveled alone toward the alien nest. It was
decided to try a new technology, still not tested fully, of
connecting Hanna's mind with the Lycan female, even though the
Lycan was already connected to Charger.

The process was brief and relatively
painless. A small digital device was connected to the female
Lycan's rear brain stem through the soft tissue at the back of her
skull, and the same was done for Hanna. Hanna was told that when
the device was activated, the link between the Lycan and her
vampire would temporarily be blocked, and that she herself would
experience a vague understanding of Lycan thinking, more than
enough to communicate at a basic level.

What happened when the device was activated
was anything but vague. Hanna was exposed to the female's entire
history. She spent five minutes convulsing on a bed, shaking and
pitching wildly about, as doctors and scientists tried to calibrate
the device for communications. Every event in this poor girl's life
was suddenly and violently thrust into Hanna's consciousness and
she cried out in sorrow. Tears filled the eyes of this bastion of
strength, this woman who had spent her life controlling every
emotion she had in order to be the perfect soldier. The torture the
girl had experienced was dumped like a deluge of water on a rock,
and Hanna's experience of it wore the rock down to the sand it had
once been.

Hanna and Jill began communicating with each
other and the two women mentally shared all aspects of their lives.
Eventually Jill became stronger and Hanna traded some strength for
compassion. All this happened within the first five minutes of the
joining. So, as the evening went on, the two women mentally spoke
quietly of many things important to the young girl, Jill, who had
missed out on life. A bond was formed, one of understanding and
compassion, with Hanna filling Jill's need to bond with an older
sister.

As the vampires spread out, occupying
strategic positions, Hanna, Jill and the two scientists pressed on
up the hill, with the red blinking light to protect them. There was
no movement or reaction as they crested the rise and faced a nest
of eight aliens. Within minutes, the scientists had sprayed the two
aliens nearest them and dragged these frozen and disabled beings
away toward the base.

Suddenly and without warning, the remaining
six aliens reacted. They came to life and formed hideous weapons of
white hot plasma, slashing toward the small group. Hanna raised the
glowing red light to the face of one of the attacking aliens. It
stopped and swayed back and forth as if hypnotized.

Jill didn't wait. Her new sister was in
trouble and, before the vampires with their Lycans could reach the
group, Jill killed five of the aliens. The remaining alien was
quickly frozen with the scientists' weapons. The operation had been
successful, resulting in three aliens being captured and taken back
to command.

In the commotion, Hanna had not realized that
Jill was injured and lay bleeding only a few feet from her. When
she found Jill, Hanna knelt down and quickly started medical
treatment, calling out for assistance in German, which no one
understood. The vampires and Lycans just stood there staring. They
had been so completely converted to fighters that they no longer
knew how to help. Jill was eventually carried back down to the base
to be patched up, but not before Hanna had grown a few gray hairs
from worry.

By morning, Hanna had been debriefed, the
three aliens were being whisked off to a government lab, and Jill
had been mended and would survive. Hanna asked if she and Jill
could remain linked, but the scientists told her this would not
work. Jill and Charger had a permanent link to each other and to
Mac. They were, in effect, a single fighting machine and would
remain together for life.

Being military, Hanna understood, though she
regretted losing Jill. Scheduled to have her link removed, she
walked toward the medical tent where Jill lay. Outside the tent
stood the huge vampire and his pet Lycan, Mac. Hanna walked calmly
up to the Lycan and slammed the butt of her rifle as hard as she
could into his head. Mac fell to his knees, dazed and confused, a
large bloody gash open on the side of his face. Hanna placed her
boot on his chest, pushing him all the way to the ground, and
rammed the barrel of her weapon in his face.