by Chris Lowry
INFILTRATE
Invasion EARTH series
by
Chris Lowry
Chapter 1
"Honey, it's time to get up."
Her hand on his shoulder felt soft and warm. He could feel the scratch of her nails against his skin, trailing across his shoulder and down his chest.
"Morning," he mumbled, voice distorted by a yawn and stretch.
"You're late," she said.
Her brown hair cascaded around her cheeks, framing eyes he couldn't help but get lost in everytime he stared at her. He could feel his excitement, a growing urge as her hands pressed harder into his skin.
"We don't have time for that," she teased. "You have to get up."
He reached for her, gripped her shoulders and pulled her in for a kiss.
She punched him.
Lt sat up and screamed. A woman he didn't recognize shook her bloody knuckles as she leaned back from him. He didn't know where he was, just that it was cold.
His armor was gone, the suit chest plate beside him on a metal floor. He nursed an aching jaw with the back of his hand.
"What the fuck did you do that for?" he squinted at the woman kneeling in front of him.
"You fucking tried to kiss me, you mook."
He squinted harder. She had short blond hair that looked like it had been hacked with a knife, thin cheeks from caloric depletion, and a scar that ran across her face that looked like hot metal had sliced and seared it.
"You're not my type," he shot back and glanced down at his torso. "You make a habit of dry humping guys you strip while they're passed out?"
The memory of his wife cleared his head and he realized he wasn't dead. Again.
"Where the fuck am I?"
"We're gonna answer your twenty questions later," he heard a voice in a shadowed corridor say.
Lt tried to move. That is to say, he willed his legs to move, but they didn't respond, not at first. His arms felt heavy, leaden, and his head ached.
"Why can't I move."
"Nineteen left," the woman answered.
The guy in the shadows stepped out. He was shorter than the woman, just as thin, his black hair streaked with grey. No scars marred his face, just worry lines and wrinkles.
"You're suffering from a couple of things as far as we can tell. You can thank Annie for saving your life. Mouth to mouth and CPR."
"You kiss like a girl," Lt said.
She raised an eyebrow and curled her lip.
"Is that a joke? Did you just joke with the woman who saved your life?"
Lt pushed up and got one leg under him. It took a lot of effort, more than he cared to admit, to stand up, and he almost toppled over, but caught himself with one hand against a freezing wall.
"Joke's on you," he said. "My momma says I'm the best kisser in the whole county."
This time the lip curled into a smile that resembled a snarl. But her dark eyes sparkled.
"We haven't had many jokes up here in a long time," she said and held out here hand. "Annie."
He made sure one hand held onto the wall, so he wouldn't fall and shook with the other, two quick pumps for fear more would send him tumbling to the deck.
"Lt. William Bonney."
"Bill-" she started to say.
"Don't call me the kid," he cut her off. "Lt will do. Bonney if you like, I'll answer to either. Nice to meet you, Annie Warbucks. Now want to tell me where the fuck I am?"
"Short term memory loss is a symptom of oxygen deprivation," said the short man. "Captain Dawes. You're on my ship. Welcome to the Bezos."
CHAPTER 2
He hated looking at the stars, but since the aliens arrived and stole the power that turned nighttime into day, it was all he could see.
He had been among them, though unable to look out at the time, and more concerned about staying alive than the winking blinking galactic signposts outside the window. The first time was a trip to Mars courtesy of a tribunal that sentenced him to conscription.
That had been in a cargo ship hold, among other prisoners, packed in tight like cattle and dropped into a protected atmosphere to fight or die. They didn't expect him to live, but he did, the only survivor of a conflict known as Citadel.
Staying alive had made him an urban legend, though Weber knew he was just lucky. Too many close calls to be anything other than that.
He survived Mars, the battle for the Red Planet as a holding line against the onslaught of an alien invasion. And when that was lost, he stole a ship, he and Renard, the only survivors of the last Martian conflict known as Beachhead.
They stole a ship and he was more concerned with flying it, with keeping the wounded vessel from imploding or decompressing as they limped home, than he was in the stars.
Then they crashed on Earth, at night, with only the stars for company until a group of human refugees pulled them from the wreckage. They lived, but it wasn't an earth they had known. The aliens arrived first and destroyed all technology with some unknown means.
Weber suspected that was a partial reason for the crash. He and Renard had keyed in the landing sequence in a pre-programmed computer designed to deliver them to an airstrip in the Mojave Desert. More sand than he cared to see, but atmosphere, and with it, no space suits.
But things went sideways in the descent which delivered them to some flyover state in the middle.
He hated the stars. They mocked him.
At least my leg doesn't hurt, he thought. His hand drifted down to massage the ghost ache from pure habit, fingers tapping against the hard shell of the Gen One armor he wore.
He had learned to live with the pain of the crash, broken bones knit in crooked lines, ripped nerves that stayed numb. But the nanobot packed suits removed the pain. Knit the bones. Healed his body.
They couldn't help his mind though.
There probably would never be enough help for that, he shrugged and continued to glare at winking Polaris.
Renard found him, moved to stand beside him and didn't say a word.
After they shared Beachhead, they didn't need to say much. The crash cemented it. Any one you could walk away from was a blessing, but walking away with a comrade in arms meant something special.
"You trust this kid?" Renard said after minutes of shared silence.
"No," Weber sighed.
And that was part of what troubled him too. Not just the memories of battles gone and lost, nor of the fight to prepare the resistance to rise up against the Licks.
It was the kid.
"The others do," said Renard.
"I don't think they do," Weber answered.
He had yet to approach it with Babe, the second who assumed command when the Lt went missing on a rescue mission to save one of his squad.
Weber thought missing, even though he was told the Lt was dead. They all were.
Still, the kid called Chief was the one who told him. Told them.
And if he didn't trust the kid, should he believe that too.
"I almost expect the Lt to come marching up the road, bitching about how many aliens he had to kill by himself," said Weber.
"He killed a lot," Renard sighed. "A lot more than we did, if he can be believed."
"He can," said the older man.
A gloved hand went up to run his fingers through his long hair, but it was tucked in the helmet and the reflective visor was down. Second nature, he snorted and still ran the glove over the thick dome topping his head.
"Are you going to the meeting?"
Weber sighed.
"We will," he made the decision for both of them. Not out of superiority or rank, but out of comfort. He knew Renard would follow his lead, even though the man could think for himself. They had been working together that long.
"It won't work."
"I know," said Weber. "We heard the arguments at home, before. This one wanted to unite to fight, and that one thought it would be a good idea to band together. The Licks showed them though."
"What happened to us?" Renard asked, but Weber could tell it was a rhetorical question. "We were soldiers once."
"And young," Weber reminded him.
He had been young on Mars, and it wasn't very long ago, though time had been difficult to track since the aliens arrived on Earth. Less than ten years, he was sure, but each year of fighting felt like forever, and the wounds of battle and crashing made him feel old.
At least until he put on the suit.
Now he wasn't sure what he felt like.
"Up there," he nodded. "We had to fight to stay alive. Here, we're not alive, but we don't have to fight. We could just hide and let the race go extinct."
"We wouldn't," said Renard. "But we don't have to die to keep that from happening. You don't have to die. I don't."
"I'm not scared of death," Weber said.
Renard knew that, just as he knew Weber would say the same thing of him. But being scared wasn't the problem. It was what happened when they lived.
"The men are the same types who sent us up there."
Weber didn't remind him that the aliens killed all the politicians in the first and second wave of the invasion.
"I heard a joke before," he said instead. "What do you call a million lawyers drowning in the ocean?"
Renard snorted.
"A good start," they said in unison.
"They killed a million politicians," Renard said a moment later. "A million more cropped up in their place. That's what they're arguing about. Who to send to fight."
"We'll fight," said Weber.
"Because we must."
Weber shrugged.
"We tried to hide in an underground hall, but the fight came to us. It brought us the Lt and these Suits."
He reached over and rapped his knuckles against Renard's shoulders in a shave and a haircut tempo.
"Plus," Weber continued. "Tell me you don't feel brand new."
Renard nodded.
"There is that."
"There," Weber pointed to Mars. "We didn't have a choice. Here, we do."
"Is that why I found you out here? You made a choice."
Weber crossed his arms and cradled his blaster in his arms.
"I'm still making it," he said.
Renard stood with him in the growing darkness as they stared up at the blinking stars and pondered fate.
CHAPTER 3
"Tell us the last thing you remember?" said Dawes.
"Fuck that, tell me what ship? Am I dreaming? Is this a dream?"
He reached for Annie's breast pressed against the fabric of her frayed jumpsuit. She slapped his hand away.
"I'll punch your ass again," she warned.
"First base comes after a kiss back home," he said. He slid his stinging hand to his throbbing jaw and rubbed. "Alright, enlighten me to the situation. Last thing I remember is blowing up the Lick ship. Then I wake up here."
"That was you?" Captain asked.
"I flew a shuttle into one of the big motherfuckers. It made a boom. I remember the boom."
"Sound doesn't travel in space," said Annie.
"Metaphorically speaking," Lt answered. "Big fucking Ka-boom. Fire and shit everywhere."
"Which ship were you on?" Captain glanced at Annie. "We didn't get reports of any vessels lost."
"Star craft I flew up from earth," said Lt.
He took one hand off the wall and found his balance. Now that he wasn't concentrating so hard on staying upright, he could feel a dull vibration in the hull. Goosebumps danced across his bare skin.
"You're from earth?" Annie scoffed.
"The aliens don't let ships leave atmosphere," said Captain. "We haven't been able to land or resupply since the invasion."
"Ya'll think I'm lying? I just blew up the alien HMFIC ship. You saw it."
"But from earth?" Captain glanced at the discarded suit on the deck. "Is that why you're in a Gen one? We had word that tech was lost back home."
"It is," said Lt. "Now Sherlock, you've grilled me enough. How bout giving me some fucking answers and we'll quid pro quo this shit."
"We have a mechanic that is going to fucking love you," said Annie.
"You got a Scottie on this ship?
“What’s a Scottie?”
“TV thing,” said Lt.
“We’ve been in space a long time,” said the Captain.
“Yeah, we’ll I’ve been up here a couple of hours and I fucking hate it. Think you can give me a lift back home? I wasn’t cut out to be an astronaut.”
“Days,” said Annie.
“What?”
“You were in space for days,” she clarified. “We were scavenging supplies and picked you up.”
“What are the odds of that happening?” Lt said in wonder.
“Lower than you might think,” Captain answered. “Your suit started talking to our ship.”
Lt grinned at the armor on the floor.
“It did that to get me up here too.”
“In the ship you destroyed?” Annie scoffed. “Do you know how hard space ships are to come by?”
“I get that they’re rare,” said Lt. “Hell, I’ve only seen the one on earth until now. Then how many you got left fighting up here.”
“Twelve,” said Captain. “In addition to the Bezos.”
“Thirteen space ships,” Lt said, and he couldn’t keep the wonder from his voice. “We’re living in the dark ages down on earth and you guys are like a technologically advanced race up here.”
“Say that after you’ve drank recycled piss for a couple of years,” said Annie.
“Look Warbucks, I don’t want to know about your sick sex lives up here. All I want is for you nice people to give me a ride home.”
“Warbucks?” her eyebrows popped up in surprise and confusion. “The name’s Annie.”
Lt waved her off with one hand.
“Little orphan Annie,” he said. “Poor little rich girl. Annie Warbucks. Warbucks.”
“You could just call me Annie,” she said as she stared at him.
“Now where would the fun be in that?” he asked.
“It is my name.”
“Name ain’t got nothing to do with it Warbucks.”
“Then what does it have to do with?”
“If you get shot all to hell up here, and I know your name, people are going to ask me to say a few kind words or some shit like that. This way, I don’t know your name, I don’t got to say nothing.”
Her eyebrows stayed raised.
“But you won’t let people call you Billy the Kid?”
“Name’s William,” he said. “But you can call me L.T. Both capitalized. Like you mean it.”
“I can call you by rank and you get to refer to me as some cartoon character?”
Lt shrugged.
“Could have been worse. I got an Annie Oakley down in my squad. You could have been Minnie. Daisy or Jenna Jameson.”
“The last one’s not a cartoon,” Annie scoffed.
“Never met the woman in real life so she might as well be a cartoon.”
“As entertaining as this is,” Dawes interrupted. “And believe me, nothing worse than recycled piss except watching the same program or reading the same books for years. So this is entertaining. But before we go too much further, I’ve called a Council meeting. And you can call me Captain.”
“Wouldn’t consider anything else, Ahab.”
“Try on another,” Dawes grinned.
“Crunch, Caveman, Captain Planet,” Lt stared at the man with unblinking eyes.
“You always show this much respect to superior officers?” Dawes stared back.
“This much and more,” said Lt. “What’s the Council going to do?”
“Decide what to do with you,” Dawes answered.