"Aftermath" by Toni J Kaukinen

I, James K Bowers, hereby grant permission to writers participating in installment seven of 'The Project' to post in Elfwood the segment I wrote as the creative focus for Project#7, which includes the title 'Aftermath' and six (6) paragraphs totaling approximately 300 words. This permission for any given Project writer shall become null and void should that writer be in violation of any of Elfwood's restrictions, which may include, but are not limited to (a) non-genre subject matter, (b) profanity, (c) excessive violence, (d) graphic sex, (e) fan-fiction, or (f) any other just restriction imposed by the staff or management of the Elfwood site. Whether any given writer's Project#7 work is accepted at Elfwood will be left to the discretion of the Elfwood moderators, coordinators, and/or the ERB. Permission for Project writers to publish or post this segment somewhere other than Elfwood is not granted by the above statement, however such permission(s) may be requested separately.

Dannel ached.  The pounding, all-over ache assaulted his senses with shrieks from every muscle and nerve in his battered frame.  Blood?  No, he decided, not his own but sticky on his skin and clothes just the same.  "How long?" his groggy mind asked.
        The floor was hard and cold beneath him and a dim light - Marrik's? - shone at an eerie angle, rising from the floor a few feet to his left to cast surreal shadows on the walls.  Why so dark in here?  His weapon lay on the floor to his right and instinctively his hand groped for it.  Gaining purchase, he dragged it closer with a rasping sound that echoed in the silence.  The feel of the stark, cool metal offered him some primal comfort.
        He struggled to a sitting position and bone-jarring pain surged up Dannel's spine dashing itself like a wave on the back of his skull.  He winced and sardonically acknowledged to himself that the battle must have gone well if he could accomplish so much.  The surrounding carnage and the fact that he seemed intact told him it could easily have been much worse.  "How much worse?" he thought with a start.
        There were bodies and parts of bodies everywhere.  His eyes sought familiar shapes among the dead.  The light - Marrik's!  The dim light escaping from beneath his crumpled body shone an ugly red.  Dead.  Very much so.  No doubts -- torn nearly in half.
        There... some ten feet away... Lirra.  Slumped against the wall, bloody, a gash in her face running from her forehead down her right cheek nearly to her chin.  Her weapon was still in her hand.  Well, she never was one to retreat.
        Dannel revised his initial assumption.  The battle had not gone well at all.  He crawled across the gore-strewn floor to Lirra.  Maybe, just maybe...

         "So you're there after all?" Dannel muttered, glaring at Lirra's lidless, bleary peacock blue eyes that saw nothing. He knew his words had gone unheard for now. Moments passed as Dannel stared at Lirra, his right hand pressing on the side of her neck firmly, feeling the erratic pulse. Finally her eyes focused on him. "Corporal." The calm acknowledgement only made the other soldier grin sheepishly.
        "Morning, sleepyhead," Dannel said, staring feverishly into those eyes. Linear thinking was outside his grasp at the moment. Lirra, on the other hand, held on to it firmly as she again stared the wrecked bodies of her former comrades-in-arms. She tilted her head at sight of Marrik's battered body. "We are alone, yesno?"
        "Yes," Dannel shrugged. Although she was hardly someone he would have preferred to have been stuck with after the end of a battle, better her than nobody. "Can she go on without me?" he wondered, looking into her augmented, lidless eyes. "Can you stand up?"
        Lirra turned her head to stare at Dannel. "I need a little time," she said slowly. "The wave communicators are still down, yesno?"
        The comms officer sighed. He had already explained this to Lirra twice before. The monolith's thick walls blocked the waves emitted by the now-broken communications set he carried - had carried - in his back. "They will be down as long as we're still inside the monolith." He barely remembered entering the stone monstrosity anymore, but shuddered nonetheless. Of the strike force, three full thorns of footsloggers, only they survived.
        Or so Dannel assumed. He had no way of telling if the 2nd  thorn had made it to the core of the monolith and taken out the Heart that powered the humongous building. Neither did he know if the 3rd had reached the satellite array on the top of the monolith. They, the 1st, had certainly achieved their goal, the corporal mused darkly and looked about. In the darkness, he could not see the destroyed computers and alien communications gear (most of which seemed to rely on inferior technology). They had brought the security grid down.
        The small, reddish hue that could be seen flashing in the silent command bridge only helped the emotional void inside his head to grow. It was somehow so depressing, staring at the command bridge and the hall strewn with bodies both vaporized and riddled with holes. The feeling of loss was only now beginning to register.
        "Why is it dark?" Lirra asked suddenly, startling Dannel. "You don't suppose the 2nd made it to the core?"
        "Could be," the corporal said, doubtfully, groaning with pain as he dragged himself to sit next to Lirra. It was awfully quiet in the monolith. Not even the hum of the air condition that Dannel had become so used to on previous assaults could be heard.
Lirra lifted her head. "It could also be the RPC Carret fired at the aliens. Too bad they blew him into two just after he pulled the trigger."
        "Precious good that did, then," Dannel replied. The lights were of no consequence, though. They had their portable lights.
Not that Lirra needed one. The peacock blue eyes saw much more than Dannel's in the dark. "Saved your life and mine," the soldier noted, staring at Dannel sharply.
        Dannel nodded -- he had been knocked out before the rocket-propelled charge hit, before Marrik went down. He couldn't quite remember what it was that he had been struck with, but he was certain it was something ballistic that had left a lovely crater in the back of his ferrochitinous armor. The communications equipment had certainly been pierced by something.
        "Right," Dannel said morbidly. "What happened to the Sergeant?"
        Lirra gazed at him evenly. "You got cut down early, yesno? Sir?"
        "Can I get an answer out of you?" the corporal replied irritably.
        "The last one got her. I got it," she explained after a moment of hesitation, patting the blade that was as long as the miniature plasma driver's sleek two feet long barrel. And indeed, the blade did seem to be covered in something dark, although the actual colour was hidden in the dark.
        "Looks like it was a close one," Dannel remarked blandly, pointing at the slash on her face.
        "Only makes me prettier," Lirra grunted and reached out for her first aid kit.
        The corporal had no witty retort to make, and after a sidelong glance, he merely stared at what he assumed was the corpse of the alien Lirra claimed to have dealt with. "Sure," he just said, and found that it was sufficient for the taciturn woman. In an attempt to ease the pain in his back, he leaned forward.
        "How did you get hit in the back?" Lirra then asked, poking the dent in Dannel's armor, succeeding only in making Dannel gasp in pain. The awkwardly large ferrochitinous gauntlets the soldier wore were not gentle, unlike the simple leather gloves Dannel had.
        "You didn't see it?" he asked without anger through clenched teeth.
        "I don't see all, sir."
        Dannel watched her unpack the kit and chose some bandages and a disinfectant rag. "Just most of it."
        "Correct, sir." Lirra stared at him again, grimacing as she dabbed at the top of her wound. It was not the only one she had, Dannel soon realized, looking at the small trickle of blood under her left shoulder plate. Lirra acted casual, but Dannel knew she was in pain. He most definitely was.
        "Let me," Dannel said and took the rag from her unresisting hand, ignoring the screaming pain between his shoulder blades as he reached for the wound. For all her self-reliance, she knew when to give up. Much faster than she would have managed alone, Dannel disinfected the wound and applied a few bandages that would at least keep it clean until she could get them stitched.
        "If we make it out of here." One look at Marrik, the unlucky medic, was enough to bring the corporal's optimism down to a suitable level. It also brought a welcome rage to his mind, one that left the pain in the background. He knew then. They would not get out of the monolith alive. If at all.
        Then he caught Lirra reading his expression. "What?" he snapped.
        "You worry too much, sir."
        "Maybe," he replied in a saturnine manner, staring at the flashing light illuminating the battered command bridge. He remembered shooting at the four aliens in there with someone and scoring hits. Were there more? His heart ached for vengeance.
        "Sir?" Lirra appeared to be confused. The corporal frowned at sight of the scattered corpses, then stood up slowly, gritting his teeth. "Sir?"
        "Nothing, Lirra. We have to finish the mission." Having said that, he began to limp toward the command bridge on the other side of the spacious, dark room, almost tripping on one of the bodies.
        Now it was Lirra who frowned, but no rebellious words came out of her mouth. Instead she pushed herself up with the help of her weapon and followed Dannel to the command bridge. She walked calmly over the alien corpses in her way, unaffected by the frightening appearance of the aliens. Neither of them was worried about catching whatever strange diseases this world had given birth to. They had been vaccinated, after all.
        But as they reached the command bridge their lights met with an alien slumped in the command chair, breathing his last breaths. On the floor were three others, killed by the plasma beams that had passed the safety glass separating the bridge from the actual room. When the one in the chair (at least Dannel assumed it was male) saw the two soldiers, he only made a face. The weapon in his hand did not rise.
        The two regarded the alien with caution, Lirra with her weapon leveled at him. Dannel's attention was drawn to the flashing red light on one of the consoles. He had expected there would be an emergency power source in the monolith, but if this was it - why were the lights still out? The confusion brought by the pain he felt grew worse.
        "What is this?" Dannel queried the enemy in the alien's own language, one finger pointing at the red light. The language was far too chantlike for his liking, but he managed nonetheless to get his point across.
        The reply was a shocked glare - or so Dannel interpreted it - and a quickly barked answer he assumed meant something in the lines of, "As if I'd tell you."
        Lirra was looking from Dannel to the alien rapidly. Her weapon was aimed at the enemy, and her hand was on the plasma driver's large trigger. It was a textbook approach to the situation, and the only thing that could be expected from Lirra unless she met with a situation in which there were no textbook approaches.
        "What a pity," Dannel snarled. "What does it mean?"
        The alien glared at him with a strange sort of fervor that made Dannel shiver despite the anger he felt. The words that came out of the alien's mouth were fierce, and before the corporal knew it, the hand holding the gun rose-
        And was vaporized by a bright, green blast from Lirra's plasma driver. When Dannel could see again, there was little left of both the chair and the enemy officer. "Thank you," he said shakily to Lirra.
        "Sir," she said, but somehow it sounded more like "don't mention it" than anything. "What did he say?"
        Dannel glanced at the flashing red screen. The alien numbers on it were becoming smaller and smaller at regular intervals. With every heartbeat or so and the numbers changed. A sudden pang of dread weakened his knees.
        "That none of them will ever surrender anything to us."
        It dawned on him slowly. Dannel stared at the console for just a moment longer before taking a step backwards, then another. Before he knew it he was hurrying away, away from the command bridge in blind panic. Lirra, confused as always, glanced once at the console, then shouted after him and followed. But no matter how much she yelled "Sir!" after him, he refused to stop, even when he stumbled and tripped over a body more than a few times.
        They made it down three corridors when they heard the roar of the power core from the depths of the monolith as the energy it had been collecting forced its heat levels near the critical. The lights flashed furiously as power was released into the systems again. The monolith shook, throwing the corporal off balance.
        Before he lost his balance, Lirra caught Dannel and stared at him with a look of wild confusion. Looking up at her, he realized the augmented soldier had not reached the same conclusion he had. It was the last drop for Dannel's burdened mind. He was going to die, and he was dying in the arms of a woman. The one particular woman he had always wanted to say something to. This was the time.
        "Lirra?" Dannel mumbled as a distant thundering sound marked the beginning of the end, replacing the panic in his mind with dreadful certainty. "I never liked you!" he shouted over the rumbling, but the emotionless soldier only stared back without comprehending what he meant by this. Just as she was about to ask, superheated plasma shot into the corridor with a terrible roar. Dannel hung on to her shoulder, looking away from the raging blue fire, all the while wondering why it was that Terrans were so dogged and unwilling to surrender anything. Those would have been his last thoughts, had he not had the chance to watch Lirra's surprised face melt away from her endoskeleton skull before he himself burst into flames.
        "Better than stitches."