The Prize: Book One (20 page)

“You played in the jungle?”  Ellis asked, seeing Penn nod in reply.

“There were a bunch of Cofanie, and Alca Indians kids I hung around with.  In fact my mother said it was hard to tell the difference between them and me after a while.”

“The skin color change?”

“Yes, that and the fact that I dressed like them, spoke the same language, eat the same food…”  Penn smiled slightly.  ”I even had colored feathers in my ear lobes the same as them.”  He laughed.  Ellis turned her head to look at him, trying to imagine what he must have looked like with his yellow hair, gold eyes, a loin cloth and colorful feathers in his ear lobes.

“Didn't they make fun of you?”

“At first, but my eyes reminded them of the jaguar.  That was my nick name, 'El Tigre' the cat.  The fact I see better than they could, just reinforced the impression.”

“How could your parents let you run around in the jungle like that?”

“From my point of view it was normal, and no more dangerous than running around any suburban neighborhood before the invasion.”

“You knew about the invasion?”

“Yeah, my Dad told me, but to me it was something far away… until the Imperials attacked the base and killed everyone.”  Ellis didn't need to ask if anyone survived.  One look at his face told her all she needed to know.

“Tell me about your eyes.”  She asked in an attempt to change the subject.  Penn looked at her for a moment, then at the trooper sitting a few feet away.

“Well, I have two of them, and the last time I looked they were bright yellow.”

“Penn…”  She growled.

“I don't know for sure,” he laughed.  ”I never got the whole story.  Mom said my Dad would tell me when I was old enough.”  His smile faded, and for a moment, he looked into his coffee mug, “they were killed before they got the chance.”  No matter how much he tried not to let it, their death still hurt even after all this time.

“Penn…  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to pry.”

“No problem, it was a long time ago,” he shrugged, blinking away the stinging sensation in his eyes.

“The one thing I know for sure, is that whatever was done to me, and I suspect you, were part of some secret 'super soldier' program.”

“Me?”

“Human skin color doesn't normally change from white to dark brown in bright sunlight as quick as ours.  Nor do their eyes see into a broader spectrum as I do.  What's happened to the two of us has to be manmade,” it explained a lot, and to Ellis filled in a few of the missing bits of the puzzle about her own peculiarities.  The question was, what else, could she do that she didn’t know about, like adjusting her eyes, or that combat speed Penn had demonstrated.

“So, what happened to you?”  Penn asked, keeping his voice low, drawing her attention back to him.

“I…  I enlisted just after the so-called cease-fire.  I was fourteen at the time, but the Imperial Military recruiter didn't seem to care.”

“All they want to do was fill the ranks, and replace the troops they lost on Earth.”

“You could be right.  I just didn't think about it back then.  I was two jumps ahead of the slavers, and rape gangs in Tucson.  The Empire gave me a way out of that hell-hole, and I took it.”

Penn tried to imagine the desperate struggle of a young girl, fighting for survival in the ruined city.  Everyone knew what had happened in those cities when the bombs and rocks fell.  His own childhood was relatively easy by comparison.  He knew the jungle like the back of his hand, and with his training, it was easy for him to adapt the childish game of hide and go seek to the more deadly version he played with the Imperials.

“So you have no idea who played around in your genetic pool?”

“Just fragments of memories that I'd rather not think about.”  Ellis sighed and stretched out her legs, wiggling her butt to move the sand into a more comfortable position.  Her body felt itchy, but a bath would have to wait.  Thankfully, Penn didn't press her for answers.

CHAPTER - EIGHTEEN:               Ghost whisper

Ellis thought back to Penn in the thermal pool, naked to the waist, beckoning her toward him.  She wondered for a moment if she could resist if something similar happened again.  Penn was also starting to feel comfortable, partly due to the woman sitting beside him, and partly due to their surroundings.  The firelight flickered and danced on the walls around them, lighting the faces of the troopers as they talked.  It reminded him of home.  Apart from the obvious facial and body differences, these troopers could be the SAS or Royal Marine Commandos who had come to train the succession of Earth troops at the jungle outpost.  They spoke of the same things, of military matters, hairy stories of combat, barrack humor, sexual conquests.  His father told him that soldiers had been doing much the same thing for as long as anyone could remember.  The older soldiers taught the younger ones, it was a tradition.  Penn's father told him, he would do well to listen to all the older men had to say.  Penn, even at a young age, had received advice on just about everything.  From how to cut an enemy's throat all the way to romancing a girl.  Penn’s face pulled into a smile, remembering the old advice that a soldier's military objective was to get a girl's panties off as quick as possible.  At twelve, he had no idea why he'd ever want to do that, and it was a long while before he understood their laughter.  After the attack on their base, Penn and his young friends quickly put those lessons into action against Imperial troops.  He was just as adept with a blowgun, bow, or spear as he was with modern combat weapons.  After seeing what IMPSEC goons did to people in some of the Alca villages, he found something personally satisfying in creeping up on his enemy, and use a knife at close quarters.

"So, who IMPSEC?”  Penn asked discretely, speaking into his coffee mug.

"Why would they be here?" she asked, copying him.

"They're here as a backup in case you screw the pooch, or get killed along the way."

He wasn't trying to insult her, it was a matter of practicality.  If she died, she doubted the Captain could handle this bunch for long.  The General would cover his butt three ways from Sunday.  It hadn't occurred to her before that those stone killers would be here in her team.  The thought sent a shiver up her spine.  Maybe they weren't here just to make sure she did her job, but to eliminate Penn after he'd completed the mission.  It was something an asshole like Tandy would think of.

"I honestly don't know,” she whispered.

"I'm betting those three over there.  Dana is the leader," Penn pointed with his eyes for a moment, and then looked away.  Ellis couldn't see anything that set them apart from the others and said so.

"If you notice, those three always sit just a little away from the other.  Not out of the group, but not exactly part of it either.  They also eat and sleep together.”

"No much to go by.”

"It's in their eyes.  They watch too much, and aren't as quick to join in a firefight as the others.  But I've seen these dickheads before, how they acted on Earth, and what they did to people.”

"I take it, you took a special interest in their well being when you met up with them.”

"Oh yes.  I went out of my way to welcome them to Earth, on a personal basis you might say,” his soft laugh held little humor.  She doubted their deaths were anything but clean and fast.

"I'll keep an eye on them from now on.”

"Won't do you much good until I've... until we've got this prize, whatever it is, or found how to turn off that gravity effect.”

Later, she unrolled her sleeping mat next to his.  She was bone tired but didn't know why.  Everyone except Penn looked exhausted.  She wanted nothing more than to get this over with, and go home.  But where was home now, Earth?  Earth seemed just as alien and far away now as this place.  Penn sat in his lotus position on his sleeping mat, meditating as she drifted off to sleep.  Lulled by the soft ghostly sigh of the wind as it wandered between the buildings, like a lost soul looking for a home.  He finally slept, close but not touching Ellis, and the moment she moved the next morning, he opened his eyes.

"Sleep well?” he asked as she sat up.

"Wonderful," she answered, sitting and stretching.

"Good.  Remember what I said last night.  Concentrate on getting to the base of the pyramid and nothing else got it?”  Obviously, Penn knew something, but he wasn't saying what.  ”Can you follow those instructions?”

“Yes.”  She answered, her brow pulling into a frown.  Even though she was in command, she didn’t hesitate to comply with his order, and that’s what it was, an order.

"Good.  Your life may depend on it.”  He said cryptically as he knelt and rolled his sleeping mat.

Ellis did the same, and within half an hour, they'd eaten breakfast, and outside, ready to march.  Ellis performed the morning inspection, and they were off.  Rounding a corner, and much to everyone's surprise, they found the road the trooper Thrax had described.  It ran straight as an arrow for about a mile toward the base of the pyramid.

"Well what do you know?  We caught a break at last!”  Class yelled.

"No more running in circles around these frigging buildings.”  Another trooper answered.  None of them seemed to think it odd that the road wasn't here last night.

"Don't be too sure of that, trooper,” Penn put in.  “roads don't just suddenly appear out of thin air.”

“Trust a human to look on the dark side.”  Breen mumbled loudly.

Penn saw a couple of troopers spit on the ground.  He was used to it, and it didn't affect him nearly as much as it did when he was younger, as when he had to step off the sidewalk into the gutter when Imperials walked by.  He knew it revealed more about their fear of him, than hatred.  The ones who'd spat were also the ones he suspected of being IMPSEC.  They started at a brisk pace, the morning sun shining bright, the air fresh and clean without a trace of dust from the day before.  The miles went quickly, and from their slightly higher elevation, they could see the road took a couple of jogs before another straight stretch to the pyramid.  As they came to a T-junction and turned the corner, three Silurian soldiers came running toward them from between the next row of buildings.  But they were gone before anyone could even bring a weapon up to fire.

"What the shit!”  Class yelled as a giant slab of the road suddenly tilted down under the Silurian's and swung over them like a wave.  With a tremendous thud, it came level again, swallowing all three.  All heard the Silurian's last screams as they plunged to their death under the road.

"Oh God!  What the fuck was that?”  Carras moaned as he looked down at the slab he was standing on.  His face white as he moved to the edge.

"Another trap!  What the hell do you think it was?”  Dana yelled.

Yet, somehow, Penn walked down the road and over the place where the three Silurian's had vanished, and the roadbed never moved.  Ellis found her heart in her throat as she watched, expecting to see him suffer the same fate as their enemies.

"Damn it Penn!  What the hell do you think you're doing?” she snapped, wanting nothing more than to slap him.  “That slab could have flipped over!”

"No it wouldn't.”

"Why not?"

“Because it wasn't my fear.”  That stopped her.

"Come again.”

"I bet you the Silurian's was thinking about falling into a pit or something, and so he did.”

"That's crazy!"

"Maybe, but they're dead.”

The troopers were skeptical of Penn's reasoning, and they approached the road carefully, mostly walking along the edge, boot cautiously feeling the ground for any movement.  It slowed their pace considerable for a while until they got their confidence back.  As they walked, another disconcerting thought spread through the rank.  From their previous higher position, they'd all seen the road take a right, then a left and go straight for another mile before it ran straight to the base of the pyramid.  They'd turned right, but no left turn appeared.  It was just block after block of crumbling buildings.  They tried to turn around and walked back to the T-junction, but after three hours of wandering and retracing their steps, Ellis had to admit there might be something Penn's musings.  Ellis was in the lead, and about to turn another unfamiliar corner when Penn suddenly exploded into a blur of motion.  He dived between the troopers and grabbed Ellis around the waist just as she was about to step off into an open pit that had appeared under her feet.  It happened so quickly that she had no time to react.  If it weren't for Penn pulling her back, she would have fallen to her death several hundred feet below on the needle sharp stakes at the bottom.  Several impaled Thrakee and Silurian's attested to the efficiency of the trap.