Booster Gold #16 - A Change of Plans (★Society, Part IX)

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Author: ScarecrowSid

Book: Booster Gold

Arc: ★Society

Set: 16

★ Now

    Booster Gold could not be certain there wasn’t gravel in his lungs, but the retching that followed his stir to consciousness certainly had that flavor. The axeman had struck swiftly, his blow leveling the encampment and the town it was built within. Booster dug his right arm free of the rubble, dirt and shattered stone sliding off his coat and pattering softly against the ground.

    Booster drew in a sharp, cold breath between clenched teeth as he pulled himself to his feet. That axeman may have been a metahuman of some sort, and those wolves were far from natural. The way they moved was strange, as if they had been employing tactical responses to Booster and the soldiers. He glanced to his left, then his right, but found nothing excep fallen walls and scattered debris.

    Where once had been a town, there was only rubble. Worse so, where once there had been a hill, there was now a crater. It was an awe-inspiring sight, and it elicited no small measure of dread. The entire hill seemed to have caved in on itself. Booster knelt down, groaning as his knees fought him, to pick up a handful of dirt and stone. He picked up a solid shard with his free hand, attempting to inspect it. The stone deteriorated between his fingers, streaming like sand and dancing into the gentle night’s breeze.

    It’s not dirt at all, he thought. The hill had simply disintegrated, fallen to pieces under the weight of the man’s axe. He was definitely a metahuman.

    Booster frowned. The implication brought forth a whole host of new questions, and with them marched greater concerns. As far as the histories had told him, there had been little to no major metahuman activity during the Second World War. It wasn’t until the Fourth or Fifth, several centuries from now, that the first engagement of metahumans on a battlefield had made any sort of impact.

    Worse still was the man in question. This man was not one of the five that the Other Booster Gold had guided to this Earth, and Booster knew of all them well. There was the Shadow which attacked the White House, but she had not been seen for nearly a year. Another had died in the Sahara, and his body now lay in repose within the confines of the Berlin. Of the other three, this man matched neither the physical descriptions or ability breakdowns his temporal counterpart had so graciously provided. The axeman was no speedster, nor was he this scheming fellow named Degaton. That left only Nishtikeit.

    There was as little reason to doubt the Other Booster Gold as there was to believe him. A clear indication of truth or a lie from that man seemed to be impossible, he always lied and he always told the truth. Something about wandering Time without protection or sense had left the man addled, and he spoke of many points converging on one before branching out. Fixed points, cities that connected major roadways. Junctions in time.

    The axeman could not be Nishtikeit, that much was certain. The Doctor was said to be a frail, short man, and entirely lacking in martial prowess or physical strength. And upon that confirmation danced the slender threads of terror. This man was a new metahuman, and this man would certainly turn the tide of the war if left unchecked.

    Booster grimaced, considering the options open to him. There were scarce few, with only two that mattered. He could run, leaving this time period to its own devices and hope the Green Lantern and the Flash were sufficient to stop the Nazi threat. That would be the sensible thing to do, find Ted and run back to their own time period to live out their days. If time really branched, what were the odds this would change anything? It’s not like anyone would remember he was here, and he would win no glory or fame. The Other Booster Gold had done this, not him. Surely it wasn’t his up to him to right the wrongs…

    No, he thought.

    And then there was the second option… Booster cocked his head left and right, working out the kinks gifted by his earlier ordeal. He sighed.

    “Guess I’d better go save the damn world.”

★ ★ Now

    Skeets could not move. The drone had tried, on several occasions, to spin up the small engines which allowed him to hover. Every attempt proved unsuccessful. Skeets was drowning.

    It wasn’t the sea that held him, for he would have escaped any water with ease and been by Michael’s side. No, it wasn’t the sea, but the pressure crushed him all the same. It was earth, and stone, and scattered homes that drowned him. Impacted and layered, it crushed Skeets beneath the weight. He could not escape.

    Another unsuccessful attempt at rocking free was interrupted by the feedback from Michael’s suit. He was up, and moving, and accelerating away at a steady pace. He was flying. That was good, Michael was alive. So long as Michael was alive, Skeets needed to live too.

    Skeets emitted a faint pulse, a kind of beacon signal to mark his location for Booster Gold. It wasn’t a strong signal, and the fact that he was buried beneath all of this debris would only make it harder to transmit, but there was little else to be done.

    “You’ll find me, Sir.”

★ ★ ★ Now

    A moment in the air was all Booster needed to understand the situation he was facing. What few of Richards’ men had not been slain in the attack were huddled together near the men they had once held prisoner. This role reversal seemed to draw humor from the Germans, as they held their captured rifles toward their previous owners. The wolves, those that were not dead across the body of the former hill, were sitting idly by the captives, studying them with their unnaturally bright eyes.

    Booster, thankful for the cloaking abilities of his suit, watched the group for several heartbeats, seeking out the axeman. A small pavilion tent had been raised nearly twenty yards away from the prisoners, emblazoned with red and white in the shape of a cross. It was an ornate affair, entirely mismatched with the shabby tents of the soldiers nearby. The early morning sun, blood red with blood-warm rays, cast the entirety of the German’s position into the light.

    Hastily made fortifications surrounded the camp, and several men held the lines, patrolling the perimeter of the slope and ignoring the crater’s side entirely. It was easy to see why. Whatever ability the axeman had employed, it had created so sheer a drop from the crater’s crest that there was no risk of any enemy approaching from that direction. No enemy, save for one.

    Booster grinned at that. They did not seem to think he had survived the first strike, and that would work to his advantage. How best to capitalize on the situation? This first question was the most important. He could have freed the men, if not for the wolves surrounding them. He wasn’t certain why, but he had a feeling that the wolves would smell him. There was something unnerving about them, aside from the obvious in that they were vicious, clever predators that seemed strong enough to bruise him through his armor.

    I suppose at this moment, it’s not really a question of what Clark would do, Booster thought. He wasn’t going to be to able to swoop in and take out a pack of wolves and several armed men swiftly, or silently, enough to avoid the alarm being raised. And even if he could, how would he arm Richards’ men when the only weapons in sight seemed to be those in the German’s hands. Booster focused in on the troops, zooming in and looking at their faces one after another.

    It appeared that most of those who survived were among the youngest in Richards’ company, and their gaunt, pale faces showed real fear. Were he to guess, Booster imagined that the Germans had forced them to build the encampment while they kept guard. Their hands were raw, dried blood mixed with mud from digging out the trenches along the eastern side of the camp. They would be no help in the fight to come, they were too tired and too broken.

    It was understandable, war was enough to break many men, but the introduction of the wolves, the axeman metahuman, and Booster Gold himself had shifted this entire engagement into a supernatural affair they were not equipped to handle.

    Well, Michael, he thought, there’s only one thing you need to ask yourself.

    “What would Bruce do?” he asked aloud, grinning as he hovered over the encampment. He glanced down at the woods, catching the glint of the sun reflecting off something in the trees. Booster looked back, wondering if the Germans had seen it.

    It appeared they had not, and Booster turned back to the tree in question. The glint was still there, and Booster suspected the angle from which he viewed the tree was the only reason he could see it. A breath later, the glint was gone.

    Booster tapped his earpiece. “Skeets, can you hear me?”

    There was a garbled reply. That was odd, he never before had an issue hailing Skeets. A faint blip appeared in the lower, left-hand section of his display. Was that where Skeets was? He swiveled in the air, tracking the blip until it lay center screen. Eyes toward the horizon, Booster followed the blip down until it flashed a salutary signal.

    Cross-hairs marked Skeets exact location, somewhere beneath the mounds of earth, trapped and alone. Instinctively, he edged ahead, intended to blast the ground repeatedly until his friend was free. Only a second’s clear thinking prevented him from following through. The Germans would hear him, and that would lead to a fight.

    Booster scowled. I’m sorry, old friend. I’ll have to leave you down there for a bit.

★ ★ ★ ★ Now

    When one wandered into a dark, strange forest, one had certain expectations that must be met. It was a contract of sorts. One expected to meet a gruff, angry woodsman with a penchant for hunting. One expected to find a secret or two, and perhaps even a treasure. And, if one were truly unlucky, a witch.

    Booster suspected he would be met by all of these things, in one manner or another. Lieutenant Richards’ filled the role of the bitter woodsman with ease, working frantically to fashion arrows with his few remaining men. They huddled around a small fire, dark smoke drifting between the trees into the sky. Booster had noted several of these fires springing up over the last hour, spanning the breadth of the forest.

    It had taken no more than ten minutes for Booster to find Richards, what men he could spare were spread out on patrol and kind enough to guide him from the perimeter to the encampment. They were a ragged bunch. Many sported deep gashes on their arms, legs, and sides. Some had lost those limbs entirely or had them mauled to the point they would never heal properly. It seemed they had been fighting the entire night, perhaps longer.

    “You’re alive,” Richards remarked, looking Booster over. “That’s a surprise.”

    “I’m hard to kill,” Booster replied, stepping past the few soldiers milling around the Lieutenant’s fire. “As are you, it seems.”

    “I was lucky.” Richards looked back at the fire, eyes distant. “My boys were not.”

    An understatement, to be certain. Booster was no doctor, nor was he anything resembling knowledgeable in regards to triage or treatment, but he did know that men died from wounds far less severe. It was the way of things in this savage century, they had no access to proper medical care.

    “You know they can see all of these fires,” Booster said, sitting down on a moldy log. “You’re not hiding very well.”

    “They already know we’re here, there’s no point in pretending otherwise. The fires keep them distracted, keeps them guessing. They know we’re in this forest, but they don’t know where. The fact that they don’t have the numbers for an incursion works in my favor.”

    “What’s the plan?” Booster asked, accepting a small tin cup from one of the troops. He glanced down at it, sniffing. It was coffee. He nodded his thanks to the trooper, who nodded back before stepping away. The man’s face was scarred and burned, with pieces, such as his nose, missing entirely. Those wounds were not fresh.

    Richards, it seemed, noticed him watching the man. “He’s had a hard time of things,” he said. “Lost most of his face in Africa but he won’t take the discharge, so they demoted him and put him with the regular infantry.” Booster drank half of the coffee in one gulp, it burned but brought some life back to his insides. “Stubborn bastard, that one.”

    “I know the type,” Booster replied.

    “Carter.” Booster looked up, the Lieutenant was watching him. “What was that man? The one dressed like a damn knight.”

    “No clue,” Booster replied, holding the man’s gaze.

    “The boys and I have been thinking, given your own austere suit, that the two of you are related somehow. Miller,” the Lieutenant nodded in the direction the man had skulked off, “says he fought something like this in the Sahara.”

    “I’m not surprised,” Booster said, frowning. “I’ll need a word with him, this Miller.”

    The Lieutenant, taking the comment as a request, barked out an order. “Private Miller, front, and center!”

    Miller jogged over, then stood at attention.

    “At ease,” Richards said. He gestured, suggesting that Miller take a seat. The man did so, setting his rifle down with the barrel facing the sky. “Captain Carter here would like to know about your time in Africa.”

    Miller turned to Booster, looking him in the eye. The man wasn’t grotesque, not in the way the Other Booster Gold had been. He was missing parts of his nose and ears, and there were deep, dark scars on places where his burns had healed. He spoke in a voice that was slightly raspy, almost like a loud whisper. “What specifically, Captain?”

    “Specifically? The man you fought in the Sahara.”

    Miller frowned, his eyes growing distant- remembering. “He was a monster.”

    Booster raised an eyebrow but motioned for the man to continue.

    “He was silver, sir. A man made of silver, or steel, and bullets bounced right off of him. We thought he was some sort of German Super-Soldier.” Miller pointed at his scars, “He did this to me when he caught one of the shells and threw it back at the Bug.”

    “The Bug?”

    “Our tank, Captain. We named her, well Dan and T--”

    “Go on,” Booster said, cutting him off. He didn’t want the man to wander, he needed to know about the metal man. “Tell me more about this man of steel.”

    “The boys put a shell right in his mouth, that’s what they told me while I was in the infirmary. Blew the fucker’s head clean off,” Miller replied. “They tried to drag his body back to command, but he was too heavy. Even the old’ Bug couldn’t pull him.”

    “He’s dead? You’re certain you killed him?”

    “I’ve never known a man to live without his head.” Miller furrowed his one good eyebrow, and Booster guessed the invisible one mimicked the motion. “He’s dead, I’m certain.”

    “That’s one less to worry about,” Booster muttered. Richards, evidently, caught this utterance and stared pointedly at him.

    “One less what?” Richards said. “Are you saying there are more like that one and the armored bastard on the hill?”

    “He’s different, Dan,” Miller said. “This one’s wearing armor, the other man’s skin was steel.”

    Richards nodded, then looked back at Carter. “And yet, you said one less. That implies there are more of these things.”

    Booster pursed his lips but met the Lieutenant’s gaze. “What did you do before all of this, Dan? I think I have an idea.”

    “Do tell.”

    “You were a lawyer.”

    Richards spat into the fire, then smirked. “I was a Police Officer, Captain. I know when a man is telling me half-truths. How many men like the ones Miller fought does old Adolf have at hand.”

    Booster sighed. “Five. Well, four now, I suppose.”

    “And if we kill the one up there, that makes it three.” Richards gestured to the hill. “That sounds very important to me. We’ll have to do something about the Knight.”

    “I was expecting you to retreat or call for reinforcements,” Booster replied. “Now you want to fight?”

    “We have no other options. They have the hill, blocking us from getting behind our lines.” He began to tick off points on his fingers, raising the first. “We are trapped behind enemy lines, there’s nowhere to retreat.” Two. “I don’t have the men to carry all of my wounded, nor the supplies for a long stay. In two days we’ll be eating boot leather, despite my rationing.” Three. “The nearest post from which we could request reinforcements is a day away by jeep, and the likelihood of them having men to spare is… low.” Four. “If I’m going to die here, I’m going to die with a gun in my hands. I won’t starve to death in this fucking forest.”

    Booster clicked his tongue, then nodded. “I can fly to the next post, request aid.”

    “We’ll be dead before you return,” Richards snorted. “I’ve told you already, there is no scenario where we escape this, save for one.” He pulled his knife and pointed up the hill. “We kill them, then we march home.”

    Richards had a manic look in his eye, the fervor of a man who has accepted a single way forward. Booster could fly to the post, abandon them and come back with a company to reinforce their position, but it seemed unlikely Richards or his men would live that long. He had a strong suspicion that the wolves would attack at nightfall.

    “Well, we’ll need a plan,” Booster said.

    “Do you have something in mind?”

    Booster grinned. “We bluff to take the bluff.”

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

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