Chapter fifty-two

Lee


"Sir," Shakira leaned over the big hole and yelled. "Here they come."

Lee put down the shovel and wiped his hands on his pants. Alonzo, Felix, Kiesha, Isabella, and Tiararay, calmly chose their weapons and started climbing out of the hole. Lee followed them.

He had known about it, the very minute when the Drakes had arrived. They were sloppy, nothing near the professionals they were 6 years ago when they had surprised him and took the Iowees from him.

They had him outnumbered and he'd thought long and hard about the implications of that. This was low tech warfare, as primitive as it got; nothing was going to win this day but skill, stamina, numbers and muscle. Advantage: Drakes.

He would have killed them when he had the chance if he knew his people would balk at crossing the ocean, or had any inkling that he would lose Chako, Patrick and Bruce.

Maybe what he should have done was order them all to get on the boat. He was sure Damian was still alive somewhere--he and his crew. Another time, another day, another place, he would have ordered them to go, and shot anybody who refused, but he wouldn't have had to shoot anyone. All he had to do was give the order. They would have obeyed him. But he no longer felt he had the right to assert that kind of authority over them. Why...he didn't know. They were still under oath. He was still their Commanding officer. For all they knew Command quarters was still alive and functioning someplace.

Then again he did know. It was when he looked at the world around him. Saw how small he was. How insignificant. He was little, too little to have command over somebody's life in a world where the faces weren't just a blur of unidentifiable multitudes, but clear, distinct, so few, he not only knew every living person left alive in the part of the world he inhabited, he knew every personality, every quirk, every ounce of them--like a part of his own body. It's easy to not see a man, woman, body part; to take for granted what you didn't really need to survive. Easy to treat their existence like your own possession, to do with what you will, to kill, to order them to kill themselves, when you can replace them with a million others, like changing socks. But when there are no multitudes, when there are just a few, and you lose a man, a body part, you feel it, you really see how small and weak you are, and how losing that body part renders you even weaker and smaller. That's when you begin to see that if you aren't God almighty, you're just too little--too  goddamn little for anything but bossing around yourself.

********************


Lee and his group stood waiting calmly as they watched the Drakes approach.

"What you doing with that hole, Lee?" Antonio led his unit to within a few yards of the Dragonhunters, stopped and raised his hand.

" Trying to survive, Tony. Maybe you should try it too."

" Very funny. Don't waste time trying to bullshit me, Lee. You know what's going to happen today."

"Doesn't have to, Tony. Look around you. Take a good look. What do you see? Hear? Not a goddamn thing in this whole world but us. We can kill one another, but why? The Iowees aren't here. And there's nobody to pin any medals on you-- no daddy sitting behind a desk in a uniform to pat you on the head and give you that acceptance your real daddy never gave you."

Antonio laughed at the bespectacled Soldier. "You know the biggest problem with giving Niggers access to books Lee? They start believing and absorbing every goddamn thing they read. They think everybody who writes a book is Confucius. But a white man knows who writes the books; the Psychology books, the Science books, the Religious books, the History books, because it was probably some twerp whose face he farted in when they were kids. We don't take 'em that seriously Lee, so don't waste your time trying to psychobabble me"


Now it was Lee's time to laugh. "That's good Tony. But what I'm saying to you is we have no reason to fight and kill anymore."

"And that brings us to the major difference between you and me, Lee. You're the one who had a reason to fight and kill. "

Lee knew then, that trying to talk his way out of a fight was impossible, but he wanted to try one more thing because on the faces of a few of Antonio's people, he could see some kind of uncertainty.

" You know there's going to be another breach in three years, Tony. If we don't finish this bunker, we're all going to fry."

" You're chickenshit, Lee. Always have been, always will be. That's why in the end you always wind up as soup for guys like me. You should be on a boat with that boy, but here you are digging a goddamn grave. And don't think I don't know why. I know you, Lee. And I know if you had imposed your will like you were supposed to, you would be on that boat. Chickenshit. I seen it in your eyes the first time I saw you. That's why you're going to die, and that's why you deserve to die. But I'm going to give you a choice, just like you once gave me a choice. We can stab you to death, or beat you to death. Whichever you want. Your call."

Lee couldn't believe the man would cut his advantage like that. The odds were still heavily in his favor, but it was senseless for him to take such a risk in a fight to the death.

" Alright. I choose to fight without weapons but how do I know you'll stick to that if we throw down ours?"

" The code of honor between warriors. I'm not the kind of goody-good soldier you are, but despite what you think, I'm still a warrior with honor.

"Alright, we'll throw our weapons in the hole and move up there to neutral ground." Lee nodded at the men and women around him. They all threw their knives and spears in the hole.

"Toss 'em." Antonio ordered. His troops stepped up and threw in all their weapons.

" Let's go." Lee started walking. His group started after him.

" Leave the Civs behind Lee. They can't help you in a fight anyway."

"Why...so you can have them at your mercy if we lose? They chose if they want to fight or not."

" Janet...I swear. I won't hurt you. Stay behind." Antonio pleaded.

" Fuck you, Tony." Felix snarled. " Don't talk to her."

Antonio ignored him. "And I won't hurt the other Civ. I give you my word, Warrior's code of honor. Just stay behind baby...I'm sorry for hitting you. It'll never happen again."

" It won't?" Janet started walking towards Antonio. " Let's see." She stopped a few feet in front of him and leaned into his face. "Fuck you." Then she stood there watching him changing colors, looking into his eyes as the pupil's got tiny with rage. But he didn't lash out at her. Finally she turned and walked back to Lee. "I wanna fight."

Lee had trained her in combat--she and Mike. She wasn't up to par with any of the female soldiers, but she wasn't defenseless either.

Mike said nothing, but he didn't have to. As he stood there beside Shakira, the look on his face said everything anybody had to know, to realize what he was going to do.

******************


Alonzo "Big house" Briener threw the first punch. Knocked another one of Mustafa's teeth out. The two men had been staring at each other from the moment the Drakes showed up in Lee's camp. Mustafa's smirk didn't hold the amusement it did when he trained it on Damian--aimed at Alonzo it was full of challenge and disrespect. Big House was aching to push it into the back of Mustafa's neck. Mustafa had barely turned after they reached the designated fighting area before his face stopped a hard rock fist in full swing.

Mustafa hit the dirt, blood spurting from his already crooked nose. Mustafa rolled and pushed himself up from the dirt and Alonzo kicked him so hard two of Mustafa's  recently healed ribs cracked again. Alonzo stood--eyes beaming triumphant as he watched with satisfaction, the groaning Mustafa.

John Huang watched Alonzo. He didn't even approach him quietly because he was enraged. Alonzo still didn't notice him because he was so focused on Mustafa. John Huang took Big House's leg out from under him with a side kick that would have snapped an electrical pole in half. Alonzo's knee joint snapped, and the big man fell to the ground rolling and screaming in agony.

Mustafa got up. The blood that dribbled down his chin was nothing compared to the bloodlust that was in his wild eyes as he went for the disabled Alonzo Briener.

John Huang turned from them to see who else he could take down.

Suddenly Mike came rushing at John and took him down.

Forgot all his combat training and charged in like a bull seeing a red flag--the same way he did, when he tackled and windmilled at Rick that day, and took a boot in the face from John Huang. This time, John was taking it in the face--again and again and again from Mike's wild, furious punches.

Sonya was in that black place, and she was completely overpowering Tiararay. She could fight a lot of professionally trained men to a standstill when she entered that place of darkness.

By the way she let her nails grow, it was evident that Tiararay had lost that edge, that instinct, that desire that it took to be an effective fighter. She had her mind in a peaceful, domestic mode. She still had skills, which the reflexes of alone, made her a formidable foe, but Sonya fought like a maniac. She lost herself in it. She fought dirty and ruthlessly. She was killing Lee's woman--just like she did that lady during that traffic accident.

The accident...when she lost her baby.

That poor woman. She never meant to beat her that way.

Her baby. She saw her baby; bloody, neck broken. She was in shock. Got out of the car. Saw the woman coming towards her. She wanted to tell the woman about her baby. She didn't know who the woman was. Didn't know she was involved in the accident. She just wanted the angelic woman to help her baby. The woman was cursing and screaming from the moment she saw her, but she didn't know it. Couldn't hear her. She couldn't hear anything.

The woman got closer. Her hands were waving, her lips were in a snarl, her eyes were flashing, but what she saw was an angel sent from God, who had come to help her baby.

"My baby." She said, and the woman raked her nails across her face. The pain was excruciating. Everything turned to red, then black.

And then a Cop hit her with a billyclub with all his strength.

Janet hit Sonya with all her might. And then she hit her again. Even then, Sonya didn't react like she was hurt. She just stopped punching Tiararay and rolled off her. Then she sat there beside the unconscious woman and sobbed like she was never going to stop.
Janet watched Sonya, crouched in a combat stance; saw that she wasn't going to do anything but sit there. She knelt down and took Tiararay's pulse. She was dead. Janet reached under Tiararay's arms and started dragging her off the battlefield.

Kiesha and Tameka were fighting evenly matched, blow for blow. Then Kiesha looked over and saw Alonzo on the ground. Mustafa had him in a neck hold. Alonzo looked liked he had already been kicked to death. Kiesha knew that neck hold. She saw Mustafa lips say something just before he turned Alonzo's head almost completely around. She screamed, called his name, reached for him. Tameka punched her in the throat, took her voice and her wind. Then Tameka leaped and spun. Kiesha fell to the ground, her neck as broken as Alonzo's, her arms reaching out towards him, her eyes empty of life.

David Bravefeather killed Isabella in four quick moves. He ducked the swing she took at him, grabbed her arm and got behind her, kissed her on the neck, then he yanked her head back as hard as he could, breaking her spine.

He then looked around and saw Mike on top of John.

Shakira's face was unrecognizable as human. Her mouth was a mass of blood and flesh, both her lips were split in half, her left eye was shut and her nose was a bloody pulp. Still, Mesha looked worse, and was now on the ground crawling, mewling like a newborn kitten for it's mother's teat. Shakira answered each pathetic small cry with another kick. Finally Mesha fell flat and stopped moving.

Then Shakira fell flat too.

When Bravefeather made the decision to rescue  John Huang from Mike's fury, first, Mesha was still standing. Bravefeather didn't see when his on/off again lover fell but he saw when and how she died. It enraged him. He left John to take revenge on Mike by himself. At full speed, he ran up to Shakira and leaped in the air, kicking her in the back so hard, the sound of Shakira's neck breaking was like a gunshot. She fell to the ground, dead before she hit the dirt.


With his first counter move, Lee broke Antonio's right arm. The fight between them was really decided at that moment. But Antonio was still fighting back twenty minutes later.

He was on one knee now, preparing himself to take yet another kick to the head instead of lying down. It wouldn't have mattered if he lay down or not and somewhere in the back of his disoriented brain, Antonio knew it. Lee was determined to kill him this time.

John and Tameka were holding a struggling, Janet. Mike lay stretched out on the ground like a dead man, still breathing only because John remembered Antonio's order, not to kill the Civs.

Felix and Rick had fought the longest, most brutal battle of them all. Felix seemingly won, beating Rick so bad, the blond soldier was on the ground writhing in some kind of seizure. David Bravefeather, and Mustafa--even though his broken ribs tortured him with pain--was slowly bearing down on Felix, grimly determined to make the exhausted soldier pay dearly for that victory over Rick.

Felix was already dead--dead tired. He was also bleeding like a waterfall, internally, but he kept fighting and Lee knew why. But it didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore--not even finishing off Antonio. Lee ran past Antonio, determined to do for Felix, what Felix did for him. He started swinging and kicking, screaming in a high pitched, sustain wail as he gave up mastery over his mind and body to a whirling dance of death.

Felix dropped to his knees and fell on his face. Bravefeather stomped him in the back of the neck with all his 200 pounds, but Felix was already dead from a hit the master kickboxer Rick, had scored beneath his heart, halfway in their fight.

Mike had hurt John Huang, but most of the wild punches were blocked by the Asian soldier. If not for orders, he would have killed Mike. He had no such orders regarding Lee. He saw Antonio and Rick and Mesha lying still on the ground. He screamed with rage and went for the last Dragonhunter still standing.

The last thing the bone tired, and probably insane Lee saw was more colors in his emptied mind. He never saw John Huang's running, driving kick aimed at the back of his head.