by John Coon
“Found it! This way.”
As they charged past the barracks, an entry door on the nearest building flew open. A squad of rangers stormed through the open door. They rounded the building and opened fire.
“Take cover.” Xttra said.
He grabbed Calandra and ducked behind a parked car inside the lot. Lance and Collin crouched down along the driver's side of the same car. Kevin and Fuller ducked behind the west end of the building and raised their rifles. They returned fire.
“Do you still have fire shells?” Xttra called out to Lance. “I've got only one left.”
“Running low,” he said. “But I still have enough for us to do some damage.”
Lance rolled an inert fire shell under the car to Xttra. He pulled another from the same pouch for himself. They clicked the detonator buttons.
“Get back!” Xttra shouted.
Kevin and Fuller obeyed his instructions and sprinted into the lot. Xttra and Lance tossed the fire shells. They bounced on the pavement ahead of the other rangers and exploded. Blue-white flames enveloped two lead soldiers. They screamed and stumbled backward. Both soldiers dropped and rolled on the ground as they tried to extinguish the Cassian fire. The other squad members fell back to a less exposed position behind the barracks.
Xttra turned and saw Kevin had reached the car. He flung open a door and signaled for the others to run to his position. Xttra and Lance flanked Calandra and Collin as they sprinted past other vehicles. Fuller dropped back and slid behind the rest of the group to supply cover fire.
Bits of pavement popped straight up as bullets rained down from the helicopter. Fuller gasped and stumbled forward. He crashed and fell face first onto his side. The ranger's now vacant eyes lay wide open. Blood oozed from multiple fresh holes in his back and chest.
“Eat this you dirty bastards!” Kevin screamed.
He raised his rifle skyward and pressed a forward trigger to fire the grenade launcher. A grenade blasted toward the helicopter and punched through a cockpit window. Smoke and flame billowed out. It spun out of control and spiraled downward. The helicopter finally crashed out of view beyond the perimeter fence.
Xttra, Calandra, and Lance piled into the backseat. Collin joined Kevin up front. Kevin started the engine once the last door closed and peeled out of the lot.
The car sped toward the main gate. A guard stepped out from the booth at the gate and signaled for them to stop. Kevin pressed a button and a window rolled down next to Lance a second later.
“Blast him.”
Lance drew out his eliminator. He stuck the weapon outside the open window and fired a laser bolt at the guard. His aim was off, and it slammed into the gate. Splinters exploded and formed a rising cloud as a portion of the gate arm clattered against the ground.
The guard whipped out a pistol. Bullets sprayed the side of the car as it passed. Lance fired a razor disc this time around and struck the guard in his shooting arm. The lower half of the limb flopped to the ground. His hand still clutched the pistol. He dropped to the ground screaming and crawled into the guard booth, leaving a blood trail behind him. The car bounced over the broken gate arm and sped down the exit road.
Lance's breaths devolved into shallow bursts. He drew his arm back inside the window and the eliminator fell from his right hand to the floor mat. Lance pushed back against the seat and clutched his ribs with the same hand.
“Lance!”
Xttra and Calandra simultaneously called out his name. He cranked his head toward them and grimaced. Lance let out a ragged cough.
“I guess my flex armor couldn't absorb more hits. The guard got me good.”
He pulled away his hand. Blood soaked his palm. Tears coursed down Calandra's cheeks. Xttra's whole body started to shake with fear.
“Don't do this, Lance.” His voice grew choked with emotion. “Fight through it. We've almost made it to the aerorover.”
A mechanical hum from a second helicopter greeted their ears as the car neared the patch of trees concealing the aerorover. Xttra turned and looked out through the back window. He spotted a spotlight flooding the road behind the car. It began closing the gap. Soon, the light shone on the trunk.
Xttra snapped his head toward Kevin.
“One of your attack vessels is on our tail. Is this car equipped with defensive weapons?”
Kevin shook his head.
“Damn! I have an idea. I hope it isn't a bad one.”
He cranked the steering wheel hard to the left. The car rumbled off the road toward a fence. Kevin slammed on the brakes. It did a sliding stop close enough to the fence that Collin touched it when he opened his door.
“What's your plan?” Collin asked. “Letting your fellow rangers catch us?”
“Cute. Just hand me my rifle, smart ass. Then watch and learn.”
Kevin stepped outside the car with the rifle and loaded a round into the grenade launcher. He marched up to the road, raised it to his shoulder and pointed the barrel at an upward angle. Kevin pressed the forward trigger. His round struck the landing gear, blowing off a wheel. He went to load a second one, only to discover he had none left.
“I'm black on ammo.” he said. “Better come up with Plan B.”
Bullets sprayed near his position. Kevin dove to the ground and crawled through the grass on the side of the road. Lance cracked open his door and stumbled out onto the ground.
Xttra flung open the opposite door and scrambled around the rear end after him.
“No! What do you think you're doing? Come back here. That's an order.”
Lance grabbed the open door and used it to pull himself to his feet. Xttra caught his arm when he let go.
“Let me do this, Xttra.”
“There’s another way. You're in no condition to fight.”
Lance coughed and let out a ragged breath.
“I'm dying and we both know it. Let me die on my own terms.”
Xttra felt his belly twisting into knots. His blood ran cold in his veins. He could not face the thought of his friend surrendering to death's cold embrace.
“Don't you do this to me,” Xttra pleaded. “I didn't save you from that asteroid just to let you die now on a distant planet.”
Lance shook his head and grimaced.
“I can use the aerorover to draw the attack vessel away from you. Once I'm airborne, I'll destroy it and you can flee to safety.”
Xttra grabbed a handful of Lance's uniform.
“I'm begging you, please don't do this.”
Tears formed in Lance's eyes. He embraced Xttra one final time and pushed his friend's hand down to his side.
"The value of one's life is measured through the love they show for others,” Lance said, reciting a line from the Book of Ahm. "I choose to find my value in making sure you return home.”
He turned and trudged toward the fence. Lance unsheathed his cutter, cut through the wire, and kept going until he reached the aerorover. Xttra fired his eliminator at the helicopter to buy time for Lance. The attack vessel answered with a fresh spray of bullets. He dove forward and crawled through tall grass to safety before any of those projectiles could riddle his body.
The aerorover shot upward. It flew toward the helicopter. Bullets from the attack vessel sprayed the vehicle. Lance returned fire with a plasma cannon.
His aim held true. The helicopter exploded into a spinning ball of flame. It veered straight into the aerorover's flight path and collided with the vehicle, setting it aflame.
Xttra's throat tightened and tears coursed down his cheeks. Flaming wreckage plummeted to the ground and ignited surrounding grass. Both he and Kevin scrambled to their feet and jumped back inside the car.
Kevin started the engine again and they quickly got back on the isolated road. Tears also flowed freely from Calandra as she embraced Xttra in the backseat. In the end, Lance proved himself an equal friend to her.
He sacrificed his life so they could both survive.
35
A somb
er mood gripped everyone inside the stolen car. Calandra could not suppress a hopeless fear threatening to consume her soul. She wanted to be free from this nightmare. Her broken bones. Doni's betrayal. Senseless deaths of Lance, Atch, and Jbali. Bo'un's terrible injuries. None of it should have occurred. Calandra's excitement over discovering Earth had transformed into anguish over finding herself mired in a battle for survival on this distant, hostile planet.
Kevin glanced in the rearview mirror at her and Xttra. He wore a sympathetic frown.
"Sorry about your friend. If I could turn back time –”
"You couldn't have done anything to stop it." Calandra paused for a moment and choked back a sob. "Doni caught us all by surprise. We would've never made it out alive, if not for Lance."
She gazed out at the darkened highway. Streetlamps illuminated sidewalks, cars, and buildings on both sides of the road with a dreary glow as they neared the outskirts of a small alien city. Calandra took minimal note of her surroundings as the car zipped past. Things that captured her imagination a few days earlier mattered little now.
Earth was no longer worth studying.
“I'm sorry about Fuller.” Calandra broke a growing silence overtaking the car. “His death isn't in vain. He did the right thing by helping us.”
“He was a good soldier and a good man.” A quiet sadness gripped Kevin's voice. “My company is filled with other good people like him. They were only following orders.”
“They don't have to follow orders.”
Collin turned and cast a stern look at Kevin from the passenger seat. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.
“No one kept the rest of those soldiers from making the right choice – except themselves.”
Kevin shot a renewed glare at him.
“I noticed more soldiers making 'the right choice' than Earth Defense Bureau agents.”
Collin raised his index finger with the intention of pressing the argument. He paused and stared at his feet for a moment. When he made eye contact with Kevin a second time, his expression softened.
“You're right,” Collin said. “There's plenty of blame to share for what happened to our new alien friends. We can't undo that damage now, but we can do our part to set things right.”
Silence conquered the car anew. Calandra’s mind refocused on the pain tormenting her body. Persistent throbbing aches in her arm and ribs made their presence known whenever she started to drift off to sleep.
“So, tell me, do you drive cars like this one on your home planet?”
She did not know how much time passed before Kevin asked his question. He must have sensed her discomfort while glancing in the rearview mirror and took it upon himself to help Calandra focus her mind elsewhere.
“We don't have cars on Lathos,” she said. “We use aerorovers for personal transportation.”
“Girl, you are missing out. Nothing beats owning a smooth ride.”
“What kind of car do you own?”
“I sold my last car to my uncle before shipping out on a year-long deployment – just before coming out here to Utah. I used to own a classic one-of-a-kind Mustang. Built in 1968. Restored it myself. I have a photo of it on my smartphone.”
Kevin pulled out a rectangular device from his pocket and brought up an image of the car in question. He passed the phone behind his shoulder to Calandra, so she could see the photo. His mustang had a short body with a long hood and wheels twice the size of ones on a typical aerorover. Dark red paint coated the exterior. Two bucket front seats and a long single backseat occupied the interior. His car appeared more stylish than other Earth vehicles she remembered seeing.
Kevin's thoughts mirrored her own.
“That baby is one-of-a-kind,” he said. “I inherited the mustang from my parents before I joined the army. Spent an entire year restoring body and frame from a total rust bucket. Outfitted it with a custom-built 289 V-8 engine.”
“Sounds like you put a ton of work into it.”
“Let me tell you – it was worth every second and every single dollar I put into that car.”
Calandra could not see Kevin smiling, but she heard a distinct joy in every word. He had a profound love for that car. She offered up an encouraging smile of her own.
“You did an excellent job.” She passed the phone back to him. “It looks fantastic.”
“Where are you taking us?”
Calandra glanced over at Xttra. He had stayed silent since their escape. Seeing his stoic expression and lack of movement made Calandra briefly worry he turned catatonic on her. She felt relieved to hear him finally say something.
“I'm hoping to find a nice out-of-the-way motel where we can crash for the night,” Kevin said. “We all could use some sleep.”
Xttra tapped his foot on a small rectangular floor mat. His unblinking stare told Calandra he did not welcome making an unexpected detour.
“We need to go to the scout ship at once. Calandra and I can sleep once we leave Earth.”
Kevin sighed.
“No offense, but you need a better plan than 'let's hurry to my ship and blast off.' That's going to be the first place they'll come looking for us.”
“You're wrong.”
“I'm with Sgt. Riley here.” Collin glanced over his shoulder at the backseat. “The Earth Defense Bureau tracked you to the Wasatch Mountains with minimal effort. We need to lay low and rest, so we can approach this with clearer heads in the morning.”
“You're also wrong.” Xttra's tone continued to grow more defiant. “I moved my ship to a different mountain chain. I also powered down everything except life support systems and restricted ship access to myself and Lance. No one is finding it now.”
Calandra frowned upon hearing the last part of this revelation. She gave Xttra a suspicious glance.
“You locked me out of the ship? Why would you do such a thing?”
“I had no idea if you were alive or dead.” His voice quavered a bit when he said those words. “I could not risk having it fall into the wrong hands.”
Calandra turned away and stared at the window. She understood the cold logic behind his decision, but it did nothing to soothe her wounded feelings. Did Xttra not trust her? She would never have followed Doni’s path.
“If your spaceship is locked down, we lose nothing by waiting until morning to head out there,” Kevin insisted. “I'm finding us a motel in Provo where we can recharge our batteries for a few hours.”
“I don't require batteries. I'm not an artificial lifeform.”
Silence and annoyed stares greeted Xttra's attempt at delivering a snarky comeback. Calandra normally would let herself enjoy a brief laugh at his effort. Not this time. She lacked even a particle of the patience and energy she needed to allow his argumentative insistence on getting his own way go unchallenged.
“You need to learn your way isn’t always the best way to do things.”
Calandra's callback to his words to her in the forest shut down Xttra's protests. He shook his head, pressed his lips tight together, and refused to say another word.
The car followed a winding canyon road past a long, narrow lake. It crossed over a dam and through a tunnel carved out of a mountain. After traveling for almost an hour, the canyon opened into a different larger alien city. True to his word, Kevin searched out a small motel for the night. The motel consisted of a small office boxed in by a larger building on three sides. Two rows of rooms occupied the larger building – one row stacked on top of the other. A fenced-in outdoor artificial pond was wedged between the office and the rows of motel rooms. It struck Calandra as an unusual pond with the water enclosed inside a cut-out square paved surface.
Kevin parked in front of the office. He unlatched his seat belt, turned to Collin, and thrust out his hand.
“I'm a little cash strapped. Can you cover the motel bill for the night?”
Collin recoiled and pushed his hand away.
“Cash strapped? What do I look like? An ATM?”
“You said we needed to do our part to set things right for Xttra and Calandra. Here's your chance.”
All eyes turned to Collin. He scowled and dug his wallet out of his back pocket. A second later, he yanked out a credit card and slapped it down in Kevin's hand.
“There you go. Happy now?”
Kevin answered him with a mock salute.
“Thanks a bunch.”
He popped open his door and headed straight for the motel office.
***
Paige shuddered when she laid eyes on Doni.
Blackened flesh decorated the left side of his neck. It yielded to crinkled and blistered skin under his jaw and across his collarbone. Patches of uniform over his left shoulder and down his ribs had been burnt to ashes. It exposed a second, thin layer of iridescent fabric beneath that resembled a burnt stainless-steel pan.
A nauseatingly sweet odor hung about the alien’s burns. Paige pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from vomiting because of the overpowering smell. She wheeled around and moved a few steps away from the medical examination table before turning to face him again.
“I guess this means your cover is blown.”
Doni scrunched up his face. He gritted his teeth and clenched a fist after inadvertently turning his neck a bit.
“Brilliant observation. I can see why you are such a gifted leader among your people.”
Paige scowled and rested her hand on her hip.
“Want me to finish where your fellow alien started, smart ass?”
Doni grimaced as Dr. Harter sterilized second-degree and third-degree burns. Paige felt a buzz from her smartphone and pulled it from her pocket. Capt. Pollard's number popped up on the caller ID.
“Any luck?” Paige immediately asked, after answering his call.
“We've combed the Wasatch Mountains from Logan to Spanish Fork in this bird.” His voice came through louder than normal while talking above helicopter rotor blades whirling in the background. “If a spaceship is supposed to be out here, I don't have a damn idea where to find the thing.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”