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  STONE SOLDIERS:

  CATCHING FIRE

  C.E. Martin

  Copyright 2013 by C.E. Martin

  Cover Art: C.E. Martin

  www.StoneSoldiers.info

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events are purely fictional and not based on any real event. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is an amazing coincidence and nothing more.

  All Rights Reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced without the express written permission of the author, [email protected], with the exception of excerpts for the purposes of review or discussion, as explained in the Fair Use Act.

  For those who have served.

  Stone Soldiers Adventures

  Stone Soldier

  Stone Soldiers: Catching Fire

  Stone Soldiers: City of Bones (Coming Soon)

  Stone Soldiers: Sea of Monsters (Coming Soon)

  Mythical (Stone Soldiers #1)

  Brothers in Stone (Stone Soldiers #2)

  Blood and Stone (Stone Soldiers #3)

  Shades of War (Stone Soldiers #4)

  Black Knight Down (Stone Soldiers #5) (Coming Soon)

  STONE SOLDIERS: CATCHING FIRE

  As Daniel Smith dove for the grenade on the dusty rooftop, he could not help but notice the irony of it- it was an American grenade. An M-67, anti personnel grenade, probably brought to the region during the Soviet-Afghan war.

  Smith landed hard on the grenade, covering it with his body and closing his eyes. He hoped that his sacrifice would give his team enough time to hold out until the evac helicopter arrived.

  The grenade exploded beneath him and he felt himself lifted upwards even as shards of metal ripped through his body. Then he felt nothing.

  For a moment.

  When he opened his eyes, Smith found himself completely submerged in warm water. Bright light surrounded him and he briefly wondered if he was in heaven. Then strong hands lifted him- one under his neck, and another under his shoulders. He sat up and gasped- water spraying from his mouth.

  "Welcome back, Commander," a kindly, elderly man said as he was patted on the back.

  Smith squinted against the light- it wasn't as bright as it had been seconds before. It was more of a harsh fluorescent light than the bright sun of Afghanistan. He reached up and rubbed at his eyes, clearing the water obscuring his vision.

  Smith looked around, bewildered. He was no longer wearing camouflage fatigues, body armor and gear. He was in loose, white medical scrubs. And he was sitting on a cold metal operating table submerged in water.

  "How are you feeling, young man?" the kindly voiced-man asked.

  Smith turned to his left and started when he saw the labcoated man watching him.

  Tall, over six feet, with curly gray hair, the elderly scientist seemed friendly- save for his left eye- an eye completely turned a hard, gray. Not milky white like a glaucoma, but gray, like stone. The elderly man's other eye was perfectly normal- brown colored.

  "Deep breaths," the man said, still smiling.

  Smith looked slowly around. He was no longer on the rooftop of a remote village in the mountains of Afghanistan. His team was nowhere to be seen- nor were the Taliban insurgents that he had been shooting at.

  Smith wasn't even outside anymore. He was in some vast chamber, well over a hundred feet across. Work stations, desks, cabinets and a score of technicians in labcoats moved around the edge of the high-ceilinged chamber.

  Smith and the elderly man beside him were in the middle of the chamber- surrounded by a pool of warm water, nearly fifty feet across.

  "Bring us up," the scientist called out, waving.

  A technician near the edge of the pool nodded and worked a control box. The table Smith was sitting on jerked then began to rise. He quickly saw that the table was secured to a metal grating platform that stretched bridge-like across the large pool of water.

  "I'm sure you must have a number of questions," the elderly man said. Smith was now able to see he wore hip waders under his labcoat.

  "Where am I?"

  "Florida, my boy." The elderly man answered. He then took Smith's left wrist and felt his pulse. "How are you feeling?"

  "Confused. What is this place? Who are you? How'd I get here?"

  "I'm Doctor William King," the doctor answered. He pulled a small penlight from a pocket and shined it briefly in Smith's eyes. "You were flown here- on a military transport."

  Smith squinted and turned away from the light. "And where is here? This doesn't look like a military hospital."

  Dr. King tucked the flashlight back into a shirt pocket. "This place? Why, you've discovered the Fountain of Youth."

  "Doctor?" A new voice called out from the side. Smith turned and saw a man in woodland camouflage uniform, walking out onto the platform.

  The man was large- well over six feet tall, with black hair cut in a very short flattop. He had smooth skin and looked young for someone wearing Colonel's wings on his collars. He had wide shoulders and an imposing presence.

  "He seems quite fine, Colonel," Dr. King said, gesturing for Smith to step down.

  "What's going on here?" Smith demanded, standing. He felt surprisingly strong- better than he had for weeks. All the heat and exhaustion of Afghanistan's mountains was gone.

  Dr. King pulled another small device from a pocket of his labcoat- a digital recorder. "Black male subject, approximately six feet tall, one hundred sixty pounds has regenerated successfully..."

  Smith looked over at the doctor, then back to the Colonel. "Regenerated?"

  Colonel Kenslir regarded him for several seconds with strange black-green eyes. "You died in Afghanistan, Lt. Commander. Dr. King has successfully resurrected you."

  "No, no," King said, switching off the recorder. "The correct term is regenerated. If he were completely dead, this would not have been possible."

  Smith felt his heart racing and his breathing becoming more difficult. "What is going on here?"

  Dr. King fumbled in a pocket, a look of concern on his face. He pulled out a small syringe and uncapped it with his teeth. "No need to panic, Commander..."

  Smith did feel panicked- he smacked the syringe from the Doctor's hand. "I want some answers!"

  A strong hand grabbed him by the left bicep, and Smith reacted instinctively, pivoting and trying to leg sweep the Colonel who had just grabbed him. But despite years of training in a variety of unarmed techniques, he might as well have kicked a tree. The Colonel's leg did not budge one inch.

  Smith grabbed at the hand holding his upper arm and squeezed. But the hand wasn't like a normal hand. It was flesh, but hard, like leather, unyielding. "Let go of me!"

  Smith struggled more, but could not break the grip on his arm. Then he felt the stab of a needle in his neck. He turned, in time to see Dr. King stepping back, holding an empty syringe.

  "It'll be alright- just relax..." Dr. King said. Smith couldn't hear more as his vision darkened and he passed out as the drugs injected into him took effect.

  ***

  "Let's try this again," a stern voice said.

  Daniel Smith awakened again- this time in a comfortable bed. He tried to sit up, but found himself strapped down. He was now in a hospital room. He wondered if he had been dreaming, then saw the same black-green-eyed Colonel watching him.

  "Where am I?" Smith asked, leaning back into his pillow.

  "Dr. King already told you," the Colonel responded. "Florida."

  "Why?"

  "You've been selected for a special program."

  Smith rolled his eyes- he'd heard that before. "Where's my team?"

  "Your team was extracted from Afghanistan with only minor injuries. Th
ey have since returned to active duty. Your actions saved their lives."

  Smith still wasn't buying that he'd died. "What day is it?"

  "May 17, 2008."

  Smith swallowed. That was three months later than when he'd been fighting for his and his team's lives. "Was I in a coma?"

  "No, you were dead."

  Smith studied the Colonel's face carefully. The grim-faced man seemed serious. But it just wasn't possible.

  "Is this some kind of psychological test?"

  The Colonel began unstrapping Smith's right wrist. "No. No tests... but you do have a pretty big decision to make."

  Smith pulled his wrist free of the loosened strap and watched the Colonel walk around his bed and begin unfastening his other arm. "Decision? What decision?"

  "We could only revive you for one day. To live longer than that, you'll have to agree to a procedure that will change you considerably."

  "You still expect me to believe that I was dead? That you dipped me in the Fountain of Youth and now everything's okay?"

  "Under other circumstances, we could debrief you and show you a number of things to change your mindset. But you only have a few hours to make up your mind. Time is of the essence."

  The Colonel stepped back from the bed and reached into a pocket of his camouflage pants. "I hope this will convince you."

  With one quick motion, the Colonel opened a large folding blade pocket knife with one hand, then raised it up and lopped of his pinky finger about halfway down its length.

  "What the f-?!" Smith declared.

  The Colonel pitched the finger to him and Smith caught it reflexively. Only it wasn't a finger that he caught. It was a small piece of stone. He rolled it over in his hand and was taken aback by the detail. It was a stone replica of a human finger.

  "Look here," the Colonel said, holding his hand up. His stub of a finger had stopped bleeding. The bloody tip was moving now- something gray extending out from it like a worm. A worm that thickened and formed, quite rapidly into a stone finger, exactly like the one Smith was holding. The gray of the stone faded and the finger took on a flesh tone. Then the Colonel curled it open and closed.

  "Ready to listen now, Sailor?"

  Smith looked at the stone finger in his hand and dropped it in revulsion. "What the hell are you? How'd you do that?"

  "I'm a soldier, just like you. A long time ago there was an accident and I almost got petrified."

  "Almost?"

  The Colonel sat down on the edge of the foot of the bed. "I have a resistance to magic."

  "Magic?" Smith wanted to sound sarcastic, but this all felt too much like an incredible dream.

  "We want you to undergo a similar procedure."

  "With magic?"

  "Do I need to cut off another finger?" the Colonel asked, frowning.

  Smith considered briefly, then shook his head from side to side. He'd play along- for now. "What kind of procedure?"

  "You'd be turned into a man made of living stone. You'd be like my finger, all the time. Only you'd be able to move. To walk, to talk. To fight."

  Smith couldn't help but laugh. "That's crazy."

  "The alternative is we turn you into immobile stone and put you in storage. You see, when I said we could only bring you back for one day, I wasn't kidding...

  "The Fountain of Youth isn't like in the fairy tales. It doesn't give immortality. It gives a brief cosmetic job, then it takes back twice what it granted. At midnight of the first night after you've been immersed."

  "Twice?" Smith asked. A cold chill was creeping up his back.

  "In your case, you'd turn to dust."

  "Why didn't you just leave me dead?"

  "You weren't ready for that- if you were, you'd have moved on and this wouldn't have worked."

  "How does turning me to living stone keep the Fountain from killing me?"

  "Dr. King could explain better- but basically, you get stuck the way you are at petrification. Forever. The Fountain can't change that. It's sort of like fighting fire with a bigger fire- we suppress the Fountain's curse with more powerful magic."

  There was that word again- magic.

  "What's the catch?" he asked.

  "If this works, you could be stuck that way forever. We haven't figured out how to reverse the process."

  "If it works?"

  The Colonel stood and walked to a table and picked up a file. "It's an experimental procedure. That's why we're using dead men. Dr. King is convinced it will work, but there's always the possibility it won't. Previous failures resulted in the test subjects being completely petrified."

  The Colonel pitched the folder into Smith's lap. He hesitated then opened it up. Pages and pages of notes were accompanied by photographs- of men before and after they had been turned to stone.

  "Why do this? What's it all for?"

  "There are worse things in this world than terrorists, Commander."

  ***

  Specialist Jamie Bowley adjusted the chin strap on her helmet and let out a long sigh. She still had three hours of sentry duty and she was bored out of her mind.

  The soldier looked out over the desert, just as she had for the past few hours and almost wished that something would happen. Guarding a rear gate at the tiny supply depot she'd been assigned to was not what she'd had in mind when she joined the Army. She knew that every job was important, but she wished she could be on patrol, fighting insurgents and bringing stability back to the people of Iraq.

  But women weren't allowed in combat roles. So she was stuck driving a truck by day, and guarding gates by night.

  A breeze kicked up and Jamie felt a hot wind blow across her face. She had almost gotten used to the desert, but whenever she felt a hot wind like this, she longed for her home, where breezes were cool, and trees provided plenty of shade.

  Jamie's body suddenly stiffened. She could see something out in the darkness. Something glowing.

  At first it looked like a campfire- one that had just sprung into being. But it was growing larger. No, not larger- closer. The fire was moving toward her- a column of rippling yellows and reds.

  Jamie unslung her rifle from her shoulder and considered raising an alarm. But this didn't look like a flaming car or any other insurgent attack. It was just a column of fire, moving toward the depot, almost like a dust devil, but made of flames.

  Jamie pressed her rifle to her shoulder and aimed at the swirling flames now only a hundred feet away. She grabbed at a whistle around her neck with her free hand and began to blow into it.

  As the first shriek of the whistle ended, the spiraling flames swept toward her, accelerating to incredible speed. Jamie couldn't help herself and fired her rifle. Her 5.56mm rounds passed harmlessly through the whirling fire.

  Then it was upon her.

  Jamie had never been burned before. She'd always had a healthy respect, almost a fear, of fire. When her dad lit up the grill she stood well back as he laughed and gave the charcoal an extra squirt or two of fluid. He was not afraid of fire. Not her father.

  But this fire might have frightened him.

  The flames wrapped around Jamie like a living thing- then they started burning her. As she screamed in agony, she knew instantly that this was no natural fire. It was indeed a living thing- a thing made of living fire.

  ***

  "Now it's very important you look straight ahead, with both eyes open," Dr. King said as he strapped Daniel Smith's right hand down to the surgical table. He was back on the cold steel surgical table on the platform over the Fountain of Youth, just minutes from sundown.

  "Or what?" Smith asked.

  "Or you'll be turned to stone- solid stone," Dr. King said, smiling.

  Smith took a deep breath as the Doctor moved around and secured his other wrist. He still couldn't believe this would really work. Despite what he'd seen, this just couldn't be real. Colonel Kenslir had briefed him for several hours, filling his head with all sorts of information he would never have chosen to know. Then he�
��d taken him to a lavish last meal in the building's cafeteria and left him alone to make his decision.

  It had been a great meal, with a spectacular view of Biscayne Bay- that was where the black glass office building hiding the Fountain of Youth was located- just outside of Miami. An unassuming building that housed not only the Fountain, but a number of other secret government projects. The whole thing was surreal- if not downright ridiculous.

  With his stomach and head full, Smith had reluctantly agreed to try to be partially petrified. He figured that was a better choice than turning to dust or spending decades in a vault somewhere.

  "Hey, Doc," Smith asked once his left wrist was locked down. "What happened to your eye?"

  "What? Oh, this?" King said, his smile fading for a moment. He reached up to his cheek absentmindedly, then caught himself. "Just a minor lab accident during my research. Nothing to be alarmed about."

  "Will my eyes be turned to stone?"

  "Well, yes," Dr. King said. "Every molecule in your body will be."

  "How will I see?"

  "Well, your body will exist in a sort of mixed quantum state, being both petrified and not petrified at the same time. Light striking your eye will strike it both petrified and not petrified- "

  "Doctor!" Colonel Kenslir interrupted loudly. He too stood on the platform, watching Smith and the Doctor.

  "Oh, yes, yes..." Dr. King said. "I'll explain later."

  The Doctor turned to a small table mounted on the platform and picked up several syringes. He began injecting Smith in the arm with them.

  "And these are going to make me stronger?" Smith asked.

  "No, this will," Colonel Kenslir said. He then drew a large knife across his left forearm. With his sleeves rolled up, the blade sliced neatly into his skin, releasing his blood onto the blade. When he pulled the blade away, the blood still on his arm soaked back into his skin, then the cut sealed up, a thin gray line that quickly turned back to flesh.

  "Can you heal any injury?" Smith asked as Kenslir moved the blade over his chest. Smith was no longer in his pajamas- they had him wearing thin lycra swimming trunks for the procedure. They’d also shaved what little hair he had on his head as well.