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Foliage raced past on either side, and laser shots broke the forest tranquility.
Dayna blurred in my vision's periphery twenty feet port, and Drake labored on my heels, both still alive.
Not that I doubted either, though - having stayed alive this long, we were all fairly well assured to survive a little longer. Staying alive meant you were either fit as a greyhound or paranormally lucky. Last few weeks though, with J'Kar patrols tightening the noose closer around our green refuge, only those with plenty of both remained.
Mine and Dayna's paths converged, and we dropped into a trot as the terrain steepened and the laser fire quieted. Drake - his large bulk reducing him to a bear-like gallop - came up beside us.
"That was a damn close - we must be getting older." Drake cursed.
"Speak for yourself, gramps," Dayna protested energetically. I grinned. Drake was only a few years senior but almost the oldest left in the cell. This never stopped him from running the gauntlet with us - maybe it encouraged him to. Maybe though he was simply as mad as we were to enjoy it. Yeah, that was probably it - Drake hadn't lasted this long by taking the past more worn. He was an eccentric - could've been our leader if he'd wanted to - which he didn't. Still, he knew when to taste the dirt.
We neared the summit and stopped to take in the view. No enemy warrior would attempt pursuing us on foot now - paradoxically, they were a race cautious as they were aggressive. Yet time grants an appreciation of such paradoxes. Deeper into our stomping grounds they ventured, higher the chance of ambush, especially on such mountainous terrain - yet after years of a guerrilla warfare, with countless skirmishes, we'd come to realise that topographies and home-ground advantages weren't the clearest explanation of their reluctance - certainly they were all one for a good clean fight, yet they were also greenies. They revered the forest.
Wallowing in the final ebbs of the adrenalin buzz, the fantastic valley flowing before us between the canopies, we turned in unison back to our ascent.
#
Thighs burned and shoulders ached beneath pack straps. I clambered over the final dirt steps in the cleavage between two boulders, turning to help Dayna and Drake over the rise.
Dayna took my hand out of pragmatism - Drake waved it away from pride, and after a quick sweep of the ridge set up the sentry-unit.
We collapsed onto the leaf-cushioned floor and rested.
#
We poured water for one another, drank thirstily, and attacked the remaining supplies. The tasteless high-energy bars were barely enough to replace the calories we expended on the hard slogs through the forest, surveying our pocket of earth. Base food would be a welcome relief. Only another four hours hiking faced us, and I looked forward to seeing the rest of my surrogate family.
"If we ever capture ourselves a Kari," Drake used the common term for a J'Kar warrior, "I say we feed them some of this shit." He held up a bar. "He'll be beggin' for mercy before the second bite."
"Here here," seconded Dayna as we both laughed. My eyes lingered on her curved lips, and sparkling green eyes, and then turned away. I think she knew something of how I - felt towards her. How much I cared for her beyond even what was typical in the resistance. Yet we were both aware that such a relationship would be shunned upon as long as this guerrilla war lasted.
I grimaced bitterly. Calling all this a 'Guerrilla War' was an ongoing joke amongst the cells - for in retreating to the jungle we had really become gorillas. Yet there was a less amusing element to the term - the part referring to this as a war.
It wasn't war.
It was survival.
#
I turned back to Dayna and Drake and smiled optimistically - I sensed they were the only barrier between me and insanity. They munched at their bars, and staring silently into the green-silver-blue world before us, oblivious to my dark meditations. I followed suit, knowing that tonight I would unload my heart before Dayna if just for an answer.
#
Long ago I'd learned the art of sleeping with one ear pricked, and I knew I was fated to be one hell of an annoying ghost when I died. I'd seen too many siblings-in-arms who'd closed their minds from the world around them in seemingly the safest of moments only to be chastised by a devouring energy bolt from the heavens.
Life was indeed far from boring. Though, after hearing tales from the elders about life before the J'Kar fleet filled the skies years ago, though, I resigned myself to my fate.
So, it was more humiliating than surprising to hear the quick buzz of the sentry as it swung around.
Then all hell broke loose.
The air was filled with shrieking orange rain. Even if I did get out here alive, I didn't deserve to.
The thought was gone, and in one swift motion I leapt to my feet, shot a hand onto my belt for a dozen chaffs, and flung them into the air before us. They seemed to suspend their vertical movement as soon as in place, as designed. Twin rotors extended horizontal and they spun in the air, unlikely to touch the valley floor before tomorrow. Their role was both to reflect both intercepted laser shots as well as sunlight to the epileptic and weapon-prone J'Kar. They worked like magic.
Dayna and Drake had hands on laser-rifles by the time the chaffs had left my hand. I reached for my own. Drake ran low over to the overhanging ridge-lip to return fire down below. It was the textbook response - but something was wrong.
Then it clicked.
The sentry wasn't shooting at enemy advancing from below - it was shooting up.
"Get back." Dayna screamed the next to catch on. Drake rolled onto his back and fired upwards. First one, then another J'Kar corps rained onto the ground near Dayna and me, their chest's chard black. With supernatural anticipation, Drake rolled from side to side, darting laser-shot that charcoaled the grey stone he rolled beside him, letting of short bursts between rolls.
Two J'Kar's later his luck ran out.
A rocket streaked down to engulf the boulder and before the smoke cleared I found myself running along the alcove towards the plateau's concealed access. It wasn't cowardice that made me run from the site of Drake's last stand, or bravery that led me to his killers' flank. It was coldness like a hard drug, intoxicating, detaching. I glided hypersensitive to my surroundings yet numb to them at the same time. I knew Dayna was tailing me, yet that was unimportant. A J'Kar was behind the next turn. It sidestepped onto my path, fire-pike in hand. A hole appeared on its forehead. It fell back, its body cushioning my next step.
I was on the plateau, the green of a J'Kar's life-blood coating my rifle's handle. I remembered clubbing one of them in the head with the butt, and a sickness crept into me. I began to jog, head bowed and eyes darting back and forth between the small army overlooking the ridge, and the terrain in front. Several lay on the ground, convulsing or dead, the sentry and chaffs keeping them occupied.
We were in the clear.
The hiding place of our 'gliders came into the view, and I was proved wrong.
#
I'd almost begun to enjoy being airborne when I returned to earth several yards further from the explosion.
I rolled with the blow, jarring hip against a rock. I used my momentum to stand and abruptly collapsed back again. I looked down and glimpsed the palm-sized splinter of rock imbedded in my leg.
Fumbling for my rifle through the pain I found the blood of the J'Kar warrior I'd clubbed to death had eaten away at the power cell. I cursed my stupidity - it was a wonder it hadn't detonated. Everything seemed so surreal. A laugh welled up inside of me that came out as a moan. I squeezed my eyes shut.
I was screwed.
Warm, smooth lips met mine, and Dayna's sweet sweat co-filled my senses.
Then she was gone, drifting from my weak arms. Fighting to focus my eyes, I watched her raise her rifle over her head as she slowly walked toward the approaching wall of Kari's.
What was she trying to do? Call it even?
She threw her weapon - at the feet of the biggest, baddest J'Kar I'd ever seen.
The Kari followed suit. They were going to fight.
"No," I moaned. The two opponents withdrew daggers, and begun to circle each other. I couldn't believe my eyes - Dayna was good, but that Kari would need a dozen good stabs just to make him bleed.
My head dropped, replaying the moments before the fighting had begun - and caught sight of Dayna's discarded weapon, one power-cell short.
Dayna had advanced to a jog, and then charged her opponent who stood near the wall of his peers.
I cried again, watching in heart wrenching resignation as she struck her bulging hip with her dagger, and into the make-shift bomb.
Then white heat, and finally nothing.
#
The scene that greeted me when I awoke was of quiet carnage. There was little left of the J'Kar or of the bearer of their demise.
The numbness of neither the Cold nor the reward at having brought so many down brought consolation. I was alone with only my burning leg as companion. I clawed the first aid kit from out of my rucksack and buried the anesthetic into my upper leg. And the pain fled, leaving only a dull ache in its wake. I climbed to my feet, tempting the pain back. Yet I needed the pain - it brought clarity, purpose and fuelled the fire within me - one of loathing and determination. One that in time would become an inferno of hatred. When it broke out of control I would be a danger to both my friends and myself - but for now I welcomed it. It was as vital as the blood it helped warm.
With patient, sure limps, I made my way to the 'gliders. Before preparing myself for the flight, I took one last look at the battlefield, letting the killing field burn in my mind.
"You can be beaten J'Kar," I growled. "And you will be."
Ashley Hibbert has a degree in Professional Writing from Deakin University with honours and a Postgraduate Diploma of Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. She co-edited Deakin University's literary journal Verandah 15, and her fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Strange Shapes and the Latrobe Valley Express.
© Ashley Hibbert
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