Charger the Soldier (34 page)

The Maven program had been started by elite
scientists working in various locations around the world,
manipulating the DNA of bright students with the purpose of
creating highly intelligent experts in particular fields, who would
find new ways to reclaim the planet. The future for the Mavens
looked promising.

But what Lucy and her colleagues thought was
an inspirational step toward the betterment of all the people of
this broken and devastated world would eventually falter and fail,
for Danny, as president, had promised the world a revenge program.
This program would use the vast intellect of the Mavens to modify
and back engineer the technology the invaders had used against
Earth. With this new knowledge, humanity could strike back at the
aliens.

Elvin, Eve, and Nigel were three of the
brightest new Mavens; though socially awkward, they were gifted at
understanding any puzzle placed before them. Lucy would often go
out of her way when touring the Beta site, where the three worked,
to stop and chat, and the three kids found a friend in her. Lucy
would create new ways of capturing the imaginations of Elvin and
Eve, and these two lovers were fascinated by the knowledge of plant
life Lucy would present in the form of forgotten books.

One day, on a site visit, Lucy was shocked at
what Elvin showed her. He had managed to recreate an extinct orchid
out of the material he recovered from the dome's plant life. "I
think this is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen,"
Lucy said as she held the small flower up to the light that came
through the lab windows.

"I'm glad you like it, because I made it
especially for you," Elvin replied as Eve looked on with longing.
She had hoped that she, too, could get such a compliment, but
understood that this was not meant to be.

"May I keep it?" Lucy asked politely, to
which Elvin replied, "Of course."

Nigel, not to be outdone by his teammate, had
also recreated something thought to be long extinct. It was an
unusual gift. "I have recreated a carnivorous plant. It took some
effort, but I think it could be beneficial in controlling the
insect populations now out of control in the south," Nigel said as
he displayed his creation.

This caught the attention of some of the
military personnel who, for purposes of observation, often
accompanied Lucy on her rounds. The military presence was usually
small and quiet. However, this day General Harris happened to be
along for the tour.

"Isn't this the most remarkable thing you
have ever seen?" Lucy asked him.

General Harris's eyes were fixed on Nigel.
The general was indeed impressed, for the idea of recreating exotic
life from little more than plant fibers had piqued his curiosity.
He decided, right there and then, that some of these gifted kids
would be drafted for the Revenge Program. It took some doing, but
the general always got his way. Later, it was the work of Nigel and
Eve that led to the Krill Shang program, a short-lived effort
sabotaged by Elvin when the group realized what the general had
planned.

The three Maven kids were joined by several
other Mavens, sequestered away in a secret military compound and
set to work on an absolute abomination. The general had managed to
smuggle several exotic animals out of the dome's enclosure, the
most notable being a saber-tooth cat. Having succeeded at creating
Hyborgs and Lycans, the general wanted an even more aggressive
soldier for combat. The Krill Shang was meant to be a cross between
the genetics of the heavy, muscular saber-tooth cat and a gorilla,
then that success was to be grafted into humans. This atrocity of
science was what drove the Mavens to vanish off the face of Earth.
They wanted nothing to do with the general's plan, and their escape
ensured this idea would never come to fruition.

Meanwhile, Lucy struggled with her own
battles. She had had little success at stopping the tribal kids
bent on killing themselves by attacking the dome's walls. "The only
idea I can come up with, is that we take this fight straight to the
top. I can no longer stand by and watch as innocent kids are sent
to their deaths by some insane warlord!"

Lucy was once again facing the weekly
boardroom meeting. On the wall behind her was a map representing
the tribal colonies and their locations. Outlined in red were the
locations of the warlords. "President Opinhimmer himself has
authorized the use of deadly force to contain this problem and, as
I understand it, he has dispatched several Hyborgs, who are due to
arrive in the next few days. It will be up to us to devise a plan
for negotiating with those affected after the attacks are launched.
I suggest that everyone here go back to their departments and get
organized." As Lucy spoke, the team leaders set to work, even while
in the meeting, outlining and planning for a way to rescue the
abused children.

Dhuusamareeb, Somalia, had been separate from
the rest of the world for longer than recorded history. Civil
unrest was commonplace in many parts of the world, but nowhere was
it more vicious and sadistic than that fomented in the name of a
god in Somalia.

But the warlords didn't know what hell was,
until the elite team of Hyborgs, led by Charger and his Lycans, Mac
and Jill, attacked them. The warlords honestly thought they stood a
chance to win against the battle-hardened soldiers. The fear these
ideological lunatics had felt when the aliens attacked was nothing
in comparison to their terror of Charger's army. The Hyborgs never
slowed, never rested, and never showed remorse or sympathy toward
anyone foolish enough to resist them. Nor were they
precision-guided weaponry. The Hyborgs slaughtered women and
children as quickly as the men if they offered any resistance.

Rallying cries and praising their god met
with no success. The attack caused many warlords to beg for mercy
on hands and knees, then offer to surrender to the authorities, but
there was no one for these guerrilla leaders to surrender to. The
Hyborg offensive to track and slaughter every warlord took less
than a week. The shock these supporters of faith-based terrorism
expressed at being systematically exterminated like cockroaches
went out on live television for the entire week. Then there was
silence. What remained of most of the warlords were merely bloody
smears on the ground and, for those not found, only the worst was
suspected.

What Lucy and her team faced after the
attacks was chaos. People who had survived the invasion were now
seeing the Hyborgs as monsters, a menace to civil society. They
were described in the media as being no better than a pack of rabid
dogs let loose on humans, the most shameful and disrespectful event
ever perpetrated on war veterans.

Only one person had the audacity to try and
defend the actions of these manmade creations. Pam was chief
executive officer of the world news division and could express her
opinions openly. She had decided that with so few reporters
surviving after the invasion, she would host a weekly talk show to
try and address the feelings survivors shared.

"So can you explain to the viewers what your
concerns were with this military strike on the Somali warlords?"
Pam asked Lucy as they sat across from one another during the
televised interview.

"We had hoped, when we asked General Harris
for some assistance in dealing with the warlords, that he would
contain the problem without such violence," Lucy responded as she
squirmed in the high-back leather chair in front of the cameras.
She realized that her complaints about the attacks had triggered
much debate and concern among the people of New Denver and the
other surviving capital cities.

"So you're saying that the response to the
warlords was heavy-handed, even though you often complained
bitterly about the exploitation of young children as weapons of
war?" Pam asked as she leaned forward.

Lucy was never shy of expressing her point of
view. "Yes, that is true. However, it does no good to slaughter
innocent people when hunting for a few problem leaders."

"But wait," Pam interjected. "Your point here
is that these so-called innocent people, who were deliberately
hiding murderous warlords, were somehow not guilty of collusion?
What were our soldiers supposed to do? Just ask those
non-combatants politely to give up the warlords' positions?"

Lucy was calm; she had expected worse from
Pam, a woman reputed to be brutal in debates. "It is true that I
asked the military for help in dealing with the deaths of so many
innocent children persuaded to detonate explosives at our walls in
some political expression of contempt. It is equally true that the
military responded to my request with such violence that
relationships with the local people are even more difficult than
before."

Lucy deflected Pam's attempt to interject and
went on. "These people have been poisoned for so long by fanatics
devoted to religious intolerance, that their so-called 'truth' has
no relationship to the facts. It's nearly impossible to find any
common ground from which to start a beneficial dialog." Lucy took a
breath. "But we will never win the hearts and minds of an oppressed
people with brutality and more oppression."

Pam had heard enough. "So you would rather
negotiate a peace than fight? How do you think that would have
worked out for us, had we not taken the fight to the alien
invaders? What exactly is the difference between life forms coming
to our world in an attempt to exterminate the human race, and these
lunatic warlords bent on dominating and oppressing people because
of some religious ideology? With a world of starving and scared
survivors afraid that something else is out there waiting to strike
at us, you would rather we offer warlords the opportunity to make
our lives worse?"

Lucy was determined to make her point clear,
and tried to refocus the debate on the actions of the military.
"Look, I am not suggesting that what we did to ensure our survival
against a force from some distant world was wrong. It was a matter
of survival. But these are fellow humans we're talking about. The
fact that innocent children were being coerced into actions by
warlords practicing a traditional way of life among a people which
has existed for thousands of years is not for us to judge. I can
only speak to the way in which the military went about suppressing
these people."

Pam calmly asked, "What would you have done
differently? I mean, if you were in charge and had to deal with
this problem, what would you have done?"

"Well, ah…" Lucy stuttered as she tried
desperately to find a good answer. "I don't think I would have sent
in these monsters. Have you heard about the few warlord bodies we
have since recovered? Three of them were found in a ditch, soaked
in urine. It is obvious these monsters urinated on the dead."

Pam had no mercy, "So you would have sent
more humans into this situation, quite possibly to get killed.
That's your idea of doing a better job? The 'monsters,' as you call
them, were used by humans to kill humans who obviously deserved to
die!"

Lucy's nerves were frazzled. She had hoped to
show the world the horror of General Harris's military
intervention, but she could not deny that the military actually had
things well under control. To prevent further loss of human life,
the military had sent in those forces necessary to win this battle,
and that meant using its most potent soldier, Charger.

The debate ended without anyone acknowledging
the fact that Charger and the others like him were also human, or
at least had been, in the past. The survivors of Earth were now
clearly defining a difference between the soldiers who had fought
to save their lives and themselves. In other words, if you didn't
look human, you couldn't be human.

>>>

Dart speaks to Reader:

Why did Charger attack the scientists working
on the dig site in Egypt? The answer will make more sense later in
the story, after I explain what led to his action. Let me just say
that the Charger who attacked the Egyptian site was not the Charger
I've been telling you about, but from far in the future.

Yes, he had learned how to travel through
time.

Will you be able to do that? Oh yes, in time.
Ha ha. Sorry, Reader, couldn't resist. When I explain what happened
to Charger in that distant future, I'll tell you about other
instances of his time travel, instances that have already happened
in this story.

No, I won't forget. Promise!

What happened to the Mavens? They stole a
cargo ship the invaders had used and traveled out into space. They
wanted nothing to do with General Harris's plan.

Yes, I'm glad they escaped, too. I'll tell
you their story later on, too.

Did Lucy save the forests? Yes, she continued
as head of the dome project and, after several years of working
under Andy's direction, she married him and had three children, a
girl and two boys.

No, she and Andy stopped fighting once they
had time to share their views and discovered they were on the same
side.

Their older boy, Dave, and his younger
brother, Bill, were always close as kids and later in life started
a plumbing company. Their sister, Elizabeth, was a heartache, for
at age nine, when she was with her mother in the gardens of the
Alpha dome, she wandered off into the forest. Elizabeth was never
found and, though the search went on for several years, her
disappearance remained a mystery.

T
he Revenge Program flared briefly, then fizzled out.
When humanity got spaceships functioning and traveled to the home
world of the so-called alien invaders to seek their revenge, they
found no aliens.

Not a single one.

Instead, the hollow, black planet seemed to
be a world of plants and animals, intact buildings and
communication networks, and amazing technology. The invaders had
apparently felt it necessary to use every single inhabitant they
had for the destruction of Earth, as only non-human life forms
remained. Of course, it would have been close to impossible to
resupply the forces from their home planet across such great
expanses of space.