by Chris Lowry
"I was talking to the Lick, Lutz."
"Corporeal Lutz licks nuts," jeered another as he stripped one of the dead alien body of its armaments and gear.
"Alright now keep quiet," the Captain grumbled. "Let's get on with it Babe. I ain't got all day. You other boys, get me my due."
Babe didn't bother to warm up as Waldo, Lutz and the rest hacked off the heads of the dead aliens.
He lifted the bat of his shoulder and swung for the fences into the shoulder of the kneeling alien.
The thick alligator like skin cracked under the impact and sent the alien sprawling. It mewled.
"God damn Babe, I ain't ever heard 'em make a sound like that."
"Me either," said the Sgt.
He lined up for the next shot and cracked the bat across a thigh. Skin split spilling gore into the mud and gained another mewling sound.
"There he goes again. Babe, check on that. That don't sound normal."
Babe used the tip of the bat to roll the Lick over onto its back.
“I'll be damned.”
“What is it?”
“He's got a communicator.”
The Lt lifted himself off the log and shrugged into his ruck sack.
“Alright boys, he's calling in reinforcements. We need to get a move on.”
The rest of the squad stopped what they were doing and hitched packs onto their backs, gathered the procured weapons and disappeared into the trees.
“You want to leave this one?”
The Lt shuffled down the tiny hill and stood over the injured lick.
What passed for blood in them leaked out of the shattered shoulder and its leg jutted out at an odd angle.
It grumbled low in its throat as it glared up at him.
“Get gone Babe,” he said.
Babe jogged into the woods after his squad.
“I probably should leave you,” the Captain said.
He slid a .45 out of a holster and aimed it at the unbroken leg. He pulled the trigger and the joint exploded.
The Lick howled, this time it's wail the more familiar scream they were used to.
He shifted to the elbow joint and disintegrated it with a bullet.
The Lick tried to roll away, flinching but the Captain blasted the other arm.
The echo of the bullet had barely died down when he heard the roar of a hovercraft soaring over the treetops.
He spit on the crippled alien and ran under the trees as the craft hove into view and drifted down into the clearing.
Lt walked past the other tied up aliens, popping each in the back of the skull with a single bullet.
He felt kind of pissed he didn’t have time to take their heads, but leaving one alive felt worse.
The change in tactics was a strategy.
One left alive to tell the others and spread the stories. More heads to roll, more nightmares to assuage.
Lt slipped between the trees and was lost in the shadows before the first Lick boot hit the muck of the ambush scene.
He wanted them to come searching and held back a hundred yards in the woods just in case they did.
But they just stood on the edge of the trees and peered into the forest, tongues flickering in what he had learned meant fear.
CHAPTER TEN
“We ain't supposed to be meeting like this,” the Lt complained.
“What? I couldn't bring you something hot to eat,” smiled the Colonel as they shook hands.
“I got plenty hot to eat out here, Sir. Lutz is a damn fine squirrel hunter.”
“All I brought was MREs.”
“You got any of the macaroni beef?” Babe shifted out of his pack and set it on the ground as a seat.
The Colonel pointed to a crate.
“Help yourself to what's in there,” he said as he pulled the Bonney further away from his men.
“You didn’t come all the way out here just to feed me and debrief me, did you?”
“I wish it were that simple. We got some intelligence today that I don't like.”
“What else is new. We winning or we losing?”
“Depends on where you are in the country, maybe the world.”
“That figures.”
“I heard there was infighting in the Middle East again. Damn Arabs got in an uproar about something and tried to push Israel into the ocean again. Idiot's can't focus on the alien invasion because their history is too long.”
“I reckon they got to clean house when we stopped buying oil from them.”
“More than that. But that's not our problem right now. Russia is giving them hell and kicking Lick ass all over Siberia. Tough fucking bastards. And the Chinese are holding their own.”
“Then what's the intel?”
“We don't have an organized resistance over here. We've got pockets of rebellion but there's no structure to it. You guys have been damn effective in playing a guerilla war, but we need to take it to the next step.”
“My boys are pretty good at one thing Colonel. Killing aliens. I don't know that I would want to ask them to do much else.”
“Agreed,” said the older man. “But if I could get them to do it in an organized military fashion that would help.”
“Alright then, what did you have in mind.”
The Colonel wiped his face with one hand as he studied the Lt.
“The Licks are running a supply train to a base to the North.”
“What kind of supplies?”
“Human supplies.”
“They’re feeding the damn sympathizers,” Bonney growled. “Turncoat bastards.”
“That’s what we figure,” said the Colonel. “You know who those supplies would help better?”
Lt grinned.
“I ain’t never done a train robbery before.”
“I’m not going to lie to you Bonney, it won’t be easy.”
“Hell Colonel, we had a saying when I was growing up. If it was easy, everybody’d be doing it.”
The Colonel grinned at him.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
Bonney looked over his shoulder. His squad of eight were huddled around a smokeless fire, heating up foil pouches on hot stones and trading them in silence.
“This here’s a good group,” he pitched his voice lower so only the Colonel could here. “But am I getting a couple more for a big op like this?”
The Colonel shook his head.
“I’ve got truck drivers ready to offload whatever you get. If we time it right, we might have half an hour before they get reinforcements in and shut us down.”
“Can we move a lot in half an hour?”
“Depends on how much you destroy,” the Colonel snuffed. “How well guarded, how long it takes to break in.”
“That’s a whole Hell of a lot of how’s Colonel,” Bonney squinted at the full bird in front of him. The man still wore the eagle on his collar.
“You figuring on me coming up with a how to rob the train?”
The Colonel nodded.
“We need those supplies,” he answered.
Bonney nodded.
“What’s my timeline?”
The Colonel reached into his jacket and handed him a folded piece of paper.
“This is all we know from recon last,” he said.
“How old?”
He got a shrug in answer, which made Bonney squint even harder.
“Might do me some good to get fresh eyes on it.”
“It might.”
“You at least got a direction we can start?”
The Colonel tapped a thick finger on the folded paper.
“It’s about all we have confirmed.”
“You going to stay and join us?” the Lt asked as he turned back to his squad.
“Wish I could,” said the Colonel, but it sounded like a lie.
He didn’t wish to spend any more time out in the woods than was necessary to deliver the message.
Bonney would have bet he drew the short straw to do it too.
He snapped off a lazy salute that the Colonel returned, and watched as the man marched away through the woods.
A couple of snake eaters detached from the trees and Bonney gave a low whistle in admiration. Their camouflage was superb and he had not noticed them.
He turned back to the fire and strode over.
“Alright you got your bellies full,” he drawled. “Now listen up. They got tired of us playing Injun so they want us to play cowboy for a change.”
He knelt by the small flame and let it warm his hands as he reviewed the mission with his men.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“See that?
“I see it,” Lt grumbled and shimmied back from the hilltop overlooking a long rail line.
The hill was covered in pine trees and afforded an easy spot to spy on the railroad line until it bent around a corner and disappeared out of sight.
Lt slid down the other side of the ridge on his bottom and came to a stop with his men in a small huddle. Crockett slid to a crouch next to him.
“Alright you head takers and heart breakers, we got ourselves a situation on the other side of that hill. Seems like Lick done got wise to something going down, and they picked the exact same spot we planned to ambush to set up an ambush of their own.”
He bent over and used the tip of his finger to draw in the dirt.
“Line goes here round a bend, and that’s where the train’s coming from. Lick got two positions set up, here and here,” he marked with x’s. “I got a headcount of eight. That means we’re evenly matched.”
He squinted up at the men.
“Now any of you here think that Lick ain’t got more patrols in the woods?”
They shook their heads.
“If we’re compromised,” said Babe. “Maybe we ought to wait.”
Lt nodded.
“I think that’s a mighty fine idea Babe, and if it was up to me, I’d sure take your advice. Smartest thing I heard all day. But HQ ain’t smart, not always. I think it’s cause they’re hungry. See, HQ got to feed a couple thousand people. Ya’ll may not remember this, but back before the Lick came, we used to eat three times a day. Now folks inside is lucky to eat three times a week. We got it good out here. We eat every time Lutz kills a squirrel. Not so bad is it?”
“His stew sucks,” Babe punched him in the shoulder.
“I don’t think it’s so bad,” said Rook, his young face hidden under a layer of grime.
“Rook’s right,” said Lt. “It’s better than the alternative. And all those folks at HQ relying on us to do our job.”
“Our job is killing Licks, Lt,” said Babe.
“Well son, looks like we’re about to be open for business. I got eight Licks down there waiting on you to try and take their train. I got I don’t know how many more in the woods watching their buddie’s back. So, we ain’t got time to plan something new or go pick a new spot. Road crosses right there. That’s where we’re meeting the trucks.”
“I don’t like it,” Babe muttered.
“Don’t none of us like it,” said Lt. “Only fun part of this gig is after, when the killing’s done. But we’re out here to help some folks back home. Get them food. Medicine. Stuff they can use for the fight. Not all of them are alien killing bad asses like this fine group of men right here.”
He got a couple of grins for that.
It was enough.
“Now look here, we’re going to split up,” he bent over the dirt again and began to diagram the plan of attack.
CHAPTER
“We could use an extra squad,” Crockett whispered out of the side of his mouth.
“Wouldn’t make half as much noise as you,” Rook whispered back.
“You two shut up,” Lutz hissed.
He led Suds and the other two between the trees, eyes up and searching for any sign of Lick soldiers. They had encountered sentries in other skirmishes, and he had no reason to believe there wouldn’t be three or for more aliens in the forest, acting as a first line of defense for the two nests embedded above the railroad track.
“Funny though,” Crockett continued. “How did they know this was the spot? How did they know this was the day?”
Lutz shook his head.
“This was the day cause it’s the day they’re running the supply train,” he said. “But as for the spot? I don’t know.”
“Shenannigans,” Rook muttered.
“Shennanigans,” they whispered in agreement.
“Now shut up,” Lutz added.
They proceeded under the shadows of the trees, moving at a rushed hobble to minimize noise but still make the position the Lt wanted them in at the prescribed time.
Crockett froze and held up a fist. The rest stopped, guns up.
He turned around and caught Lutz’s wide eyes, held up three fingers and pointed at his own eyeball, then forward to the left.
Three Licks to their west.
Lutz motioned Rook and Suds to flank right as he dropped to his stomach and crawled up to join Crockett. The other soldier joined him and they used elbows and knees to slither through the carpet of pine needles and fallen leaves to the other side of them.
The Licks were fifty yards away.
“We need a distraction,” Crockett mouthed.
We need a knife, Lutz wished for the Lt’s giant Bowie knife. It was good for slitting alien throats and was silent. But if he got one, the other two would get him.
They had no choice, but to wait.
Lutz had a second to wonder if the Lt could pull off an attack on the other nest with his group when the shot rang out.
Rook crouched on his knee and aimed at the Licks. His first shot pounded through the chest of one, center mass. It cratered the flesh and sent the alien reeling.
He got a second shot off that went wide, his aim disrupted by the panicked Licks, who began returning fire.
Crockett slid up and shot one of the aliens in the back of the head. Lutz finished the other one.
“Up!” he yelled and leaped to run through the woods.
They screwed up the timetable, he knew. Rook’s shot would have put the two nests on alert. He could only hope that their firefight in the trees drew attention away from where the second group was sneaking up on them.
The trees around him erupted in small fires and smoke as laser blasts seared the air.
He ducked, dodged but kept running and heard Crockett on the side of him, cursing as he kept up.
Lutz hit the last line of trees and ducked behind a thick pine. The smoke filled the woods as small fires burned in the dry tinder. Resin popped and crackled above them.
Lutz leaned around the tree and took aim.
He watched as Babe, the Lt and the others decimated the eight Licks focused on his position. No screams, no yells, nothing to panic them. Just eight shots from four men.
Lt scrambled into one of the nests, nothing more than a scratched out hole in the earth, and checked the Lick equipment. The radio was busted from a stray bullet.
“They didn’t get off a warning,” Lt called out.
Lutz, Crockett, Suds and Rook hurried from their hiding spots and joined the rest of the squad.
“That was some damn fine thinking,” Lt grinned. “Them shots you fired took the focus all the way on you. I was wondering how we were going to get them to look the other way.”
Lutz pointed to Rook.
“Tell it to Rook,” he said. “His plan.”
“Damn good plan, Rook!”
The young man beamed under the compliment.
“Now boys, here comes the hard part,” Lt climbed out of the nest. “How we going to stop that train?”
CHAPTER
“Trains don’t stop fast,” Lt said. “We had ‘em running through the hills where I was growing up. Depends on their speed, but this ain’t a stick out your gun and freeze situation.”
“Block the track?” said Babe.