Bounty Hunter 2: Redemption
Page 6
“Fucking run!”
The soldier had his feet moving before he was fully upright, awkwardly running with his head still close to the ground. The gate was closing and he still had most of the base to cover. Jack knew, suddenly, that he wasn’t going to make it. He hoped that the man couldn’t see the grimace on his face in the last moments that the gate remained open. The soldier beat on the outside of the gate, slamming his fists into it like the aliens before him. The sound of his screams was cut off by a sloshing sound as he was gutted from behind, and his intestines and blood splattered noisily on the inner wall.
“Fuck. Fuck!”
Jack heard the roaring sound of engines above his head that signaled the air support had finally arrived. It was supposed to make him feel better but it didn’t. Armed transports in the sky didn’t mean that they would succeed.
“The inner wall is closed.” The voice came through to all of the marine’s ears. “Everyone inside is to reinforce the tower. It won’t be long now.”
As the final soldier to pass through the gate, Jack was the last one to climb one of the ladders to the top of the wall. Although this barrier was significantly smaller the the first one, they had suffered so many casualties that everyone could still find a place to hunker down and fire at the enemy. He took his spot and looked down into the base.
In the short time that passed since he saw the gate close the base had been entirely deformed. The ground was alive and writhing, spitting and hissing. Jack found it hard to find anything to focus on or to even pick out the heads of targets to fire at. There was fire and smoke along the outside walls, green and red was smeared over every surface. Some aliens were feeding, some were burrowing, and others further back looked to be fighting over the bodies of the fallen soldiers. He couldn’t see over walls but even gaps in the fortification showed the same squirming green. The Dross were without end.
He fired into the base near thoughtlessly, finding it impossible to aim at anything important but equally impossible to miss. Above them the tower continued its hammering of the ground. This close to the structure Jack felt like the earth inexplicably rumbled and growled in response to each impact. It rattled the wall and everyone on it.
The gunships floated comfortably out of range of the Dross and their rail guns never seemed to stop firing. Empty bullet casings streamed down from the ships like waterfalls, mingling with the aliens and lost from sight forever. Jack bitterly wondered where they had been when he and Scott had been sent out to check on the proximity pounders.
The rest of the soldiers must have been having similar thoughts and the defensive line descended into chaos. Grenades were thrown without warning, temporarily blinding some and ruining the shots of others. The transmission receiver in Jack’s helmet was silent, as dead as they all thought they’d be soon.
Enough bodies had piled up at the bottom of the wall that the Dross were getting close to the top. Each upwards leap brought their claws and fangs a little closer. They could stop firing and risk one making the jump and killing them, or continue firing and feed into the pile of bodies that made it easier for them to jump. It was during Jack’s bleakest reflection on this fact that the earth below the pounder gave way.
The tunnel opened and the pounder annihilated the first group of Dross that clawed their way out. Their bodies popped like grapes and were compacted so finely that a green mist hung in the air around the tunnel when the cylinder continued its ascent. The aliens must have sensed the new opening and began to screech their victory as they burrowed down.
The marines answered by cheering in unison.
“The central tower has been reached. Good work. Everyone proceed up the tower for evacuation.”
Jack followed the other soldiers around the tower, eager to meet the air transports that had stopped firing and were steadying themselves close to the middle of the tower. Some of the Dross were retreating outside of the base and into the tunnels to join where they had breached under the tower. Aliens were already spilling out of the hole under the pounder faster than it could crush them into paste.
As one of the last in line Jack found himself often turning around to fend off one of the faster aliens. A few shots were enough to knock them off balance so they fell off the barricade from the bottom of the tower. If he was lucky they would fall directly into the tunnel and slow down those still trying to climb out.
The pounder had stopped by the time it was Jack’s turn to board the transport. He was the last on and after the doors closed behind him he turned around to face the tower. Through the window he saw the bottom of the cylinder open up, split it half, and slowly retract back. He knew the commander had activated the final stage of the tower once the Dross had broken through the purposefully funnelled flaw in the foundation of the wall.
With the cylinder’s base fully opened, Jack saw a fleeting glimpse of the warhead hidden within before the tower thrust its payload down for the final time. The tunnel would be a major one, connected to the entire network in this area because of all of the Dross flocking to it once it had been opened. The tower struck the ground and instead of sending shock waves of sound and vibration it propelled the warhead into the tunnel, cutting through any aliens in its path as it hurtled down into the heart of the network.
The transport and Jack were high in the air when the explosion triggered. He never witnessed the detonation but from the height he was at he saw its cascading effect. He saw smoke and clouds erupt from what must have been hundreds of tunnels on the surface. It was almost as if the blast was an echo underground, spreading from the central point and collapsing more of the network as it reached further out.
In orbit Jack saw how insignificant the patch of land they had cleared looked in comparison to the entire world, but at that moment it didn’t matter. The soldiers around him were proud. Tired but alive, victorious, and cheering. The mission had proven that the Dross could be beaten and that the war could be turned against them.
It was only a matter of time before they could free Earth.
The following is the first scene from the next in the Bounty Hunter series: Vampire.
Lindsey Keeping had no idea that she was dating an alien. If she had known, it would have bothered her. She had lived too sheltered a life to be friendly with aliens. At best she tolerated them. At worst she stared, disgusted, when what she thought were their backs were turned. She was young, and the prejudices learned in her youth had not yet been worn out of her.
She grew up on a small planet in a large, predominately human system. She didn’t see her first alien until she was twenty years old and left her planet for work. She had dreams of working on a trade ship, hopefully owning one herself some day, and had moved to a space station thinking it would increase her chances. When she turned twenty-two she was still working at a diner on the station. She hadn’t set foot on another ship since she arrived.
The station was the largest in the system and served as a central trade hub for all of its planets. It was in the center of the system, in a close orbit with its star. A variety of species came into the diner for food and, to Lindsey’s relief, most used the automated services instead of bothering her in poorly translated English. Her alien was different. Her alien spoke perfect English. Her alien looked human, just like her. Her alien never ate anything when he visited the diner. What her alien ate wasn’t found on the menu.
The man was charming. He would sit at the diner’s counter for hours and talk to her when she wasn’t serving someone. He never ordered food, only water. Always water. He always had a drink. Sometimes, when business was slow, she would lean over the counter and kiss him. He would hold her hands and his skin would be so warm to her touch. The heat would linger in her fingers when she moved away, tingling her skin as if she had been inflicted with a pleasurable burn.
He would walk her home after her shift. It would usually be late in the station’s day but she would walk slower than usual to have more time with him. The star she had grown up so far away fr
om looked, to her, impossibly close above them, bombarding light against the station’s windows that dimmed further throughout its night cycle. It was their equivalent of a sun set and they would watch it together.
Lindsey invited the man into her apartment each night that he escorted her. Most times he would accept. They would fuck, fall asleep, and he would be gone before she woke up. She never bothered him by asking about his disappearances, too blissfully pleased with their nights together. It was like he was in tune with the responses of her body, always knowing exactly what she wanted while they were in bed. She had only known him for a few weeks and already she had forgotten about her dream of living on a star ship. He was her life now.
The night that she was invited to his apartment was exciting for her. She had never seen it. She hadn’t even known where he lived until he took her there. She was giddy as he linked arms with her and led her inside. For her, it was like their relationship was growing. For him, it was something different.
The apartment was warm. It was the first thing she noticed. As excited as she was, she still thought it was odd. The man’s skin was always so warm that she expected his home to be cooler than most. The air was different too: humid, heavy with moisture like the never ending glasses of water he drank. He left the living room for a moment and she felt uncomfortable. Something wasn’t right and she felt vulnerable and exposed.
When he returned he left the bedroom door open behind him. He smiled and she felt all her doubts melt away into silly little nervous thoughts. He walked over to her and she saw something in the bedroom behind him. Something that wasn’t right but he was kissing her before she could recognize it. She was always lost in his kisses. His mouth always felt perfect: his lips were never dry and his stubble never pricked her skin.
He pulled back from her and she opened her eyes. She wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were resting on the doorway. The air was distorted with the heat in the room. It was why the apartment was so hot, she realized. The walls looked strange, like they were covered in a foreign substance. There was no furniture either, only odd layers of shapes. She felt her chest tighten as she looked at them. They looked like egg sacs.
She felt something drip onto her shoulder and she snapped her eyes back to the man. His lower jaw was gone, dribbling down his chest and onto her as if it had melted away. She screamed and recoiled from him but his arms were strong around her, still cradling her from when they kissed. His eyes were all white and leaking, pouring water down his face like it was coming out of his mouth. His skin, his perfect warm skin, was pale and bloated like a corpse.
She screamed louder as his teeth began to change. They extended and swelled up, hissing when the water touched them and was boiled away. The fangs grew as he leaned down into her neck. There was a jolt of pain as they penetrated her throat. It was the last thing she ever felt.
Also by Joseph Anderson:
andersonjph@gmail.com
Science Fiction
Interstellar Soldiers
Marines Against the Swarm
The Robot Impersonator
Bounty Hunter Series
The Bounty Hunter Series One, Complete
Revenge
Redemption
Vampire
Into The Swarm
Reckoning
Fantasy
The Wizard and the Dragon
Monster Slayer Series
Origins
Vampire Season
The Immortal Demon
Werewolf
Zombies