Chapter 35: The Suicide Team
Jimmy finally stopped running and collapsed onto the ground. He was back at the cliff's edge, the same spot where he and Nick had gathered water and food the day before. He looked at the watch strapped onto his wrist and wiped his arm across his sweaty forehead. "Sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes to run out here. That's pretty good."
He turned his clock's stopwatch mode off and looked at the time. It was seven thirty; Nick should be there with his army in exactly thirty minutes. He pulled himself together from the ragged heap he had collapsed into and sat down. He crawled as close to the cliff's edge as he could and peered down. Dozens of bird-like creatures were standing at the edge of the pond, dipping their beaks into the water.
"So this is where you and Nick ran off to yesterday," Cindy's flirtatious voice rang out from behind Jimmy. He immediately spun around and stared at her. "Surprised to see me?" she asked while taking a seat next to him.
Jimmy continued breathing deeply, trying to relieve the searing pain in his chest that came from his run. "What did you do, follow me?"
Cindy nodded while flashing him her beautiful smile. "I woke up around seven and couldn't get back to sleep. Then I saw you leave. We haven't had much of a chance to talk lately, you know?"
Jimmy nodded while removing the strands of hair plastered to his forehead by his sweat.
"So, we're leaving after your little speech?" she asked. Jimmy once again silently nodded. "I can't believe that we're finally heading off. To fight them, I mean. No more pit stops, no more distractions, just heading straight there and finishing this one way or the other."
"Yeah," Jimmy finally spoke. "We're finishing this," he sadly said while looking down at the ground.
"This planet is beautiful," Cindy said while fluttering her eyelids and scooching closer to Jimmy. What's it called?"
Jimmy finally stopped gasping for breath and stared at her. The pains in his chest seemed to fade as he moved closer to Cindy. "It's called Minerva," he explained for the third time.
"The Roman goddess of wisdom?" Cindy asked.
Jimmy laughed a little. "Yeah, that's it."
He paused a moment before lashing out and grabbing her left hand with his right. They both blushed as Jimmy intertwined their fingers. "Cindy, um, you know how there's a dance every month at our middle school?"
"Yeah, I know," Cindy said while staring into his cerulean eyes and smiling.
"Well, I don't know when school is going to start, because of all this Yolkian business," he struggled to say, "or even if it will. But, if it does, and if there is a dance, do you think that maybe you'd…"
Both of them paused, expecting for an asteroid to come whizzing by them, or Betty to come running up, or a bird's shrill cry to ring out. They waited for any sort of interruption, but for once there was none.
"Would you like to go with me?" Jimmy asked her. "As a date?" he clarified.
Cindy smiled even wider as she slowly nodded. Jimmy was amazed at how beautiful the simple gesture of lifting one's lips could be. Every one of her teeth sparkled, all impossibly straight and white. "Of course, Jimmy."
They both looked away for a moment and blushed even more. At long last they faced each other once again. They moved closer to each other, and Jimmy wrapped his arm around her waist. He put his other hand along her neck, noticing that this was one of the rare occasions when her hair was down instead of in a ponytail.
Every cell in her body melted as Jimmy wrapped his hands around her waist and neck. She felt pure ecstasy as their lips crashed into each other's for the third time on this trip. There were no distractions, no interruptions. Even the part of her that hated Jimmy, the part that always begged her to hit him instead of hold his hand, the part that wanted to insult him instead of confess her love, stayed quiet as she enjoyed what was the best moment of her life.
Their lips stayed connected for several minutes, their brains shutting down as they delved deeper and deeper into the kiss. But at long last, they both pulled away at the same time. They were still only twelve, that kiss was enough to satisfy them until they became teenagers.
Cindy touched her tingling lips and smiled as she saw Jimmy's face melt into the Charlie Brown smile that infected every boy after his first major kiss. His eyes glazed over as he sighed and collapsed onto the ground.
"You okay?" Cindy asked while laughing.
Jimmy's smile just widened as he lay down on the ground and stared up at the swirling green sky above them.
Cindy lay down next to him and stared up at the beautiful sky as well. Once their daze of ecstasy wore of, Jimmy looked over to her and smiled. He grabbed her hand once again rubbed her smooth skin with his thumb.
"Ok!" Jimmy shouted to the crowd of kids assembled around him. It was half an hour later and Nick had brought all of the kids out to the pond as instructed. Jimmy was standing in front of them, giving one final speech before they set off.
"Now, this is what is going to happen. I am standing in front of the only source of water that we could find on the planet. We have some back on the ships, but not a lot. So after I am done this speech, you are all going to go down and drink as much as you can. Hydrate yourself as much as possible."
"I also want to say that we lost the majority of our supplies when Little Boy was destroyed. This is the only invention that I had on me when we evacuated," he explained while pulling a small, box-like device out of his pocket. "This is a DNA scanner. It only works when you're within close range of something. We can use this to find out exactly where our parents are in the Yolkian ship. It's not much help, but it's better than nothing," he told everyone while slipping the invention back into his pants.
"But the main reason I am talking to you is to relay my battle plan to all of you. You see, as I've said before, the fact that our parents are on a ship changes everything. A regular sneak attack will not suffice. We need to use drastic measures."
Jimmy motioned for everyone to gather closer as he knelt down onto the ground. He ripped off a branch of a nearby tree and pushed its tip into the dirt. "This represents the Yolkian ship," he explained while drawing a saucer-like design on the ground. "This is our target."
Jimmy then drew a large circle a little ways away from the ship. "This is Ergo 22. It is a small planet in fairly close proximity to the ship. Libby told me about it early this morning when I asked her to locate a spot where we could land that was near our parents' location. At our rockets' maximum speeds, it is four minutes away from the ship."
Jimmy drew three X's onto the ground and pointed at each one. "These represent our three rockets. What we will do is land on Ergo 22. We will empty one of the rockets of all personnel and leave those people, along with the other rockets, on Ergo. Then our preliminary offensive squad will get in the rocket and infiltrate the mother ship."
Jimmy paused a moment and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. "You see, we do not have the manpower or weaponry for a full-on assault. And our hopes for a standard sneak attack are also dashed. The only way that we can successfully get our parents back is to send in a suicide team."
Everyone was silent for a moment, trying to comprehend what Jimmy had just said. "What exactly does that mean?" Nick asked.
"This is what it means," Jimmy told everyone while standing back up. He dropped the stick on the ground and dusted off his jeans. "The suicide team will infiltrate the ship. This will most likely alert the Yolkians to our presence. The suicide team will then take out as many guards as they can. If luck is on our side, they will be captured and interrogated. If not, they will be killed in battle. Either way, the Yolkians will believe that the suicide team was our only team. They will think that the suicide team was the only group sent to rescue our parents. That will hopefully lower their guard enough so that the rest of us may sneak in and get those alien freaks."
Whispers of fear and discontent swept the crowd. Jimmy sighed and rubbed his neck as the murmuring of voices grew louder. "It's the only way," he whis
pered, sure that no one had heard him.
"Alright, settle down! Settle down!" Nick finally shouted. Everyone slowly shut up. "Can we have some more details, please?" He asked Jimmy.
Jimmy nodded. "The suicide team will be in contact with the rest of us via the headsets. If the team is killed, the people on Ergo will hear it. They will wait a sufficient amount of time, so as to allow the Yolkians to believe that nobody else is coming to fight them, thus lowering their guard."
"And if the team is captured?" Betty asked.
"If they're captured," Jimmy somberly continued, "they will utter a code word as they surrender themselves to the Yolkians. Once again, the rest of our army will wait a sufficient amount of time before attacking. This will give the captured suicide team a chance to lie to the Yolkians and say that they were the only ones sent to rescue the parents."
The crowd was silent as they thought his plan over. "This is the best way," Jimmy told them after waiting a moment to gauge their reaction. "Sometimes a few must be sacrificed for the greater good. It is the only way that we can catch the Yolkians truly off guard. Unless any of you have a better idea?" he asked the crowd.
Nobody suggested a different course of action. "Any questions?" Jimmy sorrowfully asked them.
Butch nudged Nick in the stomach with his elbow. "Of course he thinks it's a great plan," Butch whispered. "He's sending some other poor saps in there to get killed so that he can have a nice, safe fight and come out alive." Butch laughed as quietly as he could before raising his hand.
"Yeah, I've got a question!" He shouted out. "Who's on this suicide team?"
Jimmy had heard Butch whispering to Nick. He had been glad to see that Nick hadn't been amused. "I'm the suicide team," Jimmy told everyone.
The crowd instantly fell silent once again. Cindy jumped up and was about to speak, but Nick simply grabbed her arm and pulled her back down, all the while keeping his gaze steadily focused on Jimmy.
"First off, I have to be on the suicide team," Jimmy explained. "I am the Yolkian's target. They are expecting me to come. If we are to make them believe that the suicide team is the only attacking force, I need to be on it. They would never believe that a random group of kids built rockets and flew all the way out here without me."
"And besides," Jimmy sadly continued while staring down at the ground and kicking up a cloud of dirt with his right foot, "this is all my fault. If any blood needs to be shed, it should be mine."
The crowd stared sympathetically at Jimmy. "How is this your fault?" Nick asked.
Jimmy gave the crowd a sad smile. "I'm the one that sent out the greeting message two years ago. If it wasn't for me, they wouldn't even know about Earth and humanity. I'm the one who gave them a map to our world."
The crowd was silent. The majority of the children didn't blame Jimmy for the Yolkian's attacks, but they didn't know how to argue his point. "Besides," Jimmy added under his breath, "I sent Sheen to his death. I overestimated him. I should have known that he would fail. I should have stopped him." He spoke about Sheen in a low whisper, not even sure if he wanted the others to hear him.
The few soldiers located in front of the crowd that heard Jimmy talk about Sheen kept silent.. Jimmy paused a moment and took a deep breath before continuing. "And there can't be anyone else on the suicide team," he explained. He felt hundreds of eyes focused on him. "The Yolkians would believe that I came alone. They wouldn't believe that me and a group of five other random kids decided to head out here. It has to be all of us or just me. And all of us isn't going to work."
Jimmy clapped his hands together and gave a small smile, trying to raise the crowd's mood. If failed horribly. "Well, I think that about covers our plan. I can explain it more on the way there, if you all wish. So why don't you all…"
Cindy finally tore her arm from Nick's grasp, and he didn't try to hold onto her any longer. "I'm coming with you!" She shouted as loud as she could.
Every eye in the crowd placed its gaze upon Cindy. She could feel Jimmy's heated glare, silently reprimanding her for going against him.
"I already told you, that's not possible," Jimmy explained. "It has to be all of us or just me."
Cindy knew that wasn't the real reason why he wasn't allowing her to come. It was the reason that he hated him and the reason that she loved him. He would do anything to save her, even if it meant leaving her behind. "You know that's not the reason," she told him as calmly as she could. "I have to come, and if I don't you're putting hundreds of other lives in danger."
Everyone switched their gaze once again from Cindy to Jimmy. He looked down at the ground and motioned for her to continue.
"There are two problems with your plan," Cindy told him. "Number one, you want the Yolkians to think that you're coming alone. But you also want to keep in contact with us via headset. Why would you have a headset if you're coming alone?" she asked.
Jimmy opened his mouth to answer, but Cindy didn't give him a chance. "And number two is the bigger problem. The Yolkians know you, Jimmy. They know that you're hotheaded, brave, and prepared to die for the greater good. But they also know that you're not stupid. They know that you wouldn't be dumb enough to come alone to face them. They know that you know that you couldn't beat them by yourself."
Jimmy looked up from the ground and stared at Cindy. He knew what she was getting at. "So?" he needlessly asked.
Cindy pushed her way to the front of the crowd. "So, they know about you and me. They know about our…friendship," she told everyone. "They know that when the chips are down that we always team up and get the job done. They wouldn't believe that you're so arrogant and stupid as to come alone. But they would believe that we're both so arrogant and stupid to think that we could beat them."
Nick kept looking from Jimmy to Cindy. "She's right," he finally spoke. "And she's a better fighter than you. With your brains and her brawn, you two could take out a lot of Yolkians before…before," he let his voice trail off, not needing to finish that sentence.
Jimmy stood in silence for another moment, contemplating Cindy and Nick's words. They were right. He did not want Cindy to die; that was the real reason why he had wanted to go into the ship alone. He would sacrifice himself for her without a second thought. But even he knew that he couldn't sacrifice everyone else's lives, and their parents' lives, for Cindy. It was strange to realize it, but he knew that she wasn't worth that much.
"Fine," Jimmy finally answered. "Cindy and I will go in. But that's it. We don't need any more dead heroes. The Yolkians aren't going to believe that Cindy, myself, and some random kid that we don't know would go to save our parents. The rest of you are going to stay behind and follow Nick's command. Is that clear?"
The crowd stared at Jimmy. Any doubts they had about him being a competent leader were dashed. In front of them stood someone who was prepared to sacrifice himself for the greater good without hesitation. "Sir yes sir!" They all screamed out with the forcefulness of trained veterans.
Jimmy smiled as he saw the troops that he, Nick, and Cindy had assembled. For the first time since they had lost Sheen, he truly thought that they had a fighting chance. "Then move out. We leave in one hour!" He shouted.