Chapter 14
Overwhelming odds
Nina Polchinski was suffering from the attack from the various militants who were constantly arriving to the island. Most of them were mercenaries and pirates, who were longing for the ancient world. They came to the island to set up their own kingdom. Nina dealt with them easily; but still, their number was numerous.
It was a dry march, the sun was baking the soil, and there were no clouds, dry leaves started to falling upon them. Their tongue was starting to feel like a sand paper; they had to find a lake soon. They kept walking and walking for their dear life. Suddenly, Alvin raised his hand and everyone stopped at the spot. He saw the movements on the hills. They hid among the trees and discussed on what to do.
“They brought tanks…” said Alvin, looking at the numerous amounts of trained militants through binocular.
“Why did they come to this forsaken island?” murmured Nina. “It is a nuclear dumping ground.”
“I’m not too sure about their motives… They are different ones than those from before,” said Alvin. “We will be engulfed by it.”
“What a gruesome tragedy,” muttered Nina, she grabbed the dry branches, which broke like a burnt bush.
“Are you going to fight?” said Alvin.
“Yeah, what am I supposed to do? Sob myself to death?” said Nina.
“They got the higher ground and I think they are setting up the mines now,” said Alvin, looking at the enemies on the lower part of the hill.
“Neither the tank can move freely,” said Stein, putting his hand on his chin. “They are just trying to hide in the wood.”
“I agree that they are shy to get out, they put the land mine all around the mountain, army of snipers and barricades set up for them,” said Nina, turning around. “Sarah?”
“Yes ma’am,” said Sarah.
“We have to pressure them from here. They will play defense, and try to engulf us with their massive army…” said Nina. “We’ll be waiting from the other side, when I order you, set the bush on fire. Then, divide the army in two and move to the north and the south. Blow the tanks and shoot the soldiers. We will kill everyone, and no one will escape.”
“Lock and loaded,” grinned Sarah. “Let’s present them the nightmare.”
Nina formed a squad and moved to the west, making a round trip. At that time, Sarah and Alvin ordered people to soak the land with kerosene. When Nina moved to the other side, she spread the army and aimed at the hills. She talked to Sarah with the walky-talky. Sarah ordered them to set the hills on fire. As the black smoke arose, Sarah moved to North and Alvin moved to South.
“Yep,” said Nina. “Create a pressure, Stein.”
“Roger that admiral,” said Stein. He led the squad and started firing at the hills, pressuring from the west side. The enemy saw the shelling from the west side, so they have put the artillery aimed at west and started firing.
When they focused on Nina, they rooted themselves in, It was a while later the enemy noticed the smoke and the flame moving toward them from the east side. The fire travelled fast. When the fire started engulfing the hill, they started panicking and attempted to move down the hill.
The explosions of mines were seen from a distance. They were panicking. They are moving toward the North and the South to engulf Nina’s division.
“We are here, over” said Sarah, contacting Nina from the south side. And few minutes later Alvin contacted her. “We’ve arrived, over, I’m getting old,” said Alvin.
“Shoot them,” said Nina; her walky-talky made a whizzing sound. “Kill’em all.”
They opened the round toward militants who were hurriedly going down from the mountains. It was a great slaughter; the bullets fell from the sky like rain and the bombs kaboomed! Trees got shattered and uprooted and rocks exploded. The flame crackled and started wrapping around the hill.
One bomb came near Nina; the impact of explosion made Nina flew back on the ground, the dirt spread over her. The cloaking device got broken. Her ear wringing, she tried to see. There were sudden yelling and man running toward her; few bullets zoomed past her. She clutched the pistol and fired at him and he fell flat on his face. Paul leaped forward in front of her and started fired at the enemy. She heard a loud machine gun fires and screaming.
Some of them deactivated the cloaking device as they didn’t want to stand in the line of fire. Only the snipers continued to activate the device. Stein was firing at the enemies, stiffened as usual, the enemy had lots of artilleries but they were lousy shooters. Their sound slowly died out. After hours of shooting, they had to move out due to flame and smoke. The hiding enemies came out from their hole and exploded with the mines they have set up.
“We need reinforcement, we need reinforcement, over,” said Nina with walky-talky.
“Roger that, over,” said Alvin from the other side.
Alvin threw the empty cartridge from his gun, but when he reached for another one, he found out he was completely out. He gushed through and grabbed the rifle from the dead soldier and fired at the hill.
“We are moving out! I repeat, we are moving out! We’ll move to the west!” bellowed Alvin to the soldiers, they noticed it and moved. The machine guns continued to roar.
Soon Sarah and Alvin’s division joined Nina. The machine gun slowly died out. They stopped firing. The flames approached them fast, so Nina had to move out quickly. She shouted at them to move out. They backed up and started running away from the fire. It was a great victory.
It was few days later when the people inside the island heard about this battle. At the time various military groups in the island made their own flags and started expanding their territory. When they heard about the battle, they were frightened and made truce with each other to remove whoever did this.
Nina stayed low, they remained to be hidden. They went for some food and ammos, but weren’t interested in the expansion of the empire. As in Cassandra, it was mere game for them. They annihilated the enemy without leaving the prisoners, killed all that is in their way.
This cold tactic produced fear which made them notorious in the island, although they didn’t know who did this. They called these unknown warriors as the shadows. This rumor also went into the ear of Veron, when he was enjoying his food from the plantations he expanded. When he heard about this, he knew that it was the work of Nina Polchinski. He burned with rage.
“That fiend! She is trying to haunt me till I’m dead!” Veron bellowed. “Why can’t she just leave me alone?”
But the moment later, an insurmountable sorrow overcame him, along with the despair. With the trembling hands, he just collapsed on his chair and silenced.
After the fire died, Nina’s army got to the lake and rested there. James seemed to be discouraged and was in agony because he was no longer a Captain anymore. Not only that, Stein didn’t trust him at all; during battle, he gave the command to Sarah instead. He walked up to Stein to complain.
“Captain Stein,” sneered James, frustrated.
“Yes, Commander?” said Stein.
“Why didn’t you let me handle the troops but gave the command to Lieutenant Johnson?” said James, his lips trembled.
“The troopers seemed to listen to her better, James,” said Stein, simply. He turned to James and raised his eyebrows. “Is that a problem?”
“No, sir,” said James, suppressing his anger.
The army was thirsty so when the lake was seen from a distance, they ran toward it. But when they went up, they found it that there were many corpses floating around.
“We have to move up to the mountain, admiral,” said Stein, looking at the bubbly water. “It looks contaminated.”
“Alright Captain,” said Nina. “But let’s rest here for a while, let’s scout the region.”
They rested for a while, tempted to drink even the contaminated water. The scouts were sent to the hill to find a stream.
About an hour later, they heard one man screaming and
the sound of a struggle. Nina glimpsed at the source of the sound, saw one man wrestling violently with two of Nina’s men.
When they brought him to her, they kicked his leg and forced him to kneel down. He growled like a stray dog, his eyes bulging out. Nina, Stein and Alvin walked up to him.
“It’s a spy, admiral,” said one of the soldiers, aiming a gun to the back of his head. “He ran as soon as he spotted us.”
When he saw Nina, he seemed to recognize her face. Nina looked at him coldly.
“Veron… Veron will kill you, Polchinski,” he laughed, choking and coughing, his face covered with dirt and sweat. He was bit epileptic, drooling from his mouth.
“…” Nina merely looked at him coldly.
“Yes, yes, he will… Kill you,” said he. “He is different now, he won’t make mistake… Numerous and cruel, everyone is submitting under him! You? Ha! Soon your forces will be trampled like ants. Oh he is powerful… knows what you are up to,” muttered the man.
Nina stared at him. She glimpsed at Alvin and nodded. He went up to him and aimed the gun on his head. The gun roared and the man fell on the ground. Stein looked at Nina with a worried glance.
“Our old enemy is near,” said Nina.
They moved in to the upper stream of the river. They were gathering of the fruits from the trees. When they got to the high hill, they saw the stream of water coming down from the mountain. They could hear the waterfalls. They drank the water there and rested for a while.
Michel was standing in front of Paul and Sarah.
“Four men as group, there are some edible fruits and roots there; you can test Paul to check for poison,” said Michel to the soldiers. “And luckily there are some rabbits, Lieutenant Sarah mentioned to me no more rats, but you can ignore her orders,”
“Yes sir!” they scattered and went into the forest. Soft wind blew in the air.
It was a great victory but there was no real cheer. It was a cold and brutal. Alvin was shot in the arm and one bullet grazed his stomach. The gunshot wound shivered, strapped roughly with the scraps of clothing. He didn’t pity the enemy, but he wasn’t sure what he was doing was right thing to do. He went up to the deserted hill and whispered a prayer.