A Reason to Live pt. 13
*Disclaimer*
The following (the thirteenth and final part of the series 'A Reason to Live') contains both mystical/metaphysical and Judeo-Christian Religious aspects. If you are offended by any/all of these subjects, you are strongly encouraged to avoid reading this or any subsequent works with the title 'A Reason to Live' that are written by me. Thank you for your compliance.
A Reason to Live pt. 13
The man in black reached the small ship, his goal, which he had conquered the base for. It was little more than a atmospheric 'jumper' craft, capable of short jaunts off the planet, but it did not matter, for once he was free of the planet, he would summon the Harbinger, the ancient flagship of his destroyed armada. Red, a mutt, and Jasmine, a Siberian husky, had returned from their pillaging and burning. Jasmine had an armload of policed laser, plasma, and projectile rifles, as well as an assortment of handguns. Red dragged a sled laden with canned goods behind him. The man eyed them coldly through his helmet. Both Furs deposited their loads at his armored feet.
"At what, pray tell, are these for?" he asked to neither specifically, but to both. Bodies still coursing with adrenaline from the firefight, both Furs had trouble standing still; as a result, they fidgeted and swayed, trying to burn it off.
"Lord" answered Jasmine. "You said that if the people back home were good, that you would give them more food and weapons, and so we thought we would help you" she elbowed Red in the gut. "Isn't that right, Red?" The mutt grunted, then recovered.
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, boss, I mean. We got 'em for you." This, obviously, was funny to the man, who burst out laughing. His two servants looked confused and each looked to the other for an answer.
"Let me get this straight" the man said between bouts of maniacal laughter. "You think that you can help me? That you are somehow in a position to offer assistance?" the man turned to survey the valley below the plain the base was built on. "Keep your baubles or leave them here; I do not care. As for the villagers, I will deliver to them what I promised." Red, the thrill of battle wearing off, went to find a bathroom to wash off the blood before it dried in his fur. Jasmine sat down on a rock and began to sharpen her nails with a blade taken from a corpse.
Finished observing, the human turned his attention towards the ship. He placed an armored palm on it, and the ship's skin began to flow until the craft was saucer shaped, with a dome on top. It levitated a meter off the ground, emitting a pleasant but almost inaudible constant hum.
"I christen thee Forerunner" said the man in black. He picked up a bottle of wine which Red had included among the food and shattered the bottle against the hull. Green glass shards and red-purple liquid flew off like so many sparks. The ceremony finished, the armor encased man turned to look off the mountain into the valley below.
Three of the four Furs in the group, exhausted by the breakneck pace that Kyle, a jackal, and the group leader, had set, were resting under the shade cast by a copse of aspen trees. The closer they got to the mountain, the brighter the fireball got. From where they stood, the could now see that it was two separate fires, one, a crashed vehicle, farther back on a flat stretch of ground, and the other a raging fire engulfing two buildings in the outpost complex.
Still more than three miles from the facility, the valley had echoed every sound of the man in black's firefight. How quickly it was over had a crippling effect on morale. Raymond, always the pessimist, complained aloud.
"Is it just me or does it sound like they've got a whole army up there, just waiting for us?"
"Yeah I don't know about the whole 'storm the castle' thing, Kyle; he's got all the weapons and stuff they had up there" said Shelly, a fox. The jackal sighed.
"Gonna quit now, Raymond, when we're so close to ending this?" the jackal questioned, slightly angry but more than anything else tired.
"We're?" the wolverine screamed, losing his temper. "You haven't done anything except lead us closer to the man in black! As far as I know you're just so crazy dog living out alone in the middle of fuckin' nowhere!" Roxanne, an eagle, got up and tried to get her husband to calm down.
"Ray, shut up" she commanded, giving him a look that said drop it or you won't be having any fun for a long time.
"Why are you taking his side?" protested the wolverine. "He hasn't done anything to show he's on our side." From her seat on a rock under the tree, Shelly saw what neither of the other three could.
"Uh, guys?" she began, trying to get their attention. She stood up and backed against the tree, but no one heard her.
Roxanne was just about to retort again when she was cut off.
"Trouble in paradise?" the man in black asked in his grinding metallic voice. Standing in the clearing, not even five meters off, the figure stood, the little bit of sunlight that filtered through the trees absorbed by his matte black armor. Everyone turned to stare at him.
"What?" he joked. "Did I show up too early?" and laughed. Raymond's hand darted for his gun. The man looked on, amused, as the wolverine pointed the barrel at the man's chest. Roxanne drew her pistol as well, and kept it trained on the man in black.
"Oh come now, can't we be civil? And here I was thinking that just because a person weaseled his way out of a deal and traveled with tribals, he still could be social." Neither of the gun pointing Furs' aims wavered in the slightest.
"Would you shot me, Raymond?" he mocked. "No, I know you wouldn't; you're too cowardly. You'd rather follow this" he pointed at the jackal. "This disappointment than lead yourself."
"Do you ever stop talking?" Raymond asked, not taking his eyes off the man. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the jackal slowly nod his head. Roxanne must have seen too, for at that very instant that hur husband fired, she pulled the trigger. The bullets hit the man in black in the torso, one in the heart, the other just to the right.
"Huh" said the man in black. "I guess that settles that." He brushed the crumpled rounds of his armor; they had not even scratched the surface.
"Tell me, fox" he said, speaking to Shelly. "Do you really want to die with these three when you do not have to?" he walked closer to her.
"Leave her alone" Kyle said, causing the man in black to spin and face him.
"Or what, exactly, you pathetic waste of life?" Raymond, seeing an opportunity, fired almost point blank into the side of the human's helmet. The only sound was the explosion that propelled the bullet from the barrel. When the bullet hit, it glanced harmlessly off.
"Little, stupid, worthless Raymond, you can shoot all you want, but it will do you no good."
"Excuse me" Roxanne broke in. "it was just a few thousand credits; why don't you just forget the debt and leave?" The man in black laughed.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he said accusingly, staring Roxanne down behind his expressionless mask helm. "It would be great if it were that easy; but its not. A debt must be paid before I can leave this hell you freaks call a planet."
"So what do you need to pay off the debt?" Raymond asked, knowing full well the answer.
The air around the party got warm very quickly, and the space around the man in the black powered armor began to shimmer; physical effects of the man in black's mood.
"You" he said. "You think that I need something?!" boomed the man in black. Leaves on trees and small shrubs were blasted back by the force of his words. The very thought amused him, and he began to laugh manically. The husband and wife pair as well as the fox watched him laugh and exchanged confused looks. Eventually, the man regained himself.
"Fine, you all want me gone, I want to be gone; all that remains is the small matter of what Raymond owes me."
Back up on the mountain, Red had gotten bored waiting, and had torched another of the bullet ridden buildings. The updraft caused by the sudden whoosh of the igniting flame lifted papers which had drifted out of the buildings, where they were caught by winds blowing down the mountain. Research notes and documents began to rain down on the group in the valley below.
The man in black caught a falling piece of paper.
"What the hell are those idiots up to now?" Roxanne took advantage of the man's distraction to grab at a small, slightly torn and singed piece of paper. She took one look at it and passed it of to her husband. Raymond looked at the scrap and smiled.
"I believe this is yours" he said as he walked forward and pressed the paper into the man's black gauntlet. The man acted on instinct and brought his hand around the Fur's neck. He tightened his grip and lifted, leaving the Fur helplessly dangling. The man glanced at the paper in his hand.
"How convenient, you little whelp, that my idiots up there bought you your freedom with their incompetence. You, have either luck or Providence on your side; don't waste your newly saved life." He casually tossed the Fur away like a used tissue. The wolverine knocked into Shelly and bowled her over. By the time he got to his feet seconds later, the human was gone, the only proof that ever he had existed were two oval boot prints burned into the forest gravel.
Everyone breathed sighs of relief, but Kyle's was the loudest.
"Finally this quest is over. God be with ye all, even if ye do not believe in Him." The Fur strode off into the woods, but returned a few seconds later.
"Raymond, could I have my cloak back?" The wolverine reached into his backpack and threw the folded garment to the jackal, who slipped it over his head and disappeared back into the woods.
"Well Ray, what do we do now?" Roxanne asked, turning the safety on her revolver on. She slipped all but one of the bullets into her palm, and from there to her pocket.
"I guess, I guess we go back home, I mean, if it's still there; it's been a long time."
"And what about me?" Shelly chimed in. "I can't just go back to my village." Roxanne looked from Raymond to Shelly, and then back to Raymond. She sighed and said;
"I suppose there wouldn't be any harm in letting you come back to civilization with us, after that, who knows?"
"Hey speaking of civilization" Raymond said, picking up his gear and shouldering it. "You know what we could use right now?"
"Some lunch?" Roxanne joked and everyone laughed.
"No" he said. "A map. You know, to help us get back to it?" Roxanne opened her bag and peered inside. She pulled out a rolled up piece of paper.
"Looks like our mysterious friend left us one, Ray. And from the looks of it a couple day's worth of packed lunches." Raymond grabbed for the map and began to examine it as the trio set off to the north. Eventually, they too disappeared among the trees, though their arguing about which way to go could be heard for miles.
The man's followers were waiting for him when he appeared at the ship. Red, his tail wagging excitedly, was the first to ask what happened.
"Well boss, did ya kill 'em?" the man in black shook his head and made for the Forerunner's entrance ramp. His two canines followed him obediently, both forgetting in the excitement to bring anything but their own weapons with them. When everyone was seated, the man in black in the pilot seat, and the ramp closed, the man in black spoke only a single sentence.
"Sometimes, it is far better to let them walk away." Red was about to ask another question, but Jasmine silenced him. At first, the small craft vibrated as it took to the skies, but soon inertial dampeners and huge gyroscopes sprouted from the inner hull to support the crew compartment.
The saucer shaped craft arced low into the atmosphere, stopping only once, over an obscure tribal village. The cargo bay opened, and a huge crate of weapons and preserved food fell into the village's granite walls, kept from shattering on impact by a huge nylon parachute. The box bounced and knocked the corner off of a hut, but otherwise landed safely.
One or two brave tribals dared to watch the odd ship brake and accelerate away, before it was lost in the clouds.
Miles above the planet, the view screen on the small craft was filled by a huge, ancient ship locked in an eternal orbit around the planet. The ship drawn in by a gravitational beam, the man in black released the controls. He smiled, under his helmet, at his new recruits.
"Welcome" he said. "Home"
Fin