"There!" He stabbed his finger ahead and to left. "Ten o'clock. Two Swimmers, maybe more!"
Raina growled and angled to the right, her people aping her course. A salvo of blue shots burned through the growth, forcing them back to the left.
"Thirty seconds from now, we're trapped," Lowell said.
"Then we cut the snare." Raina grinned fiercely. "Cover me!"
She veered left, dodging from tree to tree. Lowell drew his pistol. The ambush lay fifty yards ahead. They closed to forty. Thirty. Raina sprinted ahead of the others, cutting through the foliage with the agility of a wolf. Lowell kept his eyes trained on the two Swimmers. At the first twitch of their tentacles, he opened fire.
The roar of the pistol and its echo boomed like a heartbeat. A steady pulse of shots. The aliens withdrew into cover, firing defensively. A bolt crackled past Lowell's side. The others squeezed off rounds; Red ran half-turned, shooting behind him at the pursuing Swimmers who lagged a hundred yards or more behind.
Light flashed on metal. Raina had drawn her swords. Lowell ejected his spent magazine into his hand, pocketed it, and slammed home a replacement. His pack was heavy with boxed bullets, but he only had two loaded magazines left.
Not the time to be concerned with ammo conservation. He fired into the trees, bark flying away from the rapping impacts. Raina whirled in from the side, swords flashing as they swung through pockets of sunlight and shade. Lowell shifted his fire away from her to focus on the second Swimmer, who was falling back for a better angle at Raina. As she battled the first alien, severed tentacles spun through the air, landing in the dirt like wet ropes.
Her victim fell without a sound. Raina jammed her longer blade into its chitinous skull. The death left her open to the fire of the survivor. She rolled behind a tree trunk.
The second alien circled for a shot. Bringing itself out of cover. Lowell placed his shots, aiming for its long torso and the lower half of its tapered head. Its body juddered. Yellow fluid spurted from the wounds. As it swayed back on its many limbs, its head snapped to the side. Behind Lowell, Randy crouched, bracing his rifle on his knee. The boy yanked back the bolt, sending hot brass spinning into the grass. The alien took two lurching steps sideways, then collapsed in a writhing heap.
"Run!" Raina arced her fluid-slick sword above her head. "As fast as you can!"
She darted downhill, following the descent of the draw. Mia rushed through the fallen aliens, scooping up their lasers. Lowell ran after Raina. The others appeared unharmed. For the moment, the adrenaline was keeping him going, but he was going to pay for his exertions soon. He got out a spent magazine and thumbed cartridges inside.
Randy glanced over his shoulder at the pursuing aliens. "They're falling back!"
"Won't last," Lowell said. "You kill one of their people, and the rest come for you like an Albanian blood feud. We need an exit strategy."
"This place is foreign to me," Raina said. "You worked for Anson. You must know these lands."
"Mostly a bunch of rich houses in the hills. You won't find any storm pipes to escape through this time."
She got a surprised look on her face, then smirked. "So you figured out how I eluded you when we were warring. Well, if there is no meat, then one must make use of the bones. We'll try to lose them here—and if we can't do that, we'll hide within the houses."
They continued on. He began to resent each step for the hurt it brought. Randy kept shooting him worried looks. Lowell kept his face composed. Five minutes later, they came to the edge of the trees. A subdivision waited below. With no sign of the Swimmers, they dashed across the clearing, putting a line of houses between themselves and the hills, and descended southwest through three blocks of spacious Spanish houses with rain water stagnating in the bottoms of the swimming pools.
"You look like death," Raina said to him. "We'll rest here. Treat your wounds. And move again under cover of night."
They entered one of the houses. It smelled dusty. A skeleton lay on the living room couch. They headed upstairs, posting two people on the stairwell and the others around the windows. Lowell sat against the wall beside a window with a northern exposure of the hills. Sweat drenched his body. His whole being burned.
Red thumped through the door, eyeing him. "Hey, buddy. You don't look too hot."
"Just needed to get off my feet."
"Yeah. You tended to those burns?"
"Randy helped me. But it could be better."
Red set his pack on the floor, unzipping it. "I got some stuff here. Should help."
Lowell eased away from the wall. Taking his shirt off was excruciating. As he lowered himself to his stomach, he blacked out.
* * *
Voices. Tones of concern and quiet anger. His eyes were too gummy and tired to open.
"He's hurt!" Randy was trying to whisper, but his voice kept pitching up. "He can't walk all the way to San Pedro. He can't ride a bike, either."
"I can't stay here," Raina said. "There are many other groups who've refused to leave their homes. Dozens and dozens of people. I must find them before the aliens do."
"We warned you about the Swimmers. We saved you."
"Perhaps I was saved so that I might save the others."
"So you're just going to leave him here?"
"I will leave one of my scouts with you. He will help protect you until Lowell is well enough to travel."
Randy's voice was shaking. "He's the one who killed Anson. Who made sure there would be no rebellion against you. And now you're going to throw him away?"
Finally, Lowell opened his eyes. It was night and the room was too dark to make out more than silhouettes. Raina was silent.
"I know a way we can get him out," Red said, arms folded. "The colony here kept three or four caches around in the event of emergencies like this. Including carts. Wagons. We can haul him in one of those."
Raina turned to him. "And if we run into the aliens on the way?"
"Looking back, Anson and his buddies never gave two shits about us Sworn. We were nothing but grunts. Tools to be used until we broke. The only dude who cared was Lowell. If I roll out there and get slashed down by Swimmer lasers, at least I'll die trying to save the one guy who always had my back."
"You would give your life for his?"
"Guess so."
"Then I will trust that it is worth risking my life for as well. We're going to the cache."
Clothes and shoes rustled as they left the room. A part of Lowell's mind said: Political ploy to cement the loyalty of Raina's new soldiers, the former Sworn. Or maybe Raina really was that crazy. The more he got to knew her, the more he thought she really believed the things she said.
He drifted off again. When he woke, it felt like it could have been an hour later. A silhouette stood over him. Randy.
"You're awake?" Randy said.
"To my regret."
"The others went for supplies. So we can get back to San Pedro."
Lowell nodded.
The boy shifted his feet. "Are you okay with that? Going to join the others?"
Lowell considered this. Other than Randy, the room was empty. Red had patched him up, bandaged him, but Lowell doubted anyone in San Pedro would be able to do much more for him. Whether he stayed or went, maybe he'd die and maybe he wouldn't. But if he stayed and died, Randy would be alone.
"We'll go back," Lowell said. "For now."
Randy grinned, the white of his teeth flashing in the darkness. A few minutes later, something rustled from the yard. Lowell tried to stand but couldn't. He drew his pistol. Randy did the same, moving to the side of the door. Downstairs, the front door creaked open. The low voices of Raina and her people carried up the stairs. Lowell and Randy put their guns away.
Raina walked into the room in perfect silence. "We found bikes."
"I told you." Randy stepped toward her. "He can't ride."
"One has a trailer. He can ride in it. I'm sending Mia with you."
"That will work," Lowell s
aid.
"The Swimmers were hunting you. They killed the colonists. Were lying in wait for us. These are far more than the actions of those seeking the sanctuary of the mothership."
"Reads less like an escape and more like an occupation."
"I need you to tell Mauser all you have seen." Raina made a pained face. "And assure him that I'll be as careful as I can in bringing the rest of the holdouts home safe."
"Any sign of aliens outside?"
"Nothing. If you're ready, we should leave now."
Lowell eased himself forward. "Randy, go down and help get ready. I'll be out in a minute."
Randy smiled and exited. Raina offered Lowell a hand up. Getting to his feet made him break out in a fresh sweat.
"If something happens to me," he said, "I need you to swear Randy will be looked after. Keep him out of harm's way. He's learning, but he's not ready yet."
"I can see that." Raina glanced to the empty doorway. "Who is he to you?"
"He's actually one of yours, from Catalina. His dad used to beat up on him. Eventually, the man sold him into alien slavery to appease Anson. Randy helped me out. So I got him out of there."
"There are still many of our people kept captive on the crashed ship. The hostages Anson sent to the aliens so that his own people might be spared. Have you thought of a way to free them?"
"Don't see how," Lowell said. "Not until their backup's out of the picture."
"I was afraid of that." She moved to the door. "We should be on our way."
He shuffled down the hall. At the stairs, he hesitated, gazing down the dark steps.
Raina held out her hand. "I'll help you down."
"Like hell. I'd crush you."
"I avoided your attempts to crush me all throughout the war. If I feel you start to come crashing down, I'll dart away, just like I did back then."
He chuckled and put an arm over her thin shoulders. With her help, and that of the railing, he climbed down step by step. Outside, the night air was cold and smelled like the sage scattering the hills. Mia straddled a bicycle, a trailer attached to its rear. Abruptly, he missed his horse. Then again, the bouncing would probably have killed him.
Red and Raina helped him into the trailer. He shook Red's hand, then turned to Raina. "Don't spend too long out there. The rate this is going, the people are going to need their general in the field."
Raina snorted. "If you don't get on your way, I'll be in San Pedro before you will."
Lowell chuckled. It was painful, but better than before. Mia waved to the other troops and pedaled out into the night, Randy at her side.
* * *
As Lowell gave his briefing, Mauser listened with visible annoyance. The younger man was dressed in a ratty t-shirt, his hair a little too long and a little too greasy. He looked like the dime-a-dozen kids who used to roam around on their skateboards or surfboards or both. Shaggy go-nowheres who spoke big words about revolution but didn't even know how to throw a left hook. Kids whose parents considered themselves lucky if they managed to move out of the house by 25.
Yet somehow, this man was Raina's number two. The acting commander when she was out in the field. Even more unbelievably, by all accounts—including some Lowell had witnessed firsthand—he was damn good at it. Cunning. Resourceful. The kind of man who looked like he'd bow real low to you—but only so he could reach the knife tucked into his sock.
Maybe there was no contradiction in this. Say that Mauser had been one of those kids. Then circumstances had forced him to be more. With no plague and no aliens, what would Raina be doing right now? Trying to pass geometry? Texting her friends about whether Johnny really liked her? If people had been soft before, that was only because the world had allowed them to be soft.
Now? People had discovered the steel inside themselves. And woe be to you if you forgot that.
Lowell wrapped up his report. Mauser still looked like he'd bitten into a chicken nugget and discovered it was a fried frog.
"Something the matter with my report?" Lowell said.
"Indeed." Mauser leaned his elbows on the picnic table in the grove of trees in what they called the Seat. "I was hoping you would tell me that the Swimmers are fleeing in panic at first sight of humans. Waving white flags in their claws. Packing into the mothership like a reverse Titanic. What it sounds like, however, is one more piece of evidence that they intend to cure the city of the plague of humanity."
"Last time, they were taking their ship all over the world. Fighting on too many fronts. It wore them thin. This time? They'll establish a beachhead. Keep it small but safe. And work their way outward, generation by generation, until the entire Earth is theirs."
"That would explain why they recalled all the survivors of the previous invasion. To consolidate their forces and dig in."
"That's what I'd do."
Mauser looked him up and down. "Usually a good starting point for speculation. In this case, however, I note that you're a bag of squishy skin rather than the rubbery gray of our opponents, who might have rather different plans."
"Let me rephrase. That's the most effective strategy I can think of. So that's what we'd better prepare for."
"And if you were me, would you have any ideas about how to combat such a strategy?"
Lowell sighed. "Go somewhere else and live out the rest of your days?"
"And pass the buck to future generations? I'd take that deal, but Raina won't give it a second thought."
"Don't stay put long enough for them to find you. Keep wearing them down bit by bit. And if you see the chance to knock down the ship, take it on the spot."
"Yeah, that's about the best we've come up with, too." Mauser pressed his lips together and knocked on the picnic table. "Appreciate your counsel. We have a doctor. Shall we see her?"
Lowell began the slow and painful process of standing. "If you think it'll help."
The doctor had creams. Painkillers. Targeted antibiotics. Proper bandages. It was much better than Red's battlefield ministrations. As she worked on him—her touch was surprisingly light—she kept up a steady stream of chatter, asking about how he'd suffered his injuries, then moving onto the aliens, and then on to what life had been like serving Anson. He was wary of judgment on that one, but her questions were as light as her work. She finished up and gave him back his shirt. She was a few years older than him, shoulder-length blond hair, good chin.
He squinted at her. "You weren't a doctor before, were you?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Is something the matter?"
"You're far too nice for a doctor."
She laughed. "I was a dental hygienist. I've spent the last few years broadening my expertise."
"Well, you do good work."
One of Raina's warriors used the bike and trailer to deliver Lowell to his temporary residence in a beige stucco house a few blocks from the Dunemarket.
Randy was standing on the porch. "How'd it go? Are you okay?"
"Better than I thought. A few more days and I might be good enough for us to take a second shot at Colorado."
The kid laughed. "Are you kidding?"
Lowell turned to look him in the eye. "About?"
"You think that if we stay here, and try to fight, we'll die. That the only way is to go off by ourselves."
"Pretty much."
"If Raina hadn't shown up, we never would have made it out of that crawlspace alive."
Lowell leaned against the gut-high stone wall enclosing the porch. "We'd just have had to keep our heads down."
"Even if that's true, if we hadn't gone out to warn them, Raina would have died. Along with all her friends. But working together, we got out alive."
Lowell grunted. "Do you want to stay that bad?"
"Would you do it?"
Elbows resting on the wall, with the sun shining on the street, he let his mind reel down two routes. In the first route, they traveled to Colorado. Set up a cabin. Stayed hidden from everything. If everything went right, in twenty or thirty years—no
more than forty—Lowell would die. Randy might make it as many as fifty or sixty, but with no one to watch his back and help carry the weight, he might only last a few years longer than Lowell. And that was where the trail ended.
On the second route, they stayed in L.A. Maybe they died next week. Maybe they held out for a year before the Swimmers finished them off. But maybe, somehow, one chance in ten thousand, they won out. And Randy found a wife. Had some kids. Grandkids. Things carried on. And the road stretched on beyond any horizon.
"Okay," Lowell said. "We can stay."
Randy looked away. Probably to conceal his smile. Hummingbirds zipped between the flowers of bushes. To the northwest, a bang went off. Louder than a rifle. Drier, too. A black pall drifted on the wind.
Randy blinked. "Fireworks?"
"Mauser warned me about that," Lowell said. "The aliens. They've got a jet on the way."
6
Walt stealthed down the sidewalk, keeping his eyes on the street and his ears on the sky. Carrie moved in tandem with him. To their right, El Segundo was a mess of refineries, colossal holding tanks, parking lots, and dry, featureless soil. It was easily the ugliest part of the city he'd ever seen. At one point, he'd suggested to Becka, their San Pedroan babysitter, that they offer to let the aliens have it. No questions asked. This had earned him a look every bit as ugly as the refinery, along with the suggestion that if he was that ready to offer up their homeland, he was welcome to leave it.
He eyed the giant round tanks past the corroded chain link. "Back in the day, I bet this place stank."
Duncan laughed, stuttering like a stoner. He rounded out the elite scouting party. "It did. Like a giant's farts."
Becka tossed her head. "Well, it doesn't anymore."
Walt kicked a pebble. "On the other hand, you could get a pretty great Mad Max thing going here."
Carrie coughed and spat into the weeds sprouting beside the sidewalk. Shortly on arriving at the Dunemarket, they'd given her antibiotics targeted to chest infections. It had only been a few days, but she already sounded better.
"I hope nobody ever uses this place again," she said.
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