When they ran out of cover, Wells crouched and darted the rest of the distance to the bridge. He pressed his back against one of the corner pillars and paused to watch the Martian. The machine was silent and still, but Wells knew it would eventually tire of Wilson and finish him off. Every fiber of his being screamed in protest at the idea of leaving the man to die alone, but—
“Captain?” Carter hissed from the rocks.
Wells gritted his teeth and peered around the corner of the pillar. The bridge was clear of enemies. He beckoned to the others. “Clear.”
Carter led them onto the bridge, and Wells fell into stride beside her.
O’Brien stepped onto the bridge and stopped. He turned to take one last look at Wilson.
He shook his head. “That is one crazy cowboy.”
“Move your ass, O’Brien,” Douglas ordered.
O’Brien double-timed it across the bridge. Wells waited until the Irishman crossed the power plant’s threshold. He watched Wilson taunting the Martian, and his grip tightened on his Thompson.
“Damn it,” he said as he turned to follow O’Brien inside.
*****
“You like that?” Wilson shouted. “Tickle a bit? How about some more under the chin?”
The Thompson barked, and Wilson’s ears rang from the rapid report, but his grin never wavered. The Martian stared down at him, its tentacles whipping and snapping.
The gun clicked empty, its ghostly report echoing throughout the surrounding rocks. Wilson threw down the spent weapon and drew a semi-automatic pistol. He fired at the Martian’s cowl, clutching the leather pouch with his free hand. Still the alien did not react.
Finally the pistol clicked empty, and Wilson squeezed the trigger again. And again. The Martian advanced, casting its dark shadow over the human. The heat ray glowed.
Wilson dropped the pistol and withdrew Lucy’s finger from the pouch. He planted a kiss on the fingertip.
“I’m comin’ home, honey,” he said. “I’m comin’ home!”
A light breeze picked up, as if in reply. Wilson smiled as the Martian fired, engulfing him in searing, emerald fire.
Chapter Sixteen
The power plant was something out of a nightmare. Tall, skinny windows set high on the walls above massive dynamos provided most of the illumination. The air was fetid and thick, difficult to breathe. Everywhere Wells looked, catwalks snaked into the distance, branching into unseen corridors. A long groan echoed from somewhere deep in the building’s bowels; whether it was mechanical or biological in origin, Wells couldn’t be sure.
Steam rose from the grating beneath their feet as they moved deeper into the plant, leaving the comfort of the sunlight pouring through the open door behind them. Wells wrinkled his nose and breathed through his mouth, trying not to think about whatever noxious vapors he was inhaling. He led the squad down a staircase that twisted and descended into the building.
“Strange place,” said Douglas.
O’Brien looked over his shoulder. “Tell me about it.”
“Everything looks brand new,” said Carter.
“It is,” O’Brien said. “Tesla designed these plants to house the Martian power cores.”
Carter stopped. “Like Manchester?”
O’Brien nodded. “That’s why it’s out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Don’t worry,” Wells said. “After Manchester, the cores were buried deep underground. There’s nothing here.”
“Then why are the Martians guarding it?” said Carter.
“That’s what I intend to find out,” said Wells.
When they reached the bottom, they followed a new catwalk into a large chamber. They had barely taken two steps into the room when Wells held up a closed fist, signaling the troupe to stop.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered.
The sound was faint at first, but grew steadily into an all-too-familiar cadence.
Wells looked over the catwalk railing. It was only an eight-foot drop to the floor below.
“Down!” He hissed.
Wells vaulted over the railing, and the others followed suit. They retreated into the shadows beneath the walkway and waited. The sound grew louder until finally a strange machine entered the room via another catwalk almost forty feet above them.
The tripod was smaller than any Wells had ever seen before. It was roughly fifteen feet tall, had seven tentacles—two on either side of its body and three on the front of its cowl—and was topped with a dome of green glass through which the bulbous head of a Martian was visible. As the strange exoskeleton machine passed, Wells was able to discern a web-like cage hanging from its back. A woman inside it gripped the bars and gasped when she saw the soldiers staring up at her.
Wells stepped out of the shadows and placed a finger to his lips. The woman remained silent but watched him with pleading eyes as her Martian captor marched out of the room. When the coast was clear, the others gathered around Wells.
“Captain,” Shah whispered, “we must act!”
“Agreed,” said Wells. “Shah, you, Jennifer, and Abe follow that… thing. See if you can help that woman.”
Shah nodded.
Wells turned to O’Brien. “You have the satchel charge?”
O’Brien smirked and patted the bag hanging from his shoulder. “That I do.”
“You’re with me,” Wells said. “All right, let’s move out.”
Shah, Douglas, and Carter turned to follow the Martian, breaking into a jog.
“Take care of yourself,” Wells called softly.
Carter turned and waved. “You, too.”
Wells returned the wave and watched her leave.
“You two have something going?” O’Brien asked, crestfallen.
Wells scowled. “It’s none of your business.”
He turned to walk toward a nearby staircase, leaving O’Brien to stare after him.
O’Brien jogged to keep up. “Just trying to make conversation!”
*****
Shah, Douglas, and Carter maintained a safe distance from the tripod, careful not to attract its attention or excite the prisoner any more than necessary. The air became more stifling as they walked, and they could almost taste the stench. The tripod lumbered through an archway, and Shah signaled the others to stop.
From the cover of the doorway, they could see the source of the putrid air infecting the entire structure. The Martian navigated around large mounds of desiccated and mutilated human remains. Rats scurried over them, feasting, while swarms of insects buzzed around the room like a living fog.
Two more tripods milled about the room, tending to bulbous web-like pouches hanging from the ceiling. Each sac contained four to five struggling and crying humans. The Martian machine with the cage on its back rose to its full height and backed up to one of them. The cage merged with the sac, expanding it slightly and encasing the woman with the other prisoners—an elderly woman and four small children.
The Martian examined the prisoners for a moment, then turned and approached another sac. It stretched out its tentacles, and an opening spread out from the center of the pouch. The humans inside pressed against the back wall and screamed, shoving each other to get away from the monster scrutinizing them.
The Martian reached inside and wrapped a tentacle around the waist of a man in his late twenties. The man struggled, pawing at the coiled appendage as the sac sealed itself behind him.
“No,” he cried. “Please, God, no!”
The tendril protruding from the tripod’s nose snaked up and slithered into the man’s mouth, forcing its way past his clenched jaws. His screams turned to indistinct moans and gurgles as the appendage traveled down his esophagus. From within the struggling man, a soft whirring sound could be heard. The tentacle became engorged with blood and viscera, pulsing as the man’s body shriveled and convulsed.
Soon, the Martian finished its meal and cast the withered husk aside. The corpse landed on the heap nearest the sickened A.R.E.S. soldiers and slid down th
e steep slope. The jaw fell open, and the dull, sunken eyes stared up at Carter. She turned, leaned against a nearby pillar, and retched.
Sated, the Martian turned to follow the others out of the room, leaving the crying humans alone.
“Monsters!” Douglas primed his Torch, the barrel glowing and humming as it built a charge.
Shah grabbed his arm. “Let’s get them out of those cages first.”
Douglas grimaced but released the trigger. The glow faded, and the weapon hissed as it vented waste heat. “Yes, sir.”
Shah placed his gun on the ground and climbed one of the pillars to the rafters. He crawled along the girders to the nearest sac and climbed down it, using the web-like openings as foot and hand holds. The material was solid, but slightly flexible, bending under his weight but never stretching enough to allow a prisoner to escape.
He drew his keris and tested it against the strange alien material. The blade sliced through the substance with ease, and soon Shah produced a five-foot hole. He looked down at Douglas.
The sergeant placed the heat ray emitter on the ground and held out his trunk-like arms. “You pitch, I’ll catch,” he said.
Shah nodded and turned back to the prisoners inside. He beckoned to a barefoot little boy in mud-covered overalls. “Hurry. We haven’t much time.”
*****
Wells wiped the sweat from his brow. The deeper they descended, the hotter the air became. Smelting furnaces burned all around them, and immense crucibles poured glowing molten metal into molds. The fumes almost overpowered the rotten stench created by the Martians.
A red glow pierced the darkness ahead enough that Wells and O’Brien quickened their pace. When they came to the end of the rows of cold, silent machinery, they saw the source of the ominous glow.
The room opened up into an immense chamber. Strange, mushroom-shaped structures jutted from the floor, their surfaces lined with glowing, red veins leading to transparent domes through which the crimson light shone. Small, indistinct figures moved inside them. They were the same glass-domed Martian walkers they’d seen patrolling the plant’s corridors..
At the center of it all, a mammoth construct hung suspended by mechanical arms while tripods attached and welded metal plating to its surface. Wells remembered a boomerang he’d once seen demonstrated by an Australian Hermes pilot; the machine had a similar shape, only straighter. At the center of the object was a large, round, red eye flanked by two smaller ones.
“What the hell is that?” he whispered.
“No idea,” said O’Brien. “But it can’t be good.”
“It must be at least five… six hundred feet long!”
O’Brien nodded. “We’ve built our new power plants based on their technologies, and now they can move right in and make anything they want.”
“Only if we let them,” Wells said.
“One satchel charge in this place is not going to mean much,” O’Brien protested.
Wells pointed to the largest of the domed structures. “It will if it blows in their control room.”
O’Brien grinned. “I like the way you th—”
Wells grabbed the corporal’s shoulder and pulled him back behind cover. “Hurry!”
O’Brien followed Wells behind the dynamo. They pressed their backs against the wall, and O’Brien stared at Wells quizzically. Wells put a finger to his lips, and the sound of exoskeleton footfalls grew closer. They stopped several feet away.
O’Brien gritted his teeth and slowly pulled back the bolt on his weapon. The mechanism clicked. Wells shot O’Brien a reprimanding look. The tripod took two steps forward, bringing it dangerously close to their position.
With a soft hiss, the green dome retracted, and Wells could see the pilot. It looked just as he remembered from his encounter in Leeds. Its bulbous head was gray, the leathery skin slick with perspiration. The Martian opened its beak-like mouth and sniffed the air. Wells wrinkled his nose.
The tripod took a few steps, and Wells and O’Brien held their breath as it passed. After a moment, the canopy slid shut, and the Martian turned back toward the assembly area. When the footfalls receded to a safe distance, Wells and O’Brien exhaled and stepped out.
O’Brien fanned the air in front of his face. “Those things smell like a pub toilet on Sunday morning.”
“They probably say the same about us.” Wells jerked his head toward the construction site. “Come on.”
Wells led the way, weaving around obstacles and ducking behind machinery every time a tripod approached. They took cover among stacks of fifty-gallon steel drums. The largest of the domed structures lay only fifty feet away. Three exoskeleton tripods moved inside it.
“There,” Wells said, creeping out to the edge of the stack. “That has to be it.”
O’Brien stood back out of sight. “Cap, if we’re going to die… I just— I wanted— I mean, I know I’ve….” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hell, I’m sorry for being such an ass.”
Wells ducked back behind the drums. “You’re an Irishman. You can’t help yourself.”
O’Brien’s mouth fell open.
Wells punched O’Brien’s arm and smiled. “Just kidding.”
O’Brien’s familiar smirk returned. “I didn’t know the English had a sense of humor.”
“By the way, I think the Irish should have self-rule.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“You never asked.”
O’Brien’s face split into a grin. He chuckled.
A tripod marched past, and they crouched behind the barrels until it was out of earshot.
O’Brien peered over the barrels. “If I can get close enough, I can lob the satchel charge inside.”
Wells shook his head. “It’s too open. You’ll be seen.”
“You have a better plan?”
“Maybe.” Wells unscrewed the lid on the nearest barrel and dipped his hand inside. He sniffed the black substance on his fingers. “It’s oil.” He pointed to a large tank nearby. “And that’s propane! Set the charge here with a five-minute fuse.”
O’Brien opened the satchel containing the charge and measured the fuse, cutting it with a knife at the five-minute mark. “Done,” he said. “Five it is.”
“Then lets go find the others,” Wells said.
O’Brien struck the match with his thumb.
*****
Shah grabbed one of the slippery strands along the wall of the swaying sac to keep his balance. All of the other pouches sagged, torn open and empty. Only one little girl remained. She fidgeted and tugged at the hem of her dress as Shah held out his hand to her.
“It’s almost over,” Shah said, his voice low and soothing. “Come on.”
She took his hand and walked unsteadily to the opening. Shah lifted her out of the cage and dangled her over Douglas, ready to drop her into his arms at his signal. She looked down, and Shah could feel her trembling.
She looked up at him. “I can’t!”
“Yes, you can,” Shah said. “Don’t look down. Just watch my eyes.”
She looked down at Douglas.
Douglas smiled. “Honey, I haven’t dropped anybody yet.”
“I’ll count to three,” Shah said. “One. Two— Abe! Behind you!”
A Martian exoskeleton stepped through the door. Douglas bent to retrieve his heat ray, but the tripod lashed him across the back with one of its tentacles. He slammed into a nearby pillar and fell to the ground. When he got to his knees, another of the alien’s tendrils wrapped around his neck and lifted him into the air.
Douglas kicked and gasped for air as the tentacle cinched tighter around his throat, collapsing his windpipe. Another snaked around his ankle and pulled. Douglas’ mouth opened in a silent, airless scream as the Martian threatened to tear him apart.
The tripod raised its feeder tube to Douglas’ face. The blades on the end of the appendage snapped open and spun, a preview of what was to come. Douglas could see the saliva dripping from the
Martian’s beak through the tinted glass.
“Hey,” Carter shouted. “Tall, dark, and ugly!”
The Martian turned and looked down at Carter. She held the portable heat ray in her hands. The weapon cycled up and fired. The beam struck the exoskeleton’s cowl and the tripod exploded from the waist up, throwing Douglas coughing and sputtering to the ground.
Carter ran to his side. “Abe, are you okay?”
“Jennifer!” Shah shouted.
Another Martian entered from the opposite side of the room. Carter raised the Torch and sighted down the barrel, but the weapon hummed in protest when she squeezed the trigger. She slid the safety lever forward and back again, but the heat ray still would not fire.
“Damn it,” she said. “It’s not charged!”
Shah drew his pistol and fired six shots at the tripod’s canopy, but the bullets bounced off the glass. The Martian ignored the feeble assault and advanced on Carter.
Shah turned to the girl. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
The girl pressed her back against the wall of the sac and covered her eyes. Shah holstered his pistol and drew his keris. He bent his knees, ready to spring. As the tripod passed, it dropped into a crouching stance. The machine skittered like a three-legged spider. Shah leapt from the cage and grabbed a ridge on the back of the cowl with his free hand.
The tripod bucked and thrashed, trying to throw him off, but Shah planted his feet on the backside of the cowl and held on. He struck the glass with the dagger’s pommel, but it bounced off the rounded surface with no effect. Shah brought the keris down repeatedly until, finally, it cracked and spider-webbed.
He flipped the keris and drove the blade into the canopy. The dome shattered, and Shah recoiled at the Martian’s stench. The alien hissed and glared up at him.
Shah buried the blade in the Martian’s skull. The creature shrieked and flailed its tentacles. The keris slashed and plunged, cutting the tendrils to ribbons and splashing Shah’s face and uniform with green blood. Finally the alien became still and the tripod crashed to the ground. Shah jumped down from the ruined canopy.
War of the Worlds Page 15