Chapter 45: A Victory

Date: November 26, 3007
Time: 00:30
Location: Navasota Island

Maldran Argali slackened his grip on his dual R-13 Redemption Sub-machine guns as two twin magazines landed softly on the blood-stained grass. The night was lit up by a halo of flashing lights, screaming at him with every burst of flame. The explosions were so stubbornly consistent, that they were now merely muffles of sound in the distance. And in that brief second of observation, Maldran reloaded his weapon and spun around.

Quickly dispatching two stragglers in the retreat, Maldran rushed into the fray with random bullets bouncing off of his personal shield. Flashes of blue and white reverberated around him as another piece of steel was deflected from his body. Roaring in this mob-mentality, he open-fired, spewing a stream of bullets into the bodies of unsuspecting Dominion soldiers cowering behind a tree.

That’s when it hit him that they had pushed the Dominion all the way back, past the row of smoldering tanks, into the tree-line. The last leg of the battle was to be fought out using guerilla warfare.

Dodging behind a tree, Maldran looked around for familiar faces. As he rammed two new clips home, he spun around and strafed to another tree, bringing down another soldier with a sharp scream. Maldran’s eyes darted from left to right, then caught a glimpse of Michael and Damiver ahead of him, crouching behind a humongous boulder. Just as he was about to join them, Damiver suddenly leapt onto the rock and with his LF-9 Lions Fang Machine Gun, started to mow down an entire mass of Dominion troops.

“What the f***! Damiver get down!” Maldran shouted as he rushed towards Michael’s position. Ducking his head as he went, he could literally feel bullets whiz millimeters above the hair on his neck. Specks of dirt sprayed up as bullets impacted the ground, making Maldran’s heart pound furiously in the essence of war.

“What’s he doing?!” Maldran screamed over Damiver’s chattering machine gun.

Michael looked back and chuckled grimly, “Let him have some fun.” There was a snide grin on his face.

Maldran stared back at Damiver who seemed to be enjoying his moment in the limelight immensely. Reckless son of a b****…

Suddenly, someone skidded to a halt right next to Maldran’s feet. Jumping out of the way, his eyes followed Deirdre as she scrambled up and ejected an empty sniper rifle cartridge. Without a word of greeting, she peered around the corner of the boulder with the scope of her A-3 Asianic and fired off a round. Before the scream of the man had even reached Maldran’s ears, Deirdre had sprinted off to another tree.

As Maldran tried to follow, he suddenly noticed how graceful Deirdre was in the art of combat, and for that, he was very thankful. It was her that had prevented Maldran’s untimely death. In fact, now that he thought of it, he could never have gotten anywhere without his squad by his side.

All of a sudden, someone jumped on top of him, bringing him flailing to the ground. Maldran felt his weapons slip out of his hands onto the mildew laden grass. Instinctively, he brought his hands up to shield himself, but caught on to a long rifle. Looking up, he realized a Dominion soldier was on top of him, trying with all of his desperation to end Maldran right then and there.

Straining with effort, Maldran brought his right leg up and kneed the man in the side. Taking the brief moment of distraction, Maldran forced the butt-end of the rifle into the man’s chin. As a sharp crack pierced the bullet-filled air, Maldran took control of the weapon and whipped around. The man fell to his knees, and before he knew it, Maldran had plugged his head with a single bullet from the foreign Dominion-made weapon.

Cursing in exasperation, he searched the blackened ground around him for his dual machine guns. Then, he spotted them out in the open, where most of the fire was concentrated. Swearing profusely, he dove in head first.

A bullet landed within centimeters of Maldran’s face as he rolled over to his guns. In a swift motion, he grabbed both weapons off of the land and sprayed a stream of steel into the trees ahead, adding to the already random carnage unfolding. Feeling a sharp pain on his shoulder, Maldran decided to not take a leaf out of Damiver’s book and fell back against a tree. His shoulder was getting wet.

Then, as he reloaded, Maldran saw a dark figure arise from within the shadows. He raised a gigantic gatling-gun and fired into the trees. There was a deafening explosion as the huge shell-like bullet tore through a tree, toppling it over onto another. Each impact of the gun’s bullets were like mini-earthquakes. The land rattled with death as the man casually walked forwards, his fingers firmly pressed against the trigger of his massive weapon.

It was then that he realized it was Mikhail, fearless. Maldran watched in astonishment as the Dominion bullets just seemed to miraculously miss him. Through the fire and flames, he thought he could see a devilish, almost inhuman grin etched upon his rugged face.

A breeze blew by, and Maldran smelled the tingly, salty air of the ocean. Then, he suddenly realized the ocean was right by him. The soundtrack of the battle seemed to drown out everything else to such an extent, that he forgot he was on an island.

A spray of cold water almost reached the top of the cliff jutting out over the sea. Maldran looked ahead and saw the last of the troops being forced away, out of the trees and onto the beaches. It was like that old battle in reverse back in 1944 in the old country of France back on Earth. What the name of the battle was called was out of Maldran’s memory, but somehow, it didn’t feel right when the defenders were taking the beachhead.

The final plunge before the dead silence. Maldran ran through the trees, not caring when the branches lashed out at his face. Physical pain had gotten beyond him. He felt numb on the inside and out. Up ahead, the underbrush parted away to the foamy sprays of the black sea and cool white sands. However, almost every inch of the beach was stained with blood.

Someone roared a muffled command throughout the night and the fire suddenly ceased. Dead silence ensued, and Maldran felt a chill run down his spine, colder than anything he had ever felt before. Everyone was gone, dead. Behind him, the EDEN started to come out of the trees, following their leader.

Mikhail approached Maldran and clapped him firmly on the shoulder as he stood there looking at the bodies carpeting the beach, “What a fine young veteran you are.” With that, he strolled off onto the beach, his pistol at the ready, ready to finish off the last of the wounded. No prisoners, no survivors. Brutal, yet necessary.

Michael came up to him and shouldered his own rifle, “See Deirdre?”

Maldran looked around and shrugged his shoulders. As he was about to reply, Damiver walked up from behind him. Maldran turned around and noticed a red line that looked as if it were painted on Damiver’s face. “Like it?” Damiver asked casually as he pointed at the cut where a bullet had burned away his skin as it grazed his face.

“You’re one lucky bast***, you know that right?” Maldran chuckled and ruffled Damiver’s hair, “But where’s Deirdre?”

Damiver’s expression suddenly turned grim, “Oh no, you don’t suppose maybe she…”

“Maybe I what?” a female voice resounded behind the three men. Maldran, Michael, and Damiver whipped around to face Deirdre, her sniper rifle slack in her hands. There was a devilish grin upon her face. All at once, the men collided into her in one gigantic group hug.

Laughing for the first time in what seemed like a million years, Maldran pulled what was left of his squad closer, as if trying to merge into their bodies. The bonds of brotherhood had never felt any closer than at that moment, for Michael, Damiver, and Deirdre were his brothers and sister.

Finally pulling away, Deirdre looked around and retorted, “What you should really be wondering about, is where Nova and Rena are.” Maldran realized he had forgotten all about the Shadows. Behind him, the remainder of Eden had started to shout out in victory. The noise they made was deafening, rivaling only the tank bombardment of the mountains hours before. They would love to see this…

I am seeing this… a sudden voice boomed out from within his ears. Maldran looked around wildly to try to find the source of the words.

Where are you, Nova? Maldran thought, still looking through the trees to try to find a glimpse of her slim body sitting on a tree branch.

Stop trying, you won’t find me. I’m going away. Rena’s dead. And with that, Maldran’s brain became quiet once more, replaced by hundreds of questions. Where was Nova going? How did Rena die? How did she survive? How did they survive? How the hell did they get out of this god-awful mess?

“Guys,” Maldran whispered, “Rena’s dead and Nova’s gone.”

Michael chuckled, “Sergeant, Shadows come and go as they choose. Who are we to say where they are to be? And as for Rena, she was a fine soldier, but she meant nothing to you or me. What matters is that we still have each other.”

Maldran smiled at the corny remark, but knew it was true. However, there was still a shadow within his mind. Part of him wanted to retrieve Rena’s body, to give it a proper burial, but finding a lone person in a field of thousands of the dead was like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles.

He turned back to face the ocean. The celebratory cries of EDEN had become muffled in his ears; all he heard was the crashing of the waves onto the sand, mixing and mingling with fresh blood. The black sea had turned red with angish and hatred.