by JE Gurley
The star flickered. At first, he thought it was because of Vegas rapid rotation, which made it seem to dim and flare over time, but this seemed too sudden. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. He checked his oxygen. According to his gauge, he had another 10 minutes left – a lifetime. Then, slightly behind the Lance, movement caught his eye. The Angel of Death coming for him? No, nothing so dramatic. He swiveled his seat to look and gasped at the sight of the Assegai.
He tried to keep from yelling with joy, as he frantically brought his scrubber back online. “Peters! Our ride’s here.”
* * * *
August 16, Assegai –
Walker remained on the bridge as the Assegai searched for the tiny blip of a Lance. The process was slow and laborious. He mentally hurried them, but they worked as quickly and as diligently as possible.
“Got it!” Renatto shouted.
Walker strode quickly to Renatto’s station. “Where?”
Renatto pointed to a peak in a wave graph. “There. About 1.2 million kilometers out.”
“1.2 million kilometers, how could –?” He stopped as he realized Renatto had said kilometers. He made a rapid mental conversion to 750,000 miles. The Assegai could cover that distance in a few hours, but would they reach them soon enough? “Can you contact them?”
“They’re running dark. No radio signal or telemetry.”
“Why would Peters run dark?”
Renatto shook his head. “I don’t know. Low power?”
“We need to go faster.”
As Renatto glanced at Sakiri, Walker realized he had overstepped his authority. Sakiri nodded.
“Six hours is the best I can do without killing all of us.”
Walker hoped it was fast enough.
He refused to eat or leave the bridge. Only the bridge’s cramped quarters kept him from pacing. He should have been with his team, but he hoped Costas understood his concern. He and Gate had gone through a lot, and he shouldered a responsibility for him, like a big brother. Three hours later, when Renatto announced, “I’ve lost the gravity drive signal,” he could only assume the worst.
Sakiri had more faith. “Peters would have shut down the drive when he reached the rendezvous point. He’s a good pilot. He will fire it up again when he thinks we’re nearby to give us a fix.”
Walker appreciated Sakiri’s attempt to lessen the blow, but he suspected as well as did Sakiri that Peters and Gate’s oxygen supply was running low. They could already be dead. He drove that dark thought from his mind. Gate was a survivor. They would find them alive. He would cling to that thought.
A commotion in the galley attracted his attention. He tried to ignore it, but Sakiri was less inclined. He took two steps toward the hatch, but then backed up when one of the weapons specialists burst onto the bridge holding an MP5K in his hands, waving it back and forth.
“You must stop this ship,” the man said. “It’s against God’s word to continue.”
Walker kicked himself mentally for failing to secure the weapons after Costas had found proof of a Judgment Dayer aboard the Assegai. The 30-round magazine could kill everyone on the bridge and damage the delicate equipment before someone stopped him.
“Put the weapon down, Blaylock,” Sakiri ordered.
Blaylock whirled on him, aiming the weapon at his belly. “No! I didn’t act earlier because I thought the Kaiju would stop us. Then I realized God waited for me to act. A human must shed his blood in sacrifice.”
“I’ll shed your blood for you, Blaylock,” a gruff voice yelled from the galley. Walker recognized it as Costas.
“Shut up!” Sakiri ordered. “Look, Blaylock. Sometimes it difficult to understand God’s will, but do you really think that he would want you to kill everyone aboard the Assegai and doom Earth?”
“Earth is doomed.”
“Then why would God want to stop us? Do you think God is afraid of us?”
Blaylock shook his head, but his gaze never wavered. “God fears nothing. He is omnipotent and all seeing.”
Walker understood what Sakiri was trying to do, calm Blaylock down with reason, but he doubted Blaylock was swayable. He had come with the intent of destroying the Javelin. Now, he would destroy the Assegai. He would try to carry out his plan, and people would die. It was even possible stray weapons fire could damage the ship enough to compromise its structural integrity.
“Blaylock, you can’t believe –”
“Don’t tell me what to believe, Colonel,” Blaylock snapped. “You are a heathen. God is not interested in what you think. I’m not interested in what you think.” He pointed the MP5K at Renatto. “Push the gravity drive to maximum.”
“I won’t. The drive will overload.” Renatto crossed his arms over his chest. Walker hoped Renatto didn’t push the deranged Blaylock too far.
“That’s the idea. Now, do it.”
Renatto shook his head. “I refuse.”
Walker looked into Blaylock’s eyes and saw madness and anger. His right cheek twitched. He would shoot Renatto. It was time to act.
“Costas, are you seeing this?”
“I have eyes on him, Major,” Costas replied from the galley.
Blaylock swung on him. Walker stared into the barrel of the MP5K and saw how steady it was in Blaylock’s hand. He was no longer frightened. He was determined. He realized he could not destroy the ship, but he could kill the upper echelon. Walker hoped he didn’t pull the trigger before he could act. His belly itched from the thought of a bullet slicing into his gut from five feet away.
“You won’t accomplish anything, Blaylock. You missed any chance you might have had. You blew it because you didn’t want to die. At most, you might kill one or two of us before the others bring you down. They’ll toss you out the airlock without a suit.” He took another step forward, slowing moving to Blaylock’s side. Blaylock’s gaze locked on him. Beads of perspiration dotted his upper lip. As Walker hoped, he moved as well to keep Walker at a distance. Walker continued, “Your eyes will freeze first. You’ll feel them freezing, burning like fire as the last breath of air leaves your lungs. You’ll be blind by the time your flesh begins to freeze, but you’ll still feel it. Oh, yeah, you’ll feel it. You will die alone, in the dark, a billion miles from home, and accomplish nothing.”
At first, Walker thought he might make it to Blaylock to disarm him, but something snapped in the man. His face paled, as he raised the MP5K. “No! I’ll take you with me. I’ll kill all of you.”
Blaylock was in position in front of the hatch. “Costas,” Walker called. Blaylock tried to turn, but groaned and slumped forward, Costas’ knife embedded in the center of his back. Walker lunged and grabbed Blaylock’s arm, but not before the dying man’s finger pulled the trigger. The MP5K exploded beside Walker’s head, followed by the loud hissing of escaping air. He wrenched the weapon from Blaylock’s dead hands.
“Someone please place a patch on that leak,” Sakiri shouted. Men rushed to comply. A minute later, the hissing stopped. Sakiri stood over Blaylock’s body. “You didn’t have to do that, Major. I could have –”
Walker cut him off. His ears still rang from the noise of the shot, and his eyes watered from the flash. He had been lucky. A couple of inches more and he would be dead. “With all due respect, Colonel, I don’t think you could have. He was a dangerous, unhinged man with a loaded weapon. We got off lucky.”
“Perhaps, but he was under my command.”
“Yet a member of Judgment Day managed to hide it from you and join the Javelin’s crew. How did that happen?”
“We might have learned more from him. If Sergeant Costas hadn’t –”
“Costas acted under my direct order. If not for him, more people might have died. Frankly, I don’t care about Blaylock’s motivation. He posed a serious threat.”
Sakiri noticed the stares leveled at the two of them. “We’ll speak more about this later in private.”
Walker took a deep breath to calm down. His heart still raced from
the adrenalin rush of fear and excitement. He could not let his emotions taint the discussion. Too much was at stake.
“If you wish, Colonel, but I suggest we lock up the weapons until needed.”
Sakiri paused a moment before nodding curtly. Sakiri had taken the fact that the culprit was one of his men too personally. Walker thought he might have as well if their roles were reversed. He regretted creating a possible wedge between them, but it was up to Sakiri to move on. He hoped that time would make him see reason. In the meantime, he would grill his fire team to find out if Blaylock had an accomplice.
* * * *
When they reached the location of the last fix on Peters’ Lance, they found nothing. Sakiri ordered all Lances to execute a search grid of the area. Placing all his ships in jeopardy was unlike the Air Force colonel, but Gate understood they could not waste too much time. The enemy waited at Haumea.
Sakiri had not broached the subject of the Blaylock incident. They had spaced the body out the airlock after a short ceremony. Walker noticed few hard stares leveled at him and Costas, but no one had said anything. Whatever feelings they may have had for the dead weapons specialist, they realized Costas had saved their lives.
For an hour, none of the Lances reported anything; then, “Lance 7, here. I see them. I’ll go alongside to give you a beacon.”
The news made Walker lightheaded. They had found a silver needle in a pitch-black haystack, but were they too late.
“I see movement. Yes, they’re both alive.”
Walker released his pent-up breath.
Sakiri took the com. “Lances 7 and 9, help Peters and Rutherford into your craft and hook them to ship’s oxygen. They must be nearly dry. Lance 2, tow Lance 11 back to the Assegai. We’ll close on your position, Lance 7.”
Sakiri grinned at Walker. “Don’t worry, we’ll get them back.”
Walker wanted to hug Sakiri but thought it might send him into apoplexy. Instead, he shook his hand, and then saluted. “Thank you, Colonel.”
19
August 15, Atlanta, GA –
LaBonner surveyed the men standing around the hastily assembled convoy. They were a motley crew of National Guard stragglers, Air Force military police with a few flight crew thrown in, and an Army infantry platoon originally bound for training at Fort Benning. Until the main force of the 29th Infantry and the M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles of the 69th Armored Division arrived from Ft. Benning, they would be the ones holding the line – 106 men and women, who, to LaBonner, looked too young to be out of school much less defending the jewel of the South. As with most battles, men and women too young to understand what they would be facing would fight this one. For some, it would be their first and last fight.
The convoy consisted of six deuce-and-a-half trucks for transport, each towing an M102 105mm howitzer. Four men, including Warski, claimed some knowledge of the howitzers’ operation. Caulder placed him in charge of the battery. The others would receive on the job training. Eight Humvees mounting two 7.62mm M60 machineguns and two M136AT4 anti-tank weapons, and two eight-wheeled Strykers with a 105mm M68A2 gun and a .50 caliber M2 Browning machinegun rounded out the convoy. LaBonner took his place in the lead truck with Caulder, who had command of the mission. His expression revealed his thoughts on his troops. As a member of Kaiju Killer Team Foxtrot, Caulder had worked with pros – men and women specially trained for the job. Now, he would face a deadly enemy with untrained personnel. LaBonner watched Caulder’s gaze flick from man to man, as he tried to size them up, determine who was up to the task.
LaBonner didn’t feel like fighting a battle, but he was adamant in arguing against Caulder’s suggestion he remain behind to heal properly. The fight with the Spiders had ripped open a few of the stitches in his side, but he didn’t have time to have them seen to. When they had dropped off the injured man, McKay, at the base hospital, he had pilfered a bottle of acetaminophen to help numb the dull ache. Ready or not, the Spiders were coming. A little pain helped him focus. Besides, a few aches and pains meant little to a man dying from radiation poison.
Where the giant Kaiju had been slow and plodding but impossible to stop with conventional weapons, the Spiders were small and swift, scattering out over the countryside to make them more difficult to track. Their goal was simple – kill as many humans as possible. The Air Force unloaded on the crater but not before a second batch of Spiders emerged. Now, several hundred of the creatures, as well as scores of Wasps, were bound for Atlanta. They appeared in no hurry. Small scavenging groups broke away from the main body to attack towns and farms. The Air Force could not bomb them while in populated areas. Until they again massed for the attack on Atlanta, the jets and helicopters merely harassed them.
Near Norcross a few miles outside the I-285 Perimeter, the Spiders finally regrouped along I-85, which pierced the heart of the city like a dagger. Smoke rose from Jimmy Carter Boulevard, one of the main East-West thoroughfares crossing I-85, less than 20 miles away. The smoke came from businesses and homes reduced to rubble by the swarm of creatures and by bombs and missiles from F-16s and F-18s. To the people living in the homes, it mattered little that they were collateral damage. Their lives were irrevocably shattered, their futures left in doubt.
Before the convoy moved out, two men rolled up on Harleys. They parked their bikes and walked over to the LaBonner’s truck. Both sported long beards and colorful tattoos peeked from beneath the sleeves of their jackets. LaBonner recognized an army vet when he saw one; mostly by the way they walked. One had an oxygen cannula and tube running to his nose from an oxygen bottle clipped to his waist.
The one with the oxygen bottle stared at him for a moment before saying, “Name’s Jackson, Captain. He’s Hodges. We were in Nangarhar with the 75th. We want to help.”
The 75th Army Rangers had fought ISIS and the Taliban in one of Afghanistan’s most dangerous provinces. The pair had seen serious action. LaBonner did not doubt their experience. Since the arrival of the Kaiju, LaBonner didn’t know if any troops remained in Afghanistan. More dangerous things than ISIS now faced humanity.
“Talk to him.” He pointed to Caulder. “He’s in charge.”
“You’re on oxygen,” Caulder pointed out.
“That’s ‘cause I’m dying, sir. Picked up some damn bug in the desert. I figure I can sit at home and wait for the Grim Reaper, or go out and find the dark bastard like a man oughta. I can operate a Ma Deuce like a fucking pro. Hodges here can feed the bitch.” He scanned the frightened faces of the young troops on the trucks. “Seems to me you could use some talent.”
A lump formed in LaBonner’s throat when Caulder nodded and said, “Climb on.”
LaBonner handed Jackson a 7.62mm SCAR from a stack at his feet as he climbed into the truck. Jackson picked up two grenades from an open crate and stuffed them in his pockets as well.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll put these to good use.”
In spite of the news reports and the arrival of the alien pod, the city had not quite awakened to the threat of the Spiders. LaBonner expected southbound traffic to be heavy as the city evacuated, but a nightmare snarl of traffic filled all the lanes, like a rainy Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. People didn’t know where they were going; they just wanted to leave. Thousands of turn signals blinked as frustrated drivers tired switching from one slow-moving lane to another. A constant susurration of honking horns and belligerent voices provide the background music for the nightmarish evacuation. The convoy bulldozed its way through the snail-paced line of vehicles, the big deuce-and-a-half truck shoving vehicles out of the way when necessary, leaving in its wake a throng of angry drivers and dented vehicles.
Near the exit for Roswell Road, they passed a group of protestors beside the road haranguing the motorists. A solid black banner bearing a white cross and the words Judgment Day flew over them.
“I’d like to frag the lot of them,” Warski said, sneering at the small crowd.
The group saw the
military vehicles and their yells and chants became more frantic. The gunner in the leading Humvee pointed his machinegun at them, and the chanting subsided.
Warski spat over the side of the truck. “We should use them for target practice.”
“Save the fight for the Spiders,” LaBonner advised.
Squadrons of F-18s and F-16s had followed and harassed the swarms of Wasps from the crater, eliminating half of them, but the deadly creatures had taken their toll on aircraft as well. Low on fuel, the jets had returned to base to refuel and rearm. Slower, but well-armed A-10 Thunderbolt IIs poured steady fire into the advancing Spiders, as HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters kept the Wasps off their backs. Fires sprouted in a score of locations. A pall of dark smoke slowly spread over the area obscuring visibility beyond a few miles.
LaBonner glanced at the men in the truck with him, a nine-man infantry squad. A sense of deja vu threatened to overwhelm him, punching him in the gut like a hard-knuckled fist, as the bloodied faces of his dead K-team replaced the faces swimming before him. He fought back the survivor’s guilt plaguing him. Swallowing hard, he allowed the anxiety bleed away like the last breath of a dying man. Dying wasn’t hard when it was inevitable. Only the slim hope of surviving made facing death difficult. They were the first responders, the men and women called on to hold the line until the main force arrived. They were throwaways, disposable. They would keep the enemy engaged for as long as possible.
The Spiders, whether by plan or simply from seeking the easiest path, congregated along I-85 as they neared Atlanta, sweeping through businesses and homes on both sides of the corridor, leaving a mile-wide swath of destruction as they scampered toward the heart of the city. Caulder decided to make their stand at the intersection of I-285 and I-85, the Tom Moreland Interchange, known more colloquially as Spaghetti Junction for its multi-layered, twisted ribbons of concrete and asphalt that brought heart palpitations to most residents and intimidated all visitors. Missing one’s exit could add miles to a trip in search of a place to exit and turn around for a second attempt.