Not This Time by patricia51
(How did Nolan arrive in the nick of time with his fellow soldiers to save Irisa and why was he so ruthless in gunning down the participants? Could it be that he had seen the results of one of Daigo's failed attempts to create the goddess Alakta before?)
Joshua Nolan; late Lieutenant, Ninth Division, Earth Military Coalition; gripped his weapon tightly. In fact his hands were so firmly fastened on the high-impact plastic and metal rifle that they were turning white as the force of them squeezing drove the blood out. His mind struggled to make sense of the scene before him even as his eyes refused to look away from what they were riveted on.
He had seen a lot of bloodshed and death during and after the Pale Wars. He had caused some it, after all, what combat soldier hasn't? This wasn't even nearly the first child he had seen die. But never, ever had he witnessed anything like this.
The small body was tied so tightly hand and foot that blood dripped from her wrists and ankles. The look of terror fixed forever on her face was explained by the two small holes on her shoulder, holes that were the result of the bite of the poisonous snake that now writhed headless in front of her.
"Nice shot," Eddie Braddock commented, never taking his attention or the barrel of his weapon from the two figures remaining in the shabby building. A man and a woman they rocked back and forth in shock, both with their arms wrapped around themselves. Nolan looked at the pair, contempt warring with rage in his eyes. Stepping to the man he grabbed him by the front of his ragged shirt and hauled him to his feet.
"How could you do it?" he snarled.
"He said, he promised," the man refused to look up, refused to meet Nolan's coldly furious eyes. He PROMISED."
"She was your daughter," Nolan shook the man like a terrier holding a rat.
"He said she was a goddess," the woman's voice was broken, filled with a mixture of disbelief and desperate sorrow. "He said the tests he would administer would prove it."
"What goddess?"
"Alakta, the goddess of birth and death," the man said.
"Alakta?" an unbelieving Eddie asked. "That's a Votan goddess of some sort. You're human!"
"I suppose a case could be made for that," said Nolan. "But I don't think I would accept it." Turning on his heel he walked out of the building, ignoring the weeping pair left behind to face their demons alone.
Eddie caught up to him. "So what now?"
Nolan took a deep breath. He and his friends, all former Ninth Division soldiers, had been hired by the generally self-appointed governing council of what used to be known as Reno, Nevada to clean up and clean out the town. Eddie had commented that all they had needed was the Boot Hill ride and they could have been "The Magnificent Seven." Nolan had refused to shave his head but still found he was humming snatches of the theme song of that old movie to himself.
"Well that was only fight we've had in the last week. So I'd say we need to hit up the Council for the money we're owed. The job is done."
"That's not what I mean and you know it."
Nolan faced his best friend. Storms the former soldier had seen had held less lightning than flickered in Nolan's eyes.
"I'm going to find out more about whoever the hell this guy is that was conducting the ceremony. He got away. All I caught was a glimpse of white hair and pale skin."
"A Castithan you think?" When Nolan nodded Eddie continued. "Well then let's get to work. And hold off telling the Council we're all done. We may need their authority to wave in front of people for a bit."
"All the authority I need is this." Nolan held up the rifle he still held in a death grip.
"Well, let me question the couple in there," Eddie offered. "In your mood it would take one wrong answer and you would probably blow them both away."
"Probably."
Eddie found out the figure in question was indeed Castithan. His name was Daigo. At least that was what he had given out and that particular race was quite hung up on their names. Aliases were not common among them. He found out how the man had approached the couple after apparently he had spent some time recruiting followers.
"In these days, with the world in upheaval the way it is, people turn to the damndest things to have something to cling too, something to have faith in" he remarked one evening several days later. "Even Votan gods of birth and death."
Nolan only grunted.
Eddie studied his friend. "You've got something up your sleeve. What is it?"
"Castithans aren't very common out here. They're big city folk, unlike the Irathients and such. I found out that one caught the coach out of town traveling east the evening of our raid. So I'm going after him."
"WE'RE going after him," corrected the other ex-soldier.
"You and me?"
"And the guys. As Dave said 'There ain't any sense sticking around this place. Fun's over and we got some traveling money. Might as well go with Nolan. It won't be boring.'." Eddie studies the other man. "Truth be told, one of the guys much care for what they saw the other day. You know damn well that it was to aid helpless civilian, especially children that we stopped the fighting in San Francisco."
In the morning they picked up their pay and the pursuit started.
At first it was frustrating. He was gone from Las Vegas by the time they arrived but the results of another failed attempt had been left behind. Nolan grew angrier and more determined. But then they started to get closer. In Provo, Utah the team's arrival apparently interrupted the ceremony before it began. Daigo fled Casper, Wyoming without even getting is following organized.
"He took a coach east again heading towards Minnesota," Eddie reported.
"No."
"No?"
"He knows someone is chasing him. And he knows that we have been following him by his use of the coaches. So he'll do something to throw us off." Nolan studied the map laid out on the table, his eyes burning. He stabbed a finger on the paper. "There. That's where he's going."
Eddie looked at the map. "Denver?"
"Yes."
Nolan had another idea. Rather than arriving as a group, guns blazing, they separated, each man coming in alone by a different route and none of those routes directly from Casper. Each scouted a different sector of the near ruined city and they met at a prearranged point after dark. Huddled around a tiny fire Nolan listened to the reports and laid out his plan.
As dawn began to lighten the sky Nolan stealthily led his squad towards the target area that the various rumors and clues the men had picked up had pointed them at. Moving low and quietly they surrounded a tented enclosure where a low rthymatic chanting was coming from. There were slight clicking sounds as rifle safeties were released. Nolan crouched by the entrance, raising his arm.
A muffled scream came from the tent. Like a spring that had been wound as tightly as possible and then released Nolan leaped through the opening, Eddie and the others right behind him. The sight was enough to drive the already angry former Lieutenant to fury. A mal-nourished girl Irathient child, bound immobile, writhed as a poisonous snake fastened itself on her bare shoulder with its fangs.
Nolan's rifle fired almost by itself. The snake flew away in two pieces, his anger not disturbing his aim at all. Then knives and handguns appeared from under robes and the hell already in the room broke loose to engulf everyone.
The maddened worshippers were no match for the war-trained soldiers and they fell in heaps. No injuries were suffered by the attackers who methodically shot anyone who resisted. After his first shot Nolan only had eyes to protect the young girl and Eddie only to watch his friend's back.
The shooting was over by the time Nolan had laid down his rifle and cut the girl loose who threw herself into his arms, wrapping him up in her skinny ones as well as though she was never going to let go. Eddie had to smile in the midst of the death surrounding them. Nolan might go on to talk later about finding the girl a home with Irathient parents but whether or not he realized it then that little girl was never going to leave him. But that was for later. Right now Eddie contented himself with discreetly kicking each body to make sure it was dead while he watch Nolan rock back and forth with the little girl, repeating again and again.
"Not this time, not this time."
(The End)