Kuvlar would be held more accountable for the loss of fighters and their pilots than for the Genogerian troops and with this fact, he made a decision that could ultimately determine the fate of this third stone from the small sun. He was sending in his troops without air support. That was usually the case, since by the time ground troops went in, there was little or no resistance left in the locals. So this reasoning gave him a foothold, should there be a hearing on his actions.
He would not, however, risk anymore of his ships. He had more than enough Genogerians, somewhere in the neighborhood of ten million. It was tough to tell; the brutes were always fighting and breeding so getting an accurate count was difficult at best and he felt he really only needed a third that many to do the job.
The most ever sent onto a planet at one time was half a million, and that had proved an enormous strain on their supply line. The food and supplies required for that undertaking had also been a strain on his pilots. “No, two hundred and fifty thousand will be plenty. I will start in their greatest country and let the rest of the world watch and learn what happens should they resist our rule.” He laughed to himself or showed something as close to a laugh as his species possessed.
Yes, he would have everything under control, when the other “rescue” battle ships came. He would fix the mistakes of his predecessor, fool that he was, and become a hero on his home planet. Once this gem of a planet became a viable mining facility and colony, he would have a great city erected there called by his name.
Yes, it would be a beautiful place, and hu-mans would be in their proper place. The ones who acquiesced would be serving their masters and the ones who didn’t, they’d also be serving their masters, as the main course, he daydreamed. He would wait for the outcome of the “games” when his champion, Drababan, killed the remaining hu-man. Then, he would hit the planet while its morale was at its lowest. He slammed the great mitt of his hand into his palm and licked his front teeth. The crown didn’t weigh so much now.
Chapter 49 – Mike Journal Entry Thirteen
The Fight
It was D-Day or rather, my personal D-Day. I wasn’t nervous, which surprised me. Concerned, but almost from a distant vantage point. I thought I should be nervous but I couldn’t seem to muster it up. I guess I had come to some sort of peace with the whole thing. The inevitable conclusion was there, how it played out was still to be determined.
The guards came in, four of them. They didn’t exactly exude their feelings, but I almost got a sense of the respect that they had for me. If anything gave it away, it was their postures. All four of them were at the ready if I so much as sneezed. Chances were, I wouldn’t make it to the arena, at least, not in one piece.
Two guards walked ahead of me, regularly turning their heads to make sure that I wasn’t creeping up on them and the two in the rear were even more vigilant, if that was possible. It was kind of comical, two thousand pounds of ferocious, man-eating, planet-conquering, croc-aliens being afraid of me. I didn’t think that I’d make a good snack for just one of them.
My heart sank a bit upon entering into the arena. There was nothing, except, of course, for the thunderous crowds and the dozen or so cameras. If my eyes weren’t fooling me, it looked like they had been raided from some local Boston television studios, one of the cameras had a WBZ sticker emblazoned on it.
Beyond that, nothing. The arena floor was just that--a floor. And from the sight of it, a concrete floor. I touched it to be sure, and without a doubt, that’s what it was or at least a passable facsimile of that material. The walls were also barren. There wasn’t so much as a slingshot. How was David supposed to take down Goliath in this adventure without a slingshot? Now my nerves began to show themselves. Great timing, I cursed. The guards took that as their cue to get out.
The announcer began my introduction. The hissing at the pronouncement of my name let me know what they thought of me. I guess I couldn’t blame them. I was the equivalent of a New York Yankee coming into Fenway Park. They hated me, and not just for being a “hu-man.” Rightfully or not, I had been blamed for the nuclear strike that crippled the ship. Then again, I had also kidnapped their supreme commander and shot some of the guards down. So, apparently they had good reason to hate me.
Well, screw them! I hated them too as I gesticulated wildly with my middle finger. The nuance might be lost on this crowd, but I’m sure the people back home liked it. It kind of reminded me of a poster that a friend of mine once had when we were kids. It showed a small mouse holding up his middle finger to an eagle that was bearing down on him. It was called “the last act of defiance,” or something along those lines.
Now that I thought about it, I really didn’t want to be the mouse. He may have gotten off a great gesture, but he still ended up as lunchmeat. A small quiver shook through my body. I hoped nobody had just walked over my grave.
***
At that moment, Paul touched the old Hobbit Tree to say a small prayer for my well being, before heading inside to watch.
***
Lost in my thoughts, I looked up when the crowd began to roar; Durgan had entered. Like most of his bouts, he had no shirt on and he looked chiseled, literally. He looked like he could have been cut from stone. He flexed and brought his arms up to egg the crowd on, and it worked. They truly loved him.
I wondered for a moment if they would cheer this loud for him when it came time to fight “their champion.” I quickly brushed that thought aside since it would mean he had won this battle. I was not quite ready to meet my maker, not just yet anyway.
The buzzer sounded and an eerie silence came over the throngs; the game was afoot. My legs felt wooden as I approached the center of the arena, for truly, there was nowhere else to go. Durgan’s approach was much more relaxed and casual than my plodding. As we drew nearer to each other, I got into a readied position. We circled each other a couple of times, sizing up the competition, I was as familiar with his style as he was with mine. I seemed to rely more on luck whereas Durgan relied on a maniacal brute strength; advantage Durgan.
Waiting for the tiger to strike seemed the prudent approach, although prudence was never my forte. I sprang, thinking that perhaps Durgan’s nonchalance would be his undoing. For all his acting, he was ready.
With lightning bolt speed, he landed a blow to my cheek that sent me sprawling; even more dangerously, it had me seeing spots. Unconsciousness was a heartbeat away. Durgan lunged after me. He was in motion right after his initial contact and he almost made it to the ground before I did. Dazed as I was, I couldn’t believe how fast the madman was. Does insanity make you faster?
Durgan landed on my chest and the air rushed out of my lungs as if expelled through a cannon. I never had any chance to attempt damage control. Punch after punch rained down on me. The spots in my eyes begin to darken and my vision started to narrow.
***
Paul and the rest of his officers sat glued to their chairs watching the fight. How I was going to get out of that totally eluded them. Paul stood up, getting ready to leave the room before he watched his best friend in life become another casualty in the brutal war.
***
Mercifully, Durgan switched his weight to get a better angle for his punches. Sweet air rushed into my lungs as the tunnel vision widened ever so slightly. It was a short-lived victory though as he renewed his assault.
Durgan was in heaven as he watched my eye swell almost completely shut. Even he couldn’t believe his good fortune. The fight was going way better than he ever anticipated. The stage was set and he wanted to claim the title of victor that I stole from him for so long. My hands fell to my sides. I was not even able to defend myself, I hoped that his signature move of breaking my neck wouldn’t hurt too much. It couldn’t hurt more than what he was doing now.
***
Paul turned and headed towards his outer office. Nobody noticed his departure.
***
Durgan was right; people were eating it up. It was macabre and they
knew it, but it didn’t make any difference. It was like a car accident, everyone HAD to slow down and take a look; it was human nature, hardwired into our instincts, for better or worse.
I had one card left to play. It wasn’t a great card, not an ace, more like a nine, but it was the only thing I had left; besides it worked on my sister, at least, sometimes. Especially when she wasn’t expecting it, and I couldn’t believe that Durgan thought I had anything left.
I purposefully pulled my legs up and, with one quick thrust, I pushed up on my pelvis with everything that I had left. Durgan lost his balance. His center of gravity had been shifted and, with his arms being used as human hammers, he had nothing with which to stabilize himself. He fell to the right as his right hand came smashing down dangerously close to my already bruised and battered face.
His hand came into full contact with the concrete. I heard an audible cracking even over the electric buzzing of the spectators. He howled in rage, his face turning ten shades of red as he pulled back his wounded, mangled hand. Ragged pieces of flesh dangled from his misshapen fingers and blood poured out. The bright white of bone was in stark contrast to the much darker brew that flowed freely.
***
The officers at the Hill yelled in amazement. Paul rushed in to see what the din was about.
***
Durgan was enraged, with what he thought was a small hiccup in his plans. He began to use the still very functional and lethal left hand to deliver still more face-smashing punches. And if I called them hammer blows before, Durgan had since grabbed a sledge; he wanted to end this thing now.
I tried to thwart off his attack but it was like using toilet paper to sop up the ocean. I changed tactics, I stopped my defense and began my own offensive. By the time Durgan figured it out, it was entirely too late. I snatched after his completely unprotected and wounded hand. I grabbed it like a pit-bull grabs a throat. He attempted to pull me away but I hung on, constantly squeezing and pulling, prodding his sore wound. My stomach involuntarily convulsed as I heard the bones in his hand grind together.
Durgan’s punches stopped all together. He was screaming in pain and agony as he cursed me to let go of his hand. I tried for all I was worth to rip his ring finger and pinkie from his body. I lost my grip from the slickness of the blood that cascaded from his hand. His last two fingers hung uselessly from his hand as he spun away from me.
He bounded up and walked away from me, hunched over, cradling his wounded extremity as he left. I lay on the ground, not knowing if I could muster the strength to get up off the tarmac. My face had puffed up to nearly double its size. Blood oozed from a half dozen spots on my oh, so sore face.
***
“Get up!” Paul screamed. “Get the fuck up!” He was yelling at the screen.
***
My chance was now, Durgan’s back was to me, but just keeping my eyes focused seemed about the most intense thing I could accomplish at the moment. The clouding gray around me ever so slowly began its recession; but not to worry, pain filled the gap. Ultimately, pain meant life; I was still alive, at least, Durgan would not let me rest long. I marshaled everything I had to roll over and began the monstrous task of standing up.
Upon regaining my stance, I had to reorient myself to a still recoiling Durgan. His back was completely turned as I made my not so stealthy approach. He knew I was coming and I knew that he knew. One hand or not, the man was still three times as dangerous as any other man I had ever fought.
I had not completely covered the distance between us when Durgan whirled my way. His teeth were gritted in determination. I stopped in my tracks, so much for the fake element of surprise.
“You know, I’m going to have to kill you for this!” He yelled as he held up his twisted, useless hand for me to see.
“I was under the impression you were going to kill me anyway,” I answered. My sarcasm angered him even more, if that were even possible.
He came at me slow and steady, with a vengeance. Images of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator flitted across my brain. He was coming and, useless hand or not, I could see in his eyes that he meant to finish what he had started.
My face ached from the swelling. Although I couldn’t see it, I could feel the bruising. Rocky had nothing on me. My vision was suffering, some from the puffiness but mostly from the blood that kept oozing in. The sting of it was, in a word, excruciating, I feared rubbing it away because I thought I might completely lose my sight. Like a car that gets oil on the windshield, more times than not, if you try to wipe it away, it merely smears all over the place making your drive just a little more interesting. My depth perception was taking a serious hit. I was beyond wary of Durgan, I was hypersensitive.
He was planning to end this; no softening me up, no playing to the crowds, this was just pure murderous intention in its most unadulterated form. He grinned as he moved in. Any confidence I had built up was rapidly flowing away, like water from a burst dam. I made a feign for his wounded hand, and Durgan’s advance did falter. He didn’t exactly stop, but he did hitch a bit. Well, at least it was nice to know he was still human, to a degree.
“I know what you’re thinking, you little turd,” he growled. Spittle flowed freely from his mouth. “And you had better stop. I’m still twice the man you’ll ever be, or were,” he sneered. “Today’s your lucky day, bitch.” Durgan kept moving forward slowly as he spoke. Maybe he was hoping I was distracted by his eloquent prose. “I was going to mess you up a little more before I snapped your little twig neck. Now I’ve changed my mind, I’m just gonna twist the thing off.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, the blood in my eyes was stinging, I had to try to clear it away. He took that opportunity to lunge at me. Even as the impact of his left fist registered throughout my body, my mind tried to gauge how fast the brute was. My right temple throbbed from the abusive fist. My sight pin holed immediately. The only thing that saved me was pure, dumb luck.
As I became gravitationally challenged, I unconsciously reached out to break my fall. It just so happened that it was Durgan’s shattered hand that I reached for. He groaned with the agony. His instinctive impulse to pull away caused me to land chin first on the concrete. From a far off, remote place in the recesses of my mind, I took note of the hard crunchy things in my mouth. Somewhere in the confused grasp of consciousness, the thought of teeth came into being. I finally put it all together. Son of a bitch! He broke my teeth!
If I lived long enough, I was going to be truly pissed. Uttering that thought might have been an issue because I had a good hunch or rather, a bad one that, along with my teeth, my jaw had also been broken. Durgan was moaning about something.
I could barely register any cognizant thoughts; at least, I wasn’t in any pain, not that far down the consciousness ladder. Like a determined fireman, I began to advance back up that ladder rung by rung. The pain, the excruciating pain was the first thing that struck my senses. I was in agony, my jaw was ablaze. I tried to move my jaw, which was, most likely, the worst thing I could’ve attempted that day.
Alarms went off in my head, stars swam before my eyes. The pain brought me quickly to full alertness, it was impossible to think clearly. Pain ruled all. I swallowed my splintered teeth; opening my jaw to spit them out was not an option. I pulled myself up off the ground, and standing, took a monumental effort. I swayed like corn in a Kansas tornado.
Durgan was hunched over a few feet away from me. It was difficult to decipher his actions, he appeared to be trying to splint his hand up with some material from his pants. I staggered over in his general direction, it definitely wasn’t as a crow flies.
He didn’t pay me much attention; he was lost, I supposed, in his own agony. If he even looked in my direction, I would probably have fallen over. But he did look up and I didn’t fall, not right away. His eyes narrowed as I made my circuitous charge.
With every possible ounce of energy I had left, I kicked my leg up. If I had missed, I would have fallen to the ground and nev
er gotten back up. There simply would have been nothing left with which to do it. I did not miss. My shin came into full contact with Durgan’s Adam’s apple. I felt, rather than heard, it crack. I hoped to God it was him and not my leg. The contact sent shivers of pain up my spine. He teetered and then toppled over, his hands rushing to his now crushed larynx.
***
“Ahhhh!” Paul shouted. “He did it!” he exclaimed as he raised his arm up in the air.
***
Durgan reached out his bad hand towards me as if pleading for my help. Did he think I’d forgotten what had just been happening? I knew I didn’t have the best short term memory in the world, but it wasn’t that bad.
I wanted to let him slowly suffocate there on the ground. A quick death was entirely too good for the prick. But I was now drifting in and out of complete awareness. I knew if I passed out without finishing the job, there would be a high probability of the aliens fixing both of us up for round two, and luck or no, I’d never make it to a round three. Durgan’s eyes pleaded with me as I came in close. There was no remorse in those eyes, only self-preservation.
“Fuck you!” I mouthed silently as I brought the heel of my boot down on the bridge of his nose. The cartilage snapped like branches in an ice storm. I ground my heel in, caving in his face as best I could. Bones shattered as I brought my heel down three more times.
“Do something with that!” I yelled as I pointed towards Durgan’s now ruined face, my ruined jaw grated with every word. The crowd was completely silent. A lot of drakkar had been lost that night. I was not going to be a fan favorite.
I stood there in the silence, not knowing what to do. Nothing happened as the crowd watched in shock and denial. The first sign of anything decent from the animals took place. The Genogerian champion that I was to fight next stood up and began clapping.