Monsters Win Wars: A Novella Read online

  MONSTERS WIN WARS

  Edward Punales

  © 2014, 2015 Edward Punales / All Rights Reserved

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover: Detail from a Computer Simulated Global View of the Northern Hemisphere of Venus. Image by NASA

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the copyright holder.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Author’s Notes: First, I just want to set the record straight to avoid any confusion. This story was originally published under the pen name “Edward Lange.” It has been republished here under my real name. Second, this story contains strong language and graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised.

  CHAPTER I

  Henry Patrick lay on the ground, his left hand clutching the place on his stomach where he’d been hit. The man who’d shot him lay mere feet away from Henry, the contents of his head splattered all over the wall behind him. The still smoking plasma pistol that Henry held in his hand was out of ammo. He’d used his last shot on the attacker.

  He looked around him; he was in the parlor room of the Martian villa that he and his insurgents had tried to attack. They’d had intel that President Sallis was here. He wasn’t, but his armed goons were.

  Henry looked around to see if he could spot anyone from his squad. Isaac lay dead just a few feet behind him near the staircase, a smoldering hole on his back where the plasma had hit him. He could hear the gun shots and footfalls of military boots echoing through the halls of the house. The smell of blood and plaster was thick in the air.

  With a painful shove, Henry pushed himself off the ground. Blood continued to drip out through the fingers of his left hand. He finally did get on his feet, and winced as he tried to stand up straight. He had to walk hunched over to lessen the pain.

  The rifle of the man who’d tried to kill him still sat on the ground. Henry walked over to the weapon, and winced again as he bent down to pick it up. It felt very heavy holding it with just one arm, and he found himself struggling to aim it.

  Then he heard an explosion. The villa shook, and he felt dust and plaster fall on his shoulders. The distant sound of gunshots ceased. A cold silence set in. Henry froze, his shaking right hand doing its best to not drop the rifle.

  In the distance, he could faintly hear the sound of people talking. He strained to hear them.

  “No, these aren’t him.” A voice he did not recognize said.

  “Okay, I’ll call King.” Then the faint static hiss of a walkie-talkie. “King did any of your boys see anyone leave the perimeter?” a small voice drenched in static said something that Henry couldn’t make out. “Okay. So he’s still somewhere in the house. We’re going to split up.”

  Henry’s breathing became heavy. Dark circles began to form at the edges of his vision, and he had to shake them away. He looked down at the ground, and saw the small puddle of blood forming at his feet.

  “This way!” someone in another room shouted. The sound of footsteps started getting louder. Henry turned, and began to run up the stairs. Blood from his stomach dripped onto the steps as he made his way to the second floor. He remembered something about there being a balcony on the second floor, one that overlooked the artificial lake. If he could get to the balcony, he could jump into the water, and escape the house. From there he might-

  Henry slipped halfway up the stairs, on a small drop of his own blood. He grunted as his body slammed against the steps. His left side felt sore, and he thought he might have bruised a rib.

  “Did you hear that?” A voice too close for comfort asked. It was coming through an open door way, perpendicular to the foot of the stairs.

  “It was by the parlor room.” Another answered. “This way.”

  The footsteps were very loud now, very close. Henry looked up; there were too many steps left. He wouldn’t make it even if he ran. He looked down at the foot of the stairs. The government troops would be there soon. He wasn’t sure if their intention was to kill or capture him, but he’d soon find out.

  He’d lost. The rebellion had failed. He closed his eyes and envisioned the investable chain of events; a tragedy playing in the cinema of his mind. They’d capture or kill him. Then they’d track down his few remaining comrades, and they’d be executed or imprisoned. The President and his cronies would continue to oppress the solar system. His efforts for the last five years would’ve meant nothing. He saw the dark clouds again appear at the edges of his vision. He was ready to let them consume his vision, allow the sense of complete and utter defeat to take him, and accept this fate.

  He thought about Emily. He worried about what would happen to her. But she was smart. She’d be okay.

  “This way!” said a voice coming from the next room.

  Henry tried to stand up, but his weak arms wouldn’t move. He looked at his hands and saw how pale they were. He felt dizzy and lightheaded. The blood from his stomach poured freely onto his pants, and down the staircase. His dazed mind watched the small, dark red waterfalls flow down the steps, until they reached the bottom, where they formed a miniature lake of red.

  More military boots could be heard echoing through the house. Henry rested his head in bloody hands. He suddenly felt very tired. The rifle he’d been holding seemed too heavy to carry. His eyelids felt heavy as well.

  With what little strength he had, he pushed the rifle off his body, and relaxed on the stairwell. Years of stress, worries, ambitions, hopes, and dreams for the future of the solar system flashed in his mind. He comforted himself with two inarguable facts; first, that no revolution could be stopped because of the death of just one man, even if it was the leader. Second, he could safely say that when those totalitarian pricks sent their thugs to kill him, that he’d taken some of them down with him. That was all he could ask for.

  The soldiers came through the entrance and spotted him on the staircase. He stared out at them with blank, half-closed eyes. The blood that freely flowed from his stomach made them relax, and lower their guard. One of troops with sergeant stripes on his sleeves bought a radio to his lips.

  “Command, we have Patrick,” the sergeant said. “Repeat, we have Patrick.”

  “Copy,” The radio responded. “Is the house clear of tangos?”

  “Affirmative. We’ve-”

  “Over there!” one of the troops shouted, as he pointed to something at the top of the stairs. The others looked, and immediately began to fire upward. Henry watched as something quick and agile leaped from above, onto the one of the soldiers. A sound of cloth and flesh being ripped was drowned out by a sharp scream. By the time the others turned to see what had happened, the thing that was quick and agile had vanished.

  The attacked soldier’s body’s lay on the ground, perfectly still. A large vertical gash ran from neck to navel. Red and pink organs oozed out, and fell onto the floor. They looked up at his head, and saw that his throat had been slit from ear to ear.

  “What the hell was that?” The sergeant said, and he turned to look around the room. The other men followed suit, pointing their rifles in every conceivable direction. They’d completely forgotten about Henry, who still sat on the stairs, losing consciousness as he too began to search for this mysterious attacker.

  “Sergeant what’s going on?” the radio asked.

  “We’re under attack.” The sergeant answered, the barrel of his rifle still desperately searching for a target.

  A flash of something small and black darted into the room from an unseen location, a
nd pounced on the sergeant. It’d left as quickly as it had come, leaving in its wake another bloody mess.

  From his perch slumped on the staircase, Henry’s watched through receding consciousness as the soldiers were taken down. Bullets were sprayed all over the parlor room, machine gun fire drowned out the screams, and the smell of blood permeated the air. He couldn’t tell if it was the work of one assassin or a small team, but whomever or whatever it was, it worked fast. Within thirty tense seconds, there was but one lone solider left.

  He stood among the bodies of his comrades, his machine gun shaking in his hands. The sound of gun fire had stopped, leaving only the sound of his heavy breathing. Nervous eyes under a black military helmet darted about the room, searching for that which had killed his comrades, and would likely kill him. Behind him he heard a hissing sound, and spun around. He hadn’t heard it as it’d touched onto the ground, hadn’t heard as it snuck up behind him. It stood seven feet tall, and was clad in all black. Its long arms and legs stuck out from a small torso. It had the physique of an acrobat; gangly limbs on a skinny body. A thick carbon-fiber helmet with a black visor covered its head.

  The only part of its body that wasn’t covered was its hands. They were green and scaly, with three long, twelve inch digits that ended in curved lizard claws that had been stained with blood.

  The solider looked down at the thing’s hands in horror. He lifted his rifle as he began to walk backwards. Before his finger could squeeze the trigger, he slipped on the spilled intestine of one of his comrades. The world fell out from under him and he fell onto his back on the blood-soaked ground.

  The monster clad in black bent down, moving faster than anything Henry had ever seen. It grabbed him by his collar and lifted him in the air. Once the soldier’s feet had left the ground, the creature slashed the man across the belly. Three horizontal gashes appeared, and the solider screamed as he watched his guts tumble to the ground. The beast quickly threw him at the wall, where he collided headfirst, and broke his neck. His limp bleeding body fell to the ground, where it lay like a misshapen ragdoll.

  The monster then turned to Henry, who’d been watching this scene from the staircase. It slowly made its way to the foot of the stairs, and began to ascend to Henry’s position. The rebel leader was horrified by what he’d seen, but not scared. He felt he was too close to death for that, and didn’t mind the strange and deadly apparition that approached him.

  The creature reached the step just below Henry, and the faceless helmet looked down at the wound on his belly. It pressed its hand to the side of its helmet, and Henry could hear the static of a radio. He guessed it was coming from inside the thing’s helmet.

  Muffled behind the black visor, Henry could hear it speaking in a language he’d never heard before. When it finished, it removed its scaly palm from the helmet, and gently helped Henry onto his feet. The rebel leader immediately felt dizzy, and collapsed onto the black-clad figure’s acrobatic body. His could feel scaly skin under the hard, thick material that made up the creature’s suit. He slid off the creature’s body, and began to fall down the stairs, when the creature caught him by his shoulders. It then picked him up, and held him in his arms, like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold.

  In his dazed state, losing consciousness quickly, Henry looked up at the veiled face of this mysterious attacker.

  “Are you death?” he asked, his weak voice barely audible, even to himself.

  “No.” The thing responded, as it descended the stairs. It spoke English with an accent that Henry couldn’t place. “I’m something worse.”

  Henry couldn’t remember much after that.

  For the first few seconds after Henry woke up, he’d completely forgotten what had happened. It wasn’t until he noticed the IV drip hooked up to his arm, feeding him blood from a bag that hung onto a metal pole that sat next to his bed, that he was able to remember. His shirt had been lifted, and he could see the stitches that zigzagged through the plasma wound on his stomach. He looked around, recognized the bluish-green colored rock that made up the walls and ceiling, and realized he was back in his rebel base under the surface of the Saturnian moon Titan. Specifically, he was in the makeshift infirmary; a long hallway, with yellow neon torches nailed to the wall providing the only source of light. Of the twenty-two beds in the infirmary, his was the only one that was occupied.

  His head ached, and he tried to remember how he’d gotten back there. The last thing he remembered was being in that villa on Mars, lying half dead on the stairwell. He could recall brief flashes of a skinny figure in black, jumping around the room, and taking out the government troops. It’d picked him up, but he blacked out after that.

  What the hell was it?

  Footsteps intruded upon his thoughts. They echoed in the hallway outside the infirmary, and traveled through the open doorway that sat a few feet away from Henry’s bed. The rebel leader tried to sit up in his bed, but felt a sharp pain as the stitches on his stomach ripped a little. He felt weak, and remembered all the blood he’d lost.

  The footsteps ended as a figure entered the doorway. She stood there in her olive green solider uniform. Her stringy, dark red hair had been tied back in a ponytail. Bags hung under her hard brown eyes. She was Major Emily Anderson, Henry’s chief intelligence officer, and the second-highest ranking officer in the People’s Rebellion. The sight of her sent a wave of relief through Henry’s body.

  “Henry.” She spoke breathlessly, as she ran to him in the hospital bed. He opened his arms, and leaned forward to hug her, but grunted when the pain came back.

  “No no, sit back.” Emily said as she got to his bedside. With her left hand, she gently pushed him back onto the bed. He looked up, and watched as she checked the needles attached to his arm.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “About a day and a half.” She’d finished checking on the arm, and turned to the stitches on his stomach.

  “We were set up.” he said flatly.

  “I know.” She said. “It was Skinner.”

  His eyes went wide. Skinner had been their Chief communications officer. He was the one who’d said the president was on Mars. “How did you find out?”

  “Over the last few weeks, someone had been erasing the radio logs.” Emily said. “I started monitoring the transmissions more closely. About ten minutes after you’d touched down on Mars, somebody in the base was sending a message to Earth. I traced it, and found that worm Skinner hiding in his barracks with a radio.”

  “Where is Skinner?” he asked. The major was silent. “Emily, where is Skinner?”

  “He’s dead.” she said.

  “You killed him before I could talk to him?”

  “No. They killed him.” she pointed to the entranceway, and Henry saw the thing clad in black.

  There were two of them, staring into the infirmary. They still wore the helmets that covered their face, but Henry could feel hard eyes staring out at him from behind those black visors. One of them had pressed one of his long scaly hands against his helmet, speaking in an alien tongue to some unknown cohorts.

  “What are they?” Henry asked, speaking quietly now.

  “I don’t know.” Emily said. “I think they want to help.”

  “When did they get here?” Henry asked, his gaze never leaving them as he spoke to Emily.

  “They landed on Titan a few hours after the attack.” Emily explained, and pointed at his stomach. “They were the ones who patched you up?”

  The one with his hand on his helmet finished, and put his hand down.

  “How many are there?”

  “I’ve only seen these two, and another who doesn’t wear one of those black suits. I think he’s the leader. They were the ones who brought you to the infirmary. I’m not sure if there are anymore.”

  “Where is the leader?” Henry asked.

  “He is on his way.” said a hissing, accented voice. It was a voice Henry had heard before. Both him and Emily turned to th
e entrance, and saw that one of the black helmeted creatures had stepped inside the infirmary. “We just called him on the radio. He will be here soon.”

  “What do you what?” Henry asked.

  “All will be answered when my superior arrives.” He said, and backed out of the room. Henry and Emily just stayed silent, neither knowing exactly what to do, except wait.

  The superior showed up about five minutes later. Henry spotted him as he strode in through, past the other two. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, and Henry could see his green reptilian face. A pair of yellow eyes with vertical black pupils, sat under a wide forehead. His nose was smooth bump, with two vertical slits for nostrils; his nose and mouth jutted out from the face in a small snout. The skin on the face was scaly, just like those of the three-digit hands that hung at his side.

  The new creature wore a light-red formal robe that fit loosely over his skinny frame. The robe terminated just above the bare lizard feet, which contained three clawed digits of their own. Across the thin waist was a silver fabric rope that kept the robe from opening.

  Henry’s face didn’t reveal any kind of emotional reaction. Even at his most frightened, he could always be counted on to at least appear confident. But even then, he could not stop his hands from shaking.

  “Senator Patrick.” The red-robed creature said, a grin spreading across his lizard face. He began to walk toward the bed. “We meet at last.” A large clawed hand reached out to Henry, and the injured rebel’s eyes widened. He stared at it in silent horror for a few moments, before the creature spoke again.

  “You’ll have to forgive me.” It said looking down at its outstretched hand. “Physical contact with our peers is uncommon where I come from, and I’m not used to giving handshakes.” On his lizard face sat an embarrassed, friendly smile. Henry glanced at Emily, who gestured toward the robed creature with her eyes. Slowly, Henry reached out, and gently grabbed onto the hand. He felt hard, cold scales scrapping against his palm, and quietly watched as the long clawed fingers wrapped around his hand. Their hands moved up and down in a stiff, deliberate way, as though something difficult and arcane were being performed. When the creature removed his hands, Henry felt instantly relieved.