“Sir,” Soares said urgently, returning Tom to the present, his left hand clamped to his waist where his uniform was darkening to a deeper black with the blood he was losing. “Sir, we need to go…”
Tom snapped, bending to retrieve the gun and the two spare magazines from Travis’ pocket. He ran his left hand over his face, tears flowing freely with the pain and loss, to close his brother’s eyes for the last time.
He stood, saddened that Travis would never realize his dreams. He would never make the Senate, would never be President, and he’d never hold his wife and twin baby boys ever again.
“I’ll do my best to look after them, little brother,” he said sadly as he turned towards the vehicle and the sobbing woman inside holding two crying babies. “You have my word.”
Chapter 41
Cole
The train shuddered and screeched as their momentum shifted. Cole felt them slowing, and as he looked to Soares for reassurance. The man’s expression had switched to one of hard readiness.
“Do it now,” he said to the tech, who nodded and hit another key.
The screens on the train, the few still intact and connected to the outside world, showed a man pleading for the survivors of America to rise. To fight. To never surrender.
He was familiar, even though Cole had never seen him before, and when the camera panned out, he gasped as a woman holding two babies entered the shot. He glanced to Soares again, who was staring at the same screen, his lower lip twitching and his eyes glistening with tears.
His parents were speaking to him from the past. Him and Alec, just babies, being shown to the survivors of the invasion as a symbol of hope for the revolution. As humanity’s salvation.
The video switched, turning from the grainy image of his family to a close-up of Tom, who looked to be at death’s door. He didn’t hear the words, but he guessed it was one last call to arms for the human race.
The train shrieked as brakes were applied. The passenger cars shuddered to a halt and people began to pour out. Cole followed, the newly reactivated Tracker dogging his heels as it sported its bright paintwork applied by red spray can in a hurry so nobody blasted it.
Ahead of them, gunfire erupted like thunder announcing the start of a storm. The train’s engine, wrapped in angled sheets of welded steel to turn it into a pointed battering ram, headed straight for the compound where Cole could see the top of the device they were there to destroy. Bullets fired by the Trackers sparked and whined off the steel plating as they unleashed a destructive volley at the attack.
A warning noise came from the Tracker at his side, like a short blip of a siren that snatched his attention back down to his feet. He followed the direction of its gaze to the train, raising his weapon with his right hand away from the grip to use the scope, and gasped again.
Blocking the tracks, shimmering in the reflected sunlight, were more drones than he had ever known existed. It was like all of them from the entire country had congregated on that one stretch of railroad to block the tracks that neared the gateway compound.
“They’ll smash through, don’t you worry,” Renata assured anyone within earshot, but she was wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong.
The Seekers formed a tightly packed cloud of shining metal and swarmed the engine car. As the train slowed, electricity sparked and arced outwards. Just like that, their grand plan was done. Finished. There would be no grand explosion.
The army of Trackers descended on the slowing train, more gunshots echoing over the empty ground toward them before the world ahead flashed white, not blinding him with brightness but simply removing all other aspects from his vision and replacing them with the flash.
Then the sound of the detonation hit him, adding deafness to his blindness before the shockwave of hot air breezed past them all.
“Mechanical redundancy,” Renata said. “Never seen an EMP that can stop an old school alarm clock yet.”
Cole didn’t understand why she was happy. The gateway was still there, and their great hope of the bomb destroying it was gone. Already he sensed some of the Roamers edging backwards.
“Drones are gone,” Renata cried out, seeing the clearing debris of the explosion littered with bits of Seekers and Trackers. “Attack!”
They went forward.
Cole watched as Marisol ran ahead and stopped to lean into her rifle to fire off the entire magazine in short bursts with the stump of her left hand pressed against the foregrip. She dropped her right knee into the dirt and flicked her right wrist to eject the spent magazine. She lowered the rifle onto a replacement strapped to her thigh and rose to draw back the handle and resume her assault. He almost lost his footing as he marveled at how she adapted to the limitation and cost her freedom had exacted.
Soares dragged him away and thrust the tablet under his nose to show an image of Tom. He recognized the area, something inside his head telling him that Tom was up ahead, slightly beyond the fence to the compound, but the rolling images made him pause.
The filming was coming from above, far away from Tom and zoomed in, but his words were clear and loud.
The noise of battle around him changed from one of angry intent to a collective cry of terror. He looked up, mouth open, as the gateway sparked to life in bright, electric colors, and the nose of an alien tank began to emerge.
Alec
Securing the building in Atlanta had been the simple part. Considering the tower controlled half of the Trackers and Seekers in the country, the Overseers had only left a single hovercar and placed only humans as guards. Convincing them had been easier than Alec could have predicted, but it was clear most people had seen the atrocities their new leaders were enacting.
These two men were only too happy to turn the tables and help the three newcomers sneak into the control tower. Once they’d made it inside, they’d encountered one last obstacle. And his name was Barry.
“Barry, why are you still messing with us?” Becca asked. She had a gun pointed at the middle-aged man, and he leaned protectively over his keyboard.
“I told you. They put me in charge. I’ve already turned them off for you. Whatever you think you can do to me, they can do worse, believe me,” Barry said. His hair was black, a curly disarray, and his narrow face paled as Becca pressed the barrel of her gun into his temple.
“Listen, playboy. We’re out of time, and dead is dead, wouldn’t you agree?” she asked.
Alec needed to take over the controls. From here, they could see through the eyes of the drones, and there were dozens of screens on the wall of the tower control room, showing the field and gate. It seemed like the gateway was opening. His friends were there, and he had to do something to help them.
Alec grabbed the bigger man by the collar and shoved him off the chair, kicking him in the ribs as he hit the ground. “You are what’s wrong with the world. Keep him quiet.” Alec didn’t watch as Becca clubbed him on the back of the head with the butt of her gun, the two guards dragging Barry out of the room.
“You have no clue what you’re doing,” Izzy said.
“No, I don’t, but we can figure this out together. Becca, you’re smart with this kind of stuff,” he said. The tablet he’d been carrying with him flashed on as the power grid returned communication, and he passed it to her. “Maybe there’s a way to link this to the system here.”
“You mean in the sky?” Izzy asked.
“Right, that’s what I meant.” Alec watched as Becca played with the tablet, her one hand flying over the screen.
“You guys need help with that?” one of the guards asked.
“You understand this stuff?” Alec asked.
“Sure. We’re a light crew. Kind of do it all.” He smiled, and Alec returned it.
“Can you make them turn on the Overseers? I need them to defend the humans and fight anything that comes through that gateway.” Alec stood up, the man taking his seat.
“Why didn’t you say so?” He was wearing a baseball cap, and he slid it backwards
. A minute later, the drone feeds showed the Seekers lifting into the air once again, and the Trackers were activating, powering up, their diagnostics receiving the new instructions.
“That might help,” Izzy said, grabbing Alec’s hand.
“Guard guy. You’re coming with us.”
Tom
Rough hands grabbed Tom, and he saw Dexter Lambert was one of them. The Hunter’s eyes were squinted, and Tom didn’t want the man to break character. Dex wanted to help him, but the best thing he could do was stay close to Hansen and the Occupation if they failed to stop the gate.
Tom feigned a stumble, and Dex caught him, Tom whispering one word in his ear. “Don’t.”
A huge explosion rocked the ground, and Hansen’s gaze drifted to the train tracks. He grinned sadistically. “There is no victory for you today, old friend.”
He glanced to the field where the gateway stood in its full glory. A long tank had already emerged, followed by hundreds of armored aliens, heavy guns in their grip. This was it. The Roamers had failed.
The drone was still recording him, from higher now so no one could deactivate it. “Nice uniform.” Hansen stepped toward him and ran a hand over his medals, tearing them from the jacket. They dropped to the concrete with a clatter.
“I see you took my name. Calling yourself Colonel when you’d never have the balls to earn it,” Tom spat at him.
“I’m twice the man you ever were, Mason. You and your brother were so foolish,” he said. Tom took a deep breath. It was clear the man wanted to goad him. He couldn’t tell if Hansen was aware they were being filmed.
People were along the chain link fence, staring at the field filling with aliens, and Tom could tell they were scared witless.
“Is he telling the truth?” a man asked.
“Are they going to kill us?” this from a woman.
Hansen waved to a guard with an AR-15, and with a few blasts, the lingering people dropped to the ground. “Nope. I am.”
“What do you want in all this, Hansen?” Tom asked.
“First off, I want you dead, then we’ll worry about the next step. You really thought you could come here and stop them? Do you see that?” Hansen pointed at the gateway, where a second tank was emerging. “Don’t you understand? There never was a war.”
Hansen moved quickly, rushing to punch Tom in the stomach. The air pushed from his sore lungs, and the man beside Dex shoved him to the ground. Tom coughed on his knees, blood spilling onto the concrete.
“We need to fight! People of Earth, we can beat them! We can make…” A boot caught Tom in the side, and he tipped over. Dex appeared at his side, but Tom shoved him away.
The sound of machine gun fire carried through the field. His people were starting to fight. Where were the Roamers? Their train appeared to have failed, but they still had bodies and weapons. With the help of the Reclaimers, perhaps… He peered toward the field and decided there were too many of the Overseers at this point. Their only hope was retreat.
He struggled to his knees and saw the gun aimed at his forehead. Hansen’s scarred face twisted in a smile, and Tom lifted his hands. He gave Bailey and Soares the signal to retreat. They couldn’t win this day, but they could escape to fight another one.
For him, it was too late.
Chapter 42
Lina
In spite of how disorientated it made her feel, she rode in the cockpit so she could see their approach. Her anxiety had finally boiled over when the display screens inside the ship had begun to play footage, culminating in Monet gasping and stifling a sob as she saw Tom had been captured.
She urged Whittaker to fly faster, to get them there in time to save him, but the old man concentrating at the alien controls still possessed his senses.
“Greater good, sweetie,” he said without a hint of condescension but with sadness in his words. “One man or every man, woman, and child; it’s a simple yet impossible choice.” She banged her hand hard against the metal bulkhead and let out a strangled noise of rage and frustration.
“The hell?” Walters asked.
“Just take us there,” Monet pleaded, stopping as a bright flash erupted ahead of them.
“That ain’t good,” Whittaker said, understating the total failure of the plan to destroy the gateway.
“We can still shut it down,” Monet argued.
“That’s a maybe,” Walters said, “but we’d need do it up close if there was any chance.” Whittaker hesitated for a second before he urged the controls toward the big device, which flashed an array of colors and burst to life like a contained lightning storm.
“God help us,” Monet uttered just as the sheet of electric color was pierced by the pointed, brooding nose of an alien vehicle coming from the other side. Lina peered to the side and saw the other tank moving among the hordes of alien soldiers. The turret rotating, the gun aiming at their incoming spacecraft.
Alec
They were too late. Becca had pushed the limits, and for most of the journey, Alec thought the ship was about to tear apart. The engines were so loud, he’d had to plug his ears with pieces of fabric found in the cargo hold. But they made rapid time. The gate was open, and the fields outside the same facility he’d worked at for years had been turned into a killing ground. The aliens marched, firing their weapons toward a group of humans. Their people were retreating, and Alec spotted a massive crater a kilometer from the gate along the tracks.
That must have been Tom’s big hope for destroying it, but it had failed. They’d lost.
“What do you want to do?” Becca asked, keeping her distance.
He considered their options. He really wanted to blast the hell out of the gate, but the way the tanks were firing at the other alien vessel told him the Reclaimers had already tried that and failed. The huge alien vessel was irradicably zooming through the sky, tank blasts narrowly missing it.
“We get near that, we’re dead,” Izzy shouted.
Alec hated doing it, but he relented. “Land on the other side of our people. We need to evacuate them. We still have the drone control. We can fight them another day. We have two ships from what I can tell. We have hope.” He said the words without conviction.
Becca raced the vessel over the field, high in the sky, and arced to land on the other side of the battle.
Alec grabbed his gun and rushed out of the ship, an army of drones obeying his direction as he tapped on the tablet.
“Nice to see you, kid,” Bailey said. He’d only briefly met her in Cripple Creek. “Tom gave us the signal to retreat. So that’s what we do.”
Lina stood at the forefront of a hundred or so armed warriors near the other vessel, and Alec saw her scanning the region, probably searching for his brother. Their eyes locked, and he gave her a quick wave. Fifty Trackers lined up in the field, firing toward the tanks and aliens a half kilometer away. A steady stream of Seekers floated above them, joining the fight. Another hundred or so of the warriors were in the same line, firing beside Monet. His heart warmed at seeing the two of them alive.
“Trackers for friends?” Bailey asked him.
“Something like that,” he replied.
“Where’s Tom?” Alec asked, and Bailey’s face said it all. She handed him another tablet and began barking orders for people to file into the two waiting vessels.
He watched the feed from above on the small screen as Tom knelt before a man holding a gun at his head.
Tom
Tom looked up from his kneeling position, every breath a labored agony, and saw a heavy alien ship approaching them. It flew uncertainly, giving Tom hope that it had been hijacked by humans ready to fight. He turned over to Hansen and smiled.
“You feel good about yourself, Major?” he asked, goading the scarred man into talking for the world to see.
“For making sure I ended up on the winning side? Yeah, I feel pretty good about that. You know, I tried to tell you, tried to warn you that your stupid little rebellion wouldn’t work. You thought yo
u could fight an insurgency on home soil with what? A bunch of scurrying Vermin and some hicks?”
“I intend to end the occupation of a hostile foreign force by reminding every human being in this country of their duty to defend their homeland,” Tom intoned, fighting to keep another bout of coughing that could very well be his last. He could feel it creeping up on him like the reaper was peering over his shoulder. A massive detonation made him flinch, but he kept his eyes on Hansen. The traitor looked to one of his aides and nodded for the man to go check it out.
“You killed my brother,” Tom said, levelling the accusation at him like a fact he couldn’t avoid.
“In my defense, not that I need one, I was trying to kill you. Imagine if I had, and all these years of suffering for so many people could’ve been avoided?”
“For what? To live and die as slaves so you can grow fat off their blood?”
Hansen shook his head sadly. “You just don’t get it, do you? You never knew when to quit. What’s happening here is an inevitability. It’s as unavoidable as the sun rising or a person dying. I saw it, and I gave you a chance to come with me, but you didn’t listen.”
Tom scoffed. “When you told me we should surrender? Tell me something, asshole, were you ever a Marine?” Hansen’s face flashed with anger as Tom had finally found a way through his arrogance to deliver a cutting blow.
Behind him, the world flashed brightly as the tank fired into the sky. Hansen turned to see it, looking at Tom with an arrogant smile.
“You’re everything that’s wrong with the world,” Tom told him. “You’re everything wrong with humanity. You’re poison, and you’re a coward.” Hansen laughed darkly; his armor of arrogance reinstated as another tank emerged from the gate.
Salvation (Rise Book 2) Page 27