The Rings

Pain. Nothing else. It hurts to breath, it hurts not to. Groaning doesn’t help, but I can’t escape it.

“Gren?” “Is that yo…” the question ends with the sound of almost tangible agony.

“It’s me.” At least that’s what I meant to say. It hurts too much to even finish, so I just groan an affirmation. Shallow panting comes from the direction of the question.

“Gren, I…I… can’t see anything.”

I start to crawl to the speaker. The stab of burning pain in my back takes my breath away, and I gasp around the pain of merely sucking in air. Trying to decide which injury to ignore brings me further out of the fog. The person nearby is still speaking. I try to pay attention to what they are saying. I can’t see them, so I try to turn. The discovery of a small purpose – finding this voice - awakens me.

When I finally crawl or twist around, what’s left of my brother, Luci, is all I can see. I can’t make sense of his ruined body beyond knowing he should be dead. My left arm can barely support me, so I use my right to either drag me to him or him to me. My brother. Luci’s face is barely recognizable - glass and shrapnel have torn him like meat. He screams as I slip and slump onto him. I notice one of his legs is twice as long as the other. His one boot is almost to the middle of wherever we are laying.

“Gren?” “Yeah, Lu, it’s me.” “Gren…I think I’m dying.” “Probably, Lu, probably.”

A jolt of sudden movement sends a shock through my body. Something has lifted me and then thrown me. My vision goes black before my eyes painfully register the inside of a utility hauler bed. A muffled scream and dull thud means Luci has come with me to…wherever.

A new voice interrupts the confusion.

“Hef!?! What is the purpose of this stupid shit? You’ve got 10 seconds to explain why you’re loading the corpses of criminal waste on this hauler deck, or I’ll add you to the pile!”

“Water marshal’s orders, sir. Says they’re getting smarter. Told us to bring back some for questioning.”

“Questioning my ass – this garbage is bleeding out all over my deck.”

“Take it up with the water marshal, chief.”

“You better be damn sure I will!”

The arguing grew fainter as the men moved further away.

So the raid had failed. Old Ben’s plans had sounded too complicated from the beginning. Divide our fighters. Attack the damns and intakes, like they'd expect, but our real target was the transfer station.

“Blow that, and they’ll be forced to shut off the junction to the high mains all the way across the old express roads.”

“And once they see the costs in cash and corpses of getting this valley tied back in, they won’t come back.” That had been Luci’s two cents, and he won over the young hot heads. He was always trying to be smart, trying to get in with the leaders. Me, I just tried to make it to the next. Next day, week, year. Funny, looked like we had both failed today.

Now, instead of the water lines, it was our blood dripping.

I’d like a drip or two right now.

More thuds and groans as other join us on the deck.

“That’s enough, Hef, you maggot!” screams the first voice. “I got the marshal. Just a few, he said. Don’t clear the damn battlefield of their stinking guts!”

“Chief, what about our own dead and wounded? Load ‘em up with this lot?”

“Whatever. I have bigger problems. One of these dog turds got a grenade into the main grav lift on the quad cannon. We have to get it back to the transfer station for repairs. The driver’s dead. Granno, you know how to operate it with only the stabilizer G-lifts?”

“Think so, chief.”

“Don’t think, do it! And get our injured people on that hauler, too.”

“Yessir!”

I don’t have time to register any satisfaction that my grenade had hit pay with the quad cannon before a new load of bodies is dumped onto the hauler bed. Apparently they treat their own casualties with the same disregard they showed to us. I recognize three or four of the Defenser uniforms along with maybe six more of our attack party.

Those six were some of the crew from Dead River. They were always harder than our people. Ready to jump into any new scheme. Building, farming, fighting, they didn’t care as long as they could pitch in guns blazing. The last one of our force tossed on the bed screamed as the hauler lurches forwards. You feel ever bump in a utility grav-lifter like this one - no dampeners to smooth out the ride. As soon as he started screaming, one of the defense grunts pulls out a knife and stabs hard. The old man didn’t have time to sort this new pain before he slumped back dead.

“That’s for Jakob, for ruining my day, and for being too stupid to know your place!” snarls the enraged Defenser. He leans back on his companion, exhausted from the effort and his rage. The only answer from his compatriots is blank nods. He had meted out some sort of justice, but who could say which kind.

I turn from watching them to avoid being their next victim. Luci is breathing fast and shallow. I put my hand on his forehead as I scan the faces of the others leaning against the low side of the flat cargo pad.

And suddenly, I see her: Scylla. I wince at my involuntary gasp of shock.

“My three monsters, set loose on the world,” our mother would say. Lucifer, Grendel, and Scylla. A book of legendary monsters had been one of the few mother had ever owned. I vaguely remember it as faded and falling apart. Mother’s love of the fantastic had eventually led her somewhere we could go. “Look out for each other, even if you have to burn the world,” was the last thing I remember her saying. I have no grudge with her.

Just the thought that she could have saved our little world instead of dying to save the big one.

Scylla hadn’t been so pragmatic. She’d gotten most of mother’s fire and drive. She and Luci fought so much that she left home as soon as she could. The rumor was she was usually south of Dead River as part of some buzz burner gang. I’d hear bits and pieces when I occasionally bartered work for food and tech junk in the area.

Now she is here, less than six feet away. My baby sister. She looks worse that Luci. Mother’s three little failures.

The person they’d dumped against her moved, and Scylla slumps sideways. A flash of bright gold peeked out the neck of her shirt. I gasp and wince again. GranGran’s heart locket. The one treasure in our family, the locket supposedly preceded the times of never having enough. Mother had left it with us “so she’d have to come back.” We all were fascinated by it when we were small, but growing up had slowly chipped away the allure of the locket’s delicate etching and tiny compartment. Lockets don’t go far when food and shelter are first in your mind, even gold heart ones. The past doesn’t warm the body or fill a stomach. When it disappeared, Luci and I shrugged it off as just another thing gone. I guess we each silently figured the other had traded it at some point. Now the mystery was solved.

“Luc, Luc,” I whisper. “Remember GranGran’s locket?”

“Mother?” He moaned.

One of the wounded Defensers threw a harsh glance at us.

“Shhh, she’ll be here.”

He barely made a sound as I shift us both. His face is a mess of gashes and dried blood.

“Moth…, mot…” His voice is barely audible.

I glance at Scylla. Her eyes move but don’t fix on anything. She and Luci, in a race to see who will get to mother first. These two. Still competing.

The hauler pulls up beside the damaged quad cannon and drags to a stop. Thick, smelly vapor is pouring out of the vents as the generator struggles to keep its grav field functioning.

“Break the chief’s gun tub, Granno?” shouted Herf, or Hef, whoever, I didn’t care. The jarring bouncing had stopped. I appreciated the stillness.

“Hey now, what’s that?” mutters one of the Defensers. The one with the knife. He had been staring at nothing till his gaze settled on the locket. He pulls himself up and stands over Scylla, pawing at the locket as she groans and feebly tries to evade his grasp. She is still alive. She is still my sister, even though she walked out and left our family.

“Leave her be!” I yell. Or would have yelled, if my lungs could hold enough air. It came out more of a grunt.

He turns to me, his gaze filled with contempt. “You got some problem with me claiming that piece to pay for what you trash did?”

I try to respond, but all I can muster is a weak, “yeah.”

I don’t know why I care – my life is over. The quad gun generator howls as it tries to raise the machine. The Defenser, laughing scornfully at me, leans forward again to grab for the locket. A sudden bang from the other vehicle startles us all. The Defenser recoils violently from the sound, pulling Scylla forward by the locket chain. The chain breaks, and she tumbles back. Time slowing, I see her slack mouth and glazed eyes. She’s gone. I’d missed the moment. Then, I see four silver rings dangling from the end of the locket chain. Those were never there before. They look like… A sudden flash of recognition, and I instinctively throw myself over the side of the hauler.

BOOM.

Everything is ringing and hot. I’m looking at the sky. Green needles hold me up. I start sliding and feel both feet stop by the ground. I am on my feet for the first time all day. I look around. The utility hauler is a fiery wreck. Scylla’s grenades had gone off over the generator cell. My sister. Hell of a way to go. I can’t turn my head without excruciating pain. Testing my feet, I find myself able to hobble and scuff forward. There is no sign of either of my siblings, the Defenser with the knife, or anyone else for that matter. Everyone had been in the back of the utility hauler or working next to it to get the quad gun going.

I turn towards the burning wreckage trying to figure out what happens next. The quad gun is still mostly whole. Its armor had taken most of the blast. I drag myself to it as fast as I can. Maybe I could…what? The Defense Force must have registered that blast. A garbled screech came from the driver turret of the quad gun.

“What is your status? Repeat, what is your status?” the radio blares.

I gritt my teeth as I pull myself up to the top and grope for the transmitter. “This is Corporal…Hef. We hit a mine.”

“Hef? Can you elaborate? This is Marshal Daul, Who else is there?”

“Just me…uh, marshal…sir. The hauler is gone.”

“Stand by Hef, I’m on my way personally. Hold your location - there may be more of them.”

Leaning back, I stare at the four long barrels. These aren’t fancy energy weapons. Old ballistic stuff. The ammo chamber must be double armored since it didn’t blow in the explosion.

“Hef? Hef? Do you copy?”

“Yes…sir, I’m here. I’ll wait for you”

See you soon, monsters.