BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

2. Ambush

"I think maybe it's time to start seeing what is out there," Yuji said to Fuentes.

"After all," he continued. "Dr. Gamble is right—it'd be nice to have some medical supplies. We've seen too many die too young from illness that might've been cured with just a little—"

Fuentes listened to Yuji's words and considered them until the young father's eyes grew glazed and he wobbled where he stood.

Fuentes waited for him to speak again.

"Yuji? Are you okay?"

Yuji Kaido began to fall. The older Chief Fuentes reached out and tried to catch him, but only succeeded in slowing the man's fall to the ground.

Fuentes looked closer as his friend wretched once then shut his eyes. The Chief saw something sticking out from Yuji's neck. It took him a second too long to realize what he was seeing.

Some sort of tiny, sharp projectile. A dart.

"Doctor! Doctor Gamble!" He yelled but he stood not to get medical help but to ring the bell—fast.

Screams came from the far side of the village. Then crashes. Then loud bangs and snaps.

Fuentes had not heard the sound of gunfire away from the practice range in years. Now he heard it descending on his peaceful village and he knew—the dart told him—that it was not the Blue attacking.

A tent on the far side of the center of town exploded into smoke. An ominous shadow pushed through that smoke and rolled into view.

He knew what it was only because he had seen the war machines before, when Yuji and Marlene and the others had first come to his village. They were scary when piloted by allies. Now they were bone chilling as they roared into his home as attackers.

He saw the first one, then another on its flank. They were firing but at what he didn't know. Fuentes didn't think the aggressors knew either. There were so many targets.

The people of the village scattered and ran. Parents grabbed children and raced away from the lumbering red and white hulks.

Fuentes rang the bell. It was all he knew to do.

Somehow the noise—despite the commotion and gunfire—reached the pilot of the first mecha. The machine leveled its weapon at the chief.

Fuentes was frozen. He had never been so afraid. Even the nastiest of the Blue seemed mild in comparison to this. It was just not natural. It seemed to be a creature spawned from some nightmare underworld.

The Chief of the village found himself suddenly falling away from the warning bell, the rope slipping out of his hands so fast that it caused a brush burn on his palms.

He fell over backwards as the bell itself burst into lethal shrapnel.

Fuentes realized why he was still alive. William Junker—that old soldier with a story for every campfire—had tackled him just in time to take them both out of the deadly blast radius of the shattered alarm.

"Wha…What is going on?"
Junker told him the obvious: "We're under attack, Chief."

They both saw the new group of shadows approaching through the smoke on the far side of the village.

They were dressed in red and white body armor to match their armored shrikes. They carried a variety of weapons from handguns to heavy assault rifles.

They fired.

Fuentes watched as the invaders cut down old man Wallace as he stumbled out of his hut. He watched as their rounds ignited the pile of tribute that had been deposited by the caravan. He watched as the attackers started to search homes one by one; muzzle flashes lit dark doorways as more targets were found.

"Come on, Chief, we need to hall ass," Junker lifted his revered leader to his feet and moved them away. The two stopped near Yuji's prone body.

"Dead?" Junker asked.

Fuentes gasped then answered: "I, I don't know."

Junker kneeled and placed a hand on Yuji's throat searching for a pulse. The gunfire continued behind them but new targets had pulled the shrikes in another direction. The infantry still closed in.

"No, he's breathing," the combat veteran said. "I think we gotta leave him, though. I can't carry you both."

But it seemed too late. Two of the attacking troopers had made it to within shooting distance. A round twanged over Junker's head and he instinctively hit the deck covering the Chief with his body and his own head with his hands.

Junker saw their enemy taking better aim.

***

Marlene's head swirled. Her sense returned…one…at…a…time.

She rose to one knee and placed a hand on her head. Her long blond hair fell down around her.

"What happened?"

Her memory started to churn out images. The first one was clear and cold: a tall man with a scar. A tall man with a scar with a hand over her son's mouth.

"Oh…my…God," she looked around their home. Overturned beds and storage bins. No sign of her son.

She tried to stand but she lost her balance and fell once more. She could still feel the tingle of the massive electric shock.

She saw her son's blue eyes behind that dirty hand.

She forced herself to stand.

***

The Captain couldn't help but think 'after all those years of fighting Blue I'm going to die at the hands of a human…how ironic.'

Their fate was interrupted as a figure emerged from between two of the still-standing homes and smashed into the side of one of the raiders, knocking him over.

The second one swung his gun around on their assailant and fired, but the newcomer managed to knock the rifle upwards, sending the round harmlessly into the air.

Fuentes and Junker looked closely.

It was Bo. Bo had saved their life. Bo, Fuentes' only child.

"No! Bo, no!" The Chief cried out.

Junker got to his feet and ran toward the scene as Bo wrestled with one of the soldiers.

The first one, however, was staggering to his feet. His rifle was still on the ground so the scoundrel pulled a combat knife from his thigh rig.

Captain Junker was too slow. The knife found Bo's back, right in the kidney area. The teenager froze, a scream locked inside his lips. Then he fell to the ground with blood starting to poor from the gaping wound.

The first soldier, the one with the knife, turned too late to see Junker. The veteran raised his leg and kicked the man square in his chest, sending him tumbling backwards.

Junker ignored the second attacker in favor of the rifle that lay unused on the ground. He grabbed it and turned as the still-standing bandit raised his own rifle.

The bullets flew from both weapons. The combatants faced each other for a long moment…then the attacker fell to the ground, a bullet deeply lodged in his throat.

Junker paused to make sure he had not been hit. When he was confident he was in one piece he turned his attention to the remaining trooper. However, that man had turned tail and ran.

Fuentes was suddenly beside the Captain then crouched over his boy.

Bo gasped for air but blood filled his mouth. His eyes were full of shock. Junker had seen it on the battlefield so many times; the realization in a dying man's eyes that yes, he had been mortally wounded. That yes, he was going to be one of the men who weren't going home.

Fuentes sobbed and clutched the dying body while Junker scanned his surroundings.

He could hear the armored shrikes moving: their wheels offering a mechanical whirl. He had not heard that sound in many years, but it was a sound no soldier from Second Earth would ever forget.

Junker took some small satisfaction in that sound because he could tell that the mechs were moving off, returning in the direction they had come. The gunfire changed from continual bursts to isolated rat-tat-tats.

The soldier moved away from Fuentes to get a better look. He walked quickly to the edge of the village on the top of the slope that looked down upon the main road through the valley. Their attackers may have come out of the brush but they were leaving by road.

Junker took cover behind a small boulder as the attacker's rear guard launched a volley of shots at him. Still, they could not suppress him enough to keep him from seeing what they were doing.

The armored shrikes were boarding a carrier truck, but that's not what held his eyes. It was the escort vehicle that grabbed his eyes.

The vehicle into which a tall man was forcibly pushing Takashi Kaido.

"Takashi!" Junker yelled and stood.

There was an explosion as a tossed grenade landed on the slope ahead of Captain Junker. The concussion forced him pin wheeling to the ground. When he finally found his feet again the only thing left on the access road was a cloud of dust where the vehicles had once stood.

***

Marlene staggered across her village. She was still quivering from the bolt of electricity that had been sent down her spine.

Around her were the ruins of her paradise. Burning tents, smashed crates of food, and even a few bodies, bodies of people she had laughed with, cried with, danced with, and ate with for five years. People she cared about. People she loved.

She staggered to the center of town.

"Yuji!" She cried as loud as she could but it was barely enough to rise above the mournful wails of her fellow villagers.

She saw Chief Fuentes clutching the dead body of his son; she saw Captain Junker, carrying the rifle of one of their attackers, limping toward the Chief. She saw Dr. Gamble kneeling on the ground next to…next to…

"Yuji? Yuji!"

Marlene ran forward, almost tumbling for her legs were not yet ready for full speed.

Dr. Gamble turned to face her and held a hand up. He was trying to tell her something.

"Yuji! Get up, Yuji! They took Takashi! Yuji?"

She told him to get up as if the word would will him to rise. But there he lay, motionless, his eyes shut.

"Doctor…Charles…is…Yuji..?"

"No," Dr. Gamble reported bluntly. "He got hit with some sort of dart in the neck."

"Oh thank God," Marlene said.

"Marlene," Gamble stopped her. "There was some sort of poison on this dart. Make no mistake, he is dying. And there's nothing I can do about it."

NEXT FACTOR:

3. Hell Hath No Fury

Marlene: "They took it all away from me…they took away my paradise…I didn't want this…they did this…and now they're going to find out…they're going to find out what hell is like. I'm going to show them."