Mother Ship

by Scott Bartlett

  This wasn’t the time to wonder why.

  When he finally hit on an iteration that left every last operative in the camp—all fifteen of them—incapacitated, every one of them clutching their injuries and moaning, he went back for the final time.

  He was still in the trailer, his Ruger trained on the agent as he backed toward the open door.

  The voice spoke once more:

  Now, engage.

  His heart pounded in his ears, and sweat oozed from the pores in his palms. This was it. The real thing. If he didn’t execute his plan flawlessly, he would lose.

  Just like in the iteration, he shot the agent in the thigh, sending him toppling sideways, screaming.

  Outside, he aimed toward the back of the tactical truck. The tranq gun flew from the hands of the soldier standing there.

  Moving sideways, he refocused on the soldiers across the camp. The Ruger coughed four times. Four soldiers fell to the grass.

  The nine remaining soldiers were shouting. The one handing out tranq guns turned with one in his hands, but the Ruger roared, and it clattered against the truck’s side. Another round slammed the soldier against the truck.

  Max shifted his aim up, to the roof of the other trailer, where a soldier was lifting an M4 to aim at Max. During the iterations, he’d been killed by the weapon multiple times. Now he fired instead, and the man’s arm snapped back. The M4 cartwheeled through the air, stark for an instant against the clear blue sky.

  One by one, he neutralized the remaining threats, each of them falling to nonlethal injuries. It was no easy feat, with a Ruger as his instrument.

  But Max’s plan was perfect, honed by a lifetime of drilling this exact situation. Without any killing, he took down every one of them.

  At last, it was over. The camp was silent, other than the moaning of the injured. One of the men, the one in the back of the tactical trailer, clutched his maimed hand to his chest and wept.

  Max ran back into the trailer, where the agent still clutched his thigh. The color had drained from his face, and he looked at Max with wide-eyed amazement as he walked closer.

  “The keys to the other trailer,” Max growled.

  The man said nothing, so Max put a boot against his thigh.

  The agent howled, recoiling. Something jingled on his belt, and Max knelt to find it with his fingers.

  He tore the keyring off, ripping one of the man’s belt loops in the process. While he was there, he slipped the man’s pistol from its holster, then rose to his feet.

  “Max,” the agent gasped just as he was about to leave. His voice came out in a strangled croak.

  Max paused at the door.

  “You’re fighting the wrong people. I don’t know what you just did, but…if you stay, we can beat them. The invaders. We can do it together.”

  Not bothering to answer, Max left and sprinted across the camp. Every soldier in the camp was incapacitated, but that wouldn’t last. He kept an eye on those he could see as he unlocked the other trailer’s door.

  He opened it to find Cynthia and Peter Edwards on the other side, clinging to each other, looking terrified. When they saw Max, their eyes widened in amazement.

  He handed the agent’s pistol to Peter. “Come on. We need to leave, now.”

  They followed without asking questions. Outside, one of the soldiers was reaching for a tranquilizer gun lying on the grass nearby. Max put his last round inches from the soldier’s hand, and he pulled it back. Cynthia and Peter both started at the Ruger’s roar.

  With that, Max hesitated. He should have used the iterations to find the keys to one of these vehicles, or forced the agent to give them up. But he felt too vulnerable to do so now. He was worried the rest of the government soldiers could return at any moment. And if he was being honest, he wasn’t sure he could start the iterations back up, even if he wanted to.

  He wasn’t sure how he’d done it the first time.

  “Let’s go.” Max led the couple he’d once called his parents toward a gap between two trucks, and together they exited the encampment, heading for the woods where he’d left Yago.

  34

  4 days to extinction

  Jimmy emerged from the barn holding his dad’s old hunting rifle, which Avery Somerton had passed on to Jimmy when he was twelve.

  Now, the weapon was all Jimmy had left of his dad. They’d never been all that close, and Avery had had plenty of flaws. Except, maybe they’d been closer than Jimmy was assuming. Maybe all those silent hours they’d spent together had brought them closer than conversation ever could.

  Whatever the case, Jimmy missed him. Especially now, when he was scared.

  Benson’s people were still getting organized, firing into the oncoming horde of Ravagers as they ran to their positions. A few people were returning the horses that had been taken from the barn for the search party. Clearly, that was canceled now.

  Gord Benson himself stopped as he ran past Jimmy, and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Can you shoot that thing, boy?”

  Jimmy scoffed. “I survived the gas station, didn’t I?”

  “Right. I want you manning the turret on the northern side of the barn, up in the hayloft. Got plenty of ammo?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re gonna be all right shooting those things? Or do I need to send someone else up with you, to take over if you get a scare?”

  Shaking his head, Jimmy resisted the urge to curse Benson out. “Again. I shot them back at the station. I’ll shoot them now, too.”

  “Then get up there.”

  Jimmy sprinted toward the barn. To his right, the Ravagers had come within meters of a row of defenders, who were shooting and reloading as fast as they could to keep the horde at bay, shuffling back all the while. Ceding ground to the attackers.

  Jimmy had a feeling he’d be joining his father soon.

  He closed the barn door behind him, turned the wooden piece on the frame to make it stay in place, then grabbed his pack from Ollie’s stall. Holding it tight, he scaled the ladder up into the hayloft one-handed.

  Up top, he found Tara. He’d already gathered that she’d spent the night in here with Max, but since then he’d seen her inside the house. Why was she out here again?

  “You should probably go back in the house,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Uh, all right, then.” He cursed under his breath and unlatched the panel Benson had had someone install in the barn’s northern side. It swung on its hinge till it was flush with the inside wall, where he found a loop to set the hook through, holding it open. That done, he began lining up boxes of cartridges on the floor below the portal.

  On the eastern side of the loft, a mustached man crouched at the hatch there, holding an assault rifle that didn’t look strictly legal to Jimmy. At least, it wouldn’t have been legal a few weeks ago, when there were still laws. The man looked back at him, and they exchanged nods before focusing on their respective sides.

  The northern field was still mostly clear, and the defenders stationed in the house were efficiently picking off the few Ravagers wandering through the wheat from that direction. Jimmy doubted that situation would last, but he decided to take advantage of it.

  He fished a baggie of weed from the bottom of his backpack and placed it on the ledge. There wasn’t even a breeze outside, so no worry of it scattering. Next, he got his papers from the bag’s front pouch and got to rolling.

  Tara walked over and stood over him. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting high, what does it look like?” A second later, he had a tight little joint, which he wet with his mouth before lighting it. After a couple puffs, he held it out to Tara. “Want some?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to die stoned.”

  “Hey. Buddy.”

  The guy at the other window glanced back, looking annoyed that Jimmy had interrupted his shooting. Then he saw the joint, and his face lit up.

  “Want a hit of t
his?”

  The guy held out his hand. “Sure.”

  Jimmy scooted across the hayloft and passed it to him. The guy took a long hit, passed it back, then returned to spraying Ravagers below.

  The shooting paused. “Thanks. I’m Vick, by the way.”

  “Jimmy.” He took another puff. “Want any more?”

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  On his way back to his post, Jimmy exchanged looks with Tara, whose eyebrows were lowered slightly.

  Who gives a shit what she thinks? The weed would help him focus. He’d always hunted deer stoned, in the woods near his parents’ acreage.

  He nestled the rifle on the ledge and lifted up the bolt handle, pulling it back. That done, he placed his first round into the receiver and pushed it in.

  Just in time. The Ravagers were pouring out of the northern tree line, now. Within seconds, they’d be in firing range. He took another drag on the joint then snubbed it out.

  He breathed in, then out, holding his breath with his lungs empty, just as his father had shown him when he was eight. The rifle’s sight drifted over until it rested directly over a Ravager’s head. The wheat stalks nearby stood perfectly still—there was no wind to compensate for. He only had to think about how much the bullet would drop over the distance traveled.

  Just like shooting deer near the acreage.

  He fired. The Ravager dropped to the dirt between two wheat rows.

  “Good shot,” Tara breathed. She was standing right over him again.

  “Mind moving back a bit?”

  She stepped back.

  Jimmy loaded his next round, steadied himself, and fired. A Ravager tumbled face-first into the wheat.

  He tried his best not to think about whether his targets were male or female, old or young. They were deer. Just deer. And it was his job to drop him.

  Between shots, he wondered where Max was right now. Whether he was still alive.

  But another part of him shut down that line of thinking. Max clearly didn’t have Jimmy’s back like he’d once thought.

  He’d told him that he was into Tara. Then the guy just swooped in when Jimmy wasn’t around?

  His head’s too big now, with everyone treating him like the chosen one. But I know he’s just Max Edwards. A loser with no friends, till I came along.

  To his right, Vick’s assault rifle chattered away. The Ravagers were coming out of the woods in greater numbers, now. Too many for Jimmy to take down by himself. Too many for all the defenders, even as they shot and reloaded as if their lives depended it on it. Because they did depend on it.

  They’re not people. They’re deer.

  Jimmy aimed for their vitals and took them down, one by one. He was glad he’d had the chance to get stoned. The pot made it so there was just him, the rifle, and the target. Everything else disappeared.

  The rifle jumped against his shoulder, and he nestled it on the ledge again, reloading with smooth, efficient motions. Like a machine.

  All of his shots were clean. Each one took down a deer. He’d never shot so well in his life.

  And he found himself enjoying it.

  35

  4 days to extinction

  Sixty-six men.

  Sixty-six soldiers. Some of the deadliest warriors the various branches of the U.S. military had had to offer.

  And still, they were losing.They would run out of ammo soon.

  The crazies were treating Janet’s force as a primary focal point, now, surrounding them on almost all sides. First Sergeant Zimmerman had been forced to close the open end of their horseshoe formation, and now the GDA soldiers fired outward in all directions.

  There was still a weak point in the surrounding mob, where the Ravagers were spread more thinly—the way Janet’s force had come. It was as though the aliens were inviting her to retreat. To abandon her attempt to recover the asset.

  To her disbelief, she was about to accept that invitation. She’d failed either way. There was no point dying in the process.

  “Sergeant Zimmerman, we’re pulling back.”

  He glanced back at her between M4 bursts, as though uncertain whether she’d spoken. “Ma’am?”

  “We’re aborting the mission and returning to base camp.”

  For a moment he stared back at her, his brow furrowed, apparently uncomprehending. Then he looked back at the encroaching ring of Ravagers, and he nodded. “Fall back!” he barked. “Retreat in wedge formation toward the east!”

  The soldiers responded promptly, each falling into the formation they knew from countless drills.

  The mass of crazies closed in behind them like gas rushing into a vacuum, while those directly in front of the wedge crumbled. Janet hated playing into the aliens’ hands like this. It felt like she was, anyway. Like they were intentionally deploying their troops in a way that forced her hand.

  She knew it was still possible that the Ravagers were an unconscious force merely carrying out a set of preprogrammed directives. But it felt like a conscious, calculating adversary. Could that be? Would she really still be alive if the aliens were directly aware of her, and her activities?

  Once the men had broken through the thinned-out ranks to the east, Zimmerman ordered them to separate into six-man teams, each executing a center-peel retreat. The tactic allowed each soldier to keep his field of fire open, but there was a psychological component to it—center-peel was designed to make it seem like more fighters were joining the battle on the retreating group’s side.

  Janet wasn’t sure the psychological component would play much of a role against this sort of enemy, though it probably couldn’t hurt.

  But as they withdrew, the finesse barely seemed necessary. Retreating proved easy—too easy.

  They were definitely trying to encourage us to leave. But it was possible even that tactic was part of their programming.

  She shook her head. What did it matter? The very reason for the GDA’s existence had just been stripped from them. They’d lost the asset. He would be torn apart by a random crazy, just another casualty in humanity’s global meltdown.

  Their decades of preparation, the billions in dark money that had been funneled to their agency for research and development—it was all for nothing. The aliens had snuffed out what resistance humanity could muster almost effortlessly.

  How many species had they preyed on in this way?

  Was the entire galaxy—the entire universe—merely a laboratory for Darwinian evolution to play out on a cosmic scale?

  The survival of the fittest. The invaders were simply fitter than us.

  She wondered how long the GDA would manage to hold out, in the coming weeks. If they could make it to Colorado, where a stockpile of amygdala-suppressing drugs awaited them, they might be able to survive for months. Maybe she’d actually get to meet an alien, or at least observe from afar as they occupied human towns and cities, leveraging the infrastructure they’d so carefully preserved.

  Except, Janet found that mere survival held little interest for her. She’d spent the last eleven years engrossed in the effort to resist the aliens’ influence, and to prepare for the possibility of invasion.

  Some of the things she’d done had blackened her soul, she knew. But she’d done it all for her country. For humanity.

  Now what was she? Still a monster, but one that lacked direction. What good was a merciless attack dog without an enemy to unleash it on?

  From the way the men exchanged grim looks with each other as they advanced through the woods, systematically neutralizing the errant crazies they encountered, she could tell their thinking followed a similar track. They still had their honor, for the most part. They likely still saw themselves as righteous warriors fighting for the good. They hadn’t done the things she had. But now they were just as purposeless as she.

  They passed into a broad clearing, and suddenly, everything changed. A miracle walked out of the trees on the opposite side of the open space.

  It was the asset, leading a muscul
ar red roan by the reins. Cynthia Edwards rode atop the horse, and Peter walked on the other side.

  All three of them stopped as their widening eyes fell on the soldiers emerging from the trees.

  Without thought, Janet stepped forward, her pistol aimed squarely at Cynthia’s chest. When she spoke, her voice came out hard and cold. “Drop the weapon, Max, or I swear to you I’ll blow her from the saddle.”

  The asset stooped slowly to the ground and placed his handgun there. He rose with his hands held above his head. Unbidden, Peter did the same with a pistol Janet hadn’t noticed he’d been holding.

  It didn’t matter. She felt like electricity was coursing through her entire body. Life had returned to her, spurred on by her abrupt, unexpected victory.

  “Take him,” she ordered. Two soldiers moved forward as one, each seizing one of the asset’s arms.

  A deafening boom came from the west, shaking the ground beneath them and causing Janet to stumble.

  Her men were looking at each other, clutching their weapons, uncertain.

  “Ignore that,” she snapped. “Let’s move.”

  36

  4 days to extinction

  Another window shattered, and Ravagers clambered through, heedless of their own flesh ripping on the glass shards that bordered the frame.

  Ted stalked across the living room, combat knife held in reverse grip. His hand flashed out, and a Ravager earned himself a gaping red smile to go with his angry grimace.

  A red curtain poured down the thing’s neck, but still it came on, hands grasping for Ted’s throat. He drove the knife upward into its face, through an eye socket and into the brain. That finished it. When he withdrew the blade, the man staggered forward to crash into a curio cabinet filled with little porcelain ornaments.

  Bleeding out stopped the mindless killers eventually, but in the meantime they’d try to kill you all the same, heedless of their own doom. The next Ravager to come through got a knife to the skull for her trouble, Ted’s weapon sinking to its hilt, again through an eye socket. That was the easiest point of entry.