by Nate Johnson
As her feet pounded into the dusty road, a sudden whoosh of air knocked her to the ground by the side of the road. She didn’t see it coming, no one did. But suddenly, from nowhere, a shiny metal ship swooped down and slid along the dirt road.
Dust and redbud bushes exploded into the air in a far-reaching fan.
Alicia froze in place on her hands and knees and stared at the new monstrosity.
The doors sprang open and creatures dressed in highly polished shining armor poured out from inside. Each with their own weapon, sweeping back and forth searching for targets.
Her heart fell. They could never defeat this. The fifty original aliens had been too much. But this, another hundred, in armor, with rifles and a ship. They were all doomed, she thought as a heavy sadness fell over her.
As she watched, one of the new creatures broke away from the others and walked towards her, his rifle never leaving her. She knew if she moved, she was dead. There was no doubt in her mind. The small hole at the end of the barrel held her death, she was sure of it.
The creature stopped before her, looking down at her for a long moment. The mirror surface of its faceplate showing her own reflection.
She stared back up, unable to move. A feeling of shame washed over her. She was going to die on her hands and knees in the dirt like a rabbit.
The creature’s attention shifted away from her to look out over the field behind her. She twisted to look at what he was looking at as she fought to catch her breath.
Alicia’s insides crumbled. Stephan hung between two rat aliens. Each of them held an arm. Pulling him away. The boy twisted and turned trying to escape. Her heart filled with love. At least he was still fighting, she thought.
It wouldn’t matter, he would die, but he would die fighting. Like a Miller should.
Suddenly, a sharp explosion behind her made her jump. Before she could shift to see what had happened, the head of one of the aliens holding her brother erupted into a red mist. A heartbeat later. The other alien turned to see what happened. Just in time to catch a bullet squarely between the eyes.
Both creatures crumpled to the ground.
Alicia frantically tried to understand what had happened. Her brother was free. How was this possible?
She turned to see the creature from the ship with his rifle braced against his shoulder as he continued to track back and forth between the two targets laying in the dirt. Obviously waiting for them to move.
“Stephan,” she screamed.
Her brother sprang up from the dust and stared at his two attackers. His head shifting back and forth as if unable to believe what he was seeing. Then a menacing grin creased his lips as he reached back and kicked the aliens. Over and over, as if unleashing all the pent-up fear a twelve-year-old boy could ever hold.
Alicia turned back to the creature in the shining armor. Seeing that the aliens were truly dead, he lowered his rifle and stared at her for a moment.
Then, as if realizing something, it reached up and pushed its faceplate back.
A handsome face appeared from inside the helmet. A handsome human face. Alicia felt her knees grow weak with relief. The man’s deep brown eyes searched hers, locking her in place as he studied her.
Then, slowly, a small grin twitched at the corners of his lips.
“Sergeant Dex Carter,” he said, “Imperial Marines. Get the boy and get behind us. This isn’t over yet.”
His words washed over her like an incoming tide. Relentless and without meaning. Then, finally, what he was saying seeped into her consciousness.
“Stephan,” she yelled as she jumped up and held out her hand.
Her brother raced towards her. Sliding to a stop by her side, his eyes as big as dinner plates as he looked up at the man standing in the middle of the road. The boy wasn’t even out of breath as he continued to stare with his mouth hanging open.
Suddenly, the man in the road, twisted and brought the butt of his rifle around in a circle and connected with an alien rushing past them.
The creature dropped like a sack of potatoes. The Marine leaned forward and put a bullet into the monsters head. The rifles explosion making her flinch.
Alicia felt her insides freeze. He’d killed the beast like he was stomping on a bug. There had been no hesitation. No chance for second thoughts.
“Come on,” the Marine said. “Hurry.”
Alicia threw her arm around her brother and started back towards the village, her mind reeled with information overload. What had happened? And how.
She noticed that the man followed closely, his rifle sweeping back and forth as he escorted her back to the village.
Pulling herself together, she looked around. Men in shining armor had spread out. Forming a wall between her village and the aliens.
Dead aliens lay everywhere, their blood and gore staining the ground. People were moving toward the village, their eyes lost in long stares off into space. Tears and blood staining their faces. Each of them in their own little world. Fighting desperately to make sense of what had happened.
Alicia tried to bring herself back under control. They were going to live. Stephan was going to live. Somehow, these men, these Marines had appeared from nowhere and saved her village.
A prayer had been answered. Somehow, they were going to live.
At least for now, she thought, as she turned to follow where the Marine was staring, north, down the valley.
There, on the far horizon, a group of aliens were gathering.
Alicia felt her stomach clench up into a tight ball as she slowly tracked the aliens from one end of the tree line all the way across the valley to the other tree line.
There must be thousands, she thought as her heart sank.
Maybe she had given her thanks too early, she thought. As the man said, this wasn’t over yet.
Chapter Nine
Dex scanned the far horizon and felt his guts clench up.
Damn, he thought as he hurriedly shifted to scan the sky. Where were they? The major and the rest of the battalion. They should have been down first. Had they really lost Alpha and Charlie companies? The thought was enough to tighten his gut into a knot.
The wind brought him a quick sharp scent of dust and green grass.
Landside, he thought. After three weeks of canned air, the sharp, sweet taste of fresh air pulled at him. Reminding him of where he was and what he was doing.
Shifting, he quickly scanned his surroundings and made a snap decision. To hell with them. He couldn’t wait.
“Report,” he said into his suit microphone. He might be assuming too much responsibility. But someone had to do it. Besides. It wasn’t like there were a dozen guys waiting in line. He was senior. It was his responsibility.
As the reports began to trickle in, his insides began to quiver. Seventy-six men. Not three hundred and fourteen. Seventy-six. Most of the First and Second platoon, a good part of third.
Seventy-six. He thought again as he looked out to the horizon. Hell, three hundred wouldn’t have been enough.
Swallowing hard, he said, “Dig in, Obamway, you’ve got First platoon, take the left.” He glanced over at his other two corporals to make sure they understood. Both nodded back to him. Turning to the companies other sergeants, he raised an eyebrow to see if they had any objection to him taking charge. Both of them nodded their concurrence.
“Daniels take your Second platoon to the right,” he said, “Smith your Third platoon has got center.”
His fellow sergeants got their men moving and soon three-man teams of Imperial Marines quickly turned to digging. Two manning shovels, one standing guard.
Dex took another deep breath and tried to juggle the thousand thoughts rushing through his mind. He and his men were now responsible for stopping a hoard of aliens.
A weight settled on his shoulders that felt as if it would crush him. They could not fail. He could not fail. Too much depended on it.
Shifting to get a look at their new environment, he saw the wo
man was still there, along with the boy. Both of them looking at him like he was some kind of fish who’d dropped out of a cloudless sky.
She was too young to be the boy’s mother. For some reason, he quickly checked out her left hand. No ring.
Get a grip, he thought to himself. Here he was in the middle of a do or die battle and he’s checking out if she’s married or not. How ridiculous could a guy get?
Granted, she was as beautiful as a woman could be. Blond hair, and an angel’s face, with quick intelligent eyes that seemed to sparkle in the mid-day sun.
Shaking his head to try and bring himself back to reality he said to the pair, “Get some help and move the bodies of your friends back.”
The woman glanced at the heavyset woman, lying dead in the middle of the road and then across the field to the old guy, face first in the dust. Her skin turned white as she stared at him in disbelief.
“Can’t your men do that?” she asked, her voice registering a silent plea.
He shook his head, “they are too busy, and if we have to move back we will have to leave them behind. Believe me, you don’t want them being left for the Scraggs.”
She looked again at the corpses then at her brother. At last, she nodded to the boy, “Stephan, go get the others. We need to move them.”
Dex sighed internally. One less problem for him to deal with. It was nice to see she wasn’t going to fall into some kind of puddle and become a useless mess.
“What’s your name?” he asked as the boy ran off towards the village.
“Alicia,” she said, “Alicia Miller.”
Dex got the impression by the way she said it that the name should mean something to him. But really he didn’t have time to figure it out.
“What is the situation?” he asked. “How many people here? Who is in charge?”
The young woman shook her head. “There’s about thirty of us. Mostly women, old men, and children. A lot of children.”
“Where is everyone else?” he asked as his mind tried to wrap itself around what she was telling him.
“They left when the Militia was called up. It’s been almost three weeks. My mother, my brothers, the ranch hands. Everyone went to Tannerville. We probably should have gone with them.”
“No!” he barked before he could stop himself.
She looked up at him expectantly. “Why? What have you heard? We haven’t heard anything.”
He slowly shook his head. See, this was why they put officers in charge and not sergeants. Sergeants didn’t know how to keep their mouths shut.
“Just that most of the Marines are going in to take it back,” he said. No need to tell her of what the latest reports had shown them.
Turning away from her so that she wouldn’t see the lie in his eyes, he scanned the perimeter. His men were busting their hump to get dug in. There was no need to hurry them along. They knew that the best protection was a hole in the ground. Preferably deep and solid.
“What weapons did they have?” he asked as he turned back to her.
She furrowed her brow. “Lasers,” she said. “Blue ones.”
He nodded and clicked over to the command channel to contact HQ. A high pitched whistle greeted him on the new frequency. Damn, they were being jammed. He shifted to secondary and then to tertiary. All of them were being jammed. His stomach tightened again. If this kept up he was going to end up with a knot in his intestines so tight that it would never get untangled.
Muttering under his breath, he turned, ignoring her, as he made his way to the front of the shuttle.
Damn, the pilot looked like a pin cushion. A dozen jagged pieces of metal were jammed into the guy’s body. Some as big as a hand, others, long and narrow. It was a miracle, but somehow he’d gotten them onto the ground before bleeding out.
Dex grit his teeth as he reached in past the pilot and pushed the radio’s button to the left. Patching his suit into the ship’s radio. He double checked to make sure both were set in secure mode.
“Task Group Thirty-Two, Point Two. This is Task Unit Eagle, I repeat this is Task Unit Eagle.”
He held his breath as he waited. There wasn’t the high pitched whine on this frequency, which made absolutely no sense. Why block the Marines but not the shuttles bringing them down.
Hell, maybe these Scragg freaks were as screwed up as his commanders. The thought sent a small warm feeling to his insides. They weren’t perfect. They screwed up just as much as the Marines.
“Thirty-Two point Two, this is Eagle, Over?” he repeated.
Again there was a long pause. Finally, someone said, “You’re on the wrong frequency Jarhead, this is the shuttle frequency.”
Dex clenched his jaw. If the man had been in front of him he would have planted a fist in his face just to hear the bones crack.
“The other regular frequencies are jammed,” Dex said through tight lips. He noticed that the woman had followed him and was watching him with a confused expression on her face. She gasped when she saw the dead pilot but then quickly turned to focus on him.
Great, now he had an audience.
“This is Eagle, Task Unit Point Six,” Dex said into his suit radio. “I need to talk to Marine Command.”
“This is the shuttle frequency.” The voice said again as if it were talking to an idiotic baby who needed care and understanding.”
“Damn it, I know,” Dex said. “But you might want to tell someone that Task Unit Point Six has had about seventy percent casualties and I’ve got a hoard of aliens about ready to break through and ram their weapons up General Smyth’s ass.”
Again the radio remained silent for a long moment. Then a new voice came on and said,
“Eagle, shift to frequency Alpha three. It should be the third slot on the shuttles radio.”
Dex sighed, finally someone who didn’t have his head up his ass. “Shifting.”
Reaching down, he pushed the lever into the third spot and said, “This is Eagle, over.”
Almost immediately, someone said, “Stand-by.”
Dex felt his blood pressure rising like a thermometer on New Kansas in the dead of summer. But, before he could really start cursing a new voice came on the radio.
“Eagle, this is Commander, Task Force Thirty-Two. Over.”
Dex’s stomach dropped to the ground. Either someone had screwed up their call sign. Or he was talking to the head honcho himself.”
“Sir, I mean, Thirty-Two, this is Unit Point Six, the Eagles.”
Why in the hell was he talking to an admiral? He glanced over at the woman next to him. Alicia, she was looking at him with one raised eyebrow. It was rather obvious that she had no idea what was going on but that he was obviously just as confused.
“Eagle, go ahead with your report. We will get it to Marine Command once we reestablish communications. Who am I talking to?”
“Um ... Sir, this is Sergeant Dex Carter. Platoon Sergeant, First Platoon, Bravo Company, Second Battalion.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
Dex took a deep breath. The voice on the other end sounded calm and cool, like a Sunday afternoon walk in the park. Not what he would have expected an admiral to sound like. Especially not while the galaxy was coming to a quick end.
“Sir, our assignment is to block Drake’s Rift ...”
“I am aware of your mission. Go on.”
“Um, yes, Sir, well, two of the companies, didn’t make it. Our shuttle got hit as well. Somehow the pilot got us down. But we lost our skipper and exec.” Dex paused for a moment, “Sir, we have seventy-six men left to hold this position. And I can see about three or four thousand of the enemy on the horizon chomping at the bit. We need reinforcements, Sir, immediately.”
The radio remained silent for a long minute. Dex was getting ready to repeat himself when a sharp crackle stopped him.
“Eagle, this is CTF Thirty-Two. Roger I understand.”
Dex let out a long sigh of relief. At least someone got it. He was no longer the senior guy with
a secret. Now it was someone else’s problem.
The radio hissed again. “Eagle, things are a little hectic right now,” the voice said with its soft soothing tone. “I’m afraid there will be no reinforcements. You are on your own. Do you understand?”
Dex took a step back. It felt as if someone had just hit him in the gut with a sledgehammer. On their own. That was impossible.
“We can’t get anyone to you right now.”
“How long until you can, Sir?” Dex asked, forgetting for a moment who he was talking to.
Again there was a long pause. He could imagine the admiral’s staff were frantically working the numbers.
“That is unknown at this time,” the radio said. “You have to hold that position. Do you understand? It is imperative. The way things are shaping up. It might be the key to everything.”
Dex took a long deep breath and nodded to himself. Well, that settled that, he thought.
He glanced over at Alicia, her eyes were wide, she had heard the exchange and immediately recognized it for what it was. Their death sentence.
Dex remembered that they were waiting for him to answer. “Roger, Sir, I understand. We will hold. As long as we can. What about the Fleet. Any ...”
“The fleet is out of position,” the commander said. “We are halfway across the solar system chasing these bastards. Don’t expect any support there.”
Dex nodded, he had expected as much.
“In the meantime,” the Task Force Commander said, “I am promoting you to Commander of Bravo Company. You are now Captain Carter. I need you to hold that Rift, son. Do you understand? No matter what. Hold the Rift. ”
Dex glanced down at his arms as his three chevrons disappeared. Almost immediately, two black, parallel bars appeared on each shoulder.
Damn, he thought. It took him eight years to get those chevrons. Then, the realization of what had just happened began to sink in. A battlefield commission. They only gave those out when it looked like there wasn’t much chance of anyone surviving.