Chapter Twenty
Into Glory
We were nearing the spot where the space vessel had dropped us off; nothing could be seen in the gray darkness around us. Would they come?
Had they already left for home?
It hadn’t been a full month yet so they shouldn’t have left yet surely. Then farther out to sea I saw a small beacon of light flash a couple of times, it was the signal!
They hadn’t left yet, but they were a good deal farther out to sea than they had been before, when they had dropped us off. Larc responded with the light we had on board and a confirmation signal came back to us in several brief tiny flashes.
Elation rose up in all of us and then we were plunged back into cold reality, when everything around us seemed to break lose all at once. Huge spotlights flickered on from the direction of the beach and lit the patrol boat up like it was day.
The sounds of more of the giant mechanical bugs could be heard coming from the beach as well. Rounding a bend in the shoreline ahead of us was a huge ship made entirely of metal that would have made our biggest ship on our world look like a child’s play toy in comparison. There were other smaller boats as well.
It was awful to have been so close to freedom only to have it seemingly snatched from you at the last second. It was unbearable and I never wanted to be made to feel like this again.
Larc and Thannic were busy doing something while Orhanin manned the wheel.
What were Larc and Thannic doing?
They were putting an inflatable boat over the side, how did that help the situation?
The big hovering bugs would be on us in seconds, with the enemy ships close behind. Larc fairly threw Evette into the boat and I could see that she was crying.
Why?
Thannic put both kids in the boat, kissing the tops of their heads as he did so. Before I had a chance to consider that, Larc had grabbed me by my good arm and was half throwing me into the boat.
“Here take this!” Larc said handing me the Bible.
I took it and clutched it to my chest unsure of what was going on. Larc shook Thannic’s hand and then he was in our little boat and we were moving away from the patrol boat and out toward the space vessel, leaving Orhanin and Thannic behind.
“No wait! What about them?” I screamed pointing at Orhanin and Thannic.
“They’re staying Zevin. It was their choice.” Larc said with tears in his eyes, as he looked back at the two men standing at the railing of the patrol boat.
“No! You can’t let them!” I yelled half getting to my knees, but Larc pressed me back down.
“They’re only doing what you would do on behalf of them Zevin. Besides right now is not about them or us! It’s about getting what’s in your arms back to the people of our world. The survival of our people and perhaps much greater things than even that depend on us getting the words of the Creator to our people! If it costs us our very lives to do so it would not be too big a price to pay. Honor them Zevin and remember them as they are right now because too few men have had the courage and the selflessness to be like they are in this moment. And if one day it’s demanded of you like it was of them today, then answer it with the same dignity that they are now!”
The significance of Larc’s words weren’t lost on me, but all I could do right now was feel. I felt loss.
I had already lost my big brother for perhaps forever and now I was losing two men that I had grown so close to that they had seemed, as if they had always been my brothers too.
At the top of my voice I yelled out my farewell to them. I saw Orhanin briefly raise his bloody bandaged hand in acknowledgment that he had heard me, as the patrol boat sheared off away from us diverting the attention from us.
Evette continued to steer the little air boat out through the choppy seas, her face awash with tears, as she headed towards freedom that had been paid for dearly.
Thannic made his way up to the upper platform and slipped into the gun harness, as Orhanin manned the wheel.
Thannic’s voice rang out in an exuberant yell as spotlights lit up the scene, “Let’s ride, big brother!”
Orhanin smiled wryly, his younger brother had always been the more vocal of the two of them and he obliged him now by thrusting the throttle all the way forward. As the engines roared the boat jumped forward like a horse singed by a lightning bolt.
The roar of Thannic’s war cry was only drowned out when the double machine cannons he manned spurted to life, as they belched out twin flames of molten fire.
Heavy caliber tracer rounds weaved brightly across the night sky like a butterfly from flower to flower. The parallel lines of destruction touched first one and then a second low-flying helicopter. They burst into flames and crashed into the sea below.
Orhanin steered the charging patrol boat through the burning wakes as Thannic shot the tail rotor off of another chopper sending it on a long arc towards the sea. With guns blazing he kept the other two choppers at bay.
Before the water grew to shallow on their approach to the beach Orhanin threw the wheel over bringing the boat into a tack parallel to the beach and its angry searchlights. As the boat plunged alongside of the beach Thannic with one long squeeze of the trigger let loose a stream of uninterrupted hell on searchlights and man alike.
As searchlights went out and vehicles blew up into fireballs of light and sound, men went running for cover, as they forsook the fight. Throughout the approach small arms fire pinged off the patrol boat like a horizontal hailstorm.
Pulling away from the beach the boat shook as heavy caliber rounds ripped into it from above, as one of the choppers roared by overhead.
Thannic swiveled and laid down fire in its wake and the chopper blew into a thousand pieces, even as the remaining chopper held off to coward to join the fight. Streaming back out into the bay Orhanin headed for the big ship kicking up waves, as it raced onto the scene as fast as its ponderous bulk would allow it to.
Smaller ships joined the fray and the little patrol boat started to unravel at the seams and trail black smoke that was lost in the darkness of the night.
The hammering of the big guns overhead ceased as Thannic let go of them, as there was no more ammo left to fire. Crawling out of the harness Thannic fell off the platform to the deck below and managed to crawl up to Orhanin at the con.
Orhanin helped him to his feet and listened as his brother said in a slurred tone, “It’s been a good fight! I hate to leave it so soon, are you coming along brother?”
“Yes, I’ll be along soon Thannic.”
“We’ll talk about this battle for all eternity big brother!”
“I’d rather talk about something else with the Creator Thannic, but if you want to, you go ahead.”
Thannic patted Orhanin’s back slightly, “No, you’re right. You’re always right. We’ll talk about something else.” Thannic said finishing softly as he slumped down against the con and Orhanin.
Orhanin let him slip to the floor, as gently as he could and then straightened back up difficultly as a trickle of blood eased out of the corner of his mouth, from a lung that had been punctured by a stray bullet.
He was bleeding from half a dozen other wounds as well, but he stood in front of the wheel like an oak planted on sure ground in a time of flood, as waterspouts from enemy shells landed in the water all around the patrol boat, as he steered it straight for the biggest ship in the bay.
The words of his Creator still hot on his mind he thanked the Creator for the ability and privilege to be where he was at this critical time in his nation’s history. That his life should have such a meaningfulness to it and that out of this hard moment of sacrifice an everlasting significance would be measured in the number of redeemed souls in eternity helped made possible, because of his actions this night.
As his life had been a life worth living, it had become even better to now give it up. The patrol boat was literally being shot to pieces all around where Orhanin stood, but he continued to hang on to the wheel. Some indomitable force of will from within enabling the body to do what it could not normally have done.
Reaching with his bandaged hand into his open bloody shirt front he pulled out a gold necklace that had belonged to his wife.
“Not long now Esme. You to Lucy. Daddy is coming home!”
The patrol boat plowed into the cruiser’s side shearing the armored skin with its momentum and possibly the force of will of the man behind its wheel.
The patrol boat’s fuel exploded touching off secondary explosions within the cruiser, which triggered one of the ship’ s magazines to go off and within moments the entire cruiser was an exploding fireball that lit the night sky up, as it reverberated thunderous echoes of its own destruction across the waters of the bay.
Larc gave the burning wreckage one last glance before he closed the hatch of the space vessel. The wreckage and the sea may hold the remains of his two friends for a time, but it could never hold their souls, which were already looked after and cared for from above.
The metallic sides of the space vessel dipped beneath the waters as it headed out to sea for the beacon array and home.