D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

I didn’t understand what he meant at first. What kind of double-talk was this? There was no way he was talking me out of this fight. I looked to the other Travelers for support, but they seemed to know what Uncle Press meant.

Alder was the one who put it into words. “What Press means is, you have a bigger task ahead.”

My anger slipped away as the realization hit me. It was true. I couldn’t risk falling during the attack. My destiny went beyond the storming of the conclave. If we were to triumph, once and forever, Saint Dane had to be ended.

That job was mine.

“I want to be there with you all,” I said. “You will be,” Alder said.

“You have always been with us,” Loor added. “Your spirit was our guide from the beginning. Today is no different.”

I believe that was the highest compliment I’d ever been paid. I hoped it was true. I hoped I could live up to it.

“Boon, stay back with me,” I said. “We’ll fly in over the top.”

“Yes, sir!” Boon said eagerly, and jumped to my side.

I took one last look at my Traveler friends. Alder, Spader, Siry, Kasha, and my uncle. Press Tilton. The Traveler from Second Earth before me. Each carried a silver shield, except for Loor, who had her wooden stave out and ready.

‘And so we go,” I said.

Uncle Press nodded to Aron. Aron brought out his link radio cube.

“First wave at the ready,” he said into the glowing cube.

Instantly the first line of warriors tensed up. Boon, Mark, Courtney, and I got out of the way. We quickly made our way through the mass of people, headed for the gig that was waiting near the river.

Suddenly I heard what I thought was a huge cheer. It wasn’t. It was a battle cry. I turned back to see the first wave of exiles and gars running for the conclave. The assault was under way. Just like that. My stomach turned over. Such brave people, all willing to give their lives for a better world. Or rather, for the better world that used to be. They charged across the open field with nothing to protect them but those tiny shields. There were thousands in that first wave. I wondered how many would be left standing when it was complete.

I wondered what would happen to the Travelers,

The dados didn’t wait for the assault to get too close before they began shooting. The steady paf paf paf of their weapons echoed across the battlefield. Several of our people were hit, and turned to ash instantly. The result of getting hit by a charge from one of those weapons had the same effect as what we’d seen when the Ravinian guards had executed that poor guy inside the conclave. Instant incineration. I hoped it wasn’t painful. Adding to the sound of the weapons firing was a constant metallic pinging sound.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Those silver shields repel the charge from those guns,” Mark explained. “We stole them from the Ravinians a long time ago. Never thought we’d have to use them.”

It gave me a little bit of hope that at least they had some protection. But there looked to be hundreds of dados on top of the wall, the high ground, firing down. No matter where they shot, they were sure to hit one of our people. That’s how many of us there were. A couple of gars dropped to their knees with their radio cannons and started firing back. One by one, dados were knocked backward off the wall, never to be seen again. It looked like a shooting gallery.

Boon ran for the gig and started powering up.

“I gotta go,” I said to Mark and Courtney.

“We’ll see you inside,” Courtney replied.

There was a quick group hug.

“Get us home, Bobby,” Mark whispered.

I pulled away and looked into the faces of my two best friends. We were no longer the little kids who’d grown up together in Stony Brook. Yet we were. Who could have foreseen the people we would become? I was proud of who we were and what we had done, but this was not the way it was meant to be. It made me sad, and a little angry.

“I love you guys” was all I said, and ran for the gig. I had to get out of there. I didn’t want to let my emotions take over by even thinking of the possibility that I would never see them again.

The gig’s rotors were up to speed. I jumped in next to Boon and strapped in.

“We going straight in?” he asked.

“No. We should hover above until they break through.”

We lifted off smoothly. After a quick wave down to Mark and Courtney, we shot skyward and got a bird’s-eye view of the battle below. It looked like one of those battlefield attacks from the American Civil War or World War I. Thousands of people charged for the fortress, while the Ravinians fired back to keep them away. This was old-school warfare with some new-school weapons. The only difference was that there weren’t any bodies on the battlefield. That’s because they had been obliterated. There were no remains. At least, not yet.

Leading the way were Uncle Press and the Travelers. They dodged around the smoking hulks of the downed choppers, using them for protection when possible. Wisely, they were not running in a straight line. They wanted to be difficult targets.

“Uh-oh,” Boon said.

Looking forward, I saw that two more helicopters had lifted off from beside the conclave and were headed for the battlefield. My fear was that they were going to start firing rockets into the crowd. Those little silver shields would have no effect against that kind of barrage.

“Buzz ‘em!” I said.

“What?”

“Distract them. Anything!” I shouted. Boon pushed the gig forward, and we shot toward the choppers.

The first helicopter fired a rocket into the crowd. When it hit, the explosion was violent. And sickening. I hated to think how many people had been killed in that one short second. A second rocket was fired, making another direct hit into the charging army. The explosion ripped the ground, tearing up cement. Bodies were launched like rag dolls.

“Do it!” I screamed at Boon.

The klee cut across the nose of the first chopper, barely missing it. The pilot pulled out of his attack run and turned his chopper to come after us. Boon buzzed the second chopper, doing a figure eight between the two. Okay, maybe I was wrong. Maybe Boon was a better pilot than Kasha. Our aerobatics seemed to confuse the pilots, which was the best we could have hoped for. All I wanted was for them to stop firing long enough for…

Suddenly both helicopters started to rotate wildly. They were out of control, and I thought I knew why. They kept firing rockets but had no way of directing them. Several hit the conclave wall. None hit our people.

“Pull up!” I shouted.

Boon shot skyward to get away from the doomed helicopters. There was no telling which way they would fly as they struggled to stay airborne. The hunters had become hunted. The gars were firing their radio cannons at them from the ground, which meant the marauders wouldn’t be in the air for long. I didn’t know if the weapons from Black Water were disrupting the choppers, or had damaged their dado pilots. Didn’t matter. Either way, they were going down. I feared for a moment that they might crash onto the battlefield… with tragic results for those below. I held my breath, watching the helicopters dodge about like crazed butterflies. They crashed within seconds of each other… but not on the battlefield. Both hit square onto the roof of the dado factory.

“Woohaa!” I screamed in victory, surprise… and relief.

Explosions erupted that tore through the factory’s roof. More explosions followed from below… far more than made sense for the number of rockets they were carrying.

“That’s where they build the helicopters,” I told Boon. “They must store the rockets-”

I was cut off by the sound of an immense explosion that came from inside the factory. A huge mushroom cloud of fire and black smoke blasted into the air, blowing out the roof. The wave of heat buffeted our little gig. Boon had to fight to keep control.