The Versus Space
Compendium 2020 – Story 33
By Andrew Hawnt
The Versus Space was fully automated. You would arrive on the neutral moon that it had been built on, checked your vehicle in, signed the waiver and went inside to kill your enemy. Two vehicles would be in the dock, while only one would leave. The other, along with the loser's effects, would be sold off. Two would enter the complex beneath the moon's gravity dome and nobody could leave until one set of life signs had ended.
Deep inside the labyrinthine complex and its corridors, halls and secret passages, Josh wished his blaster's reactor wasn't so damn loud.
Energy weapons were versatile and efficient things to possess, but Jesus Christ they could be noisy. Josh listened past the gun's background hum and tried to focus on his surroundings. The corridor was dull, its corners caked with dirt. The walls and floors were largely clean, if badly lit. It was the corners and the ceilings that gave away what the place was for. They'd been scrubbed clean of blood.
Josh would see to it that the cleaners would have their work cut out by the end of the day.
He edged along the dimly-lit space, trying his best to be quiet despite the chunky body armour he wore. A glance at the Chronometer's green glow on the wall to his left told him there was two and a half hours left of this session. He had to find his target, eliminate it, and then get out again before that timer ran out or be trapped there and die in a haze of poisonous gas that would erupt from vents in the floor and ceiling.
Colonel Angel was somewhere in the Versus Space, and would kill him instantly if he got the chance. Josh would see to it that he didn't. Not after what the Colonel had done to their unit.
*
The rain had been relentless for hours, so much of the blood that had soaked them through had been washed away. The same couldn't be said for the terror that gripped the remaining few.
Eight lay dead, their body armour pierced in several places by the gory holes left by high-impact rounds. Four were left alive, and they too bore the wounds of what had happened so quickly.
Josh held a battered pistol aloft, aiming at the Colonel's wide grin. He pulled the trigger and there was no charge left. He dropped the pistol into the mud of the trench. Beams of scorching red blazed overhead, destroying the last of their heavy defences up at ground level.
In the trench, surrounded by the corpses and horrified survivors of men and women that had followed him, loyal to the cause, Colonel Angel laughed. His eyes burned with grim delight at their shock and pain. His shirt hung open between the layers of his greatcoat, revealing the symbol of the Fallen Idol etched clumsily into his chest. The scarring was old and raised. He had been obeying the enemy all this time.
Angel rose his wide-barrelled gun to Josh's face, laughing amid the noise of the endless rain.
*
No proximity sensors were allowed in the complex. Combatants had to get by on their own wits. One weapon each was allowed, and the acknowledgement receipt Josh had received from Colonel Angel agreed that they would use energy weapons. Josh had flinched at this when he had read the message back home. He remembered the red flashes of similar but much larger weapons blasting over the trenches he had watched his brothers die in.
Angel would pay for that. The mental scars of that treacherous moment burned much deeper than the wounds had in Josh's skin.
He stopped, sweeping this way and that with the light on his blaster as he came to an intersection. There was the hum of generators down one way, while the only sound from the other direction was the trickle of water from some cracked pipe or other nearby.
Josh took a step towards the generator sound, and as he did so a blast of blazing red energy sailed over his shoulder, blowing a panel off the wall a few metres away. Josh ducked, span and fired back, his own blue beam illuminating the darkness for a moment. Just enough to see the edge of a greatcoat vanishing round a corner.
He gave chase. Element of surprise be damned. This duel was a war in its own right.
*
“Why? Before you kill me too, just tell me why.”
Josh stared into the mad eyes of his former superior officer. After fumbling over the bodies of the other soldiers, Angel watching him with pleasure, he had managed to pull himself up into a sitting position against the soaking mud of the trench wall. Its filth seeped through the fortifications that had been laid by the hands of those that lay dead around him. Every inch of that infernal trench was filled with the sweat and toil of good men and women who would never see the war end.
Angel trudged through the slop of the trench floor, stomped over the bodies of the fallen and to Josh, slamming his boot against Josh's chest so hard he felt ribs crack through his body armour.
“I'm just completing my mission, Joshy boy. This has been a long time coming. Once you die, nobody will know what happened here. It will be reported that we were overpowered by the armies of the Fallen Idol and the day was lost. The history texts won't know the truth.”
“Tell me,” Josh grimaced through clenched teeth, he tasted blood.
Colonel Angel levelled his weapon at Josh's forehead. “This spot, of all places, is where the tide turns. This pathetic space is integral to the advancement of the Fallen idol's troops. My superiors needed you all out of the way, as it is over a rich deposit of radioactive material that can be used to power a new wave of machines. Machines that will crush everyone in our way. If you discovered it, you could have destroyed us all."
Angel's finger twitched on the trigger. Josh had no time to lose. With a sudden kick that sent pain bursting through him, the loop of bootlace he had threaded through a grenade pin on a fallen comrade's belt tightened. The pin slid out. Josh smiled. His intentionally slow progress over the corpses of his brothers had been a ruse. It had paid off.
The grenade detonated, blowing the bodies of the fallen soldiers directly into the Colonel in a thick curtain of gore. The force of the blast blew Josh aside and he fell into unconsciousness as troops from both sides descended into the trench, guns blazing.
*
The war was over. The Fallen Idol had been beaten, but the war criminal Colonel Angel had never been caught. Not until years later, when software Josh had written found a bio-signature that matched the fugitive's physiology.
Unfinished business needed to be completed. A message was sent. The Versus Space would be the location where years of rage and pain would end, one way or another.
Within it, the firefight between Josh and Angel had spilt through corridor after corridor, hall after all in the grim place, red and blue beams darting in every direction, showers of sparks blowing across the place as their shots missed their mark.
Then a blast of red light had taken Josh down, his left arm burned and smoking as he fell to the floor.
Familiar boots stomped towards him. The Colonel may no longer have worn the hat that had proudly shown his rank, but his heavy boots, grey greatcoat and manic grin were all right there. He grinned down at Josh, priming his gun as he forced the younger man back against the wall with one boot.
“I've waited a long time for this. I had to escape many places because of you and your little trick, and I'll make sure you pay dearly.”
“It's okay, traitor,” snarled Josh. “You'll never have to worry about me again.”
Josh gritted his teeth through the memory of what Angel had done that day so long ago. He screwed his eyes up tight when his prosthetic right leg opened up, revealing a tiny missile programmed to recognise the Colonel's DNA. Sometimes the aged military computers were still good for something. The missile ignited and thrust upwards towards its prey. Hitting Angel in the stomach, the charge inside the missile exploded in a horrible fireball.
As did Angel.
Five minutes later, a figure left the Versus Place, turning back to look one more time. He hesitated, almost expecting his adversary to defy physics and come back to life.
When nothing happened, Josh raised a hand in salute to the doorway. Everything was hurting. Everything burned. Everything was pain, but this needed to be done. He relished the poetry of the wound he had sustained because of Angel being the weapon that would end him.
Before he went to his vehicle, he stood there, saluting.
He was alone, so nobody would hear the list of names he recited, all of them his fallen brothers in arms.
At last, their war had ended.
© Andrew Hawnt
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About Compendium 2020:
Compendium 2020 is a project from author Andrew Hawnt that consists of 52 original short stories, flash fiction stories and vignettes given away for FREE in 2020. Featuring science fiction, fantasy, horror and more, this began as a personal quest and due to the weirdness of 2020 has become an ambition to provide free distractions for anyone who needs them.
About Andrew Hawnt:
Andrew is based in Nottingham, England. Known for his music journalism career, comics writing and film critique work, Andrew is a prolific writer and is the author of a growing stack of books, including the cult hit VHS Ate My Brain. He made the movies The Demon And I and The Demon And I: Birthrite completely in lockdown with cast members filming their scenes remotely, and new films are coming.
Andrew is also the creator and presenter of the YouTube shows Planet Hex and Turn One Shock as well as the video versions of the Compendium stories.
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© Andrew Hawnt 2020
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