by Kyle Noe
“Where are we going?” Giovanni asked.
Jennings stopped and looked over his shoulder. “The resistance is going this way. Your choice whether you want to accompany us or not.” He shrugged Giovanni off and kept moving.
Giovanni had no choice but to follow. “You can’t just run away from this, we’re losing out there!” Giovanni gestured back to what they had just witnessed. “They took Quinn. Who the hell’s in charge here?”
“You must have us confused with someone else. In our unit we don’t have any ranks. We … transcend them.”
“That’s a recipe for disaster,” Giovanni said. “And a little hyperbolic, don’t you think?”
“Says the Marine whose unit no longer exists.” Jennings looked momentarily regretful at saying that, but didn’t apologize.
“Fuck you,” Giovanni said, but realized he had a point. “And lest you forget it, here’s some truth for you: If we don’t find cover, and soon, we’re dead.”
“Warriors were meant to die in battle,” Tara replied, looking over.
Giovanni smirked at this, and at the handful of other resistance fighters, boys and girls mostly in their late teens or early twenties who were busy peering at Tara and Jennings with expectant eyes.
“That is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever—” He stopped suddenly, noticing a change in the air, a vibration like a tightly wound guitar string.
A shot rang out and a sabot round swished past Giovanni’s head. It caught Jennings in the face, reversing his nose into his skull. A frenetic spray of blood sheeted Giovanni’s face as Jennings fell, dead before he hit the ground.
Everything was a confused blur as Giovanni wiped blood, not his own, from his burning eyes. The foliage rippled with movement. From the corner of his left eye, he spotted the obscured form of a Syndicate sniper, then several drones doing sorties overhead.
“GET BACK!” Giovanni shrieked. “FALL BACK!”
The resistance fighters did just that, crisscrossing their fire more proficiently than Giovanni would have thought them capable of doing. It had the effect of pushing back the drones and forcing the sniper to take cover.
But their ammo was quickly spent, and they had no choice but to follow Giovanni in a retreat as the enemy regrouped for another attack. The resistance fighters rushed forward, close to Giovanni, as if he somehow were the only one who knew where they were going and what to do. But the truth was, he hadn’t a clue.
With no choice, though, he led the ragtag group on a frenetic dash through the jungle. By some miracle, he caught sight of footprints in a clearing, human footprints, and followed them, leading the others single file through a long stretch of switchbacks.
“HURRY!” Tara shouted from next to Giovanni, where she had moved up to pace him. She signaled for everyone to follow her down the side of a mountain, clutching vines and roots to steady themselves.
Giovanni was grateful someone who might know something was still around, and tried to pull back away from the front of their charged retreat. But a second later, he felt the air tingle. He saw a pair of Syndicate drones, larger than the others, swooping down like vultures.
“WE’VE GOT COMPANY!” he shouted.
Tara unsheathed a sword as the bottoms on the drones opened and released a cluster of what looked like steel hoses. The drones descended, spider-like, the hoses dropping around Tara’s neck like a hangman’s noose. She fought the hoses, slashing at them with her knife, but it was no use. The drone carried her up into the air, her arms still flailing, until she could no longer be seen.
Giovanni blanched. Then, realizing he only had seconds before it happened again, he waved his arms to the fighters behind him.
“WE EITHER MOVE OR WE DIE!”
They ran down a hillside, scrambling for cover. The Syndicate either couldn’t keep pace or chose not to, though the drones buzzed them until they had descended far into the belly of the jungle, where there were no more gaps in the canopy. They were hidden from sight, seemingly safe, but lost.
And then they spotted the man in the clearing. He stood as if nothing unexpected was occurring—as if he had a plan, and had determined that the war was going exactly as he wanted it to go.
Giovanni stared in awe, shocked into silence at the sight.
The man was as sleek as a jungle cat, with tanned, high cheekbones, muscular chest (visible through a partially torn camouflage jacket), and cannonball shoulders. The stranger rose from where he was stooped over an azure finger of water, then adjusted the rifle that hung from a sling over his back as he assessed the newcomers.
”Where’s Jennings?” the man said, swapping looks with some of the other resistance fighters.
“He—he’s dead,” one of them answered.
The man caught sight of the blood on Giovanni’s face and clothes. Malice flared in the man’s eyes as they pinched to focus, a cloud coming over his face.
“Who’s he?” the man demanded, pointing at Giovanni. “Is this your fault?”
Giovanni took a step back, confused and caught off guard. “What do you mean? And who the fuck are you to question me? I’m a Marine. If anyone has authority here, it’s me—”
But it was too late. The man was charging, and a split-second later he had Giovanni by the waist, lifting him in the air to pile-drive him into the ground.
Giovanni instinctively brought his fists down, punching the man’s shoulders. But it felt like he was striking a brick wall. His elbows felt bruised and scraped before he even pulled up for another blow.
He managed to slip out of the stranger’s grip and tried to kick, but his opponent was swift, swiping Giovanni’s leg aside and grabbing hold of him again.
The stranger planted his feet and deadlifted Giovanni, throwing him into the air. His ears rang as Giovanni flew a good six feet, then landed in a pile of branches and creeper vines. Struggling to stand, he grabbed the only thing he could find, a stout stick, and held it out like a club.
The man charged again, and Giovanni swung his club. With a swift dodge of his head, the man avoided the blow and caught the club between his hands. Moving on impulse, Giovanni brought his knee up into the man’s solar plexus. The man grunted and instinctively brought his hands down, giving Giovanni room to free his club and crack it across the stranger’s head.
Stumbling backward, the stranger cursed, eyes unfocused. This was his chance, Giovanni thought, so he darted forward, club raised.
But the stranger had his footing again, and sidestepped. The two danced around, throwing punches and strikes with the club, but neither connected. Finally, Giovanni put all of his weight into a wicked uppercut. To his surprise, it connected and sent the daunting stranger to one knee.
The stranger stumbled to his feet again and threw a series of wild haymakers, but Giovanni knew he had him. He glided back and popped him again, splitting his lip and knocking him to his ass.
“Son of a…” the stranger grumbled. He rolled suddenly, reaching for something. When he came up to a sitting position, he had a rifle aimed at Giovanni's testicles.
“One more step,” the stranger said, threatening. “You take one more step and I’ll neuter you.”
The two stood silently for several terrible seconds, the stranger with his gun and Giovanni with his club. The other resistance fighters had, by this time, formed a circle around the pair as they fought.
“You’re bleeding,” Giovanni said, gesturing at the man’s lip.
The stranger smiled darkly. “There’s an old saying that a man has no worth unless he’s suffered a wound.”
Giovanni nodded, and then two things happened almost at once. The stranger squeezed his trigger and Giovanni flung his club.
Club met bullet somewhere halfway between them.
There was a THWACK! and a friction spark, and the bullet ricocheted off to the side. Gasps sounded from the resistance fighters as the stranger lowered his still-smoking rifle a few inches.
“My name’s Luke,” the stranger said. “Who th
e hell are you?”
“I’m a Marine,” Giovanni replied.
“The Marines lost,” Luke said. “So who the hell are you now?”
Giovanni shook his head. His eyes went vacant for a second, like he might tear up.
Luke squinted. “You a deserter?’
“I’d die before turning my back on the others,” Giovanni replied.
“Then how’d you survive? I know what’s happening. I saw the Syndicate taking people away.”
“I followed your guy.” Giovanni shrugged. “Jennings. Guess that was as good an idea as any.”
Luke lowered his rifle completely down. “I assume you know that humanity is busy getting its ass kicked.”
Giovanni nodded.
“You feel like hoisting the white flag?” Luke said.
“No, sir.”
“You feel like fighting?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Luke smirked. “What the hell is your name anyway?”
“Giovanni.”
Luke nodded, looking at Giovanni as if finally seeing him for the first time. With a hint of a smile, he said, “Fine. You might regret this, but welcome to the resistance.”
A moment of silence followed, and then Luke reached out his hand and Giovanni shook it. He never thought he would be a member of a conspiracy-driven resistance, but that was before he knew the resistance would become the only remaining buttress in the face of an alien invasion.
This was how it was now, and he meant to see those alien bastards pay. Any way possible.
Chapter Ten: Valiant
Quinn was suspended in midair inside the Syndicate ship. Her wounds were no longer oozing red, but she couldn’t move a muscle, locked in place by some invisible force that gripped her tighter than a straitjacket.
She took in what of her surroundings she could see. It was dark and dank, difficult to breathe, with strange sounds echoing in every direction. It was as if the Marines had been swallowed whole and were marooned inside the belly of some leviathan.
Bells chimed and violet lights flashed on overhead, providing drips of illumination that allowed Quinn to see the others around her. Milo, Hayden, Renner, along with what appeared to be dozens, if not hundreds, of other men and women.
All suspended in the air, five feet off the ground, arms pinned to their sides.
There was the sound of rushing air overhead and—
WHAM!
Quinn and the others were released from the invisible grip and dropped down onto the ship’s floor. The unfamiliar metal hit her hard and knocked the breath out of her lungs. She gasped and crumpled to the ground, rolling over, hands out, bracing herself.
Every fiber in her body ached, every nerve ending was afire. She felt the floor under her fingers, gel-like, colloidal. It was made of a strange material that softened in reaction to body heat. Quinn wriggled her fingers and the material molded to fit her digits.
Turning over, she swapped looks with Milo, Hayden, and Renner, the lighting in the space so dim that it seemed as if everything was cast in perpetual twilight.
“Where the hell is Giovanni?” Quinn asked.
“He’s the lucky one,” Milo said, shaking his head. “I saw him go rabbit once we were snatched up.”
Renner looked at Quinn, sensing movement as the strange vessel hurtled through the sky.
“Where do you think we’re headed?” Renner asked.
“Nowhere good,” she replied.
“Shit, these assholes are making a huge mistake,” Hayden said. “Little do they know it, but we got ‘em right where we want ‘em.”
“How’s that, Sarge?” Renner asked.
“They’ve surrounded us. That means that no matter which way we shoot, we hit ‘em,” Hayden replied, with a smirk.
The light grew overhead, and now Quinn and the others could see something they’d missed before. Slots on the far walls that provided a view of the outside, of deep space.
Everyone rushed to the windows and peered out.
“Ho. Lee. Shit,” Renner said.
Quinn eased over his shoulder to see what he was looking at.
An alien craft was suspended in space, so broad and long it took up most of the view. It appeared to be less a spaceship and more a small continent that had been plucked up, flattened out, and left to drift in space. An aircraft carrier for other ships and a weapon in itself.
And beyond this ship, what Quinn assumed to be a mother ship of sorts, were hundreds of other, lesser craft. Quinn watched some of these ships depart, heavily laden with what appeared to be weapons, and fly down toward Earth, barely visible off to the left. Her eyes strayed to the right, and Quinn realized the craft they’d been imprisoned in was headed towards the mother ship.
“We never had a chance,” Milo whispered, spotting the mother ship. “I mean, look at those things. There was never a real chance, was there?”
Quinn slumped to the ground, her world rocked. Milo was right. They never had a fucking chance. Fusion rifles and grenades against whatever civilization had built that massive ship? It had been the equivalent of cavemen fighting with sticks and stones against Seal Team Six.
The fight had never been fair, because there was no way they would have ever won.
Head in her hands, Quinn’s thoughts turned to her daughter, Samantha. Was she afraid? Was she in pain? Was she still alive and wondering whether Quinn was dead? The very worst kind of feelings welled up inside of her, the reality that she was utterly incapable of doing anything to help her only child. That was the only thing that mattered to her in this moment. But the one thing that caused her the most pain—the sense of loss of Samantha—was also the thing that kept Quinn from falling apart while sitting there, alone, in the corner of the prison ship.
“What’s the SITREP?” Hayden said, crouching next to Quinn, smacking his hands together.
“Extremely dire,” Quinn said, avoiding eye contact.
“Not responsive enough, Marine,” Hayden replied.
“For once in my life, I don’t have an answer for that, Sarge,” she said.
“I reckon there’s some good news and bad.”
“Usually is.”
Hayden smirked. “The good is, if they’d have wanted us dead, we’d be dead.”
She glanced up. “The bad?”
“That is the bad.”
“You’re thinking they want us for a specific reason?”
He nodded.
“Long as they’re not hungry and we’re not on the menu,” Quinn said, “I figure we’ve got a chance.”
“My thoughts exactly, troop,” Hayden said.
Overhead lights flared on. Blinding. Quinn shielded her eyes with her right hand.
The craft rocked violently, tossing the Marines to the ground. Shouts came from the other side of the far wall.
Quinn clenched her fists, adopting an offensive posture, waiting. Hayden, Milo, and Renner tensed next to her.
“Orders, Gunny?” Renner said, bobbing on his feet, juiced.
“Shoot first, ask questions later,” Hayden said.
The far wall hummed and rose up, and Renner screamed and ran forward.
“Shit, I didn’t mean that literally!” Hayden shouted.
Renner made it halfway to the door before a Syndicate soldier appeared. The alien raised a long metal rod, and a sound like a burst of wind came out of the rod’s barrel and propelled Renner back through the air. Quinn realized the soldier was using a non-lethal munition, one that had the power to fling Renner back on his ass.
More Syndicate soldiers appeared, and several of the more enterprising prisoners tried to stage a revolt. Two men and a woman bum-rushed the Syndicate soldiers, who quickly cut them down with blasts from pistol-sized weapons that fired electrical charges of some kind. In seconds, the three figures were on the ground, quivering and screaming as if they were being electrocuted.
Quinn glanced at Renner, who held up his hands. “Well, I’ve learned my lesson. Whatever that thing
was, it felt like being swatted by the hand of God.”
The Syndicate soldiers fanned out and snapped metal bracelets around everyone’s wrists. The bracelets were connected by an invisible energy field that functioned like handcuffs and forced the wearer’s hands down to the front of their body.
Quinn tried to resist and fight back, but was unable to move her hands.
“Stop,” Milo said. “Don’t give them a reason to kill you.”
She stared into his assuring eyes, then relaxed, letting it happen.
***
The Marines were led in rows of two through a corridor that pulsed with life.
Thick glass windows lined the corridor on both sides, and through the windows the group could see more bound figures that appeared to be prisoners like the Marines. Some of the things were vaguely humanoid, and others looked like creatures out of a fairy tale book. Beasts of all sizes and colors, with tentacles and oversized eyes and scales and forked tongues that slapped against the glass.
Prisoners slid by Quinn as she stopped and stepped close to the glass cages. Who were they? What were they? Powerful beasts from other planets, brought as weapons the way Hannibal deployed elephants against the Romans to instill fear and wreak havoc? Or sentient species, trapped for experimentation? Prisoners of war from other defeated planets? Maybe they were food. She had no idea. But every possibility was potentially a bad one.
She was surprised to see the aliens, but not alarmed. Ever since word had spread about the impending invasion, it had become clear that the citizens of Earth were not alone in the universe. She’d seen intel photos on aliens, so she wasn’t taken aback by any of the creatures assembled on the other side of the glass.
One creature in particular drew her attention because it looked like a helpless rabbit. But when she drew near, the rabbit’s exterior pulled back to reveal reptilian scales underneath, beady eyes, and fangs that extended longer than the size of the creature’s body. It hissed at Quinn, startling her and causing her to jump back, and tried to bite through the glass with no success until it gave up and retreated into its facade of being a harmless rabbit-like pet.