by Chris Hechtl
The animal coughed then staggered. Shirley fired into it, pushing Bobby away, but it was done for. It fell to the floor dead.
“Two more to go, right?” Bobby asked.
“”Yeah, and they are in here with us,” Shirley said, reloading. “I'm down to one mag. Now what?”
“I've got an idea,” Bobby said. She yanked out the gas line to the stove and then pushed the toaster's button down. “Move your ass!” she said.
“Shit!” Shirley said, running for the back door. “You're crazy!” she said as they got out of the house.
“Yeah, I know! But I've always wanted to do that!” Bobby replied, clutching her wounded arm as she grinned savagely. She heard a sound behind her as something came down the stairs. She turned at the sight of the alpha male. He went to the kitchen though.
“Don't look back! Run stupid!” Shirley panted.
<)>~^^~<(>/
When the alpha got to the ground floor, he scented blood. He also scented something else, something rotten.
He sniffed about for the source of the odors and found them in the same room just as he saw motion outside. His instinct was to chase it, but instead he turned to the blood. It was not of the tailless ones, so it meant ….
The cloud of building gas got to the hot coils inside the toaster and immediately whooshed into flame. The flashover explosion hit the backpedaling raptor and then the last female that had just entered the house through the front door. The female saw the wall of flame coming at it and turned to run.
<)>~^^~<(>/
The explosion of the house slapped Bobby and Shirley to the ground. Both were mildly burned, but they had survived. “Kentucky fried raptor anyone?” Bobby asked, laughing as she rolled over to see the house. She flicked mud and debris away. A few burning pieces of debris landed near her. “Boy, I'm a mess.”
Shirley chuckled as she too rolled to see the flames. The rain was snuffing some of it out but the interior was getting properly roasted. Anything inside was getting a nice taste of hell. “You know we're in Virginia, right? Ah hell, I'll take a drumstick,” she said. She looked up to the sky. “The rain'll wash you off in no time,” she said.
“Gee you're all heart,” Bobby said as the boy and the other survivors started to come out of their hiding places. Bobby turned her head at the sight of motion out of the corner of her eye. She sucked in her breath which alerted Shirley. She turned just in time and watched a flaming bird run out of the front of the house and off into the stormy night.
“It'll die from that, right?” Shirley asked softly.
“God, let's hope so,” Bobby murmured. Somehow she wasn't so sure they were going to turn out to be that lucky.
Epilogue:
Earl had pointedly turned down the top shot … he retired shortly after the circuses had died back. The state had run a special election. Shirley had been drafted to run. No one else was interested in the sheriff's slot now that the funding was drying up. Shirley had won in a landslide. A whole 239 votes. She wasn't certain if she wanted it or not. She wasn't sure if she wanted to stick around. There were a lot of memories, but a lot of bad ones, painful ones.
Then there was the press and publicity. The investigations were still ongoing, the Feds showed up from time to time, usually unannounced. Usually when she was trying to catch up on her sleep.
With the budget cuts, Molly and Brenda had quietly quit or had taken early retirements. Bobby was busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest trying to manage field work and the lab with one good arm. The funeral home director was acting coroner for the county until they could get someone else in. If it was a criminal case, and heaven forbid if it was, they'd have to wait to get someone in or use old Doc Simlety.
Things were rough, but it could have been worse she thought. She tried to keep telling herself that every time she passed the cemetery or the for sale sign on the sheriff's home. Home would never be the same again she knew.
The Preserve was in the process of being shut down. Tax income for the county was already being cut; the sheriff's office budget was getting butchered just as Richard had predicted. She didn't care.
She was still pregnant with Matt's child; she'd been lucky she hadn't lost it in a miscarriage. Some said they thought depressing thoughts about the future in the county. At least she had one she thought. And she'd make certain their child did too. Her hand drifted to her belly. She regretted the deaths. She knew something could have been done to prevent it. At least the survivors and the families of the victims were suing the pants off the Preserve and everyone involved with it. Most of the people behind the Preserve had disappeared. The corporation had shielded them behind a wall of attorneys and blizzards of paperwork. The Preserve had filed for bankruptcy protection and gotten it, but the families of the victims were fighting it for all it was worth.
She snorted in approval. Then she picked up the newspaper, and her blood ran cold.
Her fingers smoothed the paper as she read the article. There were reports of sightings and other attacks on livestock and wild animals in isolated communities in a nearby county. She shook her head. She tried to remember the number of animals but couldn't quite cover them all. Earl and the Feds still insisted the missing female bird had died of its wounds or been burned up in the fire. Shirley wasn't so sure. Hopefully, she thought, fingers stroking the paper. Hopefully. Hopefully it was just hysterics and idiots wanting to make a name for themselves. Hopefully, she thought.
<)>~^^~<(>/
In the shrinking forest of the Appalachian Mountains, a caw echoed out over the stillness. Bird heads popped up out of the brush and rushed to the sound. A cougar stalking a deer was suddenly the victim of an ambush. Another caw and the other predators rushed in to steal the kill as the competition hastily retreated. The female bobbed her head, watching her new brood.
Soon they would be adults. She was the only survivor of her flock. She had been pregnant when she had run. Pregnant and injured. Yet somehow, despite the odds she hadn’t lost her precious eggs before they were laid. Despite the horrible burns, she'd survived. Nine of the eggs had been fertile. Six were still alive, two had been killed by their siblings, and one had been the runt of the litter. He hadn't been able to stand the competition from his healthier siblings and had died from starvation.
The female had learned a lesson on nurturing then. One she tried to pass on to her brood. She had also learned a horrible lesson that fateful night, avoid the tailless ones whenever possible. Leave no sign of their passing or the tailless ones would come for them. Come with fire and things that barked and cut a hunter down from a great distance. No, it was better to hide. Hide and survive.
A new generation of predators were growing quickly now that they could help feed themselves. She looked around in approval and then dipped her toothy head into the carcass to feed.
The End
Last Assault of the Emperor
During the turning of the thirty-second century, the emperor of light announced his intention to conquer all of mankind and rule with an iron fist. His family had expanded their territory to ten worlds over the past two centuries and had moved from a peaceful scientific community to a war time footing when their unruly neighbors, the Earth Republic, had strayed into their territory.
He had made a major investment in cybernetics, genetic engineering, energy shields, and armor. Over the centuries he had created an army of genetically engineered super soldiers and “star lords” to oversee them. His star lords were supposed to be the best of humanity, the most intelligent, strongest, and the purest of mankind. They were to set a shining example of what it was to be a citizen of the Empire of Light. But due to their mental imbalance, their emotional quotient was almost nonexistent. They had no empathy and were quite brutal to their conquered subjects.
But the Republic was three times larger with a massive industrial complex. When invaded the public's freedoms were threatened which created a wave of patriotism, exactly the opposite of what the Imperial I
ntelligence lords had thought would happen. The Republic citizens buried their differences due to the mutual threat and banded together to go on the defense, sucking up the empire's attacks, sometimes surrendering territory to stall the legions on a planet if it meant trapping them. They were then bombed from afar, or nukes and antimatter charges were set off to swamp them or blow them apart.
Starships were rigged in desperate defensive battles to suck in the seemingly invisible imperial ships and then blow them apart with antimatter charges. Other crude methods were used to draw the ships in and blow them apart as well. A favorite was using asteroids as kinetic energy weapons.
In a large battle, the empire's star lords misstepped and its navy was gutted. The star lords fell back in disarray to defend the home territory until a fresh navy and army could be reborn. Lord Admiral Callan was publicly beheaded for his failure, and his genome was deleted from the imperial archives.
One by one the empire's worlds fell or were cut off by the curs until only the capital star system remained. The capital fleet put up a valiant defense, but they were gutted attempting to protect the planet, as was planned by the Republic Admirals. That paved the way for the final invasion.
Captain Issia Sloan knew all this but could hardly care less for the moment. He was too busy trying to complete his mission with as many men as he could. It didn't look like it would be many, he thought pessimistically. If any at all.
Captain Sloan was a natural leader. He'd been a buck sergeant who had led an attack only to find all his officers slaughtered. He hadn't given up; he'd stepped into their shoes and earned an unwanted medal of valor and a battlefield promotion. He'd bootstrapped himself into an officer's commission and rocketed through the chain of command to his present position as the last surviving senior officer of his brigade. It was now barely a company, but the end was near. Or so he hoped.
Just a kilometer away was the emperor's final redoubt. The emperor had abandoned his sky palace early on in the invasion for the ground bunker, or so Republic intelligence had insisted. He had heard rumors that they had somehow sabotaged the royal yacht to prevent the emperor's untimely escape. He snorted at the idea. He was pretty sure the empire's intelligence organ and palace security were too good for that, but the fear of such an act would have kept the emperor from using the ship. Or so it seemed.
The captain was the one and only person to have survived hand-to-hand combat with the emperor's guard. He'd been lucky and knew it. None of his people had cybernetic enhancements or genetic engineering; only in tripping the damn cyborg monstrosity up and shooting it point blank in the back of the head and then running for cover had allowed him to survive the experience. The efforts of the emperor had made such things anathema to the Republic citizens. They were quite proud of their pure human stock.
Captain Sloan was going to prove something to the emperor … that was if he survived to knock down the man's door. He didn't know when to give up, Sloan thought. What was he hoping for, a miracle? A last minute save? Apparently so, Sloan thought as he tightened the noose and then ordered his exhausted troops to hunker down and wait for the next guardsman.
The emperor's guard, also known as the palace guard, were the crème of some insane twisted scientist's work, also Sloan's nightmare. Each was a warrior ant; a specialized genetically engineered warrior bred for one purpose—total war. They were cybernetically enhanced to a frightening degree. Enhanced speed, strength, and endurance, along with a total willingness to die for their emperor at the snap of his fingers. Their seven-foot-tall powerful frames allowed them to wear heavy powered combat armor; the finest the empire had to offer. Each was powered by a milligram of antimatter that allowed them to have not only heavy energy shields but also a functional personal cloaking device.
From what he'd observed, the cloak and energy shield were somehow tied together. Most likely the logarithmically controlled force field bent light when it was in cloak mode. It wasn't perfect, but it was damn good and scary. When the force field changed to defensive mode, the setup was impressive. The more force that was exerted against it, the more it would react. He had found out a few other things about the damned things as he'd fought the guard to a standstill.
For one thing the shields were plate and strongest in the front. They were also not invulnerable; they needed time to dissipate heat and energy. The more pressure you put on it, the harder the hardware had to work … and eventually everything had a failure point. It was all about putting the pressure on and keeping it on. Tricky when the damn cyborgs were tearing his people limb from limb.
Colonel Fork had led the brigade but hadn't survived more than a day into the capital fight. Major Chan and then Captain Irim had both fallen one by one over the slugging match. But now there was a slim chance that the end was in sight. They were down to a bit more than a company. Okay, just short of it if you excluded the surviving staff, but they had finally pinned his highness down.
The captain had used his company to pin the emperor in his bunker, but they had taken grievous attritional losses to get that far. It was too much to do anything more than sit on the defensive and keep the guard contained. The bunker was energy shielded with automated defenses. Periodically the emperor sent out some of the guard to try to push the soldiers back, but they were cut down by the determined soldiers in improvised defensive positions. Every hour they worked on not only improving their defenses but also in finding a way into the bunker, chewing steadily at its pop-up weapon pods.
Attrition was the key, to allow the enemy to come to him, expend their energy and then strike. That led to another realization, surviving that initial outpouring of energy, then striking back.
The captain had eventually struck upon a plan, using snipers, his heavy weapon squads, and interlocking fields of fire. Diversion tactics had allowed his men to distract the guard and attack where they were weakest, the flanks and rear while the front shields were engaged. However, several times the hated cyborgs had broken into his lines and inflicted horrific casualties before going down. He had revised his strategy, going further on the defensive despite his orders. He formed fire traps to contain the cyborgs with layers of defenses. His people dug in and only sent robots to probe the bunker defenses. They knew that if a cyborg got in close, he was ruthless enough to call fire on their own ranks to cut it down.
The captain used the time to stall and bleed the guard, but time was running out. His troops were near exhaustion; his top kick had to rotate a squad off the front lines every six hours to rest them. Nerves were fraught too; he'd had two nut cases and one woman go catatonic after a brutal attack.
He was lucky though. The emperor had sent the cyborgs out in penny packets initially. He wasn't certain if that had been arrogance, thinking they would win against his cruder troops or something else. But after that had failed, the emperor had tried to sneak the cyborgs out and around to hit the attacking soldiers on their flanks. He shook his head. Initially it had forced him back, but they were prepared for it now. There were five entrances to the bunker; two that had been secret. However, the detectors seeded into the area by the recon teams had located them all.
Two days of stalemate were too much for high command to bear though. The exhausted captain had expected pressure from on high, and had been short in any inquiries for an update on his status. His last “unchanged” was the last straw.
General Bernard personally visited the battle site, demanding an immediate debrief. When the captain didn't immediately leave his post overseeing the siege, he became angry and moved to the captain's HQ, perilously close to the bunker siege.
“I'm not here to hear excuses, Captain,” the general snarled snidely. “I expect results. I am not seeing them.”
The captain attempted to give his superior a debrief. “Cut to the chase, Captain; I don't have all damn day,” the general impatiently ordered him.
“Sir, I am attempting to lay a foundation so you will understand the context,” he stated.
“Bullshit
. It boils down to a simple thing. Do you have the emperor in custody or not?”
“No, sir,” the captain admitted. He saw the tightening of the general's jaw but kept going on. “We still haven’t captured the emperor. He is holding out with his best cyborgs in his bunker, sir, and refuses to surrender.”
“You are relieved then,” the general snarled, firing the officer on the spot for failure to perform. The captain had expected it and remained silent during the icy initial dressing down. “You are the sorriest excuse for an officer and will be drummed back to the enlisted where you belong before we bounce you from the corps for good. I have never in my life seen such an incompetent officer rise through the ranks, but it ends today. For the life of me, I do not understand how you got this far.”
Getting the emperor would be the feather in General Bernard's cap that would seal his career and launch his star to a possible political position in the future. The captain knew it but didn't care.
He was furious over not having the emperor in his hands and was perilously close to losing the attack position to another regiment. He vented his frustration on the captain who stood at attention silent while the general went from an icy initial roar to vent his frustration in a full bore roar and theatrical strut around the headquarters. His adjunct major and chief of staff seemed to enjoy that someone else was the victim of the general's ire.
When the general finished his tirade, he ordered preparations for a suicidal frontal attack. The captain knew it was futile, but he tried to stall him when a guardsman emerged and attacked the distracted line.
The guardsman began to take fire when his motion while in cloak was detected. Instantly the noncoms triggered smoke grenades to pop across the battlefield, allowing the attacker's profile to be outlined. Snipers struck like serpents, hammering on the cyborg from range.