The other robots had begun firing at their people, but Andrew and Keller were leading them to shelter behind Eden One. Roland was tired of this. All of it. He channeled his hatred of Hound, his anger at the unfairness of the situation, and fired at the next robot, striking it in the thigh. The leg tore off, and it toppled over. He arrived to make the kill shot in its back.
Roland avoided a laser pulse from the next and rolled away. When he landed, he fired, hitting it again. He was so distracted by the attack that he hardly noticed the bright yellow lights until the giant ship was a couple hundred yards overhead.
“Roland! Get out of there!” It was Andrew’s voice, and he rolled over, seeing the looming vessel. It was so big. At first he thought it was raining again, but he realized it was water dripping from Belidar’s ship. The liquid turned to vapor near the hot thrusters, sending mist rolling over the camp.
The first shot from the belly of the ship hit the grass between two of the remaining enemies. They flew to the sides, tumbling over. The assault didn’t stop there. Roland bolted, moving toward Kendra and Morris as they rounded Eden Five. They trailed around behind it, waiting for the blasts to stop, and eventually the vessel continued toward the ground.
They walked out from behind Hound’s office, and saw everyone finally exiting from Eden One. The robots had been dealt with, Hound was dead, and Belidar had come through for them. Their gargantuan vessel settled over the crops, the immense landing gear sinking deep into the mud.
The bright yellow lights dimmed, allowing Roland a better view of their escape ship. It was black, with silver patches welded along the hull. The thing looked like it had been through the wringer, dunked in a lake for a hundred years, then fixed up in a hurry. It had to be close to five hundred yards long, maybe more. At least there would be room for everyone.
Roland realized they had no leader, and he heard a few people ask after Carrie. Kendra’s face was expressionless as she walked between the colonists and Belidar’s ship.
She raised an arm, quieting the questions. “I know a lot of you are scared and don’t understand what’s happened. Lewis Hound is dead.”
The response was somewhere between disbelief and elation. Someone started clapping and cheering, and the rest of them followed suit. Kendra tried to quiet them again. “Belidar and his people have offered to take us with them to their planet, where we’ll rebuild. It sounds like a lot of work, but humans are nothing if not resourceful. We won’t let Hound’s plans for us dictate our future. We’re not lab rats or slaves to anyone. We are free!”
Roland felt the energy of her words roll through camp, and the cheering returned.
“What the hell is she doing here?” Andrew asked, pointing at Morris, who was standing at a distance from the group, behind Roland.
She stepped forward, palms pressed together. “I ask for your forgiveness. Please, don’t leave me here.”
A noise erupted from the ship, and Roland craned his neck to see a massive ramp lowering from the center of the vessel. At least two dozen of the aliens darted out, weapons in their hands. They arrived among the colonists, stopping near Andrew, who still wore a translator.
The leader spoke, and Roland thought it might be Belidar, but he had no way to confirm it.
“They say it's time. Let’s load up the gear, and transfer everyone onto the ship,” Andrew told the group.
* * *
Kendra
Val was noticeably absent. Someone had managed to right one of the fallen floodlights, sending much-needed light over their stacked supplies. Kendra caught the girl walking toward the medical bay where she guessed Dr. Hartford had taken Tony. There were at least a dozen other injured people being carried or staggering in that direction, and Kendra ran to them. She pointed at Eve and Keller.
“Keller, grab a translator from Andrew. Let’s see if there’s a med station on their ship, and have these people treated there instead.”
Eric jogged over to Andrew, said something Kendra couldn’t hear, and returned with the device. Kendra helped him slip it on, and he yelped as the mechanical arms slid over his cheeks. Eve was already assisting the injured colonists.
“Bring them with you. See if Belidar can help,” she ordered him. Their new allies had troops wandering through camp in pairs, as if expecting trouble from the outside, and she didn’t blame them one bit. Her own eyes kept glancing to the dark sky, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
A group of at least a hundred colonists was loading crates onto dollies and wheeling them across camp to the waiting ship. They were making quick work of it, and Kendra walked over to Andrew, who was directing them from the top of a wooden box. She noticed he was keeping an eye on Morris too, who’d been ordered to stay put. Kendra heard her mumbling prayers to herself.
“I assume you succeeded?” Kendra asked him.
“The lair? Yep. Blew it up.” He almost smiled, but the weight of the night’s events was probably too much to make light of. She understood only too well. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“Not being here to help you,” Andrew said.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything. You destroyed his base, and I killed the bastard,” she told him.
He stopped, hands on hips, and stared into her eyes. “I didn’t have to leave. I’m always heading out in the most dangerous times, trying to be the hero. I should have been here with you and Val. She’s…” He stepped down, landing hard on the packed soil.
She moved to his side, taking his hands. “She’s going to be fine. And sometimes we need a hero.”
“Carrie… is she…?”
Kendra nodded, still not letting the fact that her sister was dead hit her fully. Not yet.
Andrew pulled her in close. She heard him exhale sharply in pain at the pressure on his arm, but he held on tight.
“You need someone to check that,” she told him, breaking the embrace.
“I will. When we’re safe.”
“We’re going to be okay. Val’s cheek will heal. Tony will make it, and we’ll start again. This time properly.” She peered toward Morris, who was kneeling on the grass, her head bowed.
“What if they find us? Do you think Hound’s people are going to let us get away so easily?” Andrew asked.
“You call this easy?” Kendra did laugh now, and he smiled, the expression reaching his eyes as the corners crinkled.
“What if that was just another avatar? Hound might be alive,” he said.
Kendra helped a woman with a heavy crate, her own hands aching with the effort. She thought she’d need to see a doctor too, but not until the others had been cared for. These were hopefully superficial wounds. “I don’t think so. He was flesh and blood. You have no idea how grotesque he was.” The memory of his writhing flesh, transparent skin, and that sing-song voice was enough to send shivers down her spine.
The supply pile was dwindling, and Kendra noticed the long line forming near the ship. “I’d better help out. We still haven’t been on board. Where are we staying?”
“It doesn’t matter. Belidar says the trip will be quick. What’s another few nights of sleeping on the floor?” he asked.
Kendra stood on her toes, offering a quick kiss before leaving him to finish his task. She glanced to the skies again, seeing the first signs of dawn glowing on the horizon. A new day was upon them.
THIRTY-SIX
Val
Val hovered beside Tony as Dr. Hartford worked. She cringed as the doctor uncovered his wound. There was a charred hole in his left shoulder big enough to put three of her fingers through.
“Will he lose his arm?” she asked.
Hartford shot her a grim look, seeming to think about it for a moment. He shook his head and smiled tightly. “No, no, nothing as serious as that.”
But Val wondered at his hesitation. Tony’s cheeks were pale, his face pinched with pain, but at least now he was fully awake.
The doctor approached his side with a big needle full of cle
ar fluid. “This is for the pain,” he said, squirting a few millimeters out to remove any air trapped in the syringe. “You’re going to experience a sharp sting.”
Tony nodded, and Val hurried around the examination table to grab his hand on his uninjured side. Tony squeezed hard as the needle entered, then relaxed his grip with a sigh.
Hartford withdrew, then returned with a stitching needle. “Can you feel this?” he asked, poking the charred skin around the ragged hole.
Tony shook his head.
“How about now?”
Another shake.
“Good.” Dr. Hartford walked over to what looked like a refrigerator, and withdrew a big white packet about the size of a piece of paper. He tore it open and pulled out a square of clear, rubbery material. He laid it out in a tray of transparent fluid on a rolling cart and then grabbed a scalpel. He pressed the tip of it against the charred skin around Tony’s wound, and then glanced at Val. “You might want to turn away for this.”
She shook her head, determined to stand by Tony’s side and bear whatever he had to.
“All right, but don’t throw up in my OR,” Hartford warned.
Val glanced around, realizing for the first time that she was standing in an operating room. Tony’s eyes tightened, and he turned a shade paler as he watched the doctor cutting away dead black flesh. “I suggest you look the other way, kid. Focus on your girlfriend’s face. Think about how pretty she is.”
Val squeezed his hand and smiled reassuringly at him as their gazes met.
It took Hartford about ten minutes to finish excising the dead tissue. When he was done, he retrieved the clear, rubbery square from the tray, cut it in half, and placed one half over the raw, bloody entry wound.
“Don’t move,” he told Tony. “The resin takes a few minutes to set.”
“What is it?” Val asked.
“A synthetic skin graft. Hound’s technology. Much better than what we had on Earth. I doubt he’ll even scar from this.”
Val nodded quickly, some of her worries evaporating with the possibility of alien medical science working miracles.
After a few minutes, Hartford placed clean gauze over the skin graft and taped it into place. “Roll over, please—but mind your wounded arm. Val? Help him.”
Val supported Tony as he moved onto his stomach on the flat steel slab.
Hartford injected another local anesthetic and then repeated the process of removing dead, burned skin and applying the skin graft. It was much quicker this time, with the exit wound being much smaller than the entry. The whole procedure took barely half an hour from start to finish.
“You’re lucky, in a way,” Hartford said as he pulled off his surgical gloves. “The weapon largely missed the bones and nerves in your shoulder, and the wound is bigger at the entry point than the exit. The complete inverse of a typical gunshot wound. There’s a cone of destruction that narrows progressively the closer it gets to your scapula, until finally punching a dime-sized hole at the back. We’ll keep a close eye on it over the next few weeks just to make sure everything’s going well with your recovery, but I don’t anticipate any complications or loss of function.” Hartford admired his work with a smile and said, “You can sit up now.”
Tony did so, and swung his legs over the side of the operating table.
“Stay there,” Hartford added. He put Tony’s wounded arm in a sling. “No sense stressing injured muscles more than you have to. And don’t get your shoulder wet for at least a day. Two would be better. Come see me tomorrow and we’ll change the dressing.”
Tony shot him a wry grin. “Where? Back here?”
It was a rhetorical question. They all knew the aliens from the adjacent valley were busy loading people onto their ship.
“My supplies are being packed as we speak. At least, I hope they are. Speaking of that, you two had better hurry up before you miss your ride.”
“What about you?” Val asked, concern bleeding into her words as Hartford withdrew from Tony’s side and began gathering items from the OR.
“Oh, I’ll be right behind you,” the doctor said as he packed what he could into a medium-sized black bag. “Tell them to wait, or come and get me if I’m not out in time.”
Val nodded and spent a moment studying Tony, wondering how to help him off the table.
“Thanks,” he said.
She shook her head. “For what?”
“For staying with me. I’m not sure I could have been this brave on my own.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit.” Her eyes welled with tears, but she forced them down.
Tony reached out with his good arm and hugged her.
“Careful,” she warned, already pulling away.
“Can’t feel a thing,” he replied.
“Yet,” Hartford cautioned. “Take it easy. It’s going to hurt like hell later.”
Tony ignored the doctor and kissed Val lightly on the lips before she could protest.
She helped him down, supporting him on his uninjured side, and they walked slowly out, heading for the exit.
“I love you,” Tony said once they were out of the OR.
“What?” Val asked, stopping suddenly in the middle of the corridor.
“I love you,” Tony said again, adding a smile this time.
Val grinned, and tears sprang to her eyes once more, but this time they were happy tears.
* * *
Andrew
Andrew watched as the final group of colonists marched up the boarding ramp and into the alien vessel. Eve and Keller carried Tony between them, despite Tony’s protestations that he could walk. Val shadowed them the entire way, and Dr. Hartford came running from Eden Six, yelling, “Wait! Wait for me!”
Andrew smiled wryly at that. Kendra and Roland arrived as the doctor ran up the ramp with a heavy pack hanging off one shoulder and a large medical bag in his hand.
“That’s the last of them,” Kendra said.
“Technically we’re the last of them,” Roland pointed out.
Andrew nodded absently, his gaze tracking over to a shrunken figure in a torn and muddied white jumpsuit, kneeling in the grass with her hands raised to the sky. She was facing them, as if afraid they’d take off without her if she turned her back. A pair of armed alien guards stood at the bottom of the boarding ramp. Andrew had already told them not to let her on board, and she’d tried more than once to sneak on with the rest of the colonists.
“What are we going to do about her?” Kendra asked, nodding to Morris.
They’d saved her for last, and there was no time to render any kind of democratic decision. Her fate rested in their hands as the de facto leaders of the colonists. Keller had voiced his opinion a few moments before going to help carry Tony inside: “We should just shoot her and be done with it,” he’d said.
“Well?” Kendra prompted, studying Andrew with eyebrows raised.
“Let’s go,” Andrew said, grabbing his rifle in both hands as he started toward the boarding ramp. The last thing he needed was for Morris to whip out some hidden weapon and shoot them out of spite.
“We’re going to let her come with us?” Kendra asked, her voice laced with doubt.
Andrew shook his head. “Hell, no.”
“She helped us defeat the last of those killer robots,” Roland pointed out.
“Belidar and his people did that,” Andrew said. “All she did was hand you a weapon and give you a chance to join the action.”
They reached the foot of the ramp. Andrew nodded to the alien guards and they started up it, the three of them walking side by side.
“Wait!” Morris cried. “You can’t leave me here!”
Andrew saw the guards shifting their stance, aiming their flute-like guns at her. He turned to see the reverend raise her hands and freeze where she stood.
“Please. Have mercy,” Morris added. She seemed deflated now, a pale shadow of the haughty self-righteous person who’d reigned over them with violence and seductive d
rugs that they still didn’t fully understand.
“Mercy,” Andrew echoed, nodding slowly to himself. “Like you had on Diane’s guardian, Jennifer? Or Brian? Or Sergeant Harper?” He felt certain he was forgetting many others, but three murders were more than enough to condemn her actions.
“That was John! And Lewis Hound!”
“And who drugged John?” Andrew asked. “And who stood by Hound, claiming that he was a god?”
Morris shook her head quickly, sending dirty gray strings of hair fluttering across her shoulders. “We’ve all sinned.”
“Some more than others,” Roland muttered.
“I could almost overlook everything you did,” Andrew said.
A pale spark lit up the woman’s eyes. “I know what I did was wrong! I was just frightened. I thought this place was a fulfillment of prophecy! It... I was also fooled. A victim, in my own way.”
Andrew snorted and Kendra blew out a breath. “We’re wasting time,” she whispered. “We need to go.”
Andrew nodded and began to leave.
“No!” The reverend licked her lips nervously and took a tentative step forward. The aliens raised their guns higher, and she froze again. “Tell them to stand down,” Morris said in a shaky voice. “Please. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“I said I could almost overlook what you did,” Andrew reminded her, glancing back. “We saved you once before, right after you took us hostage at gunpoint and tried to make me fly that helicopter into the mountains. It would have been certain death with no food or place to land.”
“That was the mayor’s fault, and I had no understanding of what Lewis Hound had built! None of us did!”
“It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it?” Andrew replied, shaking his head. “I’m not making the same mistake twice.” He stepped up the ramp, keeping his rifle aimed at her chest. Roland and Kendra kept pace beside him, both of their expressions grim, but neither of them looked back.
Final Days: Escape Page 24