Order of Magnitude

LIII. Dansen

      The lumbering bodyguard awoke to darkness. Through the grass above him he could see the moon, and all he could taste was copper in his mouth. Probably blood, he mused. What the hell was that noise? I've never felt anything like that before. Were those scientists controlling it? Dansen looked around. He couldn't see much in the low light, so he wandered around calling out to his comrades.

      "Sarah? Cal? Anybody there?" he stumbled around, trying to orient himself in the dark. There's the Round Rock, he thought. I wonder if the General is still in there. Or has he come out by now. Dansen wandered toward the rock, toward the hatch to SubTerra. He didn't know what to do, he had missed so much since the attack. Some bodyguard, he thought bitterly. What if the General came out while I was passed out? What if those scientists captured him? Or worse? With every step his self-worth deprecated more and more.

      In the middle of his thoughts, he stepped into something odd. It was a different consistency than the rest of the ground he was walking on. He didn't want to look down and see what it was he was standing in, part of him already knew, but he had to be sure regardless. He peeked down just enough to see the mashed form of one of his friends. Dansen couldn't be sure who it was exactly, they were crushed beyond recognition. All that he knew was that the uniform suggested that it was a soldier. Not a general. That's a plus, at least. He took a few more steps and walked through another corpse. Then another.

       His eyes began adjusting to the dark. The bodyguard suddenly saw the carnage around him. At least 20 parvs lied dead around him, smashed and broken. This was what was left of the Lost army. This was the cavalry that General Carlisle was expecting. It was clear to Dansen that they had failed.

      Wait a minute, he stopped in his tracks, a thought forming slowly. If that's the case, then that means the General is still in SubTerra. Dansen lumbered to the hatch and opened it up, feeling a sense of direction for the first time. What if he's dead? The doubt crept into his head.

      On the other hand... what if he's alive?

      Dansen lowered himself into the hatch. Inside it was even darker than it was on the surface. There was no natural light from the moon here. He put his hand out and stumbled around in the pitch blackness. Eventually his palm bumped against something hard. A wall! He kept his right hand on the wall, his guideline, and shuffled forward.

      "I'm coming for you," he muttered to himself in the dark over and over. "I'm coming for you." He walked on for a long time, hours it felt like. Dansen knew that it couldn't have been that long, that time seemed to pass differently in the shadows, but that did nothing to dissuade him. Then something caught his eye. A splash of light on the wall. SubTerra! It was just beyond the next corner.

      With a bit more confidence, Dansen ambled along through the tunnels. He could hear voices not far from him. Yes, this was definitely it. He'd found his way to the biggest parv community in the world. Now all he had to do was find his leader. How hard can it be? He mused.

      As it turned out, not hard at all. He heard a heated conversation echo off of the walls. Two different voices, one was the new guy, Turner's. The other he didn't recognize. "You'll be executed at dawn," the mystery voice announced. Dansen crept forward. Executed at dawn? That's gotta be them. It just has to be. He moved closer and closer toward the voice. He saw a man walking away from a hall with a scowl on his face. That must be the leader of SubTerra, he thought. He doesn't look so tough. I could snap him like a skinny twig.

      Dansen shook his head, more at himself than anything else. One thing at a time, he thought. Rescue the General before you do anything else. The bodyguard snaked around corners as quietly as he could. His large frame wasn't conducive to stealth, but thankfully he didn't have to do a lot of sneaking. There weren't a lot of parvs wandering around at this hour, and the ones who did notice him didn't seem to care. In a group this size, an unfamiliar face probably wasn't too uncommon.

      The bodyguard walked through the hall that he had seen Jacques come from. There was a door at the other end, with a parv standing at attention next to it. He didn't look too threatening, though, and his pin was sheathed. Dansen walked forward smoothly. Just act like you belong here, he thought to himself. They won't think anything if you act like you belong here.

      "What's up?" the guard asked when he got to the door. The tone suggested more boredom, than suspicion. Dansen froze; he really didn't have an answer prepared. In fact, he was terrible at thinking on his feet in situations like this. So, he just relied on his standby response and threw a fist at the guard. In one swipe, he was knocked clean unconscious, and crumpled to a heap on the dirt floor.

      The bodyguard listened at the door. "Well, I still think it was worth a shot," he heard Turner say.

      "Thanks. Too bad it had to turn out like this." It was the General! Dansen almost shouted in joy. He grabbed the door and unbarred it so eagerly, it almost ripped the lock off. The door swung open.

      "Dansen!" Carlisle jumped to his feet. "What are you doing here?"

      "Rescuing you, sir."

      "Didn't I tell you, Turner," the General laughed. "My bodyguard is the best, he wouldn't let anything happen to me."

      "We have to get out of here," Chandra said.

      "What about Edison?" Turner asked.

      "Later, nowis not the time," Carlisle said. "We have to get back to our camp. We have toprepare for war against SubTerra."