For one thing, Schaefer and Rasche were out there somewhere with a vanload of heavy weapons, and they were going to fight. A fight was going to happen, it couldn't be stopped.
And as far as Philips was concerned, if he couldn't stop the fight from happening, then his job was to do everything he could to help the right side win.
He didn't really think he could pull if off; how could he fight a bunch of invisible spaceships, fight monsters with shoulder-mounted energy cannon?
But he had to try
Schaefer and Rasche were trying-they were out there fighting back, somehow. And Schaefer, who seemed to understand how the aliens thought better than anyone except maybe Dutch, didn't think it was suicide. He didn't think they were going to lose New York.
Or maybe he did expect to die, did expect to lose New York-and didn't care. Schaefer was a crazy bastard. Dutch had been stubborn, but Schaefer was just plain nuts.
Maybe that was why he could understand the aliens; maybe they were crazy the same way he was. Maybe he was more like them than he was like an ordinary man.
Maybe that was why they'd tagged him.
Philips shook his head.
It didn't matter now why they'd tagged Schaefer. It didn't matter why they'd come to New York, instead of staying in the tropics. All that mattered was that the final showdown was coming, and Philips's job was to get whatever force he could out there to help.
He couldn't get the entire army in on this, there wasn't time, but he could at least put together enough to let those damn monsters know they'd been in a fight.
"Turn on the damn radio," he told the pilot. "Get me Washington."
* * *
33
The sky was turning pale in the east, and before he slid the alien mask into place, Rasche could see the top of the Chrysler building, a few blocks uptown, beginning to glitter in the light of dawn. Half of Carr's men had dozed off, sprawled here and there along the garage entrance walls, surrounded by their weapons.
Schaefer knelt on the sidewalk, the Soviet antitank gun ready beside him, while Rasche took a turn watching the skies above Third Avenue.
"Come on, Schaefer," Carr growled. "Take your goddamn shot, for Christ's sake. You've let half a dozen of the bastards go by-if this was baseball, you'd have struck out watching 'em hours ago!"
"If this were baseball I'd have walked, not struck out," Schaefer replied calmly. "I want something I can hit if I miss, a rocket-propelled grenade is going to make a pretty big hole in somebody's storefront."
"So who gives a shit?"
"I do."
"The insurance will cover it. Take a shot, for Christ's sake!"
"Here it comes again," Rasche called. "Lower and slower this time." He handed the mask to Schaefer.
Schaefer took the mask, held it up, and grinned. He raised the antitank gun.
"Got it this time, Carr," Schaefer exulted as he hefted the weapon and sighted. Rasche held the mask for him, so that Schaefer would have both hands free to work the gun.
"He's cruising right up the middle of the avenue, just where I want him," Schaefer reported. "I can put this baby just where I want it, right . . ."
He pulled the trigger, and the rocket spat out of the tube.
". . . there!"
A fraction of a second later the boom of the RPG echoed from the buildings on either side, and shrapnel rained down across Third Avenue, rattling off asphalt and taxicabs.
The sound woke the dozing hoods; hands grabbed for weapons, heads whirled.
For a moment after the flash everyone in the garage entryway glimpsed the outline, of the ship, flickering above the streets in a shower of blue sparks and burning rocket fragments; then it vanished again, to everyone but Schaefer.
"Didn't do much more than scratch the paint," he said, "but I didn't expect any better. At least that should get their attention l" He took off the mask and waved to the others. "Come on, let's move out! Get ready for 'em ! They'll be coming to see who took a shot at them!"
"Move yer asses!" Carr shouted, and the motley collection of New York's worst stirred, rose, and moved.
The little squad of New York's defenders trotted out into the street and found a thin scatter of people on both sidewalks-early risers and diehards from the night before who had been going about their business and had been drawn out by the explosion, curious about what new peculiarity the city had come up with.
"Clear the streets!" Schaefer bellowed. "Now!" He gestured to Carr's recruits. "Half of you on one side of the street, the other half come with me, get the civilians out of here before the aliens arrive!"
"You heard the man!" Carr shouted. He fired a burst in the air, half a dozen rounds. "Get the fuck outta here!"
Rasche charged out with the rest, but a bit less enthusiastically. This sort of action might be his partner's cup of tea, but Christ, he was just a cop, he'd never even worked Emergency Services. He watched Carr's men hounding citizens into doorways and down alleys, and wondered what the hell he was doing here--armed assaults on bug-eyed invisible saucermen were never part of his job description.
He realized suddenly that somehow, out of all that hardware that had been handed out, he'd wound up with nothing but his own familiar pistol.
He held it ready in one hand, but somehow he doubted it was going to do much good.
He paused in the doorway of a camera shop, between signs reading ONE DAY ONLY and OUR BIGGEST SALE EVER! and scanned the sky-pointlessly; the goddamn spaceships were invisible, he knew that.
A security guard emerged from the shop behind him. "Hey, Mac," the rent-a-cop called, "what's going on? Who the hell are you?"
"Police," Rasche said, fishing his ID from his pocket and flashing the badge. "We're being attacked by monsters from outer space."
"Right," the guard said after a pause. "Big green ones, I suppose?"
Rasche turned. "Look, bozo, you asked," he said. "This is for real, okay? You're in a fucking war zone."
The guard stared at him.
"Just get out of sight, will you?" Rasche said. "Believe me or not, but this whole neighborhood's going to be full of flying lead in a few minutes, and you don't want to be here."
"Jesus," the guard said. "You're serious? And on the big sale day?"
He turned and ran back inside, locking the door behind him-the glass door.
Lot of protection that was going to be when the shooting started, Rasche thought.
Still, it was probably better than being out here in the open, the way he was.
This wasn't anything he'd ever wanted. Schaefer had his own reasons for being on the force, maybe he'd always been looking for some kind of big apocalyptic shoot-out, but Rasche had just wanted a steady job where he felt he could do some good. He looked at one of Carr's gang waving some kind of machine gun around and felt a chill that wasn't just the breeze from the west.
It was fear.
He had a wife and children. He wanted to make pension, find a place upstate somewhere, settle down and watch his kids grow up, hear them laugh . . .
He didn't want to die, and it looked very much as if he was about to. He'd taken out one of these space predators down at Carr's place, but that one had been alone and he'd caught it by surprise, not to mention he'd been armed a bit more heavily; somehow he doubted he was going to be anywhere near as lucky against whatever came out of that ship Schaefer had just taken a shot at.
Hell, if they wanted to, the aliens could probably take out all of midtown without even warming up their heavy stuff. If this turned into a real fight, it would be because the aliens wanted to fight.
Rasche was beginning to think seriously about why he was still there, why he hadn't turned and run for his life, when he heard sirens.
"Oh, shit," he said.
Someone must have called in about the explosion and the lunatics running around with guns. Maybe a prowl car had seen something. Whatever the reason, the cops were coming.
And somehow Rasche didn't think they were comin
g to join the war against the monsters.
The familiar blue cars were charging up Third Avenue in an unbroken phalanx, lights flashing and sirens at full blast-and Rasche was in deep shit with the department, he knew that. McComb was in with the feds on this, siding with the monsters in hopes they'd go home happy-and even if no one cared about that, Rasche had walked off with about half a ton of illegal heavy weapons from the police lab, and he'd passed them out to a bunch of the worst hoods in the city.
McComb was going to love that.
Rasche faded back into the shelter of the doorway.
All along the block Carr and his men were doing the same-only Schaefer was still standing out there in plain sight on the east sidewalk, watching, as the cop cars pulled up.
And sure enough, just as Rasche had expected, it was Captain McComb, wearing a flak jacket and carrying a bullhorn, who climbed out of the lead unit.
"This is Captain McComb of the New York Police Department!" he announced. "We have the area sealed off-you're surrounded. You have ten seconds to throw down your weapons and give yourselves up, and then we're coming in after you!"
Schaefer stepped off the curb, M-16 in one hand, the alien mask in the other.
"You don't know what you're doing, McComb!" he called. "Those things have to be stopped!"
"What in hell . . . ?" McComb asked. He snatched a shotgun from the car and pointed it at Schaefer. "Schaefer? You're running this?"
"Someone has to!"
"You've lost it this time, Schaefer!" McComb shouted. "I'll probably make assistant chief for taking you out-and I'm going to enjoy it!" He raised the shotgun. "Last chance, Schaefer--drop the . . ."
Then, as Rasche watched from the camera-shop doorway, several things happened simultaneously.
Schaefer suddenly jerked his head sideways and clutched at his neck, at the device embedded there.
McComb stopped in midsentence and stared, open mouthed, up the avenue.
A shadow appeared from nowhere, instantly covering the full width of the avenue, blocking out the pink light of dawn.
Schaefer twisted to look behind himself, up at the immense spaceship that rested heavily on the pavement of Third Avenue, its central landing rib gouging into the asphalt, its curving surfaces shading the street and almost touching the buildings on either side. An oily black stain on the white hull, back near the tail, marked where Schaefer's RPG had hit it.
"Well, what do you know," Schaefer said. "Company! "
* * *
34
For a few seconds everyone on the street or huddled in the doorways stared silently up at the ship. It had not landed; it had simply appeared. Rasche realized it must have landed while still invisible, and once it was down, the aliens had turned their gadget off.
He felt a sudden renewed chill. If the creatures were giving up an advantage like that . . .
Then the first blast struck-one of the police cruisers exploded in blue-white fire and, an instant later, exploded again in yellow flame as the gas tank detonated. Cops ducked and dived in all directions, looking for cover.
That had apparently been a test shot; before the echoes had died, away the actual barrage began. Blue-white flared up on all sides as vehicles were scattered like toys and building facades crumbled.
Schaefer ran, dodged, and dived for cover, landing beside Rasche in the sheltered doorway of the camera shop.
"Jesus," he said as he sprawled on the sidewalk, "I think they're upset."
"This isn't just for fun, Schaefer!" Rasche shouted. "They're going to bring down half the city!"
Schaefer looked at him, then rolled over and looked up at the ship and the ongoing pyrotechnics. He saw that the buildings on both sides were still standing; the aliens were shooting at the vehicles in the street, and at the entrances, but they weren't really doing anywhere near as much damage as they might have.
Schaefer had seen what a group on foot could do when they'd taken out Eschevera's camp; he'd seen a ship reduce Carr's building to rubble in a matter of minutes. Somehow he suspected that the ship out there could have done a lot more damage if that was what the bastards really wanted.
"You know," he said thoughtfully, "maybe I was wrong-maybe they aren't upset. I think they're just clearing the area so we won't ambush 'em as they emerge. Hell, if they chase enough people away, maybe I'll finally be able to afford a decent apartment! "
Rasche was too shocked to react to Schaefer's attempt at humor.
Out in the street Captain McComb crouched by one of the cars that was still intact and shouted into the radio, "Sweet Jesus, we need help up here! I've never seen anything like it-that son of a bitch Philips . . ."
Then, abruptly, the barrage stopped; echoes rolled away down the avenue and up the streets on either side.
In the sudden silence the survivors on the ground peered cautiously from whatever shelter they had found.
"Now what?" Rasche asked.
"Now they come out after us," Schaefer replied. "That was just to drive us back. Look."
Rasche looked and saw an opening appear in the side of the ship. Something shimmered in the shadow there; then the shimmer dropped to the street below.
A second shimmer followed, and a third . . .
Rasche ducked back out of sight.
McComb didn't notice the shimmerings; he didn't know what to look for. He saw the door open, but he didn't see anything emerge.
"What do you want?" he shouted. "You want someone to come in there and parley? Is that it?"
"Is that it?" his own voice called back.
And then, suddenly, one of the creatures was standing over him, looking down, its face hidden behind a metal mask.
"What . . . what are you?" McComb gasped.
The monster didn't answer. The black thing on its shoulder swiveled, aimed, and fired, blowing a hole through Captain McComb's chest.
"There's one of 'em!" one of Carr's men shouted. "Over there!" He lifted his Uzi and sprayed bullets at the creature standing over the dead cop.
It flickered and vanished.
The hood stopped firing, lowered the gun, and stared. "Jesus," he said, "he disapp-"
Then the blue-white bolt from the shoulder cannon tore through his side, spinning him off his feet; he was dead by the time he hit the sidewalk.
"McComb's dead!" Rasche shouted.
"And we're next, if we don't keep moving," Schaefer said. He stared through the mask. "They're not keeping any kind of formation, they're just milling around out there, picking targets at random-if we can lay down a fire pattern, drive 'em back. . ." He looked around for allies and spotted a cluster of Carr's men, spraying bullets in all directions.
"Lay a pattern, " he shouted. "Push them back toward the ship!"
The thugs paid no attention; Schaefer swore and charged out toward them, firing wildly to cover his own movements.
He had almost reached the group of outlaws when the shape of one of the aliens, red and gold through the mask, reared up before him.
"Oh, shit . . ."
The thing hit him with the back of its hand, sending him flying; then, when he landed, it stepped over to him, reached down, and snatched the mask away from him.
That finally got the attention of the nearby humans, and a barrage of gunfire drove the monster away before it could finish him.
"Damn!" Schaefer said as he crawled for shelter. "helmet's gone-we're blind, and they know it!"
Blue-white cannon fire took down two of Carr's recruits, and in the instant's distraction Rasche dashed forward to help Schaefer up from the pavement. Together, the two ran for shelter.
A wild shot tore through Rasche's shoulder, and he fell back, shattering what remained of a broken display window. Schaefer called his name and looked wildly about for somewhere he could take his fallen partner, somewhere safe.
He didn't see anything like safety, but he did see reinforcements coming.
At least he hoped they were reinforcements.
A squad of m
en in olive drab were charging up Third Avenue, M-16's firing.
And one of the men, Schaefer saw, was General Philips.
"Schaefer!" the old man called. "Goddamn you, you son of a bitch, you had to do this the hard way! The shit's really hit the fan now!"
"What's next, General?" Schaefer shouted back. "Gonna take out my boys for 'em? Still hoping to negotiate?"
"Shit," Philips said. "Maybe that's what they want down in Washington, but I was never much of a diplomat. I may not have shown it, Schaefer, but I do know what side I'm on, and it isn't some goddamn monsters'-I've got gunships, helicopters, coming this way."
"Think it'll help?" Schaefer asked. "You know how many ships they have, where they are?"
"Nope," Philips replied. "Can't track 'em that well-they make our stealth technology look like bright-red billboards with targets on 'em. But goddammit, it's our planet!"
The second-story wall blew out of the building above them just then; neither man had seen whether alien cannon fire or a wild shot from one of the defenders' heavier weapons was responsible, but they both bent over and sheltered their heads with their arms as debris pelted them.
Then Philips looked up and looked around.
"Can't see a goddamn sign of 'em," he said. "These damned foreigners are really starting to stick in my craw-why don't the yellow bastards show themselves?"
"Why should they?" Schaefer asked as he scanned the street. "It's . . . Wait a minute." Something had caught his eye, and combined with a memory. "You watch Rasche," he said.
He ran forward into the street before Philips could react, and began pawing through the wreckage of one of McComb's cruisers. He found what he wanted-a fireman's wrench. He hefted it and ran for the nearest hydrant.
He twisted the cap off the front, then turned the hydrant on full.
Water sprayed out, against the side of a burning cruiser, and then up, arcing into the street; as the water showered back, blue sparks crawled across shimmering outlines, and two alien monsters appeared.
Carr, a block away, saw what Schaefer had done; he didn't have a wrench, but he had something else-he blew the top off another hydrant, sending another spray of water spilling into the street.
Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Predator 01 Page 21