We the People vol 2: Liberty or Death

Thane followed Chui as the curly haired-youth trudged into the hangar bay. A chill wind cut through her clothing like a knife, though she only felt the cold as a slight prickling of her skin. The bay doors stood open, revealing a resplendent craggy scene. She slowed her pace, letting her eyes linger on the golden light flashing off of snowy peaks. A bald eagle soared majestically, distinct against the perfect blue of the sky.

“How come you don’t have a uniform?” asked a voice behind her.

Bearclaw marched up to stand by her side, swinging his heavy weapons bag at the end of a thick arm. He gestured to his own black fatigues and bulletproof vest.

“I don’t exactly need body armor,” Thane replied. “Anyway, last time I was here we didn’t even have uniforms.”

“Well, you match us in color, at least,” he said, gesturing at her black vinyl pants and Dia de los Muertos shirt. “Is your wardrobe a statement or are you stuck in the early nineties goth phase?”

His tone was gently chiding, and the smile on his face belied the rib.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just comfortable in black. It’s...soothing.”

“You two want to get on the plane?”

Bast shouldered past both of them, his thickly muscled figure impressive his own black fatigues. Bearclaw shrugged and followed the Major as he strode up to the unusual looking jet. Its ebony skin was mottled with numerous ridges and protrusions Thane knew were designed to break up its image on radar. Its wings were rather short, and from what she understood the plane was difficult to pilot as a result. The first time she’d flown in it, they’d had to make an emergency landing in a cornfield.

Once they were all ensconced on the plane, sitting in the backward-facing seats, Bast’s voice crackled over the intercom. It seemed like he should have been able to just raise his voice, so small was their transport, but Bast was Bast and he loved his protocols.

“Corporal, is everyone accounted for?”

Thane could easily see that everyone was present, but she indulged him.

“Sound off,” she said, using what she hoped was a good military voice.

“Espinosa, here,” Chui said. He seemed a bit ridiculous in his combat fatigues given his physique and cherubic features, but Thane didn’t doubt his toughness. The little patch of bubbled flesh on his left forearm bespoke of his courage under fire—literally.

“James Michael Bearclaw, present and accounted for,” Bearclaw said loudly. The little wink he gave her may have been intended to be charming, but she ignored it completely.

“I’m here, Thane,” Faraday said, her eyes focused on the cyberworld.

Creepy waved enthusiastically. When she did a few buzzing insects took flight off of her shoulders, only to return a moment later.

“Montel Von Richter III, reporting for duty,” Montel said. There was no bravado in the big man’s voice, just cool steadiness.

“All clear, Major,” Thane said, “take us up when you’re ready.”

“Secure crash webbing and prepare for takeoff,” Bast said over the intercom.

“Why can’t you just say fasten your seat belts?” Chui said snidely.

Bast seemed not to hear. He taxied the jet out the open bay doors. It turned sharply to roll onto a thin runway cleverly concealed from the ground by a jagged ridge. Thane felt apprehensive; There wasn’t much space on either side of the aircraft, and Bast poured on the speed. Though it was hardly the first time she’d seen rock walls blurring past her window, she still found the experience unsettling. If Bast were to make even the slightest error, most of her friends would be dead and she’d need a new outfit.

Her stomach lurched as Bast lifted the nose off the ground and they soared into the air. Once the jet leveled out they were no longer being pressed against their crash webbing, and everyone relaxed.

“Where were we going again?” Chui asked. He was little green around the gills, but his voice was even.

“Upstate New York, near the Canadian border,” Bast replied over the intercom.

Thane squinted her eyes as she recalled the map they had studied.

“Intel says the deliveries are being made to an old lumber mill,” she said.

“Wonder if we can recruit Paul Bunyan to help us out,” Montel said with a slight smile.

“American legend, homes.” Bearclaw smirked over at him. “Of course, they WOULD make the biggest, strongest man in the country a white dude.”

“Are you sure he’s a legend?” All eyes turned to Thane and she grinned. “Maybe Paul Bunyan was one of us. You know, special or what have you.”

“There’s some debate about whether you are, in fact, one of us,” Bearclaw said.

“Uh, excuse me?” Thane turned a dark gaze on the young Indian. “I was here before you were, buddy!”

His face was crossed with a wide-eyed, apprehensive stare.

“That’s not what I...I mean, I never meant...Chui is the one who’s been saying it!”

Thane’s head snapped around to face Espinosa.

“Well?” She demanded.

He seemed to have trouble meeting her gaze.

“Um...well, it’s just that most of the people we’ve run into with abilities like ours, well...it’s all mental. I mean, our physiology doesn’t have significant deviation from the norm.”

“Oh, so because I can put myself back together after being torn to pieces I’m not allowed in the club?”

“Please, Thane,” Chui said, holding his palms out before him. “I don’t mean you’re not one of the team. I just think that whatever is going on that makes us different, it’s not the same phenomenon that makes you....you.”

“So what are you trying to say, Chui? That I’m not human?”

“That’s not what he’s saying at all.” Thane turned to regard Montel, who was sitting with his legs stretched out into the aisle. “Different isn’t bad. It’s just different. Speculating about how we do the things we do is healthy and normal, not to mention useful.”

If someone else had uttered those same words, it probably would have come off as condescending and preachy. The crisp delivery and easy smile Montel wore made it seem heartfelt.

“Well, whatever,” she said, feeling her anger subside.

Thane stood up and carefully made her way to the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot seat.

“Problems, Thane?” Bast asked. He adjusted some instruments on the panel, single good eye hidden behind dark glasses. Outside the windscreen the sky was a brilliant blue.

“No, not really,” she said. “It’s just...I’ve been gone a long time. There’s a different dynamic to the group, I guess.”

“Well...” Bast sniffed. “You certainly seem to be getting along well with James.”

Thane glanced sharply at him. His face was impassive, as usual, but she detected a bit of tension in his jaw.

“Well, he isn’t afraid to tell you how he’s feeling,” Thane said.

“Bearclaw has a lot of ‘feelings’ for a lot of different women,” Bast said after a snort.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you trying to protect me?”

Bast glanced at her, his thick lips tight.

“I’m always trying to protect you, Thane.”

“Nice! How noble of you dad.”

Thane cursed herself silently as she plodded back to her seat.

Why did I say that? How come Bast keeps making me feel uncomfortable and pissed off?

“Trouble?”

She snapped her gaze on Bearclaw, but he didn’t seem to be mocking her. His jaw was set, and a somber light glinted in his eyes.

“No, not really,” she said stiffly.

“So, you and the Major...” James said “there’s a history there?”

“Yeah.” Thane leaned her seat back and closed her eyes, though she never needed sleep. Sometimes she entered a kind of meditative reverie to relax her always-busy mind, but right at the moment she was trying to end the conversation. “Historically, he’s been a jerk. You know he blew me up once with a bazooka?”

“A bazooka?” James said, jaw dropping open.

“Well,” Thane said, enjoying the expression on his face “I did punch out a cop and steal his car...”

The flight lasted two hours as the jet skimmed along the clouds. They were flying too high for the plane’s electronic countermeasures to be effective, but nothing they knew of ESX indicated it had access to radar.

When Bast announced they would land soon, a discussion cropped up about their quarry. Mostly, Chui talked while Montel and James asked questions.

“So ESX is like one of those ‘grays’ you see on the internet? Like Area 51 and crap?” James asked.

“Indeed, James,” Chui replied “but much smaller than you’re thinking of. ESX is the size of an infant, or at least it was the last time we saw it.”

“But it has some kind of mojo, right?” Montel’s voice was tinged with worry. “I mean, it has powers like us.”

“Telekinesis, telepathy, and maybe some other stuff,” Chui replied.

“Telekin-whatsis?” James said, his head tilted to the side like a confused dog.

“It means ESX, and presumably Dr. Kass, can move things without touching them,” Thane said.

“What kinds of things?” Montel asked.

Chui grinned and gestured at Thane.

“Well, back in St. Louis it hit Thane with a barge.”

“A barge?” James and Montel said at once. Thane grinned.

“I got better,” she said with a wink.

“She got better,” James said with a chuckle. Then his face crinkled fretfully. “What about alien weaponry? Ray guns, or photon torpedoes-”

“That’s not how ESX operates,” Chui said. “Wanton destruction is counterproductive to its ultimate goal.”

“Right.” Montel nodded. “I heard it wants to overwrite the human race with its own kind, not wreak mass destruction. Makes sense, really. I mean, why rebuild all that infrastructure if you don’t have to?”

“Rat bastard,” James said with a chuckle. “I mean, wiping out a native culture and replacing it with your own. Who does that?”

“White people suck. We get it,” Montel said with a sigh.

“How would one of us react if our whole planet was destroyed?” Thane asked. “You can’t blame the thing for going a little loopy. I’m still gonna squish it like a ketchup pack, but I sympathize.”

“I don’t.” Faraday’s hand grasped the empty air, apparently adjusting some energy field. “ESX is our enemy. It’s bad.”

“Spoken like a true soldier,” Chui said.

The landing was much smoother this time around, with Bast touching them down in Krieger Airfield. A black SUV with government plates pulled up right onto the tarmac before Bast had the jet stopped. Thane noted the heavy security detail, and the hustle in everyone’s step.

“What’s the big hurry?” James griped as a soldier snagged his bag right out of his hands and tossed it in the back of the truck.

“The world is kind of at stake, Jimmy,” Chui said as he gratefully handed off his own pack to a walking wall of muscle. “Haste seems apropos, yes?”

“What about afros?” James said.

“Read a book,” Chui replied with a sigh.

“No one reads anymore, Espinosa,” James said. “If they did, then it’d be common knowledge how a hundred million of my ancestors are stiff in the ground.”

“You never quit, do you?” Thane said.

Faraday’s howl of rage cut through the cool air. A young man in uniform stood, holding his arms above his chest with a bewildered expression glued to his face as he stared at the slender young woman. Thane quickly interposed herself, smiling sheepishly.

“She doesn’t like to be touched,” she said. The soldier glanced past Thane at Bast, who nodded slightly. The soldier moved away and allowed Faraday to enter the vehicle without assistance.

“Where’s Rashemi?” Bast’s head was on a swivel, scanning the tarmac for his lost charge.

“She’s in here, Major,” Montel said from inside the SUV.

Thane looked inside the truck to find Creepy sitting behind the driver seat. There was a smug smile on her face. Thane couldn’t remember actually seeing her get on the truck.

Once they were all packed into their ride, the SUV took off with a lurch. Bast instructed them to view the tablet held in his hands. On screen was a satellite view of the lumber mill. Thane noted the dense woods surrounding it.

“At least we’ll have good cover for the insertion,” she said, hoping she’d used the military jargon correctly.

“When you say insertion-” James began. Thane glared him into silence.

“Shut up, Bearclaw,” she said with a sneer.

Thane pointed at a thin, white line on the black and white image.

“That looks like an elevation change, Bast.”

Bast grunted.

“Possibly. Once we have visual on the mill Thane will take point.”

Bast locked gazes with Thane. She nodded sagely back.

“You’re not leading us in yourself, Major?” Bearclaw smiled at Thane. “No offense to Morticia here, but you’re normally more of a hands-on kind of guy.”

“I can’t take the risk of falling under ESX’s influence,” Bast said through tight lips. “Thane is a capable field commander. I trust her implicitly.”

Bearclaw spread his hands out in front of him.

“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just asking.”

“Fair enough.” Bast replied. “Our objective is to locate and neutralize Extraterrestrial Life-form X and any people who may have fallen under its influence.”

Thane remained tight lipped. Inside she roiled with conflict, torn between obeying her commander—and friend—or trying to save Dr. Kass’s life.

“What’s our strategy, Major?” Montel said, licking his lips and shifting in his seat. “This thing nearly beat all of you before and we don’t have anyone who can turn themselves into a black hole.”

“Surprise is essential,” Bast replied grimly. “And ESX has displayed confusion when dealing with multiple threats at once.”

“I think we should just have Faraday fry him,” Chui said. He grinned at the slender young woman, whose eyes lit up.

“I can do that!” she said eagerly.

“Let’s try to avoid another huge energy beam like in St. Louis,” Bast said with a rare smile. “That was visible from space, you know. Not to mention it generated an EM pulse which ruined electronics in a two mile radius.”

“Faraday is our ‘big gun,’ no doubt about it,” Thane said “that’s why she’s going to be our last resort.”

“Hey!” Faraday said, lips pursed outward.

“Sorry, Farah, but it takes you almost a minute to build up an attack like that,” Thane said. She dared to put a hand on Faraday’s shoulder. The blonde flinched but didn’t jerk away. “I just don’t see ESX giving you the chance.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure she gets the time she needs,” Montel said, nodding at Faraday. “Won’t we?”

“Let’s not be too hasty.” Bast itched under his eye patch. “Until we get eyes on the target and know the tactical situation, there are too many unknowns.”

“Does Thane have one of the new radios?” Chui tapped the band around his throat.

“Yeah, but it’s not working,” Thane said in disgust, holding up her own black elastic band.

“That’s because Faraday hasn’t brought it on line yet,” Chui said with a smug smile. “You see, Bast was worried about the enemy tuning into our radio frequency, so I came up with these babies. Faraday connects them to each other, and only to each other, and keeps them powered up too!”

Thane slipped the band over her head. It was snug, but even if she had the need to breathe it would not have impeded her from doing so. She looked pointedly at Rashemi and raised an eyebrow.

“You’re going to have to talk to us, Rashemi. You’re our eyes and ears. Okay?”

Creepy nodded.

“I said OKAY?”

Creepy spread her hands out and her face scrunched up in annoyance.

“Rashemi!”

Creepy opened her mouth, and a voice hoarse from disuse croaked out of her.

“Okay, fine!”

Bast nodded his approval. The sun was hidden behind dense gray clouds, casting his face in an even more somber light.

“Thane.”

She met his eye, and for a moment he wasn’t the heartless Major Bastard. His expression was soft, almost tender.

“If things get bad, get out of there. We can always carpet bomb the living crap out of ESX. Clear?”

She wanted to argue, but that would have wiped the sublimely satisfying apprehension off his dark-skinned face.

“Clear,” was her only reply.

Thane carefully stepped around a patch of dry, brittle leaves that would have crunched horrifically loud in the nearly-silent wood. The going was slow; Rashemi’s friends didn’t much like the cold weather, and behaved sluggishly. Still, regular updates reached her ear. The throat mounted radio used conduction to transmit sound, supposedly without danger of anyone eavesdropping unless they were within a few feet.

“There’s sixteen, seven...twenty men here. Working.” Creepy’s voice seemed brittle and strange in her ear. “No ESX or Kass.”

Thane put a finger to her throat, and spoke softly.

“Do they have any sentries?”

“Sentry?” Creepy asked.

“Guard. Do they have any guards?”

“Oh. Yes. There are men standing around outside. They all have weapons. Still no...wait! Dr. Kass IS there. She looks...different.”

“Different how, Rashemi?” Thane asked.

There was no response, and Thane figured that Creepy simply didn’t have the words to describe what she was seeing through insectoid eyes. Not for the first time, Thane wondered what it looked like to her. Did she see things like a bug did, with hundreds of compound images? Feel what they sensed with their antennae? Or was it more profound than that?

Thane fingered the radio once more.

“James and Montel, you two circle around to the rear entrance. I’ll take the front. Chui, you stay with Faraday and watch her back while she builds up a charge.”

“I can help, Thane!” Creepy said indignantly.

“I know, sweetie, but we need you watching the woods in case there are more of them. Also, ESX might try to escape; Your job is to make sure it can’t!”

“But-”

“Rashemi, do you remember when Bast tried to argue you were to young to go with us on missions?” Thane snapped. “And do you also recall who it was who stood up for you and said you’d follow orders like everyone else?”

There was no response, which Thane took as close enough to acceptance.

“Does everyone understand their orders?”

“Clear,” Chui said.

“No problem,” Montel said, and the same time James said “Yes ma’am!”

“Whatever,” Creepy said.

“I’m already building up energy, Thane,” Faraday said eagerly.

“Try to keep it subtle, Farah, in case ESX can sense you doing it somehow.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just do what you do.” Thane cursed herself. Faraday had come a long way, but some of the nuances of speech still eluded her. Then, in a rush before she lost her nerve “Do NOT use lethal force on Dr. Kass if at all possible.”

“What?” James sounded angry. “Bast said-”

“I know what Bast said,” Thane hissed, struggling to keep her voice low. “This is what I’M saying! You don’t know because you’re new, but Dr. Kass was one of us. A friend. We can’t...I can’t just give up on her.”

“You got it, Thane,” Chui said in a voice so aggressively supportive she had to smile. “Toe the line, Jimmy Crack Corn, or answer to the rest of us.”

“I’m shaking,” James said snidely, but he offered no more argument.

“What about the others?” Montel asked. “The people under its influence? Maybe they’re innocent, just doing it for the paycheck, y’know?”

Thane closed her eyes tightly. Yes, she’d like to save everyone, but...

“We can’t take the risk, Montel. And if there’s no other way...” Thane hated herself for what she was about to say “take down Kass by any means necessary. Just...just try to take her alive if we can. Check in when you’re in position. Thane out.”

She resumed her slow creep on the mill. It was a lot bigger when seen from ground level. There was a building larger than a department store which comprised most of the structure, with a smaller room adjacent that seemed to be a reception area. The faded brown finish lent an air of creepiness which made her shiver. A helipad, the concrete buckled and crumbling, sat a short distance away from the mill. The remaining yellow paint along its border made it seem like a grotesque smiley face. Thane almost flinched when she saw the first guard, sauntering around the edge of the big building with a shotgun balanced casually over his shoulder.

He was a big man, barrel chested with a bushy graying beard covering most of his face. A bandanna with an approximation of the American flag covered the top of his head. Blue denim jeans adorned his lower half, while a leather vest covered his torso. Thane held still until he passed. When her eyes fell on the emblem emblazoned on his back, she nearly choked with rage.

You bastard, she thought, clenching her fist tightly. The man’s vest bore the words Sons of Liberty, New England chapter written above and below a stylized American flag.

An American flag with a noose and swastika instead of stars in the blue field.

God, what am I doing? She thought. Racists, human traffickers, pedophiles...all proud Americans. Why am I trying to save them?

Thane forced the thoughts from her mind. She was fighting to stop people like that, to protect the innocent from them. It did little to raise her spirits as she moved in on the compound.

She kept her profile low, just as Bast had taught her to. Rusting hulks of trucks and lumber equipment provided convenient cover.

Thane threw herself to the ground behind a brown patch of wild grass as a Caucasian man in his twenties bustled out the front door bearing a load of garbage. He hurried past a row of motorcycles parked flush against the building and dumped the can’s contents into what seemed to be a fire pit.

After tossing the rubbish onto the growing pile—and startling a feasting raccoon—the man turned on his heel and headed back inside. Thane crept up to the front door and found it to be unlocked.

“Everyone in position?” She asked over the microphone on her throat.

Once everyone checked in, she gave the order.

“Engage!”

Thane gently swung the door open and crept inside with her 9mm drawn. She turned on the laser sight, and ran the little red dot over the office until she was satisfied it was empty. By the time she got to the short hallway connecting to the mill proper, she heard gunfire from the rear.

Dammit, you guys!

Thane blasted the door open with a vicious kick and entered the room, flattening herself against the nearest wall. A pile of heavy logs blocked her view, but she could hear booted feet pounding the concrete amid angry shouting. A heavy thud from behind drew her attention back to the office. It sounded as if someone was coming in the same way she had.

She waited, gray eyes trained on the doorway. A biker moved into sight and she pulled the trigger twice. Both shots struck him in the head, and he collapsed against the wall and slid to his bottom, leaving a crimson smear on the wood.

Thane stepped boldly into the doorway and pumped the trigger again, striking another man in the chest. Two others screamed and fired their weapons, spattering the room with a hail of bullets. A round sliced through her forearm, but she didn’t even flinch. Carefully, she aimed her pistol and squeezed the trigger twice, resulting in two more dead men.

Try as she might, she couldn’t feel sorry for the Neo-Nazis.

Gunfire erupted behind her, this time much closer.

Thane scrambled up the pile of logs and stood atop it, eyes quickly scanning the mill. Across the wide floor from her, separated by dozens of wooden crates, James and Montel were pinned down by a barrage of bullets. Their enemies were armed with sub-machine guns, far outclassing the service pistols her team were equipped with.

Thane was drawing a bead on a biker in a red bandanna when Montel popped up from behind a row of crates. A sudden flash of light, and an M-16 assault rifle appeared in his hands, complete with an under barrel grenade launcher. Bullets sprayed from the muzzle, sending bikers scrambling for cover. One of them didn’t quite escape the deadly rain and his chest erupted in red geysers before he fell to the ground and lie still, left leg twitching eerily.

Montel switched his grip to the launcher. A hollow thump heralded an explosion as the biker’s refuge was turned to kindling. Frantically, they scrambled for more hiding places as Montel chambered another round.

“NO, not there!” shouted one of the bikers. He shook his head vigorously as one of his mates tried to crouch behind a crate large enough to hold an automobile. Thane made a note of its location, wondering if it contained explosives.

Two men broke from their cover and made a move on Montel’s position. She drew a bead on them, but they abruptly fell to their knees, clutching their throats. James dashed by, holding spiked implements of death in his hands. He sent a handful into the face of another biker armed with a machete and the man fell backward, screaming.

James suddenly dropped into a crouch, confusing Thane until a biker stood up from behind a crate and filled the air where Bearclaw had been with a hail of gunfire. One of them sliced through Thane’s bicep, leaving a gory crater.

James didn’t bother throwing a knife at his attacker. In fact, he just turned his back on him and threw something small and sharp—at her?

Thane ducked at the same time Montel gunned down Bearclaw’s adversary. She heard a meaty thunk and spun quickly in a half circle, seeing a biker grasping at the knife handle in his chest with crimson stained fingers.

Didn’t even hear him, she thought. How could I be so careless?

Caddy-corner to her position were a set of large wooden doors, big enough to move the heaviest equipment through. One of them swung inwards and a dozen bikers came charging into the room, firing their automatic rifles at Montel and James. The two young men scrambled behind crates, but their cover was being anihhilated by the biker’s heavy munitions.

Thane glanced at the logs beneath her feet. They were stacked in a rough pyramid formation, held together by stout hemp rope. Crouching, she grasped the strands with both hands and wrenched with all her might. Rope snapped, and she leaped away just as the whole pile came crashing down.

One of the bikers shouted a warning, but the logs were upon them in an instant. Clattering, shaking the whole building with their weight, the miniature avalanche overcame their attackers. One man managed to survive, though his legs were pinned against the north wall and all he could do was holler in agony.

Thane picked herself up off the floor and quickly scanned for James and Montel. She spotted them, still alive and unharmed. The floor of the lumber mill was a shambles, covered with fallen logs and splintered wood and groaning bodies.

“Hello, Thane,” said a cheerful voice that sent chills down her spine. Thane swallowed, turning to look into the cold, remorseless eyes of Dr. Kass.

The doctor seemed mostly how Thane remembered; a thirtysomething, attractive black woman with short, wavy hair. A thought flashed through Thane’s mind—how had a black woman convinced a group of white supremacist bikers into working for her?--but ESX could bend the minds of normal humans to its will.

Thane knew what Creepy was talking about when the girl had said Kass was different. The empty, hollow orbs were black as midnight, and Kass had an almost predatory aspect to her movements. Thane was reminded of a praying mantis about to pluck an unwary bug off of a flower.

Kass reached up and casually plucked a throwing star out of the side of her neck. It clattered on the concrete floor, stained with blood.

“Oh crap,” Thane said.