by Mark Lingane
“There’s no way I’m letting you get your hands on him.”
“I won’t force the issue with you now, but I will ask him if he’ll help us with the war effort. If he demonstrates to people that we can dismantle the alien attack without horrific loss of life, Hubbard will have to back down.”
Hanson stared at the man. He was military, and to date no one in the military had been trustworthy; they were only working toward their own agenda. She certainly didn’t trust Norton’s motives, but she and Chambers had to escape, and he was their only chance.
“So, what have you got?” she said.
He smiled at her in a fatherly way and reached into his pocket. “In their haste to get me down here, they didn’t search me properly.” He removed a plastic wallet and withdrew his security pass.
“You’re going to overpower them with this terrifying, small piece of plastic? Has it got amazingly sharp edges or something? Ow,” she said, as she touched the edge. Blood flowed from her fingertip. She sucked her finger.
“It’s an anonymous pass that will get you through any military point. Swipe it, present it, it will get you anywhere. It’s only available to the highest command. They don’t know that I—we—have it, and it’ll get us a long way before they discover that. And yes, it has a sharpened, reinforced metal edge that can be useful.”
Norton stood up and shook the stiffness out of his leg. “If we can get Cally, there’s an exit at the base of the complex that leads to the outside, far enough away from here that we can get to safety. Then we’ll regroup and think of a strategy to turn this around.”
“When were you planning on using the card?” Hanson asked. “You couldn’t have known that we were going to turn up.”
“Getting out of here was always going to be more than a one-person job. With a man like Hubbard running around, I knew someone was going to turn up.”
“Say by some freak chance we manage to get out of here, then what?” Chambers said. “We’ve got no chance outside. We’re pretty much public enemy number one.”
“I’m getting word that there’s a resistance being established to the north by soldiers who refuse to listen to Hubbard,” Norton said. “If we can get there, we’ll be safe.”
Norton led them out of the cell, which led directly into a large, circular cavern full of military equipment. Hand weapons lined the walls and heavy machinery was packed into the center.
The cell door closed quietly behind them.
“Why was there a lock on the inside of the door?” Chambers asked Norton.
“Sometimes you need a place to hide as well as store prisoners.” Norton turned to Hanson. “We need to check the other cells. Can you run fast?”
She nodded. He handed her the security card and she raced around the wall, flicking the card over the reader beside each cell door. She looked inside as she went; they were all empty. She returned to the men and offered the card back to Norton.
He held up his hand. “You keep it. Quick, guard coming,” Norton hissed.
They hid behind an unused tank and watched the guard stride by. His uniform was untucked and unironed. A cigarette hung out of his ugly, unshaven face.
“He’s a bit scruffy,” Hanson whispered.
“Hubbard hasn’t been picky about the people he’s enlisted. He’s after quantity.”
They backed away from the soldier as he continued around the curve of the wall.
Chambers bumped into a sharp piece of electronic equipment stuck onto the side of a towering cylinder. “What the hell is this?” he said, running his hand over the curved metal surface.
“It’s a bomb,” Norton replied.
Chambers quickly withdrew his hand and looked up. “But it’s huge.”
“Yes. It’s the biggest on the planet.”
“Why’s it here?”
“Nuclear option. We lose. You lose. Otherwise known as mutual assured destruction to a dinosaur like myself. We’re on a fault line, discovered when they were fracking the area,” Norton said.
“All these cells are empty,” Hanson said. “So where’s Cally?”
“He must be up on a higher level.”
They carefully made their way around the vehicles, keeping out of sight of the patrolling guard. They each grabbed a machine gun on the way. Hanson swiped the security card at the exit reader and the door clicked open, revealing a set of stairs.
65
“NO ONE CAN save you now. Not those brainboxes. No one.”
Cally shied away from the man but maintained eye contact. “I’m not the one who needs to be saved.”
The testing room was barely furnished, containing only the captured spacecraft and a handful of ancient experimental pieces of equipment locked away in glass cabinets. The gray walls gave no hint of the room’s location. There were no windows, just a steel door, now securely locked. Cally was surprised to see that the room had power.
“Don’t give me your lip.” Hubbard smashed the back of his hand across the boy’s face.
Cally frantically raised his hands, but he was too slow. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth.
Hubbard waved his pistol recklessly. “Tell me how you took down the helicopter.”
“I don’t know. Your soldier shot at me.”
“And so will I if you don’t tell me.”
“Even if I could do it at will, I wouldn’t do it for you. I’d rather be shot by you.”
“You’d rather let an alien race exterminate us than defend us. You’re the worst kind of traitor. You’ll get what you wished for.” He pulled back the hammer on the pistol and aimed it at Cally.
“Hubbard, stand down.”
Hubbard wheeled around. “How did you get out?”
“You’ve never had the best of men,” Norton replied.
“You’ve never been the best commander.”
“This isn’t the time to hide behind petty accusations.”
“You’ve hidden behind protocol and procedures while people have died,” Hubbard said. “You’ve sat there in your position of power and done nothing, just basked in the adulation of your friends.” His eye twitched.
Norton aimed his automatic weapon at Hubbard. Chambers did the same. Hanson locked the door. Hubbard grabbed Cally and pulled the boy in front of him. He cocked his pistol and pointed it at Cally’s head.
“You’re being irresponsible, Hubbard,” Norton said. “I can see in your eyes that you’re not coping with the pressure. You can’t defeat an alien enemy by dividing our forces. Now is the time we should all be united.”
“For all those years you denied me a position or a promotion,” Hubbard said, “just like Hanson did. And now, when there’s nothing but the dregs of civilization left you ask for help. I could’ve been someone, like you, but you always—”
Hanson’s head snapped up. “Who do you mean?”
“Not now, Tracy. Enough, General.”
“It’s not enough,” Hubbard said. “I get to say when it’s enough. Where was my share? Where was my chance at the top?”
“Let the boy go and we can discuss it,” Norton intoned calmly.
“No. You lie. You always lie.”
“Let the boy go.”
“Never.”
Norton placed his machine gun on the ground. He signaled for Chambers and Hanson to do the same. He stepped toward the general with his hands raised.
“Stay back or I’ll shoot the boy,” Hubbard said.
“Leave the child alone. We can take care of him, and you.”
Hubbard wheeled the boy around to face him. His voice took on a manic tone. “Don’t trust them,” he said to Cally. “They promise, but they lie. They’ll get you to do things you’ll regret for the rest of your life. You’re nothing but a pawn, a plaything to them.”
Norton charged at Hubbard, catching him by surprise. They clashed, wrestling together with Hubbard’s pistol between them. Hanson dashed up and wrapped her arms around Cally. Hubbard fired. The bullet erupted through Norton, s
praying blood over everyone.
The bullet screamed past Cally’s ear, narrowly missing him. He heard the air ripping, then the rush as the force hit. Power exploded outward. He cried out as pain racked his body and he collapsed to the ground. Electricity crawled over the room, blowing out the glass cabinets and electrical fittings. The lights went out.
The silver craft buzzed, then lifted off the ground.
Hanson cried out. Hubbard spun around, trying to target her in the glow from the spacecraft, firing randomly into the shadows. The spacecraft’s door swung open. Hanson and Chambers looked at each other. Another bullet zinged past them.
Chambers grabbed Cally and the three dashed toward the spacecraft. They squeezed into the cramped quarters. The door closed behind them and the ping of Hubbard’s shots striking the outside of the craft echoed in the small cabin. They took their seats in front of the control display, alive with bizarre shapes and colors. One prominent line on the left flashed, then diminished and turned red.
Hanson scanned the dash, but nothing made sense. In the heart of the dash was a large green circle. She pressed it.
The moment of silence was complete and all encompassing. It sucked in all sound in an intake that hurt the ears. The crafted vibrated and the silence was replaced by an immense, booming flash. Hanson felt her body drift; intense nausea flooded over her in a moment that lasted an age. The wall of the testing room exploded. The craft hurtled out through the demolished brickwork, spiraling up into the air, rocketing at blistering speed, ripping the air apart as it raced upward.
The momentum died and gravity moved in, clasping its equations around them. As the craft reached the apex of its arc, the moment of weightlessness lifted them from their seats and smashed them into the roof. The craft fell back to Earth, crashing onto the turf, fountaining grass and concrete as it ground to a halt.
The hatch opened and the three scrambled free of the hissing and sparking spacecraft. Chambers lifted Cally over his shoulder, then grabbed Hanson and pulled her free.
They looked toward a small village on the far side of the park. They had been taken out into the countryside. It was afternoon, with gray and miserable clouds overhead. The air crackled, full of static electricity. To the north, the dark clouds of a heavy electrical storm were drifting in.
“Anyone got any ideas where to hide?” Hanson said, coughing through the clouds of dust and debris.
“Sir, he’s gone. This is a disaster,” Captain Williams said.
“How did you let them get out?” Hubbard said. “This is incompetence of the highest order. That is the disaster.”
“We’re limited by the quality of men available to the cause,” Williams hissed.
“Maybe they can show their worth and get them back.”
“How? It will be impossible.”
Hubbard tapped his foot as he looked thoughtfully around the room. “Difficult for us, yes, but not for the general population. Get a message out that he’s an alien and highly dangerous. Anyone seen with him will be shot as a traitor. Anyone who sees him must report his location to us immediately.”
“Sir, but to call him an alien … Will the people buy it?”
“What are they going to do, look it up on the Internet? They’ll be too scared to believe anyone but us. We’re the authority. What’s more terrifying than an enemy that looks exactly like us?”
Hubbard sat behind the desk, tapping his fingertips together. The pistol lay to his side next to his watch. He stared at them both. “Also, get an urgent message out on the air. We’ll need some assistance. Some of our friends from London have moved into the area.”
66
THERE WAS A shout from behind them. Chambers wheeled around. A gunshot cracked across the field and Chambers clutched at his shoulder. He dropped to his knees.
“Chambers, get up,” Hanson said. “This is no time to be messing around.” She lifted the unconscious boy from Chambers’ shoulder onto her own.
He grimaced as he stood upright.
Hanson ran as fast as she could away from the group of men who were slowly approaching, and gaining. Cally’s weight bore down on her. He began to slip off her shoulder, but the houses were within range.
The men continued to close in. There was another shot.
She glanced behind her; they were close enough for her to make out their faces. They wore mock military uniforms. Survivalists. And they began to run.
Hanson urged Chambers on.
A shot rang out. And another.
They reached the edge of the park. Hanson’s pace quickened as they entered the village. More shouts, now urgent.
A silver craft came screaming out of the sky and touched down in the center of the park. The EM wave exploded, spewing the grass upward. The invisible wave rolled outward, boiling the men’s blood and exploding their bodies. One found safety behind a tree, which took the full force of the impact. It erupted into flames, charring in an instant. The man screamed in pain and terror, but survived. Then the craft was gone.
Hanson felt the remains of the wave flood over her, the intense heat scything through her. She staggered toward one of the houses, kicked open the door, and collapsed inside. She lowered Cally onto a sofa and collapsed on the floor next to him.
Chambers followed, supporting himself against the wall. He winced as he fell into an easy chair. “I’m not sure how long we’ve got,” he wheezed.
“It’s too dangerous for them to chase us in the daylight, so we probably have until nightfall,” Hanson said. She got up and moved over to Chambers. She unbuttoned his shirt and eased it over his shoulder.
“I got shot. After all those years of gangs and bombs, I got shot.”
“Stop complaining. It’s only minor,” she replied.
“There’s no such thing as a minor gunshot wound.”
Hanson got up and disappeared into the rear of the house. She returned a minute later with a small first-aid kit and two blankets, and knelt down beside Chambers. But the angle was awkward, so she sat in his lap to get a better view. She soaked a cotton ball with alcohol and slowly caressed it over his injury. She strapped down a bandage over his wound.
“Stop being a baby,” she said. “I thought you were a fearless bomb-disposal guy. You’ve got a few muscle tears, but you’ve hardly lost any blood. You shouldn’t even have fallen over.”
“I got shot. That’s what you do.” He grimaced as he pulled his shirt back on.
“Only in the movies. I bet Will Smith doesn’t fall over. You’ll live.” She patted him on the leg. “I bet a sister wouldn’t have done that for you.”
She ran her hand over his face, looking into his eyes. Seeing him injured affected her, making her want to hold him close. In a world where in the recent past she had flown in an alien spacecraft, survived an alien invasion, seen flying cars, met a boy who could perceive the future, all she wanted to think about was Chambers. In every single moment.
Cally stirred on the sofa. It snapped her out of her fantasy and she sat down next to the young boy, checking his temperature.
“We have to work out where we’re going to go,” Chambers said.
“Norton said there was a rebel outpost to the north.”
“Great. We’ve got to go to Yavin.”
“Shame about the field marshal. Hubbard was really on the edge,” Hanson said.
“What did he mean about you blocking him from promotion?”
“I think he meant my father. I vaguely remember my father saying there were some people who should never take on the duty. Although I’m not sure if by ‘the duty’ he meant the responsibility of command or something else.”
“Hubbard’s not going to let us get away.”
“No, he’ll get word out and I don’t know what he’ll say. That group, and anyone else watching, saw us get out of a spaceship. They fired at us. They saw an alien ship sort of defend us. I hope they didn’t get the wrong idea.”
“If Hubbard tells the world plus dog we’re aliens,” C
hambers sighed, “people have no way of finding out the truth. They’ll believe what they’re told.”
“How far do we have to go before we’re safe?”
“One hundred light-years.” He yawned as shock took its toll on him and he drifted off into sleep. He murmured quietly as he rolled onto his good shoulder.
Hanson smiled and placed a blanket over him. Then she went into the small kitchen and dug out a bottle of cheap scotch. She cracked the lid and drank. It was horrible, but it was free and just what she needed. She sat in the small kitchen at the small table and looked out into the small garden. She felt contained, secure.
“Here’s to you, Field Marshal.”
She took another swig from the bottle. It burned her throat. Sometimes free wasn’t worth it. Her thoughts went back to Chambers. His voice floated into the kitchen, incoherent syllables drifting on a soothing melody. He was mesmerizing, intoxicating.
A shadow passed by the doorway.
She wanted to hold Chambers for eternity, to stare into that face and love every inch of it. And here they were, the three of them, a family, in a small home in the countryside. It was everything she couldn’t have in the old world, everything that she wanted. She finally felt at rest for the first time. They were safe and it was quiet.
Cally was staring at her.
She jumped. “You’re awake.”
“There’s something you need to know. In the EM release, I saw an image. Reggie got shot again.”
“Oh, my God. When?”
“I don’t know, but soon.”
“No. It won’t happen. Over my dead body.”
“You need to tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“Don’t let it end without him knowing.”
It was too late to work out riddles. “Try to get some sleep. It’ll be dark in a few hours, and we’ll need to make fast tracks.”
“Will we be safe?”
She twisted the lid back onto the bottle and smiled. “I’ll keep watch.”
67
A MIDDLE-AGED man wearing worn and faded military clothing entered Hubbard’s office in the concrete bunker. Noise echoed down from the first floor, where the walls were being repaired after the escape. His gray hair had been shaved short. He smiled, exposing brown and broken teeth.