by Adam Moon
“That’s an even better reason for you to stay with us, to protect us.”
“I agree.” But he wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision.
The following morning Samantha returned to his doorstep like a harbinger of death. Her face was ashen and her eyes were red and strained. “We need to move quickly. We’re running out of time. The blue-backs found the Morians. It was a massacre. The handful of survivors scattered across the multiverse in fear.” She shook her head, partly out of sadness but also from anger. “I have safe coordinates to the blue-backs’ world. We need to jump right now.”
Neil felt cornered. Everything that could’ve gone wrong had. He just knew his situation would turn out to be too good to be true. But how could he refuse now that the situation had turned so dire? If he did nothing, and the alien overseers noticed the destruction that jumping had caused in their slice of the multiverse, all the Earths would suffer the consequences. He had to help, even if it was the last thing he wanted to do.
“What can we do? There are only two of us.”
“We’ll do whatever we can. It’s too late to take half measures. We have to stop them.”
“Will Peggy and Kim be safe on this world while we’re gone?”
“Yes.”
It was what he needed to hear to agree to join her.
He pocketed his jumper and then he packed a canvas bag with weapons and ammo. Samantha handed him a bulletproof vest which he put on under his shirt without question. If she had a helmet, he’d accept that too, or a tank or whatever would ensure he would be able to return home safely to his loved ones.
He explained the grave circumstances to Peggy and Kim. Kim asked to join him, which was out of the question, but Peggy was livid.
She barely glanced at him as he readied for departure. When he was done packing he gave Peggy a kiss and Kim a hug and left without saying another word. If he did, he knew they’d say something back to change his mind. He was making a mistake leaving them but it was something that had to be done to ensure the safety of all the Earths from alien aggressions.
Samantha walked ahead of him down the street. “My ship is tucked up in the woods over here.”
“They gave you one of their ships?”
“No. When the blue-backs arrived we all had to make a break for it. I was one of the last to flee so I took a ship that was left behind.”
“Okay then. What’s the plan?”
“We’ll infiltrate their jump facility. I’ve got coordinates to arrive right outside, where it’s safe. We’ll then break in and take the entire installation down.”
“That sounds insane. We’ll need help.”
“We can’t recruit. We don’t have time.”
He knew at that moment that it was a suicide mission, but he could hardly back out of it. The fate of all the earths depended on them putting a stop to the blue-backs. His wife and daughter would perish if he did nothing.
He took a look around; basking in the beauty of his adopted world, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time he’d get to enjoy it.
They broke through a tree line across the road and Samantha led the way to her Morian ship. If Neil thought that his utter reluctance would change her mind, he was wrong. She was determined to do this right now.
He walked into the ship behind her and was surprised to find the layout of the interior to be pretty plain and functional. He’d expected holograms, weird sirens and flickering lights, but the inside of the ship looked more like the cockpit of a jumbo jet.
There were a dozen chairs on mounted swivels that formed a semi-circle and Samantha took the one in the middle. She beckoned for him to take the seat beside her so he did. Then he watched her buckle in and he did the same.
She explained, “This ship has a built-in jumper but I have a handheld one just in case we run into trouble.”
“You’d better be ready to use it because we’re about to enter hostile territory. They probably want to kill us just as much as we want to kill them.”
Samantha snarled. “I doubt that.”
He felt the outline of his own jumper in his pocket. If the attack backfired, he had to be ready to use it.
He watched as she powered up the ship and got it aloft. Then she hit a guarded switch and the view outside flickered off to be replaced by a new one.
She quickly brought the ship down and said, “I’m sure they already know we’re here so we need to get moving as soon as we hit the ground.”
Neil unbuckled and started to separate his weapons. He stashed them all over his body, in his waistband and into shoulder holsters. He held a shotgun in one hand and had a pistol at the ready in the other. Only the situation would determine which gun was the right one to use.
Samantha looked him up and down and smiled. “You were a good choice. You’re a ruthless killer, Neil. I knew it the first time I saw you.”
“If we survive this, I’m never picking up a gun again. This is the last time.”
“That twinkle in your eyes says otherwise.”
“Shut up. Let’s get moving.”
The ship settled to the ground and the door opened. Samantha rushed through with large alien pistols in each hand. Neil followed behind her but the coast was clear.
They were in a wooded area and thirty feet in front of them was a ten story building that looked to be a city block wide. There were no windows and no doors on the side facing them.
Before Neil could figure out what to do next, Samantha used a handheld drill to puncture four large holes in the wall. She packed the holes with explosives and they took cover as she detonated them. The four holes were now one large hole, big enough to slip through, but the commotion of the explosion meant the element of surprise was gone.
A siren that seemed to come from all around them started to blare. The noise was more than an irritant to Neil; it infuriated him because he knew it was a precursor to his demise, and that meant he’d seen his wife and daughter for the last time.
He brushed past Samantha and entered through the hole in the wall first. This was now his mission because he had more at stake than she did. He had to succeed to get back home.
The other side of the hole was some sort of lab, with scores of sectioned off rooms separated by glass partitions. Luckily the cavernous first floor was unoccupied.
Samantha wriggled through behind him just as the lights went out.
She yelled, “Take cover,” as she threw several flares across the floor to light the place up. Just then the doors at the far end of the room burst open and over a dozen blue-backs rushed in with weapons in hand. They had night vision goggles on. They yelled, “Stand down and you will not be harmed.”
Declining their offer, Samantha fatally shot the closest one in the head. Then all hell broke loose as the room lit up with gunfire.
Neil heard a rustle behind him and turned in time to see a blue-back roll a grenade through the hole in the wall. He scooped it up and tossed it back. The explosion was muted but it stopped the enemy from advancing from the rear.
He said to Samantha, “We have to advance or they’ll pin us here.”
She nodded. He covered her as she rushed to the closest desk and took cover behind it. Then she covered him. He went to a desk to the right of hers. He put the shotgun on top of it to free up his hands. He gripped his pistol the way he’d been trained, one hand on the grip and the other cupping it from beneath to steady his aim. Then he picked off one blue-back after another as they moved towards them. It took less than a minute to drop every one of them. The air stunk of sweat and gunpowder. The flares were dying down, but they were unscathed.
Samantha stood. She was shaking but she was grinning from ear to ear. “I thought you said we needed reinforcements.�
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“We do. We’re in over our heads.”
“I think they’d just get in your way.”
He stood and picked his shotgun up. “Come on. I have family waiting for my return.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“You’ve been here before. I was kind of hoping you knew.”
“I jumped into a clean room with no windows. I have no idea which floor it was on.”
“Then we’ll just work our way up.”
“Worst plan ever,” he huffed.
“At the rate you’re going we’ll be done in ten minutes.”
A single silhouetted figure stood in the doorway at the opposite end of the room. It asked in a feminine voice, “Who are you?”
Samantha answered. “We’re here to stop your people from exploiting the multiverse.”
“If we’ve wronged you in the past, we’re sorry. We’ve changed since then.”
The dialogue was familiar. It was the same bullshit Beth said when they’d first met her.
Neil said, “Is that you, Beth?”
“Neil? What the hell are you doing here? You were lucky to escape with your life last time. You shouldn’t have returned. Leave now while you still can.”
“I heard what you did to the Morians. We’re here to put a stop to your aggressions.”
“What do you. . . ?” She didn’t get to finish her question because Samantha took the opportunity to put three rounds in her, center mass. Beth crumpled to the floor in a heap.
Samantha shrugged. “She was stalling us with lies. It was the right thing to do.”
She was right, of course.
Neil stepped over Beth’s corpse as he scanned the corners for ambushes. A stairway to the left led up and as far as he could tell, it was unmanned. He checked the walls for mounted turrets and then he led the way upstairs.
They were fired at from above but none of the shots hit them. Neil took a quick peek, then got out of the way and waited for the volley of shots to cease. He pointed his gun upwards and fired blindly. He took another peek and saw a blue back doubled over the rail, dead. Two more pools of blood were starting to drip over the edge. He didn’t wait around to let Samantha stroke his ego again. He took the steps two at a time, passing the second floor after a quick look around revealed empty offices, closed down for the day.
The third floor was heavily guarded, so he was sure they were getting closer to the hub of operations. There were blue-backs lined against the walls, trying to remain hidden to spring an ambush. Luckily Neil heard them before he saw them. He pointed to a grenade Samantha had clutched in her hand and she gave it to him. He whispered, “As soon as it goes off, we need to rush them.”
She nodded. He pulled the pin and slipped it gently over onto the third floor. It rolled lazily towards the blue-backs and then went off. Neil had a pistol in each hand as he bound upstairs in two strides and fired liberally into the stunned enemy.
Samantha fired too but her aim was lacking. She put the wounded out of their misery like she was enjoying it, though. Neil couldn’t wait to get through this so he never had to see her again.
The double doors the blue-backs had been guarding were ajar, probably because they weren’t supposed to make it this far. Neil crept through first and was shocked at what he saw. There were eight or nine blue-backs in a glassed in office but a half dozen Morians were in there with them. They all looked at Neil with terrified expressions on their faces.
Samantha yelled, “Those Morians are hostages. If they get caught in the cross-fire, then they’re just collateral damage.”
Neil looked at the Morians again. They looked to be more afraid of Samantha and him than of the blue-backs.
Before his mind could decipher what that meant, Samantha blasted a three foot hole through the glass and then threw a grenade inside.
To Neil’s astonishment, a Morian leapt on the grenade just as it went off. Samantha reached for another grenade but Neil rushed her and grabbed her wrists. “Something’s not right here. What is this?”
A Morian in the office pointed at them and yelled, “Stop them!”
Samantha stammered, “They must be collaborators. Let me go. We have to defend ourselves.”
“You didn’t say anything about collaborators.”
“Let me go!”
Neil made a decision. He hoped it was the right thing to do. He reached into her pocket and retrieved her jump device. “If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll leave you here.”
She thrashed backwards and broke his grip. Then she aimed her rifle at his chest and fired. He had the vest on so he wasn’t killed but the impact threw him backwards and knocked the wind from him.
He scrambled to his feet as Samantha ran across the room, away from the office, towards the back. She fired as she ran, killing indiscriminately. She chucked grenades whenever she could.
Neil chased her and tackled her to the floor. He tried to wrestle the rifle from her grip but while he was distracted, the Morians and blue-backs converged on them with guns drawn. Samantha pulled her device and hit the button, getting them out of there just in time.
Flawed Plan
✨
ON THE NEW WORLD, Neil snatched the rifle from her and then pulled her to her feet. “What the hell happened back there?”
She asked a question of her own. “What happened to you? Why did you deviate from the plan?”
“The sight of the Morians confused me. You failed to mention their involvement. It forced me to reconsider if you’d told me the truth.”
“I already told you they were probably collaborators. Jesus Christ! It’ll take a damn miracle to catch them by surprise again.” Her voice strained as she said, “We almost had them. We nearly crippled the bastards.” She held her hand out for the rifle but Neil took a step back. “You shot me, you bitch. I’m not giving you your gun back.”
“I’m sorry. I overreacted when I saw how close we were to success and that you’d suddenly had a change of heart. You attacked me, remember? What would you have done?”
He shook his head. Then he coughed and his chest tightened, partly from the shot and partly from the noxious air they were breathing.
Samantha said, “Give me back my jumper. We need to get out of here before we suffocate. If we jump back now, we might still be able to catch them unprepared. Maybe we can still salvage the mission.”
“Are you nuts?” As he said it, he saw the look of hatred in her eyes and he knew she was.
She stared at her jumper in his grasp and held her hand out for it, but he took a step back. “I’m going home. If I give your jumper back, I want a guarantee that you’ll leave me alone.”
“I need your help. You were born for this.”
“No one is born to kill. Circumstances made me this way just like they made you the way you are.”
“The blue-backs made me this way and they’ll pay for it. They’re painting a target on the back of mankind, in all it’s manifestations across the multiverse, and you’ve decided you have better things to do than save humanity. You’re looking at me like I’m a monster, but you’re the monster.”
He hung his head. Her frustration with him had merit. He wasn’t usually so wishy-washy but the mission wasn’t as straight forward as he’d hoped. The sight of the Morians amongst the blue-backs made him doubt her entire story, but her explanation that they were collaborators made sense now that he thought about it. “I’ll finish this, but then you’re going to leave me alone forever. Do you understand?”
“I do. I promise. Let’s go.”
He handed her rifle and jumper back to her. She said, “We’ll arrive right where we
were, on the third floor, so be ready to fight.”
He thumbed several rounds into his nearly empty clips and then nodded. “I’m ready.”
She hit the button and they jumped, but they jumped right into an ambush. Neil felt like a fool for overlooking the possibility. As soon as they arrived, a bright flash of light blinded them. When it dimmed, the lights on the third floor blinked off and then reset.
Samantha yelled, “Shit. They disabled our devices. If we jump we’ll be jumping blind.”
Neil thought about checking his own device when he noticed shadows creeping up from behind. He was hit hard in the back and went to the floor with a thud.
Samantha dropped beside him. Her device was wrenched from her hands and then they were both bound at the wrists and ankles before they could react. The plan had backfired. He was an idiot for trusting her. They’d both die because of her ineptitude.
A Morian kicked Samantha in the ribs and she cried out in agony. Neil flipped over and saw a blue-back aiming a weapon at his face. They were screwed.
The Deception
✨
SAMANTHA WAS HEFTED to her feet and carried off kicking and screaming by two burly Morians. The agony and hatred came through in her cries.
Neil saw blue-backs and Morians alike, shaking their heads at her as she was carried past them.
When she was gone, a Morian lifted Neil. He got his feet beneath him and the Morian let him go. He waited for an execution that never came.
They then gathered around, whispering to each other and to the blue-backs, with Neil just out of earshot. Occasionally a voice would raise almost enough for Neil to hear a string of words but not enough for him to decipher their meaning. They were clearly trying to figure out what to do with him.
Finally a Morian, possibly the leader, separated from the group and turned to him.
It had a deep gravely voice and its English was clipped and heavily accented when it asked severely, “Did you agree to help that woman?”