“So, what are you doing?”
“What d’you mean, Lee?”
“What’s the plan? What’s happening?”
“Come on, we just got our asses kicked.”
“But we can come back from this, right?”
“Sure, we can. But it ain’t gonna happen overnight. We underestimated the enemy, and we paid dearly for it.”
“Plenty did, but not you or us. Aside from a few scratches on him, we’re the lucky ones,” replied Donny.
“Shit, and I thought this was gonna be different,” muttered Lee.
“Different?”
“We’ve spent weeks running and hiding. I thought with your people it was gonna be different. You rode into town like you owned it. But you’re no better off than we were before you came along. Just another desperate bunch of people trying to keep going day by day.”
Travers looked surprised and turned to Donny, as if asking him to put his younger brother in his place and keep him in check. But Donny wasn’t anymore impressed to see Travers than Lee was.
“What? He’s hit the nail on the head. Now you’re the same as the rest of us.”
Travers had no words, and it was clear he knew how bad things had gotten.
“What about the others, though, you must have come across others?”
“None that were alive,” he replied solemnly.
Chapter 3
Ross watched as they pulled into what was their base for now. Where Travers had killed their hostage. The most valuable asset they’d had since it all began. The same place where Donny, Lee, and the others had chosen to follow Travers over him. He looked anxious and concerned, half expecting to be ambushed on arrival. Yet he didn’t say anything. They’d been through enough, and he had to hope there was some sanctuary and refuge left for them. They all looked weary. Not just from the fight and the ambush they’d walked right into, but also from the split in their group. It felt like they’d taken many steps back, beyond where they had first started in all of this mess. Nobody said it, but all were thinking it. Ortiz pulled the vehicle around their cabin and underneath some trees for cover.
“We’ve got to get this covered up,” Ross said, heading for the door.
“What? What is even happening here?” Lucy asked in despair.
“Let’s get this thing covered, and we’ll tell you what we know.”
“Which ain’t exactly much,” added Ortiz.
“Ain’t much? You’re the Army, aren’t you? How can you not know? Are we under attack?”
Ross reached the door, struggling to find the words to explain it. It was painful to admit how bad things were.
“We were under attack.”
“Were?”
“We aren’t fighting back anymore. There ain’t no border or front line,” replied Ortiz.
“What do you mean?”
She looked pale and distraught. Ross didn’t have the heart to explain it, but Ortiz didn’t hold back.
“The country has gone, as far as we know. We’re just trying to survive now.”
“What? How can that happen? Where is our Army, our Air Force? What is the government doing about it?”
“Government? They’re gone.”
“We don’t know that,” replied Ross sternly.
“Don’t we? Where is our support? Where is our backup? We’d have been extracted by now if anything were still working out there. A team like us, they’d need us for hard graft. But no, we’ve been left out here to rot, because nobody even knows we are here.”
“A whole lot of assumptions there.”
“Assumptions?”
“We don’t know shit about the outside world. Hell, we don’t even know what’s happening in the next county.”
“I think we do, same shit that’s happening here.”
Ross strode up and got right up in his face.
“Enough. You’re scaring these folks, and you ain’t helping.”
Ortiz looked angry, but Ross stared him down furiously until he dared not say another word.
“Now, let’s get this thing under cover.”
Ortiz groaned as he went out to do as ordered, but Ross didn’t let him do it alone. The team went about covering all of their vehicles. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was already fading from view. A sadness hung over them all. Nobody had any answers for what they should do. As others went to prepare food and clean their weapons, Ross headed for the basement of the cabin. The basement where they had kept the Mastiff they’d managed to capture alive. He went down the steps and was instantly hit by a pungent and acrid smell, the chlorine-like smell that always came when the enemy was there, but something far worse, too. It smelt like death. He half expected to find the body gone, but he didn’t know why. Yet there it was, lying in a pool of its own blood. He shook his head, thinking back to Travers and how frustrating the whole situation was.
“How are you gonna talk when you’re goddamn dead?” He kicked the body, “All that work, and it gets taken away by a punk,” he snarled.
He was furious. He turned and punched a wooden support, taking a chunk out of it. Splinters cut and embedded in his hand. He dropped to his knees in despair, kneeling before the body of the Mastiff as he pulled the slithers of wood from his hand. He wished he’d had more time to interrogate the creature, but there was more to it than that. Fighting it was terrifying, and almost cost him his life, but there was something far more terrifying out there. The thing that appeared after they were ambushed, the cloaked and heavily ornamented enemy. It had to be a leader of theirs. It was as large as the dead Mastiff, but seemed so much more intelligent and important.
“It’s not gonna tell you much more.”
Ross thought he had been alone, but he recognised the voice. It was Ramos, standing behind him at the base of the stairs.
“Look at us. Right back where we were when we first got this thing here, but we’re worse off. The prisoner is dead. We’ve lost half our people to Travers. Ammunition is looking low. We walked right into a trap, and now we’ve got whatever the hell that thing was coming after us, too.”
“You think it was a Mastiff?”
“An officer or leader, or something I guess, yeah.”
“So what, these things are the officers, the bosses? The robots are their foot soldiers?”
“Sounds about right.”
“So they use drones to fight in the daylight, where they can’t go?”
“I guess.”
“All that tech and they can’t find a way to operate in the day?”
“What do you mean?”
“We have gear to help us see in the night. How have they not got something similar for the day?”
He shrugged. “We can’t see all that well at night, but it doesn’t hurt us. You’ve seen these things when the lights go on. They lose their shit.”
“So they can’t deal with the light, no matter what?”
“Sure seems that way. Only time we saw one in the day it wasn’t real. It was some kind of…”
“Hologram?”
“Yeah.” Ross raised his eyebrows at the prospect.
“What has it come to? Aliens, holograms, armies of robots? This is insane, like we’re trapped in some kind of nightmare. It can’t be real, but…”
“But you know it is.”
“Exactly.”
“And no matter where you turn, it’s the same shit?”
“Yes,” he replied wearily.
Ramos went past him and sat back against a small table, looking at the body of the enemy soldier, too.
“Ugly son of a bitch, ain’t it?”
“No doubt about that.”
“But we can beat them, you know that, right?”
“How can you know?”
“Because we’re still here. No matter what they’ve thrown at us. We’re still alive. Still fighting, however powerful these assholes are. However wide they have cast their net, they haven’t finished us yet. I’d say there are some pretty big holes
in what they’re doing. I mean, come on. Travers and his army of rejects have been prancing around freely, blowing shit up, uncontested.”
“And the rest of our forces?”
“This was a very carefully planned and targeted precision strike, no doubt about it. They must have hit the big cities, probably all major military targets, too, knocked out communication, left us divided and scared. I’m guessing they aren’t as powerful as you think, or they’d have swept us all aside with ease.”
“And if that’s what they’re doing? Just at their own pace.”
“If all they wanted was a total surrender, they could have forced that, same way we did on Japan back in 45. A few big shows of strength, show the enemy the war is lost, and we’d have given in.”
“You really believe that?”
“Of course. This country. We’re hard fighters. We don’t give up easy, but we ain’t stupid either. If we saw a few million gone like that,” he said, clicking his fingers, “We’d have done the same as the Japanese. And these alien assholes, they must have known that. They know so much about us. They have studied us. They must have known we’d have given in.”
“So, you’re saying they weren’t capable of it?”
“Not capable, or they simply had different intentions?”
“Like what?”
“They want people for a reason. I don’t know why. I wish I did. But they have struck fear into this nation. They want us to believe we are weak and we are broken. They will keep saying that and trying to prove it until we believe it, too, which is why we can’t believe it. That’s what they want. It’s propaganda. They’re playing with our minds. Convincing us we’re already beaten.”
“Aren’t we?”
“Hell, no. How many times have you said we’re still in a fight while we’re still standing?”
“Doesn’t make it true. Ever wonder if I say things because it’s what people need to hear. It’s what I need to hear, even when I don’t believe it?”
“Yeah? Then keep telling yourself. Whatever it takes, we’re gonna get through this. Like we got through hell more times than I can remember.”
“Little different, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sure, but aren’t they all? We’ll fight through this. We have to, not just for us, but for everyone else.”
“The ones that hightailed it when a better offer came about?”
“Can you blame them? Wouldn’t we have done the same? Isn’t that exactly what we tried to do? We tried to get the hell out of here. You can’t blame them for that. But Travers, he’s dangerous, and not in a good kind of way. They’ll see it soon enough.”
They both fell silent, reflecting on it all. Ross felt the same, and Ramos knew it, but he needed to hear it from someone else. He soon turned his attention back to the corpse.
“How many of these things do you think are out there?”
“I wouldn’t like to say, but it’s not like we’ve encountered them in any kind of number.”
“So they lead this whole thing, but they also fight, but only at night?”
“Like they’re out here for the fun of it. Hunting for fun while their foot soldiers do the real fighting.”
“Makes some kind of sense, but what do they really want from us?”
“Same thing most armies want to take, I guess. Land, resources, a work force, all of the above.”
“So they want our world and everything in it?”
“I guess so. I mean, you’ve seen their weapons and all they have been able to achieve. If they wanted to kill us I’m sure they could manage it, or use our own nukes to do the job for them.”
“You know how hard they are to get at.”
“Yeah, like I knew how hard it would be for anyone to invade this great nation, and here we are, without much of a fight at all. Whoever these assholes are, they’re serious, big-timers.”
“You figure they’ve done this before, then?”
“They don’t seem all that surprised to find life here, that’s for certain, and they didn’t exactly come looking for conversation or to learn from us.”
Ross smiled.
“What is it?”
“You’re talking so much sense, when did you get so smart?”
Ramos laughed, and Ross joined in. There was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs behind them as Kim rushed down them. She looked anxious and flustered.
“Ross, you’d better come quick!”
He leapt to his feet, the concern on his face and in his body language clear; though he groaned as he got to his feet, his body sore from all that had happened that day. He could tell it wasn’t his fighting ability she was wanting, but he didn’t know what else he had to give. He was exhausted and cranky, and far from ready and willing to give moral support to anyone, nor did he particularly want to. But as he got up above ground he could hear an angry argument in full swing.
“What the hell do you think we had to do with any of this?” Lucy screamed.
Mack was holding her back. Mick went to intervene when the tussle caused him to fall back.
“Mick!” Lucy and Otis rushed to his side and helped him up. Ross made no attempt to do anything as he looked at the two groups, trying to understand what the hell was going on.
“What is it you want from me, Kim?”
“To sort this. We can’t afford to be divided, not again,” she pleaded.
But he didn’t need to ask. All was explained as Lucy took her side of the argument out in to the open.
“He thinks we led you all into a trap. That it was all on us. That we wanted this!”
“Didn’t you? Convenient that you were right there where you could get picked up. A desperate little group that we were bound to stop for, the enemy were all around you, and you didn’t know? You had to know.”
“We were attacked on the road by God knows what. We ran for our lives and barely made it out. You tell us our country is at war, or invaded, maybe even lost. We are supposed to believe you on this madness when you won’t even trust us?”
“You reeled us in to be shot down like dogs!” Ortiz turned to Ross for support.
“They led us into the jaws of death, and the enemy could be coming for us again right now. We can’t trust any strangers we come across, especially ones who nearly get us killed.” Ramos looked angry, but he left it to their squad leader to deal with, but to his amazement, Ross did nothing. He looked unconvinced, as if he was still on the fence.
“Ross? You know this is crazy, right?”
Ross groaned as he thought it over and rubbed his chin.
“Ross? These people, they…they need our help,” Emma pleaded.
He ignored her and looked at the faces of Lucy and Mick, and the others who had come with them.
“These people are not the enemy!”
“You don’t know them, Emma. You have no idea who they are!” Ortiz shouted.
Both fell silent, waiting for Ross’ judgement, but he looked unwilling to wade in on the issue.
“You don’t think we did this, do you? You think we are here to hurt you. Are you kidding me?” Lucy asked in disbelief.
Ross still said nothing.
“We were led to them to die, right into a trap. Honestly tell me you believe they had nothing to do with it?”
Ross shrugged. He wanted to believe they were innocent, but Ortiz was right to be concerned, and he was tired and grouchy enough to consider the very worst in people.
“Seriously, you’re not considering this?” Ramos pulled Ross away to talk more privately.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore. All I do know is; we keep getting hit. Maybe we should be a little more suspicious of those we come across. We thought Travers was gonna help, and instead he split our team.”
“So, you’re siding with Ortiz? You know how crazy that is? I mean he’s a good soldier and all that. I’d trust him with my life, we all have. But he’s not all there. He bitches and whines and will believe any old crap.”
“
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong here.”
“Ross!” Lucy was growing impatient waiting for him to decide their fate. He looked into her eyes and could see both desperation and anger.
“We nearly died out there. We had problems before you found us, but they got worse once you did.”
“You sure didn’t do us any good. We got shot to hell getting here, and for what?” Mick added.
“For what?” Ortiz gasped, “We risked everything to save your asses.”
“Save us?”
Ortiz ignored him and once again appealed to Ross.
“Come on, this can’t be legit. This was a trap, and we’ve led them right back here. Don’t you see how dangerous this is?”
“We aren’t the enemy!” Lucy begged.
Ross still refused to take sides. He could see both points of view, and he was incredibly tired. At this point he no longer cared. It felt like they’d been taking shots since the beginning. He wanted to lie down and sleep and wake up to something better.
“What the hell is going on here?” Burns strode back in from a short patrol.
“He says we led you all into a trap,” said Lucy.
“Didn’t you?” Ortiz snapped.
“Enough!” Burns pointed his finger at Ortiz.
“You don’t have any authority here,” he snarled.
Burns took offence to that and looked furious.
“Don’t have any authority? You want to keep running your mouth like that, and we’re gonna have a problem.”
Ortiz looked to Ross once more for support, but still he would not give it, and Burns came right back at him.
“Nobody has authority here. If we follow someone it’s because we want to. We have enough problems as it is, we can’t afford to turn on one another, too.”
“We aren’t turning on each other. These people aren’t with us.”
“Neither was I,” he replied.
“Me neither,” added Kim.
“It’s time we started trusting people,” said Burns.
“Really?” Ortiz sneered in an obnoxious tone.
Burns looked even angrier as he strode towards Ortiz and got right up in his face.
“You can keep acting like a little bitch, or you can man up and get with the programme, what’s it gonna be?”
Lethal Strike Page 18