Gabriel's Armada

Chapter 21: Armor pieces

“Again!”

Gabriel's spirits dropped when he heard the words said in an unflinching tone and had half a mind to beg for a break. A glance at Duncan's face revealed that they shared identical sentiments.

“I said again!” Dina reiterated, clapping her hands loudly for emphasis. For the past hour, she had had Duncan and Gabriel practicing how to disarm one's opponent and get them in a death lock. Being the perfectionist she was, Dina had been nitpicking at all of the duos action since the training session had commenced.

Gabriel was royally pissed, as he thought he knew why General Dina was being too hard on them.

When Dina raised an imperious eyebrow and asked, “Pray tell, why do you think I'm being too hard on you?”, Gabriel realized that he had spoken his thoughts out.

Deciding not to back down, after all, he was training to become a badass warrior, Gabriel asserted, “You're being too hard on us as payback for forcing you to train us.”

General Dina considered Gabriel for almost a minute before she threw her magnificent hair back and let out a hearty peal of laughter, which Gabriel thought was beautiful, but kept his notion to himself.

Turning to Duncan, Dina queried, “What about you, do you concur with him?”

Gabriel awaited Duncan's answer, expecting his classmate to say otherwise so as to get in Dina's good books.

“Yes, General,” Duncan replied tiredly, “We've been doing the same thing over and over, and we're tired, but you don't care.”

“You're right I don't care,” Dina admitted, to Gabriel's satisfaction.

“See?” Gabriel said smugly, “I was right.”

Dina walked up to the two men, stalking them and they began to step back.

“Do you think your enemies will care that you are tired? Do you think you can call for a break in battle? A time out?” Dina raged.

When the men were backed into a wall, Dina's voice became so low that it was almost inaudible, “I said, do it again!”

Gabriel and Duncan groaned simultaneously and were about to fall to their knees begging, when a knock sounded on the door of the room, distracting Dina.

“Yes,” Dina answered angrily, “Who is it?”

The door opened and an out of breath Mikela entered.

“Mikela,” Dina called, as a way of greeting.

“General,” Mikela saluted, respiring deeply.

“Why are you out of breath?”

“Chief Zachariah sent me.”

At the mention of Zachariah's name, alarm became present on Dina's face, “Why? Is anything wrong?”

“Yes, come with me. He's waiting for you,” Mikela divulged.

Upon hearing the news, Dina nodded, “Lead the way then.”

The two women began to walk, and at the door, Dina looked back to see Gabriel and Duncan following her.

“What do you think you're doing?” She barked harshly.

“Following you, of course,” Gabriel replied impatiently, “if it's really something important, we shouldn't be wasting time.”

Dina glared at them, “Not so fast, you two. The chief sent for me, not you. Stay here and continue practicing!”

After dishing out her order, Dina walked out on the men's groans of tiredness.

* * *

With a heart pounding with trepidation, Dina hurried all the way to chief Zachariah's office, too preoccupied thinking of what could be wrong, to carry out small talk with Mikela. Had another angel been killed? We're they under attack? Had demons become aware of Teres' location?

When they reached their destination, Dina barged into Zachariah's office without knocking, and found the man in question engaged in a deep conversation with a haggard-looking soul, whose white robes were in tatters.

When they noticed her entrance, they looked up.

“Dina!” Zachariah greeted, standing.

“Zachariah,” Dina reciprocated his greeting with a nod before she continued, “Why did you send for me?”

Dina knew she was being curt to the point of rudeness, but desperate times.

Zachariah did not mind one bit, and gestured to the tired-looking soul sitting opposite him, “This is Samson. He has something to say.”

Samson looked on at Dina in awe, and she had to prompt him to speak by clearing her throat.

Samson recovered himself and reddened, apologizing, “I'm sorry for staring, I didn't mean to.”

“It's nothing,” Dina waved his apology aside, seeing that her height and her presence intimidated the man.

Trying to put him at ease, Dina introduced herself, “My name is Dina, and I'm the general of the hosts.”

“My name is Samson Geta. Up until last week, I was an investment banker.” Samson replied by way of introduction, his face clouding over as he recalled his former life.

Dina sighed long-sufferingly and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew she should be more sympathetic towards the man's difficult transition from human to spirit, but she was impatient to get on to what information he had.

“I'm sorry for your loss, Samson,” Dina's condolence was laced with a healthy dose of impatience, and Zachariah noticed.

“Umm, Samson, please tell the general what you told me.” Zachariah prodded.

Upon Zachariah's words, Samson began, “I died last week, and my soul exited my body. I found myself here in the Afterlife, in the custody of some demons.

I thought we were in hell already, but they told me that was the Outpost. They made it sound like a sort of place where they kidn*pped innocent souls and forced them to become slaves or something.”

“Because it is,” Dina interrupted angrily, her tone as hard as ice.

Samson flinched at her voice, and Dina apologized, “Don't mind me, please carry on.”

“On our way to hell, the demons seemed bored with guarding me, and became lax with it, so one time, when they were not looking, I escaped.” Samson disclosed.

“That was brave of you,” Zachariah lauded.

“Very brave,” Dina agreed, by way of encouragement.

Samson looked as smug as his exhausted disposition could allow and continued, “I walked for days and nights, not stopping. I was afraid that if I stopped, the demons would catch up with me. I was forced to stop when I came up a sight.”

“What sight?” Dina thought she would burst with eagerness if she did not find out soon.

“Thousands of gold scraps, gleaming in the sunlight. The reflection was so brilliant that it was almost blinding.” Samson revealed in an awe-struck voice.

“Is that all?” Dina asked, feeling disappointed.

“No,” Samson continued, “upon closer inspection, I saw they were not metal scraps per se, they were armor pieces.”

Dina's breath hitched and she exchanged glances with Zachariah, before she questioned Samson, “Armor pieces? Are you sure?”

“Very sure,” Samson nodded surely, “and some of them had inscriptions on them. I'm not a language pro, but I think the inscriptions were made in Hebrew.”

Samson's words annoyed Dina so much so she stood up with a huff, scaring Samson.

“I know what they're doing,” she vented.

“What exactly?” Samson asked quietly.

“They're trying to taunt us.” Dina's gritted her teeth, “The armor pieces you saw belonged to our soldiers they've slaughtered.”

Facing Zachariah she added, “This is an insult of the highest order! We cannot let this go! We have to retaliate.”

Zachariah was about to say something when Samson chimed in, “There's something I just remembered.”

“What?” Dina snapped.

“This is very puzzling, and you might not believe me—”

“Just get on with it!” Dina spat furiously.

“The armor pieces were arranged in such a way that they spelled the word, "Gabriella".”

Dina's anger doubled, tripled and quadrupled in the fifth of a second.

“Oh, I believe you alright!” She ground out.