Damn. Could he take the chance?
“Now if you want to trade, here’s the deal. You cut one of the pods loose, within the next two minutes. That way you don’t have time to go and play with it. Billie and I, we leave the ship, rendezvous with the pod, and radio you the location of the bombs. You can get to the ship and deactivate them in the other pod easy enough, with twenty minutes to spare.”
“Assuming I believe you and do this,” Spears said. “What’s to stop me from blasting you and the pod into atomic dust with my ship’s guns the second you radio me the location?”
“Your word that you won’t.”
Spears grinned wider. “My word?”
“You’re a man of honor, aren’t you, General?”
“Of course, son.”
Spears chewed at his thumbnail. He couldn’t take the chance that Wilks was telling the truth. Not with his army at risk. Besides, once they were outside- the ship and in the pod, he could pot them easy enough. As long as they were in the aft cargo bay, they might figure out some way to get out and into the rest of the ship. Damned fucker was resourceful.
“All right, marine. You have a deal.”
Billie grinned at Wilks. “He bought it!”
“We ain’t home free yet,” he said, but he grinned back at her. “He’ll probably plan on taking us out with the ship’s guns as soon as we’re in the pod.”
“What about his ‘honor’?”
“Are you kidding? He’s a sociopath, he’s got as much honor as a spider.”
“So how do we stop him from shooting us?”
“I have an idea. If we’re fast and lucky, it’ll work. If not, we’re no worse off than we were before.”
“I’m with you all the way,” she said. “It’s not like I’ve got another engagement or anything.”
* * * * *
Once they were inside the escape pod, a small ship capable of a couple of weeks of cramped flight, it wasn’t twenty seconds until the com lit with the incoming call.
“All right. Where are the bombs?”
Wilks was busy putting the drive system online. He powered up the small engines, activated life support. “Strap in,” he ordered Billie.
She obeyed. “Where are we going? There’s nowhere to hide out here.”
“Yes, there is. Watch.”
He tapped a control and the little ship moved forward.
“Wilks, I want the location of the bombs now or I will cancel our agreement and blast you.”
“Too late,” Wilks said as the pod moved almost back to where it had been launched from the ship.
“What good does this—?”
“His guns are on top, the sides, and under the nose,” Wilks said. “His field of fire covers a full sphere, but there aren’t any guns directly under the pod launch bay and he can’t elevate or depress any of them enough so he can accidentally shoot himself. Or, in this case, us.”
The tiny ship rode a few meters away from the larger vessel.
“Can we stay here?”
“Not for long, he’ll start playing with the drives and we’ll lose contact. But he can’t wait, the clock is running. Hold on.”
Wilks touched the com. “General, you want to go to the power control box for the aliens” tanks, the main cable from the generator to the control cabin where it leaves the forward circuit breaker and the gee drive housing next to the gyroswitch complex.”
“Damn, I thought you were bluffing.”
“No, but I lied. You’ve got about ten minutes to pull the charges, not twenty. If you dick around trying to shake us so you can chew us up with the Jackson’s guns, you might not have time to save the MacArthur.”
There was a moment of silence.
Then, “You would have made a good line officer, son. You got more guts than a slaughterhouse.”
“Thank you, General.”
“All right. You can tell your grandchildren you went up against me and survived. That’ll mean something someday.”
To Billie, Wilks said, “Hang on.”
With that, he turned the pod so it faced the ship two klicks behind them and hit the thrusters full power. The little ship shot out from under the Jackson’s belly like a minnow darting from under a shark.
The gee force was strong enough to press them back into their seats. “I don’t think he’ll shoot in this direction,” Wilks managed to say through stretched lips. “He won’t want to hit the MacArthur. I hope.”
“I… hope… you’re… right,” Billie said.
This time, Wilks was.
The escape pod shot past the following ship so fast it was only a blur on their scopes.
29
Spears shook his head as he raised from his squat next to the drive housing. There weren’t any bombs connected to the gyro-switch complex. Nor had there been any in the other locations. The son of a bitch had bluffed him. He felt a moment of irritation, an urge to wrap his hands around the man’s throat and throttle him, but it passed. It didn’t matter. So one marine and one civilian had saved their skins by lying to him. So what? After he demonstrated how he would liberate Earth, who would believe such a story, assuming that tricky bastard sergeant and his woman were foolish enough to try to spread it around? The guy was career marine, he knew what pissing off a general was worth in the long run. No, chances were they’d dig in somewhere and pretend to be invisible. If they kept quiet, there was a chance he wouldn’t find them later; if they shot their mouths off, they’d leave a trail. No. It wasn’t going to happen.
Of course there might be bombs hidden somewhere here on the MacArthur but Spears didn’t believe it for a second. No, he’d been foxed. Once more, he offered a two-fingered salute to Wilks. Good marine, that one.
“Did we make it?”
In the tiny cabin of the pod, Wilks blew out a big breath. “Yeah. We did. He’s outside our radar range, but he must have gone back to the cargo ship to check it out. I’d love to see his face when he realizes there weren’t any explosives rigged.”
“I’ll pass on seeing his face again, thank you.”
Wilks laughed. Then frowned. “He got away, though. He beat us and got away. I wanted to get him in my sights.”
“You ought to be glad he didn’t get us in his sights. Where are we, by the way? And where are we going?”
“We’ll be inside Luna’s orbit in another couple of days, if the guidance computer on this piece of junk can be trusted. I’m getting some signals from the region, too faint to hear much. Could be automatic from Earth. Or something from the colony on the moon, if it’s still there. Gateway Station in L-5 orbit, maybe. I’ve got the scanner set to pick up the strongest input and home in on it. You can shuck the suit if you want. There’s a chemical toilet in the back, behind the blue partition. We’ll have to sleep in our seats and our diet will be a bit limited, but we should make it okay.”
“You did real good back there, Wilks. You’re a lot smarter than you let on.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, and a whole lot smarter than you look.” She smiled and he returned it. He fucking hated losing Spears, but she was right. It was better to be alive to fight another day and at least they had that much.
Spears brought the queen out of deep sleep first, still securely in her cage, of course. She could see him through the clear walls, and he flicked the cigar lighter over and over, watching the little flame reflect off the heavy kleersteel plastic.
“Oh, yes, I know you remember me. The time has come for your children to go forth and do battle. You can lay a million eggs if you do as you’re told, if my soldiers obey me as they should. Do you understand?”
He put his hand on the plastic.
The queen turned her head slightly but did not move.
She understood, he was sure of it. Not the words, maybe, but she was smart enough, he knew that. The drones weren’t too swift, their wattage was real dim, but the queen wasn’t stupid. She knew him, and she remembered him and he was certain he’d put th
e fear of God in the form of Spears into her. It would all go the way it was supposed to go. And soon, the moment would be upon them.
“Approaching vessel identify yourself,” the call came. “This is Gateway Station calling,” Wilks smiled at Billie. “This is the escape pod from the Colonial Marine vessel Jackson,” he said. “Two passengers aboard, uncontaminated, repeat, no alien contamination of this ship.”
“Escape pod Jackson, open your control modem for grid computer override.”
They were still far enough away so the transmission turnaround time took a few seconds. Wilks gave control of the pod’s engines to the grid computer.
“Pod Jackson, you are in the grid. We’ll fly you in lazy eights until the decontamination team can rendezvous your vessel. Estimate arrival time nine hours.”
“Copy, Gateway. We’ll be here.”
Billie lifted an eyebrow.
“They have to check us out to make sure we aren’t carrying any little toothy surprises,” he said. “That means the station is clean. Gateway is pretty big, half the size of the old Luna One colony. Twelve, fifteen thousand people before the trouble on Earth. Probably built a few more modules since then to make room for escapees. We’ll be quarantined until they are damned sure we’re not infected, that’d be my guess. Run us through a CAT scanner or a fluorproj and then we’re home free.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “We’re finally going to get somewhere safe.”
Maybe, he thought. But looking at her face, he didn’t say it. He only nodded.
It would take most of his remaining fuel to land the carrier, but he had the APC for his own return to orbit. The reason he had brought the MacArthur was that it could stand a dunking in atmosphere and normal gravity. He expected to take heavy casualties, despite the training and arms his men had, but that was to be expected, and the ship would have to stay behind. It was unimportant.
As the ship spiraled down toward its landing in South Africa, Spears showered, shaved, and put on his dress blacks. He strapped the revolvers on, the sword in its sheath, his boots. Looked at himself on the monitor. Sharp. The way a commanding general should look. Fit, ready, imperial, almost.
He took one of the remaining cigars and tucked it into his belt, to open and light when the ship achieved a landing. The troops were already being decanted, although the queen was still safely in her cage. By the time they reached the ground, they would be ready. There would certainly be a hive nearby, he had his computer searching for one, and they would put down close to it. When the wild aliens streamed out to attack the ship, they would get a big surprise.
The cameras were on, the automatic director picking the most dramatic shots according to the program Spears had installed. Low angles on him, mostly, with plenty of background stuff he could cut together later.
Fully dressed, Spears moved to the staging area where the troops, numbers glowing dimly on their heads, stood quietly, awaiting their orders. Slime dripped from their mouths and there was a slight clatter of hard chitin when they moved or touched each other.
“Stand by, men,” Spears said.
He went to strap in for the final approach.
Weather radar said there was a storm front moving across the landing area. Damn. He had hoped for a sunny afternoon. Well. The cameras could adjust for the lighting; he could clean it up when he edited it. Besides, a little lightning and rain would only add to the drama. This was all background stuff anyway. Once they were down, he would have his computers send out a live broadcast of the battle. The fortunate watchers could say they had seen it as it actually happened.
On Gateway Station, Billie and Wilks cleaned up and went to make their report to the powers-that-were. A lot had happened since they’d left Earth, nearly all of it bad. So the medic leading them to the debriefing station said.
“Yeah,” the man continued, “nobody knows how many people are still alive downlevels. Those who are, are pretty tough and good at hiding.”
Billie thought about the little girl she had seen on the ’casts back at the military base. Was she still alive?
“Hey, Henry, check this out.”
The medic leading them slowed as a woman nearby waved at them. “Whatcha got, Brucie?”
“Live “cast from Earth. Look.”
Billie and Wilks moved with the medic.
“Jesus,” Billie said. “Spears!”
Henry and the woman Brucie turned to look at her. “You know this nut?”
Billie and Wilks looked at each other. “Yeah,” Wilks said. “We’re old friends.”
The ramp lowered and Spears walked out into the rain. His hat brim offered enough protection so the cigar stayed lit, though it was getting pretty damp. He sucked on it hard to keep it going.
In the rainy distance Spears saw shadowy forms approaching. He drew his sword and pointed at them. “First squad, front and center. Second squad, fan out and cover the flanks.”
He had decided to hold off on giving his men weapons until he saw how his close combat tactics worked.
Number 15 moved close to Spears. Turned its head and looked at him.
“Go get them, trooper,” Spears said. He waved the shining stainless-steel blade.
Number 15 stood motionless. Then its mouth gaped and jellylike drool dripped from its open jaws.
“I gave you a direct order!” Spears said.
Number 15’s inner jaw oozed past the outer teeth.
“I’ll not have disobedience!”
Spears swung the sword. It was heavy, made of good surgical stainless, with an edge sharp enough to shave with. The blade caught the alien’s thin neck. The strike was perfect, slicing between the vertebrae into the thinner and more flexible material over the spine.
Number 15’s head toppled off and fell.
Enough acid clung to Spear’s sword blade so that it immediately began to smoke. The metal dissolved and ran under the pattering of the rain.
Spears stared at the ruined blade. “Goddammit!” He dropped the sword and pulled both of his S&W revolvers. He fired at the corpse of Number 15.
* * * * *
“Holy shit,” Brucie said.
Wilks and Billie stared. Wilks looked down and realized that Billie was holding his hand.
Half a dozen of the troops came out of the ship behind Spears. They were carrying the queen in her cage. She made a gesture at one of them and it fumbled with the locking mechanism.
“Get away from that!” Spears yelled. He emptied the remaining rounds from his revolvers at the drone—Number 9 he saw—to no effect. The soft lead bullets flattened against the recruit’s armor.
The cage door opened.
Spears dug for his cigar lighter. Held it up so the emerging queen could see it. Flicked the lighter on. Despite the wind and rain, the lighter’s flame sprang up and danced in the storm.
“Fire, see! I’ll burn every fucking egg you ever laid! Fire!”
“Oh, man,” somebody said. Billie wasn’t sure who. She was squeezing Wilks’s hand hard. And he was squeezing back.
The queen paused in front of Spears, looking down from her four-meter height.
“That’s right, bitch! I’m the man with the fire! I cook the babies! Fuck with me and we’ll scramble some eggs, you bet!”
Like dogs, the aliens could not really smile. But the queen seemed to, the way her jaws moved. She flicked out one of her smaller arms and slapped the lighter away.
“Fuck—!”
Then she grabbed Spears and lifted him, using her larger arms. He struggled, cursed, pulled the cigar from his mouth, and tried to poke her with the glowing end. It was all going wrong! It wasn’t supposed to be like this! He was supposed to be in control!
The queen reached up and caught Spears around the throat with one mighty claw.
“Don’t do it, men!” he screamed. “Don’t listen to her! Jam your commander now! Obey me! Stop her! Stop her!”
Those were his last words. His last thought was that somebody had made a
mistake. He had time to realize that it was him, that the queen had merely been biding her time and that her time was now—
With a quick move, the queen pulled Spears’s head off. She did it as easily as a man might pull the head off a flower. She dropped the body into the mud below the ramp. Held the head for a moment longer, then tossed it aside.
As luck had it, the head hit right in front of one of the cameras, and rolled to a stop facing the lens.
The expression on the dead man’s face was one of absolute horror.
“So much for the revolution,” Wilks said, staring at the picture.
The onrushing aliens stopped and looked at the newcomers. After a moment the would-be attackers turned and moved off through the storm.
The newly arrived queen led her children away.
The glowing numbers on their heads were visible for quite a distance before they faded into the rain. Quite a distance. “Fuck,” Henry said. Oh, yeah.
30
After debriefing, Billie met Wilks in a conference room nobody seemed to be using. There were viewscreens on the wall, but Billie didn’t feel much like looking at anything.
“He deserved it,” Wilks said. “I only wish it could have been us who did it. We’ve been blowing around in circles for a while, kid. Haven’t been much a part of the solution.”
“Iknow.”
“Then again, Spears wasn’t much help, either.”
Billie shook her head. “You know, crazy as he was, I was almost hoping maybe he could pull it off. I mean, I hated him, for what he was, what he did, but in a strange kind of way, I kind of wanted him to make it. Maybe I’m as crazy as he was.”
“Not quite.”
“Big deal. Now we’re back where we were before.
The monsters rule Earth, billions of people are dead, the rest are all waiting for their turns. And there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it.”
“That’s a bad attitude,” somebody said from the doorway.
[Aliens 02] - Nightmare Asylum Page 20